The Final Girl Film Canon and ‘Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma’ With Gillian Anderson, Hannah Einbinder, and Jane Schoenbrun!

I'm Sean Fennessy, and this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about sex, death, and everything in between. On today's episode, we will be joined by Adam Naiman to discuss Jane Schonbrunn's new blood-drenched meta-slasher, sexual awakening, coming-of-age, satire, romance, drama film, teenage sex, and death at Camp Miasma. Then Jane returns to the show with their stars Hannah Einbinder and Gillian Anderson for an in-depth discussion of Camp Miasma, how it was made, their histories with horror, and a lot more. Needless to say, you will want to stick around for that discussion. But first, let's talk about that movie with Adam. This episode of The Big Picture is brought to you by Amazon Prime. What pairs with a good comedy? The cozy blanket arriving with Prime. What pairs with a nail-biting thriller? Snacks arriving with Prime. What pairs with the big game on Prime Video? That new couch arriving with Prime. 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For infections and tuberculosis, tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu-like symptoms, or need a vaccine. Explore what's possible. Ask your doctor about Tramphya today. Call 1-800-526-7736 to learn more or visit tramphyaradio.com. Okay, mean pod guy. It's just me and you today. How are you feeling? I'm good. Welcome. Greetings from Toronto. The Toronto Blue Jays are a game and a half back. Wow. The wild card as of this morning. I'm sure you're ready. We're relentlessly paying attention to the Blue Jays' playoff fortunes. And you know, AL East, a lot of exciting stuff going on this year. The Red Sox tearing the cover off the ball. The Yankees falling back as they always do in the late summer. You must be feeling great. Yesterday was the first day I heard someone talk about the Blue Jays in the wild. I was at a restaurant having dinner before the screening of House at the End of Oak Street and heard someone saying, oh, the Jays are good again. And I said, all right, it's back. But yeah, it's back. So yeah, that's what's going on here. The Jays are back. I wish you no good fortune as always. I know. Let's talk about teenage sex and death that can't be asked, okay? Sure. Yeah, yeah. So here's the deal. The movie is written and directed by Jane, as I mentioned. A lot of the crew from I Saw the TV Glow is back. Cinematographer Eric Yu. It's edited by Graham Mason. Alex G is back to provide a score. I'll give you a very brief snapshot, synopsis of the story. We'll talk about the film somewhat in depth here. And it's opening wider. And wider around the country and in North America over the next couple of weeks. But so basically, it's a movie about a queer director making a slasher franchise sequel reboot who becomes obsessed with casting the original film's final girl. And that leads both of the women into a journey of sex, death, and discovery. Why don't we talk a little bit about slashers before we talk specifically about this movie? Do you like slasher movies, Adam? Very much. You know, I think. I think that they are the. This is the psychic territory of, you know, VHS box art and, you know, watching movies at a friend's house at night and the anxiety over whether you should be watching this. Like, I very much want to versus, you know, should I? You're kind of looking over your shoulder as you're watching it. I mean, I know that the first couple of movies I tried to show to, like, a girl were horror movies, you know, slasher, you know, movies or not. Do you know what those movies were? Do you? I would love to know what those movies are that you tried to show. You know, one was a 17-hour documentary from the point of view of a Polish pigeon. You know, no. No, I mean, it's Halloween, right? Yeah. Because, you know, you're like, it's Halloween. Come over and watch Halloween. And you don't, like, learn that. There's no manual for that. It just feels very natural. It's scary. It's dark. There's a kind of a. There's something kind of pent up about it. And I think also that, you know, for me and my cinephilia and Jane's cinephilia, I think, are different, although there's some points of convergence in the movie, including some musical ones, too. If we don't do a long talk about Cat and Crows, this is not a good podcast. We shall. Don't worry. We shall. I know. But I think that that's how I associate them. And I think that there's a way that doing that kind of domesticates them or takes some of the threat out of it or fetishizes it. But I also think that these are the themes that the movie is playing with, you know, actively. And play, I think, is a key word here. You know, that word gets used a lot in the script. And I think in talking about it, that idea of play or playfulness, I think, is important. Not that play can't be serious, right? But this is a playful homage. Very much so. Playing also means using something, too. It's playing. It's using. It's repurposing. You know, to some extent, it's kind of like slamming, not action figures, but maybe like Funko Pops together, you know, in a way. So, yeah, it's an interesting thing to talk about. But in terms of just slasher movies, do I like them? I mean, who doesn't when they're done well? And like pizza, even when they're not good, they're like mostly okay. Could not have said that better myself. I ask you that question because I wonder, do you need to love slashers to love this movie? Or is there an entry point into this film, which is very much interested in and maybe even obsessed by the conventions and sensations that a slasher generates inside of people like me and you? Well, that's, I mean, it's a good question. I think there's. There's a lot of things that wouldn't hurt with this movie. You know, I don't think it hurts to be generationally close to the filmmaker because not only do you get the older frames of reference, but maybe that's your point of view on what's happened to horror or to Hollywood or to, you know, identity politics and representation in film. So, like, you know, that helps. I don't think you have to love them. I do think that I know some people in my life, including my wife, who are anxious about watching because they're like, it looks like there's a lot of blood in it. And I'm like, there is. And it's great, but it's not. It's scary. And that's not meant as a as a put down. I do think that this is not really a scary movie, but also as a satire. It's not like scary movie because it doesn't have it doesn't have contempt or like just opportunism for what it's dealing with. It's very specific. And this is one of these times people misuse the word academic all the time. It's like if you literally write about anything pop culturally in two sentences or more, people are like, you're an academic, you know, but this movie is kind of academic. But but but but but but playfully so. I think both the best thing you can say about it and maybe some of the persuasive criticism against it is it's so academic that maybe it's cut off from those simple pleasures, the visceral pleasures you get from slasher movies. But then again, I think it makes those pleasures its subject. And I liked how it did it very much. This is going to seem like a bold comparison, but I just saw the film for a second time yesterday and the second viewing. Reminded me a lot of my second viewing of the Odyssey, which is after I got my arms around the intention and strategy of the movie and all of the things that it was trying to accomplish. I actually enjoyed it quite a bit more. And I think part of it is because Jane is biting off a lot here. And maybe that's some that's one of the reasons why it's being accused of a kind of academia and its approach, because it's just got a lot of ideas on its mind. But it's also a wildly feeling movie, a very deep and sincere movie, I felt, even though it's got a lot of gags and it's also got a lot of high minded ideas about deconstructing genre and also got a lot of ideas about satirizing contemporary Hollywood. I thought it was a very, very emotional and visceral, not in the bloody sense, kind of a film. So while I think that some of those notes make sense, I should say, I think you and I both really, really love this movie and had a great time with it. And I find it interesting because it does remind me of Jane's previous two films in only one way. Which is that I couldn't really think of another movie that I thought was exactly like this movie. You know, you mentioned Scary Movie, you mentioned Halloween. In theory, this movie lives in between those two, but it doesn't at all. It generates a completely different kind of feeling inside me. Well, the arc of the films is interesting because, you know, Self-Induced Hallucination is this doc that deals with Slenderman. I mean, that's the first real feature. There's also work for this omnibus film called Collective Unconscious, which is maybe for a deeper, deeper dive. But I mean, you know, Self-Induced Hallucination is a movie that's really, really, really self-induced hallucination, which I think is a great phrase for a lot of Jane's films in some ways. You know, like sometimes you have a phrase from a filmmaker's career, a title or a line of dialogue, you're like, we'll be using that one. You know, I think that that one works like that movie wasn't ahead of the curve on Slenderman. It was it was analyzing it after the fact, the phenomenon and the creepy pasta. But that movie really is. I forget what year it is. It's like 2000 and whatever, like pre 2020 because World's Fair is 2021, but really just analyzing that. that idea of viral horror, creepypasta horror participatory, horror i mean back rooms represents the mainstream cresting this phenomenon but jane was kind of really in on the ground floor with self-induced hallucination and then with world's fair which i liked at the time because it had an element of surprise and because it was made so cheaply and ingeniously and with no recognizable actors it had that element not a found footage horror but the same thing that great found footage horror has which is just this feels anonymous this feels found even if i didn't believe that any of it was real it has that great urban legend creepy past a message form quality of like do you believe in this stuff and the arc i think that's fascinating is not just that idea of characters of films that are increasingly explicit in that sense of the word about you know gender and and and transition but also about media where in world's fair it's you know like a girl uh vlogging you know and youtube and then tv glow is about a 90s tv show that sort of you know these kids who are obsessed with watching it and now we've gotten to the point where you have a movie but a creator right we've gone from viewers to fans to creators and in that sense miasma kind of subsumes the previous movies into it it has elements of all of them in it but it's also different because one big difference and i watched tv glow the other night because my wife hadn't seen it and you know she really liked it we had an interesting time watching it i was reading about it again both positive and negative reviews that's a film that's so melancholy and so anxious and so you know fearful in certain ways miasma is so preoccupied with pleasure not in an empty way but it's very sweet you know i mean it's quite literally sort of candy coated and it i don't think it throws those fears or those anxieties away and i don't think it's impersonal but that's the big difference from the other work it's not just that can miasma is not really trying to be scary it's not really trying to be heavy it's smart but it's light i know what you mean not a put not a put not a put down at all but it's light and i think that the things it's about that are serious it does in a very playful way or conversely the playfulness it's kind of booby trapped at times like when we get to the counting crows scene but we'll we'll we'll get there so i agree with you and i the candy coated is particularly appealing the tv glow i really connected to because obviously i think you and i are similar in the same way as jane in that a lot of media imprinted very hard on us at a very young age and then we at times transposed ourselves onto that media and then sort of turned it into a meaningful part of our lives if not the defining part of our professional lives and there's a lot of shame and guilt kind of stitched into that story and this movie is sort of the opposite where we do in fact see chris the hannah einbinder character at a very young age and we're kind of like we're kind of like we're kind of like very young age consuming media much the same way the justice smith character consumes media and tv glow but it's not shame it's wonder and those two things are kind of tied together in some ways and so jane pivoting away from that and going towards this much more joyful approach in telling the story plus all of this indulgence that is happening for the characters at first with candy and then with sex and then with this explosive corn syrupy blood as we go into the final third of the movie is almost feels like a artist in real time getting happier you know what i mean i don't know if i could chart that in quite such clear terms but it does feel like that's what's happening with jane well there's these blocks there's creative block there's a social anxiety there's romantic block there's this kind of you know sexual frustration that you know has to be kind of you know surmounted i mean there's a degree to which this movie is playing a game of wish fulfillment that plays out in a lot of the set pieces you know like commandeering the movies that you used to watch and now you get to make them and they can be how you want and about what you want or you project yourself inside of them or you can kind of pilot this fictional serial killer as a way to get rid of all the people who are frustrating you in your in your life or you know the movie star that you've been crushing on your whole life you know is like inviting you in to to hang out but you know and we'll get there