Well, it's what happens when I get my rosacea and I just want to itch the hell out of it. So itchy, I end up scratching and then it scabs and I have scabs. But apparently you're really not supposed to in this area because I learned that it's called the zone of Death apparently. Yeah, so all of the blood vessels and stuff like that around your T-One actually. Oh. I thought you meant Houston was the zone of death. Well, yes, that too, but that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking T-One.
So welcome to Imported Horror. This is the podcast that brings you the very best of creepy clowns, unsettling scores and ambiguous chair demon things from beyond the shining seas. I'm Marcus. I've only seen two of the things we're talking about this week. Guess which ones? And I'm here with my punctual. We're back for the second week in a row. We're awesome like that. Melissa. And I'd have to say that the only thing that Marcus didn't watch was the thing
that was super short and was his idea for all of us to watch. So I'm Melissa. That shouldn't surprise you that things have just been crying. The funny thing is you'll never know until Melissa and I stopped talking about whether or not the chair demon was an actual thing or I just made that up to mess with you. So you'd flub the intro. I mean, I have flubbed harder for less, so I can't even dispute that. I mean, that's just fact. So this week we've got the amazing digital circus from Australia.
We've got the Piper, which is technically according to IMDB from the United States, but I'm going to argue it's an exception. And Melissa's short movie, I don't even know what it's called. Oh my God, now I'm. Blanking out. Neither either you're mocking me and you don't know what it is either. I keep wanting to say Creekside, that's why Creswick, it's Australian and it's a short from short verse. So we haven't caught up with the coming Soons yet. That will be back next week for January.
I hope everybody had a Merry Christmas if you're into that. I hope everyone had a relaxing Wednesday either way and and hope everybody's safe. It's been kind stormy, at least here in southeast Texas the past couple of days. Yeah. We don't have, don't a full coming soon, but we do have one movie I thought I'd mention to. So this is courtesy of my wife who sent me a TikTok about it. It is called, lemme pull it up here. Survive. I sent this trailer to y'all. Did you watch this trailer? I did.
Yes, I did not. I'm excited for it. When you send me things during work hours, I'm not able to watch them and it's like a 50 50 shot on whether I'll remember to watch it later. In this case, I don't think you missed anything. And also you missed a great deal. This has to be movie written all over it. So this is Survive. It's the IMDB summary.
A couple celebrates their son's birthday in the middle of the ocean on their boat, a violent storm hits and it brings up hungry creatures from the depths and they fight for their survival. And that's really not fully accurate because the violet storm was caused by a meteor, which reversed the polarity like the Earth's poles. It made North go south and south go north. That's not how a lot of things in that sentence work. But wait for it. Wait for it.
So that reverse polarity made all the water rush out of the oceans and go somewhere. It's not clear where the bottom of the ocean incidentally looks a whole lot like the Arizona desert who knew. Yeah, that's right. And some sort of creepy crawly bug. Things came out of the depths of the ocean and they are enraged by the oxygen and also they can walk. And so there's a shotgun on this boat because of course there is.
Why wouldn't there be a shotgun on the boat? And it just has safety, whopping safety. Feature in all boats. Yes, as a's true Whopping 4.5 out of 10 on IMDB release date January 10th, higher than I expected, but it is much higher than I expected. You can rent it right now on Prime video. So I don't know why that,
I don't know. I got nothing. But this is from France and Belgium and that raises some questions because I remember when we did revenge, I guess it's been a couple of years, and that movie was a couple of years older than our episode, but the director was talking about how it was difficult to get genre films funded and distributed in France. And I wonder if that's still accurate. Shark or blue just blew the gates wide open. That's not what the movie's called.
I don't remember what the movie's actually called because I call it Shark Blue. It was that French shark movie on Netflix that got really, really popular. Under Paris. Yes, thank you. And there was your favorite Girls with Balls and there was infested, which was all right, that's on Shutter Spider movie. So I wonder maybe it's more investment, maybe things are changing. Maybe that director was embellishing a bit to promote her particular film. I don't know. Yeah. This looks like a masterpiece.
Do we think this is going to be better or worse than blood and snow? I mean. Does it depend on how seriously it takes itself? I think so. I can't imagine there are any misogynist rants in this. And I also, but you. Never know tendency, you never tendency to pop up when you least expect it. There was at least enough creature in the trailer for the creature feature. That makes me think maybe some of the monster stuff will be interesting.
So apparently in some of the reviews it says that it was confusing because the first part of the movie is in English and then the second half of the movie they start speaking French. And I'm not really sure. In Ponti pool. I'm really now I'm just curious. I'm not for any flop reasons. So now wait, was that because they were dubbing it and they ran out of money to finish the dub and they just retained the French original? Or is it like the same actors just switching languages?
