240 - Strangeland

Slashin' cast.

Welcome back fiends to Handle with Scare presented by the Slash and Cast Podcast Network for the show that dissects horror through the primal fears that fuel our nightmares exploring what terrifies us both on and off the screen. I'm your host, Simuly Drunk, and throughout April we're highlighting technophobia and the fear of technology.

As always, I'd like to extend an invitation to join our community. Every Tuesday and Thursday night at 7 30 p.m. Pacific time, we host watch parties over on our community Discord. Tuesdays usually focus on the movies that we'll talk about here on the show, while Thursdays focus on brand new releases, allowing us to digest the new releases as the year unfolds.

You can stay connected with us over on Discord at bit.ly forward slash handle with scare. With me here tonight as always is my co-host Granthouse Zombie and Zombie. We are doubling up tonight. Uh we are talking about The great internet, both early days and more modern days, uh, and

You know, we're talking a little bit pre-show how these two do fit hand in hand. You know, they have some similar tactics, uh, kind of falls into cyberbullying in parts. Uh, but first up, we have a movie that Honestly, not a ton of people have seen and For the most part, when I bring this movie up, it's one that definitely seems to have a bad reputation with some of the fan base. Uh, and it's one of the more controversial uh titles.

within Technophobia. So I'm very curious to hear your thoughts on this movie because I don't think it's as bad as everyone makes it out to be. So I don't know why it's been given this distinction throughout all of these years. Well, all things being equal, I do remember the movie being better. So uh the the recency bias of just having watched it and been like like looking around and kinda going, it's huh. That this isn't the same movie I remember.

Now granted, first time I saw it I was probably ho ho to date myself twenty four? And you know what, twenty four I was still young. I was in a place where I was definitely into the counterculture when It hadn't even been named the counterculture yet. Um and the tattoos and the pier scenes and all that, I I I I went through this stage. Um

So it's kind of easy to relate to. Now in terms of the internet and how that goes too, I mean, yeah, we When the internet first came to light there was no parents telling you to be careful. Or watch what you did. It was more like, oh my God, look at this new highway into the world and how we can meet people and we can talk to people from anywhere and shouldn't it be great? And theoretically, yeah, in a lot of ways it was. Um, you know, because we've now come to a place where we went from

Nobody was paying attention and nobody was warning us to, oh my God, be careful who you talk to on the internet to now where we have an application that helps us get into a car with a stranger. So it The full circle whole thing is not lost on me. But I really do think and especially from the teenage perspective, because I I came from the time of the dial up modem. And, you know, kinda rushing home from school and trying to see, you know, which of your friends was online and

Because back then being online was it it wasn't what it is today. We spend all of our time online. We don't we don't think we do, but we actually are. If we have our phone in our pocket, we're online. And it took a little bit more to get there. It took a little bit of effort. It took you know interrupting the older assembly's phone call to get online, right?

And so I mean uh really what I come away from this whole thing is that There was from the people involved in it, and this is not necessarily from the movie, but from the time, there was there was a need and an effort. And now we've come to a place and you and I have discussed this more times than I c I can even count. The internet is next to useless these days.

Just even trying to go to a website and get the fucking weather for Christ's sakes. You are inundated with 70,000 ads about this, that, and the other goddamn thing. And I think back to that time and how uh you'd have your dial up and things would come up and you were just like in a chat room and here's these list of people that are online and it's like

Boy, who should I talk to? And you you did a little bit of mousing around that it was like, oh, this person likes this band or they like this one thing and it was like, Okay, I'll try this. And as much as it was new and there were no rules and no boundaries, I think it was honestly a much more innocent time.

But then you see this movie and then you're quickly reminded that um When you see the poster for this and it's got Linda Cartellini on the front with her mouth stitch closed, which I mean I I've we've discussed also, I mean that's pretty much how every woman should be. Just just sit there with your mouth stitch closed and things will be better. It it tells you pretty quickly that yeah, the uh the innocence is lost pretty quickly. Um And I think that's really what grabs me on this whole thing.

Because as a person, I didn't experience any of this. Obviously I never had my mouth sewn shut, I guess. But again, being part of the counterculture before it was actually called that And understanding that the world sort of looked at you weird and they had all these preconceived notions and it's like

I was tattooed and pierced and all these other things while I was going to my engineering job every single day. So it's like i it it's good the old adage of don't judge a book by its cover, but it's also People tend to know only ten percent of what they think they know. And, you know, in the end it's like Most of the time you're wrong. But then there's that one time.

There's that one time where you are spot fucking on and uh anyone who uh you know goes by the scream name Captain Howdy It's probably got a a thing or two to hide and uh this this movie shows it to you in just Stark light. And watching what the characters in this movie go through, you know, as they reach towards their enlightenment. Um a lot of it's honestly kind of a little hard to watch. And you know, I know why people shit on this movie. Like I I I completely understand it.

Uh if you didn't come from this time, it's easy to shit in this movie. If you live through this, it's easy to see why it still gives you a little bit of the willies when you watch it. Yeah, so tonight is dedicated to Strangeland, uh which tells the story of a detective who pursues a sadist specializing in body modification rituals who lures teenagers through the internet.

Uh now this definitely falls into cult status at this point. This is definitely a movie that arrived too early for its cultural moments. You know, it got buried upon release, and then it has spent decades. uh quietly accumulating the audience it deserved from the beginning. Strangeland is one of those films. This was released back in nineteen ninety eight, uh written by D. Snyder, you know, iconic frontman of Twisted Sitter.

Sister, uh a man better known at at the time for we're not gonna take it than for his screen write-in. You know, this was dismissed on arrival. and found its real audience later, whether it was on cable, uh on home video, and eventually on streaming platforms that delivered it to, you know, a brand new generation of fans. Who had encountered it with fresh eyes and immediately understood what it was trying to do. Uh, and it's interesting because this is one of those movies that

in a way kind of predicted what was happening with the internet and where it would go in the future. You know, the internet back in nineteen ninety eight uh was obviously not what it is today. You know, it was a neat platform used primarily by businesses, you know, early adopters, obviously pornography. That's 99% of the internet. Uh, and of course we had these social chat rooms that Snyder had placed at the center of this story. No social media at this time did not really exist. Smartphones.

Did not exist. You know, the idea that your average teenager would maintain this sort of online identity and arrange meetings with strangers through these digital platforms and navigate the social worlds. uh that existed simultaneously in physical and this virtual space was not really A description of ordinary life yet. You know, it was still strange enough to require explanation and alien enough to carry just genuine menace simply by being invoked.

