THE PODCAST ON HAUNTED HILL EPISODE 161 - SIXTH SENSE AND SIGNS - podcast episode cover

THE PODCAST ON HAUNTED HILL EPISODE 161 - SIXTH SENSE AND SIGNS

Aug 14, 20244 hr 9 min
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Episode description

GHOSTS & ALIENS!! Yes, Episode 161 of THE PODCAST ON HAUNTED HILL is here, and it’s a DIRECTOR SPECIAL! We’re focussing on the career of M NIGHT SHYAMALAN, and our 2 main reviews are THE SIXTH SENSE (1999) and SIGNS (2002)!! There’s some real life TWISTS in WORLD OF THE STRANGE, and lots of other potty-mouthed nonsense as usual!! So tune in, download, listen, like, comment, and share!! REMEMBER YOUR TINFOIL HATS!!

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Transcript

Gav

The podcast on Haunted Hill will contain spoilers and swearing.

Intro

I am the devil, and I am here to do the devil's work. I saw this when I come. And be one of us.

Gav

Hello, and welcome to Podcasts on Haunted Hill, Episode 161. Yeah.

Dan

That's correct.

Gav

Brilliant. Just making sure, my name's Gav. My name's Dan. Welcome back or welcome front, I guess would be, would be if you are here for the first time, we welcome front.

Dan

Welcome, welcome at the front, and you're welcome at the back.

Trailer

Is that what you say, welcome front?

Dan

No, I don't think it is. I think you say welcome back, or welcome if this is your first time.

Gav

You're welcome back because they're coming back again, and you're welcome in them. Welcome in them, in them, in them, in them, in them.

Dan

Welcome in.

Gav

Back. So front is just not, the front is never said, because if they're coming back, they had to come in for the first time, and unless they had the front at the first, then they didn't, because front doesn't exist.

Dan

Well, if you are listening for the first time, this is Gab's brain you're currently listening to. We're just spewing out of it like lava from a hot volcano. And that's the sound of it. Welcome, welcome. Yes, this is the podcast on Haunted Hill. This is our tenth year of podcasting. So what we're trying to do for as many times as we can is do a director special. Director special. We've never, we haven't got a jingle for that, but there we go.

Gav

No, we should have. I make jingles really easily, but every time I don't, because I forget.

Dan

We just forget. But this is a director special. And this time we're going to be talking about M Night Shyamalan.

Gav

Dun, dun, dun, dun, dun.

Dan

Shyamalan.

Gav

Yeah. But that might deem like we're being taken the piss out of his name. We're not. It's just, I couldn't help it.

Dan

It fits, it fits perfectly.

Gav

And I found out that the name Night come from really him just studying late in the library. Yeah.

Dan

And he changed it.

Gav

That's not as cool as I thought it would be.

Dan

People also couldn't grasp his full name. So he's got an Indian name. Yeah. So he changed it to M Night Shyamalan, which is fine.

Gav

Well, his name is more equivalent to Michael in India.

Dan

All right. So it's quite a common name in India. Well, we'll get into that because yes, M Night Shyamalan. So what we're going to be doing is breaking down his back catalog. Always puts a smile on our face when we say that. We'll be going through his back catalog, everything he's directed, a couple of things he's produced along the way because he is a voice in horror, quite a loud voice. He puts bums in seats, people buy tickets for him.

Gav

Well, funny enough, though, he started off strong doing like a kind of supernatural thriller with a A-lister.

Dan

Yeah.

Gav

Pretty much not as his first movie, his third film actually, but his first actual like Here I Am.

Dan

Yeah. So we'll be talking about M Night Shyamalan, everything he's kind of done career wise, his style, his idols, his background. And we're going to be covering his first and third films because they are both very spooky films and two of our favorites of his probably.

Gav

What was the second?

Dan

His second movie was Unbreakable, which is still a fantastic film. But we're going to be looking at The Sixth Sense, the one that kind of got his name on the map, really. Starring Bruce Willis, John McClane himself, spawned I See Dead People as one of the biggest quotes. And apparently, it broke the box office record because up until The Sixth Sense came out, Jaws held the box office record for the horror film. But then The Sixth Sense smashed that.

Gav

So, wow. Well, he must have had something, I think quite a good writer really, for reviewing the film, especially The Sixth Sense. Really good writer, naturally.

Dan

Well, he wrote it.

Gav

Yes, I'm saying. Great character, the development, stuff like that. So I think must have been in the writing that he went and said, you know, I'm going to do this movie, but they were really like, yeah, okay, the two can actually make films. And trust him enough to say, oh, all right, we're going to give you Bruce Willis, because it wasn't like he was friends with Bruce, because on the set of the film, they had just done a scene after dinner, seen Bruce and his wife in the film.

And he said, yep, I think we got it. And M Night was like, hmm. He went over to him and said, yeah. And he knew as he was walking over to him, he's just like, look at him like he's going, because it wasn't that, yeah, it was a studio thing, so Bruce would have been hired by the studio and the producers rather than like a relationship with the director, do you know what I mean?

So he went over and said, can you just do, I want another take, but I want you to do this and whispered something to him. And he just looked at him, really cold stare for a long time. And M Night, okay, audio, roll.

Dan

Imagine telling Bruce Willis, that wasn't enough.

Gav

After Bruce just said, no, we've got that, you know.

Dan

No Bruce, you weren't good enough. Well, we'll also be covering.

Gav

But, there's more story to it, so.

Dan

Oh, gosh.

Gav

He went over at lunchtime, the producer said, yeah, Bruce wants to see you in his trailer. And he had a really long walk down the street to the trailer, and he was walking down to him, and he's just, oh, fucking hell. And he's just walking down there for ages again, this is not gonna be good. Oh, God, knocks on it.

And he opened the door, and Bruce is high up with a towel over his head, he's been having a shower or whatever, and he's really high up, standing above him, he's really low, looking down up at him. You know, it's his first film. And Bruce said, what you did earlier, only once I've ever felt that before. And that was with Quentin Tarantino. You've got something. And then he shut the door. He shut the door, and that was it.

And then M Night said he skipped down the road, the only time he's ever skipped.

Dan

I would have done. That's amazing. Well, we'll also be covering that from 99, and also from 2002, another action icon that he scooped up and put into a alien invasion film.

Gav

Yeah, it's a fun one.

Dan

Signs. Also with Joaquin Phoenix, Rory Culkin. Yes, Mel Gibson. So two action icons from our Christmas episodes we've covered in the past, because we've covered Die Hard and Lethal Weapon for some of our Christmas episodes. So yeah.

Gav

It's interesting. Like I said, I think like what Bruce Willis saw in that one thing then, I thought it was really good. I only found it out from the other day he had an interview, not he said about it. M Not did. I think that he must have shown that to the studio in some way with the script, shown that to the studio and then just go, yeah, okay, you know, to be able to feel that in him as well and trust in him.

Dan

Well, he liked him enough to come back and make Unbreakable.

Gav

Yeah, and Bruce did it as well. Yeah. So I think, I'm very impressed with what he's done. And yeah, he is kind of a horror person, but he's kind of stayed mainstream.

Dan

He has, but...

Gav

But in a fine way, he makes us... The fact that some of his films get out there and have made money, that would mean we've got other films come out with Kevin Bacon, like the supernatural sort of thriller.

Dan

Yeah, and funny you should say that, because Stir of Echoes, I think, came out the same time as The Sixth Sense. What I was going to say was, he is kind of like, and I'm getting ahead of myself, we will discuss him in detail later, but he's kind of like a bit of a guaranteed tickets being sold. He's almost a bit of a... I would never compare anyone to the God Spielberg, but he is a bit of a horror Spielberg in some ways.