but what's interesting is when you say you identified with the films and so did i it's tricky because on the one hand there is no shortage of movies that are made for the kind of cinephile demographic and which flatter them and cater to them this is the post tarantino phenomenon of like you know critics get turned into to to fanboys and to greater lesser degrees some artists do that and a lot of hacks do that jane's an artist but also we're kind of imperfect people to be talking about a movie like this because the points of identification and the points of difference are very significant and yet that loops back around to the fact i think i read an interview with jane i don't want to misquote they said how many trans filmmakers in the united states have had the kind of releases and budgets that i've had and it's like the only one uh so there's there's actually a number of significant trans filmmakers in the film making cameos and jane is in communication not just with you know mainstream slasher signifiers and top 40 alt rock but with that you know artistic community and tradition that's a wonderful thing that then on a mainstream film podcast or in mainstream outlets it's being reviewed and looked at by critics for what their points of convergence are because those points of convergence are actually in some ways and i i'm i'm i'm saying something that a critic sam brogen wrote in reverse shot they're profoundly uncool i kind of like how uncool the reference points in this in this movie are they're actually not vanguard they're not hip they're not elusive they're night swimming and long december and the friday the 13th franchise that's fascinating to me because that was not the language or the rhetoric around world's fair i guess what i'm saying is that some of the things that people are anxious about which is here's this independent you know significant american trans filmmaker making stuff that seems too accessible to a wide audience and i'm like that accessibility in that discourse to me is potentially part of what's excellent about the film and excellent about its release also creates some elements of you know territorial reception and the question of you know you know who is this movie for who should it be for who it's you know who who it's supposed to be speaking to i see it as such an expression of an individual filmmaker and their interests which are not always easily compartmentalized not always easily reconciled that's a good thing for me whether that's exactly the the kind of criticism that should be being uh written about it you know i don't think i'm a perfect audience for the film for the the film or a perfect you know person to be in conversation with jane's taste but i like it and the parts that and the parts that speak to me speak eloquently you know yeah you're tapping into something that i thought about a lot during tv glow as well and i just don't think a perfect audience exists i think any artist is going to have experiences that we're not going to fully understand and so in an effort to represent how they're feeling if you can at least create the sensation of universalizing that feeling then you're just creating empathy for someone who's had a different life than you and someone who has got a different point of view than you and this is i think particularly two movies in a row that really aces that that does that and and i think in many ways kind of transcends whatever narrow lane of conversation a movie like this might have been slotted into five years ago ten years ago or if it were done a little bit differently and so i agree with you about the generational point i've been thinking a lot about jane i asked jane when they were here about just the the kind of millennial pretext and the counting crows usage and a couple of the different aspects of it and i i think of jane now in that same conversation that i've been having on the show with like kugler damien chazelle greta gerwig like there's a handful of people who i'm like well these are this kind of definitional millennial filmmakers these are people who they all are having different experiences they all have different kinds of movies that they want to make or or that they're in love with from the past and are trying to iterate on but this is kind of one more link in that chain in a really exciting way and i think it it's interesting that they're all as funny as they are sincere too that's like the other thing that i really enjoy about this movie is it kind of gear shifts pretty regularly from scene to scene madcap almost like zucker brothers gags into pure slasher pov horror back into these kind of like this kind of like deeply sincere almost like sundance coming of age tonality you know like it really is and in some cases you might think well that that kind of whiplash doesn't work in telling a story but i think in in this movie it's it's fantastically effective well there's another movie from this year that i also like i mean you made the comparison to the odyssey i make the comparison in a way to maddie secret the john early film which i really like i mean that that's still my favorite film of the year or close to it and it's like you put everything in quotes but not to belittle it or to undermine it um sincerity in and of itself doesn't and you're not saying this but you know sincerity is not necessarily a positive quality in movies there are a lot of movies that are sincerely awful or sincerely smug you know or sincerely confused i think you're right that the tone is elastic but i mean it's not messy and one of the things that I like about that idea of the stuff that's sort of in quotes is when Hannah Einbender needs to give a kind of real performance I think some of the monologue stuff mid-film you know the quotes come off and I think that on the other hand the quotes around that big mid-film slasher scene from the killer's point of view you know whirling around with the fake blood and all of these kids being kind of killed off that's in quotes but not in a not in an ironic way I mean it's it's kind of a stunning scene to me that idea that you can kind of have blood and guts and camera movement that are so obviously not of that period people will watch that scene and sort of say well that's not how a movie from the 80s would look and it's like the movie knows that and one reason that it knows that is because eventually the camera turns back around and it's not just the point of view of the killer it's the face of the killer and you know in a way the face of the filmmaker uh or or or or or that that that face of sort of control you know I like I've read some reviews where people have said oh it's so obvious that you know the Chris character is supposed to be Jane Shumris yes it is obvious because the directorial credit is superimposed over the first time we see Hannah Einbender in the film but that doesn't mean that just because things are explicit it doesn't mean that it's a total one-to-one ratio or there aren't different interpretive avenues of news or just because it's a sweet film doesn't mean that it's not tough or doesn't mean that it's not thoughtful I think in some ways the tough stuff in the alienating stuff is more buried in this movie it's so out on the surface and so raw in World's Fair it's so on the surface in TV Glow here it's kind of buried under the candy a little bit but like that's what candy is for you put razor blades in it on Halloween you know and I think that that's some of what this filmmaker is very good at yeah I'm glad you brought up the movie because I think it's a really good movie because I think it's a really good movie the sort of POV big slasher set piece in the middle of it which is I guess the most notable scene in the movie for a variety of reasons so why do you think they made that decision to not replicate the feeling of a slasher kill scene and to create something that is like a little bit more elevated a little bit more colorful a little bit more I would say video game influenced in terms of the POV filmmaking you know what it's funny the better the filmmaker the less inclined I am to know the movie because I think it's a really good movie and I think it's a really good movie to know their intentions it's bad filmmakers I think as a critic we're like well that's what they're trying for and they didn't do it I mean when I see a filmmaker I like I try and describe but I can't say for sure and I thought that it's it's it's incompatible I mean that completely again kind of anodyne CG and not CGI but you know computer-assisted fluidity but have no place in an 80s movie the count or an early 90s movie I guess I guess we should say the camp miasma series is kind of supposed to be located more in the middle of the movie or in the 90s than the the 80s right or or and we also see in the opening series that it's gone through I think it's a blur I think it's a variety of things right it is very much Friday the 13th but it's also gone through some of the same paces as scream and I know what you did last summer things like that exactly but so let's just say you know the the needle drop is an oldie to us now it also never would have been on the soundtrack of a movie like that then it's saying something about distance and time that doesn't even just have to do with horror movies but I think just has to do with age um it's it's contrapuntal use of music you know it doesn't go with the killing which is a sort of you know all the way back to singing in the rain and clockwork orange or stuck in the middle with you in in in reservoir dogs I mean it deliberately takes us out of the film within the film and kind of takes us out of the film around the film or the film around the film is is is mutating I think it's daring us to sort of read it as cheap or chintzy or show-offy again I find the way that the camera I've only watched the movie once but the camera eventually whirls around and you see the killer's face underneath the mask and you are suddenly brought back to what this filmmaker in the film Chris is anxious about which is you know repurposing and in the process you know pink washing this highly problematic uh you know transphobic slasher franchise that they grew up with and get off on you know and shown Bryn's own anxieties in making this movie I think anxiety is funny I'm sure you would agree you know you're you're a fan of Albert Brooks you know you like you know Ari Aster you know Elaine May I mean anxiety is what's funny so the the the anxiety and the humor of this movie are are bound up together in a way that I think is very familiar but also very precise I do not love the showbiz satire in it that feels like something you could get on a tv show or or or in other movies you know with the agent and and and and that stuff I mean I think it's fine what I love is when they get to the camp where Gillian Anderson's character was it Billy not Billy Presley not Billy Presley I was gonna say Billy Preston that would be a very different movie um you know and the idea that this kind of summer camp is just laid out for her now as this sort of primal scene but then all they do is eat chicken nuggets and watch a movie I like how small that is but you know within the context of the film it feels very epic um you know but but but but it's uh it's I mean it's a chamber piece and for a lot of it it's a two-hander and for a lot of it it's almost kidding itself as a kind of soft core or a kind of fantasy role play situation again lots going on managed I think very smartly yeah the movie is full of these great signposts and some of it is briefly gratifying in that Tarantino way that you're describing and some of it is a little bit more heavily meaningful I think there's a lot of time and care put into things like watching Chris pour raisinets into a popcorn bucket and which I know was at least one person's breaking point for the film I saw a tweet where they said I couldn't watch the movie after that who would put raisinets in popcorn like it's just the worst snack mix oh wow I couldn't could not disagree more as a non-popcorn person that's a way to make popcorn more tolerable for me um I really I I could have I could have taken or left the Sarah Sherman agent stuff but I did find that the zoom call was eerily accurate and good and I'll just say I found it to be like quite acid tinged in terms of like some real life comps that the film is making and I do I I'm not sure how much that will go over people's heads or how much they'll care uh about where it sits but I do think it also serves a really good purpose which is that's a it's a moment of Chris being able to kind of take a real agency in their career when they're defining how they want to make the thing that they want in a moment when they should feel fearful that they're going to blow their chance and instead having this moment of catharsis and realization and carrying it through and just you know being weird in the way that they want to be weird which I really really enjoy and that is a counterpoint to that real sensual and sexual and emotional experience that Chris is having with Billy every time Chris and Billy are together and the kind of pod to do that they're having with one another which is it's such a fascinating thing Jillian and Hannah I'm curious like what you thought about them and you know Jillian is another one of these signposts in the film obviously well Julian Anderson's a great actor right like really great and if you watch you know the house of mirth you're like that's a great actor or you watch Hannibal you know that's a great actor and then on top of that she's also I don't know if the internet has doubled down and made it more apparent or if it's made it less apparent just with time I don't I try not to spend that much time on these corners of the internet but like she's a real icon I mean everyone will say this person is iconic this person is like this is like a pre-internet or early internet kind of sexual icon for boys for girls for everybody and that I asked her about this and she tried to be modest about it but it was like you know we all know like we know what you represent if you if you were born between 1972 and 1987 we know we all