Yeah.

Thanks for coming on.

Oh.

I'm, I'm, I'm so happy to come on and talk to you guys.

I, I really enjoyed your podcast.

It was.

It was so fun to listen to.

You do.

Are you rolling?

No.

No, we're we're good.

It's we're recording, but we're not going to use this you.

Can you?

Can I?

I don't know if you want to feel free to put the gushing in, but yeah.

Oh, it's so awesome.

We we loved your movie so.

Thank you so much.

Thank you so much.

Let's start.

Let's start 'cause there's stuff I want to just go ahead and dive in and start, start saying first to kind of prime the conversation.

So if it's cool, like let's begin.

Yeah.

OK.

So, so it's so funny.

I was listening to your to your your short one.

Then I listen to your long one, which was so flattering by the way, that you guys even put the energy into to discussing this movie and the terms you did.

And there were some things that I thought you really got like that you really picked up on that I thought were really astute.

And there were some things I thought that were kind of big that that I thought I was surprised that you guys didn't.

And and that's, you know, fine.

And then, and then I think that there, there's like a conversation, The reason I wanted to even come on here and, and, and, and like, you know, kind of have this, this conversation is because what I think is, is interesting is like there's so many things that I think are undeniably present that we're not intentional or even cognitive.

What am I trying to say?

What is the word I'm looking for?

Cognizant.

I was not cognizant of as the time at the time that I was doing the writing.

So there's, there's a, there's a anyway, there's a couple of different frontiers of this conversation that I think are are, you know, should be explored.

But yeah, anyway, not to just dive in and just take over your podcast, no.

You're fine.

First of all, we appreciate you listening in the 1st place.

Our listeners have loved your movie.

It's been like, it's, it's been a really good movie year.

But in terms of commentary and like what you're talking about in terms of some of the things in the movie that we might have picked and picked out of your consciousness or maybe we projected onto the movie or the intentional things that we missed or didn't didn't get.

There's been so much to talk about.

And that's just made like our movie year so much more fun.

So First off, thank you for making the movie because it's it really is amazing.

It really was my pleasure.

Thank you.

Yeah, I actually want to start off by asking you, how are you feeling about the big picture guest appearance and CR Chris Ryan saying what he did about your movie?

I'm not sure if you heard what he said, but he compared your time jump at one point to a Quentin Tarantino moment.

And I, when he said that, I was thinking, wow, if I, if I made my first real feature because I, I know you worked on other projects, but I heard you say that, you know, you refer to this is like your first major feature.

If I heard Someone Like You know Chris, who we love as podcasters.

Yeah, I'm a huge fan of those guys.

Yeah, he, when he compared you to to that Tarantino moment, and then he talked about some of the themes in your movie too, like he referenced gentrification and white flight and whether those things were intentional or not or like toxic masculinity, like him just picking up on those things.

I'm sure that was like getting the most like validating stamp of approval ever.

I mean.

I, I, I, he's not saying that I'm of the caliber of Quentin Tarantino.

He's saying that I used a device that is reminiscent of a device that Tarantino would employ.

So I, I receive it in that spirit, right?

I did listen to it, you know, and you know, I, I, you know, this week I'm just letting myself be a total narcissist and just like you should, it's not going to last.

Like it's not going to be like this next week, you know?

And so I, I'm going to just like take the week and soak it in and listen to the things that are good and affirming and ignore the things that are not and, and be a little bit of a psycho for a while because it's a ride and I, and I'm happy to be on it.

And so anyway, so I did listen.

Yeah, well, we're not, you know, be a narcissist, I guess 'cause we're going to be talking about the movie in depth.

No problem here.

Alan Dalts I and I'm not normally like this, but, but I feel like this week, no, let's just go.

You know, I've worked for two years on this thing and I, it's really fun for me to be able to talk.

You deserve all the success right now.

So I guess Kelsey, I mean you probably I I feel like the toxic masculinity part is probably where we want to start with the men in this movie, because this movie to me felt like the best horror movie with commentary is such a like such something as strong as toxic masculinity sense like a Jordan Peele's get out with what that commentary was about or Ari Astra's hereditary.

Like it's up there for me personally.

And I think Kelsey like really touched on a through line of the men in this movie really well.

So I think we might want to start there.

Yeah, sure, if you're cool with starting, you know, with the with the toxic masculinity, the men.

Yeah, I, well, maybe not even toxic masculinity, but I just noticed the three men a lot.

So I kind of wanted to talk to you about that.

Something I loved obviously was that the mother wasn't the, you know, villain, even though it was the monster in the basement.

And I think, you know, I thought that the monster in the basement would be the one creating obstacles for tests.

But actually it's the men in the movie who are continuously, you know, creating obstacles for tests.

And, you know, obviously Frank, who is who created this like hell dungeon, you know, in his past crimes, but also like Keith and AJ in different ways, right, continuously bringing tests back in.

And so I, I think I wanted to, to kind of pick your brain about what, whether there was a connection between Keith, AJ and Frank, because I think a lot of people are coming out of the movie and they're like, I'm, it's so cool that we were subverted, that mother's not the villain.

But I was wondering if I haven't heard as many people talk about the connection between Keith, AJ and Frank.

And if you were kind of like thinking, are these characters connected as you're writing?

Is that something afterwards you kind of noticed or?

I love, I love that you're thinking of it that way.

And, and on your episode, you guys talked about mutations and, and we'll get into that, but I think the, the, the concept of a mutation is very important to this movie.

And the title is directly addressing the concept of mutation, and we'll get into that later.

But yes, in my mind, in a very David Lynch kind of a way, AJ and Frank are the same person.

And there's little things that I'm doing to try and subconsciously reinforce that.

And for example, when we meet AJ, you know, where is he?

He's at the beach, he's in front of the ocean.

And what is what is what in Frank's room under the house?

What is in there?

There's a giant beach, oceanscape along the wall.

And we're listening to Hawaiian Music.

And I'm trying to just connect them thematically, visually, audio wise.

I'm trying to just like establish a little bit of a link.

No one's going to notice this stuff, by the way, everything we're going to talk about.

And I feel like this is really important for me to say.

I don't hair if anyone ever notices these things are not I I, I really mean it when I say like, I don't want this movie to have an agenda.

This movie does not exist to like to to, you know, make people change their thinking on any of these things.

I love that there's conversations to be had.

But first and foremost, this is a horror movie.

It's fun.

I want red America.

I want blue America.

I want everybody to experience this in a positive way.

I'm not trying to come down on anybody, you know, but I do think that, yeah, of course it is about toxic masculinity to a degree.

That is all there and gentrification.

All those things are there now.

I'll do a little teaser here real quick.

What the movie is about to me, what it's secretly actually about to me is something that no one will ever, ever know.

And that's fine.

I'll, I'll tell you at the end of this podcast, but it's.

OK, it's not, it's not like.

A secret, but it's it's like it's the kind of thing that I this movie is written about something very real for me, but it's no one could no one could pick up on it anyway.

We'll get to that, but.

I'm excited.

And also, so you know, we, we know the movie is, is, we know you're not intending to create any kind of like divisive film by any means.

It's like a horror thriller genre movie that you're, you know, you're kind of developing A commentary throughout asking interesting questions because every director we've had on has interesting questions.

It's just yours.

Have had us do 4 hours worth of podcast on because we love the questions you're asking.

I love it.

But Frank, Frank and and and AJ and Keith are spect they're all on a spectrum, right?

Frank being the crystallized version, the purest version of a predator with 0 empathy whatsoever.

I mean, he, he is a shark, you know, and my conversations with Richard Brake, I had to watch the man who wasn't there.