So here is the exact line from this review. The movie itself is frustrating to watch in that for a while they are speaking English. Then about halfway through they switch to French. To make matters worse, the captioning for the movie is the worst I've ever seen. Often makes no sense. I'm. So excited. Bad captioning is a legit thing to complain about, but that is an interesting choice. Yeah. Well, and here again, this is another review.
The characters are obviously not native English speakers and they go from English to French randomly throughout the movie. Well, I mean we see that in European cinema and Canadian cinema to a point, and Australian cinema to a point because there's this sense, hey, we have to make it feel and look like an American movie either because they want the Americans to take it seriously or because that's sort of the currency of the realm when you're talking about horror movies or I don't know.
I don't know when Canada does it, there's not a language barrier there for the most part, but it's still like black Christmas. You could just set that in Canada. There's nothing, the Australians do that a lot too. So I don't know. I don't know. In the case of my movie, the director was actively trying to mimic a mainstream American horror movie. So I sort of get it, but even then it was the same thing. Accents popped up at times and you're like, okay,
you're not okay, it's fine. I'm not going. I'm the French. It's like I don't care if you're British, but you might want to do another take if you really either own it or don't. But I don't know. Depending on how much it is, I've got some prime credits. I might rent this thing and watch it. Right now it says 1499, maybe the rent buy for 1499 doesn't happen until January 10th. Maybe if we're extra lucky we can catch this in theaters on January 10th. Oh God. That is the process.
I mean, I guess if I'm going to, I guess would have to pay 14, 9, 9 to watch it on my tv, I might as well pay 1499 and watch it with popcorn. And an empty movie theater because let's be honest, it would be empty. Yeah. Which is a weirdly wholesome experience. But. I don't know. We thought the unbearable weight of massive talent would be empty and there were a whole five other people in that theater. That's. True. That's true. That's true. I don't know. Well mark your calendars for survive.
But I talked to Emily later. I said, I saw that trailer, it looked awful. And she said, I know that's why I sent it to you. And I said, and I looked it up, it's foreign. She said, I know that's why I sent it to you. And I didn't ask if she wanted to see it because I already know. Of course she wants to see it. Why wouldn't she. Your wife? So Well. Yeah, I really do. So well, it's amazing.
It really is this going turn into one of these things where Uncle Grady has to watch Ross for a few months, isn't it? Very possibly, yes. Okay. We also have a new segment that I don't have sound effects yet for, but I want to make them. And Melissa, you love your short films. And so I thought, hey, let's make a new segment called Melissa Short. Get it. I'm also short. You're like four foot five. Yeah. I'm four 10 and a half. Okay. I was, she's very. Defensive about that. 11.
I was about to be like, you're four foot 11. I thought no, make it even shorter for comedic effect. Now I wish I'd overshot just to see what would've happened. My license though, and I'm sorry. Yes, I lied. On my license it says five foot. I wear shoes that make me a little taller. I mean, I kind of have the opposite problem. My license says five foot 11, but I was still going through period. So I grew an extra inch. I swear to God, I am exactly six feet tall.
So the fact that my license says five 11 irritates me. So if we combined the power of our licenses, we're good to go. Here we go. Just combine it. But yes, since I love shorts and I'm short, Melissa's short, I'm not going to get too mad about it. I mean, none of it's not true. So what is our, let's be. Honest. What is our short for today? So the short for today is called Creswick, and this is from Short verse, which is one of the websites that I watch my shorts from.
It is a 10 minute short, it is from Australia. And Grady ended up watching it too, which I was really excited about. So it's interesting because it basically premise is a woman is helping her dad clean out the house that they are selling. So this is her childhood home. This is where she grew up, the family grew up, whatever, and they're going to sell it. And it reminded me a little bit of when my grandparents ended up going into a senior home and we were cleaning out their house to sell.
When you're removing things from a house that has been in the family for so long, I feel like it brings up old ghosts for lack of a better term. And in some ways I think that that's of the idea that this movie is trying to encapsulize is the cleaning out of all of the old trauma from whatever it was. But also I think it kind of hit on the themes of
being older and watching your parents get older. The thing that I really liked about it is because of the way that it was shot, it felt unsettling throughout the whole thing. And there were a lot of mirrors and a lot of shadows that you weren't sure when things were going to get creep or what was going to happen. And even at the end, you weren't really sure what you saw.
And I like that because I think that you can take this concept and if you do it right, you can make it into a great full length movie that would have a great story to it. And that's what these shorts really are, right? They're trying to showcase this work. If this particular filmmaker did another one, I would completely watch it. I hope somebody picks this up because it really, I think could have expanded on the story that we saw. And I think one of the creepiest things,
and this is where the chair demon comes in. So the dad is a woodworker. So now wait, time out. Time out. Hand on. Yeah. Is the demon sitting in a chair or is the demon a physical, literal chair? So neither. Well then why call it a chair demon? Because I was messing with you. Well. Are you messing with me. Now? Yes. I guess you're going to have to watch it. So the dad is a woodworker and he keeps making this chair. And at night the woman hears these sounds coming from the woodworking shed.