Gav

He's high above the... He's above the layer, isn't he? Yeah. Yeah, totally. It's really interesting actually. And I think he's done really well for himself actually.

Dan

Yeah, and I'm a big fan. So we'll get into that properly soon. But first of all, Gab, it's our intro. Let's just quickly check in with each other. You've been on holiday. Did you have a nice time? How are you doing? How are you feeling?

Gav

I went to a cabin, kind of in the woods, so to speak. There was other cabins there, but it was just all trees around us. A big, massive cabin. It's better than my flat. It's fucking luxury. The mattress is so good. So good. Anyway, I went there for a week with the kids down in the coast of, lower coast of England. Dinosaur Museum, Sea Life Centre, you know, that sort of stuff. It's nice, very nice.

Dan

Good father-children time.

Gav

One day at Port of Wraith, we sat and watched the Olympics, once a day.

Dan

And you watched Old, another Shyamalan show.

Gav

And Old played, so we all got round and we all watched Old, so I watched Old with all of my children, even my youngest. He watched it as well.

Dan

Great. Well, we'll chat about that when we go through Shyamalan's work list. Good. Well, I'm glad you had a good time and you're well and you're happy. I'm well and happy. I've got nothing really to report. The only thing really, family wise, is also related to films, which is my favorite film of all time. It's now my children's favorite film of all time currently. I'm talking about The Princess Bride for anyone who doesn't know.

It's for someone who's such a big horror fan, The Princess Bride for me is the perfect film. It's one of my three comfort blanket films. And I introduced my children to it. We all had COVID two weeks ago. Actually, that is something you probably don't know about me, Gav. We all had COVID two weeks ago. Probably should have mentioned that.

Gav

You said you guys are ill at one point. That's probably when you probably then discovered you had COVID.

Dan

Yeah, my wife bought a test and she was positive, well, slightly positive. How did you feel?

Gav

How did you feel? Just comparing you to me because we're fairly similar age and size.

Dan

Well, this new strain, and I don't really buy into the strain. Well, we just felt really anxious and confused because that is apparently one of the symptoms of a newer strain is there's like an element of mental health with it, like a bit of anxiety that comes with it. I think my wife probably had it the worst. Jack definitely had it quite badly. My son, he was really hot and sweaty for three days and really not himself, really upset all the time.

I think me and Edith got off quite lightly with it. But yeah, so we all had COVID. So while we were all kind of in on the weekend, I introduced them to The Princess Bride and they fell in love with it straight away to the point that as soon as it ended, Daddy, play it again. What? Okay. So we watched it again. We probably watched it about 10 times in a week before nursery, after nursery.

We haven't probably watched it for a couple of days now, but honestly, even today, when I picked them up from nursery, Edith came up to me and said, as you wish, Daddy, as you wish, which is one of the quotes for anyone who knows the movie. Drop your sword is another quote that my son always says to me. And they're just, they're just in love with it.

And it's so lovely for me, because you know what it's like when you introduce a film to either your children or a loved one that you love and they might not have ever seen and they just don't like it or don't get it, you know what I mean? Like when I showed the Goonies to Alice and she was like, yeah, it's a bit noisy.

Gav

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dan

And I was like, well, I suppose it is, but I grew up watching it. But my, that's my takeaway really is I'm very happy that they like The Princess Bride. Shout out to Kate Pollock who sent us, when we were, when we just had the kids, she sent me a bunch of books, children's books, Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Ghostbusters, and The Princess Bride, but they were like baby books. So they incorporate the stories of these films, but you know, like a toddler's sort of viewpoint. You know what I mean?

So shout out to Kate, because I pulled the Princess Bride book out of the book box and I've been reading that to them every night as well. So doing The Voices, they absolutely love it. But yeah, so that's one thing I wanted to mention.

Gav

It's quite a good segue, actually. Yeah, because funny enough, Daisy and I were talking Jaws films, because we watched Don't Wake Up, which we'll talk about in a moment, actually. And she was just saying nothing beats Jaws. I was like, nope. And I do love the fact that all of my kids, all adore Jaws. In fact, I took them to 3D screening of it and everything, you know. They really love Jaws, which I like.

Dan

I'm honored to have been there actually with you all on their first watch of it. I remember we were on your sofa together.

Gav

I remember, yeah.

Dan

Because your eldest swore under their breath.

Gav

And their head.

Dan

And I was like, yeah. And I was like, don't worry about it. It's a swearable moment. I think they only said, oh shit. But like enough that I heard it. But it's like, what else are you going to say when you see a floating head under the water? Come on.

Gav

This new film on Amazon Prime, No Way Up, is basically a destruction film and a shark movie. So basically, it's an aeroplane crashes. So it goes into the water and it's stuck in there. And obviously, there's a bit of time. They've got like 20 hours or so until it's completely gone. And one of the people in there is a girl or a young lady whose dad is, might be the president of America? I don't know. Anyway, he's got a bouncer. She's got a bouncer with him sort of thing anyway. But they're stuck.

But the sharks as well. So they got to figure out how they can breathe and get up to the top of the water while sharks around. And actually, you know, it wasn't a bad movie. It was well acted. It was well directed. The sharks looked fine. Everything was actually fine for a shark. If you want a shark movie, it's fine. You know, I like aeroplane set in films and I like sharks. Films. So I worked on two levels for myself. No way up.

Dan

From what I've seen of it, it's like the Poseidon adventure, but with sharks.

Gav

Yeah, it's fine. It wasn't trying to force itself to do anything it wasn't supposed to do or be a tacky shark movie. It was fine.

Dan

Well, talking of children's films, I know you talked about this couple of episodes ago. I finally got around to watching Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio.

Gav

I really enjoyed that.

Dan

And I really enjoyed it too. And I was about 45 minutes into it, I was saying to my wife, I think the kids would like this. It's a bit like Julia Donaldson's, the graffolo and the snail and the whale. It's that kind of cozy animation. But then it got to like Pinocchio dying 25 times and being reincarnated and all the demons and the spirits and the rabbit skeletons.

I thought, and then they were crying at the end and me and Alice were crying at the end and I was like, yeah, this is a bit too dark for the children yet.

Gav

Yeah, if you're aged, a kid still. Yeah.

Dan

It's based more on the novel than what most people have seen, which is the Disney book. So it's a lot more harrowing. But it's very good. It's got some great voice actors in it. Ewan McGregor, Christoph Waltz, a bunch of other people in it. Really beautifully animated. Obviously, it's stop motion. And it made me think just on a segue or a tangent, it made me think Guillermo del Toro would be the best director to do a Frankenstein movie. Because for Pinocchio is a bit like Frankenstein.

I've always connected with Frankenstein.

Gav

He loves to create creature films.

Dan

Yeah. So I think they made a Frankenstein movie.

Gav

I must have thought of that idea, but opted not to. I must have.

Dan

Oh, can you imagine?

Gav

He's created his own monsters though, in his films, I guess. Yeah. Speaking of other films, because I've packed away all my movies, because I'm moving at some point, in about six weeks' time, I think, actually. And I packed away all my films, which is, I feel quite lost without them, actually. They're up in my parents' loft at the moment. Just stacked away there. And anyway, I had to rent out Blummin Hot Fuzz.

