223 - Bring Her Back

Slash and cast.

Welcome back, fiends, to Handle with Scare, presented by the Slash NCast Podcast Network. Our show discusses horror movies and the phobias they emphasize. I'm your host, Emily Drunk, and throughout December, we'll be highlighting some of our favorite releases of 2025. Be sure to join us on Tuesday and Thursday nights at 7.30pm Pacific Time for our weekly watch parties hosted on our community Discord.

Tuesdays are always dedicated towards the movies featured on the show, while Thursday selections focus on 2025 releases. You can join us and the rest of the fiends over on the Discord at bit.ly forward slash handle with scare. With me here tonight, as always, is my co-host, Grindhouse Zombie. And Zombie, getting caught back on track. Obviously, with the holidays literally right around the corner, our scheduling is going to be a little...

wishy-washy, but we got it sorted out. We know what our plan of attack is for the rest of the month, of course, since we are pretty much at the end of the year. We will have our kind of like a cumulative top 10 episode. as well as, you know, some of the fringe picks, things that we would consider to be the hidden gems of the year. So...

I know January is typically, you know, the quote death slate in regards to theatrical releases. So, you know, starting the year off by spending some time on some of the ones that didn't quite make the cut, but are still worth. Checking out is always a great way to start off the new year. And I know we probably won't have quite as many this year, obviously, just because we did.

not go out of our way to basically consume just about literally everything under the sun. But we have had some pretty damn good recent releases.

Some of which, obviously, we'll be talking about because one of them actually made our top 10 this past week. So there you go. I mean, this is the most interesting year because... Though we did both slow down in consumption for the obvious reasons of both moving and doing all of that, this, for us at least, this is the year without a 10.

through various other podcasts and all of our friends and whatever else. I mean, you know, we both know people that, you know, hand out tens like hookers hand out VD, right? And... I've never been one of those. And it took me for kind of ever and ever off of my sort of mantra of like, I'm not going to give anything a 10 because, you know, I haven't seen it yet. And I want to make sure that when it happens.

And then I kind of strayed away from that. And yet, last year, we had a couple that were like, whew, you know. And I think with our top-rated movie of the year, which, as I recall, is Sinners. You really could, and not even through a specific lens, I really think you probably could call sinners a 10, but we just didn't.

For the rest of the movies, um... I gotta stop saying um so much. My wife told me that. She told me she's... She said, when I listen to you, the one thing that you do that I don't really like is you say um a lot. And I'm like, um, and she's like, yeah, that don't do that. So we had a lot of good movies, not nearly as many as we have in years past and especially last year. I think I got to maybe 170, 180 or so. So half of last year. And...

My overall average is actually up, which kind of makes sense because there was no Tubi influence. There's no Tubi handicap.

When it comes to watching movies, Tubi is a lot like playing golf. You do get a handicap, which is fair. But there was a couple of decent ones on Tubi and a couple of decent ones that crept out of the woodwork. With this one, I was actually able to see this one in the theater. And it was one of those, you know, out in the theater for 15 minutes. And then it was just poof, gone.

And this one literally was just like, holy shit, they're putting movies like this in the theater. And now I think you and I have talked a little bit about how it seems like you're kind of liking your new theater where you're living. And I don't like my new theater where I'm living because they don't do any horror matinees. Every horror movie that they show that is, I will call a spade a spade here, fringe horror.

shows at 9 15 on a thursday night well it's like i can't i can't go to movie at 9 15 on a goddamn thursday night for a multitude of reasons a because we stream that night and b Because it cuts into my drinking time, and I don't like that. So I was lucky to see this one. And it kind of falls in with some other ones that I was lucky to see. This one, though, when you dive into it...

If we're honest here, the story is convoluted as hell. You've really got to pay attention or you don't know what's going on. And as you and I both know, with a horror movie, sometimes that's not a good thing. where if you look away and look back, then you're confused and you're constantly trying to play catch-up. With this one, they give you enough little breadcrumbs that you can pretty much catch yourself back up if you're not...

Excuse me, a thousand percent paying attention. But overall, the story itself, there's so much happening, but at the same time, it's actually kind of simple. There's just a ton and ton of... ton of details um and this is one of those where i it it really it made it on the list for a reason um and i think you know

despite my intention of trying to rewatch it today and just life taking over, I did, we'll call it a start slash scan. And it was like, oh yeah, this is why I liked it. And I don't think... It's certainly not going to go down for me and if anything else it would probably go up maybe a half a point or a point.

So tonight we have brain her back. A synopsis for this reads a brother and sister uncover a terrifying ritual at the secluded home of their new foster mother. Now, for me, this ranked second overall.

uh on my list uh that has not changed upon rewatch uh and i know you and i have definitely talked a little bit about talk to me uh especially when it came to initial impressions and also our second watch experiences and how it felt very... I don't want to say paint by the numbers, but you had a really good understanding of where the pieces were going to fall.

And I remember at the time, Talk to Me had captured a lot of attention, primarily through social media audiences back in 2023. And whenever a movie has that sort of like... cult following so to speak specifically through social media you always have to approach it with measured skepticism because over the years it's very obvious

that that sort of genre hype often yields a very disappointing hit-to-miss ratio. And audiences frequently are gravitating towards things that have those sort of attention-grabbing gimmicks. visceral gore uh or even in cases like this narratives centered on trauma uh without a lot of depth to it like talk to me uh was severely lacking But that being said, it's also the A24 machine. This had a lot of success initially. It generated $92 million against a $4.5 million budget.

And it subsequently spawned both a sequel feature and a prequel short that's currently in development. So that kind of exemplified those sort of tendencies. But... With this one in particular, it's like, okay, this is a sophomore effort. I know initially Danny and Michael Philippou, who are former YouTube content creators known for comedic shorts.

