Music.

Hello, welcome to the extra credits of Zach Kreger's Weapons.

I'm Trey.

And I'm Kelsey.

So back in 2022, Barbarian surprised everyone.

We loved it.

We covered it in multiple episodes and as a surprise to us, Zach was listening and he asked to come on the show.

We loved having him and he talked for over an hour about his influences, the movie, his idea is intentional or in his subconscious.

We just put that episode back on the main feed.

So for new listeners or listeners, you can check that out.

It was a really fun discussion.

Yeah, it was really fun.

I think also Zach is someone who, you know, barbarian just kind of like blew up.

And so we talked to him about his experience, you know, making the movie and what it felt like to have his first, you know, major feature that that he made just really stick in this genre.

And because of that, I think he was like so open to talking about his experiences, his influences.

And that episode was just like so fun in terms of our past conversations with directors because or creators because he's like just a horror fan who has like very, you know, like earnest creative intentions and is open to just like talking.

You know, there's like not this pretentious vibe or anything like that.

It's just really like about the the work that he is doing and he he's like excited to talk about it with people and that was so refreshing.

Yeah, I don't.

I haven't listened to it since it came out when I edited it.

Back in 2020.

2 But I do know people love that episode.

That was the beginning of our podcast.

I know a lot of people have reached out listeners and said like, this is when I started listening to you.

Like I, you know, I really found your podcast, loved your podcast because of of this conversation and started listening to more.

So that's really cool.

But you know, that is also the beginnings of our podcast and so I don't go back to listen.

Well, we did an almost 2 hour deep dive on the movie and that's what Zach listened to.

He listened to our non spoiler review and our spoiler review.

He reached out and was like, I have a lot to say about this conversation and I was like all right, great.

He basically takes over the what was supposed to be an interview and he basically interviews us for an.

Hour, which is really fun well because he was like I have like, you know I have things to add there's some things that I felt like you guys like picked up other things that I did not intend but like let's talk about them and he's just obviously such a funny guy like his background is in comedy and it's something I appreciate so much about like, you know his work.

We'll talk about that about barbarian a little bit in comparison, especially to weapons.

Even though he didn't make it as like a horror comedy, there are things that just come out that are like especially get this like elevated magical space of having a well, I, I'm sorry, I won't.

There's an absurdity.

I won't go into spoilers, yeah, but but yeah, so that that aspect of it, it's just really fun to to talk with him about.

If you want to hear the deep dive that led Zach wanting to talk to us, we just put that on Patreon for free members.

So if you go in the description of this episode, you can sign up as a free member, hear our Barbarian deep dive and then go over to the main feed and listen to that Craigor conversation.

Now we just rewatched Barbarian this morning.

It's only three years old, but I just want to say it's time for a rewatch for listeners if.

You haven't seen it in a while.

It really holds up.

It's visual style is really unique, it's humor is incredible.

It's ideas are there or not there.

I think that's a part of the conversation of like the Cracker experience, which is that he focuses so much on trying to get an audience to just like, I don't know, kind of like sink into their subjectivity and how they're experiencing a film and how they're, you know, reacting to a piece of art and lets them map onto a movie, which I think is a skill set in its own right.

And I think we're in a wave of, you know, elevated horror that has been going on for 10 or so years.

And I know that's a controversial term.

I don't really give a shit.

I think it's like also a necessary term because we are a part of the generation that grew up with shitty horror.

Movies.

And through the 2000s, that were like gore.

Yeah, it was essentially torture porn, right?

Like it was Saw movies and the the dilemma was essentially almost like superhero movies and except way more watered down.

And just like, let's see, someone saw their own arm off like and and also like hostile, you know, drove.

Through a stop sign, get ready to saw your ankle.

And I know there are like interesting takes like even with with hostile about like capitalism or, you know, like looking at like conjuring and.

Final destination.

Session films, yeah, like, obviously there's a lot to say about that genre, but in terms of like the actual experience watching it, I do think that it takes a lot more work to really map on those ideas and the the experience in itself isn't really enjoyable.

Like, you're not like I'm participating in something.

It doesn't feel like there's totally a mystery.

It feels like at the forefront what people are thinking about is like shocking people through violence.

And that becomes very like boring so.

And then it got franchised, you know, and then diluted because the first movie of all those franchises that we just noted are usually really fun.

Like the first soft film is actually pretty interesting.

Everything after that is like kind of a joke.

No offense to like super soft fans, but my point that I was getting to is that elevated horror or social horrors or whatever you want to call them, very like socially conscious horror films that are self referential or postmodern, whatever pretentious, you know, phrasing or of words you want to throw on to that genre.

I think started with obviously Wes Craven's Scream, kind of took a break for 10 or 15 years, and then we got our own version of that in terms of like referencing different eras of horror movies and also being very contemporary with Jordan Peele's Get Out in 2017.

That movie kind of broke the industry in a lot of fun ways.

Probably the most famous horror film since Silence of the Lambs.

Yeah, I mean, it revitalized a a huge like, general audience to to want to like go see horror again and just like talk about horror in an interesting way.

Besides, just like, did you see this?

It was gruesome.

Let me leave it here.

Yeah, we've been very, I think, upfront, transparent about this.

We love Jordan Peele, we love Ari Astor, we love Robert Eggers.

Those three people kind of reignited the horror genre, especially in the indie space or low budget space at the very least, and they all have their own interest.

You can go back and listen to all those episodes for free members on Patreon.

We did an episode in Hereditary with James.

One of our favorite.

Guests and we get into all of those film makers and how they're all different.

Well, how there's also a through line between them in an interesting way.

But yeah, we're in a really cool wave of just like otors who have this like unapologetic style and have all these horror references that they nod to in their films for the real heads like us, which is really exciting.

Other directors are like Rose Glass, Alex Garland, NIA Dacosta, some up and coming directors that you know, I'm forgetting right now in the moment.

But there's a lot of great names, and I think Zack Rigor just.

In this space.

With weapons like regardless if you love it or not.

Exactly.

Yeah, I think like Barbarian, you know, was a like smash hit and I think it deserves deservedly so.

But weapons like regardless, if you're someone who is out on it because of the heightened, almost supernatural, absurd elements of it, and that's just not your type of horror.

It's like undeniable that the way that he's able to capture this, the story and his visual language, his vision for it, which we'll talk about today in our relationship to the movie.

But it is undeniable and definitely just cements him in this this new wave.

OK, so we're almost 10 minutes in.

Important to note this at the top here, We actually stayed in touch with Zach after we did that episode 3 years ago and before Weapons was even shot, he asked if we wanted to check out the script, which was a really cool privilege, a really awesome experience.

We read that in literally like 2 hours and had a lot of reactions that we sent back over to him about how exciting of a project it was, how it was, you know, so cool that he was playing with multiple genres.

It was multi toned.

He was bringing back like Stephen King energy and had all these reference points that, you know, that I wanted to like point out as my own like pretentious horror fan than I am.

And you know, I'm saying that to say that we are a little bit closer to this one, you know, and, and as far as like all the reviews we do of mainstream movies, but we can still be critical, you know, as we all, as we kind of always are in all of our movie episodes.

Like we I think sinners is a really good example of this, as Ryan Coogler is one of the our favorite film makers of the last decade.

And that was a movie that we were like, love this, this didn't totally work.

Then I love this.

And then this didn't totally work.

And that was a that was an episode that was really like conflicting because we were kept going back and forth, you know, and some listeners hated that and some loved it.

We had a lot of people reach out about sinners actually being like.

I totally disagreed with all of your takes on this, but I loved how.

At least we were having a conversation, yeah, that of about how we felt.

Yeah, and authentic it was, and I think we'll have a similar conversation today.

The thing I want to know about the screenplay and a kind of all I'll say about the screenplay is how wild that this movie is essentially a shot for shot realization of that screenplay.

The same tone, the same weirdness, same dialogue, same kind of like funny banter, every joke you think Josh Brolin did kind of in the moment on set with something that Zach wrote in the screenplay, the same iconography, You know, the.

I don't want to spoil it, but there's a very important stick in this movie, a very important bell like, all that kind of horror iconography that's very important to like, yeah, I think fans of Carpenter, fans of Hitchcock, whatever.

De Palma, he had that, you know, written down years in advance and we thought while reading it years ago now, how the hell is he going to pull this off?

Is it possible?

Like this is so strange and it's also it's similar to Barbarian and how it jumps in timeline stuff.

And we'll get to spoilers in a second, but what I will know is like how Barbarian was a little bit more on the forefront with its dilemmas, a little bit more on the forefront with its ideas.

And certainly this movie is about like, missing children, if you've seen the trailer.

But I think the ideas are mostly in the atmosphere in the periphery of weapons, which is an interesting pivot for him as somebody who is both trying to capitalize on the elevated horror genre without being pretentious about being so straightforward and transparent about all these massive, thematically dense ideas he wants to have in a movie.

Yeah, I mean, I would say Weapons is is a different movie, right.

And yeah, I definitely when we read it, we were like, this is really cool.

But it it feels similar to maybe like how someone if they read, you know, a screenplay of it would be like, how is this going to be captured on screen?

Like what is the budget that's needed, right, to do this?

Because there are some supernatural like, you know, elements to this.

So I think that was like definitely the biggest question.

And he he obviously like pulled it off, which was really cool to see.

But it is, it is important to note just because you know, it's it's the same experience people have of like maybe you've read a book or something, right.

And go to see the movie.

So, yeah, I was mostly excited like when we saw this just to to see the the trailer, which was awesome.

And then also to see like how he captured this.

And you're right, like it is really cool that this like brand new filmmaker in the the horror space, like on the scene was able to stick so closely to his script.

Yeah, I mean, like I said, it just, it really surprised me.

I didn't see that.

I just couldn't really see it.