know what you are yeah I mean that show and it's kind of fandom and the neo-cult aspect of the x-files and the fact that it was a prime time hit but beyond being a hit it was I mean again it's like a tv glow kind of show in in like like pink opaque obviously it's a little more mainstream so she's being cast but she's also being kind of deployed you know by the movie but then she also has to give a performance within that and I think that her performance obviously has echoes of the stage work that she's done I wish I'd had a chance to see her in streetcar named desire I haven't but I mean this is someone with a real arsenal as an actor and a lot of technique and you feel kind of all of that you feel all of that technique it's a very grand very flamboyant performance it's not just Anderson who's performing it's the character is performing an idea of Norma Desmond you know I mean one one bit I liked where people like oh the meanings of the movie are too explicit they're going to compare it to Norma Desmond and then they get there and she's like yeah I know I'm a little like Norma Desmond you know it's like the annotation has an annotation no one is deserves points for getting ahead of this movie's references and I know for some people that insulates the movie from like real fear or real thorniness or real kind of alienation within horror that when everything's a reference nothing's actually scary I mean again a critic I really like wrote this which is it's easier to think of this not as a horror movie But as a kind of stoner romantic comedy that, you know, is about the world of horror movies or is sort of, you know, a movie about, you know, unblocking oneself sexually that kind of just happens to have that as an aphrodisiac or as a fetish object. She's not making, they're not making a horror movie. They could. And, you know, we're all going to the World's Fair, has some pretty good scares in it. But I don't think it's a horror movie. But as for Hannah Einbinder, I mean, Ryan Binder, I mean, interesting actress. I don't watch Hacks. I've heard she's very good. Obviously, the dynamic with her and Jean Smart on that show informs the casting here. She's also an extremely overtly political person. And sometimes that has no bearing on someone's performance on the right or on the left. And sometimes it's a function of casting. To me, that's a function of the casting here, too. You know, I like watching them together. I think they're very sweet together. I think that there's a real erotic, erotic and neurotic energy in both of those performances. And I, and, and, and, and, and, and, and I enjoyed them, you know, it's a different kind of actor than Jane's worked with previously or experiment to the little within TV glow using actors iconography like Fred Durst is. And I saw the TV glow and when I watched it the other night, I was just like, what an amazing idea to have like Limp Bizkit as the face of kind of like, you know, paternal disapproval, you know, why are you, why are you watching a girl's show? You know, but, and, you know, TV glow. It does it with musicians with Phoebe Bridgers and Caroline Polachek. So, yeah, I mean, Anderson is, is very well used. The two of them are, are, are very sweet on screen together. I think, I think they're both very fine. Well, I think that idea that you hit on about the, the movie not being scary, which I had also on our list of topics of discussion is fascinating to me because, you know, as a, as a certified slasherologist, most of the other slasherologists I know are not scared of these movies. They have memories of being scared. No. They have memories of being scared of them when they were nine, when they saw them, which is a key component in this story. But no one sits down to watch Friday the 13th part six for the fourth time, worried about being scared of it. It's an emotional point of connection. And so the movie is very, very smart about this. I think it is. I think the movies that are in this movie's DNA or that have come up in interviews. And again, with filmmakers, whether you like their work or not, you're trying not to put words in their mouth. So I don't want to misquote Jane, but I mean, a movie like sleepaway camp. Which in some ways is kind of cheesy and dated and, you know, capital P problematic, whatever that means. I usually don't like that word as a way to talk about movies, but I like when people talk about that aspect of filmmaking. Then I think it's fascinating. We're like sleepaway camp or like a great example of nightmare on Elm street too, which are movies that are maybe frightening to people or seductive to people in ways that either exceed their maker's conscious intentions or just that mix of extremity. I mean, the, the readings, the queer reading of nightmare on Elm street too, is very famous and very popular. I think there's a whole documentary about it. I taught that film in a cult film course once where it's just like, is this actively consciously an allegory for gay experience or did this, did the filmmakers miss this? You can say the same thing about commando, frankly, you know, I think that you could, these are, these are the movies that they're not scary, but the guardrails aren't up, you know, or they, they feel like an unsafe space. Yeah. So that's something that this movie is about without doing it. The only time it starts to feel unsafe and it's conceptually my favorite thing in the movie is when, and we're not, this isn't like a plot spoiler, but it's a talking point. So I hope people don't mind us talking about it is when Chris is talking about how, what she gets off on in these movies is that idea that you're the lawyer and the victim at the same time. And this movie is not invented that idea, but it articulates it in a way that I quite, like, and she's kind of ashamed that this is how she feels that she wants to be the victim, but it's also very sort of liberating. And that's the kind of pleasure this movie is getting at. It's a little double-edged and it very clearly belongs to Jane as well as to Chris. Yeah. Yeah. That's what the whole movie is about. Yeah. I think that, and then I think that's a, that's perhaps the most critical scene in the movie, this idea of accepting and letting go and also being stalked and getting joy from that feeling of being stalked. Um, and being seen by and being seen by the camera. You know, this is a movie that in slow motion in slow motion, like this is a movie that's sort of like, it's not just jokes about split diopter shots and tracking shots. It's sort of like, what a joy to be seen that way, which is tricky. And not everyone who's going to watch that movie is going to feel that way. I think for people who connect to those feelings, it will be very liberating. Yeah. I think that's the movie's trying to have its cake and eat it too, with respect to the problematism that you're describing, because there's that great moment when Billy and Chris are watching camp miasma together and the real is running and Chris can't help, but continue to turn to Billy and offer either details about filmmaking technique or noting moments of transphobia in the film. And every time that happens, Billy is like, shut up and like rolling her eyes. At this kind of millennial gen Z desire to constantly be noting the referentiality or the, the discourse around something as opposed to just letting it totally wash over you. And so the movie also becomes this really interesting dialectic about what is the purpose of a movie like this, you know, and, and can you enjoy it without its externalities or is that actually a mistake to only consume culture in that way? And I think just portraying that in general is so exciting. And so, so smartly done. Well, this is, this is now becoming, again, there are some people for whom just having a movie where tropes are mentioned in dialogue is just like a jump off the train point, you know, and some people have sort of invoked phrases with this movie that I invoke for other movies. So I guess everyone's palate is different, but they're like, you know, this is like epic bacon kind of humor and the, oh my God, you know, the kind of post Joss Whedon, you know, well, that just happened sort of stuff. I don't actually think that has much of a corollary in the text of the movie at all. But I think that I understand that tone. I also think that at this point, it's not, it's telling that talented and semi-talented horror people in a lot of mediums, they're only subject is horror movies because there's such a proliferation of them. And in some ways it's a safer space than dealing with reality. I believe in that too. I'm about halfway through this novel by Paul Tremblay called horror movie. I don't know if you've read it, which is about a kid who made in high school, a horror movie with a bunch of other kids that like never got released, like only two or three, three scenes ever got put on YouTube. And now a studio is trying to remake it. And it's uncanny how close his scenes meeting with the executives are to the scenes in, in, in miasma. I think the two projects are completely independent of each other. My implication isn't that one takes from the other, but they're almost identical. It's like meeting with executives and you guys would think, yeah, we want to get that nineties feeling, but like remake it now and, you know, make it modern. I mean, this is the condition of a lot of modern horror making. And again, when we talked about the, the counting crows, little death scene, you tell, you mentioned that the visual language in it, I mean, it is the visual language of elevated horror or an idea of elevated horror or an idea of an idea of elevated horror. I don't think this movie has much truck with that idea. It doesn't come out and openly say, I hate this shit because it's kind of doing that shit, but you'll notice it doesn't do it for the entire movie. I don't think Jane, I don't think Jane would be caught dead making that movie. And we don't have to say what, that movie is because I know you like some of these movies and I like some of these movies. And I think saying back rooms or obsession or any movie is just like what's right or wrong with horror is a losing game. It's just the movie. This is a movie. But I do think that this movie has a certain amount, if not of skepticism, then of wariness. It's like, I'll do this for a couple of minutes, but this is not really what I'm making. You know, I do. It's a really interesting way to think about it. Um, is there anything in general that, well, one thing that you tapped into that I thought was really interesting was that feeling of like, does this movie know what it's doing and previous horror films? And I've thought about this a lot with obsession. I rewatched obsession this week and it was my first time seeing it since I saw it at a screening. And, you know, there's a sequence near the end of the film where Nikki and bear are sort of fighting and bear has kind of reached his breaking point after Nikki has gone completely crazy. And he keeps asking her to, to be the real Nikki and he's screaming at her and she starts screaming at him. And it's incredibly effective scene and a scene that feels like very wise about difficult romantic relationships, reaching a breaking point. And, you know, Curry Barker is 26 years old. I talked to him on the show. He's very smart and a nice guy. But if I was like, is this person, does this person have enough life experience to know how sophisticated this side I'm reading this idea? As, as this sequence in this film. And I, this is true throughout all of horror. It's true in a lot of different genres, but it's especially true in horror movies. And you know, it sleepaway camp does have a lot of sequences in that film where like, whoa, this seems this movie problematic though. It may be, seems to kind of see the future about gender dynamics and a lot of other ideas that we're going to get into in the, in the next 30, 40 years of our existence. And this movie is an attempt, I think, to almost like subvert that sensation by literalizing everything by announcing everything that it's doing. And neither one nor the other is like better or worse. but I find it fascinating that they're both like sitting next to each other as signature moments in the genre right now. I mean, I think it is interesting too and I'll say something about Obsession which we've never talked about on the pod. I wrote about it briefly on the ringer when I did the year, mid-year thing and I said, you know, this is, Obsession is a movie of the year. I mean, like kind of derogatory or not necessarily complimentary. I'm not going to get you in trouble. You can like it as much as you want. I've curbed Curry Barker on as many times as you know he's around. We've both watched movies for a long time. We've covered them for a long time. You and I are not exactly the same but like we get along, right? We kind of know the terrain. I propose that Obsession has generated the most deranged discourse of any American movie since I started doing this and I think about 80% of that is the moment that we're in and only 20% of it is the movie. It's a deranged moment. Deranged isn't even a good word. I know that. But it's wild how intense and passionate and polarized and digressive and kind of fascinating what people are reading into or pulling out of or projecting onto this movie. And in a strange way, I'd say the difference between Obsession and Camp Miazma, I like Camp Miazma exponentially more, you know, like much, much more. But I do think that Obsession, having seen it now with an audience a couple times, it makes people feel unsafe and it is not because it is innovative or because it's a movie. I'm going to say all the things it's not. It is not innovative. It is not inventive. It is not original. I don't think it's particularly responsible with what it's playing with. And it's certainly not a dissertation. You know, like Jane's movie gets an A+. You know, I would say, I'd say Obsession is kind of incomplete. And yet, its hands are so dirty. It's really opening the can of worms. I'm not even giving it credit. I'm just saying. I mean, I am giving it credit. That's one