They had some technical competency in their directorial debut, but it just lacked that sort of cohesion. And it really felt that their first entry was more of an... assemblage of recognizable beats and imagery that was borrowing from more successful predecessors rather than being this distinct creative vision from these emergent filmmakers.

And I have to say, like, Bring Her Back was one of the best, like, second outings I've seen, regardless of what genre it is. Boy, there's a lot to... Okay, I'm going to try to collect all this and respond to everything you said. So when it comes to the movie, well, okay, no, I got to go back even farther. Social media and how... are impacting how social media is used to drive interest.

In the last five years, I mean, let's be honest, the movie that did it best was Smile. Smile did the having people behind home plate. During baseball games. Just doing the smile. I mean that's fucking brilliant. When you get on to movies. Fuck I just did it again. Damn it. When you get on to movies like Talk To Me. The first time I saw it talk to me, I really liked it. I really liked it. When I rewatched it, it plummeted like a fucking meteorite. The reality is that movie used...

it's jump scares to push the story forward. Once you do that, you're at a place where I already know what's going to happen. So mentally, I'm already ahead of you. When the jump scare comes, then we're just kind of out of sync. And then all of a sudden, I don't care anymore. With this movie and with the Phyllaboo brothers, there's a reality here. When you look at these two guys, these...

Visually, they are two of the biggest douchebags I've ever seen in my life. If we were doing The Purge, I would probably kill them first. They have that look about them. And is that fair or not fair? Whatever. It doesn't really matter. That's just what I think. With this movie, though, the way that it's put together, the way that it's crafted... it shows the experience of a much more seasoned group of filmmakers. And where, yes, you do have some jump scares. You have...

fuck, I did it again. You have all of the things that you would expect in a movie like this, but with the characters and with their arcs and where everything is put together, it builds a much better story. With this movie, the one thing that I really love about it is it doesn't ever get lazy. And it does not fall back on some of the tropes that we all know.

When you take this movie at its heart and the way that it starts out, and I believe, honestly, that this is probably one of the things that... emotionally is one of the biggest draws to this movie. And honestly, one of the scariest things is just the foster system. When you use that as sort of your premise, and then we get to go forward from there, how many people do you know that went into the foster system that were like, it was fucking great?

Everything was awesome. I was never treated poorly. Exactly. Exactly. So knowing that, that's a real world scary thing. I mean, yes, do we have a demon in this movie? Do we have a woman who's fucking batshit crazy and trying to resurrect somebody? Yes, we have all that. But at its core, we have kids.

whose father died and they went into the foster system. And I would argue, from what I know about it, that a swirling pit of hell probably is preferable to the foster system so once you know that and once you know that that's where this movie is going and how well done this was and How you ask yourself, how did this woman become a foster parent? Like, what checks and balances were done?

And then you think about things like the state that I live in, where they're tallying up the amount of fraud that's been committed in my state. And they've surpassed the $1 billion mark. So I think we can all argue, debate, argue, have a friendly conversation about how truly inept government is. But then assuming...

Government is running a system of picking the people that should care for children. And once you have that thought in your mind and you let that sink in, that is what makes this a horror movie. There's lots of other elements. that we all would expect the foster system is, is the true horror in this movie. And as a person and on a contextual level,

It's the part where it's like, this probably happens to people. I mean, they're not carved out for possession and resurrection, but things can be really shitty and there's nobody paying attention and nobody...

trying to make it right and that's one of the scariest things about this film yeah absolutely and it really did feel like this was a film that unmistakably addresses criticisms that were leveled at talk to me, especially when it came to the solitary sequence of disturbing violence. So here we have a sophomore effort that presents itself as this. examination of anguish that culminates in this ritual centered on Laura, who is this grieving mother, as well as her foster children.

who become ritualistic victims themselves in Piper and Oliver. So we open with tragedy. We have a... Freak accident in the shower, not like the oops, I accidentally fell on a knife type like in years past. But the father to the step siblings. Piper, who is portrayed by Sora Wan and Andy, played by Billy Barrett. And Piper's mother is absent from their lives. The two teenagers are entering into the foster care system.

uh facing imminent separation and andy demonstrates you know pretty fierce protectiveness towards his younger sister uh who lives with visual impairment not complete blindness but the inability to perceive anything beyond lights and big basic shapes and it's with one in particular like

She herself, like, experiences that same visual impairment. You know, she has a really remarkable performance in this, and it was her, like, feature film debut. And Andy adamantly insists that they remain together temporarily.

just until he reaches 18, so he himself can pursue sole guardianship of Piper. So for me, the start of this movie... I don't want to say it hits home, but I know a family where this almost exact thing happened. Where the mother had been sick, was...

honestly, on the upward trajectory of being on the mend, and then fell in the shower and died. And it's the simplest and dumbest thing that we all do every single day, but it's... shocking the number of people in this country that die in their showers from slipping and falling so for me when this started it was just like oh shit and i i immediately thought of that family and it was just like it made it

So real. And with the children in that family, they didn't go to foster care, but I know that the father sort of tuned out for a minute. And they went and lived with family for a while until the dad sort of got his head screwed back on straight. I mean, probably as it should be, right? And so for me, the whole thing had a really profound impact on me the first time I saw it. And taking the foster part of it out. I mean, let's be honest here. There's probably lots of people.

that are great foster parents and great adoptive parents. But their stories don't make it on the news, right? So we hear what we hear. So it's probably... inordinately unfair to categorize that like that. But that's what I hear on the news. So to all the people out there that are great foster parents and great adoptive parents, including my own mother, for the record,

Kudos to you for doing your part. But as this whole thing starts and as we're introduced to Laura and as Laura introduces us to the... you know, other person who dwells in the house, it's not hard to see that something's off here. And it does... And honestly, it goes so far into just setting the tone for this movie and just how you really feel watching this movie. Like you should be doing something. Like you should be calling somebody or you should be kicking down a door.