And I don't mean that to sound like a diss.

It just means that I'm not a film maker, you know?

What I mean so like I couldn't.

I was like, how does he do this sonically, visually, cinematically?

Like I don't really see how he's going to do certain things in here.

And again, we'll touch on a specific examples in a second, but what I think was really compelling about this movie is very similar to barbarian is that both barbarian and now weapons Craiger has carved out this odd compelling space where psychological character dramas can live and unfold inside Grimm kind of fairy tale meet Stephen King styled world.

And that's why I think we've just brought up Jordan Peele because he feels like a natural comparison.

You also know that they're, I think, you know, I don't know, let's say peers, maybe friends, offset.

And so they also have interestingly similar careers like Jordan Peele, obviously the much more famous kind of comedy sketch artist, but Gregor also what kind of a sketch comedy artist himself?

Both have an uncanny feel from the rhythm of a joke and the rhythm of a scare and the crossover between the two.

And both draw from Carpenter Hitchcock and the iconographic storytelling that I was just talking about and watch Jordan Peele's Us, I think is an interesting double feature with weapons.

I recommend that to everyone.

Maybe Midsummer US and weapons as a triple feature.

That would be dope.

Yeah, I know.

I mean, obviously like Jordan Peele is huge, but I do think that US is like underrated in a way, which we we discussed in our what was it like one of our longest Patreon episodes that we did?

Yeah, but I think people dismissed it similar to maybe the the reasons people might be distanced from weapons in that it has certain like heightened elements that you have to buy into.

But but definitely that's a great comparison cause US is so successful.

Yeah, And I think, you know, to give Craigor his credit in terms of how he's a unique storyteller, he balances these, like, contrasting vibes in his work.

His movies feel lean and personal with real grounded dilemmas, but also have these like, meticulous, not quite Fincher, but not not Fincher or like Shyamalan structures or designs that are very specific.

And he is singular in this space because of those skill sets, but also because he's able to do this thing where he can shift perspectives on relatable dilemmas seamless, seamlessly.

And he's done that twice in three years via the same setting, basically a suburban nightmare.

He has a double booked Airbnb and barbarian.

He's got missing children and weapons stuck in these suburbias, and you're just waiting for the shoe to drop.

And he has a gift for warping the seemingly straightforward thrillers into supernatural horrors in ways that are kind of like crazily entertaining and deeply weird and refreshingly original.

So he's just very special as a film maker.

Yeah, I totally agree.

And I think, you know, actually I'm realizing something about his work that I love because my other, you know, sub genre or genre of movies with horror is thrillers.

And he has like in the Tess and Keith situation or just following, you know, different time jumps in barbarian, a detective aspect of, you know, this this world.

And then there's also that in Justine's character and weapons, and it feels like you're in this earnest, like trusted place of trying to figure out like what was going to happen.

Although I know that you said when we were watching Barbarian last night that you're like, when we first saw this, I thought just because of how it was marketed so much that test was going into this Airbnb and we see we see Skarsgard that maybe she might be like the killer, right?

Like.

There's a lot of rug pools happening in that.

Movie yeah because you're like because what because if this is the premise what's the other thing going to be and so like there's this kind of like detective aspect of it but which feels grounded and.

And again, like operating in this suburban commentary, but then he he does something where it's like, let's add this supernatural aspect, which turns into like a mystery and it's both horrifying and like, comedic at times.

And that tension is something that he plays in so well and feels very unique.

Yeah, I mean, it's just an undeniably strange tone and a darkly funny tone and deeply fucked up.

And somehow I think I think Weapons to me is subtly emotional and how it threads its themes of loss and grief and who weaponizes grief and loss and why and compartmentalizing different issues in your life and finding coping mechanisms that might be dangerous to you or others.

And he's just really interested in that in Barbarian.

He double s down on that here in Weapons.

However, in saying that, and I do think there is like an emotional depth here in this movie, even though some critics disagree.

I think there are a few things keeping me from totally connecting with the movie that we're going to get into.

And I think some of that is the movie's non linear structure, which I liked on paper, I think more than I liked in the movie, if that makes sense.

And as it wasn't like totally cinematically effective for me.

And it could have been the chemistry between characters and the dialogue.

It could have been chemistry between actors.

It could have been repetition and seeing, you know, different scenes but from different perspectives without much pay off in my opinion.

In some cases maybe except for the Alex character who I don't want to touch on right now.

Yeah, I think I agree with like the repetition in certain cases, which obviously going into the movie in a second.

But there were some moments where I was thinking, OK, this is like really interesting.

And I was thinking about people's experience in the theater who, you know, didn't know what was going to happen that that kind of either like revealed something to us, like the Brolin character and Alex especially.

But I think there are other cases where it was interesting because I felt like there were people who I loved in terms of casting.

And then there were those moments that you were just talking about that I think the chemistry was off in moments where it really needed it.

And so that, yeah, that was also like interesting in terms of the way the the story was framed and and how it relies on the actors to have a certain relationship.

Right?

That is that the movies like clinging to.

To go to the suspense and mystery point of this, I think it's also important to note that we had just like a unique experience with this movie.

We already talked about how we read the screenplay, but I think I'm going to try to reflect on that throughout this review or conversation.

In as far as the fact that because we already knew what was going to happen in the movie, as we walked into the movie and we had already talked to Zach, our connection to the material was kind of like inherently undercutting the suspense throughout the movie.

So like the rhythm and release of the horror elements that are supposed to be present on like opening night of horror film before you've had it spoiled for you on Twitter or whatever.

You know, that wasn't there for us, you know, because we'd already we already knew what was going to happen scene to scene.

And it really is truly like a page to screen, you know, version, you know, and it truly is just like the screenplay come alive.

Yeah, so it's hard to like essentially, you know, put yourself in the position of a big reveal.

Yeah, right.

I think though, we can we can talk about though, like the first time we interacted right with the story, how we were like, whoa, whoa, OK.

But like, you know, in, in in terms of seeing it, I was more so interested.

In like how this was going to be visualized because I knew Zach had like a very specific vision.

And, and again, like I'm so successful in terms of how he was able to capture this story.

But but yeah, like I really it's, it's impossible to say like, oh, here's what I would have experienced if I knew nothing.

Yeah, so some people who loved this right away, and I might one day, I don't know, maybe I've only seen him once and we just saw it last night, right?

Yeah.

So it's very fresh in our memory.

I would like you to think if you had the screenplay to Barbarian before you saw Barbarian and knew what was going to happen in that movie, I don't think your experience would be the same right away.

It would take you probably a few re watches and just like conversations of people to like really appreciate it because a lot of the power of crackers films come from their unpredictability.

They are usually like one location rug pulls descending you into basement, you know what I mean?

Like and toxic masculinity and Barbarian in a time jumping gentrified Detroit Airbnb.

If we hadn't ever known like a hint of that story in spoiler alert for Barbarian of watching Skarsgard's head get bashed into a wall.

Cut to a dark screen, then cut to Justin Long singing in his car.

If that was on paper and we read that before watching that movie, I don't know if we would have had that same amazing kind of communal theater experience that was electric, you know?

So I just want listeners to know that if you walked away being like, how did Trey Kelsey not immediately love everything about this movie?

They're cracker heads.

They love Barbarian.

So just to kind of put that.

At the top there.

Well, I will say also though, I think that in terms of like the like, I think barbarian and weapons are different movies and I think now we can probably like go into spoilers in spoiler.

Alert.

Yeah.

OK, so we'll go into spoilers because I think that Barbarian is more in line with what I love in other horror movies that are like up there for me, right?

Like I like grounded dramas.

I like people talking in rooms.

I think one of the the most successful parts of Barbarian is the really like relatable horror of this Airbnb double booked conceit of Tess and Keith talking.

Is Keith going to kill her?

Is he this like, you know, he has these like benevolent sexist tendencies like, oh, no, not up for a discussion.

You know, like I was raised, yeah, to not let women lift a finger kind of that that idea, right.

So like, but you know, so he's like doing all these different signals like.

A ghost.

Yeah, and he's also like Pennywise, so.

You.

Know so you know there's all like that aspect of it I love I also love like the the time jumps and barbarian and everything feels a little bit more grounded again and it's like serial killer vein detective vein of us understanding what's happening in a grounded sense that ends up being supernatural as well.

But that's like a kind of a added on aspect of the story in a grounded story where weapons, I think, you know, the the central tension is that these kids were like hypnotized in a way, right and tranced by a witch to kind of Hocus Pocus style, right, to come to her house.

So that way she can be more youthful, right.

And so like that is a far more supernatural leaning horror movie.

And so, like, while I think that I'll I'll probably re watch it and the and the first time I read it, I was like, I really like this, but because of the the like sub genre of horror that it is, I never, I don't think I'll like ever really end up being like this is an all timer for me, because that's just not the sub genre of horror that I love.

I really like it, for example, which is like AI think a huge probably compliment to be comparing this to to a Stephen King movie, which I think he's like playing in that that realm, like truly.

But if I were to say like, yeah, I respect it, but I don't love it.

It's the same thing that I'm having towards weapons, if that makes sense.

Totally, And I think one of the reasons that I was surprised that you were connecting with Barbarian is that at the time in the marketing, a lot of people are calling it like after had come out like a creature feature, a monster movie.

And then actually Barbarian is iconic because it's averts monster creature feature tropes.

And actually, the monsters in the movie are like this spectrum of men that you meet who are manipulative or gaslighters or serial, I don't know, assaulters, right?

So like, yeah, they're those people are really the people with issues.

And everything else is just kind of a part of the larger, like, elevated horror movie that Tiger was making.

But yeah, weapons.

Spoiler alert.

Everything you mentioned about the witch I don't think is in the trailer.

So that must have been a huge surprise for people.