of the reasons why I go to movies is to feel alive. I know. It's a little unsafe. So I know what you're saying. Like, you're right to kind of like couch it in in this space where we analyze things and we try to understand where they fit in a culture and are they politically sound. And all of that is true. And I think that movie's reaction that it has generated does feel, it's highly uncommon is something I'll say. And. It's highly uncommon and it reminds me of if one movie had existed when Twitter was out. If Fatal Attraction had come out, when Twitter existed, or if Twitter existed for Fatal Attraction, it's not just the hetero-pessimist thing or the like, you know, the rom-com into slasher trope things. It's like, could you imagine if Fatal Attraction had existed in Twitter era? Well, I think again, like that's a movie also that is about fraught gender dynamics and obsession and teenage sex and death and chameleon asthma are about those things too in very broad and different ways. And I think that's something that we still don't really know how to talk about. And one movie can kind of literalize the idea and another movie can kind of supernaturalize the idea. And that in either case, we feel like we have a lot to chew on and no one's right. That's the unique thing that I think both of these movies like brought out of me of like, oh, I have a lot to learn. Like I'm still learning. There are these movies, they just, they kind of instantly belong to history and it just, it is what it is. You know, I happen to like the Blair Witch Project very much and I kind of like Paranormal Activity. Like I'm mostly on the side of these kind of left field horror monoliths. And also what we have to see with Obsession is what will happen with Blair Witch or with Paranormal Activity, which is, is it repeatable? You know, in the case of those movies, it's sequelizable without being repeatable. I'm kind of like, what will the Obsession slop look like? Or what will the Backroom slop look like? But I do think that Miasma will be, I hope not a footnote. I mean, I think it's a chapter. It's not an annotation. It's a, it's a chapter in this same story. And, you know, Jane's work is sort of its own, it's its own chapter in this moment because of course, I also can't remember a moment where horror was this mainstream in terms of like normal people going to see it. Do you know how many people in my life who would not be caught dead going to horror movies? Like parents, friends, I say this about Canadian films earlier this year too, horror in Canadian, but like, they're just like, seeing it as a normal person. Like my, my wife's parents were like, should we see Obsession? And I was like, under no circumstances should you see Obsession. But the fact that you kind of want to, you know, I love my in-laws. They go see The Odyssey. They don't go see Obsession. Yeah. And they're, and they're, and they're thinking about it. No, it's a, it's a really exciting time in that respect. And it's going to produce some, some lousy results, but maybe it's also going to inspire a lot of people to make some exciting stuff. It's, I want to, I do want to do, I want to talk more about Final Girls with you. Yeah, sure. Because this movie is a real Final Girl piece of the puzzle. So we'll get into the Final Girl canon together right after this. Whatever feeling you're after, Prime helps bring it to life with great entertainment and fast shipping that delivers what the moment calls for. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Every episode we break down what's worth your time, what to watch, what to skip, what to put on the list. But some things on the list aren't exactly fun to get to, like sorting out your coverage. It's not a blockbuster. It's just one of those things that matters. That's where State Farm comes in. One of their 19,000 local agents can walk you through your options in person, over the phone, or through their easily accessible app and help you get the coverage that's right for you. So you can get back to the fun stuff, like arguing about movie rankings, like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. This episode is brought to you by 20th Century Studios, The Dog Stars. Only in theaters and IMAX this Friday, visionary filmmaker Ridley Scott returns with a gripping post-apocalyptic thriller when a mysterious radio transmission shatters a lone pilot's isolated existence. He embarks on a dangerous journey in search of hope. Starring Jacob Elordi, Josh Brolin, Margaret Qualley, Allison Janney, and Guy Pearce. The Dog Stars. Only in theaters and IMAX this Friday. Get tickets now. Okay, Adam. One thing, one movie that I revisited this week in writing about Final Girls was Smile 2. Did you see Smile 2? I quite like Smile 2. Okay, I thought you might. I'm not, I'm not as high on it maybe as you are, but I, there's a lot to admire about it. And I do feel like Obsession is certainly grabbing quite a bit in terms of its mechanical decision-making from Smile 2. You know, the sound design, the way that the camera's moving, like if you. Well, very much from the original Smile. Yes, yes. Where it's just like, what if person stared at camera? Would that be scary? I guess so. And then. That's true. I'll never forget being at Smile with a bunch of friends. This was my Letterboxd review of it. And someone in the audience goes, she's gonna smile. And I just. Like they were calling the finishing move at WrestleMania. Like, here it comes. She's gonna smile. It's gonna be great. It was really funny. What's your favorite professional wrestling finisher? My favorite professional wrestling finisher? Oh, I mean, the Macho Man Big Elbow. Oh, no kidding. From the top rope. I was the sort of kid who like, I hated Hulk Hogan very much. And when I went to see. The most name-in thing I can imagine. You hating Hulk Hogan. Oh, he fucking sucks. He sucks. So you go to the house show at Maple Leaf Gardens with my dad who did not want to be there. And I was like, this guy's great. Macho Man's great. And like, truly, Hulk Hogan's stealing his girlfriend and stuff. And I'm like, I still think that that angle is better. It's a great angle because like, Hogan's a complete creep. We can talk about this another time. We should do a wrestling pod, me and you. We should re-watch pay-per-views from the 80s and 90s and talk about them. I honestly would have the best time doing that. Elizabeth! I got a lot of Macho in me. Absolutely. Sorry. Go on. Back to Orm. My favorite finisher is the Razor's Edge, which is one of the most cinematic of all finishers. One of the most cinematic of all characters. Do you know the Scarface story? You must, right? No. What's the Scarface story? When Scott Hall supposedly auditioned to Vince McMahon, he's like, this is like Tony Montana and I'm doing Tony Montana. Oh, yeah. It's like, great. Yeah, I love it. And then afterwards, he's like, I do not know what Scarface is. You know, I'm like, was there then a period where he got very curious and went and watched all the De Palma movies? We'll never know. Sorry. Go on. I love the idea of Scott Hall watching De Palma's Obsession. That would be intriguing. Oh, yes. Okay. Final girls. I think that there are a handful of them that are easily understood as canonical. You already mentioned Halloween being a movie you tried to show to a girl. I think we've all tried to show Halloween to a girl over the years. And Laurie Strode being the signature. There are a couple that come before that that feel important. I don't really think of, you know, Carol Clover's essay about this idea comes in the late 80s. And it's primarily focused on 70s and 80s films. And so in that tradition, she identifies Jess Bradford from Black Christmas. She identifies Sally Hardesty from Texas Chainsaw Massacre. She identifies Laurie Strode. I can't recall, does Ripley come up from Alien? I think, I think in scholarship around the original essay, I think Alien is like a lot of people's clever answer to that question. Yeah. So what do you think about that? I mean, I think it fits. I think it's interesting that, I mean, very interesting in light of talking about Jane's work that in the original script of Alien, Ripley was a man. And they didn't really we change much of the character for weaver's performance except for then when ridley scott has her stripped down to her underwear at the end a great choice by the way because it's about vulnerability right i mean it's like you couldn't be more more vulnerable in that moment um you know then that kind of you know pressurizes it as a final girl discussion i mean i love one that's one that's echoed in teenage sex and death yes it is echoed in teenage sex although they although sigourney weaver never like you know ran around i mean i think of um night of the living dead where the first girl was also the final girl you know like she's the first one we see kind of running around and and that trope of being chased through the cemetery and losing her shoe and falling over i mean can't be asthma has fun with that too and night of the living dead precedes a lot of these films i mean an interesting final girl i don't think carol clover writes about them but we talked about diploma it's funny to think of carrie white as a load-bearing character who is both the monster and the final girl at the same time i thought about asking about carrie if you thought carrie fits the bill here i mean there's you know for those who don't know final girl is a is a trope that was developed by clover who is an academic film scholar and it's about the final surviving female character in a horror film and what what attributes that character frequently has that character is frequently virginal frequently sober frequently uh frequently brunette frequently less um bodacious than some of the other female stars the film frequently frequently sober virginal yes all these things and like pot like podcast listeners truly if you've been to our subreddit you know that's accurate a lot of sober virgins there i i think it's been bent a little bit over time the trope but it's still pretty consistent and one of the things that has struck me and you can think you can think about this through the lens of 60s and 70s and 80s horror films but one of the things that struck me is just the absolute way of them that we've gotten in the last 10 or so years and the way that horror films are sold so hard now on the female protagonist or you know the woman in peril in ways that are sometimes very self-aware and in other times that are just sort of like you're kind of stock and trade run-of-the-mill horror studio movie and so i'm really fascinated by that like you know in the 80s there's of course nancy thompson from nightmare there's um angela baker from sleepaway camp and i'm really fascinated by that and i'm really fascinated by the way that there's um angela baker from sleep away camp which kind of flips that on its head because of the shocking reveal of that film there's i think kirstie cotton from hellraiser i think is a really really good one um and then we get into the 90s and we get sydney prescott and gail weathers we get but then it's not until the 2010s when i think things start to be turned on their head a bit so i i don't know do you think of them as kind of sectioned over time i i do and i think one of the one of the scenes we didn't talk about in miasma is that opening scene that shows the life cycle and the evolution of a franchise where it goes from like exploitation you know to just running on fumes to that idea of rebooting and repurposing across genres like that this wonderful credit scene of camp miasma being sequelized and merchandised and made fan friendly and turned into a cartoon and then becomes a collector's item and then they send them to space i mean that stuff's all very clever i mean that's the study of pop culture is the study of cycles and you know variations surface surface variations variations on a theme i mean there's always going to be an interesting discourse around different kinds of aggression and vulnerability in horror movies so are men de facto more aggressive or frightening or frustrated than than women no but on screen that trope has a kind of power are women inherently either more superficially vulnerable and you know more indomitable does does you know is there like an innocence or a whether it's the the innocence of virginity or the the goodness in more recent films of being sexually active and killing them anyway i mean these are archetypes these movies sort of play with every so often you have one that plays with it sort of intelligently you know some people have compared camp miasma to the joss whedon film to to to cabin in the woods which is an interesting comparison that was one that i thought a little ahead of the curve was just popping the hood and elevating the horror elevating it past the point of being scary elevating it into that realm of kind of dissertation or or or or or discourse i mean that's a movie that really goes for as i recall the final girl in that film you see her being like stalked and brutalized and beaten up and you see everyone watching her on their screens right that's that idea of like implicating the viewer which is what a lot of these movies like to do to brian de palma brian de palma used to do that without saying i am implicating you the viewer but you know it was i upon its release i adored and i think it was because we didn't quite have the language for the post scream post post-modern you know horror film and i haven't looked at that in a long time i'd be curious to know how i felt about it but i also felt that that movie did something that a lot of the contemporary movies are doing pretty well too which is that that movie at times was quite scary you know it was not actually it didn't turn and look at you and wink at you and in fact it has this really chaotic third act that is at at times felt the way that i felt when i was 11 in the library like reading a book it was a collection of monster descriptions but it also felt like watching a really violent and scary horror movie and i think of that movie very closely with your next which is sort of like