But what I'm saying, though, I introduced Elijah to, because he asked me to watch them, funnily enough, he wanted to watch Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz. And he's 10. And I looked at it and I said, no, because they're all comedy horror. There's nothing here any traumatic. I'm actually more fussy with what he watches than my parents were. That's for sure. They didn't give a shit. Anything you like, Gav, go for it. Robocop, Melting Man, go for it.

Dan

Rambo.

Gav

Anything. Whatever you like, Gav, go for it. Okay. So I'm slightly more like that. I looked in this, I know those films are great. The comedy horror element and the editing style makes it funny when they're hitting the zombie to Don't Stop Me Now by Queen in time. You can see that very clearly that this is definitely not a real thing. Elijah obviously knows zombies aren't real anyway. Do you know what I mean though? I think those films could almost be like 12, almost.

Dan

Even in Hot Fuzz, there's a cartoon element to the gore, and you know what I mean? Yeah, with the shootout at the end, it's so ridiculous in the village, in the village square, in the Hot Fuzz, that when they're eating the granny. Yeah, but it's like a cartoon still, because people are jumping around, and you know it's slightly elevated above reality. It's not quite-

Gav

When Steeple falls on the guy's head.

Dan

Ah, amazing.

Gav

Elijah went, oh!

Dan

Oh!

Gav

And I'm like, you all right? And he's like, what? And I was like, it's a good effect to him, isn't it? And he's like, it's well good.

Dan

Because we talk about the effects.

Gav

But that's so gory.

Dan

Well, I still get a bit queasy, and we talked about it before, recently actually, when Timothy Dalton gets the spire for his chin. Oh, it still makes me feel a bit funny. It's well done, very well done.

Gav

But yeah, we did that, so we introduced that. I watched another Deathwish movie. I don't know if when I watch Deathwish films, I go into some warp zone, where I go back to mind has been wiped of Deathwish film, because every time I go to watch a trailer, and I'm like with Sarah, have we seen that one? She always falls asleep to them. Anyway, it's me, I sit there, watch them, and I don't know, I feel like we've seen that one, and then you start watching it.

I don't remember any of this film at all. But anyway, I watched Deathwish 3, that was all right. We're not as fun as some of the others. I can't remember which others.

Dan

Is there five of those Deathwish movies?

Gav

Yeah.

Dan

Bloody hell.

Gav

Yeah, I think it's four I've seen, or two is the other good one, I don't know. I did watch Guy Ritchie's new film, I reckon he's got a deal with Amazon Prime for all these movies that keeps popping up on, I think.

Dan

The new one is called The Ungentlemanly Warfare.

Gav

Yeah, not bad, sir. In World War II, with Hitler sending basically a group of guys who are really like the worst, like gnarly guys who are crazy, not respected at all in the military. Getting those guys and then going out and they go out to do, they're going to go and sabotage the engineering boats, which would be the boats which go out and fix up the Nazi's crafts. So they're going to try and blow those up basically, the engineering boats. So the crafts can't be fixed.

And in the end they're like, fuck it, let's just steal the boat because their plan goes wrong. And they can steal this massive boat and have to get loads of different boats to steal it. It's pretty good. I quite enjoyed it.

Dan

Yeah, I'm a bit of a Guy Ritchie fan and I'm going to check that out at some point definitely.

Gav

It's fine. It's nothing amazing. And, you know, like The Gentleman is still his best of recent, I feel. But yeah, that's quite good. Worth a watch. Worth Gander's Geyser.

Dan

Have a little Gander's at that. Get a goosey goosey Gander around there. The only other movie I want to talk about is a horror film. It is a newer one, 2024. And again, shout out to my buddy, our buddy, RJ McCready. He's been banging on about this, telling me I need to watch it. So I finally watched Abigail, because RJ went to watch it at the cinema when it came out. So I rented it because there was a deal where you could rent it for really cheap on Prime.

So I did and I really, really enjoyed it. It was very much Dust Till Dawn meets Reservoir Dogs.

Gav

I'm a fan of Dan Stevens. That's my life of the film.

Dan

Yeah, me too.

Gav

I've not seen the film, but that's what attracts me to the film.

Dan

Sadly, everybody knows that there's a twist.

Gav

I don't know there's a twist.

Dan

Okay, fine. You don't. And then I won't say anything about it. You don't know what the film is about then.

Gav

No. There's a young girl at her house and they go there to get her or something.

Dan

Cool. Yeah. So there's a lot of Reservoir Dog stuff because it's a group of people that don't know each other doing a heist. And the heist is to kidnap this girl. It's great that you don't know anything more. And I won't spoil it at all then in that case. It's one of the goriest films I've seen in a long time. It didn't like blow my doors off, but it also was very, very entertaining. And it wears its horror influences on its sleeve.

Once you start seeing the films it's referencing, not in a, you know, in an obvious way, just in a, oh, cool. That's a bit like, it's very good. Dan Stevens is very good in it. It's got a very good cast in it. Yeah, I can't really say much more than if you've not seen it in that case, so I will shut up. But Abigail, highly recommended. I'd like it if you could try and watch it soon so we can talk about it.

Gav

Yeah, well, it's gonna be many listeners too. Also, I might be in the same situation as myself.

Dan

Yeah, but there is a spoiler that was sort of shown in the trailer and on the poster, which so everybody kind of knows it. But if you don't, then that's brilliant. That is fantastic. So I'll say no more.

Gav

Speaking of very gory, once upon a time there was a really, really gory movie. This is what I've discovered. A really gory movie is made. It was handed into a film studio and it sat on a shelf for four years. And so the film studio decided to get in the new director, new rights, new things, edit new things and change it to a PG-13. And that is Eli Roth's Borderlands.

Dan

Has it been sat for four years, has it?

Gav

Yeah. So I looked into it. Cause I was just like, I felt so sorry for Eli Roth. Like he comes from cabin fever, goes ahead and makes I think it's 116 million budget. And then like another 30 million for advertising, which is a lot of money. So he goes and makes a film like, wow, but apparently cause like a stunt man came out as well. I know nothing about the game. I know I've never played it.

Dan

I don't know nothing.

Gav

Sarah was hyped for it cause she loved the game, which I hear most people were, but surely if you're making a film based on the game, then you just, you know, you make it like the game. But apparently student inference, and I do think the castings are really strange choice, like Jamie Lee Curtis and Kevin Hart.

Dan

Jack Black.

Gav

And it's just like casting by numbers, like popularity rating or something at a certain time. It's really weird. So this, he made it though. Some stunt man came forward and said, yeah, when we were filming stuff with Eli, it was the most fun I've had. It was just so gory. Yeah. And he handed it into studios and they didn't like it. So they cut it.

Dan

Well, I'm sure there'll be a director's cut at some point, much like Zack Snyder likes to do and release.

Gav

I guess. I don't know, though. But at the moment, it's made about 16 million. That's really bad. It's been out a week. Open weekend.

Dan

Empire magazine gave it two out of five. Still, because the problem is, there's two types of films based on video games. You've got your Last Of Us, the series which I raved about, finally, I was very late to the game, but I saw it.

Gav

Have you actually played the game?

Dan

No. Or you've got your Super Mario Brothers or Street Fighter, the John Claude Van Damse. You've got the two. There's two. They either do very well or they don't. And even the song of the Hedgehog movies were great. The new ones have just come out.

Gav

Well, I did see a review where they said Street Fighters better than Borderlands.

Dan

What? Street Fighters is a fantastic film.

Gav

And so I feel bad for Eli. Wow.

Dan

Imagine reading that as Eli Roth. Street Fighters is better.