And we talked about like, you know, just just an absence, you know, of, of, of an inner life.

And so that's why he really doesn't do anything.

You know, he's just a a great one white shark.

And so AJ is is more of a human than Frank is, but he is on that same spectrum.

You know, AJ is has no awareness.

You know, really like he is he is a predator in his own right.

And so so when when AJ sees, you know, what Frank really is, when he sees the the videotapes, you know, he's confronting himself in that moment.

So I'm really glad you picked up on that.

I also think you guys picked up on a great thing that Keith is not a great guy, you know, like we're about.

To.

Talk about that like he is a he is not a toxic predator, but he is also like, I don't think he has an awareness of his own effect on women.

You know, he is saying inappropriate things.

He is, he has, he might have the best intentions, but he is, you know, you picked up on this.

You know, he's injecting sexuality where it doesn't belong.

He he's doesn't take her seriously when she tells him what she sees.

And if he just listened to her and respected her, you probably would have survived, you know?

So I, I wanted to talk a little bit about Keith because I thought it was so interesting.

A lot of people left the movie saying like, oh, we were subverted.

You know, Keith wasn't the killer and we have a.

Lot of comments, a lot of listeners bring that up for sure.

Yeah, which is great.

I mean, I would have gone to see Bill Skarsgard be a killer in a movie anyway.

I mean, but but I yeah, I wanted to kind of get your thoughts on Keith too, because, you know, he's not committing any crimes like you said, but he's still connected to the other men in a way where I haven't heard a lot of conversation about, right?

Like he's not letting her leave the basement and.

Blocking her and wasn't looking to cast someone who was physically over, you know, capable of overpowering her.

And I put a lot of energy into the blocking when she comes out of the room and he's sidestepping.

Like, that was such a crucial part of that scene.

Like he is he is like he's kind of gaslighting her in a little would not really I that's not a fair term.

I don't think he's gaslighting her, but he's he's he's doing everything he can to make her second guess her own instincts and to physically stop her from leaving the situation.

And that is really terrible behavior and it's not appropriate and it's it's bad.

Yeah, he doesn't.

Put hands on her and stop her.

He's not going that far, but you know, he's not, he's not a St., you know.

Right.

Yeah.

I was wondering like kind of if you while you were writing, if you were thinking of these, these questions with Keith, because in the beginning, you know, as we're suspecting him, he he has kind of has this like benevolent sexism.

You know, he has these like cringy phrases about his upbringing.

Well, he says multiple times, not even up for discussion.

Like, what does that mean?

If that is not like coercion, you know, that's terrible.

Not even up for discussion is like you can't enter into any sort of a relationship with that, you know?

Yeah, wave it on my upbringing, you know, but he's a chauvinist and and somewhat of a benign chauvinist, but he isn't.

He is a chauvinist.

Right.

Yeah, He's kind of getting at that idea of like protecting women, you know, that's men's role.

And so I was wondering kind of what you thought about if people are leaving the movie and saying we were tricked.

You know, Keith is a good guy, but you kind of already talked about it and that's.

OK.

You know, that's OK.

Like if somebody takes that away from it, it's like, then it worked.

I mean, the movie is a trick.

You want you want to think that he's a monster.

And I wouldn't, I wouldn't categorize Keith as a monster at all, you know?

Right.

He's just on the spectrum of of like the kind of events and.

Everyone is.

I am.

I'm on the spectrum.

You know, I'm not a perfect person.

I think, I think it's, we all fall into the spectrum to a degree.

You know, he's just, he's, he's, he's on it.

Right.

I think, you know what's funny, we transitioned to AJ after Keith's death.

And I think before I even get to Aji really want to talk about Detroit and Frank and what they symbolize.

Just because I I feel like that's been in my mind, that's been probably a thing that I sat with me the most in that time jump, that time sequence, which is interesting because I think audience's favorite sequence of the movie is the transition from mother to AJ.

So the transition from mother killing Keith to AJ and Justin Long's famous singing at this point in the car and the theater reaction for us, which I don't know if you've been lucky enough to like sit in the back of any theaters recently in this film.

But like the transition from screams to laughter is I I don't think I've ever experienced anything like that.

I've experienced obviously like screams and or laughter, but not that quickly from one another.

And so it does seem like people love that sequence, but the really pivotal sequence for me is that time jump to Frank because there's a couple different things.

So we hear on the radio.

So you listen to the podcast, you know, we talked about the Reagan era America of it all and audiences having a lot of built in historical context with what you're showing on screen.

And my mind was jumping to just things I knew.

And this like horror movie where I probably shouldn't be think in the average genre movie.

I should probably shouldn't be thinking about the history of our country in this way.

But I was thinking about the white flight.

I was thinking about black families migrating to Detroit from Jim Crow.

SI was thinking about the Reaganomics of the 80s, destroying the city, the de urbanization and de industrialization of it all.

And just kind of like even thinking about like the American dream and the eradication of the middle class in a horror movie.

Like this is so abnormal from what I'm used to.

And like, while I'm thinking about all the history in the middle of this horror movie, we learned that Frank is a serial killer, a serial rapist.

And I feel like that's asking me as the audience to try to connect, or at least that's where we went with it.

We connected like the Reagan era, the Detroit, the Frank of it all and it led me to wonder and it has, I think over these podcasts we've done like was that how intentional was it to connect the Frank of it all, the Detroit, the Reagan era, because it's so incredibly well written and peppered throughout to allow people to kind of watch the movie and be like that time jump.

That was I love how they kind of got away from the normal three act structure.

It really threw me off.

It was just such a good horror movie, but it also allows audiences to be like, what else was this like writer trying to say it?

Is there something intentional there with those those three connections?

OK, so a, a note about intentionality.

And, and so I, I write, I, I read David Lynch's book Catching the Big Fish.

I don't know if you're familiar with that book.

OK, but he talks about a process of writing that he uses.

And I use the same process and, and what it generally yields is, is, is opaque meaning.

And the process is this, it's through Transcendental Meditation, right?

So before you write you, you, you do TM and you, you, you essentially turn off your conscious brain and you, you, you amplify your subconscious.

And So what I do is I'll meditate and then I'll write and I don't know what I'm going to write.

I really don't.

So I wrote barbarian completely intuitively.

I didn't outline it.

I never knew what was going to come next.

It was a very subconscious writing process.

Now, not to say I don't go back and, and, and revise and take things out and put things in.

I do.

And it's, it's, it is thoughtful to that, to that degree.

But like most of the movie was written from a subconscious place.

Now when when I when I don't want that to, to imply that I don't care about these themes being in there because quite frankly, those are in my subconscious.

I'm a very, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a socially tuned in person by nature.

I think about these sorts of issues frequently day-to-day.

So they're in my subconscious.

So they are coming out, but I'm not necessarily thinking now what I want to say about Detroit And I really want to connect the the sexual predation of men to white flight.

Now there's a there's a sequence, the original scene of the draft when when of the script, when Frank comes home from the from the woman that he is like he is, you know, unlocked her window and we see what his intentions are.

He has a long conversation with his neighbor Doug.

And the original draft was Doug was fretting about the white flight that was happening and he was telling Frank he's like over in, you know, Canoga, they have this, they, they do what's called redlining.

And and Doug is like, you know, we can, we can talk to the banks and and we can, you know, there's a pressure that can be exerted on who gets loans for these houses.

And he's like, I would rather live next door to an empty house than and he uses a terrible word that I won't say it starts with an S, not an N, but still nonetheless.

And he's like Frankie, but we really got to get in line on this thing.