um adam wingard's movie that just sort of feels like what if laurie strode studied jujitsu before encountering michael myers you know that like what if what if the what if the final girl was stronger tougher and meaner than the killer which i always i really really enjoy that idea and there have been some films that like ready or not is kind of riffing on this at this point now too yeah and even though it's only and even though i mean the final girl also implies that there are people killed before them but a movie like revenge by curly farge yacht she's like the only girl yeah right she's the victim she's killed she's resurrected she goes from the victim to sort of the i mean that one sort of coded as a kind of rape revenge movie but i mean again it's a movie that plays with that sort of intelligently i mean there's movies like um you know jennifer's body isn't quite a slasher film but you know yeah well cody's having fun playing with those tropes you know you mentioned the ready or not films now the the sequel features a my my obligatory mention of david cronenberg good performance by david cronenberg is the dying criminal patriarch in that toronto shot film but the final girl gets a sister in that movie and the other one i like i can't remember the character name but i liked uh it's a jessica roth and happy death day yes she's terrific is is is that's a very it's almost great i put it in the almost great category there's things about it that don't quite work but she's funny because she has the existential frustration of knowing she's the final girl and having to just psych herself up time and time again which is like this is just going to keep happening to me very funny i think there's a few other movies in recent years too that have done it really well and and they're more prestigious for lack of a better word um i think adelaide in in us is fits the bill here very much um i think danny in in midsummer really really fits the bill and both of them seem to be kind of like actively exploring what it means to be a final girl even though those aren't pure slashers um naru from from prey also amber midthunder's character i think fits the bill well and then i think that it kind of like it kind of gosh what's the word i'm looking for it kind of like reaches the end of the road it's like there's like a there's like nowhere to go the bridge is not finished with maxine minx and pearl that that's where i'm like okay we have kind of gotten to the conclusive point of self referential riffing on rape revenge and slasher films and we can go no further and teenage sex and death of kate miasma attempts to kind of like rebuild the bridge you know it's like trying to trying to finish the job yeah i mean i remember back back in i mean a couple years ago i mean i thought the way that the first x built itself this sequel or kind of prequel out of nowhere with pearl was pretty good and i thought it was amazing i thought i thought that was very efficient yeah i mean i wrote about maxine or whatever it was for for ringer i mean i don't like that movie at all but i mean it is close in some ways to something like miasma where it's not so much that its ideas are different it's just that little matter that sometimes matters of you know form and execution and style and tone which miasma has and i i don't think that that one does i mean people really like kato flynn's final girl episode of widow's bag which i don't know if you've watched i have the one where the one where she's being pursued which is very miasma ish too where she's being pursued by like i guess within the lore of the show it's a serial killer but it's also just a capital s k serial killer stand-in and you know all the things that happen especially the idea of these movies that no one helps these women but no one believes them and that no one opens their door and no one lets them in and the cops are useless i mean i don't love widow's bay but that scene was was good and it was priceless when the thing was lying there dead and she just kept pointing the gun at it for like about five minutes and all these different rooms i thought that was that was really funny um but yeah i mean miasma is obviously playing with this idea of a of an first of an it girl you know like the the touted filmmaker and then a kind of you know this frustrated girl where it's like you know not virginal by choice you know not not not virginal by choice there's a block and then the last 10-15 minutes without being at all scary restage that the the sex the death the chase the catharsis the confrontation the victory but in a very different way than you know texas chainsaw massacre it's funny you mentioned that as an early final girl you see that's a movie where she seems to be the final girl by default because it's not a movie star and it's barely a character she just happens to not die but when she rides away on the back of that truck at the end that's one of the greatest moments in any movie not just horror movie i mean just period it's beautiful like that sense of survive was unbelievable you can't top it i don't think i was at uh my my childhood um rep house when i was on long island last week and introducing a movie introducing a movie that we both love miller's crossing and um they told me a story about running texas chainsaw at a midnight there and they had an original they had print and right at that exact moment when she jumps in the back of the truck and leather faces swing the chainsaw the print broke and the movie had an abrupt ending and the lights came up too quickly and everyone was freaked out in the movie theater and the idea that that movie which is 50 plus years old has still has that power is so fascinating to me and it does get me thinking about kind of like where can we even go with this trope this genre that the idea that this is the year of obsession and back rooms and that you know resident evil is is coming out in a month and even though it's an adaptation of a video game from a major studio i think there's a sense like this has a chance to be a great movie and is is is austin abrams this fall's final girl he i think so with resident evil and and and whale fall and i haven't even gotten into all that which is you know obviously there have been quite quite a few final boys in in recent years as well and that that the gender dynamics there have been shifted quite a bit well the well the greatest final boy is bruce campbell of course yes ash yeah as as ash in the evil dead films because he's very macho coded but you know then he's not yes and i don't know if he's going to be able to do that but i don't know if he's going to i really love the way i mean he's such such a wonderful actor in those movies the way he sort of sways between like total competence and just like shrieking cowardice is a gift that just keeps on on on giving can't i can't think more fondly of an actor than bruce campbell i hope he's okay me too he's the best any any final thoughts adam we didn't talk we we we we talked with the scene as opposed to the counting crows uh needle drop but but i mean i love the cover of night swimming at the beginning i can't not i love our am it's a beautiful song it's very well chosen because i mean night swimming is very much you know summertime at camp miasma that's what little death is doing but little death is doing yeah you know and i and we didn't even talk about the idea in the film which again some people find a little a little too declamatory or obvious but like the hole in the movie where the movies the hole in the lake where the movies come from yes as a sort of thing about the mystery and the sort of submerged and subterranean nature of creativity i love how they come out of that kind of cronenbergian slit and they're already vhs tapes you know i mean it'd be interesting to see if jane makes something that doesn't ultimately not not resort that's not right or or lean on but like maybe something that's not purely about the gaze of watching tv and seeing yourself on the screen but on the other hand you know good and great filmmakers repeat themselves i mean that's sort of what what one understanding about tourism is one understanding at least for critics if not for filmmakers i think at this point it's conscious if they were to say oh i don't know i'm doing that that i wouldn't believe you know there's also i forgot to say but the final girl thing one of the funniest things i ever interviewed someone about when i talked to john carpenter for the new yorker uh and we were talking about the final girl and he's like i don't know what that is what is that i'm like oh it's a it's an essay by carol clover he's like okay good now i know what that means and you know moved on i mean he much like almost anything he has no he the only thing he had a lot of interest in uh he had a lot of interest in other than you know some of his own movies was nba basketball he's a great basketball fan but i mean a filmmaker like carpenter is not doing this intentionally jane shunbrin's doing this very intentionally no question i i don't question i think jane jane has a novel and then a netflix adaptation of black hole coming out and so black hole is not black hole is aware of of genre tropes but it is not about genre tropes and so i'll be curious to see how how much they modernize that graphic novel because it's really old now and i mean i i must have read it is it is it possible that it's like 20 years old when did it come out it it's gonna be 30 years old yeah i don't know off the top of my head but yeah 30 years sounds uh 30 years sounds about right so that'll be interesting but that's television as far as films go i don't know i do feel like we're reaching a kind of end point because of that progression that you talked about from a a vlogging to to fandom to to creator well we even this year we even got we got the haunted podcast movie we sure did undertone the the the canadian haunted podcast some are saying this has been the haunted podcast for many years what what what if i had a podcast would that be would that be of interest i'll tell you it'd be scary that'd be real scary it'd be scary who who who can say what's coming but maybe maybe maybe that what an elegant elegant tease what wasn't that wasn't wasn't that wasn't that subtle yeah that's you'll be a podcaster yet adam one one one day i've been what's the line i've been i've been taught by masters um uh yeah and it was great to have you in uh it was great to have you in toronto yeah thanks for having me um thanks for having amanda and chris what a year for toronto you guys are doing it blue jays are back back game and a half back look at that perfect circle we just traced with the bug you'll have to learn about this when you podcast yeah there's no there's nowhere to go now um thank you for having me it was a pleasure thanks adam okay let's go to my conversation now with jane hannah and jillian so happy to have jane schoenbrunn hannah einbinder and jillian anderson here to talk about this film i you're getting this question a lot but i do need to hear from all three of you the first horror film you've seen and whether or not it made you a lifelong fan i think i know the answer to the second question for you jane but where did you start first horror film that i saw was the first horror film that i saw was the first horror film that i saw was the first horror film that i saw was the first horror film that i saw i think technically was my grandma's copy of abbott and costello meet frankenstein wow yeah yeah i mean is that a horror movie i think so i watched it like it was a horror movie as i knew about frankenstein i was like oh this guy and these goofballs and they also had um night of the living dead on vhs so then i watched that and so it was like dipping my toes further into the water with your grandparent like watched it live with your grandparents i forget if i watched it live with them or i just like waited for it to end and then i watched it live with my grandparents and i was like oh for them to leave the room and grabbed grabbed the cassette did you not have a lot of guardrails in terms of what you could watch as a kid no i i famously watched um with my parents at age like i must have been eight or nine the first episode of south park the first broadcast like when it aired live i was there history everyone who watched it started a band uh no yeah i was watching some nasty stuff from a very young age and what about you absolute for you i um would have i think mine is silent hill oh sure um yeah i i remember being so terrified it's kind of a little girl's nightmare being separated from your mom and sort of like uh in a world filled with scary creatures and ghouls and were you a gamer no i just my my my mom showed it to me she just is like a real horror head she uh wanted to watch it it came out in 2000 uh six so i must have been in like i think sixth grade or maybe fifth grade um and i was really scared it freaked me out um but i actually revisited it because we've been having a lot of these kinds of conversations and i re-watched it and i found it to be so beautiful i think i'm more so identified with the perspective of the mom and it's also just like beautiful filmmaking actually and it looks great and i hear that for folks who are fans of the video game it's a beautiful adaptation okay did you stick with horror or were you was that not really a genre for you growing up yeah yeah yeah i did i wouldn't say i was all the way in but i think it was uh one element of my media diet okay jillian what about you um i've now told this story so many times i'm slightly boring myself um but i you can lie to me if you want to tell a new story no but then i get myself into a world of pain um i uh had a bad trip uh at somebody else's house somebody i didn't know very well when i was very young and um uh it was just some really really strong marijuana and um and they decided to put on texas chainsaw massacre and i couldn't get out i couldn't like if i went outside it would have been dark and i didn't know them real well it was just a one-room apartment and so it was just it was just horrific and that was kind of the first and the last horror