And I do wonder for D Snyder, you know, having starred and basically written this if a lot of it stems from you know, the early eighties and all of the people that railed against the the quote unquote heavy metal music, you know, the era of uh the satanic panic. Because I know that he actually went before the Senate when um

what was it called? The PMRC uh th it was a parents group that were like, We need to have, you know, more control over this and we need to have warnings. And so I'll tell you what, kids, if you ever decide that physical media is a cool thing and you ever go and buy a C D. Um, oddly enough you don't see this too much on records, but you do see it on C D's and you see the, you know, the parental advisory on there.

A bunch of old white people in the eighties thought that was a good idea and it just fucking stuck. Um What they didn't understand is that made me want to go out and buy it even more. So and we all had that friend that was nineteen that could buy anything. So it just it just didn't fucking matter. But I do wonder if that's

a piece of where this movie came from. If it was a little bit of a like lashing out against like, okay, so you're gonna call me satanic and sadistic and whatever else, like I'm gonna fucking show it to you. Um, so I think that's a a lot of where this came from. And with I mean, the tattooing and the body piercing and the

It's kind of like I said, this was this was before counterculture had been labeled a thing, and then we got into counterculture and then people got into counterculture because it was cool, right? And now I mean Go to a Starbucks and get a cup of coffee and and and don't be surprised if the person that gives you your coffee looks like they fell face first into a tackle box, right?

That's just what it is now. I mean, there's people in my office, in the office, that have piercings in their face. Um, so it What I may think about that is irrelevant, but it's become acceptable. So it's not even so much counterculture anymore as it just is expression. Now why you'd wanna punch a bunch of hole in your face? I I I'll be admitted, I don't get it. Like why you'd wanna do that?

But it doesn't really matter in the end. With this, they use it as a very succinct method of separating one group from another. I think what a lot of these nineteen ninety eight kids don't understand is that This story is told from the perception of, well, the people that would do these things to themselves are obviously deviants, right? They're obviously have all these mental problems. And I mean, it does turn out in this case. Our our captain howdy did have a couple of screws loose, right?

But then I think another part of the story is, well, okay, so this guy's caught and he's locked away and he sort of does his time and Much like I'm gonna call it the early eighties and and maybe into even to the late eighties and so.

There was a there was a point where people weren't given a chance. There w there was never a place where you could You know, if you did something truly bad, and I'm not talking about writing heavy metal music or whatever else, but if you did something truly bad, y and you were were caught and you were sentenced to something, whether it was uh mental health help or whatever else.

Nobody was actually given a chance because even though you did your your time as the as the system said you had to do it, society never cut you a break. And society kept coming after you. And nowhere do I think that is more prevalent than today. Because today everybody gets to have a fucking opinion about everything. And it takes the snap of a finger, the the right person to decide that this is my cause celeb and I'm gonna go after it and someone's just out and cancelled and gone.

And I think this movie is a really good example of that. Now, yes, was the main character pretty fucked up and twisted? Yeah, he was. But There's this little there's this little piece of me that as I watch this I you sorta feel bad for him because He goes through all these things, but he's never cut a break, and the town continues to go after him, and it's like In my head it makes perfect sense. Well it's like if you're gonna keep fucking with me, guess what? I'm gonna fuck with you back.

Because that's just how the world works, right? You can only take so much before you're like screw it and I'm gonna lash out. Now is a lot of what he does good? No. Clearly it's not. Um I mean, would it be fun to have a bunch of women in cages in your basement? Obviously it would. I mean it just sounds like a good time. Um but there'd be consent forms and things like that and safe words. Not just locked in there until you die. That's not cool. I mean, so l let's not get that one wrong.

But the movie I think at its core, and to your point about it becoming a cult classic, I think depending on who you are as a person, this movie actually really has a lot to say. And It's everything from being who you are and doing what you want. You know, I mean uh up to the restrictions of let's not hurt anybody else. Um, it's about being accepted. There's a lot of things about penance. Like I've done my penance. Why can't I just, you know, get back into the swim lane and keep on going?

And then people that can't let things go. People that people that hold grudges and just wanna see things continue to be beat down and beat down. And it's I think if you give the movie a chance, just as a thinking person, you can see all of those things.

But even as a thinking person, we're still all different. So you might land on a different side of of the right and the wrong, but it asks you a lot of questions and make you think. And I think that's one of the things that makes it a really good movie.

Now, definitely was it better when I was younger? Yeah, I can see the acting and the yeah, I I see all that. Okay. That's just things that you figure out over the course of time. But there's a good story to be told here and there's a lot of life lessons in here.

Uh and and if you just watch it and let all that happen and you think about it and you talk with your friends about it and you you you kinda go through some of that, you you're gonna find some cool things in this story and you're gonna be Depending on who you are again. You might be surprised on whose side you come out on. Mm-hmm.

Yeah, this is one of those movies that definitely leans heavily into Anonymity on the internet. Uh and this was really one of those that was like years before the culture had caught up on that end. You know, it was just not just a feature of new technology, but it was really this new category of danger, you know, one for which existing social frameworks had really no adequate response.

We had, you know, Captain Howdy and he wasn't necessarily a monster from like outside society. This was a product of these gaps that new technology at the time had opened before anyone had really thought seriously about how to close it. We had Genevieve Gage and her friend uh Tiana, who were, you know, these teenagers doing what teenagers do, you know, navigating online, no, following these invitations, uh, trusting the signals that tell them that a situation is ordinary, you know.

The invitation to a party, you know, the cool guy from the chat room and you know all of these things sound reasonable seeming, uh, you know, for like an online persona, and none of those uh carry obvious warden signs in a world that hasn't yet developed the literacy to like read them.

You know, so they go out, they meet up with him, and when either of them return, Genevieve's father Mike, who is our police uh detective, begins this investigation into a category of crime that barely had a name yet. You know, he was using tools that barely existed at that time. He was trying to navigate this threat that these official institutions were entirely unprepared to address. The internet itself, y you look at it now and it's

It's almost its own being, right? It's a it's a thing that Few of us can actually define. But all of us touch. It it's a thing that few of us understand how it functions, how one thing goes from here to there. But at the same time we also can barely function without it. It it any question you may have in life, what do you do? You go to Google, right? That's just what you do. I think with this and especially with the time. And how it was opened just wide up.

While I think you could be who you are on the internet, that's where it started, I think, for people is you could be who you are. You could you know, if you it didn't matter if you went into a boardroom or you went into uh You know, a gas station where you fixed a car or it didn't matter if you laid concrete or it didn't it didn't matter. In the uh the initial days of the internet you could be who you were.