But you know, because it's going to be too late soon.

So it was very much, I was driving home even more to the point like that sort of social political exodus or whatever I'm trying to say now.

I changed it.

And so then what we shot, that scene extends and instead of like getting into like racial politics, he follows Frank to his door and and this is what we shot.

And it'll be out there on a deleted scene one day where he and he accuses Frank of stealing his dog many years ago.

And it's more about gender.

He's like, my wife wants me to ask you.

I tell her she's crazy.

She's got it in her head that she, she woke up in the middle of night and she thinks that you took our dog.

She's I told her she's crazy.

And what he's doing is he's minimizing his wife's truth.

You know, he's he's throwing her under the bus and he's very gently asking Frank.

And Frank never answers.

Frank doesn't deny it or anything.

Frank, just like she says, I took your dog.

He's like, I told her she's out of her mind.

He's like, oh, never mind, Frank, you're a good, you know, And he'd like he he backs out and he goes, he goes home.

And I was, I wanted to keep it more on theme of like, we don't believe women, you know, men give each other pass.

This is why AJ, when he sees Frank in the basement, his first impulse isn't like, obviously you did this.

His first impulse is like, are you OK, man?

You know, like the cops only really listen to Tess when she says there's a man being held hostage.

Then they're like, well, we may as well go check it out, You know?

So, so I was, I, I decided it would be better to use the energy of that scene to, to riff on the theme of the film rather than dive into like the, the, the racial, you know, disparity.

So anyway, so that that scene's not in the movie anymore for pacing for no other reason than pacing.

It was time to get back into the house.

Yeah, that was so clear to me, too, when when Tess was in the basement and then, you know, Keith is outside and he's laughing while she's crying.

What the?

Fuck yeah.

Which by the way, you know, so much of Keith is how I would have reacted.

You know, I I tried and test, by the way, is also me like I write all of these characters are kind of just what would I do at in this situation?

So I don't want to say like Keith is this monster.

I probably would have behaved very similar to how Keith does throughout this movie.

And we're not saying Keith is a monster either, it's just the subtle things that you're touching on that make people uncomfortable about like a traditional version of masculinity for sure.

Yeah, like the minimizing, have to go see for yourself that, yeah.

So it is incredible though, that was you're talking about this meditation writing that you were able to kind of get all because I mean, being socially conscious is one thing, but fitting it into a horror movie and layering it throughout this without, you know, obviously some of it is like very conscious, but like otherwise it's kind of incredible that you're able to do that.

So it's like it is very interesting that I think that so many people are going to project the history of this time and era onto the screen just by saying a term or concept just like Reagan era or like people are going to just put so much on the movie from that.

Yeah, that was so smart on your part.

Like, I mean, because it gives us so much to think about and it makes us kind of like also just like go back and remember what wasn't that long ago because even just kind of like seeing that from the movie.

I'm like doing research and I'm thinking like.

You know, we're we're both teachers too, outside of doing a Collider and and doing this too and trying to spread awareness of our favorite films.

But you know, just kind of like, I guess re engaging with the fact that Detroit was once one one of the wealthiest cities in the in the world and then looking what happened to it and the way it was manufactured in that way.

And just so, again, so interesting that that kind of connects to, in our minds at least to like what Frank is doing as a response to.

His I agree with you.

Changing.

100% I agree with you.

To me, when I think of the Reagan era, I think of a gigantic false narrative.

I think that that was a, a, a regime that like sold the world a bill of goods and like we still are living under this false narrative that like Ronald Reagan was like a good president and like, think he was like arguably the worst president ever.

Like, and, you know, there could be a case to me, like very recently we had a worse one.

But I think Reagan really like really crashed the car and people still don't even realize it.

And I think there's a gas lighting of all of us about what happened in the 80s.

And like we were sold out, like America was sold out in the 80s, like major and we convinced ourselves that it was this like wonderful healthy time.

And it was like, no, that was like the domino that that fucked everything in my mind, right.

So I do think it's appropriate to like to connect these these themes of like gaslighting and like AJ's whole thing is, you know, what does he say to Megan on the phone?

People can have different versions of the same thing, you know?

And that's that's, that's comes true at the end when he throws Tess off the tower and he's like, you're OK, I'm saving you, you know?

Yeah, you started to slip.

I didn't even let go.

Like, that's that's just one more example of how he has he has rewritten history to to his own convenience again and again.

So I think that the Reagan era is the perfect backdrop for that sort of a thing.

And sticking with AJ, actually going back to that mutation word, because I think a lot of people have been talking about mother still.

I mean, people are getting it.

I think in terms of the villain, like I've seen a lot of articles written about it, a lot of explained deep dives about it.

I've already seen YouTube essays on it, like people are on top of mother and the kind of intricacies there and we'll get to her.

But what's interesting about AJ is going back to that mutated word is he kind of acts as like this mutated version of Frank.

Like it really, we talked about this a lot on the pod, but just like the fact that AJ is basically a gentrifier as a Detroit landlord, like someone who we think is like bought property that we assume to be like foreclosed properties.

And but we slowly find out he's the sexual predator and Frank being a rapist himself.

And they're both connected in these behaviors.

So is, was AJ like kind of an amalgamation of like people?

Cuz I've heard he talked a little bit about who he might be based off or characters or people in your life and just kind of like trying to connect people in your life to the AJ.

But more importantly, I think, or more interestingly, not more importantly, but more interestingly, is AJ sort of like this kind of deeper through line of a mutation of Frank that you were trying to capture on screen for audiences to pick up.

I think that I I think I realized later that if AJ and Frank were the same, I don't think I wrote this clearly, you know, consciously that they were that they were the same.

They're not the it's not like lost Highway where they're the same person and as 2, but it is but that, you know, they fit together just like actually, I think AJ and Tess are twins.

You know, I don't know if you heard me talk about that.

Another.

Point.

But but yes I I do believe one is the negative of the other.

She is a a woman with who has to use hyper awareness to be on guard against predators and he is a predator with no awareness, which is why he's measuring instead of, you know, terrified.

Right?

Where was I going?

What was your initial question?

I.

It was just like, I guess connecting AJ and Frank really just kind of like the mutation is more like I I kept struggling to say on the pod like I was wanting to say evolution because like I like we've said, already established, like Keith isn't necessarily the same toxic predator that Frank is.

Neither is AJ, but there is this kind of like this kind of like progression, but really it just feels more like a mutation because they're all, I mean, AJ specifically is very like a disgusting human being.

But it is an interesting mutation from Frank just cause of the connections that they have being a part of, like, Frank being a part of Detroit, which is like being economically segregated.

And then you have AJ doing what he's doing as this landlord, buying up properties across Michigan, which I'm supposed to assume are probably foreclosed properties.

And then the fact that they're both sexual predators.

It was just interesting.

I didn't know how much.

Yeah.

Kind of these like behaviors, behaviors that are spanning sent like decades, centuries, yeah, decades.

Yeah, they, yeah.

And of course that that is intentional.

They must be the same to that.

I mean, AJ must meet himself down at the at the depths, you know?

So yes, that's, that's all.

That's all correct.

Yeah.

I just wanted to also say I loved a JS writing.

I I thought that, I mean, the tape measuring scene is my favorite scene in the movie.

I mean, it's really iconic.

Yeah.

It was such a fun theater experience too.

Like everyone was just laughing so hard and they were like loving it.

And they're like, what am I doing?

This is a horror movie.

But I, I, it's not really a question.

I just wanted to say that I think for his character using comedy, it was so smart because it gets at the idea of his behaviors being so absurd in ways that sometimes drama even can't.