film i've ever done really yeah and so you don't you don't have a huge relationship to it no i i watch i I can watch the gruesomest true crime stuff, but I can't watch horror. And even when my kids watch it in other rooms, if I hear the sound or I hear something, I need to like plug my ears kind of thing. It's so strange. I get really triggered. That maybe explains a little bit about why you haven't been in a lot of movies like this. But I kind of wanted to ask you about that, Jane, too, in terms of how you found these two actors and maybe like what they represent to audiences. Was that a component? And how did you figure out who should be in the movie? Jillian made this great Instagram, Twitter post recently where you were posting pictures of yourself from back in the day and then posting pictures of Hannah and how similar like the energy is. And this is like actually I think something I was aware of when coming up with like a pairing. Yeah, there's something like, I mean, obviously there's something psychosexual going on. In this movie in general, but like I just I had this impulse that like there's never been a like pairing of like two actors who are starring in like an erotic thriller of sorts that's been quite deranged in this style. There's just like, yeah, something about the two of them together just immediately. Like I knew I knew it was going to be like, I think maybe because of how similar you seem in some ways. And you're very different people know knowing you well at this point. But at first I was just like, yeah, it felt mischievous in a way that I couldn't quite explain. And and that was exciting. But no, I was a fan of both of both of them. Obviously, Jillian, I grew up watching. It was very strange meeting Jillian for the first time because, yeah, I just like I did spend like so much time with you when I was like eight years old. Like really, like I think probably like as much as my siblings. Like I was. So, yeah, I just I lived I lived in the screen, obviously. And and so then meeting you and feeling like, oh, I kind of like like there's something like almost Pavlovian, you know, like and not just like, oh, I've seen you in things. But like I know you from like a past life or like childhood in some deep way. And and then that familiarity, like now it's invisible to me because like very quickly we just like started forming a connection as people. And yeah. And you're you're. You're so different than the roles. All of the roles I've seen you in. And that's what's so wonderful about like this performance and all of the others. But yeah, there is definitely like the iconography in the film that was in my head while writing it. And I was I was thinking about Jillian while writing it of like. Yeah, like somebody who who who we when we see her will believe her as like this icon from like, you know, a past life or past. Like franchise or something. But I think more than that, there is this like, yeah, there are very few actors who can like make the entrance that that Jillian makes in this movie. And it has something to do, I think, with like like the classical old Hollywood, like just like glitter or something. There is something that is like, yeah, you can't fake that and you can't like invent that on the fly. You know, you can't cast somebody that like we've never seen before. Never seen in that way. Like there is just like this elegance that goes beyond like elegance that becomes like the dream that we've been enjoying in the cinema for a hundred years in just like the way Jillian inhabits space and physicality and the screen. And and I knew that. And and that moment when she does enter the movie, it's like it is asking a lot to be earned, I think. And there are very few people in the world who could earn it like Jillian does. And Hannah, I was a fan of through Hacks, but I watched her stand up special. I've talked about this before, too. She's heard me gush about it, but she's psycho. The way that she was like dancing with the camera in that special. I like went beyond. Yeah, she's she's great. You're crazy. Like she is a little crazy. Like like we've spent a lot of time over the last couple of weeks in the back of like cars and random cities getting ushered to screenings. And and I'm like. I'm like realizing more and more like how Gina Rollins Hannah is like Hannah is like that's crazy and is and is a loon and such a performer. But like, yeah. And like so like perennially caffeinated or something. And and so such a natural performer. I feel like you are most comfortable performing in a way that is like a little deranged. And I saw that in your stand up and I was like, oh, I think that American. I think that American needs to like learn a lot more about how deranged this person is. I don't know how purposeful this was, but I'm curious to hear you guys react to this because it's sort of in the text of the movie, you know, like we're being leveraged while we're watching the movie, thinking about like you as an icon of a certain kind of, you know, film and television. And you as a person, you know, you're basically starring in your first feature film. You're making your first first big feature in the film. I don't know if that was an intention on your part, but how did you think about that? Did you see yourselves and your careers? Did you see yourselves and your work going into these particular characters when you were making the movie? I mean, I understood from from the standpoint of of franchise and being in iconic space, whether that's because of, you know, X-Files being an iconic show. Certain characters that I played having iconic status and, you know, it's a common relationship that fans seem to have with the with their with their particularly female stars that they're enamored of to refer to them as being icons or, you know, mothers or whatever those words are these days. Are you getting that? And so, you know, not to poo poo it or shrug it off or whatever, because obviously it's a huge, you know, it's an honor and a privilege to even be categorized in that way. But it's it's so I I got that aspect of it. I got the the the value of having someone with my. History being, you know, playing Billy. And so I did understand that. But also, you know, the the the Sunset Boulevard reference. And even though I didn't want to play into that too much throughout the whole thing, there were certainly aspects throughout that were fun to play with, you know, not least in some of the costuming and stuff. So it was both. Part of the the joy and the fun and the comedy of it, you know, because she's so much more than that, that trope. And and I think she, Billy, also plays with it. You know, she she knows the power that she has. She knows what she's doing. She knows. So she's both very self-conscious and completely not self-conscious at the same time. And in there lies a kind of a naivete and an innocence with that, which I really liked. And so she feels she feels much more complex than what you would expect from a character who represented that. Right. Yeah. I feel like Chris is very self-conscious. And I don't know if any of your own self-consciousness went into being that character. Yeah. And I and I think. I think to your previous question as well, like, I think the consciousness of self, like, was I having sort of a meta awareness of the fact that, like, archetypally, I have similarities here. I think my work was to really try to forget all of those things and really tap into a completely different frequency. Like, I am so low and slow, like Cali vibes. Like, and so I was just trying to be like, how can I go wet? Go east. You know what I mean? Like, how can I, like, embody this new frequency and only bring myself to it when it comes to, like, the very deep and the emotional when it comes to the intimate, you know, emotional truths that the film is trying to communicate? And especially via the character that I was playing. Like, I definitely think that the only times that I brought anything from anything that was true for me in were in those those intimate moments. And so I think I tried my best to really forget all of those. Those other things, because what I really, really was committed to trying to do was to feel like a different character and like a different person from myself. Yeah. That feel like a big shift from what you've been doing on Hacks? Of course. So how do you do that? Like, you've been doing this for a while. You know that you're going to transform. You're thinking about a new character. But it's still it's a relatively big change if you're moving off of a comedy series that seemingly has elements of your own experiences in life. Yeah. Yeah, I think, well, first of all, like, the text. is so rich and so there's so much there for me to latch on to also i spent a lot of time with jane who you know imbued some of their emotional truths into the the material but also like i was absorbing some mannerisms and things like that from from jane and um and then also just like honestly i was so shocked at how um much wardrobe and costume like the frames like the specs putting them bangs on i was like okay new bitch in the building you know like i just like really all of that stuff like why wearing like a long skirt and socks and those mary janes and like three sweaters and just like that is like such a you know that is such a useful tool for me to tap into kind of the discomfort and the self-consciousness and those things that affect the physicality of the body itself so it just i kind of like went with it like i didn't understand that that was going to happen i was kind of like yeah any day now i'm gonna figure out what i'm doing here and then we did the fittings and i was like okay this is this is different you know and um yeah like the first time that i like did those fittings i was just starting to move around and look in the mirror and like my body was just changing and my way i was holding myself was just changing and i started to like yeah just feel it it was super psychedelic really cool jane last time we talked i think we spent some time talking about tone and i do feel like the tone of this movie is different from the previous two movies like it is a very sincere direct piece about sex and desire and some other things but then it is it feels like an act of satire at the same time totally and that's really hard to pull off so i'm curious like how you thought about making those two things fit together but then maybe even more specifically how you make actors get on the wavelength to hit that tone yeah it was really scary and something that i like knew for me was like at the absolute heart of the project like i i think it's like a filmmaker's goal at least for me is to like create a body of work that's like representative of like the full scope of like how you experience the world and process things and and and especially i still think of myself as like fairly early on and what i what i hope is like a long filmography i want each film to be like surprising in some way or at least like like even for myself expanding the like definition of what i'm allowed to do and i think i'm like pretty goofy and funny you know like uh um uh and and the first two films like obviously like those are films that came out of early transition and they're really intense and i was like my life was exploding around me and i was like i will capture the pain in its pure distilled form and uh i didn't want to do that again because i wasn't in a i wasn't in the same place it would have been unnatural you know or like it would have been this like mining of a well of like um yeah i i think that i was actually really scared about this but like it was amazing to make something that i'm prouder of than anything i've made so far that like didn't feel depleting in that way or that like the um the good art doesn't have to equal like ripping out your insides in front of the world um even though a lot of the art that i like seems to be of that variety there's some ripping out of the insides in this movie though for sure we did a little bit we did a little bit of ripping out of some insides um no i was like i want a blood geyser in the first scene it's like this is my like line in the sand of like um if you are coming in expecting kind of like a slow sad emo uh you know like uh dirge uh yeah and then the other thing that was really scary was like yeah doing something that's like unselfconsciously campy and yeah like like kind of like fast-paced wit stillman kind of dialogue and uh stonery and and just like doing a lot of goofs and gags i think you just risk like really embarrassing yourself you know like uh like class clown who like isn't funny that that was the fear and being in rooms where people like are enjoying the humor of the movie or like feel that the perspective like that they they can like go along with it and have a good time has been so gratifying because it yeah it's huge part of who i am and um and it did feel like uh yeah like freeing to to be myself in the movie in a way that like i hadn't before um i um yeah i i remember really feeling on set like like liberated from some some like conception of myself post tv glow of like oh i'm like i'm i'm the like sad teen person you know um or like this fear of that as the like one hit wonder or something of like everything is defined by what that movie's tone was because it was such a moment for me and i uh you know and and and in general making this movie and being like oh i feel so free making something completely different and i'm looking at it and i'm realizing that like i can have a long career of doing things that are surprising and different like that was a really yeah it was like five years of living in this reality of like maybe every maybe everything will sort of be in the shadow of that and immediately with this one i was like no i'm gonna have like a whole life and career of making things that are completely different forgive the simplicity of this but how do you know you're doing it right when you're in a movie that doesn't really have a lot of comps like i couldn't there's not a ton of movies you can specifically explicitly compare this to so when you're