And when it first started, I think it was actually more about truth than it was about lying. Now you still had people that lied, right? You still have scumbags that do shit and you know, wanna do shit to children and whatever else. But I think for a lot of people it was more about, okay, here's me, I'm you know, I'm pulling open my shirt to reveal my Superman outfit, but it's it's just a real me finally. Whereas I think today, the internet is exists specifically so people can lie. And

So they can lie about who they are, they can lie about their lifestyle, they can lie about what kind of car they drive, and they can just go out of their way to make sure that the rest of people know that they're better than they are. That's honestly I think 90% of the reason why it exists now.

And to go back to this era where in a lot of ways it was very freeing. People really got to do some self-discovery and really got to figure out like who they were and what they wanted to be and It was kind of like the dawn of the information age where it's like For people that were like, okay, maybe I want to get tattooed or pierced, what exactly does that involve? And you think about

You know, the first days of the internet where it's like, okay, I wanna get this pierced and and they would show you a picture of somebody being pierced. And now everything's all fucking censored because everyone's so fucking goddamn delicate. Um, you know, I think of like I think of like going on YouTube and it's like I I watch a video of a of a police chase and it it ends and the cops smoke some guy and it's like

Forgive me for saying so. I wanna see that asshole's brains hit the sidewalk. I wanna see it. You know, in 1998, guess what? I could see it. It was hard to find, but I could see it. And just so it takes away a lot of the truth when things are censored and people are not like given the actual information. Because I mean it think of any subject matter that you want to think of.

You could find in 1998 you could find it on the internet. Well, was it in a lot of ways? Some in the deep dark corners of it. Yeah, but I think that's what this movie shows you is that when you wanna get real, sometimes you gotta go to the deep dark corners. With me, I mean... I work in an office. I I do the things that I do. I'm also, it you've met me, I'm heavily tattooed, right? Okay. I at one point in my life I gauge my ears. I have holes that are never gonna close.

There was a time in my life where I was about five minutes away from and I and this is after thorough research, finding some truth on the internet, I almost had myself suspended once. And at the last minute I was like, mm. I I I be honest, I chickened out. Am I glad I did? Be honest, I don't know. Um, but I didn't do it. And now we're in a in a place where The people that run the internet are the people that decide what we what we can see, what we should be afraid of, what news we can get.

And the one thing I like about this is that even though a lot of bad things clearly happen in this story and o obviously it happens, you know, through the travel of the internet, at least there was a lot of truth in it. And it's something that I don't think we get anymore. Now with with Captain Howdy or what was his name? Carlton Hendricks. I mean the guy's obviously a fucking whack job. I mean you can't that there's there's really no getting around that.

But at the same time, you sorta have to like the fact that he just embraces his self-expression. I mean, and it's just like D. Snyder always has in his life. You know, he w I mean he he went before the Senate. With puffed up hair dressed in fucking leather and tattoos flying. And But I think it's one of those moments where it tells people that, you know, it's okay to be who you are. And for the rest of the world.

And for the people that really want to be who they are, here's a news flash for you. Not everybody's gonna be okay with it. You know, most people probably will if you give them five minutes to digest it, but not everyone's going to. And you just have to be okay with that. You gotta shut your mouth, stop your fucking whining, and go and find a group of people that think you're cool. Because if the first group doesn't, guess what? The second or the third or the fourth might.

And the way this movie kind of it takes things and it twists things and especially I think from really the cops perspective Their hardcore attitude from the very get go is these people are freaks and who the fuck would do this and why would you go to this club and oh my god, what a bunch of fucking weirdos and it's like

You know what? It's uh a lot of the world's made up of weirdos. I mean I mean, you and I are effectively weirdos, right? We we d we do a thing that a lot of people don't understand. Why would you bother? Who's gonna And it So I think it it it does a good job of showing you the dichotomy between teenagers and their lust for knowledge and their lust for something new.

And older people and especially people of authority that are like, No, here's the hard and fast rules. This is not okay and we're going to save you and The the negative side of that is that after we save you, we're gonna keep our finger on people and not let anybody try to Come out of a thing.

You know, without constantly reminding them it's like this is why you're here, this is what you did, the whole world hates you and you're gonna pay for it for the rest of your fucking life. And that's just you know Kinda not how things should be. Now, in the context of this movie, I mean they should have just hung Captain Howdy and been fucking done with it.

But they didn't. And so because they didn't, you gotta give fucking people a chance to like find their footing and and he never gets a chance.

Yeah, uh of course a lot of this focuses on more of the, you know, predatory uh behavior of the internet. Uh and really the speed at which that behavior adapts to new technology and the speed at which, you know, our law enforcement uh you know parents and social institutions catch up. You know, that is not close. It's only widened over the years. You know, these specific platforms themselves have changed. Uh what were chat rooms gave?

way to these different social networks, which gave way to direct messaging, which gave way to whatever comes next. So this fundamental dynamic hasn't really changed at all. You know, these predators are still finding teenagers where they gather. You know, the gathering place might migrate, they simply just follow. Uh so the the culture record that followed Strange Stran Strangeline's release uh makes the pre-signs

uh you know specific and uncomfortable. You know, we had to catch a predator, which began Aaron uh back in the you know mid 2000s, uh, you know, documented in real time exactly the mechanism that Snyder's script had described. knows these adult men using these digital platforms to arrange meetings, uh relying on that anonymity and the credulity of youth to bridge the gap between, you know, this online persona and physical uh predation.

You know, we also had people like, you know, Philip Markov, who was the Craigslist killer, you know, using these classified advertising platforms to locate and target his victims. You know, cyber stalking and cyberbullying emerge as these recognized categories of arm with documented body counts. You know, each of those developments.

was, you know, in miniature kind of like a variation on the sort of structure that Snyder had built in nineteen ninety-eight, when the internet as a space where identity was performed rather than verified. No, it was where the normal social cues that enable threat assessment were completely absent. So we have this vulnerability traveling faster than we had protection back then.

So it's really the first film to really place that sort of mechanism at the center of a horror narrative. And I you know it's really a distinction that's worth taking seriously because it is part of what makes this movie what it is. Well, I think the reality of it people that want to do bad are always going to be one step ahead of the people that want to do good.