And I felt like, you know, his, his self serious, you know, ourself more concerned, you know, behaviours when he's in the Airbnb and he's like flipping everything.

He's like, dude, you know?

Yeah, yeah.

Well, that's just Justin being phenomenal.

You know, Justin's so great.

And I think all of that was written.

I don't even think I realize how funny it could be until you give it to somebody like Justin who's just like that funny, you know?

And so thank God I got him.

Oh, my God.

Yeah.

Yeah.

OK, so here's another one that that I, I, I, I, you guys kind of touched on, but I think that we missed a couple of things in your podcast.

So let's talk this snake.

Right, OK.

Oh, we're getting there.

The snake, because I was going to pull that up.

All right, all.

Right.

So you know, when we meet AJ, he's singing the verse of a Donovan song and the and the verse, it's a song called Riki Tiki Tavi, and it's about a Mongoose who kills snakes.

And the lyrics are basically like when I was a young man, I was led to believe there were certain organizations that would kill my snakes for me, like the church and the school and the government.

But when I got a little bit older, I learned I had to kill him myself.

OK, so so that is that is an important little thing.

Again, I don't think anyone will ever put these pieces together and that is fine.

This isn't this is just me being a pretentious writer with way too much time on my hands.

But but OK, so now I have established tests and therefore women as the snake, right, because I put there's a you know, her car.

We know we're in test world when we see this snake pen pendant hanging from her rearview mirror and when we establish we're back in the house, we start on that snake pendant and we rack to AJ parking.

That's how we know we're back in like in test world.

So I'm I'm trying to whatever like the idea would be that women represent the snake.

Now, the interesting thing about that for me is that in the Mongoose and the snake, right, the snake is the prey and the Mongoose is the predator.

But we all know that snakes are inherently dangerous things.

And in this movie, it's like the conversation on the couch, you know, where Bill saying that to her, like, you know, or she's saying to him, like, why is it always the girls that can get their heart that get their hearts ripped out in these things?

Obviously she's talking about horror movies.

She doesn't know it when Bill says girls can RIP, trust me, he's foreshadowing and he doesn't know it.

You know, they're both talking.

I'm talking through them.

They don't know what they're talking about.

But like, you know, but we're I'm trying to just subtly reinforce women as prey, women as predator later.

And so then when Tess enters the hunting ground, what, how does she do it?

There's a little Mongoose on that shelf and she picks the little Mongoose up and behind it there's a snake cord.

And she pulls the snake and then we enter the, the fucking.

Now we're in into the combat zone.

And what is it?

The snake that we think is the prey is actually the predator, because it's the woman that comes out and annihilates Keith.

So that's that.

Now, again, this is just me being an idiot and it's stupid, but like, that's, that's what's going on.

So that's, that's the snake stuff.

It's fun for me.

It's it's weird.

It's created like I feel like 7 different experiences people can have watching this movie which.

And no one will ever happen.

It's amazing.

That's crazy.

I didn't.

OK, you want to get real crazy?

Here's a real crazy one.

OK, so the title, right?

And this is riffing on the mutation idea, the copy of a copy of a copy, you know, And the more you copy something, the more genetic mutations you get.

The mother is literally, you know, you know, metaphorically she's the physical manifestation of like decades of abuse and neglect and like ignoring the trauma that you inflict.

And that trauma lives under the house.

It never goes away.

It festers and it builds and becomes more powerful.

So that's what she is, you know, metaphorically, physically, she's a genetic mutation.

And the title is a, is a mutation, you know, barbarian, like the letters are just an anagram of Airbnb that you have just grown and injected and messed around and scribbled it up and Airbnb barbarian.

Now it gets weirder, right?

So the address of the house is 476.

Barbary 476 is the year that Rome fell to the Barbarians.

I'm sure somebody has probably brought that up to you.

It gets weirder than that.

So the word barbarian, do you know about this?

Do you know the origins of the word barbarian?

OK, It's an onomatopoeia, and it's a pejorative that the Romans used to mock.

I think I'm, I'm going to get this right.

I think it was the Gauls, right?

The French, because they thought that their language sounded like someone going bar, bar, bar, bar, bar, bar, bar, bar.

So they called them Barbarians.

Barbarians, right?

All the mother says in this whole movie is ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba.

That's.

Another fun little little Easter egg that that that exists.

That is an incredible Easter egg because of the amount.

I mean, I teach social sciences in high school.

And so the amount of times that I've explained the bar bar, bar joke.

Oh, really?

The barbarian.

Yes.

In class to your kids.

Yeah, to to the students and to the fact that I just did not pick.

That's a it makes this movie.

That's what I'm saying.

It makes this movie special because of all this different layering of commentary or like just observations, questions you're throwing in there.

It's so cool.

All right, now here's the craziest part, right?

So this this is actually the craziest thing.

I didn't know any of this stuff.

I didn't know any of this stuff.

I just wrote from the subconscious.

So like, I didn't know 476 is the year that Rome fell to the Barbarians.

I didn't know that the word barbarian was an onomatopoeia that was like used to to, you know, ridicule the people.

I didn't even really know that the word barbarian was an anagram of Airbnb.

This is just stuff that just came into the script and I take no credit.

It all exists.

You can, you know, I now I don't know if it came from my subconscious and that was inside of me and I put it in fine.

Are we all just sitting here over analyzing stuff?

And if there's every movie you could probably find things like this in, I don't know, I think that's actually the most interesting thing of all of this.

Because when I've learned that 476, which by the way, my RIP reel for this movie, which I made like a year and a half before I made the movies up, it was still 476 Barbary.

There was something special to me about that number.

I don't know why.

I don't know what it is, but how bizarre that of all the numbers I could have picked, I picked the one that was acutely linked to the to Barbarians.

It's bizarre to me.

It's bizarre to me.

And I think that like, especially David Lynch, you know, like his movies are, are so fertile for the same stuff.

I could talk to you guys for five hours about Mulholland Dr.

and what it means.

Yeah.

And and it's like, that's so great.

So.

But I bet you David Lynch would probably say similar things.

Like.

I don't.

I don't really know.

Like, I don't judge.

I don't care.

Like, that's that's what makes it so cool.

So.

And I don't know.

In a way, when we find, you know, film makers that we are really interested in, it's often just their subconscious that like, we're seeing on screen.

And so I totally get that.

I mean, we were talking to Helena Rain for her film Bodies, Bodies, Bodies that came out recently.

And she.

We had a very similar conversation to, like, a lot of things that she's, like, talked about, like even just like in her mind that just find their way on screen.

And Jordan Peele's talked about this with Note because there's so much different iconography in that movie.

That's definitely intentional.

But there's other stuff that people were just pulling out of it.

And he was like, sure.

Yeah.

Like that sounds good.

And that's just so funny that that's that's the case with the with the surface.

I don't know if that's disappointing or not for you guys.

No, no.

It just, I think it makes the creator all the more interesting because there's a lot going on.

Yeah, I feel like, yeah.

And especially I think with the serpent, 'cause I almost don't want to.

And then I guess we can go to our next one, 'cause I do have an interesting question.

Are you even?

Yeah, Well, I, I just wanted to kind of know 'cause you've talked about the relationship between different characters like the men or Tess and AJ.

But I wanted to know if you were thinking while you were writing or maybe after the fact, the relationship between Tess and Mother, just because, you know, they have similar, you know, they're both trapped in the basement in in certain aspects, right?

Like obviously mother has a a brutal life and it's kind of the subversion of who as a, as I read it, like subversion of who the barbarian is right, because we first think she's the monster, right?

But mother's life is brutal and you know, she survived in this basement.