performing you're obviously getting direction and you're having conversations but i'm curious like how you know is this too campy is it not can't be enough is it funny enough that's such a good question um i uh i mean for me over the years i guess partly it's been um trusting my instinct on things i feel like there have been times where i've showed up with quite a bold choice um i remember with great expectations uh many years ago i i hadn't really even done voice out loud to myself let alone to anybody else when i showed up on set the first day and spoke as her in front of the camera and it only occurred to me after the fact like after we were done shooting that the director could have said what the fuck are you doing like it's just weird like don't this no no let's try something else and i um and i guess i've had a few instances like that where you know where where i was asked a question the other day on one of the the things that we were doing um and one of the things that i said that you're i i wouldn't have been prepared for as a drama student was the degree to which you're so often on your own when you're trying to put all this stuff together and work all this stuff out because so much of the time you know if you're doing television or you're doing a few episodes or something or you're doing you know there's not necessarily that rehearsal period you're doing a few episodes or something and you're doing a few episodes and with directors or there's not necessarily you know you really kind of show up on the day and you're meant to to go and you know i've made some pretty bold choices over the years that uh may or may not have worked but um they they could have you know really not um and um but i felt like with jane i felt like from the moment we started talking about the project that even though um i was you know in my head was keen on doing southern a particular southern and even uh you know the the makeup choices with the twiggy eyes and and all the different aspects i could trust that they would find a way to gently tell me that it wasn't working if it wasn't or whether it was too much or whether you know and so i felt in that instance that um that we'd have a dialogue and real communication about it whereas there's other things that i've done where um i'm i that that level of trust or potential collaboration wasn't necessarily there and it really was it felt like it was winging it a lot more which i think is a lot of what happens these days it's a lot of really talented directors out there who aren't necessarily good at communicating with actors they may be good at the visuals and they may be good at the text but they're not necessarily good at communicating with actors the technical aspects but they're not uh also so knowledgeable about what is needed from every single scene from the performers that they know even how to communicate that and that's quite a rare um talent in and of itself and jane certainly has that or i found that what about for you hannah yeah you know an avatar where they take their braid and they connect it to the tree branch and then they're able to kind of just like download of course they do yes i know all about it yeah thank you so so that's kind of what it's like for me uh me and jane kind of just am i the tree yeah of course yes obviously i'm the tree from avatar literally it's just like that sort of like that's the connection it's the connection like the script is kind of that like connection point but also like we just had like a lot of deep and vulnerable conversations about the subject matter and for me my approach was just to be like, "What is the reality here always?" ways like just tapping into that that's all i was concerned with i think that like um scene to scene you can sort of tell as you're moving through the work on the day like what it's asking of you that sort of ending is is far different from some of the more comedic beats you know but even in this zoom call which like is this comedic point in the film like for chris that is dead dead fucking serious like she has just had this crazy experience she's coming like you know what i mean like for the comedy it has to be serious and so i'm always approaching the work of like what is real to this person like no concern for the meta sort of the you know the way that it's being perceived just like staying in the reality of the thing it's great to hear you say that it's funny scene in the movie um i assume that scene comes out of whatever water bottle tour you went on the period after the first or second film you um i would you know i have been getting this question a lot and uh one of the i think like one of the earliest inspirations for this idea in the movie in general of like zombie ip right of like find the find the like minority creator who who like pairs up to the material that like lets you resurrect the otherwise unresurrectable franchise um was after world like right after world's fair i was getting i was getting like like what happens after you premiere your like tiny little film at sundance and you happen to be trans is like you just get like a slew of scripts written by cis people that like haven't been getting made about trans people and they're like oh we got we get you in here but i also got submitted the leprechaun reboot fantastic yeah and i was so amused by this because it sounded like like a um like something clicked in my brain where i was like i think they're sending this to me because they think that like trans will cancel out they're like they're like um oh if we got a trans director like no one's gonna ding us for making a leprechaun the irish little person movie yeah that is very funny and maybe that got me started thinking about this whole sort of like idea of like um yeah like plugging up their holes of like uh potential like cancellations on the internet or whatever from franchises but yeah no it i think it's just like i i tried to let what needs like whatever when you're making a movie you know and i work on these movies before i show it to anyone for for like years often it's like um you're just listening to your world you know and you're keeping your antenna up and you're letting in the things that are coming in and post tv glow or during tv glow like yeah there were a lot of zoom meetings and being like the trans person in the room on those zoom meetings and dealing with the social dynamics and i'm you know like i'm sensitive i'm sensitive to power dynamics and to the thing that's unsaid in the room or on the zoom yeah that was like a big part of my life it still is a big part of my life like being trans in hollywood and being in those spaces and being both like tokenized and also like having some like yeah like otherness that that is being like commodified or whatever and participating in that commodification and like seeing some of the things that are happening in the room and some of the worst men in the world uh do their thing uh yeah it just like it had to be in the movie because like i was a trans person trying to make another movie in hollywood and you know it's like it's pretty on the nose about it but um it would have felt a lot less truthful especially you know especially because it's a movie that's like trying towards liberation or that's trying towards like some ideal of like free queer expression right this is what hannah's character is like really questing towards in the movie is like i want to make something that is like as she says beats hollywood at its own game or is like yeah like free to express itself without the shackles of those men on those zoom calls yeah and so like in a sense i was trying to do that and i was also very aware that like that's not possible entirely um in this space because of like all of the other forces at play and and so it just like for the movie to feel honest it needed to be a part of it it's interesting it's like your confrontation with the minotaur or something and you have to try to get past the minotaur um this is like a much more practical question but i was curious about this because jane you mentioned the the geysers of blood from a practical perspective when you're working on a scene that has a lot of blood you have to reset what happens like do you have to just change wardrobe completely is the set being completely cleaned and i've never talked to anyone about this and i feel like it's a it's a great question so what happens depends on the budget yeah so you know how in avatar there's no uh it's crazy for sure yeah i have uh personally i have sensory issues i have like sensitivity to certain sounds and sensations on my body one of which is any liquid with any sort of fabric that is um like if there's water on me let's say i'm out of the shower and i don't dry off properly and i put like a shirt on crawling skin crawling even if it's water okay so i'm coming into the situation like i'm gonna die i'm gonna absolutely die and i'm passing away in real time and so basically it was crazy i was like sticky head to toe with the like blood that was on our faces and then there was the tube the side sort of tubing which pumps the blood into my mouth that i'm choking on but it's also spilling out of my mouth and filling the beds the bed is is soaking up with blood like completely soaked and there's we didn't have a backup bed i don't think so and like that day like they kept making these like really sloppy mistakes i it was like one of the only times that i got so protective of you when i realized how much you were suffering i was like hen is suffering reset that bed you were literally mama bearer okay you were like get away from my cub literally but um yeah it was really crazy it was really yeah we had to time like the blood filling up for me and then jillian the blood coming out of her mouth and spitting onto my face there's like a guy under the bed with like a pump he's just going and it was it was pretty cool though the the blood they were mixing it up with a um drill just like like drill into a bucket of blood killer yeah really good so that sounds horrible honestly that doesn't sound fun at all it's most horrible i will say this though i've never felt more beautiful than when i was covered in blood why i just felt like it was um i don't know how to describe it i just think that last split diopter shot with jillian and i in blood is just like glorious and liberatory and perhaps because on some level i'm realizing in real time that jane expressed something to me about the gas station something about the gas station and i'm like oh my god i'm like oh my god i'm like oh my god i'm in the end where like they were like you know like being visibly trans and moving through the world like sometimes in certain areas or in certain settings like you know there's that cutaway to that old guy who's like you know what i mean it's like sometimes people look at me like i'm covered in blood but like it is this moment where the characters are just in love and they don't care and that was so meaningful to me and so i think when i got into the blood i was feeling like i was tapping into the blood and i was like oh my god i'm covered in blood and i'm like oh my god i'm covering into that acceptance and love and beauty and like all of the things that i feel like jane has like walked this hard-fought path to to tap into and feel and perhaps i made some association between what you shared with me and how it felt to be in the blood you also look great and also honey come on so i assume the film was not shot in sequence but one thing that i love about it is it does really feel like the two of you are creating a genuinely intimate relationship over time across the movie i was wondering like how much time you spent together before the movie or did you talk on set how do you create the illusion of connecting um we had a few days uh before we started shooting rehearsing we had a we read a couple scenes over a couple days we chatted from time to time but you either got a connection or you don't i mean it's either there or it isn't it feels like um you try to withhold anything when you're meeting someone early and you know like what work you have to do not purposefully i don't feel like i do um i think we just both really thought a lot about what we were going to do and like made our individual decisions about what we were going to bring to the movie and like really did some deep and serious meditation on like how that progression should happen and then in collaborating with jane kind of modulating that um i just think like the end product of this thing is like everybody having the same idea of what the movie is and how that obviously and how that like you know um hinges so much upon what happens between us i think we just like i think it was helpful that we started pretty much at the beginning though in the film i think that you know whenever one can do that it can only be helpful because so often you you know your first day is your your death day or your divorce day or um yeah i think that's a really good point i think that's a really good point i think that's a really good point i think that's a really good point i think that's a really good point that's been my experience um but also um one thing i didn't realize um but also um one thing i didn't realize beforehand how how much i would need to walk a fine line between um you know i didn't want to be a predator i didn't want to be creepy i didn't want to make the first move i didn't want to be too maternal you know all those things that um and there were so many scenes and opportunities to go one way or the other in uh that wouldn't have been beneficial to their journey together and um and i suddenly realized that it was something that i really needed it needed a lot of thought and care and i hadn't anticipated that quite so much i mean we i think i brought it up at some point um particularly in regards to the our first kiss and you know you know not even necessarily even wanting to lean in but allowing her to take her you know to really be in her power at that moment and be the um the seducer um and you know um and so i think because because we were able to start um at the very beginning of our relationship there's