And she goes out there and her dad has made a couple of these chairs, but they've gotten progressively weirder in the way that they look and how they're set up. And it almost looks like they're turning into bones of a thing. It felt so weird and uncomfortable. And I don't know if that was supposed to indicate a mental decline of the parents, which is kind of what I thought was what was happening at.
Yeah, that's kind of where my head went. I thought the whole thing was just, oh, the dad's losing it and this is actually kind of sad and thinly failed horror. So I thought that, but then there were other things that made me question that the book of sketches that she had that her dad was like, Hey here. And she had sketched her looking down a dark corridor
and it mimicked the dark forest that she was looking down. And again, that could be an allegory for the unknown and looking into what a future might look like with certain things happening. And that in itself can be terrifying. So I do think a lot of it was allegory, but I do think you could have the end.
There was a legitimate thing to be scared of. And whether that particular thing was part of the allegory or not, I'm not sure there was indication that when they were growing up, there was always weird things that were happening in the house. And again, not sure if that had to do with mental decline and those things were happening because of some kind of mental illness going through the family or something else. But overall, I mean, Grady, how did you feel about the way it was shot?
I thought it was neat. I thought the lighting was cool and something about that one straight shot of the forest path that they keep going back to that was kind of creepy speaking as someone who actually lives in a really forested area. I thought about you. And also full disclosure, looping back to somebody said earlier, I watched this twice and somehow both times I completely forgot about the sketchbook at the beginning.
So that ended up not filtering into my interpretations at all just because for some reason that scene just kind of left my head. But now that I'm think now that I'm thinking about it, what did that sketchbook mean? What did it add? And that's. Why. Fermented artists that Going Through some stuff, maybe that's the thing that kind of runs in the family or I dunno. Oh, that's a good point. Because with her sketching and him doing woodworking, that's all imaginative art.
And that would make sense with her drawings going darker and darker and his woodworking turning into what it was. Yeah. Oh, that's an interesting point. I think I focused on the sketchbook because So did you feel as unsettled as I felt waiting for what was going to happen to happen? I mean that's just kind of something that happens when you watch anything that's spilled as a horror movie you're waiting for. Fair enough. The thing to happen. But. Fair enough.
I mean the way this was shot, I was kind of like, okay, where's the twist? Where's the thing that jumps out at you? And in this case, it kind of felt like there wasn't one. But at the same time, I'm wondering if maybe there was and I just didn't get it. That's kind of where I was kind of confused here.
I also wonder if there were things that I missed too because I was so when the sketchbook happened, I was actually really focused on that because I think that whenever you have a sketchbook and a horror movie, I'm like, oh, obviously something, somebody drew something crazy. And so I was so focused on the shots of the woods. We didn't even give your child black crayons. What happened? Yeah, exactly. I was so focused on that. I wasn't really, I think that that's why I focused so much on that.
And now it makes me want to go back and rewatch and see if I missed some things. I really thought when she was in the bathroom and she got her little stuffed bunny that something was going to happen in the mirror in the bathroom. Why didn't that stuffed bunny have a face? It not like that. I don't know. I did not like it. Not at all. It looked like it was something that was being in the process of being made, which is another good point. Was. It So ambiguity is sort of central theme here?
Little bit, yeah. Yeah, that's. Ambiguity. The way that she treated the staff money at the beginning, it wasn't like, oh, this is a toy that I love. No, she threw it at him. He was joking about whether she wanted to keep it or not. So it was either something that profoundly creeped her out as a kid or some kind of weird inside joke with the family like, haha, aunt Mildred gave you this money without a face and now you have to like it. Fair enough. Nothing. Y'all are saying me. I don't know.
I'm here for it. But also you I think tend to ambiguity more than most people, Melissa, but I can. Ambiguity is kind of a thing. I can definitely appreciate the horror in because we're all around 40 sort of hovering in that neighborhood. And that's exactly when you start thinking about that, your parents and everything. And especially if you've got kids of your own, you're sort of caught in the middle. So I find myself watching fewer dead teenager movies,
so to speak and stuff like this. That's actually scary. I mean, yeah, it's true. It's true. So I don't know, but I'll include a link to it. Wonder. Yeah, please. Do. Sarcastic. That's okay. Hey, we're still rusty. We're getting back into it. So I also wonder if my interpretation of the film isn't also based on my experience with assisted livings and Alzheimer's homes that I've
worked with for years. Because you kind of see the regression and it makes you kind of look at things a little differently. And I got to wonder if that might be me reading too much into it or it might not be. And I mean admittedly I've not to the same extent that you have, but especially recently, I've kind of been building off a lot of similar issues and that probably colored my interpretation of it.