as a watcher. And that's not a common thing for a lot of movies where you, you get personally invested and you feel like you should be doing something because this lady is obviously a fucking nutcase. This kid is. obviously damaged. Then these two other kids that come in, it's like, these kids don't have a chance in hell. And it's so weird to be sitting in a theater or even to be sitting in your home and watching this and just going,

Like, you start to scratch your nails a little bit, like, I need to do something. Like, who do I tell about this? And the way the whole system is, and this is, we're back to the system, and I'm not trying to make this into a shit on the system thing. But we see that the system doesn't do a good job of support either. And so it really kind of bolsters what I think are most people's opinion of this whole system in the first place.

that's honestly before we even get to any of the real horror of the movie. I mean, so in a societal sense, it's like dread is just, this whole movie is just covered in it. Once you get past that early initial dread part, especially with the father dying, then you start to lean hard into the empathy for these kids. And I think honestly, especially for Piper, because Piper has already got... You know, doesn't have, and I hate to use this phrase, but a clear vision of the world as it is.

Once you learn all that, it's one of those ones where it leaves you sort of scratching your head slash rubbing your temples like, oh my God, what is this going to turn into? And it's one of the rare movies where it's kind of stressful to watch it. Because if you're even a reasonably thinking and feeling human being, this movie, it hurts a little bit. And to your point about a sophomore effort, fucking well done. Because holy shit.

you're uncomfortable you feel like your empathy is going nowhere you feel like as a viewer of the movie that you you need to reach out and help somehow that's quite an accomplishment and it overall though the whole thing leaves you with such a gross and kind of yucky feeling that As a person, you don't even know what to do. That is 100% true. And of course, we do have a lot of reluctance in regards to approval from social services.

They find themselves in the care of Laura, who is in this case portrayed by Sally Hawkins, who is this eccentric woman who is still trying to process the accidental drowning. death of her daughter. And Laura explicitly expresses her reluctance regarding Andy's presence. She does not want to adopt him, but...

So anyways, she does harbor this outward like suspicion about past physical infractions that had been documented by the children's social worker. So we have this tension between Laura and Andy. and it intensifies when she discovers him disparaging oliver uh who That character in itself, when you first meet Oliver, it's very unsettling. We have this selectively mute nephew who is first introduced attempting to strangle a cat.

And with Laura, you know, she she comes across having a seemingly innocent sort of exterior. But it's very obvious that she is harboring this just far more dangerous intention. Than is initially apparent. You know she's discovered. This ritual. That requires. Sacrificing of children. To resurrect her deceased daughter. And. We have this intensive exploration of just how far grief can compel a person towards the unthinkable, and it builds towards this very heartbreaking conclusion that just...

powerfully like reinforces the central themes of this movie and i know for some people when it when it comes to like the ritual aspect in itself and the vhs tape and you know like the analog aspects of it i know some people did like they were mad that they didn't have all of the answers and for me I had no problem being left in the dark. I thought like I don't need a full explanation. We don't need everything like written on the walls for us to have a cohesive story because.

We knew the reason behind it. And it's powerful to make someone do absolutely crazy things to try to bring back at least some sense of normalcy back to your life. We live in a world now where people... Oh boy. I want to make sure I phrase this correctly because I really don't want to offend anybody. Grief is a real thing and it's a real thing for a lot of people. But I also think we live in a world where people allow themselves to be overcome by their grief.

Way too easily. And they also put a lot of things in the grief category that are not actually grief. With this, I think, well, two points. So I think, A, the grief, as crazy as she is, the grief feels very real. she kind of almost palpates that grief through the whole time. Like you can feel it coming out of her. Secondarily with... My phrasing, I'm off on it tonight, and I'm just, I'll find the cylinders, I will. I think we live in a world now where people are so easily propelled by hate.

But at the same time, most people don't even understand why they hate something. They just hate something because somebody else told them to. And it was somebody else on a social media thing or whatever else. With this movie... The quarters are so close and so confined and in a lot of ways lack a lot of exterior influences. So we really have this here just is what it is. And with these kids and these siblings and the one being protective of the one, which, I mean, to me, it was very appreciated.

It puts you in a place where you have to, or you would almost expect a lot of explanation. And to your point, yeah, we didn't get it in this one.

This is one of the rare movies where I sat through it, and I was feeling that. I was feeling a little bit of the, well, why is this happening? And I don't know if I'm becoming a more... mature moviegoer you know despite my youthful appearance um but i was completely okay with it i was completely okay for

not having to be spoon-fed what's going on. And looking at movies these days, there are so many movies that in the first 10 minutes, you know exactly what's going on, and then just shit just plays out. And this movie didn't do it. You got bits and pieces of the story and bits and pieces of what's happening throughout the whole entire thing up to and including the last five or so minutes of the movie where you found out new things.

And again, going back to the sophomore effort of his filmmakers, fucking kudos, because I think we've gotten to a place now where even filmmakers don't have the patience to let their story play out. They just shove it up your ass from the get-go and hope that you take it. And if it fits, it fits. If it doesn't, well, you go on to the next story. And with this film predominantly being...

And I don't want to use the word children because they're not three years old, but they're anywhere from early adolescent up to a teenager. When you leave that much of the story on the back of... of characters of that age or actors of that age that's a huge risk and i can't think of a single scene in this movie where it didn't pay off and didn't pay off beautifully so

Again, kudos to these directors for directing a great movie, but also I think having a lot of faith in their actors to pull these things off because this movie at its core is genuinely frightening. And for all the reasons that we've talked about so far, plus all the reasons we haven't talked about yet. And when I watch this movie.

And you and I have talked about this a hundred times before, but I think it bears repeating. When I watch a movie and I'm left uncomfortable, like with a feeling that I can't shake, like say, I'll allow the coffee table, for example. That's good filmmaking. It's really good filmmaking. And I know that people, when it comes to horror movies these days, they...