And also we have the loop of the, the breastfeeding video, the baby video in in the basement where she's been trapped all her life.

And I couldn't help but make an A connection there too, between just suburbia and and the right, the like TV that we see on loop of like advertisements, things like that messaging.

And then Tess is, you know, trapped in the basement in other ways when she keeps getting let down.

And at the end, I especially the second time I saw that when Tess, you know, I had to shoot mother, I felt emotional.

And I was wondering if that was something that you that you focus on as a scene and and what you were thinking about as the relationship of between Tess and Mother.

So thank you.

I, I love that you brought that up.

So that that is a very intentional, very conscious thing that I'm doing.

So, so, you know, you probably notice that Tess is getting all these phone calls from Marcus as she's, as she's arriving at the house.

And so there's actually a deleted scene.

Yeah.

But before I get into the deleted scene, you know, when she's on the couch talking to Keith, she's explaining that she has this toxic relationship that she's in with her boss, you know, and and you know, he's mansplaining to her how like, you can't be put into a role that somebody else picked for you.

You have to you have to, you know, pick for yourself.

And if you have to like move on, then maybe you need to move on.

And and she says, my problem is I just keep going back.

You know, I just, I just keep going back.

So that's her deal.

And then the next day on the way to her job interview, she makes this phone call to Marcus, who is her boss.

You learn.

And he is having an affair with her.

He's like steps out from having breakfast with his wife and kids.

He's like, what the fuck?

Don't call me.

And she's like, I'm I'm in Detroit.

I'm going to this job interview.

I won't be at work today.

And he's very upset.

And and he convinces her on that phone call to like, what, you know, do the job interview, but come back and like, you're going to see me and I need you to promise me you're going to come back.

And she says, I promise I'll come back.

And she cries at the end of that.

Georgina did an amazing job.

And so we we just learned, like, we just kind of reinforced that, like, Tess is not taking agency for herself and her relationships with men.

She's allowing herself to be subjugated and like put into a role that she did not choose.

And that is her journey that she needs.

Right.

And what is the most extreme version of that the most?

The most extreme version of being subjugated is to be infantilized.

And so she is literally infantilized by the mother.

She drinks the baby bottle.

She is a baby, you know, she behaves as a baby.

This is not a role she wants.

She is not allowed to be more than that.

And so the mother is like the calcificate, the the the most the most crystallized I guess is the word I'm looking for version of what she needs to confront, just like Frank is the most crystallized version of what AJ needs to confront.

And so the last thing that Tess says to the to the mother before she pulls the triggers, I can't go back, you know, So I'm echoing her dialogue from the couch like this is her journey.

This is what she must do.

She has to she has to like separate herself from the possessor, as it were.

So that's that's what's going on with her.

That's that's why the end to me, the mother is is an echo and is another version where the mother is, you know, she belongs to Frank.

The bell in the in the catacombs is the most important prop in the movie, you know, because because it is the power dynamic.

You know, Frank pulls the string, the bell rings and the mother comes and and bring some food or does what he needs.

And so they just she's afraid to go to his door.

You know, she backs away when AJ is going to open it.

So it's like I'm trying to just I'm trying to with very little real estate.

I need to paint what their dynamic is.

And so, you know, the idea is that, you know, Frank clearly has the control and the mother doesn't.

She's not allowed to do anything.

She's been infantilized by him.

You know, I think you guys might have talked about it on your podcast, but you know, we research feral children, right?

And like, and so, you know, the idea is that if you don't connect those neural pathways with language before the age of 2, they'll never connect, you know, no matter what.

So if you don't, if you're not exposed to language before 2, you will be a monosyllabic person.

You know, even even though you're intelligent, you, you cannot communicate verbally.

And so he denied her that, you know, the only, the only model she has for behaving at all is his horrific violence.

And this videotape that she's watched, you know, ad infinitum, you know, her whole life.

So, so she's a binary, she exists in smothering love or like over overwhelming aggression.

And so that's so she and Tess share that same sort of relational DNA.

Does that make sense?

A completely, I think Mother Mother will be the most memorable character I've seen in a horror movie in a long time because I think of that subversion and all the context you're talking about.

That's like deep in her character.

I want to get to 1 more symbol before talking about anybody else because I I'm I feel like I'm going to forget this.

And it kept popping up throughout the movie and both watches and we talked about it quickly on the podcast.

But teeth?

It's so funny, you know, the 1st tattoo I ever got was a tooth tattoo that I did myself with like a stick and poke needle when I was a teenager.

And it like, it's weird.

I, I have no idea.

I didn't think about teeth in this movie till I listen to your podcast.

I was like, oh, I guess there is a lot of tooth stuff in there.

So there's a tooth AJ is flossing and, and there's the toothbrush on the floor, which is just like, that's what would be in the bathroom.

So that I didn't think about it deeper than that.

There is the, the tooth ad that I wrote in the car for the, the commercial.

And that's, I mean, that came from me.

That's I, so it must be there.

Yeah.

I have not consciously thought.

Got to put teeth in this movie a lot.

So.

So for whatever that's worth.

No, again, I think it's.

Subconscious impulse, but I I had not considered it.

That's great.

I mean, again, like that kind of subconscious stuff is so incredible because even like even in the ads, did you write the used car ad too?

OK, Wow.

OK.

Just kind of representing the time.

That was, that was.

Really great.

I have to ask too.

And this might be giving too much away.

I don't know.

What if you want to give certain little things away?

But like, even the convention that Keith brings up, that's in town.

Medical thing, he says.

Right, yes, is is that something that we're supposed to because it's they're all these like things Pepper throughout the beginning of this movie, Kelsey's extra credits of your movie was like basically the first act, but that kind of like the discussion, the dialogue between.

Teeth and test was like so incredibly written, but like even something small like that.

The medical convention.

It was such a moment where I think everyone in the crowd would have been like where before that happened.

I think they would be like you should just leave.

But then that seems so seemingly innocent, but at the same time it's still in the back of our minds.

Is there a medical convention?

Is this guy just trying to use like his, I guess his like masculine traditionalism to be like you just need to stay here where you're safe.

Is that is that like in you writing it where you actually thinking there is a?

Liberal when I was writing it, the truth is I thought he was lying.

I thought he was the bad guy, so I'm writing him bad, you know, so yeah, I thought.

But when I finished the script, I realized he he wasn't.

So then I kind of retroactively decided that he was he was not.

So I don't know.

You know, one thing when I talked to Bill, one thing that Bill was really excited about was the idea that like, you know, Keith wants her to stay the night.

You know, he doesn't want to like come on too strong and like freak her out the door.

But like he's thinking this girl's hot like this could go my way like this.

Let's let's see what we can do here.

So like that's present.

You know he does.

He does have an agenda, you know so.

And I and I guess keep on like to keep on going with Keith is there was there also intent and like trying to make him like I was a little bit I wasn't sure exactly what his job was.

I was thinking that it was something like he buys up.

From what I understand from the dialogue, it's just difficult because you're taking a lot in on both.

We only see it twice, but we want to see it, you know, 3 or 4 times.

Listeners go to see it as many times as possible.

OK, well, alright.

But was it was his position buying up properties across Detroit?

Is that what he was doing for artist?

Is that, is that also a nod to something you you're aware of, you're aware of with Detroit?

Yeah.

That's a real thing.

They're not.

They're not called the lion tamers, but there are collectives.

They're like punk rock DIY, like kind of, you know, wild hippie punky kind of folks that punky.

Shoot me in the fucking face.

I just said the word punky.

But there's like, you know, there's like there's, there's punks that like buy these blocks.