Gav

I would imagine that he knows from the studios what they were doing. It was a failed course anyway. So it's probably, he has to, contractually, he would have to have shared on his Instagram and done the premiere and maybe done some interviews, but then probably gone quiet. Yeah. So it's just, it's just Hollywood again. Studios just being like, right, we need to make this, get more money for more people to watch it. It's a game, isn't it? Surely if it's a game, it needs to be for younger people.

Do you know what I mean? It's like, it's just interference. So it's like, what are you doing?

Dan

That's nuts. Yeah, and then you've got like Deadpool Wolverine, which has just hit the 100 billion.

Gav

And I thought about this, because that's going to have swearing words and all this sort of stuff, talk about itself being Marvel and being a bit shit at the moment, blah, blah, blah. And they're dropping Boredands going, oh fuck, we should have kept Eli Roth's one now.

Dan

Yep, yep, because it just goes to show that a Marvel film that only adults can really see, you know, is still going to make 100 billion, that is insane. I think that's the last figure.

Gav

So this studio is going to obviously try to go, right, we're going to try and make more money, because the money we make just for the adults isn't enough. So we need to make money from everybody. So let's open up, apparently, there's even a bit where apparently it cuts on the even almost on a bit of dialogue cuts to something else.

Dan

So what the hell, Christ, that's nuts.

Gav

That is very, very, very made if it is made for like 134 million. I could have made 134 films.

Dan

You could have done.

Gav

I would be dead. I'd be exhausted.

Dan

You'd be like Clint Eastwood still working away. There's a little skeleton in the corner.

Gav

Man, I could have made at least 15 films. And one of them might have been slightly successful, made some more money than they probably make in Borderlands.

Dan

One other movie I did watch, we have no point in talking about it in detail because everybody knows it, but we had some terrible things going on in the UK recently. There was a terrible knife incident that led to lots of riots. I'm sure lots of you guys would have seen it on the news. And because that day I went in to pick the kids up and they told me that they'd been running a drill, a lockdown drill, should an intruder come into the nursery.

Gav

It's like the ones in America of the guns.

Dan

It is.

Gav

We would have guns. It would be gun shootings if it wasn't for the knife. It's only because we don't have guns.

Dan

So that combined with all the riots which were going on in my city and lots of other stuff, I just wanted to lock myself away. So I put on one of my three Comfort Blanket films, Big Trouble in Little China. I put my blanket over me.

Gav

Did you feel like these riots are a lot better with people coming down with electric spinning forks?

Dan

I thought if these guys were flying around, there wouldn't be any riots going on out there. If Kurt Russell was driving around in his truck, there wouldn't be any riots.

Gav

I was watching the signs, watching the signs, I was watching signs and I was thinking, if aliens came down like they're doing signs, because it's really stupid in signs, so they've come down probably to do hand to hand combat. Hand to hand combat. Merrill-

Dan

Well, that's a child reading it from a book, but yeah.

Gav

But they don't seem to have a weapon. Merrill managed to take one out of a baseball bat. How will they get sent down? And surely they're just going to get a load of Americans with guns to take them out. So I just find this really silly. Anyway, in England, if they attack, I know what they could do, because they'd be illegal aliens. We can get all the far righters, far right writers on them, and they could go at them. Get out of there, aliens!

Dan

We don't want you in our country. We don't want you in our planet, you bastards.

Gav

Take it, you fucking, grayos, grayo!

Dan

Take your technology and your cure for AIDS and fuck off back to Mars.

Gav

Fuck off with your long probie fingers.

Dan

Yeah, I mean, they wouldn't stand a chance against the absolute buffoons in the world, really. Not just in our country, but in the world.

Gav

I saw a text about it. Come on, it's right. Attack that place.

Dan

Paria from Uranus, Gary.

Trailer

Come on.

Gav

Some of the people that went down to Laira, so it's like a 69 year old got arrested and went down to 30.

Dan

A 12 year old boy, a 13 year old girl. Just get a job. Get a job and read actual news. Don't listen to some idiot on Facebook.

Gav

And we're not getting into politics.

Dan

And that's as political as Gavin I get.

Gav

I could go further. I've been following it lots, but no. Anyway.

Dan

Well, let's get into Shyamalan.

Gav

I, speaking of very quickly, speaking of film games, they are actually in production with Until Dawn, which is a very good game that I've played. Have you played Until Dawn?

Dan

I've not.

Gav

Oh, it's fucking well good. You would love it. Rennie Melicks in it, one of the characters. Yeah. It's set up in the snow in a cabin and basically as a killer. And you go back and forth with the people. It's really good, really good. And they're making it into a film.

Dan

I did see today, one last thing then before we talk Shyamalan, talking of video games that John Carpenter is producing and helping heavily involved with a Halloween video game. Okay, when he's got that check again, isn't he?

Gav

That's the thing, when he says he's heavily involved, he's going to sit there, get stoned with his son and write a few twinkles on the old piano. And then he's just going to cash him checks. Put his name on it. Yeah, that's pretty good. Yeah, that's right. Come on, come on, we've been there before.

Dan

Pop his name on the front cover.

Gav

I've bought the Evil Dead before Anchor Bay. Why do I have to keep buying it? Come on.

Dan

I'm very excited, Gav, because Halloween Ends is hitting Netflix this week in the UK and I've not seen it. And I know it's supposed to be absolutely terrible, so I can't wait to watch it.

Gav

Yeah, it's awful. That's the one with the other kid in there who's basically most of the movie. You know, who's this kid?

Dan

Yeah, I don't, I've heard that. I've not seen it, but I've heard.

Gav

After all of these Halloween movies, right at half-83, you're just going to introduce some new kid who's got mental issues. Well, I think he's got mental issues. I can't remember.

Dan

Well, Halloween kills was bad enough. You know, I have my issues with that. So we'll see what I think of Halloween ends.

Gav

Imagine in Halloween kills, just walking into the bar, go, oh, fucking hell, I've had such a shit week. I just need to go have a drink and a chill out. And you go in there, and there's some guy in there, Tommy, or whoever is the kid, grown up going, and what happened was then there was murderers and killers and this guy, the boogie man, and just telling people, oh my God, is this stand up? No, no, no, see, this is what he's doing. Why is he doing it now? He's just doing a little speech. Why?

What the hell? I want to have a drink and have a laugh. We could better start cracking up laughing over here. Why is he doing it now?

Dan

I know.

Gav

There's just such a weird choice of films.

Dan

Well, let's talk about Shyamalan. So what we'll do now, guys, is we'll do a little breakdown of his life, his career, and we'll talk through his back catalogue before we get into our first review. So Manoj Nellyatu Shyamalan is his full name. Later changed it to just M Night Shyamalan. He was born in 1970. He was born in India, but his family immigrated to America when he was just six weeks old. Just a little baby. So his parents were both doctors. His dad is a neurologist. His dad is Dr. Dre.

And his mother was Dr. Spock. Yeah. No, his father is a neurologist, and his mother was an OBGYN, a gynecologist, children, doctor. So very established parents, but he went down a different route, didn't he, Gav? He decided to become a filmmaker. He said he always felt like an outsider because it was kind of like, you're gonna go into medicine. He's like, I don't know if I really wanna do that. Very intelligent family.

And he was raised Hindi as well, but when he started growing up, he started falling more into Catholic and the Catholic grammar school that he went to. He says he always feels like, felt like an outsider in that respect as well. So it's interesting that he's felt like an outsider both in his career choice, but also with his religion as well.