They just want slashers, or they just want whatever it is that they want, or zombies. And that's great, but we have so many movies coming out now where you watch it. And you walk away and it's like, well, I saw that. Let's go get some burritos. And.

the ones that I appreciate the most are the ones where I walk out and I need to find like, cause I go to the movies by myself a lot. Cause my wife's not big into horror movies where I need to find. And it's honestly most often you where I'm like, I got to talk about this. And this was one of those movies. And it just, I think that's why for, you know, all the stuff we watched this year is why it kind of came to the top as something special.

Absolutely. And really from the opening sequences, like this film does establish Laura's involvement with these occult practices, though, at least early on, like that ultimate objective. remained pretty deliberately like ambiguous you know she encloses her property within this painted white circle we see her privately screening these vhs recordings of these horrific rituals alongside

This blank-faced Oliver, who appears to be under this sort of supernatural sort of influence. And we also see, you know, Laura. cutting hair from Piper and Andy's deceased father during the wake. And we have the introduction of Laura's deceased daughter and just that sort of... maternal attraction towards piper that brings the film sequence of events and you know it just it deepens the meaning into like the sharp unmistakable focus you know through piper oliver and

uh you know a satanic ritual like completely just document documented on handheld cameras and subsequently formatted it onto physical media like we have laura devising this plan to resurrect her daughter And those plans face potential compromise only from Piper's oldest brother, who has this distrust of Laura, which runs considerably deeper than her suspicion of him.

Yet Laura emerges as this character who is just malicious designs that remain fundamentally sympathetic. Hawkins in this is just... I mean, she's just a flat-out bitch throughout all this, but she delivers just... this carefully calibrated performance where she possesses this love to give, but that love has undergone this sort of mutation through the despair that she's been through.

And she is able to like compassionately convey like this woman's gradual descent into madness. For as much as there is a very cult-like feel to this. One of the things I'm glad they didn't really do, at least in a grand scale, is give us the people in white robes, you know, chanting purification by fire or... The people in dark robes that are like, drink the poison and we'll all die together. And I think it says something again about how the film was made, that there's definitely a cult aspect.

There's definitely more people very likely involved in this, but we didn't have to see the big prayer circle or the people worshiping at the upside down cross or worshiping over the altar of fire.

It's kind of at its core one person with some knowledge, or at least what they think is knowledge, and here's the thing that they're going to do. A lot of movies that... bring in the cult aspect of it they so overdo that with people you know chanting and doing all these other things like we've seen that before if you're gonna if you're gonna give us a call you're gonna have to

get with it and make it a little more modern. And, you know, the modern day cult is not people that meet in the barn in the middle of nowhere and, you know, chant Amun-Ra or whatever. They have their... They're technical and they're on the internet and they're doing things and they meet in much more secret places. And with the possession piece of this...

They're not subtle about it. But at the same time, it's not like we see a lot of other possession movies where we just have this roguish, freakish behavior and things are just... out of control all the time it's more of a slow buildup and while you're watching it and you can see oliver sorta for lack of a better word, deteriorate, kind of before your eyes. It draws you more into the story, and it keeps you interested, but it also keeps you empathetic, which...

over a course of a movie like this is a really hard thing to do. There is a point where you, I think as a movie watcher, your empathy meter just, it pegs and you're just like, I don't give a shit anymore. This movie ramps it up slow enough. Where you're like, yep. And you're like, yep. And then just when you think you might hit the needle, there's something that kind of just takes it down a stage.

And it just kind of gives you for the next sort of iteration or the next chapter of what's going to happen. And it's just in the end, it's from an emotional standpoint.

I know you and I have talked, but the movies where you get emotionally invested are often for me are the ones that are the best. And this one, I was invested all the way and it kept. I'm going to use the word disappointing me, but in the best way, like letting me down, you know, in terms of the story and how these kids are treated and what was happening. It was just like, oh, back to that whole somebody should call somebody thing.

That's a hard thing to do, I think, as a movie maker. It's an even harder thing to do as a movie watcher where you're being emotionally torn down as the movie progresses. But that's what leaves me with the best feeling that I... I was emotionally impacted by a movie, and when I got done, I had to go and walk it off. That's impressive. And there's definitely plenty of moments in this movie that...

You know, they prove satisfying precisely in that sort of unwatchability. You know, it's as if the Philippou Brothers camera just insists that we witness these disturbing scenes unfolding before us. And a lot of these elements surpass, you know, the predecessor and cohere more effectively to produce a genre of film rather than something that feels just authentically horrific, you know, rather than...

this mundane like family drama with tepid horror elements that just get superficially kind of just thrown into the mix. And, you know, beyond Hawkins' performance, you know, the lead child actors, as we mentioned in this, deliver exceptional work. This relationship between Andy and Piper serves pretty much as the film's emotional foundation, with Barrett and Juan proven not only believable in this sort of sibling bond, but in conveying Andy's unspoken resentment.

towards his stepsister. Plus, we have a really fantastic music needle drop of Untouched by the Australian pop duo The Veronicas, which made for a pretty memorable moment in this. But there is...

There's something about this film that maintains this oppressive, clammy grip throughout the runtime. And it's something that is just so fundamentally rotten existing at the... core with just this pervading dread permeate in every frame and we have the deployment of water imagery in particular particularly rain that just amplifies

that sort of unease. And given the bloody and deeply upsetting sequences that populate the latter portion of the picture, there's just this atmospheric heaviness that feels entirely appropriate.

I'm so glad you said that, the sort of water-ish element of the whole thing, and most certainly the rain, and with that pool in the backyard that we... throughout various times in the movie where you see it through a window or you see it, you know, over somebody's shoulder and you sort of know in your heart of hearts that something's going to happen there.

We talked a little bit earlier about things being spoon-fed to you. Is this one of those moments where they might have put a little bit on the spoon and said, here comes the airplane? Maybe.