They'll buy like 5 houses in a row and they'll move in and they'll make art in there and just kind of like live off the grid and just be like weirdos.

It's, I don't know if they're still there 'cause it's dangerous, but like that is a thing.

And so I think I just kind of, I, I didn't research that very much.

So somebody might come at you and be like, he's full of shit and they I might be.

But like, I knew that that was a thing at one point.

It's not called the lion tamers.

I just thought Detroit Lions like what's?

Just a nice.

But in in this the world of this movie, he's just one of those punks who like is is actively seeking where can we go and expand to?

And so it really falls apart upon any consideration because it's like he just told her he lives in town.

So they double booked an Airbnb.

OK, so why don't you get in your car and go drive home to your house that's in this town as opposed to like we have to cohabitate, which is like another argument, which I like that detail.

I like that it falls apart because any anyone who's really analyzing it closely, like he's lying, dude.

He's fucking lying.

Like this is right there.

But she doesn't connect those dots.

And I don't, I don't really blame her because it's, I think most people don't, but right.

Yeah, she's also, it's a high intensity moment.

She's kind of just.

Weighing the states scenario.

I mean, her brain really does have to be working on major OverDrive here.

You know, she is assessing everything he's doing.

And so I think that one got through.

You know that one just escaped.

Gotcha.

And then I'm trying to think if there's any.

I'm just thinking about Andre right now.

Did you have another one you want to talk about before Andre?

I got to ask about Andre, I believe is his name Andre is that's right, the the homeless man living under the water tower.

Was there something specific about why it was the water tower One?

And then two, what, what was the choice like to make Mother come in and kill Andre?

Because before that we we've seen mother basically be a protector because she's a survivor and she's protecting.

And then that choice to I think it hits at home that she is definitely like mother has been so oppressed by the men in her life.

This one man she knows in the basement, Frank.

So in this situation, from what we're perceiving as an audience, by the way we kind of read it, is that Mother sees these two men surrounding Tess and kills them like that's what she goes and does.

I wish I'd done a better job with that moment, quite frankly.

I, I think I, I a little bit, I kind of dropped the ball.

So she does see the last thing she sees before she burst through the wall of Andre's him pulling test.

He is manhandling her.

You know, she kills Keith when he's he's manhandling her and she intervenes.

And I also, I cut a shot.

Sorry, guys, I'm kind of scattered here.

So she killed Keith and then she looms over tests and in the original cut tests finally like has the wherewithal to shriek and terror and then the mother shrieks back.

And I actually kind of preferred that because the mother is reacting.

Whereas right now in the in the current cut, it just looks like the mother is just like aggressive as fuck to her.

But if I had test screen 1st and then that that that is more in line with the behavior model that I I think is, would be more consistent.

So I fucked that up a little bit.

And then anyway, so she sees Andre yanking Tessa away from her.

So I think in that moment she's like, that guy's dead.

You know, that's what I'm thinking now.

I wish I'd, I wish I'd had a little bit more of a thing where like, maybe he could have done something to test, like maybe he would like try to pull the bullet out.

And she screamed in pain and then the mother burst through and like mauled him.

Like if I, you know, I didn't have that idea until literally right now as I'm talking to you.

So like, shit, that would have worked, you know, then fuck, God damn it, but that would have been good.

That would have been good because everyone would have understood like she's she's so protective and that would have reinforced what happened on top.

Yes, I'm I'm really going to be pissed off at myself.

No, no, no, it really it hits home that that mother is protecting, right?

And also I think that was the moment that connected all kind of all the men for me in the movie because I was wondering, OK, are we getting these separate paths of these characters?

And then I started to go back and think about Keith's choices and even more so about Keith, you know, in the basement with her, like physically blocking her and all those things that connected the men.

So I thought it worked out.

Yeah.

If all the.

Women died.

It would be a little bit confusing.

I'll let myself off the hook now.

The water tower, This is an interesting 1.

So in the script that that final, you know, the Danuma takes place in a church, in an abandoned church at the end of the block.

And I was really excited about this, like, you know, this A-frame roof that they could kind of scale up.

And then the mothers coming up this a frame name and he grabs Tess and he throws her down.

So the mother has to, you know, about face and leap off the roof of this church.

And it was going to be a little bit like of a less of a drop, not a severe.

And I was really hung up on that.

But the problem is the field that we shot this in Bulgaria.

I don't know if you knew we shot in Bulgaria.

There was a water tower at the end of the block.

And I, and I was talking to my art director, like, maybe we build the church, you know, in front of the water tower and then we're going to see the stupid water tower.

Maybe we CGI out the water tower.

And my DP was like, why don't we just like change it to a water tower?

It already had the staircase and everything.

And I was like, Oh, that's great.

So, so it's a water tower because it was there is, is the answer.

But I'm so glad because that staircase is like, that was the real water tower.

It was harrowing going up that thing and it was, it was perfect.

So, so that and it had a domed roof.

And so it was just like, this is great.

So that's what that is.

It was an incredible set.

I mean, you guys did an incredible job.

We want to do something really wild this is.

It has nothing to do with the deeper meaning of anything.

But we couldn't film the sequence on top of the water tower actually on top, because it's too dangerous.

So it's like very high up, and it's terrifying.

So we recreated the top of the water tower on a sound stage, and we wrapped a black curtain in a huge semicircle around the water tower.

We put lights on the other side of the curtain and then we just punched little holes in the curtain to be the city skyline because we didn't have the money to like CGI or green screen or anything.

And the, the camera depth of field is just perfect enough that it, they're out of focus and it looks, it's all practical.

So it looks like the city and you, as you, the camera moves, it tracks perfectly because it's real.

And so like that was a, a really my, I take no credit.

That was my DP, but I thought that was an ingenious way to kind of circumnavigate the the real no.

That's incredible.

You can't even tell.

Yeah.

As you were saying that, I was wondering if when you're going up the stairs if it.

Was stairs that's that's.

Real when they're all the stuff.

On top, so as soon as like you know, they're on, they're they're at the top of the stairs.

That's all fake.

Right.

OK, that's incredible.

The only other, the only other question I had in terms of a theme or maybe not as much of A theme, but like the intentionality of it all, was there any at any point during the script writing process?

Because we talked about this on our last podcast and this is not us, by the way, saying what would be a better movie.

We said in the pod that we just have IP head and like franchise.

I love it, I love it.

Because of because of Marvel, because of it, but just because of the IP of it all.

And there was a moment in which, you know, AJ like finds the string, the bell, and then there's, you know, these different, you know, directions he can take.

And I turned to Kelson.

We were both talked for a second, like, because it felt so much like a Get out movie for us.

I was like, is this going to be like us?

Like is this is?

Are there going to?

Be like an underground city.

Across all these like all this economic segregation has led to all these families hidden like under the like this God the.

Mind.

The mind just expands.

When you and we were we were just stressing out about that the whole time because we were like, we hope not, because that's going to be such a like a crazy like we're we really weren't looking for another, I guess franchise.

So I guess what I'm saying this is just a long compliment of being like, thank you for making such a concentrated like seriously thought out horror movie that doesn't need to like have a prequel, a sequel, you know, part.

Six I've been asked a lot this week about Prequel Sequel.

I'm sure that's been rough.

Yeah.

And I, I, I'm not into, I'm, you know, initially I was like never and, and, and so, and I don't think I would ever direct or write them, but I was, you know, have you read Grendel, a novel?

IA long time ago when I think it's.

Really fantastic.

So I was like, you know, I was, I did have a moment yesterday where I was like, there is something about that.

The structure.