I mean, there were in the trailer, there were aspects of like the potion making.

I think maybe there was a there was the bell sound, at least I think so too.

Possibly a snap.

Yeah, there was like a quick image of her.

But I don't think anyone was going into this movie.

They're like, where did the kids go?

But I I don't think they were thinking like, oh, it's going to be a witch.

And like not only a witch, but a kind of like very specifically rendered, which that felt like this kind of eerie.

Have you ever seen HR Pup and stuff like very in that line?

That was a horror movie for me growing up, let me tell you.

But But yeah, like in that line of just like an elevator witch, like it wasn't like a a scary grounded gothic horror witch.

Does that make sense you?

Remind me of who's the character, who's like children children.

Oh yes, and Chitty Bang Bang.

It's the child snatcher, Another Yeah, really like seared in my brain horror person.

We're of course talking about Amy Madigan's character in this movie as Gladys Lily, who is Alexis great aunt or is she?

And she is a witch who basically is the kind of mystery of the movie.

You're wondering what happened to these kids.

We get multiple storylines shifting PO VS throughout the film, different chapters.

Reminded me a lot of Nope and how it's structured too.

And we see this whole American suburb about what I think is Pennsylvania upended and you have children doing Naruto running from their.

Houses.

Recorded on Ring cameras, which I thought was really clever.

And the marketing called it Magnolia, by the way of essentially like a Stephen King like fairy tale basically.

And that's definitely felt in the structure and in the tone, where he's weaving mystery and dark comedy and family drama and this kind of warped fable of twenty 20s Americana and American suburbia with a pretty fun cast that over the past few years has been cast and then recasted.

I've noticed 'cause I think Pedro Pascal was eventually.

Yeah, there was a lot of different things.

This is a really exciting, I think movie to follow in the news, like from the bidding war we're.

Not we're not a rensfee at one point.

Yeah, but there was, there was a lot of different recasting.

Yeah, I was trying to look real quick.

Yeah, the movie was 38 million.

We're not a Rensfee, Brian.

Tyree Henry was in this at one point.

Tom Burke, who is in black bag earlier this year.

Wow, Really interesting.

If it was Pedro Pascal this would have been a crazy summer for him.

Maybe he somehow would have fit this like it already was a crazy summer.

Edmonton, Fantastic Four Materialist.

Materialist and this movie that would have been, I mean it already was iconic.

But anyways, OK, So what is weapons about?

It is like what I've been saying, part suburban mystery, part supernatural horror, part kind of like pitch dark comedy, all fragmented together in this wild narrative.

And the story is set in a fictional town, I believe, and the movie opens with a young girl narrating A Midsummer like Fable.

At 2:17 AM, something unthinkable happens, which is a classroom of children, 17 children I believe, out of 18 kids disappear from the same 3rd grade classroom.

They rise out of their beds.

We watch them wander out of the front doors.

They vanish into the darkness.

Except again, for that one kid.

And how did you take that?

How did you take the 2:17 AM when you read it in the script and when you saw it in the movie, How did you take the very specific number of children?

How did you take the way that Craiger plays with like visual imagery in that way or codes or numbers or like he did this in Barbarian too.

I think the year or the number on the House is 476 and which is like the end of the Roman Empire.

And it's like he didn't do that intentionally.

It was like random.

But he he's really good at just like, let me give you a visual that I'm going to let you map onto, project onto, and then all of you will have different interpretations.

It feels like he's fucking with audiences a little little bit, if that makes sense.

Not a malicious way, but sort of experimental in as far as like understanding how audiences are built in this new formula of elevated horror where everything has subtext.

And he's like, actually not.

I mean, that's what I was going to ask you.

Do you think these things have subtext, or are they just in playing with very specific ways that people try to make meaning out of, like loss?

Yeah.

Well, OK.

Well, the, those are like two different things because I think that's the first main question that you're asking is like this, the number of children that go missing, the 217 that we see on the clocks and then later on like the rifle.

I, I think there are some interesting aspects of like thinking about violence and time stopping that.

I'm not sure if that was like intentional and that is really interesting.

But like in terms of like what people normally do with horror movies, is there like what Bible verse is this?

You know, like an, and I haven't looked up like what specific 217 would mean even after all this time.

Like knowing that number I.

Looked back at her e-mail back to him and I did put in the Bible verse and I was embarrassed by reading that back.

I was like, oh God.

So paled by, like, especially like Jordan Peele, you know, you brought up us as like, an interesting comparison to this movie in terms of its, like, elevated premise that you buy into.

Yeah, and supernatural aspects of it.

And like, you know, he includes a Bible verse in that and Peel is like very direct about it.

And I think he like, talks about it also in Nope.

At some point there's like something, right?

So.

So I think like, yeah.

And so I think knowing just how Zach like treated barbarian, I'm not sure what specific meaning like 217 is.

Maybe it does have like a specific meaning and he would probably, you know, talk about how like though he would be interested in how other people would map onto it it.

Could even just be a date.

Yeah.

Or it could be both.

Things you could have a meaning for but also is the looking to for people to map onto it.

Yeah, so, but I do think that I didn't even think about that until you just asked me this question.

But I do think in terms of the idea of loss and violence, this idea of time stopping.

Yeah, that's a good point.

Is a really interesting way to look at it, but I don't really know anything else about like the the number of children.

Did you like look up these these numbers where?

You did you recently originally read the screenplay this time around?

I really especially after that conversation we had with him where he was like talking about David Lynch and like letting audiences come in with all their baggage project onto the movie almost like you would like a really layered painting and be like, this is how I read these, you know, lines that I'm looking at for these different colors that are being blended together.

And I think that he's really interesting in as far as how we have such like allegorical horror film makers today like Gordon Peele, who is so subtextual and so historical and bring such a social nuance lens to his work that I really appreciate and so dense truly, while still just being entertaining like Spielbergy and shit in the summer, which is Nope, which is a five star movie.

And I thought Barbarian was like pretty close to that that year that came out in 2022.

This movie, I think it really is trying to say more like, look at how we're all just like, pitted against one another, just like neighbors trying to turn one another in.

You have how paranoid these Americans are.

You have how paranoid this community is trying to turn public servants into like these like witch hunts, like a teacher witch hunt that's happening in this movie.

And you have people trying to make sense of what you're saying about how time has stopped because of this violence or this loss or this grief.

And they're trying to find meaning and patterns meeting and and numbers.

It's very Zodiac coded, which is a movie I referenced with him.

And I was like, this really reminds me of Jake Gyllenhaal's character in Zodiac.

Just like Robert Gray Smith losing his fucking mind and just finding clues where there are no clues just so we can.

Make sense of this interesting point.

Yeah.

So yeah, Yeah.

And I also think, you know, when we were reading it, you're like, whoa, this feels like gone, baby, gone.

And it's so like just like crazy coincidence like that Zach, you know, ended up casting like the person from God baby gone that that we'll talk about as like the amazing gladdest who I think this movie like really lives or dies on.

And she just does such a good job of being, like, so haunting.

She's bouncing a wild amount of tones.

But I think to go back to your your point, like, I love that idea of thinking about how like people are trying to figure out like what happened and really like this idea of weaponizing grief that you're talking about.

And, and everyone kind of pointing fingers are pointing blame, especially when we get there, the great scenes of like the, the auditorium scene with all the parents right from Justine's class.

And so like, I like those moments.

And I think that's a really interesting like idea of Josh Brolin being like, I'm trying to figure it out.

Like tell me where you are.

Like, I want all these answers.

So I.

Don't understand why.

I don't understand why this is happening.

Yeah.

Exactly.

Yeah.

So like they're they're like kind of two aspects of this because I know a lot of people boil map on like ideas like school shootings for sure, right.

And especially with the the like gun above the house in in the dream right where Jeff Brolin like sees his kid run into this other house especially.

When we learn his kids a bully too.

Yes, so that we'll, we'll definitely get to that 'cause I think it's like great and, and complicates this story in a really interesting way.

But yeah, so I think I think the idea of like these characters searching for an answer, and especially Josh Brolin's character being this like prominent character who feels like he is so like valid and justified and is sure when he actually like is not looking at the situation clearly that that's really interesting.

And he's not like he doesn't have a, an approach of like, let me understand, it's like, let me go into this because I'm so self assured.

And he basically like raises the stakes of the situation and makes everything worse.

But you still like understand where he's coming from to a certain extent.

Kind of like how the the cop is like, yeah, like, you know, the cops are not reporting to you.

That's why you haven't heard about any other searches.

Like, but I'm doing this because I can't imagine what you what I would be going through if I were in your situation.

I think the audience, regardless of like who you can map onto in this contemporary space of like a a Brolin, you can there.

There's a really like smart conceit of like this person just lost his child.

And it also feels like a post suicide metaphor.

So you're also thinking.

About that as like a part of like how to read this and how you would react in the situation.

So that's really.

Yeah.

And then it's like him questioning, you know, or maybe like having the audience put themselves in his shoes to question like, the reality that he once had of like, being this baseball coach to his son and being this great father and his son being this like, you know, great kid who's bullying people at school, You know what I mean?

Like, yeah, ruining Alex's life.

It's.

Making cracks in in his reality, even if he's not explicitly communicating that to the audience.

So that's really smart and interesting.

But I I do love that idea of like of basically like mapping or or clinging on to the wrong thing.

Yes.

As like, what is the 217 mean?

What is all this?

What do all these things mean?

Like in using horror again to like subvert that that idea of like people looking for very specific answers.

And some of these film makers are just really good at putting together conflicting vibes.

Like we have a little girl who we never really meet monologuing at the beginning of this movie, while we have an instantly iconic group of children doing airplane Naruto show running across streets under like this dim lighting.