Too. I think that I would like to watch a full length of this to see if they did a little bit more explaining. And I really just want to know about the chair. I want to know where it was going to go. That is a part that I just come on. I just need to know. All right, well, I'm going to watch this and give a definitive take on the chair for next week, or I'll forget. I don't know. I'll try to send you my shorts earlier.
Well, no, I mean I asked for it and I should have, I had a conversation with a 2-year-old and I said, go the fuck to sleep. And she said, I said, go to sleep, which is hug and okay, I'll give you a hug and repeat for about an hour. And that makes it a little difficult. So what I did, I watched this a week or two, maybe I guess two or three weeks ago at this point. This is the piper.
I was in the mood for a Tubie movie because I didn't really have the bandwidth to commit to a good movie where I had to really think, but I also didn't want to be disappointed. Like you were with Blood and Snow. Like I was with Blood and Snow. Yes, Grady Resist her siren song. You do not have to watch that movie. I'm going to keep repeating. That. I'm going to keep bringing it up. I'm going to keep bringing it up. It was awful. And not in a fun way. This was all right in Grand Tub fashion.
It was TV Ma for no real clear reason. I don't know why they put the TV MA logo on it. I don't know what Tobe considers ma, but we have varying definitions. When a composer is tasked, the finishing her late mentors concerto, she soon discovers that playing the music summons Deadly Consequences, leading her to uncover the disturbing origins of the melody and an evil that has awakened. I mean, the title is the Piper, so you can probably guess this is a riff on the Pied Piper.
Let's see, where's my diary? So the review I put on letterbox for this, an orchestral remix of the ring with notes from the Beyond and the Matrix. This melodic fulco has fun ideas and a catchy soundtrack. Execution feels a smidge too rehearsed and familiar, but overall it's in tune with the better parts of Tubi collection. And the director is Icelandic.
And he wrote this during the pandemic and shot this I think not long afterward, maybe when some of the stuff, the Covid stuff was still going on, and I can't find the article, I'm going to keep digging for it. But he said that he really wanted it to be like an American horror movie, an American PG 13 ish horror movie that is very mainstream and hits a lot of the same notes. And it's got a cool fox molder moment. It's got a cool lore,
it's got cool backstory. I had heard of the Pied Piper, but I didn't know the original Grims fairytale version that gets really dark and they play with it. What is the original fairytale? So this town is having a problem with rats and a guy shows up and he is like, I can deal with the rats for you, but you got to pay me. And they were like, okay, deal with the rats. And so he does, and this is all according to the movie. And then they don't pay him.
And he's like, well, if you don't pay me, I'm going to have revenge. And they go, whatever. And so he plays his demonic flute at night and all the children in the village follow him in a chant in a daze, and they go to the lake and they drown. The only one that didn't tales were fucked up was, Yeah, no, this was, yes. This is not like the Disneyfied version of it. There's a mother-daughter relationship that's really central to it, and the daughter is hearing impaired.
And I really love the idea of disability as immunity or disability as advantage. They play with that in some fun ways and it lives and dies on the score and on the music. And when they get started, it feels unfinished and a little janky. And I was sitting there thinking, okay, this, I want it to be catchier. Why is it? And it's because it's not finished yet. And as they go through the movie, they keep building on it and they keep adding layers and they keep adding
instruments and that sort of thing. So by the time you get to the end of it, it will earworm into your brain. And the last sequence musically is really cool. It just takes a little while to get there. And they hit all the, it's got the jump scares, it's got the mother-daughter relationship. It definitely feels like a PG 13 American movie, but it also feels a little extra almost sappy at the end
because the Ring has some similar mother-daughter. And you can tell, I don't know when this guy was born, but I know he's in our same age bracket because a lot of the shots felt very ringy when they go home and they live in this apartment and the angles are like, you're looking at the car and everything and it's very noir and you're looking down and it's pouring down rain, like all those shots in the Matrix. And there's stuff the beyond. You already know what shot from the beyond.
I'm talking about if you've seen it and that's older, but I'm picking up what he was putting down. I think he might've made it a little, it felt definitely turn to the century. American Horror, maybe not modern. I think American mainstream horror has changed in a couple of different ways, but it's still a good effort. I didn't have to think about it very much. And every now and then somebody flips back into a British accent or you see something that doesn't quite fit.