At the same time, though, they did it so subtly that, for me, it's completely forgiven. Now, the rain aspect of it, I mean, what do we all think of rain as, right? Rain is cleansing. Rain is healing. Rain is... uh bringing on the vibrancy of life and for as many movies and i i i guess that my best example is probably the original crow and how they used rain and rain was just so if it was raining someone's going to die and with this they did not necessarily paint rain in one shade or the other

because there were times in the movie where it rained and it was just like oh it rained gotta be careful of the pool or do whatever else and there are some times where it's like it's raining and some people are gonna just flat out die so it was never one specific thing it was

It was more like an emotional catalyst to how you were feeling at one single point, which again, the filmmaking, that's really well done. The simplest things in this... became, in a lot of ways, the most complicated things. And once you figure out what the goal is, It's one of those things where it's like, well, okay, but sure, but how are you going to make that happen? And as things go on, and then once we see...

uh, the daughter, what was her name? Kathy. Once we see Kathy's corpse in the freezer, for me, that was the moment where everything just like tipped over into something completely different. And it was like, Like you knew this lady was off her rocker a little bit, but keeping your daughter's corpse in the freezer is, I mean, that's where you get to circle it a couple of times and put an exclamation point next to it. Like, yeah, this is just ridiculous.

You know, but then even after, you know, Andy is, he's, when Andy's coming home from the hospital, it was one of those points where I thought it's like, okay, so we're either going to get... Like a full acknowledgement or a full cleansing. Because those are the two things that I've always known when it comes to this type of film.

And we sort of didn't get either one. And it was like, you sort of gave me a third option where it's like, nope, I'm going to take one step deeper into this pond and see what's happening. And that's not usually what happens. we're at the point in the movie where it's like it's either going to be all spelled out for us or it's going to kick it off into some weird gear where it's like you know you don't know what's happening and with this one it was still in a place where it's like

we're going to go in just a little bit deeper and give you just a little more, and there's going to be a little more about what's going on. And not a lot of movies do that. They don't bother with the super visceral or the super just trying to understand the incarnations and trying to understand what's actually happening. And once you sort of get that, it's like, well, you know, for the whole thing to be complete, you know, the one has to eat the other one and then sort of...

And then once you get your mind wrapped around that, you're just like, oh, my God. And imagining feeding a child the corpse. Of another child. So the first child could shit out the reincarnation of the first? I mean... You start wrapping your brain around that, and you get into a place where it's like you start thinking about the Terminator movies, and it's like, well, what if? And what if? Like, what if this didn't happen? How did the timelines work? And then pretty soon you have...

a headache. And you're like, oh my, this is so much to process. But then again with this woman, when she keeps her ritualistic and cultious feelings kind of... Kind of close to the vest. Doesn't, again, doesn't make it into a bunch of fucking romper stompers that are just cheering and burning torches and doing all these other things like that. It's so tight. in the middle, what she's trying to do. You almost get to a place, this is me as a parent, where you're like, yeah, maybe, maybe.

And once you hit that place for me, then it was like, oh shit, I'm crazy too. Great. Great. Okay. I don't even know how to feel anymore. And then you just, you just kind of hang on to the safety bar and you want to get to the end.

Yeah, even though like so much of the narrative centers, at least with, you know, this ritual on this sort of angelic possession, you know, the water throughout the movie, you know. that exists is far removed from like holy or baptismal association you know here the water flows through each frame uh and it kind of just carries us through the narrative almost like it's this powerful current

To the point where it just overwhelms us and it drowns us. Here, you know, water transcends more than just symbolism. You know, at times it's just this explicit warning. And there is a lot of imagery that comes with the rituals, too, particularly with the triangle symbol in this, which is more of just, you know, the tomb that claims Laura's daughter. You know, it's carved in a stone.

It's etched in the flesh, tattooed onto the hands as if it's indicating that her daughter's final resting place resided at her own hands. And it's interesting because in this particular case, you know, the... The triangle is pointed in a very peculiar direction. It's not upwards or downwards, but leftward. It's backwards. It's as if it's behind us. So it's pointing to the... origin point of that pain. I always wondered with that if what they were trying to tell us is that

despite Laura wanting to resurrect Kathy, that maybe it was Kathy that killed Laura or Laura that killed Kathy in the first place. And so that goes back to the whole... Would I be a good foster parent? Like, if I killed my original child, should I have more? And that was one of the places where I don't have...

In my head, I don't have a firm grasp on what I actually think that meant. And I think, honestly, watching it a couple more times might help me get there. Because I know what this movie, visually speaking... There's so much happening in the visuals that is adding to the story that there's no way that one watch can give you everything that you need to see.

I think I've seen this movie twice. And even then, I can say that I definitely did not see everything that I needed to see. And that even goes back to how you talked about using water and how water was almost the vehicle. of this story in a lot of ways in good, bad, or otherwise, right? It's not necessarily that a bad thing is going to happen. It's just, this is how you're being transported.

Now, I mean, this movie, there are some times, you know, and I think about like with Oliver trying to eat the knife and... Getting to a point where he's even chewing on his fingers and doing like that. I think even though he's effectively possessed by a demon. At the same time, going back to the whole Foster thing, and we know that there's bad ones, this is one of the places where it's like, and again, on the emotional level, like, does this happen?

You know, do, are there children, and I mean, and if we're honest, we probably know that there are, that are forced to do things like that just to try to survive, you know, that, you know.

eat the ticking out of their mattress or do, and you hear horror stories. And I think most of us as people, I think we're, are, desire is to be good people but i think we can also use our keen powers of perception to drown out a lot of things in the background so we don't have to think about it um because the more you think about it the more you get to a place where it's like

Maybe I should do something about it. And we're all busy and et cetera, et cetera. And as the movie progresses and we're getting towards the tail end, it's definitely in a place. Where, for me, I was at my most uncomfortable. And wanting somebody to just swoop in and... To do something. And. For me watching. Oliver. Collapsing into himself. And just getting worse and worse. And.