Weird fact, when he was a student at school, he got the best grade in his religious class, but his teacher was very angry with him because he wasn't Catholic. He said, how can you, you, M Night Shyamalan, get the highest grade in the class? Well, it's because he's a very studious person. You know, he obviously studies very well, and again, comes from a very highly educated family. Moving forward, he attended New York Tisch University of School of the Arts in Manhattan.

He graduated in 1992, and that's where he changed his name to Night, for the reasons you mentioned.

Gav

Not because of like some cool reason.

Dan

Midnight Shyamalan. He was a superhero by night.

Gav

But no, it's because he stays up late. I could call you Night, because you stay up late.

Dan

Well, it's also because people weren't able to say his full name, so he just figured, I'll just say this. But going back to his childhood though, he's always been interested in film. He was given a Super 8 camera at a very, very young age, much like Peter Jackson and other filmmakers. And although his parents really wanted him to follow medicine, it was actually his mum that encouraged him to actually start making films in his spare time.

And by the time he was 17, he'd made 45 home movies, which if you own his films on DVD, you will see he usually releases, he puts one on every DVD as an extra. In fact, I think the only film he's never done it with is Lady In The Water, but all of his other movies that have come out so far have one of his home movies on it. And he tries to tie them to the movie. So it's like, if it's an alien movie made as a kid, he'll put that one on signs, for example, that kind of thing.

So it's a really interesting insight into what he's doing.

Gav

A lot, Elijah, no, Edgar Wright, he put his first ever film, which he managed to persuade people to do, The Fistful Of Fingers. He put that as an extra on Hot Fuzz DVD.

Dan

Yeah, that's right. And I've seen some of Peter Jackson's stuff as well, because he used to do a lot of stop motion animation. I've seen a lot of his as well. It's just interesting to see, you know, these little kids who were going to go on to make millions and billions of dollars for studios and themselves. So, yeah, he wrote his first film, which is called Praying With Anger, while he was still a student at NYU. He borrowed money from family and friends to make that.

So we'll kind of get into his career now then, I guess, if you're happy with that. I guess before we do that, should we talk about his style and what we both think of him, that kind of thing?

Gav

Well, he didn't really... It comes across as always being the Twister Man, which must have been a bit annoying, actually, because then it would have this thing you got to keep up to, which obviously did start going a little bit wrong at one point halfway through his career. But he didn't actually have that twist from the beginning. When he came on to do Sixth Sense, he had the script as it was what it was, but he knew that he needed something more to it.

One night, he just woke up and was like, that's it. A spoiler, sorry guys, I was going to spoil it. That's it, Bruce is dead. That probably would have made, if you read the script and then you get to that bit, and he didn't call it, he didn't see it because it's quite nicely done, actually, because his writing is very, very good. It's mainly a drama, if anything. It goes into that. But then obviously going forward, he was the twist man, so like, you know, come up with films.

So I think that also helped actually sell tickets in the cinema.

Dan

But you know what, looking at his...

Gav

But if you look, yeah, there isn't really a twist in signs, and there probably isn't a twist in a lot of his films.

Dan

The only films that have got twists really are The Village and The Visit, I would say. So there's usually an unexpected turn, perhaps.

Gav

Yeah, I guess. I suppose old has kind of...

Dan

Yeah, I suppose. But I mean, before we get into his films, what I would say is... I'm going to relay, if I can, something again, speaking to our buddy, RJ. I mean, RJ said, in his opinion, he's one of the most influential directors slash horror directors at working at the moment. And we've already said this, you know, if his name's on a film, it gets bums in seats. Even if it's not a very good film in the end, people will initially go and watch it on opening weekend.

He's definitely got a very... His own style. He lets the film take its time. The story, if he's written it especially, you know, he'll take his time with it. And I compared, when I was watching The Sixth Sense for this episode, I was thinking, this works on the same levels as The Changeling, because it's such a classy, slow, lovely story, a great camera work, setting, everything about it, it just feels very classy, do you know what I mean?

Gav

Yeah, it definitely does go with Changeling. Yeah, both films, good actor, act in a way, and mainly a lot of drama, you know.

Dan

And I think that's something that people don't say about Shyamalan a lot, but he is a great director in that, he gets great performances out of people, especially children. Now, as we all know, children, you don't work with children and animals because children are very hard to direct, but he gets great performances out of the children that we've seen in his movies.

Gav

Well, Hayley Joel Osment is amazing in this, his acting is incredible. Absolutely phenomenal. The performance is incredible, because he doesn't really do anything now, does he? I know he does acts, but I don't... Yeah, you don't go like... He doesn't really do a performance in a film now, like that.

Dan

He is incredible in this film, I don't know how they got the performance out of him.

Gav

I might be wrong, he might be doing incredible acting in films, I don't know.

Dan

The same in Signs, the kids in that, Rory Colkin and Abigail Breslin, the two children of Mel Gibson are fantastic. And I think Joaquin Phoenix is amazing in that as well. I think the kid in Unbreakable is good as well. And again, he's working with Bruce Willis, Mel Gibson, so he's got his little stable of actors already he's built up. Although he didn't really go back to them after these movies.

Gav

He does act continuously though, the kid who's not a kid now obviously.

Dan

He did Joel Osment.

Gav

Yeah, he's done so much stuff. But he might be doing great performances, but I don't see them. I don't like, you don't see people talking about, oh, dude, we've seen the kid in this performance.

Dan

But he pulls, out of Bruce Willis, he pulls that scene in Die Hard where McLean has a little moment to himself and gets very teary. He pulls that out of Willis for the whole movie, and the same with Mel Gibson. God, no one can cry like Mel Gibson. When you see a big, strong action man like Mel Gibson cry in that couple of scenes in Science, it's like, oh, what?

Gav

When he's thinking about his wife.

Dan

Oh, man, Mel's a good crier. And he pulls that out of them. And he's touched on a lot of genres as well. He's done a kind of a fine footage movie. He's done aliens, ghosts. He's done what you thought was a period setting, the village, and then he has some of his mistakes probably have been when he's tried to make stuff that's quite big with Will Smith and stuff. But we'll get to that in a minute when we whiz up the list of what he's done.

So for me, because I know he's very heavily influenced by Spielberg. Spielberg is his idol, and at one point he was helping to write the fourth Indiana Jones film, and then it kind of fell through. So he's very excited to do that. And I actually would go on record to say he is, I've said it already, he is kind of the Spielberg of horror in some ways, but he's a bit of Spielberg meets Hitchcock because Hitchcock was very good at throwing you a curve ball.

Gav

Oh, Hitchcock's Master of Suspense, yeah.

Dan

Yeah, and I feel like he's a bit of both of them. So going back to what RJ said, he said it in his eyes, he also feels like he's a bit John Carpenter as well, because he feels that in 10 or 20 years time, some of the lesser talked about M Night Shyamalan films, much like Carpenter's films when they first came out, people might go back and say, you know what, the happening isn't that bad.

Now, I actually don't mind the happening, it's a bit silly and cheesy, but it's a fun watch and it grows on me with every watch. I think The Village is one that people really diss him for, but actually, I think that's a pretty good film. I do agree in some ways with what RJ is saying in that, maybe people will go back.

If he carries on making these, he might do the big budget one which doesn't do as well, and then he'll do a quiet little one, because he's got one at the cinema right now called Trap, which we'll talk about in a moment. If he keeps on powering through and doing enough films, he's going to have a really good plethora of movies under his career belt, and people might go back and start discovering for the first time or rediscovering some of these movies that didn't do so well the first time around.