a certain point where i'm kind of in the clear in a sense because we fall quite quickly after the you know after the first intimacy scenes after the scene where i put the we're smoking the joint and stuff it feels like from that point on it was safe to fall in love in a way or to show that that i'm um uh equally smitten and stuff so it was you know it was uh but yeah and yeah well and and for me it was it was i i i got to know both of you guys individually in the lead up to it and but no it wasn't until two or three days before production that we did the first rehearsals all together and seeing you both like read like we we just read through a bunch of times those those early scenes where you're meeting each other and and i i remember just being like oh this is the movie uh because it's like it's it's the accent that jillian is doing and it's it's the like strangeness of the way that you're like playing each other a little bit at the beginning there but it's just like um yeah the disconnect and yeah it's a very specific energy that you enter with that like i had a fuzzy picture of in my mind but it was like only until i saw you both together that like what the chemistry actually was started to reveal itself and then you're like yeah i also am glad we shot in the order we did because then it like you you let one thing inspire the other like i remember that first day when we were shooting the like you guys getting ready to eat dinner together and i was talking about this the other night to jillian like the i feel like something opened up for me with the movie when i saw her like patting the chicken you know she's like putting so much chicken on this platter and then she kind of is giving this very elegant caring uh pad and eric was like we got to get a close-up of that chicken pad and i was like totally agree but i was like yeah there's like a freak there's a weird kid energy to the film and the way they fall in love and i was like i don't know i don't they fall in love that i think is like very queer and and like there's something of like equality in it too right it's like you're you're looking for these signals in each other that you're um like game to just be like freaky you know and to do these like sort of um yeah like like uh like these mating rituals of like eating chicken or like enjoying dipping sauce or being like go get scared in my room like just like do like like matching each other's freak in this way that yeah but what i didn't really like about it was like i was like i don't know i don't know i don't realize until after i started talking about it in you know for these interviews is is that those scenes couldn't have been played like um uh for play scenes the way that they worked was playing them straight up for what they um uh you know they were it's an eating dinner scene even though there's a particular way that jane wanted me to say do you like dipping sauce and etc etc and they had it in their head for me in terms of what worked was the juxtaposition between billy's um uh billy's naivete and innocence which i keep coming back to you know which leads to you know mickey did that you know and the juxtaposition between that and hannah's uh anxiety and nervousness and and um diatribe and etc that those two the two um rhythms of that and and speed of their of how they exist in the world are the tension that actually makes their their coming together more alive and more interesting in a way and and i think had i been playing too much um you know that that it was a seduction i think that some of that might have been lost and i didn't i don't think i even realized that it was a seduction until after the fact totally hannah did you feel like in the same way we're talking about maybe some of your experiences mapped being seduced and being asked to be in such intimate settings in your first big movie did you bring some of those same anxieties to any of this experience you know what um i think i felt so much anxiety leading up and then i think genuinely when we got to the island and jane and i did our first rehearsal i had so relief and after jillian and i did the scene work together it was like total relief like i just felt like okay this is like i i feel that the thing is working and it's here um i think that uh that really just was my work to keep up that anxiety and to just maintain that frequency um for sure i think like the intimate scenes the things is that like just i don't know like i said jane and i did so much talking about um what we had to portray there but also the ways in which the thing that's being portrayed is true for us both um and it was through that that i felt genuinely like walking in confident to portray something that is incredibly familiar to me so um yeah i don't i don't know that i was actually feeling any of that i think it was kind of all a facade acting baby well the minute the minute that hannah walked out you know naked but for her underwear um in uh from the bathroom there was such she was completely spellbinding like she came out with such confidence and was radiating a sexiness and a assuredness and and it's like you couldn't take you couldn't take your eyes off you guys are recording you have to send the cameras are recording send the video i was completely bowled over i'm trying not to say anything to indict myself here it is like the buddy love and the nutty professor thing where you're like oh wow it is like there's a transformational yeah yeah um and i think that's a really good thing to do and i think i think that's a really good thing to do it's all natural man it's cool acceptance man millennial question for you i i need to hear you talk about uh the counting crows needle drop i i the exegesis on this uh my my second cousin was their guitar tech oh wow what a connection have you heard that before you're dropping this now yeah yeah yeah and so i went to see them when i was like 11 years old and and and went backstage and got their autograph on like a on a glossy you know like on a on a on a promotional photo and uh can you recreate duritz's facial expression in that glossy um i'm gonna pass it over to my actors for now how to get get in the get in the uh hair chair for those dreads um i love the counting crows yeah i mean they're in rotation i i had a big breakup in 2024 um i was like finish i was getting ready to like start really like making this movie and i wrote the script for night swimming another millennial banger maybe that's a gen x banger we share it yeah i claim it too and uh and i would yeah for whatever reason like during this breakup i reached for um recovering the satellites the second counting crows record um which i'd always liked but never as much as august and everything after and i was just listening to it and i was in spain at a festival and i was just sitting at coffee shops in spain like really angsty listening to that record and it felt like really good in its way um and then like something about long december just like got stuck in there where i was like oh my god i think this might be a better choice than night swimming and night swimming is like my favorite song so i was like that's crazy i think it was um it's just it is a perfect song i think it's a perfect song i think it's a perfect song uh but it's also yeah it's like a song about like this year has been really long and really shitty and like maybe next year is going to be better this kind of like hard one triumphant resilient kind of like becoming, uh, that is what that scene is about. And in many ways is what the movie is about, but without that song and that tone and those na-na-na's, uh, you know, it's like, it's all about the contrast between seeing like these geysers of blood and heads flying into the air and, and that, and that kind of like piano, uh, vibe. Um, yeah. And I, I, somebody put me in touch with, with, with Adam Duritz and we texted a little bit and, uh, he said, I've always wanted Long December to be part of a killer one-er. I don't think he's, I don't know if he's, uh, seen it yet, but I mean, no, I mean, I love the Counting Crows. I could go deep on the Counting Crows. Besides you want to talk about it, you let me know. I produced a documentary about them. So I know all of it. Yeah, I did. Yeah. I've seen it. I've seen it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Complicated movie. Um, amazing career, fascinating guy. Uh, I think he like, well, can I say one last thing about the Counting Crows? Of course. Well, I also like, like my band when I was like 15 was bright eyes. Like I loved bright eyes. Um, and I think there's like a lineage of like people that was like embarrassing to like, if you were a boy, uh, I think that this was sort of the vibe for Counting Crows was like, they got, they got like post Nirvana, um, kind of like a lot of flack for not being like masculine or being like whiny or being like, uh, like too pretty boy or something. I think it has a lot to do with gender, you know, or I think that like, there's like an earnestness and like an emotional forthrightness in that music and in bright as music that like is wonderful. And I felt really embarrassed to like it during the years that I was growing up and liking it and, uh, yeah, deserving of some reclamation. Okay. Last, last couple of things here. I'm curious, will you make any more horror movies now that you've made one and you're, you're now part of the lineage of this history of film and you in your first starring role, will you make more? I'm curious, like, cause Scream Queen and Final Girl, these are, these are also iconic delineations in, in movie and TV history. So I'm curious how you feel about them now having made this. Um, I, I had actually tried for a while, Jason Bloom. I'd met him a couple of times and we tried to make, um, a couple of different things over the years. So I haven't been against it. Um, also, you know, obviously a good portion of the X-Files was, um, horror adjacent. Um, and so, uh, I feel like it's in my bones, even though it's not something, um, that I've been able to absorb, um, as a viewer. Um, and offered stuff over the years and, and sometimes, um, depending on what it is, sometimes it feels so dark. I just don't know if I can put myself in that place. Um, and, um, but I'm not adverse to it. It's, it's more of the, of the right thing coming along. And it was important to me that, that, that this had, um, it's so much more than, than just that. And as, so much depth and, and humor, obviously that, and, um, and so, uh, this feels like a definite, um, first, in a sense, if I was going to have a first, this would be the perfect first. And, um, but so I'm not, I'm not adverse to it. Okay. What about you, Hannah? Oh, yeah. Yeah. I'm totally down. Line them up. Yeah. Well, I don't know. I'm like, yeah, I'm kind of genre agnostic. Like I just like good shit no matter what it is. Makes sense. Okay. We end every episode of this show by asking filmmakers, what's the last great thing they have seen? You're not prepared for this. No, no. I'm happy to talk about the last great thing I've seen. Who wants to go first? Jane, you want to go first? Uh, yeah. The other night, like I've got it to hell. I got to LA. Um, I had a night off. I looked and saw what was playing at the Regal and they were playing End of Evangelion. Oh, yeah. Uh, and so I got myself an extra large icy and I planted down and, um, that food, that fucking movie is so amazing. That's like one of the great films. Um, and at the end of that movie, the last line is just disgusting. Somebody says disgusting. And that just like put me in the exact right mindset for this press tour week. Disgusting. Disgusting. I could go. Go. Um, I saw a film called Bouchera. Tell me about it. It's an animated, uh, sapphic, furry, trilingual, French Moroccan, very like small, intimate family drama, dramedy, perhaps. Um, it's funny. It's an animation style I've never seen. Um, it's really cool. There is this like, yeah, the visual world is like so intricate and like vivid and thought out. And the style of the voiceover is incredibly casual as if there's no script. Um, and it's super, it was super moving and sweet and romantic and, um, funny. And it was unlike anything I've ever seen. Where did you see it? Lemley. Lemley. In the theater. Okay, cool. Yeah. Jillian, what about you? Um, the, the very, very last film I saw was The Invite. Oh, yeah. Uh, Olivia Wilde's, uh, latest film. And I thought it was fantastic. Um, I, I find her such a confident, uh, filmmaker and, um, uh, and the, the complexity of the relationships and, you know, it's, it's on quite a consistent pitch throughout. And yet you don't feel like you're participating in, in, in a scream fest and like, uh, in it's, it has a lot of, uh, undulations and all the characters are such, uh, are so well played by all the actors and Ed Norton and Penelope Cruz are just so phenomenal and watchable. And, um, I just thought it was fantastic. Another movie that kind of glides between tone pretty comfortably in the same way as your movie. Hey, this was really nice. Jane, Hannah, Jillian, thank you so much for coming in. Thank you. Thanks for having us. Thank you. Thanks to Jane, Hannah, and Jillian. Thanks to Adam. Thanks to our producer, Jack Sanders. Thanks to Lucas for his work on today's episode. Thanks to Lucas Kavanaugh for his production support. Next week, we're going to Oak Street all the way to the end of it. C.R. and Mallory Rubin will join me to discuss the new dinosaur thriller. We'll see you then. Endless summer escapes start here. Travel the worlds of Netflix IRL. Inspired by fan favorites like Stranger Things and Squid Game. Brave the upside down. Face off with the front man. Play leveled up arcade games. Shop exclusive merch and enjoy themed food and drinks. Beat the heat. Play, eat, and shop on repeat at Netflix House at Galleria Dallas. Bring your crew and save. Get your tickets today at netflix.com. This episode is brought to you by ChatGPT. Hey, it's Bill Simmons from the Bill Simmons Podcast. Have you guys heard about ChatGPT work? It's the new way to use ChatGPT for bigger multi-step projects. 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