Right for me when I thought that it really couldn't get any worse, they basically give us a new child who actually already has it worse. And that was kind of the point for me when they see the new kid, Connor, and he's in the shed. For me... i think that's where i sort of mentally tipped over it was just like i i don't think i can take anymore from this movie and again that is kudos to the movie

But for me, when I get tipped over and I'm just like, no, I mentally, I'm just, I'm punching out. I can't fucking take anymore. I both love and hate that moment. I love it because somebody did it good enough to get me there. And I hate it because. A lot of the rest of this I'm probably not going to see because I've punched out because it's been such a fucking roller coaster. And with this one, and I think, again, having talked about movies of the year.

and all the things that we watch and whatever else. This is probably actually better than I think it is, but it got me to a place where I mentally flipped a switch and I had to protect myself. I just put up a wall and let a lot of probably the last 12 to 15 minutes of this movie just happen. But I wasn't going to let it hurt me. So similar to.

our protagonist, and the daughter that she was intended to replace. We do experience this form of blindness throughout the film. Eyes in this receive punishment repeatedly throughout the narrative. Whether it's from blindness to physical assault to consumption, bring her back just demands that we feel rather than see. One pivotal point, we have Oliver, who is just hungry for something beyond mere sustenance. He consumes the eye of the deceased. It's as if it is this...

Grotesque communion unfolding before us. You know, it's this ritualized blinded of those already perished. And much like traditional communion, you know, flesh and blood are consumed as sacramental elements. You know, we witness. oliver chewing through skin which is systematically tearing away what constituted his humanity and with laura and her her beliefs like she explicitly states that she believes that the soul lingers within the body for, I think it was two months following death.

And, you know, perhaps she conceptualized a decomposition as this form of exorcism, which would explain her preservation of her daughter's corpse through refrigeration. And it's... It's like a memory's frozen in temporal stasis. You know, we have the water that follows throughout this narrative, just solidifying around, you know, her daughter's final moments. It's storing her.

Within this casket constructed of cold. The end of this movie. It's one of the rare times where. I mean. they sort of left it a little bit open right like what's what's sort of happening but at the same time so we've spent this entire movie you know watching oliver and what's been happening to oliver And then they did this sort of let you run to the end of your leash and bark, but then jerked you back and then gave us this other kid. And with that, it's sort of...

takes you to a place where it almost makes you feel like Oliver is going to be like a second chance. And this... new kid that they just kind of randomly pushed in there is the first chance but like he was I mean it's almost kind of like Where the hell has this kid been the whole time? It's like he was probably like the first opportunity, but like escaped or hid or did something. And then so now we're on to Oliver and Oliver's like the next chance.

Because the way the movie ends, it's a little... I mean... It's a little confusing. It's a little confusing. And the moment where we see this... I don't know, the way that we see this kid... burst through i guess like you know kind of like the proverbial jungle and kind of come out as this demon leaves his body and that the the cops basically show up and see him

But then we find Laura, like, who is in the pool and has the corpse of her daughter. It's like, there's so many things happening there in both story and then also narrative where... i mean it's it's kind of like it feels like one of those like professional slapping contests where it's like you're standing there and somebody just pops you in the mouth and is like and then looks in your face and says what's two plus two and you're like uh

lasagna and like you it's so much happens so fast you can't even like mentally collect it all and like form an opinion or like a thought on it It's one of those ends where, and I'm going to say again, I like it, but it's so conflicting and there's just so much happening that...

I think for a lot of people watching a movie, a lot of people would just go, this is dumb. And they just kind of walk away from it and not bother. Where I would say... oh my god that's a lot i'm gonna need to watch this seven more times before i know exactly what happened it goes back to me for like that's just great movie making where things are so convoluted

and things are so well written and acted and, and filmed where it's just like, I mean, cause I mean, how often do we watch movies and we get to, we get to the end and we have a legitimate, holy shit moment. Like, And you're saying, holy shit, because so much had happened and you got 27% of it. And you're like, wow. And this movie does that. And the very end with Laura and with Kathy in the pool.

It goes back to the whole water thing, but then also with this, how visually striking it is, and you're just like, for all this time, this is going to sound awful, but... For all the time this woman put in to try to pull this off, she's now at a place where she's finally actually mourning her daughter's death. She hasn't done that. And all this time has passed, and now she's finally doing it.

And as a human being, you actually feel a little bit bad for her. And it's like, why do I feel bad for this fucking lunatic woman? Why do I feel? But you still do. And again, that's how the story is told and how the story is shown. That's what makes it effective. It makes it shocking. It makes it memorable. And it stands out so much above the movies that are made today. I just... Yeah, I'm just...

I'm sitting here just thinking to myself now, I think about the end of the movie, I just got goosebumps all over again, and I'm like, oh. This movie is not meant to be your friend. It's meant to assault you in every way that a person can be assaulted, and it doesn't.

Yeah, there's definitely that moment earlier on after, like, the father's wake where... You know, they're in the car talking about like, oh, well, what do you do to cheer yourself up? And, you know, Andy makes a comment about, you know, he usually drinks. So they spend the night dancing, partying, taking shots and everything. And then there's this really.

real moment after after piper is kind of clonked out because she's had a couple of shots where we kind of have a little bit of a therapy session between laura and andy and She's trying to make him feel at ease, so they're just sitting with their backs against one another, and they're having this conversation, and Andy basically asks her, like... You know, when your daughter had died, like, how did you move on? How did you cope with the pain? And she very blatantly...

Like, speaks the truth. Like, she tells him, like, she didn't. And that is really the only point within the movie, up until the very tail end of it, when you feel a lot of Laura's pain.

at the center and it was such an island experience and then it's just you see all of the shit that follows and then you do have that full circle moment at the very tail end where it's just like yeah you do feel empathetic towards her at that point but it's just like i don't want to say it felt too little too late but to like give us that little sprinkle early on and then to go the trajectory that we were on like

There is so much pain within this movie, and I know that when it comes to the excessive violence towards children or teens, there's a very fine line that people are willing to sit through. And I feel like this one definitely crosses that line where it is going to lose some people and some people aren't going to give this movie a fair shake. And I hope, you know.