And then you have all these different camera movements trying to understand, make sense of all these things going into this, like town of Maybrook at this school meeting where you see the center of this, like parental storm is Justine Gandy, a public school teacher, an elementary school teacher from the third grade, played by Julia Garner, who is one of the most like emotionally powerful actors of her generation right now.

One of the great screamers, one of the great criers for fans of Ozark and fans of Ruth, in which we are, you know, she is incredible, those two things.

And she was awesome as Silver Surfer and Fantastic Four as well.

Probably the best part of that movie.

And, you know, we see how she shows up to school, finds her classroom empty.

It's just Alex sitting in the back.

And it's terrifying.

And also, we should say for new listeners, we're both educators.

So, like, we've been pretty vocal about how teachers are just misrepresented in movies.

And unfortunately, like, films because they're commercial art form, like, have a major impact on culture and so can sometimes perpetuate stereotypes about teachers and reduce education.

It's not being important and not to, you know, I guess monologue about this.

But I guess the one of the big beginning, cool like introductory points of the movie is that, oh, this is like a teacher witch hunt.

And then you're wondering, is the teacher of the witch?

Does that make sense?

Like is he subverting that or like what is he doing with this?

And like, if you're again, if you're putting yourself in the shoes of someone who's watching this for the first time.

Right.

Yeah, because you're like, does she maybe know something in in this more detective lane of like a Zodiac movie of looking for these children who have gone missing?

But yeah, no, I think I think definitely, definitely.

Like I obviously agree.

We've talked about this on the podcast a lot, so we won't rehash it in at length here.

But, you know, either making the teacher like a joke or having this approach of like, I pay your salary.

You know, we've we've talked a lot about the different like stereotypes about educators that are like reproduced and perpetuated in media, especially in comedies.

And I thought it was really refreshing to see here like, yeah, that witch hunt around the community and other like just I, I think like people in the community, like besides Josh Brolin and I think he probably represents a lot of other parents who even like maybe don't even share politics, right?

Like their possible sentiments and, and like a lot of the the visual cues, but also other characters being like, she doesn't know anything, like she doesn't know anything and you're going on this witch hunt.

And that that was like an interesting aspect of this that I appreciated.

Yeah, for international listeners, like since Trump's first presidency, it's just been like a a true attack on public education across the nation.

So this is one of the 1st movies I've seen in the United States that's even attempted do represent that.

I'm not saying it's like fully explored in the movie, No, yeah, at least attempts to like present that.

As there's not American contradiction like a contemporary commentary that people can tap into, like when we left our past state, the governor created a tip line to report teachers, you know, teaching certain subjects.

And so like, you know, there, there's obviously like that sort of energy in the Josh Brolin character, right?

Even though it's not like fully, you know, explored in terms of the context of the school, there's still those sentiments among the the parents and kind of the them like chasing her out of the school especially, right?

Yeah.

What do we think about Julia Garner's performance as a conflicted teacher, a conflicted person of this community, a flawed person?

And Zach Craigers like representation or like, I guess his his writing of Garner's character being a little bit volatile in her conversations in the bar with Alden Ehrenreich's cop character.

Because Craiger obviously wanted to write a complex person, man or woman or just person in general in this film.

And I at first was I, I thought, we're going to follow a teacher turned detective.

Because that's kind of how the screenplay reads to me.

She's like a teacher turned investigator, which she still does really, really dope.

She sort of is in this movie.

But maybe I was just too close to the material and just being a teacher myself that I kind of felt like they reduced her to someone who wasn't really seeing straight in all her and she was following the clues.

But just in as far as like following Alex a few times home and thinking something wasn't right there.

But that was basically it.

And I think maybe that's a problem going back to what I said my my original criticism or the non linear structure actually doesn't deepen the characters in ways that I wanted to, especially our main protagonist.

So how did how did you feel about the performance?

In the writing, so I I liked her character because she's kind of like a a more complex character, I guess in terms of like being a little messy like she sleeps with her ex who she doesn't, but I mean to be fair to her, like she was told like incorrect information, right Paul the the cop character says like they're that he and Donna right.

We're on a break.

So she's not like consciously doing it, but we can tell they have like an interesting, I guess, relationship with one another.

But also she is, I think she's a really interesting cast and I like her performance.

But at the same time, like there's a a steeliness that Julia Garner is able to capture in terms of like fuck off energy that she has at like the the gas station with Josh Brolin.

She's like, listen, you think you're going to bother me?

And you're not like you're just being foolish and you're being weird.

Like stop.

Stop approaching me like you are.

Yeah, when he when he lets her flex like that, when Craiger lets Garner flex like that, it's a lot of fun.

Like she told the cashier, like fucking help me.

He's like not helping her.

Is Benedict Wong is chasing her down?

Yeah.

So I think like that all is great, but I, I think that there, there are moments of, of like what you're talking about.

And it's interesting because with Julia Garner, she has this like really interesting steal, right, like tough exterior while still being able to like when she needs to deliver like a really emotional moment, though, you're like, this is a tough person and she's like upset.

And I respect it.

It's it doesn't feel like she's breaking it.

It's like a different thing.

And I, and I think she's so good at that.

And it really works in scenes like the scream sequence at the beginning where she's in her house alone comes home from, you know, all the parents chasing after her.

Sure is basically told by one of the people at the school like, hey, do you have anywhere else to go tonight besides your own house?

And she goes to she goes home, which an amazing home for being a single teacher.

I don't know where they live or the the prices of houses.

Pennsylvania.

Yeah, but but yeah, amazing home and she's watching Shark Tank, which shout out to the guy who came to see the movie Alone, which I think seeing movies alone is awesome, but we were the only two people in the theater to laugh at the Shark Tank sequence when it showed Barbara using little string invention.

And I would love to ask Zach about why specifically he includes Shark Tank here, but.

Specificity is funny, yeah.

But I think it really works because she's saying like, who the fuck is it?

Like stand on business, I'll open the door.

But you just keep disappearing.

You know, like those moments of her being vulnerable but still steely.

It is really successful and you are really invested in her character in those moments.

I think in the other moments where we see her doing the investigation and like talking to Alex, there are moments of like emotionality that because she's playing like, I know I'm not guilty of things the town is accusing me of and I'm just trying to like figure out the situation.

But it seems like there's almost a, in terms of the performance.

You at certain points don't know the the particular emotional investment in the moment.

And I don't want a character to be clear of being like, Oh my God, I'm a teacher who like cares so much about my kids.

I'll like die for my kids and like we don't.

That's not what I'm asking for.

I'm just saying that there are moments where it it's like, it feels like it's serving the plot in terms of her like going outside Alex's house or those those kind of moments.

So yeah, I I think that aspect, as well as the scene between her and Paul, who can you just say his actors.

Alden Ehrenreich, I believe.

I always feel like I mispronounced his name so.

But like they didn't have as much chemistry as I would have wanted.

And I don't know that it's totally her fault as much as like they just didn't mesh for me.

And there were certain moments too, that because I felt like she was this like kind of tough character who had like a fuck off energy and was kind of like level headed.

I didn't love how she like received some of the kind of benevolent sexism of Paul being like, can I tell you something as someone who really knows you?

And then proceeds to say that she like has this woe is me.

I think that is like probably a different commentary in terms of addressing someone who's close to her.

They obviously have a past relationship and him talking to her specifically and maybe her like journey with addiction.

So I but I but unfortunately it comes off in a, in a gendered way as well that I feel like this character would have been like fuck off a little bit.

So, so there are moments like that that just like, I don't think the actor's chemistry was like totally sparking for me as these like ex exes who are now seeing each other again and and they're both in kind of really low points in their lives.

So yeah.

I know the bar scene was the worst scene in the movie.

I thought the chemistry was off, the dialogue didn't feel right, the set design was like felt in a bad way.

Like I just felt like I was in a deleted scene a little bit.

But I know they needed to be introduced to one another or just felt off a little bit.

I'm not sure why, but it's good to hear that you felt similarly because I was in my head about it the whole movie.

Well, I genuinely think it was their chemistry because you know, some of them I for some reason, I'm thinking about Logan Lucky and how that bar scene is so like.

Wait, which bar scene in particular?

Oh, they're, well, you know how they they own a a bar?

Random bar.

Right.

But it feels like they are on a set like, you know, it's like there's, there's.

A comedy to the artifice.

Yeah, which was not like meant to be here, but you know, there's there's also this like emotionality and chemistry that Channing Tatum and Adam Brody have with each other, like the the lovers in the film brothers.

But the But yeah, like there, there's like that, which I know it's a totally different movie I love.

It from you though.

Classic Kelsey.

But I do think that, yeah, I just think the chemistry between the actors was off because, you know, something like that kit could save.

Like I feel like I'm in this setup bar.

I will say, like Zach is really tell bent on this idea of having characters who you sympathize with and are still critical of decisions they make.

And he does that a lot with Alden Ehrenreich's cop figure as he puts like one of the most like universal fears and realizes in the movie, which is like, do you have a needle in your pocket?

Do you no, no, get stabbed by the needle?

And it's like, fuck, this is like worst case scenario.

And then he assaults the guy and then he gets out his shotgun later to do who knows what and unplugs his camera.

And then Zach does something really interesting where he plays into like how you feel bad for this sort of like sympathetic mustache wearing B Tom Selleck, who is recovering from like self medicating and is looking at Julia Garner like she's a mess and kind of having to deal with the the shittiness of being a beat cop, I guess, only to then appear him like, I guess depict him to be sort of like fragile and having way too much power and being violent.

And I think that was like smart contrast in the writing.

He tries to do that.

Julia Garner's character.

I just don't think it works enough because Julia Garner's character is, what's her name, Justine?

Justine is again like going through this like modern day Salem witch trial, which is this attack on public educators being the easiest person to like publicly shame for all of society's issues.