Or somebody makes a comment about American healthcare that is maybe dated by 10 to 15 years. And you're like, well, okay, you're European. I. Get medicine. Sure is great. I'm sure am glad we can afford it. Well, the other direction, they were perhaps a bit extra critical as they tend to do over across on the other side of the pond. But I mean, I liked it. It was a cool idea. Not magnificent, but it was fun. I enjoyed it. The was catchy. I had no complaints.
And one other thing I want to mention, this wasn't, so Julian Sands, this was not his last movie, but it's pretty much his last movie to get released. It spent a lot of time in editing. And this is something he plays the conductor of this orchestra. You will recognize him. He's been in a bunch of stuff just all over. Julian Sands. He was in Arachni Phobia, he was in Warlock. He was just in Ton. Okay. He's very familiar. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I couldn't place him.
I couldn't figure out where I know him from. And I still, I am thinking it's ar Ach phobia, but I'm not a hundred percent sure. But he got lost in the mountains. He was a hiker outdoorsman type of thing. And he got lost and there were some weather issues and everything and he didn't make it. So, oh. God. Yeah. Everything I read said there's no indication that it was anything but an accident. He just got turned around out there in the wilderness.
But yeah, if for no other reason than him just really owning it and Overacts a bit because it's a B movie, but not so much that it's distracting. Understood. Oh, you know what? So he did. He did Warlock. That. Cover of that movie is something that will never leave my head insane. The cover. I've actually never seen it. The movie's not great. The cover's amazing. Well. Yeah. I'm going to pull it up here too. From 1989. Yes. Yes. Oh no. And that's not the cover I'm looking for. Hold on.
So there apparently are two different covers. This is one I remember. Oh, the Warlock Warlock, the Armageddon. That's the one that's the cover. The 19 93 1. Oh, okay. I remember seeing that on a VHS when I was younger and being like, oh my God. Oh, okay. Yep. That is exactly what I imagine a blockbuster directive video movie from 1993 looks like. Just what all of their, that's they all look like, yeah. This has huge subspecies. Energy. Yes. Oh yes, exactly That 100%. 100%.
Hello. I am more luck the Armageddon. Would you like to meet my finger Demons? The. Sun draws die. I fucking love Du love du. Freaking. Awesome. Anyway, that's all I got. I gave it, I think, three stars on Letterboxed. The pair scale is, nah, don't worry about it. But if you're doing the thing that I do where you're scrolling through Tubi and you're like, is this all right? Should I watch this? Yeah, this one's all right. You should watch it.
I'm glad to hear especially that they did good with the soundtrack, because a lot of movies, especially horror movies, where sound is an actual important part of the plot, they just don't for some reason. And that always annoys me. Well, and they had a real orchestra like doing the score and being. Yeah. Another example too. That was just one that immediately left to. Mind. No, I think that was a good one. I'd forgotten about that one.
That's Argentinian. It's a girl rock, girl punk rock band fight zombies. But there's remarkably little girl punk rock in the whole movie, and that doesn't make. Which sucked. That was the whole reason we were excited about it. Yeah, I mean, it was far from the only bad thing about that movie, but it was definitely one of the bad things about that movie.
Yes. Or fricking, Emily will never let me live this down, but Anna in the apocalypse, the soundtrack is bumping until somebody gets bit and turns into a zombie and then they stop singing, and then you're just left with everybody else's feelings about the apocalypse. It's like, what? No, give me a zombie dance number. And they didn't. It was very sad. But I'm glad that this movie did good music for its very music based premise.
Yes. Yes. I think it did. I think it did. My life is chaos, and so I can't at this moment pick out that particular earworm from the rest of them, but I'll see if I can find it on YouTube and post it to the show notes. It's catchy. It's catchy. And I love a good Fox Mulder moment. And this one definitely worked. I mean, pretty much every earworm that gets into my ears gets gradually replaced with pizza time. So I'm not. So real quick, I have something else to say about my short movie. I'm sorry.
I know we have moved on from it. But we've already, I'm an idiot. Melissa's short. And the whole point is that it's short. You're keeping it short because you're short. Melissa, what did you discover? It's a short film. Thank you. So I thought the writer and director looked familiar, but I didn't click the plus sign where I could see more about her and what she's done. And I should have done that because her debut feature was Relic. Okay, that tracks. Yep. Oops, my bad. So she.
Has a theme. She Definitely has a theme. I'll say that this was at least much better than Relic because it didn't make me inconsolably angry. So there's that. I have learned an important lesson, which is to click the plus sign to read the rest of the biography. Well, I'm glad that you didn't tell me that. It was by the lady that Made Relic before I watched this because I don't, my dislike of Relic is strong enough that I would not have given this movie a
fair shot. I would've just sat there making fart noises the whole time. So I did good without meaning to. So I was deliberately not bringing up Relic when I was talking about, oh, maybe it's an old person having mental issues. I feel like I harp on Relic too much. So I was deliberately not mentioning Relic, but I was like, oh yeah, okay, this is basically Relic, but short and not rage inducing. Am I crazy? Or when we did Relic, did we talk about,
or did we read about the director? Who was Natalie? Erica James. By the way, you're basing at least some of this on a short film because I can see the Proto Relic a through line. So Creswick came out in 2017, Relic in 2020. So I mean, they're definitely variations on a theme. She's also the same director doing, are they still, I don't think they're officially calling it a Rosemary's Baby prequel, but it's a Rosemary's Baby prequel Apartment seven A that's coming out.