Gav

He said every film he does, he thinks this is the last film, they're never going to let me make another movie.

Dan

That's interesting.

Gav

Which is, yeah, I think a lot of filmmakers actually have. That kid, Hayley Osmond, it was his 24th movie, Sixth Sense, at that age.

Dan

The funny thing about Shyamalan as well is he wrote Stuart Little. He was such a good writer that Hollywood were already hiring him to write movies.

Gav

It's like Stuart Gordon wrote Honey-O-Shrunkly Kids. It's random as hell.

Dan

It is random. And that is why Shyamalan is so good, in my opinion, because he... I always think a writer-director is the best, really. And then if you're a writer-director, I mean, just look at Tarantino. But if you're a writer-director-editor, then you've got it all, really. I feel like the studio doesn't get involved in interfering Shyamalan's movies either. We talked about this earlier. And I don't feel like they get involved.

In fact, from what you told me, he's got the balls to go up to Bruce Willis and say, no, we are going to do that again, you know?

Gav

Yeah, he doesn't seem to be... He's definitely a film fan, like Spielberg is. He's a film lover. He doesn't seem to come across as a gnarly person. He seems like quite a nice person.

Dan

Quite a chilled... Well, he's Indian. He's Indian, so he's got that very chilled... You know, that what you associate with people from India, he's just quite a chilled guy, very calm. Every interview I've seen with him, I can imagine him on set. Just very calmly. I think we need to do it in this way.

Gav

Yeah, I'd afford though, from the Sixth Sense, how much money is Sixth Sense made? That cemented him as like studios probably leaving him alone. Like Spielberg's would be left alone by studios.

Dan

Yeah, his movies combined, I think they made something like over 300 billion, which is just a huge amount of money really. Yeah, his films, I mean, Sixth Sense alone made 305 million, and that cost 6 million to make, and it made 305.7 million in cinemas.

Gav

Like I said, they must have known from the script, and he must have sold them over, that he was the person to come and just make this movie at the right time. Something must have come out just before probably, and it is the right time for this sort of supernatural thriller. Mystery things come out, and Bruce obviously would have helped bring those tickets out, and if it hadn't been Bruce and an unknown person, this would be a great movie, but it would be almost maybe more indie, I suppose.

I don't know, it's quite a slick movie, because Tony...

Dan

Tony Kalassi is great as well.

Gav

Yeah, yeah.

Dan

And it's genuinely got some creepy moments, which we'll get into.

Gav

Which doesn't get into for a very long time.

Dan

So, yeah, he did Praying With Anger, he did Wide Awake. These were both movies he did in 92 and 98, respectively. Whilst he was making Wide Awake, though he was writing The Sixth Sense, whilst he was also writing Stuart Little, which is crazy that he wrote a ghost story and Stuart Little at the same time. Yes, The Sixth Sense dropped. Everybody knows this name now. We're looking out for things he's going to do. Well, what does he do next? He does a superhero movie.

In 2000, back with Bruce Willis, Unbreakable. A superhero movie, but not. It's like the origin story, which I know you love the origin stories, of a guy who figures out that he's indestructible. And then he figures out he's got an enemy. And that enemy is Samuel motherfucking Jackson. Great movie, in my opinion. I've covered it on at least one other podcast. You a fan of Unbreakable?

Gav

I saw it once.

Dan

Yeah.

Gav

It was fine.

Dan

It obviously went on to become part of a trilogy, which no one expected. So another twist, but we'll come on to those movies a bit later on. Then two years later, he dropped Signs on Us, which probably one of his best films, in my opinion, incredible film, we'll be covering it. Stay tuned, we'll be covering it on this episode. 2004, The Village.

Gav

Terrible ending.

Dan

See, I like it. I like it. It caught me because I was all the way through, I was thinking these big creatures that live in the forest, these guys live in the middle of like, I don't know, the 18th century or something, you know, and there's these creatures and they can venture out of the forest. Again, he's got fantastic pool of actors in it.

And then it throws you, I'm sorry, there's gonna be spoilers in this episode, guys, but you figure out that they actually just live now and in the present and they're being kept in this little commune by people who don't want, who think the real world is a bit too dangerous, which it kind of is, do you know what I mean?

Gav

I think, actually, I might go back and watch it again because I know the ending. I can't go, oh, really? Like I did the first time.

Dan

And it's got Joaquin Phoenix in it, who he would go, you know, he's used in signs as well. After that, he did what most people would say is his worst film, The Lady In The Water.

Gav

Oh, God.

Dan

Which he wrote.

Gav

It's Paul Giamatti, is it?

Dan

He wrote that for his children because he told his children a bedtime story and he ended up making that into a script, which then he made into a film. It was all right. Didn't think, I don't think it's his worst film. We'll come to what I think is his worst film in a minute. So that was in 2006 and then in 2008, Mark Wahlberg, come on bro, come on bro.

Gav

I watched it yesterday.

Dan

So tell me your thoughts because Gav's freshly watched the happening.

Gav

Again, I had seen it. Yeah, I watched it again about a year ago and coming out of COVID, maybe a year and a half, coming out of COVID, you could kind of chuck that in it. So you could kind of understand the feeling that everyone's having as a worldwide thing going on. I watched it again yesterday. I say watched it, I was kind of walking in and out of the room a little bit. I was just trying to get me some M Night in before we record. I watched bits of it and yeah, it's a bit silly at times.

Dan

Got some good gore scenes in it.

Gav

Some alright gore scenes and there's some good ideas there and some like mystery and intrigue. But then then it just, I don't know, it just wanes out into sort of territory.

Dan

I wonder if he wrote it. Yeah, he wrote it as well.

Gav

Yeah, I don't think that, yeah, I think that was panned slightly.

Dan

So far everything we've mentioned, he's written as well. He also wrote and produced in the same, so the next year he wrote and produced, but didn't direct Devil, which we're both big fans of. We've covered on this show.

Gav

We've done it, I love Devil. And that was his kind of comeback of doing a kind of independent movie, because there's no one in there who's a particular name as such. It's not like a big mate. And I think that was him trying to go, oh shit, I've got to do something else.

Dan

Obviously not directed by him, but he wrote it and he produced it. And you can really feel, it almost feels a bit like a Shyamalan movie. So yeah, I mean, really good movie. I was wondering, what's he gonna do next? You know, it's been a while since he's done anything. So the same year as he did that, sadly.

Gav

Cause I'm just going quickly very much. Signs 6.8, a video 6.6, Lady In The Water 5.5, happening 5. The Last Airbender, which you're about to get on to, 4.8. It seems to be just going down.

Dan

It does. Now, The Last Airbender is based on Avatar, The Last Airbender, not the Avatar movies. I know I'm talking to our listeners who already know this, but Avatar, The Last Airbender was a fantastic animated series, which my buddy Dave, his wife, told me about it and said, you're going to love this. And I watched it and it was incredible. And it's all about these different tribes. There's like the Fire Tribe, the Water Tribe, the Earth Tribe.

Then later on, you find out there's a Metal Tribe, all these different elemental tribes. And it's all kind of set in a parallel universe almost, where ancient Chinese cultures haven't really moved on and they still use magic. And it's really funny as well. So I was excited when I heard he was doing that. And it was absolutely awful. Really bad. He wrote it.

Gav

150 million budget.

Dan

In fact, they've just remade it in a way, because it ends, because it needed to be like a trilogy really, because that story is so big, but it never made any more movies. But I believe Netflix have just done an Avatar live action movie series, but that flopped as well. So I think the key here is leave it as the animated series.