And the question then becomes, Well, why is that? And it's because the people that want to do bad are willing to do anything. And I I think you nailed it when you talked about going from chat rooms to Craigslist, to Snapchat, to all these different things. And like I live in a world today like I have to fly tomorrow. And I was trying to uh get myself into the What do they call it? The touchless TSA thing. The number of hoops I had to go through to do that

were fucking ridiculous. It was ridiculous. At the same time, if I want to see Bear with me. If I wanna see a photograph of an Amazonian woman being gangbanged by a group of rhinoceros, all I have to do is go to Google. And it takes nothing. And so that that tells us how in a sense how screwed up things are, right? Now I I understand me and wanting to protect my own personal information and the the

at least implied anonymity that comes with that. But the reality is if you use the internet, there is no anonymity. It doesn't exist anymore. Every time you Google something, that information is collected, it is put into place, and it's used, whether you like it or not, against you later. It's all Perfectly illegal. You know, we had this discussion before about how you can't watch broadcast TV and see a person smoking a cigarette or drinking a beer in a commercial because it's illegal.

Um, but I can go on Facebook and I can get an ad where a woman tells me that. Uh her husband took this pill and fucked the shit out of her. And I'm quoting this from an ad I saw. Fucked the shit out of her. Okay? Four hours and that everyone should buy this pill. But we have laws in place that protect people that run companies that provide the internet to us. They shield them from any kind of culpability for that kind of thing. Even though

I know that if I go on, say, Instagram and I'm just scrolling through reels because I'm bored. And I as I said, and not bored, I'm taking a shit. That's usually what I'm doing if I'm scrolling uh Instagram. And every fourth video will be some woman trying to show off or muff. You can't tell me that kids aren't seeing that. You you you can't tell me that because I I I know that it's happening. If if I'm seeing it, I've never verified my age on there. I I I'm just anybody, right?

And so when it comes to things like this movie, I mean, and let's be honest, it its goal is to show you the worst of the worst, right? But at the same time, if you look at our society and you look at the people Like who are not like us, right? Who who want to go out Do something every day, be productive, contribute to society. But then we also have our own thing. And this like what we're doing now, this is our own thing, right? This is

this is not particularly contributing to anybody or anything. We're we're not making money. We're doing it because it's like our outlet for creativity and things like that. Having a place like this to do that thing, I think, like for me, and I've said this before, it's one of the things that keeps me sane, keeps me from just fucking cracking up and just being like, you know what? It's just it's time to shoot up the on ramp, you know, let's just fucking go.

But at the same time, I mean when it comes to and I think that maybe the baser of this thing and especially given its age and when the internet was coming to pass. There were people like that there. Today there are people like that there. I if we're honest, there are probably worse people there.

And the uh you know, the old I th there's th there's an I don't want to call it an adage, but there's uh like a a theory that in the course of your life, everybody meets and shakes hands with at least five killers. And the odds are one of them is probably a serial killer. I think if you factor in the internet, that number probably goes up like exponentially, right?

At the same time, and I think this goes back to the whole counterculture thing, this comes from a time where they tied the two together. Where for me and knowing the groups of people that I hung out with and the things that we did and whatever else There was none of this and I think maybe one of the reasons I like the movie so much is because I su I took such a great offense to it. Like, this is not who I am. Like why like like how fucking dare you say that everyone who is

you know, has giant metal rings in their ears or does what like like these people are not necessarily silicone. And then y You go to today and And the quote unquote.

if you have to call it that again, counterculture, the pink and blue hairs and the you know, the the pierced faces and all that. I mean Honestly, th there anyone from the person who gets you your coffee to the bank teller to the you know, I I I happen to know one director of something that's got a big pierced thing in the nose and I don't really understand it again, but I mean

So life is all about what you wanna do and what you wanna what you wanna accomplish and what you wanna do to get there and I think we're just in a place where personal expression has seeped more and more into Like it's okay to bring a little bit of personal expression with you. Now, do you wanna come to work as the CEO of a company dressed as fucking bozo the clown with a foxtail hanging out of your ass and a you know, a a eight gauge thing hanging out of your nose?

Probably not, right? Because I mean people want a certain level of professionalism.

But I think then even that's been it it's gotten to a place where we put a couple of coats of lacquer on it and it's started to the the definition has started to dull a little bit and people are like, Well, is it necessarily gonna be that? And But but that's what's helped us now got into our great divide where it's like people that wear a three piece suit are the fucking assholes and people that, you know, have a pierced nose are the fucking weirdos and it's like

All of these people have way more in common than anyone wants to admit. It's just a group of them live in a slightly better house and have a slightly better car. And it's like, who the fuck cares? You know, I mean, people just gotta let people be who they are.

I think with with this movie, probably the hardest part about it, at least for me to digest as a person, is that we have these really what I would call young teenagers because I think they're portrayed as like fifteen in this. And it's like That's that moment in life where you think you know everything, but you truly don't know fuck all yet. And

Maybe not so much in from the the era of this movie, but definitely today. You think that you've learned everything you need to know from the internet and the internet's wrong on ninety nine percent of what it's told you? Uh whereas for these people It's really just a a a way to try to like reach out and to see a new world and to do new things. And for a lot of the the characters in this movie, yeah, it it leads them to a place where it's like

Uh sorry, not so much. And by the way, we're gonna sew your mouth shut and uh put you in this little birdcage and you're just gonna have to enjoy your time here. Yeah, for for Carl Carlton Hendrix, you know, this is not simply a monster. This is a character whose pathology intersects with, you know, several different dice.

uh cultural anxieties at the same time, whether it's, you know, mental illness, body modification as you mentioned, uh online identity, uh, and really about the limits of rehabilitation. And honestly the most disturbing quality is not really the extremity of the violence that he inflicts, but it's the way that the film just really refuses to make him simply and cleanly evil.

Now we have the body modifications with him and you know of course he's covered in tattoos and piercings. Uh and Snyder is very careful when it comes to establishing through, you know, in a side that reads is genuinely important rather than merely defensive. But all of these things do not themselves constitute pathology. No, we're not trying to make the argument against

this culture of body modification. You know, it is using an aesthetic that was, you know, back in 1998, you know, still sufficiently outside the mainstream to read as threatening. And it was placing that aesthetic in a very specific context. You know how these modifications were not really these expressions of identity, but they were more instruments of control and not personal choices but impositions.

So what he was doing with, you know, his victims, you know, whether it was forcible tattooing, piercing, the stitch shut mouths. You know, that technically wasn't body mod in any meaningful sense, you know, it was more of a violation. You know, the film really distinguishes between these scenes even as it uses that visual vocabulary of the subculture to generate the dread. And that distinction is more thoughtful than, you know, most Probably gave it credit for back then and even.