Oh, it already came out. When did I miss this? I guess it already came out 2024. Okay. I guess I missed. It. 5.8, I don't know. Okay, well that's the same director. Alright. Oh God. Now I'm just mad because they could taken, she could have taken this and expanded it instead we got Relic. I mean, I get the objection. I liked Relic. It does go in some other. Directions. And to be fair, I was in a terrible mental headspace when I watched Relic.
I still don't like it, but I will acknowledge that there's a difference between objectively bad and not for me. And Relic is so not for me that it hurts, but not to the point where I judge people that do like it. Just like I said. Not for me.
Fair. Yeah, I mean it was scary, but in a sort of realistic, the whole notion of horror derived from parents getting older and terminal illness and mental illness, all those things, that's not, oh my god, Michael Myers is here and he's going to stab me in the boob. It's a very different vibe. But I nearly said something about Relic too, when you were talking about it. There are two kinds of podcasts out there. There are some that do research and there are some that do not.
And I am comfortable in our, oh hey, guess what? We're all professionals here and there are. That simply just don't push the plus sign when reading about a writer and director, which I will no longer. Do. You didn't even look at the rest of her filmography. You didn't need to push the plus sign. No, I did. So the other one was just drum wave, that's all that's listed. So I was just looking at her shorts. On IN. Db. Not her whole thing. No.
Oh, well, that you can't do that on. Oh, well. Yeah, you got to look her up on IMDB. Well, obviously now I know that we're learning. See, that doesn't really work for me because of the three of us. I'm the one that reviews non movie things the most. So IMDB is a little bit of a crap shoot for me. So I actually have to do research. And by that I mean look at TV tropes instead of IMDB, but still it's. They don't have an app, so that's extra work. Yeah, exactly.
So tell us about Amazing Digital Circus Grady. So before Melissa Rediscovers, something even more obvious about her short film? Well, no. That sounded mean. I'm sorry. That was mean. That was less mean in my head. I'm sorry. Alright. Again, I came at the movie with a clearer head not knowing it was associated with one of my least favorite movies that we've done for the podcast. So No Harm Done. So amazing digital circus from
Australian Animation studio called Known as Glitch. Formerly Glitch Productions was YouTube exclusive. Pretty much all of glitches stuff for a while, but Netflix very recently picked it up, which is why I'm glad, because here's the thing. Before we went on hiatus, this was going to be the next episode that I was going to do. And there was only two episodes in, but out of a Plan nine.
But I really wanted to talk about it because I think it's amazing and it technically counts as horror and it's technically foreign. And literally the week after that episode would've gone up, if we hadn't gone on an impromptu break, the episode would've become outdated immediately because all of the news for the amazing digital circus just started happening. Netflix picked it up. It has four episodes now instead of two. It was a lot. So I'm glad that I'm talking about it now.
So the basic summary, the story revolves around six troubled humans, timid, newcomer poney, comedic sociopath, jacks, jovial optimist, rag atha, emotionally fragile, gle paranoid veteran Clinger and moody cynic zule who find themselves trapped in the amazing digital circus, a zany virtual world of infinite possibilities, except for two things, swearing and leaving, hosted by the goofy, fun living AI ring, Mr. Kane and his deeply unsettling assistant bubble, the six embark on all sorts of wacky,
often traumatizing misadventures while trying to keep their sanity intact lest something terrible happened to them. So I don't know if either of you are familiar with the Short Story or the Adventure Game based on the Short Story by Harlan Ellison. I have no mouth and I must scream. I've heard the name. Okay. Well, this show is basically that premise, but played for comedy, like a bunch of people are trapped in a computer by a malevolent ai. Although Cain malevolent is probably
true. I don't know where the rest of the episodes are going with it, but it has a bunch of asterisk next to it. So we watched What, and also, none of the characters are secretly Nazis, although actually four episodes in, I'm not entirely sure about Jack's, but as far as we know, none of the characters are secretly Nazis. I hate that we have to put that caveat on practically everything these days. Yeah, I mean,
I would count this as horror. I saw the first three episodes with you, I guess it's been a little while, but existential dread, you can only make scary for so long. Trying to make it funny almost makes it scarier because it's clearly not funny, if that makes sense. I know how weird that sounds. But if you're, oh no, I'm so scared there's a window for that. There's a time limit for that. But if it's, I'm so scared, I dunno what's happening, then that somehow gets scarier.