So the fact that she also has all these issues that are messy in her personal life, I think doesn't feel fair to the character because by the end of the movie, she's like this detective and I that that I guess jump with her and Brolin like teaming up was cool.

And I think one of the best parts of the movie, I would say the Brolin Garner team up part of the movie is second most interesting, subtly, whatever to call it, plot, plot of the movie #1 being Austin Abrams and his whole story and arc.

That's by far the most interesting and funniest bit and saddest bit of the movie, I think.

And then I would say Alex and then Gladys saw a lot of conflicted feelings about what's going on over there that we'll get to.

So let's get more into Josh Brolin.

So, Brolin, unless you want to say something else about Julia Garner's character.

No, no.

Yeah, I think we got it all.

OK, Brolin plays Archer, who comes off as like an ex military dad who his son is missing, like all these other parents in this movie.

And he's really great at playing, you know, sad, imposing brutes.

That's like Josh Brolin's thing thinks Sicario and in this movie thinks Sicario.

And he voted Trump and like hates critical race theory or something, right?

Like very 2020, you know, parent of an elementary school student and he has like all this grief and all this guilt and you get nightmare sequences from him again.

I miss some of the Brolin chapter because of what did I say this already?

But the shit that happened at our movie theater where somebody like crashed out and I like leave for a second.

But anyways what I was going to.

Say is which we we won't go into OK, but I was annoyed that I had to like sit in the theater with someone who somebody crashed out was like extremely rude to basically like staff at at the.

Alamo Draft House, which we will not take, shout out the staff at all movie theaters, but especially Alamo Draft House and what they have to like, I don't know, keep up with with some of that clientele.

But I think also horror movies, people are a little bit on edge.

I like the horror community.

Well, yeah, I mean, you were the only person who got up to like go, you know, deal with or just and not deal with in a, in a way where you were like, I guess trying to to approach the situation, deescalate.

But yeah.

Just check on.

I mean, he was clearly yelling at like a woman, so.

Yeah, behind the scenes of the theater.

Yeah.

And then, yeah.

But all these these men who love horror and are like in.

If I were in that situation, I would have just watched.

You Where's our Josh Brolin's?

Where are the Josh?

Brolin, I'm sure they were sitting there in their seats.

Wait, am I the Josh Brolin dad?

I'm just kidding.

But Berlin's great in this movie, You know, I love Berlin, but he's Santos, you know?

But he has a couple of moments in this movie where he gets to be not just like the imposing asshole father, but he like wakes up from a nightmare and goes, what the fuck?

And it's really funny.

And what he.

Sees Gladys's face on on his kid, Yeah.

Yeah, and I'm not good with jump scares, so I kind of do when I close, when I'd open.

I saw you trying to like look down whenever it's something that that's acted so well here was create this tension anytime we knew we were going to see Gladys, like you just feel your body kind of freeze.

What was your favorite?

One cringe, I think it maybe was I I think the Justine one was interesting where she pops out of the ceiling because it's like the first time I think I know you're looking down where she thinks someone's in her house, which is very like barbarian in terms of how Tess sees the door open and then we we kind of pan over to see her look at Keith.

Yeah, having a bad nightmare on the couch and and here she like hears a noise in her house and looks around the OR down the hallway essentially.

And then Gladys pops up on the ceiling.

I think that the there, I mean, it's hard because there are a lot of just very unnerving ones, right?

Like Josh Berlin basically pleading to his kid to tell him where he is, kind of apologizing to him.

And then the turnover of like a child's body with Gladys's face on it is certainly terrifying.

But I think really the one that gets me, for whatever reason, and maybe this is just my love towards the Austin Abram part of the movie, is the forest scene.

That's exactly what I was going to use the the IT Pennywise clown hiding in the forest behind a Bush looking at Austin Abrams as they look like they do the jaws like Hitchcock reverse Dolly zoom on Abrams face.

And he's got an incredibly expressive face in this movie.

He's always been a very comedic actor, but I don't think I've ever seen him do like this amount of like what feels like sketch com what feels like like he's doing a bit for the entire film, but for whatever reason, he takes over the movie every time he's on screen.

He he it kind of he kind of makes the movie work in a lot of ways.

Obviously Gladys in like that performance and the kid who plays Alex.

We'll get into a second make the tension of the movie work, the horror of the movie work.

But Abrams gives this movie so much levity to the degree that I've seen some critics misread it as like a dark comedy horror movie as barbarian is because this is not that.

This is more reflective, like suspenseful psychological horror sadness on in this movie, Abrams is just next level.

And I think what once we get to his place like it does, do I really enjoy being in his like section of the movie because of what you're talking about being this in the seriousness of all the other characters in this more detective ask thriller movie with still, you know, witches are popping out of like the ceiling and shit.

But once we get to his his part of the movie, we are able to just, I, I think like sink into the world a little bit more and the absurdity that is Gladys.

There were like movie scene stealing bits, though, like what was the one where he was he was like hitting all the car doors again, Zach is just really good at showing you something super tragic and then finding a way to give give you some kind of a release of humor and comedy, but to only let you like reflect on it, which is like this this kid, well, Austin Abrams is almost 30, but he looks, you know, you know, in that younger age group of a late teen, early 20 year old, right?

Like he looks like he's 1920 years old and seeing this guy walk around looking into cars, finding this child's like old backpack, trying to sell our pun off the screen or tablet that he finds as he's like on the phone trying to get a deal to happen.

And I thought Craiger did a really good job of knowingly or not, because I don't know if he would if he was on the spot right now.

I think he might say that wasn't not was not intentional.

But I don't believe him of this like American paradox where you're seeing this community who is pausing life to rescue these like stolen children.

And the reality is that Craiger is, you know, interrogating is do does this community really care about their kids?

Do they really care?

And the idea here is that once a kid ages out and they become Austin Abrams and whatever age this character is, all of a sudden empathy disappears.

And now he's forced to live in this like, forest by himself and, like, fend for himself and have to go to, like, the pawn shop to, like, make any kind of money.

To eat or something hard to like, get close to have a job interview.

Yeah, and he's like self medicating on drugs and getting punched in the face by cops and being asked to like, please don't come back to this area so I don't get fired.

I I think it's a tragic character, but Abrams plays it so comedically well that I think some people are misreading that as if like it's just AI don't know like a gag in the movie and being like it doesn't have any ideas.

I'm like, that's an idea right there.

That, you know, no, I think that's true because we are so immersed in this idea that people like care about their community.

At least that's what the Josh Brolins right, of the story and the energy from the other parents is kind of pointing towards this idea of that there's this collective care.

We want to know what happened to our kids and we want answers.

And so that that kind of antagonistic energy that on the surface is I guess suggested and I guess also portrayed as like we care and This is why we want answers instead of like thinking about their self-interest maybe in their own particular child and not maybe the actual community.

Is this really interesting tension of suburbia.

And you know, we don't really go into it.

I think it's it's actually really interesting thing that it came out when Eddington did in the summer of like horror.

But yeah, there's like this tension of suburbia of like wealth to and self-interest from the parents that isn't totally yeah gone into.

But I think with Austin, with the introduction of Austin, Abrams character does certainly question.

Yeah, well, I like how both movies basically try to become microcosms of whatever we're feeling right now in America culturally and politically and kind of emotionally in the divisiveness of like neighbor against neighbor and which is very real.

And both movies, you know, one's being more transparent about it and more direct about it, which is obviously Eddington and I think more layered as a as a film.

Whereas Weapons is like still sticking to this like fairy tale conceit that there's a giant like kind of demonic witch who's like trapping kids and like jump scaring Josh Brolin in the basement.

And like, so he's still fucking around with us a little.

Bit I mean, they're, they're different movies.

Right, like.

Ari Astor was like explicitly trying to, you know, look at that.

And I feel like Zach wasn't here as much.

He was going more in the Stephen King supernatural aspect but.

Yeah, so Austin Abrams, really good, probably deserves extra credits.

I'll give it to him now.

He's had a really interesting career.

I just want to shout out some movies that we saw him from early on in his career.

There was a film or TV series called Dash and Lily.

Oh yeah.

Which was like a Christmas Netflix thing that I enjoyed.

He was in Kings of Summer.

Paper Towns has a pretty cool career.

Last year, a couple years ago, he was in Due Revenge, which is a movie that made me cringe for three days straight.

But he was interesting in it because he's just, again, a talented comedic actor.

Yeah.

Sean Fantasy on the Big Picture had Zach Craiger on.

And Craiger said that Austin Abrams is going to be starring in his Resident Evil film.

Yeah.

Which is very exciting.

Yeah.

Pretty wild.

Like a huge break for Abrams.

That's exactly what I was going to ask you, because I think he's been looked at as sort of like the B Timothy Chalamet.

Like if the wolves, George Clooney and Brad Pitt can't get Chalamet to be their third guy, Let's just get Abrams.

He sort of looks like him and has that.

What?

What is that character that Chalamet plays in that?

Oh, and don't look up.

Don't look up.

That's what I felt like Abrams was channeling here.

You know, this is maybe a hot take and I love Timmy in that space.

Don't say it, but I think Abrams does that better than Timmy.

Like that particular type of like character.

You don't.

You disagree.

Yeah, I disagree.

I agree to disagree then.

Timmy hasn't let himself do a a bit like this for that long.

Like he isn't like he is a couple key.

I think you're forgetting how funny he is about like that.

I didn't say it, Tim, no.

In that movie, The Xbox thing, the.

No, yeah.

I just think that like Abrams is a little bit more believable.

I think it has to do too with like us seeing Timothy Chalamet and so many different types of movies that it felt like he was just doing a purely a bit instead of like the the character that is there.

I bet listeners agree with you.

I just felt attacked personally.

OK, so let's talk about Alex, played by Kerry Christopher.