Oh, absolutely. And even with him and when he's, you know, in the psychiatr psychiatric institute and he's, you know, getting ready to get out.

The makeup that they put on him where they make him appear so pale and so dead. It's You know, it's one of those things where they're almost they're almost transforming him back into a baby where he's gotta he's gotta, you know, come out of the womb and he's gotta grow up all over again and he's gotta kinda, you know, get out into the world and be a productive member of society.

And again, it's one of those things that like even today, even when I think about it now, how he's portrayed despite being a serial killer, it it in a in a way it still sort of offends me.

Because uh again, like I've told you and and like I said tonight, I like I'm I'm heavily tattooed. I'm heavily tattooed. And I am probably if you were to put me in a room with fifty people on a level of productivity to society and just getting shit done, I will guarantee you I'm at least number two, if not number one.

Um so this whole again, judging a book by its cover, I mean it it This comes from an era and again getting into the getting into the two thousands where we you know, we you know, the sort of some of like the punk movements and you know, all of our

A lot of the bullshit that went around with that. A lot of the the Avril Levines and the shit like that where it's like, oh, we're counterculture and it's like, no, you're fucking not. You just dress badly and write a skateboard. Okay, you're not fucking counterculture. The people that wanted to get into these things as a form of expression And I'm one of them. I I and and for the record, I like this movie, but I'm also in a lot of ways offended by this movie.

And I think that's probably why I like it is because it it gets it it raises my iron, gets me gets me kinda worked up. Now that's set, I I went through a lot of my life with a parent that had a pretty profound mental illness. And so when I see a lot of these things, it's like There's a lot of scenes in this movie that take me back to places that I don't want to go. That I things I don't want to think about.

And there's a great deal of truth to The level to which a person that is coming out of a situation like that, the level to which they will succeed, will is in a lot of ways almost solely dependent on the support that they get. And with this guy, he had zero support. He was kicked out.

told to go back home, back to the place that he did all these things originally, and then he had an entire community that just wanted to fucking hang his ass from the nearest tree. So it's really not a surprise that things went the way that they went.

Again, it goes back to that thing where, like, if you're a thinking person, there's a lot of themes in this movie that I think a lot of people can relate to, and for a variety of reasons. Um Getting down to brass tacks a as you know, far as like how it is as a horror movie. People having their mouths zone shut is pretty horrific. I think we can kind of all agree on that. And There's a lot that happens in this movie that can make your skin crawl. I mean, we even have a you know

We have Woody Harlson's brother as the cop and it's like, Oh, poor Brett living in that shadow. Um we have Robert England as kind of like, you know, the county pervert. So actor wise there's a lot to enjoy, there's a lot to take in. Story wise, there's a lot to enjoy, a lot to take in. There's a lot of things in the end that when you watch this whole thing, again, if you're a thinking feeling human being, you p you feel pretty fucking yucky towards the end. Um but I think that's the point.

But I think as a person you get to decide what you feel yucky about and not only do I feel yucky about all the things that Captain Howdy did, I feel pretty yucky about a lot of the ways that Carlton Hendrix was treated. And so when you can think about it from those terms, um I think it actually makes it a pretty profound movie. Now is it ever gonna be one of the greats? No, it's not.

But you can almost argue, and especially in this day and age, that there's so much going on, there's so many societal woes being addressed that a lot of people just don't bother to like it because they don't let it in. And While I don't want to judge all the people that don't let this movie in I would also say, Hey, you know what, look at your Look at your phone and a and ask your phone how many hours you spend scrolling Instagram or Facebook or whatever today. And it's like

Add up all that time and you could have spent, you know, an hour and uh however the hell what the hell how long was this damn movie? It wasn't that long. Yeah, an hour and twenty seven minutes digesting this movie and you would have at least gotten some things to think about as opposed to just, you know, p piss away your life just surfing the surfing TikTok or doing whatever else and For all the flaws that this movie has, um, it's got a story to tell and I think the story's pretty profound.

When it comes to this online persona captainality course, that's a name drawn from the Exorcist. Uh this was an identity assembled to function in this space where you know identity was self-reported. And you know, because of that it can be infinitely malleable. Now the gap between Captain Howdy and Carlton Hendricks was the gap that the internet made structurally available to anyone who wanted to use it, which

Yeah, is uh honestly the most pointed observation about this movie. You know, Howdy was not apparent in the use of digital identity performance. He was simply more purposeful about it than most of the others who were online. And Hendrix uh being found not guilty by reason of insanity, you know, he was sentenced to a mental institution, he was treated with medication, uh he was, you know, rehabilitated, you know it's

Not the typical, you know, narrative arc of a conventional horror monster. You know, it was a narrative arc of a person who had received diagnosis, received treatment, and by the available clinical measures, you know, had responded to it. So we had this sort of, you know, transformation with this character when he comes out this meek Quiet man who emerges from this institution, you know, covering his tattoos up with makeup, you know, returning back to his hometown to attempt, you know.

some version of a normal life, whatever he thought at the time that could possibly look like. And, you know, it was not a performance for our benefit. You know, the film presents this rehabilitation as this genuine uh thing, which makes what follows considerably more unsettling.

So... You know what makes uh this film, you know, most intellectually ambitious gesture is you know not the one that separates it most clearly from straightforward torture horror, you know, it's what it does with the vigilante mob. You know, how does this community respond to Hendrix's release? And you know, it's not depicted as heroic or even

understandable despite the fact that Hendrix is genuinely dangerous. You know, the mob that they go out of the way, they kidnap him, they drag him to a tree, and they hang him. You know, that's not justice.

You know, it's the same appetite for violence and control that Hendrix himself had embodied, you know, expressed through the legitimize and cover of collective outrage. And I remember like the first time I watch this movie and knowing all of these changes that this character had gone through, there definitely is a part of me that was like, was that moment define intervention? Well, so I guess that's the question, right?

Take a needle and poke in y poke a hole in your face on purpose, is is that insane? I would say no. To have someone take a tattoo needle to your face and and make a design, is that insane? I honestly would say no. Now is it what I would do? Absolutely not. At the same time, you could also argue

is going to a building e every single Sunday and putting a wafer in your mouth and drinking wine and and pledging your undying allegiance uh to a god you've never met and who has never once spoken to you? Is that insane? I don't think so either, right? It it be it becomes a thing of Faith to whatever your governing religion is. And for some people it's

uh the governing religion is God and and the faith to that. And to some people the governing religion is complete and utter freedom of expression. And A lot of us, I think, honestly, find a middle ground. I know lots of people that go to church that also have tattoos, right? I know a lot of people that uh have tons of tattoos and also give willingly and freely to charity.