Gav

The thing is though, when you see M Night, you're like, oh cool, it's going to be a supernaturally horror-y, twisty type sort of movie. That's what his name puts across. So then Last Airbender, you're like, for me, I had no interest. I looked at it. I didn't even know what it was. I looked at what it's saying for 13-year-old boys, I guess. Pretty much, yeah. I guess, I don't know really what it is or anything. And there's M Night's like, I have no interest in this.

And that would have pretty nice knocked out the audience, main adult audience, unless the people knew the material came from. It's just not a good choice. Then, what's he going to do? Teams up with Slappy Slappy in the fucking face, get your fucking name, get my wife's name out your motherfucking mouth. Will Smith's in the house with After Earth, with his son. Now, I've never seen it.

Dan

On paper, M Night Shyamalan and Will Smith, two of the biggest names, you can imagine the bums on seats, but the bums went into the seats and the bums weren't happy in the seats because this, in my opinion, is his worst film. Yes, I have. Will Smith breaks his leg in the opening scene because basically it's set in the future and they crash into a planet, which is basically Earth, but like in the future. And then Will Smith can't leave the spaceship because he's like really hurt.

So it has to be Jaden Smith that goes off and does all the adventuring. It's really bad. Loads of CGI.

Gav

Imagine you have to go work with your dad, though, being Will Smith. I know you're a big fan, but it's going to be like, come on, son, be like me. It's like if Tom Cruise had a little son, a little mini Tom Cruise, come with me, son, you're going to be in the movie.

Dan

What was he doing getting involved in the Olympics?

Gav

Who?

Dan

Tommy Cruise. He's up sailed down off the, I don't know what.

Gav

I like the Snoop Dogg in it though, so that's all right.

Dan

He's been having a great time at the Olympics, hasn't he?

Gav

Dressed in his horse gear.

Dan

He's literally, every event, he's been there in the crowd.

Gav

Apparently, from the last time at the Olympics, he got really into it. Next time, LA, so he's going to be fucking over that, isn't he?

Dan

He's going to love that.

Gav

He's going to probably be open in it.

Dan

He'll be there with like Dre and everyone there, Warren Gee, they'll all be there.

Gav

Oh yeah, it'll be funny. It's brilliant. I enjoyed watching skateboarding. I was watching All Souls, I was watching the-

Dan

Breakdancing, club.

Gav

I didn't see it, especially the Australian lady who's got a PhD in breakdancing, she is getting slated.

Dan

I know, I feel sorry for her.

Gav

I don't, because you don't persuade people that you can represent them just because you got a PhD in something.

Dan

I feel like the best performance in the entire Olympics is the guy that I can't remember which country he's from now, the shooter, who he just walked in with his hand in his pocket.

Gav

Yeah, yeah.

Dan

Kate got a second, he got silver, but he still was like absolutely bossed it. Everyone else was like really trying and he just went, John Wick done.

Gav

Yeah, I didn't actually see the thing, we also picture him. Speaking of performances then, so what was Will and Jaden's performance like in this film?

Dan

Annoying. Will was basically talking to a walkie talkie, like you need to make sure you get the thingamajig to put in the thingamajig. And he's like, dad, there's a giant creature chasing me. And it's just like, why is this a Shyamalan movie? And he wrote that as well. Yeah.

Gav

So, and you know, that's now 4.8. So every one of his films is IMDB Rain's. And I trust IMDB Rain for the fact it's by people. And generally, I live the consensus. That's how I actually know to check out and buy movies, actually. Afterwards, he did a bit of TV. He's my absolute teddy.

Dan

Then he did a comeback, which I feel was his big horror comeback.

Gav

Well, he said with this to this point, he ended up, I think, mortgaging in his house or something to pay for this, buying this house himself. And he bought this house or something and, um, and then spent like 10 months or something just in the house, writing the script to work it out, wherever all the camera angles could be. When he finished making...

Dan

So we're talking about The Visit.

Gav

The Visit, sorry. Well, because it is a found footage film, but obviously found footage in 2015, found footage film, obviously, you know, two, 15 years ago, but I weren't sure. We all know what it is, what it could do. We know the law, et cetera, et cetera. I'm in the middle of making one at the moment. Yeah. So like he made The Visit and like, he said that once they'd made it, they were trying to introduce different studios to watch it. And nobody would, nobody was interested.

And he was just like, fuck, that's me, I'm done. That's me fucked. I'm completely done. And then he, one particular studio said, yeah, we'll check it out. And I think it's Universal. And he said, can you, right, we watch it, but you have to watch it with a crowd. So he put an audience in there. And obviously people are screaming and whatnot here and there. And it's good. I went to the cinema, watched it. I went to support it because I was really like, yeah, nice, he's doing foul footage.

He's coming back. Come on, come back to the horror train. Come on.

Dan

Yeah, I probably would say it's in my top three or four of his movies.

Gav

It's in my collection. I've got it on Blu-ray.

Dan

And I'd love to cover it someday when we do. In fact, I've got it jop penciled in for a foul footage episode in the future. I think it's a really good, classy, big budget foul footage film, which shouldn't work. Foul footage film shouldn't be huge budgets. I'm not saying it's like billions of dollars, but it's still cost of a fair amount to make.

Gav

Yeah, that's the thing. Funny enough, I was talking about this last night because we're going to do a dead ball film, another foul footage movie in the future, in the near future, in fact. But when I was chatting about it last night, I was like, do we shoot it with the red camera? And in the discussion, and it was like, yeah, I suppose so. And it's like, okay, and I was like, it completely changes it, though.

When I've got this Canon DSLR, I can move it around really quickly, but having a big, heavy, proper cinematic camera changes the foul footage of it. And some films obviously shoot with them like that. I think that last Blair Witch one would have been shot with like super duper cameras. And it's interesting, but yeah, he went back to it, and I really enjoyed the movie. Afterwards, he did a music video, and then he did...

Dan

Oh, just very quickly on the visit, sorry. I just want to say what I loved about it was he brought back the twist. No, I wasn't expecting it by this point.

Gav

Yeah, it was a fine, it wasn't like incredible twist, but it's a fine twist enough to go, oh, nice, and make you go, oh, it's the twist man.

Dan

And I also really loved, it was funny. The kids were great again. And he's brought good performances out of two good kids.

Gav

Two from that Christmas movie.

Dan

Yeah, yeah, they went on to be in, you better watch out, which is cool. They're Australian, aren't they? Yeah, so he did a music video, then he did... Split.

Gav

Split. Split, basically, when he wrote Unbreakable, he made a massive universe. It already had the whole story of Split, it already mapped out in the universe of Unbreakable, but then just left it. And then just one day, he's like, I'm going to go back to it. He's probably thinking, what should I do? And go, let's go back and try that out. So, yeah.

Dan

Now again, there was a bit of a twist in some ways in Split because for the whole movie, you're just with James McAvoy, who is absolutely incredible in it with his multiple personalities. He's got like 13 or more personalities. He should have won something for this movie. He was incredible in it.

Gav

Is it classed as horror?

Dan

I'm not sure what they class it as.

Gav

No, I only be what? Yeah, it's classed as horror. That's probably why he wouldn't win anything.

Dan

But he was so good in it. And then the end twist, of course, is that you see Bruce Willis on the very last scene, and you realize, oh, he's the beast, one of the enemies of Bruce Willis' character. And then that went on to make, three years later, they made a third and final one, Glass, which is all about Samuel L. Jackson.