Once people listen or if they hear enough about it that people will eventually like come back to it. But I truly feel like this is one of the rare instances where. Maybe this movie didn't set the world on fire, but in five, ten years, this is definitely going to be one that a lot of people are going to go back to and talk in much higher regard. You are absolutely right. I think...

The thing that this movie does brilliantly is understand that the people that are watching it are going to fall on a spectrum. And there's going to be some people... that will tolerate a 5 in terms of emotional damage, and a 7 for physical damage, and only a 2 for sexual damage.

Because we're all people and we all fall on a spectrum. And it's... It's so weird. Because I've talked to a couple of people about this movie and almost universally everyone I've talked to about it... likes it but it hit them in a different place than it hit me so what does that say does that say that the people that made it are absolutely brilliant well i mean maybe they're not brilliant but they're good filmmakers

But you've made a movie that can impact a person depending on where they are in their life. And that's the cool part. And now, for me, I think I've told you before, I would say if you're a teenager... You know, from 13 to 18, I'll run you over with my car and not think twice about it. You're probably an asshole. The children part of it, no, children deserve a chance.

Every child deserves a chance. Every teenager, yeah, fuck them all. Kill them all, let God sort them out. With this one, and especially with Laura and then how she is about Kathy, Once you understand where she is, it's easy to commiserate with her. The hard part, and then the sort of unanswered question in the whole thing, is that it's like, so, you know, why is Kathy dead? And, you know, it kind of alludes to a few things, but...

But then I also think that it sort of demonstrates why Laura is so over the top with trying to care for everybody. Like maybe she didn't do such a good fucking job the first time. Once you get into that as a parent, that's a very, very easy thing to understand because you go through life as being a parent and there are so many things where it's like, oh, and it could be a moment.

Or it could be an entire diatribe of like, God, I wish I had that moment over. I would do that so differently. In terms of this movie, it speaks to me in ways that I can't even really articulate. Other than to say it is in every way, shape, and form horrific, it makes me physically uncomfortable. We're talking about it now, and honestly, I kind of want to...

go take a shit. I just feel, I feel physically uncomfortable. Um, and I also feel emotionally uncomfortable and emotionally uncomfortable is not something that I feel and definitely not something that I acknowledge because I think people that do that are. basically pussies. But this film hits on every level. You know, there's a reason that it came out, I think in May of this year, and it has stayed at like two and three.

For the whole, there's a reason. It's one of the ones I've tried to get my wife to watch and it starts out and she just goes, nope. And then she just goes, she, it's. And visually and emotionally, in the first 15 minutes, it's too much for her and she just can't do it. And to be honest, I don't blame her. I wish I had been smarter and left after 10 minutes in the theater.

But this one's going to stay with me for a long time. And it's both a good and a bad thing, depending on how you look at it. But as a moviegoer, I want to see more movies like this. I want to be uncomfortable. I want someone to tell me a story that in a lot of ways is probably very true to life, but is also just shocking beyond what I can imagine.

There's definitely some other motifs at play here, too, when it comes to the production design. A lot of it actually deals with the color purple. You know, we have it adorned, you know, her daughter's maven suit. It's also Laura's fingernail color. We see Piper wearing the sweater. And purple usually is historically associated with...

like mocked royalty. It's also the robe placed upon Christ before a crucifixion. And to exist within purple typically means that, you know, you're suffering with purpose. you know, to where it signifies bleeding with dignity. And there definitely are a lot of, like, religious-based threads in this, much like with Andy. You know, Andy dies not in glory, but in love.

You know, he sacrifices his life not through vengeance or violence, but to save. It's this quiet death beneath the thunderous rain. And this is really a movie at its core that does not... shriek in anguish you know this movie weeps no it's plot meanders like a grieving mother wandering through these foggy fields just uncertain where excavation should begin and it's

we have like this silent plea even like within the title you know bring her back you know it's a plea that addresses not the audience but divinity itself you know it's as if we witness you know that divine force responded

Yeah, I'm kind of at a point with this one where... For me personally, I... I want to be done talking about it because I... I'm getting all the same feelings that I got the first time when I left the theater and how as a simple person who, and you know me, I don't indulge in a lot of the things. that I think are distractions from life right now. I like to be a person who's in the moment and is trying to live life.

I take films at their face value, and I also understand that sometimes over the course of time, that value can change, right? This is still a film that for... A lot of reasons. And there's a multitude that I'm not going to explain because it's not for anybody but me. This movie hurt me. But that's what made it good, is that it hurt me.

I'm going to leave it at that. Yeah, I did also have something very similar in my notes. Fundamentally, this film examines how evil forces can defile purity in love. It's twists and thoughts and beliefs into... these grotesque forms in pursuit of retaining what has already been irretrievably lost. And this is one of those rare movies.

uh this year and you know really the past decade where like this affected me more profoundly than i anticipated like that any other movie would and you know you you get to the end of this movie and We have Piper escape in Laura's grasp, thanks to Laura's innate maternal instinct. It's evident that her inhuman actions have not entirely extinguished...

her humanity despite everything that's happened. And after discovering Laura's manipulation against her brother Andy and encountering his corpse within the house, Piper only manages her escape when she addresses Laura as mom. You know, Laura's motivation throughout bringing her back just centers on resurrecting her daughter, you know, regardless of the cost to multiple innocent lives. And it's just this raw.

unprocessed grief that drives her to these grisly extremes. You know, it renders her pitiable in ways few antagonists achieve in this genre. And it's that same emotional vulnerability that creates that hesitation. That allows Piper to survive. My last comments. This is one of the movies. And I think we're seeing this. A little bit. Starting to come through. Just.

through the creativity of, again, not Hollywood, but other places. We've, for years and decades and maybe even centuries at this point, Had to have movies where somebody came out on top. This is a movie where nobody wins. And when I say that, even for Piper, who survives.