Like Kane, depending on where the rest of the show goes, and a couple of years down the line, once they finally finish it, I may need to revisit it once we have the full picture, but he may be one of the creepier horror villains out there because he doesn't know that he's a horror villain. Or maybe he does. And he's just playing the long game in his, I guess, spoilers for a show that ended a long time ago. He's Ted Dan from The Good Place, but.
Fair. He is unsettling, but he's also so naive and he's hilarious. And I quote him all the time, I don't torture you deliberately. I torture you by accident. Any good war criminal. I sort of assumed he was also a victim of the whole thing. He might be, he wasn't the Mastermind. I don't know. It's still vague, but he is definitely in charge. And the other characters definitely do not like him. Yeah. Well, and isn't that not the worst, the scariest type of villain?
The villains that don't know they're the villain? Yeah. I mean, yeah. Because if you know you're a villain, then at least your own motivations and people know your motivations. But if don't know you're the villain, then your motivations are unclear to everybody else. And unpredictable is what comes to mind. Brittany's holding up a plushie of the character we're talking about, which is like a wacky jaw with eyeballs inside it, wearing a tuxedo, I think a tuxedo.
Ringmaster. That sounds. If that sounds weird, that's because it is. But I also feel like I'm not doing it justice. So I'll include a link or not, because Melissa's shaking her hand. No, no, no. Yes, yes. Include the link. Yes. No, what I was going to say is that feels like a plushie, that the dentist from Little Shop of Horrors would snuggle to bed every night. Yes. Honestly, I could see Steve Martin doing it in real life too. You never know.
Yeah. I could see Steve Martin voicing this character. There's definitely a throw line in the style of humor. Oh yeah, yeah, absolutely. So why is it taking so long to, I feel like that's a naive question, but why. That's kind of, so I'm going to get into the production a bit. Glitch was founded in 2017 by brothers Kevin and Luke, I am never going to be able to pronounce this last name to save my life. Lu Witch, I dunno. Ah, yes. The Lord Witch.
Yes. But they're kind of a small indie animation studio. They've been doing these original web video things for years. This is just the most recent and most successful one. They always do these seven or eight episode things that take years to produce just because they have a small team. And the animation's just really, really intricate. And this is kind of a similar thing.
Maybe with Netflix adding the money, it'll get done faster, or I am not sure, I'm not a hundred percent sure what all Netflix brings to the table other than putting it on Netflix. Well, they did that with Purely Infrequency, and we had some of the same questions, will this lead to more or not? And it really didn't. Maybe one or two more, but not what we were hoping.
And I think that part of it is also, and I think that may be part of why the creator of the show, Cooper Smith Goodwin is the creator. She is mostly known by her YouTube handle. Goose Works. I was actually a fan of her long before this came to be. She did all these really good, she's an animator and a composer, and I first learned about her from these really, really good video game covers that she made and just have been following her career.
And this was the biggest and by far, most successful thing that she's done. And she's made it abundantly clear, even before Netflix pick it up, there are only going to be nine episodes. She's got a plan. She knows this whole story, very real possibility that Netflix is not going to change her mind on that, partly because we know what happens when things get renewed for a second season on Netflix. They get banned on a cliffhanger, and then there's no season three. Never come down. It is. A trend.
If we were responsible, we'd be talking about Squid Game season two, but I don't know if I've got it in me, if I'm being honest. Fair enough. I don't, not to get into spoilers, wed game season one, but I don't understand how there can be a squid game season too mediator. I just feel like it doesn't make. Sense. No things were, I don't want to say wrapped up, but wrapped up. Yes. That's what I say. Yeah, I said it wrapped up. Well for the circus.
So I have a 2-year-old and I wind up half watching quite a bit of animated television and some of it, Daniel Tiger, that animation. It's fine. It's comforting. I think it's kind of old school. It's clearly meant for little kids like preschool, but it doesn't heat. The cat obviously has a higher budget, but still more or less elementary school, preschool age.
But some of the other stuff, when you finish with one of those and it just automatically kicks to something else, some of the art style on a lot of that kids programming is just unsettling in weird, uncanny valley ways that just make it hard to watch. And this didn't do that. And I could see something with this premise, the whole existential dread of having an existentially uncomfortable animation style. And it really didn't. And I really appreciated that. And.
I kind of have a funny story to add to this, because for timely purposes, the first two episodes that I was initially going to do our initial review on before the hiatus, the horror, I mean, there were some explicitly horror related things. I mean, we were already introduced to the idea of characters abstracting and turning into monsters. And that was played pretty creepy. But for the most part, the whole thing was more comedic.