For anyone who doesn't know, Grendel is a book.

And I can't believe I just read it like not long ago and I forget the the author's name and I'm so embarrassed.

But it's a book that like basically is written from the the perspective of the monster in Beowulf and and it's like Grendel lives in a cave with it.

By the way, the the mother is literally just taken from a Beowulf book I had as a child.

It's Grendel's mother.

There's.

We leaked.

We linked the image in our.

Podcast, great.

Just for people to see, yeah.

Yeah, my professor had a tattoo.

I was an English man.

Professor had.

A tattoo of that tattoo.

Will you send me a photo of the tattoo?

I wish I had 10.

Man, I'd love to see that.

Yeah, we can try to find it.

We got you.

OK, but anyway, the idea is, is is, you know, you followed Beowulf from the perspective of Grendel, kind of similar to what I think the Wizard of the Wicked, kind of a vibe.

It's like, you know, so you sympathize with Grendel and and as he kind of comes out every night from his layer and like spies on humanity.

And I was like, that would be the only interesting way to tell the stories.

If you just started with the mother from, you know, maybe it's a prequel as she lives down there.

And what is it like for her to like sneak out at night and spy on people and like, what does she do?

And I don't have a story.

I just think that would be the way in.

I'm not going to do it.

But like, I think I think that's, that's an interesting.

I, I'm curious about it, you know, and then I might have heard me joke on other podcasts or other interviews or things like the sequel would be, it would have to be a pure farce.

You have to be the mother survives her gunshot and has to reintegrate into society, you know, and like attend Community College and get her GED or learner's permit and like go on dates with boys.

And all the while she's having like total freak outs and like mauling people.

I think that that would be fun.

But, you know, I'm not going to make it, but I'd love to watch it.

That would be awesome.

Yeah.

Oh, my God, That's incredible.

I know.

I'm just, I'm just really glad it is.

It is what it is.

It's become like a it's weird to call it.

I feel like it's putting down the movie by saying it's a cult classic, which I know you probably don't care if I said cult classic to a movie you're making.

You're like, that sounds incredible.

But the movie, yeah, box office success, though, I'm sure this week has just been like, I don't know, probably just an incredible experience.

I mean, I think it it led the box office over the weekend.

We joked on the we joked on the podcast that nothing tops Top Gun, but apparently Barbarian is here to do that and like.

Well, Top Gun had had a really long run.

So I don't, I don't.

It's not like this movie.

Top, Top Gun, you know, Top Gun made $700 billion, you know, come on.

Just just take it.

Just take it.

OK.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

So I'm sure like I just I guess our final question before kind of our final final question, which is like more about the extra credits of your own movie.

But what is this week been like after these few years of like riding the script, getting this movie made, I'm sure during COVID production, like just finally seeing it out and now seeing the reviews and seeing the critics love it, fans love it.

The kind of like fandom around it, the different experiences like from people like us to people who are just going to have a thrill ride.

Like what is that?

If you could, you know, put into words, I'm trying to, I'm sorry, putting you on the spot, but.

Like, no, I don't mind.

I don't mind because I wonder that myself and I, yeah, you know, this is, this is the first time for me where I've had this, right.

So, and when I see people who've had this, I, I'm so curious of what that experience must feel like.

And, and I don't know if it's possible for me to give a satisfying answer except to try and be as honest as I can and say that like, there are moments where I want to like spontaneously burst into tears when I, when I like, listen to people, thoughtful, intelligent people like you, like appreciate the movie.

There's moments where I feel totally numb.

There's a lot of pressure.

Not now I'm got a lot of pressure on what will be next and can I write something this good again?

And I don't know if I can or not, you know, I don't know.

There's moments of, like I said earlier today, I was like, I, I'm allowing myself to really indulge in my narcissism.

So I'm reading all these things and I'm watching these videos.

I'm, I'm looking at Twitter and it feels good and I get a little dopamine hit every time somebody says something nice.

And it's, you know, what's bizarre is that like the more I kind of obsess or feed on that stuff, the lower the dopamine hit becomes, you know, and that's a sad realization when it's like, oh, this isn't like a, this isn't like a life transforming.

Now I'm happy every forever sort of a situation.

You know, I think a lot of people have this fantasy that if something, if one thing were to change in their life or they get, they get this one thing that they'll be happy.

Yeah, and life doesn't work that way, you know?

You know, we only really have the present moment.

And so as much as all of this is a blast, I'm still just I'm still sitting in my same clothes in my same chair in the same garage that I've had, you know, the whole time.

And this is such a joy to talk to you guys.

But as soon as this is over, I'm going to click stop.

And then my house will be quiet.

My wife's in there.

And like, we'll talk about where to get food tonight and like, nothing is going to happen, you know?

And that's, that's a good thing.

Like, that's what it should be like.

It would be really like not good for me as a human if like I was going to have a limo waiting outside and I was going to get sucked off to a party with, you know, Brad Pitt and all these famous people and like, I would never be bored again and I would never be lonely again.

Like I will all of that is waiting for me.

So I try and stay aware that like you guys want to talk to me this week and in two weeks, like no one's going to want to do this.

So like I'm going to bask and lap this up now, but but you know, the ride will come to an end.

So I have to, I have to keep that with me.

I hope that was not a very pretentious whatever.

You asked the question, that's the answer, no?

No, if anything that was the most humble answer.

You can I I was really saying it from an authentic, like artistic perspective, like I I'm really not that like now you're like it.

It's not really a question out of fame and sure like you've already had had such an interesting career that's had success like and in different moments from Miss Marsh.

But this is very different.

On YouTube but this is quite different and like the validation I think is like it feels great.

Because you don't know, like, you know, when you make a movie, you never know if it's good.

You know, I've made a movie before that was really bad that I was raked over the coals and I was embarrassed and it was loud and it was a really hard experience for me and I was gun shy that that could be the case again, you know.

And so, yeah, there's there's a lot of anxiety about the, you know, when you're going to let go of the bike and let your kid, you know, go down the hill, which is kind of how it feels to like release a movie.

And and it feels great that like, you know, people like this and, and I don't know what else to say.

It feels great.

It's very it's very heart warming.

OK, so before we're done, let me let's talk about what the movie really actually means to me and this.

Is incredible.

OK.

All right.

Here we go and this is going to be a big let down.

And I don't think I, again, I don't know how aware I was of this as I was writing it, but this is certainly, this is certainly true that this is what it is about.

It's about sobriety.

I'm an alcoholic.

I grew up in an alcoholic household.

Addiction is something that I've I've, you know, very familiar with.

I'm seven years sober, I don't mind saying.

And the process of getting sober is an intolerable one unless you are able to confront your shit and like pay attention to like where you're fucked up, what you're doing wrong, like what what habits inside of you are like toxic.

And So what that looks like is, is a deep, you know, in recovery, they talk about a moral inventory.

You know, you have to like looks, do a scathing search of yourself and and confront you.

And so that is what these characters are doing that that the catacombs under the house and the, the, the demons that are lurking there are, you know, uniquely crafted.

Tessa's demon is the mother, a JS demon is Frank.

They must confront themselves.

You know, like all of the things that we're talking about, the toxic masculinity is all just part of the the anatomy of the same thing.

Like Tessa must, she must liberate herself from being a doormat, right?

That's her journey.

So to me, she has to go down, find the most vulnerable, toxic, whatever damaged part of her.

And like, face it, if you don't do that, you can't, you can't be a clean person.

And I mean that like in terms of inebriation and just like your soul, AJ must do it too.

He fails, you know, he, he, he certainly is like for the first time, maybe becomes aware of his his shit, but he ultimately doesn't take responsibility for it.