She's still not winning. Does she get to carry on? Yes, she does. But from my perspective, she gets to carry on in a world where she's mostly blind and now she no longer has her older... stepbrother to guide her through things and take care of her so she's she's does does laura survive yeah She survives, but she's found by the authorities with the rotting corpse of her daughter in a pool somewhere. So she's not going home that night. This is... At its core...

For all the slasher movies and zombie movies and whatever else, when you use the term horror, I think right now this is probably the defining movie for that term. Like I said, it's one of the rare movies that leaves you so uncomfortable and in a place as a person where you start to doubt. the need to carry on because what the fuck is the point? Uh, cause this is how it ends in one way, shape or form for all of us. Uh, yeah. I mean,

So great filmmaking, guys. But, you know, maybe make a movie about a lost puppy that finds a lost kitten and they go on to make a happy movie. Dog, cat, kitten, family. Because Jesus Christ. A good horror movie scares you. A good horror movie makes you think. A great horror movie takes you to a low end.

forces you to dig your way back out of it and that's what this did yeah there's there's not many like it yeah it leaves us with this profound impressions you know following its conclusions you know we reflect these extraordinary lengths that people are willing to pursue when confronted by unprocessed trauma and grief. Having lost her daughter, Laura's mind and soul just fracture. It prompts her towards the unthinkable.

determination to resurrect her daughter that knew no boundaries. And we end with the signals that Laura is going to face justice for her crimes against these children. And this movie stands as both meditation on eternal love corrupted by loss, as well as examination of how grief, when it's left unaddressed, can... transform ordinary people into instruments of horror. And the Philadelphia Brothers have crafted this follow-up that...

You know, it demonstrates growth in their willingness to embrace like the darkest possibilities while maintaining a lot of emotional complexities. You know, whether that sort of approach resonates with viewers is largely going to depend on their tolerance when it comes to extreme content, as we mentioned, in service of exploring humanity's most devastating emotion.

And as I said, for me, this ranked second really early on in the year has not budged. It was really the only movie in the top 10 that came close to Sinners for me. But this is definitely one of those movies where it's like, this is not a like, I'm going to sit down and enjoy this movie. It's one of those that it's like, okay, if I'm going to watch this, I know it's going to get in my head.

it's going to just latch on to me and it's it's a hard movie to recommend because of that because it does impact everyone in a different manner as we had mentioned but You know, if you're watching a movie and it's just paint by the numbers and it's you know where everything is going and you just don't really feel anything at the end of it, it's just like, well.

You could have been doing so many other things at that time. So when we have an instance where it's like, okay, we have something that is going to stick with us, it's going to permeate for a while, and we can see how it festers within us, and we can have a... 80 minute conversation about it six months, seven months or however many months it is after the fact, you know, it just it speaks volumes of just the craft at play here.

Well, for me, this movie was all about emotional toll, and it definitely takes one. And you're right, it is hard to recommend to friends because, hey, watch this movie, and you're going to walk away an emotional fucking wreck afterwards. Enjoy.

Make sure you make some popcorn, right? But for what you and I do and for the movies that we watch, there's no way. I mean, if you go out into the world of people talking about movies...

Not many people are talking about this one, as good as it is. And there's a reason, because I think most people don't want to risk the conversation. And because once you risk the conversations, you have to think to yourself, well... emotionally like what are the other movies that i think hurt me like this movie did

And there's two that come to mind. One is a coffee table that was very recent. And the other one is not very recent. The other movie that hurts me like this is Schindler's List. And... I'm not going to get into the ins and outs and the whys and whatever else, but all three of these movies hurt me. And you walk away... not wanting to skip and to do whatever. Things are just fine. They're movies that stick with you and they get embedded in your psyche. And even if it's a day or two days later,

that you're able to walk away, they leave a little piece there with you. And you can call that whatever you want to. You can call it... superb filmmaking, and you can call it mental fuckery, whatever you need to do. With the number of movies I watch, when I can be fucked with like that, at its core, I appreciate it.

I mean, I'm not necessarily going to send you a thank you card for it, but I do appreciate it. And, yeah, these two, you know, billabong dildos that when you see their pictures, it's like. Whatever they did, they did it right. And I'm anxious to see what they're going to do next. Yeah, so basically what Grind is saying is rather than sending a thank you card, he's going to send them a bag of dicks. A big bag of dicks. A big, yep.

And rubber dicks, wooden dicks, maybe a couple made out of metal, maybe a couple that might explode if you touch them in the wrong way. But, yeah. This is one of the rare ones, man. It's one of the rare ones where there's, I mean, hey, Sinners was our top movie, right? And it was great. And in my head, it was great because it told a good story.

It made me not hate vampires because I don't like vampires and it made me not hate period pieces. That's good filmmaking. This is on the other end of the spectrum where you fucked with me. I walked out of it shaken. And I didn't fucking appreciate that. But at the same time, I did. So this is quality filmmaking at its finest. And this is the kind of things people should be making.

There's just not enough people doing it because it's a huge risk and no one wants to take the risk anymore. Yep. So to wrap things up, the best way to put it is kudos, but also fuck you. uh so with that being said looking ahead uh next up we are recording an episode for the lawn walk uh which

We're going to space out the releases just because we are getting caught up. So we'll let this episode drop in on Thursday. The Lawn Walk will come out on Sunday. And we'll be doing that for the next few weeks. because we do have four planned recordings here. But in the meantime, I hope you guys enjoy your weeks. Be sure to join us on Tuesday and Thursday nights at 7.30 p.m. Pacific time for our weekly watch parties, which...

You know, the Thursdays might be a little iffy the next few weeks because of the holidays. But, you know, we'll definitely hit that in full swing again back in the new year. You guys have a good night.