So it's What the movie tries to say to you is that doing one thing is makes you profoundly in irretrievably in a certain camp. And I think that's for me as a person, that's the thing that I fight because that's not how it is. You know, having tattoos does not make you schizophrenic. Um and not all schizophrenic people get tattoos. So it tries to it it tries to cross this sort of uh uh really hazy and muddy bridge of Well, okay, we're gonna try to tell you what we think is normal.

And I think that's where the the vigilante town comes in. The vigilante town, the mob. It and the mob not being any different than the mob that chased the wolfman or the mob that chased Frankenstein. We're the ones as a group that decide what's normal. Uh we have pitchforks and fire and blah blah blah. No, I think we've also definitely... come to a time where we've pushed that gauge probably too far where now everything is normal and

I also don't think that's the case. I think what people think and what people say on their Instagrams or their Tic Tacs or their whatever, all this other social media bullshit. And what they would say if you were sitting on their couch having a cup of coffee is are very different.

At the same time I think with this movie, I mean It tries to show you that society has changed. And It tries to show you that while society is changing, a lot of other things have to change with it and that's you know, how people approach the world, how people are gathering information, how the police do their job, how people go out at night and what they might dress like, or what the music they might listen to, and

The reality of the world is that it takes all kinds. It black, white, red, yellow, it it it takes everybody. And Some people wanna put on pearls and high heels and go to a fancy restaurant and some people wanna put on leather and be locked in a cage and be whipped. Some people like that. That's okay. You you do what you wanna do. I think the big thing here, the big dichotomy is the People getting into a situation that they didn't understand they were getting into.

And that if you if you get down to brass tax, it's the whole no means no thing, right? That's that's really what it is. And We live in a world I think where if you have d something happening between two consenting adults, I mean maybe short of murder,'cause I mean, I know there are people that do consent to be in murder, but th that's like

But I mean if you got two consenting adults doing things to each other and I don't care if it's it's two men, two women, six men, one whatever, it doesn't matter. If people are consenting and they want to do shit, just leave people alone. And the way our society is right now, we have both sides of our political field that are going out of their way to tell us that they know what's best for us.

And at the same time, they're ignoring a lot of the things that the rest of us are kinda going, wait a minute, I'm not sure that's normal. So we're back to a place where it's like, you know what, politicians and police and whatever else Get out of my house, get out of my bedroom, get out of my garage, get out of my car, get out of my healthcare. And go back to just

Understanding that, yeah, lots of people like lots of different things. It's not up to you to say what's okay. It's up to me and to you to say what's okay. If something happens to me that I decided wasn't okay, then I'm gonna call you. And you can come and you can tell the person that did the thing I thought wasn't okay that that wasn't okay. And you can deal with it from there. Protecting ourselves as people is funny because We all like to think that we have our own best interests in mind.

But at the same time we all sell our souls to be on the internet and to be out there and to be exposed and to get this stuff and to to not miss a moment and to, you know, just be part of the splendor that is life. And I think Honestly kind of hoping to be perfectly honest. that we're getting to a place where people are finally going, Hmm. And they might start pulling back a little bit and just going, you know what? Maybe this is not what I want.

You know, I know for myself, and I you and I talked about this earlier, I'm getting to a place where it's like I'm looking at like So I come home from work. And I have chores to do and I have whatever else to do. And The very few moments that I have to sit down and just be like, whew, and just in furlacks, I my gut instinct is to go to a screen, whether it's a giant TV or an iPad or a phone.

I've started to train myself and you may not believe this, but I've started to train myself to do something else. Yeah. And I've been doing this for actually a couple of months now. I've been training myself to do something else. And what I've found is now that I'm training myself to do something else. I've come to figure out that I'm spending money on things I don't need, and that's subscriptions to streaming services and whatever else.

Um the only things I've hung on to are things that are that are related to music. Because I can put music on and be doing something else and still enjoy the music. This Fucking eyeball orgy that we feed ourselves all the time of just seeing things and it's and let's be honest, most of it is the stupidest fucking shit on the earth. Um and movies notwithstanding because I'm still gonna always love movies and I will still always dedicate my time to movies.

getting to a place where I've I think I finally parsed away a lot of the bullshit and I Honestly, I I'll say it again. If I ever acknowledged somebody on social media, I was taking a shit while I did it.'Cause I was'cause I'cause I was trapped and I had nothing else to do. But the rest of it as I found and I'm getting ready these things and

My life is not only getting better for, but my life is also getting less expensive, which is the weirdest thing. Like I'm just not spending money on things that I that don't actually benefit me. And looking at this movie and thinking about especially like the whole body modification thing of it. I found myself thinking it's like

You know, I had a guy that did my tattoos forever and ever and ever and ever. Like twenty years he did my tattoos. And then he was in a car accident and some things happened and it's like I found myself thinking, like, I need to find a new person to start doing tattoos for me. And I might just need to kind of get back into it. Because I don't think my life's gonna be any worse if I if I go to my grave completely sleeved. I'm pretty close now, but completely sleeved. Still.

Honoring the thing that I know that is always uh always ninety-eight percent of the time it's made me happy, two percent of the time I look back and went, Oh god, why did I do that? But that's just life. That just happens. Um, but I don't think I'm gonna go to my grave wishing I was less tattooed or wishing I had expressed myself less. I think one of the things that it really hammers on is it's like No, this level of ex self expression is just unacceptable. And

While the whole putting people in a cage and sewing their mouths shut and I I think there's some implied other things that they don't necessarily show but you can kind of imply it. Yeah, those things are obviously bad because they were done against people's will. But thinking somebody is a circus freak or whatever because they choose to do this or do that, it's just Yeah i in modern thinking it's just so wrong. Yeah.

It's funny that they use that as their landscape to make a horror movie. But it's what they did. And Again, the movie has so many messages to tell you that if you if you sit back and just watch it and enjoy it, you're gonna get a lot of messages. It's gonna get give you a lot to think about. And I think To your earlier point, this movie is definitely a cult classic, but I think there's a lot of people that could benefit from watching this and

maybe not gain a huge understanding of themselves, but a huge understanding of other people. And just that in the end it does take all kinds for the for the world to go around and You're gonna go through life and you're gonna encounter useless people and that's just how it works. Um But if you let if you let people that are a little different than you into your life, your life is as as me maybe not in this movie, but for the most part, it's probably gonna be better off, so like give it a shot.