I don't think this young man has ever been in a movie.

I thought he was amazing, the child.

I thought he was really good.

He has a lot to do as a young actor in terms of being scared, having to like have this face on going to school and not tell anyone, the cops or his teachers, you know, what is going on at home and he doesn't.

And then also having to run from his possessed parents and also feed them soup and.

Be like, yeah.

You bet everyone soup like that must have taken hours for Alex to do.

But but yeah, I think also, you know, he he carried those soup cans for a long way.

You know, there's some like child comparisons of like a Rocky workout essentially with carrying those soup cans home from from school in those shopping bags.

But.

I also like that as a good metaphor for like, this kid maybe coming from a broken home, like having to like, help his parents survive, which is like something people obviously go through.

That was very real.

Yeah.

So, but I think in terms of his performance, he he did a really good job.

When I went back to see the conversation we had with Zach after we read the screenplay, I was like, whatever you do, like look for a Hailey Joel Osment kid.

And I thought that was such a stupid thing to say because it's like telling a director who's going to cast a kid, make sure you cast like one of the great child performers ever.

But he did literally cast somebody who was so 6th sense coded in terms of this like little boy who's like innocent and disarming, but also like kind of like strong willed and how he was able to take in all these like and there's no ghosts.

He's able to to kind of calculate their of what Gladys is telling him.

Like you see him figuring out in his mind that, I mean, obviously there is a moment with the forks where she demonstrates exactly what she will do if he doesn't like go along with it and not tell anyone about her or or his parents, which is terrifying.

It was used in in the the trailers.

But you know, any sort of like, you know, she snaps the the stick and they start stabbing themselves in the face with a fork.

And any sort of fork to face violence is terrifying.

But yeah, he he does a good job shifting in emotions from fear to being like scared of her specifically to understanding.

And that's that's pretty tough to do.

Absolutely.

I thought it was wonderful.

Amy Madigan as Gladys Lilly.

The first time we see her, I think, is when she comes into Benedict Wong's principal's office.

And he's also very good in this movie.

And we see him in a few moments.

We see him talking to Justine to tell her to go home and at the grocery store with his partner.

And there's a really funny moment of him like basically not firing her but telling her to like stay home and stuff.

Looking into Alexis situation as his partners, like showing him the cookies or the cereal.

I don't know why they just made me laugh and featured a lot.

It was one of the funniest bits of the movie.

And we see her come into the office, she talks to him.

They have a good kind of like was like, again, there's something disarming about all of Zach Cragers writing and his characters, but especially in Amy Madigans performance as like, you know, there's not something quite right with this person and like what she is doing.

And the principal sort of knows this too.

But also she's like a very sensitive approach to this conversation, which makes her feel like there's she's not a threat, Like there's something going on in the way that she's carrying these different tones.

There's an eerie, like jolliness, right?

Yeah, again, very like Penny Wise in that way.

But eventually she goes to his house and we see the most gruesome scene in the.

Movie One of the best scenes in the movie.

Oh, interesting.

Yeah, I was going to ask you.

That's what I was going to ask you because I don't know if it worked totally for me.

Oh, OK.

I felt like I needed number one relationship that felt like real and I I believed in like the emotional connection between Wong's character.

And then I'm not sure who played his partner.

I don't have.

It I don't have the yeah, he was good too cast pull up, but yeah.

So like Clayton Ferris as Terry.

Yeah, so I liked like feeling like I was actually going into someones home where people were like living in it, where I think Justine and the cop felt a little bit more forced.

So there was more terror in that moment because of Gladys like coming to their home, being like I need water, I miss the bus, whatever, you know.

And I was like don't let her in.

You know, I was doing the horror thing of like talking to the screen.

And, and this is also really interesting because of like being an educator and, and the stakes, right, of like what is happening right now where people are actually like fearing for their personal safety.

It's like, don't let them in.

Don't let like a, a parent in who is already maybe like disgruntled or whatever, right?

And so that aspect of it, first of her like showing up at the door.

That was pretty cool.

You're right.

The the partner being like no, yeah, come get some and.

He's like, no.

No, please God, no.

But then the I I think also there are moments to that that really worked for me because the another sub genre of horror where there's like the strangers aspect of it coming into your home and demanding things that they're kind of you know, this happens in like speak no evil, which is Zach talked about as like a a movie that he really liked.

We didn't see the remake, but this has aspects of it of like someone in your home and you're in this case it was flipped where the people who own the home are like pushing seeing how far they can get right where we normally.

Parasitical, which is like the movie or thing they're watching.

The partners are watching Cordyceps, the fungus eating thing.

On the bug.

And then I think they're tying that to like family members, like being parasitical, to like these public servants, essentially.

Yeah, I and I think I would be interested too 'cause I know Zach said he didn't really love like that last part of Speak No Evil and we felt the same way.

So I'd be interested in next time we talk to him to, to talk to him about that.

But anyway, so Speak No Evil is an example of that.

But like more home invasion movies are, are the better example of this, right, where people are like coming in funny games, strangers, whatever.

But like when she asks for the bowl instead of like a glass of water, I was in like, I I just think those things really work for me.

And I think they're the most terrifying.

Like aspect is pushing these social, you know, these social polite rules and ultimately you like, you know, the character is in danger and they don't know that kind of, you know, like dramatic irony really works on me.

And then this is also when we're first introduced to the the stick that she slices her palm open with.

And it's like, oops.

So the the strangeness of that horrific, like image of someone slicing their palm open and the comedy involved and the like, stranger home invasion aspects of this along with kind of like mapping on a contemporary I kind of idea too.

And the the only thing is I hate head smashing.

Oh my God.

It makes me like I the Justin Long eyes, the, you know, scars guard head smash, this head smash.

Like it's a lot for me.

Yeah, and that was the only part.

I mean, not that I dislike it, I understand why it's there, but it's hard for me to watch regardless that it it worked for me because I love to be different.

Like tonal shifts that were all happening so seamlessly in this movie.

I wish we did get a little bit more wrong.

I think he did a good job in his initial conversation with her where he's like, unfortunately, like he's doing this really great comedic thing where he's like having to directly or sorry, indirectly say something to her, like I have to talk to her parents.

But there is a really funny back and forth between Goddess and him, his character in that moment.

But so so the the moment at home in the kitchen didn't work for you.

I think it is symbolic of what doesn't work for me in the movie, which is the non linear structure just really disengaged me.

And when we're cutting back and forth between points of views and perspectives right around here, I was like, OK, I wish more of the movie was like this.

So I I think I'm convinced that the scene was good and effective and interesting, but the rest of the film felt like very repetitive.

Once you just once you discover that Gladys is this witch figure who like meets like random woman on like HGTV kind of energy, that's when the movie starts getting really repetitive And like re showing you a lot of things in the movie from different perspectives that you already seen without giving you much pay off to that repetition that I feel like the movie can't then live up to some of the horror in the film or suspense in the film.

You don't really care.

I don't know.

Do people care that much about where the kids actually are in the movie at that point, or the investigation between Julia Gardner and Josh Brolin and like going on the map and getting the measured and tape backed out like how we had in Barbarian?

Yeah, I just felt like there was during.

The basement, yeah.

I was struggling to hold on to something.

I was interested in every scene I was watching, but I was struggling to hold on to like a through line emotionally.

I saw the things intellectually in there.

The other critics just seemed to not want to see or didn't like, which is fine, but it was more like emotionally, I couldn't stay with one character, protagonist or antagonist long enough to really care all that much.

And I kept reflecting on it's because I know what's happening every scene.

Is it because I know and I'm not sure.

Still, I think I have to see it again.

So I have hopefully that answers your question.

But like, I, I do think you're right in that scene there, there is like a that she is like literalizing what Craig has been exploring.

And it's like suburban nightmare of like the fears of domesticity or like the fears of like this supposedly normal community when everyone's like using domestic items to kill one another, like forks in the face or like a, a potato peeler or whatever on the skin of Alden Ehrenreich, Like shit like that.

I it again intellectually works emotionally, I just couldn't hold on too much.

Well, I think, yeah.

So, you know, we talked about Zodiac a little bit, but I think something that is so successful about Zodiac, besides it being like one of the most like infamous serial killer stories and yeah, but is Jake Gyllenhaal kind of being the Justine character that we follow.

And there's that investigative piece of this.

And so I think because we go from Justine to Brolin, which I'm still like locked into their parts of the movie.

But once we, yeah, once we start seeing like the Paul segment of the movie, which is like the cop and then Austin Abrams part of the movie, which I love, but then is kind of like a repeat in certain scenes of watching him get hit by Paul.

That was when I started to feel like, OK, I'm just seeing the same scene in certain aspects.

But in in those particular moments, it didn't really add much for me.

So like, because they weren't, they weren't crucial to like that particular part of it wasn't crucial to the the mystery of it all.

Yeah, I agree.

So every time I saw an original scene I was excited.

Like when Austin Abrams character does go into the Gladys house and he sees the DVD of.

Willow, Willow.

No, he sees the VHS.

Yeah, Willow, Willow.

Which I also would like to say the guy next to me who laughed at the Shark Tank, you know, image of Barbara also laughed at the Willow.

So shout out to that guy.

Hopefully he's a listener.

Almost turned to him and shook his hand.

Willow that.

Would be so weird mid horror film.

Yeah.

So I guess that's that's basically why I'm conflicted is that I think this was just like tragically fun and funny and very weird and has memorable scenes and horror moments.

I just wish that it resonated a little bit more emotionally because I think if we could have stayed with one character long enough to really get to know them a little bit better than the Grimm fairy tale, you know, Stephen King Midsummer hereditary energy could have been more felt.

The special part about hereditary and the special part about Midsummer and what Ary Astor so good about kind of creating these modern fairy tales that are fucked up is that he makes them feel as mythic as they are grounded.