And the scary stuff was just kind of just there. If you thought about it. And I discovered episode three was on YouTube while I was visiting you, Marcus. And I was just kind of watching it, half watching it, half watching Roz while you and Emily were doing something, and Roz was just kind of watching over Shoulder. Oh, okay. Roz wants to see what I'm watching. Okay. And then, hold on, let me get into the chat here. Trying to, how do I, oh, okay. I see.
And then this thing came on screen and I was like, okay, hi Roz. I'm going to watch this later spoil. Oh yeah, I remember that. Yeah. Yeah. Not going to lie, but it was probably better than Daniel Tiger. Yeah, Roz was delighted. Roz just kind of giggled. But I was like, oh, okay.
She has a remarkable tolerance. Yeah, because at first it was the funny animated gag where characters are in the dark and you just see their eyes and they're moving all expressively and stuff, and they're arguing because the dumb one just broke the light, and all of a sudden. It was weird. Yeah. Yeah, it was. Yeah, that's great. But I would say even my only complaint about it was that there's not more of it.
And even knowing that, I don't know when, or possibly even if this is going to finish the first three or four, at least three, I've seen him. Episodes are definitely worth seeing. Yeah. Fourth one's good too. It gets very existential for my taste, but it's good. See, the problem is I don't trust anything with Netflix now. I don't trust them to finish any series that we love, and I want to try to start these series, but it's almost like I'm going to refuse to watch it until I know everything's
out. I do. The fact that she knew it was only going to be nine episodes before. Because. Number one, it means that she has a solid, clear ending, which I think is really hard for some of these shows. And number two, at least we know when it's all out, we know that that'll be it. And like I said, I wanted to talk about it now instead of waiting for it all to be released,
because I really like it and want to get the word out. And again, going by glitches, usual release schedule, it might be like end of 2025 into 2026. By the time the Solve, by the time it's actually a complete series. Yeah. Well, and the more people that watch it, the more popular it gets. Maybe Netflix will be like, oh my God, we should throw some funding this way. Maybe. I don't know. Maybe if they've done that already, because the gap between episode three and four was way shorter than
the others. So I'm wondering if, and Netflix picked it up shortly before the release of episode three. So I'm wondering if maybe they're already throwing some money into it and they're going to be able to get it out faster now. I. Hope so. I. Haven't paid a lot of attention to the behind the scenes stuff because the fandom for the show gets a bit, it's a little hard to tell the truth from fiction and news about the show. So I'm just kind of letting what I see in the show itself speak for its own
maritime. I'm just going to leave it at that. I think that's fair. Fair enough. Understood. One for one of these characters exists, and by one of these characters, I mean, all of these characters. Rule 34. Thank you. Really the most important of the rules. I mean, that is just true though. We have a three for motion picture, tear scale, five for quality and enjoyment. That. Works maybe a four by the end of the series if it's going where I think it's going. But definitely a three right now.
Fair. So this weekend, I'm definitely seeing Gladiator two before it leaves theaters, because I haven't done that yet. And my brother really wants to watch it with me. So I don't know if I'm going to make it to see the Nosferatu remake, which I also really want to see. But I also haven't actually seen the original Nosferatu. Really? Yeah. I don't have an excuse because it's like og. It's not even a long movie.
So I think I'm going to do that for next week. I'm going to see, I think I can get, it's not on Shutter anymore, but I think all the old Joe Briggs last drive-in episodes or on AMC Plus, and I know he did it for the last drive in a couple of years ago. So I'm going to see if I can find the version with Joe Bob Briggs cutting in and talking about the movie. We could watch that on New Year's Eve. We could. That's true. Just saying. That's true. We could. I haven't seen it in forever.
Okay. So I'm not the only one. Okay, good. Good, good, good. Have you seen it, Grady? Feel like I've seen. If I. Have. It's been a very. Long time. Yeah. Well, let's do that. I genuinely don't know if I've actually seen it or if I just know it from pop culture. Osmosis. Yeah. Well, and it's black and white. It's silent. I could see it being a hard movie to watch if you're not a hardcore cinephile. But I could also see a lot of our film studies classes in college
showing it and talking about it. I don't think they did, but it's been a while. And I could be wrong. It would be a good thing to just pop on New Year's. So if that's cool with you guys, let's do it. Yeah, that sounds great. That sounds great. Well, we'll talk about that next week. In the meantime, if you're still listening, give us a shout out on Threads. Follow us, because we're going to start posting the coming Soons back there on social
media. Follow us on Letterboxed, shoot us an email, give us a shout out. Tell your friends, tell your family, tell anybody into horror about us. I think we're cool. And we're back. So that's Nate. Yay. And we'll talk to you all next week.