Yeah, we have Mike's decision to a watch rather than intervene as Hendricks is being taken away, uh really being the pivot point in Strangeland. You know, as our detective, you know, he's watching a crime being committed, yet He's doing nothing about the mob. You know, but this is also someone who is a father who watched his daughter be tortured. And you know, his capacity for abstract justice has been burned away by something more immediate.

And this movie really understands this while simultaneously making it clear that what follows is a direct consequence of that. That the mob's violence resurrects the very theme that it had intended to destroy. So when Captain Howdy uh is brought back, he's not brought back by Lightnin, although Lightning was the mechanism of it. No, he's brought back by this community's refusal.

To process what had happened through any framework except for vengeance. Now the mob had wanted Howdy dead rather than treated. Mob wanted him punished rather than understood. They wanted him eliminated rather than managed. And in choosing so they had bypassed one thing that had actually worked. You know, the medication, the institution, you know, the slow and unglamorous process of clinical treatment, you know.

Those had produced a man who, you know, by all visible evidence, was no longer howdy. You know, the mob's intervention destroyed the treatment and in doing so destroyed the man that it produced, which left only the monster. So when we have someone like Robert England whose presence in this mob, uh, is honestly like a piece of casting so on the nose that it loops back around to being genuinely interesting again.

Then we have our most famous monster in modern horror cinema, you know, you're playing a man who creates monsters through his appetite for destruction. I don't know if that's either very clever or just very lucky, but either way, the effect is the same uh in in both results. Uh but I I think a lot of people when they look back at this movie, I think the most polarizing date is honestly probably D. Snyder's performance in this. No, it asks him to inhabit two entirely different people. And

He does so with the conviction that, you know, most writers turned actors never really approach. You know, we have the Hendrix who emerges from the institution, this soft spoken, uh deferential, you know, visibly reduced man. Uh and He is not simply Howdy with the volume turned down, you know, it is a genuinely different characterization of him. You know, he's built from different physical choices and a different emotional registry.

Now the transformation back into howdy when it comes is not a reveal of like a true self hiding beneath this sort of disguise, it's this tragedy. No, it's this destruction of something that had been painstakingly rebuilt, you know, made violent again by this external pressure. So two things and I'll try to be brief'cause we're honestly way longer in this movie than I thought we would be, but it sometimes that's just what we do.

So in terms of Mike It's always been interesting to me that when it comes to society, the rules are the rules. And the closer you are to a person that is an enforcer of the rules, it seems like the closer you are to bending the will the rules to your will, right? And As a person who lives in society I honestly think the rules are the rules and what I may think of the rules is not relevant to how I live my day to day life. The rules are the rules.

And I know a lot of people would say, Well, that sounds very biblical and whatever else. And it's like, no, it's not. It's just me being able to get up every day and knowing what I can and can't do. Now, if I decide to violate the rules I mean it let's face it, in society now, ninety nine times out of a hundred, there's fucking no punishment because you're you're generally not caught. Um, and that's you know Every day I go to work, do I uh maybe go a tiny bit above the speed limit? Yep.

Sure, I do that. So there's all these little things. But going back to the point of it does seem like people that are closer to the process of both making and then enforcing the rules are the people that seem to have The greatest ability to sort of ignore them and or at least force their own interpretation on the rules. So then going to D Snyder and and who he was in and with these characters.

I think that and I I think it goes back to what I said earlier about not having anybody behind you to support you. You know, and going through the trudgery that it is to come back from something like that. Because again, I had a parent that had a mental illness and I've seen all of this. I've seen the highway. I've seen the time and the work that it takes to come back from that. And when you have support, it can work. It can absolutely work.

Now don't get me wrong, I know that there are people that are so damaged that it just isn't possible. Like I I know that. But this movie does in very, very stark consequences show you what happens to somebody who has no support and moreover when the whole entire goddamn community turns on them. And

I'm a nightmare on street fan. I love Robert England. I go into this society. That guy was the last fucking guy who I'd be following. I mean he it I mean, let's face it, he's got pervert written all over him.

At the same time though, mob rule, right? And and mob rule tends to uh leave out a lot of the details and a lot of the you know the little things you should think about and just like let's gather the pitchforks and the torches and let's just go because We all as a bunch of collective idiots have something to unite around. But at the same time, that's the society we live in today. Well, we are all collective idiots and we find things to unite around.

I think this movie does not do the world of mental illness and the world of people that try to help people with mental illnesses any favors. Um, because it goes right back to the well, all this time has passed, we did all these things and it didn't fucking matter anyway. And I don't believe I don't believe that's accurate. I think there's a lot of people in the world that have mental illnesses that get a lot of help and go out and live decent lives. I I I honestly believe that.

Still, you know, in the end, there's still this weird thing where we have this. What you could call a burgeoning technology. We have what we could label. Counterculture, people that do things, see things differently, people that have a complete and utter lack of understanding, and that definitely was in this case the cop. and a society who is hell-bent on their perception of what is right.

I think this movie takes a lot of societal woes that you could say are still relevant today and lumps them all into one movie. And kind of shows you everything all at once. And because they're trying to do that, the movie can feel a little busy and it can feel like there's a lot going on.

In in in a sense there kind of is, but it's trying to tell you a lot of things. And if you watch this movie and you let it just kinda wash over you and you just sit back and think and you and you take some of these characters in. Most people can see a little bit of themselves in just about every one of the characters because it's easy to see yourself as the cop who just wants justice. It's easy to see yourself as the the town vigilante who just wants to run this freak out of town.

Those same people that wanna run the freak out of the town, you know, maybe like to go home and you know. Tie the wife up and give her a little rub and tickle. Or uh, you know, have one too many beers and and have the music up too loud and just kinda stumble around and do your life. Or or maybe you're the teenagers who are just You know, trying to figure out who you are and you're lonely and you want someone to talk to. There's th there's all these things in here.

It's hard to take this whole thing and really pinpoint the quote unquote bad guy because everybody had a part in making most of what happened in this movie happen. And when you get to the end, it's like there feels like there's a little bit of justice in having, you know, Captain Howdy basically kind of torched and lit on fire. But then if you get down to it, it's like, well

The cop was on the edge of being dirty. The townsfolk did a lot of things that they'll never be held accountable for. And it goes back to that thing. It's like, well, there's rules. And Damn near every character in this movie broke some of the rules. So really who's the bad guy? And I mean, the person who was murdering, that's the the pretty easy number one spot. But then start filling in, you know, uh second through tenth place.

gets a little harder because you have to you have to take your high high powered perception point it at yourself. And most people just don't want to do that. Yeah, the violence here's very real and you know the film doesn't really flinch away from that, you know, but it's deployed in service of character and theme rather than as

uh the primary attraction. You know how these methods themselves are horrifying, not merely because of what they do to bodies, but because of what they mean. You know, it's this forcible rewriting of identity. No the permanent inscription of his presence on his victim's flesh, whether it be the stitched shut mouths that make speech impossible, no These are not random cruelties, you know, they were specific and coherent violation, you know, and the film understands that.