And this movie feels mostly elevated.

It takes a grounded concept, which is like the fear of losing your child or how you deal with grief and how you compartmentalize grief and like whether it's self medicating or putting your shit on other people or burying it.

But then as soon as we get to the kind of like the mystery and the witchiness of it all, I think the movie sort of loses track of it's like character drama.

And I really wanted more of that kind of like psychological talkie character drama that we got in that first act that I was really excited to see.

Yeah, I really think it it might be the the Paul and the principal like moments.

I know they were probably shorter, but it kind of like I like their seeing what was up with their characters in connection to Austin Abrams and to Justine.

And I think, you know, again, like Wong does a really good job comedically having this like more interesting complex relationship to Gladys's character as like a parent of the school and extension Brolin and then also like Justine and they're like Co worker relationship.

He's also great in that physical set piece where he used to like him sprinting and he he has a lot to do actually in this movie.

Yeah, So like, so it's not that I don't want to spend like time with his character, but it's it's more so yeah, I think that I'm jumping around from people who don't have as it doesn't feel at times have as much of a stake in the child mystery of who went missing.

That that was what I think like took me out of it.

Then when we went to Austin Abrams and he's like looking at the as he's selling things, right, And then looks at the $50,000 reward for the kids that he just saw in the basement.

Like it really picks up again and then he.

Stabs the cop again three times in the face.

That shit was really funny.

Yeah, it was good and I, I was sad when he got like possessed at at the end.

And then he kept jumping.

Like cartoonishly, like Looney Tunes style at Josh Brolin.

He kept throwing him across the room, getting tired.

Yeah, a great bit.

It was really good.

And, and I think that was that end sequence was like I, I was wondering how he, you know, Zach was going to do that because there was a lot of different moving pieces.

And I, I think like there were successful parts of it that were like comedic and there were really scary parts of it that, you know, with Gladys being like, don't step over the salt, like leaves the area.

But once we have Justine go into the house and have the cop character like wave her in, at that point, I was invested in the investigation with her and Brolin's character, but I wasn't like as connected to her as the the kind of like Zodiac figure that I'm talking about, which is not compared to like I'm not comparing the films like Zodiac and these are totally different movies.

But at that point where she's getting choked out, I'm I'm not caring as much about who's dying, if that makes sense at the end of the movie.

And like, yeah, I'm.

It's terrifying to see these like 2 parents who are chasing after their child for Alex, which it was cool.

Craigor didn't say this explicitly, but there was like, I think maybe it was a letterbox.

I'm forgetting the outlet, but said or had an interview with him where he said that he was really inspired by The Shining and the twin scene down the hallway really messed him up.

And so like we have the image of the two parents, like kind of the twin scene standing at the end of the hallway and then chase Alex.

But yeah, at that point I was like, OK, they're going to find the kids.

But we because we were already told where they are from Abrams finding them in the basement where he's like, whoa.

And and also we forgot to mention like his whole interaction with the parents was funny too.

Just seeing seeing the parents, which we forgot to to talk about through the the newspaper and highlighting also like a issue with the institution of like, I went to like check and there's a concern that this kid isn't safe.

So like, can we just figure out how to see if this kid is safe and seeing those parents, like just sitting there.

That was also a good like jump scare kind of situation.

But regardless, once we get towards the end and I'm like, maybe Justine's going to die.

It's I almost like she could have died or not.

It was it was satisfying to see her like win or be a final girl type of archetype.

I guess so, but I didn't really care when she killed her cop boyfriend.

Oh, no, not at all.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I don't think even people who like this movie, I would be surprised if you felt something that I don't think even Zach is attending to do that.

I felt more like, you know what?

This reminded me of Rosemary's Baby quite a lot.

And maybe it's the horror.

Well.

Definitely with the Gladys character.

I think, well, he's clearly influenced by Hereditary and Ari in this movie.

You know, I think that has a big, you know, inspiration of the film.

And I, I Rosemary's Baby is the main inspiration for Hereditary.

And I thought a lot about Ruth Gordon's mini Cassavette in that movie.

Who is the?

Older woman trying to get the devil to basically be born again.

And it's like the last 30 minutes of weapons plays like mini Cassavette gets to do exposition dumping about how she's trying to get her youth back.

Does that make sense?

And I just don't find that all that interesting when we're with this protagonist who has this like juicy subtext and back story with this parent figure who's now she's been forced to work with, you know, this like seemingly humanitarian like progressive person being forced to work with like the local ex military conservative guy.

That's like a funny duo, like a buddy cop horror comedy they could have leaned into.

They try to toward the end of the movie when he's doing, like, research and going into Justin Long's house.

Yeah, we.

Forgot to talk about that.

Which is a great scene, but I think you probably get my point, which is to say, like, I don't know why we did such a good job of jumping back and forth between perspectives.

And then the last 30 minutes is like, once the shoe drops, you know, it's a witch.

We get all the exposition of like how she did it and how Alex or like his parents.

And it took a long time for me to get to the very end when we see the kids in the basement and Josh Brolin goes in there with Julia Garner.

Yeah, yeah, I I would say that too.

I think you know, we talked about like why I guess with the the different time jumps, I think though the end like really paid off in terms.

Of absolutely.

But the kids?

The kids, yeah, chasing her and Alex kind of figuring out how this whole stick system works in order to entrance all the kids to to chase after the Gladys character.

Yeah, we just watched Point Break again like a week ago.

Oh my God, yeah.

And there is a handheld camera move that Bigelow and her team making that movie when they have Keanu chasing down.

Patrick Swayze.

Thank you, Patrick Swayze.

And it's just an iconic movie, an iconic sequence.

It's one of our favorite like A+B movies, like just an amazing film.

Five stars.

I don't care what anybody says.

Love it.

And he he basically recreates that that well.

It was so funny because when we were watching it and we left, you're like, why did this remind me of we just watched a movie that had like very similar visual style and then and then we were like, oh, point break And he in his conversation with Sean, he brought up point break, which is wild.

That just a coincidence that we had just watched that because like, who has recently watched Point Break?

Yeah, it's such a fun reference.

Yeah, By the way, Sean, he's coming on the pod again.

Yeah, he's been on the pod twice.

Damien Chazelle, Ridley Scott.

This time it seems like we're going to do an episode.

Horror adjacent.

Adjacent maybe on the new wave of horror film makers, including directors like the ones we've been talking about in this episode or we'll see.

You'll try time now with the director that we have coming on.

But yeah, go listen to that interview he had with Zach Gregory was that excellent conversation.

But we are going to have fantasy on again sometime soon.

So what do you want to talk about?

I guess just the the two scenes that were really funny in here, the the Justin Long one, which you just like referenced of Josh Brolin waiting outside talks to the mom, who I think is played by Sarah Paxton, which is Zach's partner.

And she was like, I'm not comfortable with you, like watching the Ring camera.

And he waits till dad gets home and.

He's one of the funniest.

Jokes the steps in into Justin Long space.

And Justin Long is like, sure, yeah.

Like he just.

I love Justin Long's energy.

He's so funny.

Well, just to say, Kelsey understood the rhythm of that joke faster than I did.

I don't know if I was just slow on it.

Listeners let us know but when he asks Sarah Paxton can come in, she's like no.

And he goes to someone elses house.

He's eating a sandwich in his car and then Justin Long arrives and he asked Justin Long.

I thought it was a different he was.

Like waiting outside of homes, Okay.

Yeah, we didn't see him get in his car and wait there in front of her house.

And so when it cuts to him sitting at the computer and Justin longs there and the camera moves over a little bit and you see Sarah Paxton in the background, I thought that was the joke reveal.

And then I was like, wait, I just might not get that immediately it.

Was really funny.

It was great I just love that Justin Long I hope he's in like all of Zach's projects.

He's just so good in a horror world and specifically Zach's tone like the I think one of my favorite parts of barbarian is the AJ subplot is like measuring the basement is Googling.

Can I put this as like the full area of the house and, and him going through all these like horrifying, violent, you know, suggestive images of like cages and shit and he's just like sick.

Dude.

I mean like, I just like I think him, his and Zach's energy in terms of Zach's vision is like perfect.

So hope he returns, but but yeah, so and then the the end, right.

So we have this like really big, loud like ending of people killing each other and possessed trying to kill each other at the hands of Gladys snapping sticks.

And then we have Gladys, you know, recognize that Alex snapped the stick to have all the the children in the basement come, you know, chase after her.

Yeah.

Oh, and I forgot Josh Brolin also gets possessed.

I forgot about that.

He does, for sure.

Yeah, but that moment of, of her running away and going oh, like, it wasn't just her running away.

It was the kids smashing out of the house like all the windows like 20.

Years later, so.

Yeah, yeah.

And all collectively like these children's, you know, screams as they're chasing her, like through the the.

Neighborhood.

Yeah, like looking behind her that that whole sequence is so funny.

There's a.

Random lady in her house, Josh Brolin walks in.

There's a random man.

In her house, adding the certain, you know, comedic things about the suburbia setting of the movie where the dad is mowing the lawn, sees all these kids go by.

They just smashed through his house and he's like, look what they did to the lawn.

You know, like, those things really work.

And then the kind of really gruesome, elevated, strange, gory ending of these children pulling apart Gladys's body was.

I was surprised, yeah.

I didn't, actually.

That was one of the only things I didn't remember from the screenplay.

It was like, how did this end again?

And to see them just, like, destroy her, it was kind of surprising.

But I do like how it ends on a tragic note, which, just like, Josh Brolin feels satisfied.

He has his child now, but his child apparently isn't speaking.

And we have that little girl monologue again about how most of the kids still haven't talked, I think.