And so to me, it's about that process of like, yeah, I'll just leave it there.

It's about that process.

And and that's that's it's just a metaphor for that.

No, I think that I mean that's speaks to me.

I mean, that's, I feel like that's going to speak to a lot of people who are listening well.

I don't think anyone will will get that from watching the movie.

You know?

Nobody's going to listen to me like it's that surprising.

Well, I guess it kind of makes sense.

We're we, we can the movies, it feels it's like it's asking for conversation.

So I guess that that does make sense.

And we actually had Philip Barantini, who's the director of Boiling Point from a few years ago on, and he actually is dealing with very similar experience.

He wrote that film in that time of his life and it was kind of like a therapeutic experience for him of exploring a lot of different things.

And yeah, that's incredible.

And yeah, I mean, it's just, it's just what's most incredible about this interview.

And again, thank you for coming on.

This conversation is I think what an interesting mind you have.

Like everything, everything that's coming from the subconscious onto the screen and everything that you've gone through, it feels like it's a it's a a gift for everyone else in an odd way.

We get to, we get to just explore like.

Everything that you've investigated in your own life and you've put on screen and like, thank you for doing that because it really, even though this is a horror movie, it's not something that's like necessarily sentimental.

I swear people who are listening haven't seen this more than the first time or you need to go see it a second time and more because by the end of this movie, like I'm emotional, like you can feel, you can feel the amount of motion poured into this movie.

And that is very rare and a genre like this, you rarely find something like that.

So it has turned into an incredible movie and experience for us.

So thank you for that.

It means it means more than you know to hear you say that.

So I, I, I thank you for saying that.

I really appreciate it.

Yeah.

OK, guys, what a great podcast you have.

I, I, I wasn't aware of you until, you know, my own narcissism led me to you.

But believe me, I will be listening in the future.

And if there's ever a movie that you you'd like to discuss that you wouldn't mind having having another another, you know, whatever voice on I, I would be more than happy to dissect some some other movie sometime.

It's so fun to do this.

So yes, it is so.

So keep me in mind.

We've a few fun ideas for you now that you've said that, now we're excited.

Yeah, think of me.

Think of me as friend of the pod Zach Kregor and.

And I would love to, I'd love to keep going and.

Last question and I'll let you go eat dinner with your wife.

Congratulations to your wife, by the way, with blonde coming out we're.

By the way, can I just.

I saw Blonde last night at the premiere.

It's insane.

Yeah.

It is so insane.

There were, I'm not going to lie, there were moments where I was like, I don't know if I like this or not.

Like there were frequently throughout the movie I was like, I think this is like.

And then there were moments I was like, this might be the most brilliant, beautiful thing I've I've ever watched.

I mean it is massive, I don't think it would even be appropriate to have an opinion unless I've watched it a few more times and really like thought about it a lot more.

But it is worth the watch.

It's crazy he does shit in that movie that is mind blowing.

He tends to do that.

He does.

I can't.

I can't wait.

Okay, seriously, last thing, the last thing we ask any director, writer comes on the show is because the the podcast is about the extra credits.

We're trying to find the extra credits of every film or television show were were coming on and watching and front trying to find meaning and everything that we're talking about.

What is a film or show that you believe that you've seen deserves extra credit?

And I know I'm putting you on the spot, so I'll just give you a few examples of some other people who've come on.

Tom Sturton from All My Friends Hate Me, which Georgina Campbell actually stars in also.

That was a good movie.

Yeah, a great social like, anxiety inducing thriller.

He talked about 1971's Wake and Fright.

He loved that movie.

That I can't can't handle that movie, man.

Yeah, well, it makes.

Sense I can't handle the the, the the kangaroo stuff.

It's too much for me.

I, I was like really, and it's a good movie, but I, I that that was like about more than I could take.

Yes, and it makes sense that he Co wrote All my friends Hate me because of that anxiety.

Helena Rain from Bodies talked about the piano teacher and she really masterpiece psychological thrillers.

Yes, it is.

Yeah.

So those are the kind of, you know, I mean, I think Philip Barantini talked about a few movies, but he loves Uncut Gems, even a famous movie like Uncut Gems.

He just was saying that more people should praise that movie for what it is.

Do you have anything that comes to mind that maybe isn't that doesn't have to be your favorite movie, which is a common question people get asked, but just something that you think more people should go see that maybe we haven't even, you know, checked out yet.

It's really helpful to ask people like you.

Well, OK, I always plug St.

Maude, so that's just my knee jerk thing is to say.

St.

Maude, have you seen that?

We haven't, but we heard you bring it up and.

So check that out I.

Put it on the watch.

List.

It might not be as complex as some of the other movies you've discussed, but it's still a masterpiece.

So I think that, and I also talk about audition all the time, so that's always on the tip of my tongue.

But that is a movie that demands analysis.

There is a fertile conversation that's fertile ground for conversation.

That movie, have you seen that?

No.

You've not seen Takashi Mikke's audition?

No, that's what that's why when you said.

That's, that's your homework, man, That, that is.

And you'll see, you'll watch auditions like, oh, Barbarian is just like, it's just, it's just like I'm just doing audition stuff.

You'll you?

Yeah.

Japanese horror, is that what it is?

Yeah, Takashi Mikke.

It's J It's 1999 Japanese movie.

Wow.

Masterpiece.

It's it's it will shock you, boy.

OK, so in that vein also Takashi Miki made a film called Visitor Queue, which is not for the faint of heart, but it is a movie that demands reckoning in a in a way.

So I would love to hear what you guys think about that.

But also, I think have you seen it just came out.

In fact, I think it's having a United States theatrical release now.

It's called Speak No Evil.

It's a Danish film that just came out this year.

It just came out recently.

We have not seen it yet.

I don't think we've had access to see it yet.

Now I'm not going to talk too much about it except to say the first two acts of Speak No Evil are like utter perfection.

It is tense.

It is it's hilarious.

It is like masterful.

The third act I have issues with, but I would love to know what you guys think.

And it's it's also clearly an allegorical film, but like I think I think it falls short in some areas.

I think the season others, but it's it's really worth talking about.

So so I'd put that one on the list for sure.

It's great.

OK, great.

Thank you for all that.

Was more than you asked for.

But no, I'm sure listeners will appreciate that.

Like, I think again, a lot of people love this movie and I think a lot of people are hoping to pick your brain a little bit.

So thank you for letting.

Do you think your listeners are going to be like, are you guys fucking doing a third episode of Barbarian?

Are you fucking out of your minds?

Just so you know, this is the only movie in which we've ever had a third episode for.

We talked about it.

We talked about.

It that's probably the only movie.

We're the director.

He grew up and was like, let me talk about my shit.

No, people seem to be you know, it's interesting we when we say unpack the meeting, it seems like most directors are tired of the same old question.

So they do tend to like the themes.

But you've been more than gracious with your time, so we appreciate all the time you've.

Been I know guys, it's such a joy because you're right.

Like most of the, the talking I do about the movie are like answering the same questions.

And I obviously I understand why I get them, you know?

So comedy, comedy to heart.

Talk about that.

How'd you get this made?

What's the idea come from, you know, like, blah, blah, blah.

So to be able to come and like have an actual conversation that like I don't have rehearsed answers is like a blast.

So, yeah, yes.

Well, thank you so much.

Yeah, thank.

You my pleasure guys, really my pleasure.

Thank you and do keep me in mind.

I'd love to, you know, I don't want to invite myself onto your thing, but if you know, I just want you to know that if you ever want to talk about a movie with me, I would.

I would be so happy.