You know, some when we talk about the internet that Snyder had depicted back in nineteen ninety eight, you know, that was niche and strange and new. You know, the internet that exists today is both ambient and total, you know, it's not a place that teenagers go per se. You know, it's more of an environment that they inhabit. No, it's this continuous uh with physical reality rather than separate from it.

And I know there was talk about a potential sequel from Snyder where, you know, howdy would return to target, you know, Genevieve's uh teenage daughter, you know, forcing her to confront her her pass through her child's danger. Uh, and you know, that never really happened, you know, would have allowed the film to explore, you know, what survival of the kind of violations Strangely had uh depicted actually does to a person over time. Which honestly was the question that, you know, the original

raises and doesn't fully answer. And we can also, you know, update the technology without abandoning the human stakes that made, you know, this one matter in the first place. But, you know, still unmade, so I don't know if we'll ever actually get to see it.

But I will say there is a very specific moment in this movie that I feel like ties in perfectly with the movie that we're gonna be talking about here in just a few minutes, since we are doing a double recording. Uh so There's a scene with Robert England in this when his uh his partner has had her throat slit. And you know, he's wanting to get You know, his dick wet, they're gonna hook up, and of course she comes out uh basically just covered in blood and Robert England's character.

thinks that she is just doing a little dance, putting on a little performance. And we have something very similar to that with one of the shows that are present in Cam. So I thought So not only are we talking about Uh you know, olden day internet versus new day internet, but we also have a connection in regards to the throat being slit with a little performative uh moment.

Kinda like a mishap per se, but the other more per per purposeful. But I just thought that was pretty interesting and I thought I would bring it up. For me. And there's a number of movies that do this. Like I I I think of natural born killers as another one that does it. There is nothing more disconcerting than a grown adult male dancing around in his tutty whites. It's just there's something just It it makes you feel like you need to take a shower after you watch it. You just feel dirty.

Yeah, I think the the connection between the two movies, which I mean, be perfectly honest, was fucking happenstance. It was total just out of the fucking blue. But there's definitely a connection. And As we talked pre-show, the The distance i in time between the two movies being like just bang on twenty years. And showin' you where the internet was once a place of profound exploration. I mean in in in a sense, maybe still a little dangerous, but only dangerous in the sense that

Like Lewis and Clark, dangerous, right? We're gonna cross this river. We're gonna see what's out there. And it it could be anything. We just don't know. Now that we've gotten to a place where, unless you're a fucking moron, you know the dangers of the internet. But the interesting thing is we still keep going there anyway. So I think in the end the draw is what's incredible to me. Um and I'm still a human. I I still go to the internet for things. I don't

I don't think I use it like I once did. Um, you know, it's it's for me, the internet Is one of a couple of things. It's a place to get things done and whether that's paying a bill or Talking to my insurance guy or Buying a classic car I had no business buying.

or, you know, uh connecting with friends because I think in the end was supposed to be about was about connection and Whether it's connection to people, uh connection to information, uh connection to information but information about yourself whether it be your bank or whether it be your 401k or whether it be your employer And this early movie, I think, took a really good swing at How in the end There's a certain level of depravity that exists everywhere.

And so it should not be a shock that it became pervasive on the internet. And to your earlier point, yeah, ninety-seven percent of the internet now is porn. I mean, I it it's and The thing that scares me is not necessarily that, oh my god, there's children seeing pornography. It's it's not really that. Um because sex is sex. I mean whatever. It who who cares? It's that There's the ability to see information.

that maybe you don't know what to do with and in this day and age And especially if you're a young person. Because your mom and your dad are so tied to their fucking phones and are too busy to do anything that even remotely resembles raising you as a person, you have nobody to talk to about it. You have nobody to help you understand it.

I'm never gonna begrudge you if you grow up to be somebody who likes to be tied up and, you know, beat about the head and face with a rubber dick. If that's what you like, hey, fucking live your own life.

But if you're thirteen years old, you probably shouldn't be seeing that because you don't know what to do with that information. I mean, there are people in their thirties that don't know what to do with that information, but the nice part is at least they have somebody to do it with. And it Information is only as good as your ability to understand it.

Um I can I can go out I can Google uh uh astrophysics. You know, I can I can look at it and go, yep, that's astrophysics. Doesn't mean I understand it. But does my lack of understanding astrophysics maybe hurt me as a person a little bit? Probably not. But some of the interpersonal relationship stuff, and especially when it comes to sex, a lack of understanding can be a very, very bad thing. And

with people. I don't think our goal should be to block people from seeing these things. I think our goal should be to give people more resources to have people to discuss it with so they understand it better. And the hard part is there's just Too many perverts out there that want to confuse understanding with uh collective indulgence. And then when we get there, just shit just falls apart. And it's like and I think this movie kind of is trying to tell us that that it's

It's okay to be you. It's okay to be a little different. Um It's not okay to hurt people on your personal journey of self exploration. And I think once we all figure that out as a as a collective group, you know, this collective group we call humanity, I think once we figure that out we'll be okay. And But I don't think we're there yet.

So hopefully we figure it out before uh, you know, everyone's goal in life is to become a cam girl. And I think think think we saw how that ended up. Um so yeah, we'll uh For my part, I'll leave it right there and uh We'll we'll we'll take a short break, folks, and we'll we'll see ya on the next one. Yep, so next up we are recording our episode for Cam, uh which we will release this Sunday to give you guys a little uh break between the two.

Uh but until then, just a reminder, we are streaming every Tuesday and Thursday. Our watch parties over in Discord, 7 30 p.m. Pacific time. And I've also been streaming over on Twitch. Uh basically every night but Wednesday and Friday at eight PM Eastern time. Uh and that's been uh

pretty interesting venture back into streaming'cause it had been so long since I'd done anything. But, you know, trying to stay consistent with it and of course most of the stuff is gonna be, you know, scary reactions or game and so Hope to see you guys there on that front. All the info is in the Discord as well. But until then, I hope you guys enjoy your weeks, and we will see you for our next watch party. You guys have a good night.