Which that also feels that voice like I don't remember Osmond like his voice in 6th sense but it seems like an adjacent voice in my head.

Yeah, yeah, I did feel like that.

Should we get to extra credits?

Yeah.

Or was there another comedy scene?

I think that was it.

Yeah.

I just was really surprised, like pleasantly surprised by the comedy in in the ending.

I felt like it really paid off.

Yeah.

So my extra credit is Gladys like, but specifically it is Amy Madigan's performance is Gladys because again, this movie, I said it before, but lives or dies on this performance.

Like you have to have someone who is so specific for this role.

Like she is playing this like elderly woman who is having to show up like in a principal's office and have somewhat of a serious conversation, but still be kind of haunting, a little like scary, a little bit quirky.

And then also be terrifying in the Alex moments, right?

Where you're like, oh, this kids life is on the line.

She actually is really this dangerous, menacing figure.

And what is her back story, right?

Like all those things need to be happening.

She needs to capture the danger and being straightforward, but also the mystery behind her character and also playing in this like fairy tale archetype of this witchy character.

And that's really, really difficult to do.

And so I, I think that the movie wouldn't have possibly worked without her 'cause it's just a hard, you know, role to cast.

And she did such a good job.

One of Shyamalan's like one of my favorite movies from him that is often like under discussed in his filmography is The Visit where two kids go to visit their grandparents.

I believe.

Yeah, who are, and I don't want to spoil it, but it is actually eerily similar to the end of this movie and how it's kind of set up like what?

Who these people are.

That is such a funny comparison.

I love the visit.

I think that it is such an underrated shaman.

Yeah, masterpiece.

So funny.

OK, yeah, but yeah, it's it's really good.

That's that's so funny and but in interestingly, though, while those the characters are memorable, certainly.

The rapping white kid.

No, I meant like the older characters.

They.

Still feel like, I mean, there's an interesting balance that's going on there where they're not supposed to be these like main characters in the way that Gladys is.

But but yeah, I I think that's a really interesting movie to to watch alongside this.

I'm going to give extra credit, so I already did the Austin Abrams, but I'm going to just give extra credits and I don't want to repeat myself here, so I apologize if I do.

But just to the the themes of this movie, because I think the discussion around weapons thus far is that it's a really entertaining film, but it feels kind of hollow.

And I think that's a fine, I guess criticism of it emotionally for the most part, if you can't hold onto a character because that's literally my experience, I guess.

But until actually, I thought this was like, even even though it wasn't as straightforward as Barbarian, I thought it was really complex and how it handles trauma, how it gets weaponized.

Not to use the movie title to explain the themes of the movie, but I think it's it's intentionally direct, right?

And looking at how American communities have this outrage right now about what's happening to the youth, right?

But what is happening to the youth?

What is wrong with the youth?

I don't understand what is happening to the youth.

It must be the teachers, it must be XYZ.

And I think Craiger looking at the ugliness of adults and how they Co opt the lives of the youth that are more innocent to disguise their own kind of like personal tragedies, their own personal baggage that they don't want to confront is really smart.

And he makes these adults who living in this town, this microcosm of a reactionary post Trump America or, you know, current Trump, but also feels weirdly post 2016 Trump at least that is very openly self interested, very openly looking to like, hurt their neighbors, you know, and how they just like, have this, like, inability to reckon with their own shit.

And there's something that was just really compelling about those ideas.

And at this time in our country and watching these characters also go through these like, psychological tragedies of trying to grasp for explanations and maps, explanations and numbers and dates and lashing out at like, scapegoats, I thought was just really effective.

Yeah.

It it resonated, yeah.

And I don't think it's getting credit for that.

So.

No, I I totally agree.

And I think that people can experience it as like a Stephen King horror, supernatural, like an IT movie or even, you know, like aspects of Midsummer and really like think about what is the mystery here?

Where are the kids?

But I think that the the response right now from people just just saying it is only that even though you could experience it like that if you didn't want to read into or just engage, I guess with what is like being presented to you is like reductive of the movie.

Because I think there are, I mean, the main characters are, you know, teachers, a disgruntled parent, like a cop who is abusing his power.

This like witch character, like these innocent children.

There's obviously like a lot going on, even if you know it's subconscious, like Zach's engaging in a lot of like tensions that are are happening right now.

Do you think the people are reducing the movie already because he doesn't take himself that seriously?

Or at least we don't think he does.

Like when you listen to him talk to Sean, he's like, really try not to over intellectualize the movies.

And sometimes you can look at film makers like doing that so they don't have to like, have a responsibility and what they're putting out in the world.

I don't think that's the case in Zack's 2 movies that we've seen from him.

But he genuinely feels like afraid to come off as pretentious.

And so I wonder if that's like hurting him in the early criticism of this movie where people are like, well, this movie isn't treating its ideas that seriously.

So it's not about anything.

It's like empty.

I wonder if that's what's going on.

I don't know.

I mean, I think that there is certainly like a mythologizing around horror and men who write horror.

So like when men are like, I don't want to say what this is about.

Like I.

I don't do directors commentary.

Yeah, I'm going to like, I'm going to really also those signal in different ways that this, like, means things that you could read into.

And and I think like, you know, I really appreciate and find it refreshing how Zach approaches his movies in terms of like, this is what I meant.

Here's where I didn't mean something.

But obviously subconsciously, like, you know, it probably meant something.

I'm responding to something obviously, like the world around me.

And he's just like a very chill person who's willing to have a conversation with people and not mythologize himself as this.

Like, he is like a really big, you know, new figure in the horror space, which is very exciting.

So like, I find that very refreshing.

And I wonder, yeah, like, if people in the film space are like, because he's not mythologizing himself, like.

And then we have a movie that is really engaging with like a witch character, like a folklore right type of story that isn't like an Edgar's movie that doesn't feel like overly serious of like a Nosferatu, which we had problems with.

Yeah.

Then I I wonder if people are like just just being dismissive and.

Maybe people just have it too good lately, like the denseness of Nope, the denseness of sinners, right?

Or just recently, the denseness of 28 years later.

I don't think weapons has that.

But it's not looking to lie that it's trying to do that.

It's actually saying here's some actually like commonplace issues that we can't even reckon with.

So I'm not really going to take this huge historical commentary.

I'm not going to put Reagan on the radio like I did in Barbarians to make you kind of wrestle with the past 50 years, like the crumbling of American infrastructure, gentrification.

Instead, I'm just going to be like here, like really contemporary issues that are in our towns that are a microcosm of larger problems across the country.

And you can play with these ideas or not, but really I just want to make this dope ass $40 million.

Which movie?

Which is kind of sick and bringing back a genre that doesn't exist.

It basically is a movie a part of a sub genre that doesn't exist as much anymore.

There was a film called Heretic that came out last year that this reminded me of, but that's like a bad version of this movie.

It also had barbarian elements, which was interesting.

You're right.

Yeah.

And Hugh Grant spends a lot of time monologuing about ideas in that movie, which I enjoy because it's Hugh Grant.

And it's also like this atheistic dark comedy horror movie.

But it kind of then turns into basically what Craiger is really good at is elevating the premise, turning it into something more mythic, more supernatural, and it falls flat.

So when people are thinking like, weapons really doesn't work, watch Heretic again or movies like that.

And actually those are shots at the cracker project of trying to make something right beneath the seriousness of like Jordan Peele's work or Ari Astor's work.

And he's able to kind of carve out his own space.

And I don't know, I think people are going to be trying to do what he is able to do and think it's easy.

And it's just, it's not.

Yeah.

And, and I think, yeah, people are like, you know, maybe not in love with this movie in ways that maybe it's similar to my experience.

Like I, I don't really love movies that are in the Stephen King type of horror or like I respect like black phone, but it's not my favorite.

It is a similar thing.

Even Midsummer to a certain extent for me is like a similar thing where that's just like not my favorite sub genre.

So I can understand if people are interacting with it like that, but there's really not a lot like which is why black phone was so refreshing.

There's really not a lot of movies and horror movies that exist like this.

And like, I, I think it's important that we, you know, you don't have to love it.

Like I'm not, I'm saying like I really liked it, but I wasn't, it's not my favorite horror movie ever.

But in order to like, also have these creative unique stories that are allowed to be told and like the vision of, of a filmmaker.

And, and so like, I, I think that is also important.

And it's interesting to to see the reaction to this movie, I guess.

OK, well, that's the extra credits of Zach Craiger's Weapons.

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Like everything is nice.

We.

Get great emails, great DMS, really nice Apple reviews.

In fact the past few we got were super sweet and made a sound way smarter than I think we are.

But I appreciate you.

Thank you for the nice words, but it really helps the show and it helps show get found.

Again, we are independent.

Yeah, we are an independent.

We purposely do not take advertisements.

Yes, or join a podcast network.

We've purposely chosen not to do that because our listeners sponsor us through an Patreon, which is $5 a month, where you can sign up and get over 70 episodes right now, over 200 hours of deep dives and conversations.

Or you can just become a free member in which we have many and you have access to tons of that exclusive content where we have a collections tab for free members with I think almost 10 episodes on there, which for us that's like 30 hours of conversation.

Likes the Barbarian deep dive?

And I think 28 Days Later is on there right now for 28 Years Later, which we loved this year, yeah.

Yeah, Hereditary is on there.

There's a good amount of horror films for horror fans.

Hopefully we'll be back to talk with Zach one day.

I don't know if we will for this movie.

He seems like he's pretty booked right now, but we'll definitely be trying to talk to him for Resident Evil because I'm stoked for that.

I'm a huge fan of those games and especially the Resident Evil remasters of one and two over the pandemic.

I don't want to go too deep on it right now, but I spent a lot of I'll.

Take your word for it, but it's cool.

Maybe me and James will have a a separate episode about that.

All right guys, till next time.

Peace bye.