Gav

Which is, funny enough, which he split, and then he didn't do anything for seven, eight, nine, like three years, and then brought Glass out.

Dan

So he must have been writing that, I guess, and tying it together.

Gav

Figuring out the next step.

Dan

But he's got James McAvoy, Samuel L. Jackson and Bruce Willis. Brought together.

Gav

I'm not seeing Glass. Is Bruce Willis, because obviously we know at this point now, Bruce Willis is unfortunately having issues. Was he, is he having issues in that?

Dan

No, I couldn't tell. He was very good in it. He gets to use his sort of strength and his, if you ever want to see Bruce Willis in a superhero movie, this is as close as you'll get, you know?

Gav

And then obviously, That must have been one of his last good performances then, Yeah, bless him, bless him. But going to Visit 6.3, Split 7.3, Glass 6.6, so it's all gone up again.

Dan

Split 7.3, that's good score on IMDB to have, isn't it?

Gav

And afterwards, the movie I watched, I was on a holiday, it was brilliant. I tried to find a beach like this, exactly like it, and I couldn't now, unfortunately. Old.

Dan

Yes, old, which didn't do very well in cinemas.

Gav

I said when I went to cinema, and she was a little disappointed, she watched it again recently, she said it's fine. I watched it again recently and I quite enjoyed it. And I didn't mind it last time either.

Dan

Yeah, I've only seen it the once, and that was probably last year, but I really enjoyed it. It wasn't like blow your socks off, Sixth Sense, but it was good and it felt like Shyamalan was doing his thing.

Gav

There's a few things now I like. I like the fact when you got to children say, mom, what are you looking at me like that? And as a parent, all of a sudden, the time you're going to have with your child when they're younger, that's gone, because they're grown up. And there's stuff like that for me. There's a lot more layers like that in it. And I felt sorry for the kids as well.

Dan

Yeah, it definitely taps into a different, and again, he wrote it, you know. It's just incredible that he writes and directs all of these films really.

Gav

Anything with old, I came away from it this time, going like it gets you to appreciate the time you have.

Dan

And it's got some good old fashioned gory bits in it and some cringey bits like that make you sort of like, Oh, God, knock at the cabin.

Gav

Have you seen that? I watched it.

Dan

I was bored. Oh, I see. I really want to. I really want to watch it.

Gav

I've heard I maybe have to watch it again. And Sarah said she didn't want to watch it because she doesn't like that wrinkly guy's head.

Dan

De patista?

Gav

Yeah, she doesn't like the wrinkles on his head.

Dan

Really takes a lot off her head.

Gav

But she said she watched it and enjoyed it.

Dan

I think the biggest thing I've heard from friends and critics is a really good concept, but it just doesn't really...

Gav

I think it's from a book, apparently.

Dan

But he wrote it.

Gav

Maybe it's the idea is to take it from a book, maybe.

Dan

Or maybe he wrote the screenplay. But it gets 6.1, which isn't too bad on IMDB. Again, it was a good cast. I can't speak much of it because I haven't seen it. But that really felt like, again, you know you've got a good director when, oh, Shyamalan's got a new movie out, and it feels like a bit of an event film. Do you know what I mean?

Gav

Well, you're just always hoping for one of those real good movies. It's kind of like Rob Zombie's, but you kind of know every time you can be fairly disappointed with a Rob Zombie film.

Dan

Never ever compare Rob Zombie to M Night Shyamalan, please.

Gav

But I still think Lord Of Salem's a really good film. And House Of House Of Corpse is really good. Tubi has got loads more now on a UK one. Go back to the refreshments. Go on in now. They've added shit tons more stuff. I've been filling up my list for the random 70s movies. And they've also got Rob Zombie's Monsters is on there. I've not seen it yet.

Dan

Oh, good Lord.

Gav

So I'm at some point going to do it.

Dan

I think it's only about six episodes.

Gav

No, no, no, no, no. Rob Zombie's Monsters, the movie he made.

Dan

Yeah. No, didn't he? Wasn't it a series?

Gav

No, he made a film.

Dan

Oh, no, he did make the film. Shit, you're right. God, I forgot.

Gav

You've totally blanked out of your mind.

Dan

There was a series. Of course it was. No, a modern series.

Gav

Oh, I don't know about that.

Dan

It came out about 10 years ago. I was thinking of that, but no, you're right. In comparison to other directors, talking about Robert Zombey and comparing, I know you're a bit hot and cold with him at the moment, but for me, the name that does the same that Shyamalan does right now is Jordan Peele. When I hear Jordan Peele or Robert Eggers or M Night Shyamalan, they're my three from the newer, and they're not that new. They've been going for 25 years.

Gav

Jordan Peele's done three movies. I really like two of his films he's done. So that's fine. He's still with me.

Dan

I think it was Meatloaf that said, Two out of Three ain't bad. So Knock at the Cabin, I haven't seen you have. You found it boring. I'm excited to watch it at some point. I will. It only came out last year.

Gav

What will Meatloaf not do? It'll do anything for love, but it won't do that. What is it? Is it Jack and his bum play?

Dan

No, if you listen to the lyrics, it explains it in there.

Gav

What? I'm not going to. Tell me now. What is it?

Dan

Well, he says, I'll have to get the lyrics. Hang on a minute.

Gav

I thought you were going to get that off his leg.

Dan

I don't know the lyrics off the top of my head, but hang on, I'll explain it to you. Anything for love. I can't believe we're doing this on a Shyamalan episode.

Gav

Meatloaf, Battle of Hell. We got that from a tape set from a tape club, because the front cover looked great. I thought, wow, that looks like a horror movie. I'm getting that. And they put it on with headphones. What the fuck is this? I didn't know what Rock Opera was.

Dan

My dad was a massive Meatloaf fan. In fact, I've seen Meatloaf live. So he says, Where's the bit in the song? Is this it?

Gav

I will do anything for love, but I won't do that. Whoa, whoa. No, I won't do that. What, Meatloaf? Is it bottom play? Is it water spills?

Dan

Basically, I can't remember what it is. I can't remember the bit, but it explains it basically in the song.

Gav

Is it anything to do with gerbils?

Dan

Basically, somewhere in the lyrics, it does basically say, I'll do anything for love, but I won't give you up is essentially what he's saying if you listen to the lyrics.

Gav

So, oh, okay.

Dan

And talking of lyrics to songs, have you ever heard of the Rick Astley Paradox?

Gav

No.

Dan

So obviously, we all know that Rick Astley is never gonna give you up. So if Rick Astley's got a copy of Up, the Pixar movie, then you ask him to give it to you. He's never gonna give you up, but at the same time he'll be breaking his next rule, which is never gonna let you down. So if Rick Astley owns a copy of Up, you can essentially get him into a paradox where he is never gonna give you up, but that means he's letting you down. So which is it?

You can never let me down by giving me a copy of Up, or you're gonna give me a copy of Up, Rick? Think about it. Think about it, Rick. Back to Shyamalan, though. The last movie which only dropped really in the last week or two in the UK here in cinemas, and I was surprised because of the content of it.

It's to do with a serial killer at a concert, and we've recently had some terrible things happen with concerts in Manchester a couple of years ago, and Taylor Swift had to cancel a couple of tours.

Gav

So you're going into the trap, are you?

Dan

I am, yes.

Gav

And RJ has a little thing for us, doesn't he?

Dan

Yes, he went to see it, and he said he really enjoyed it.

Gav

I wanted to before this, I was going to, but I just didn't have time. And actually, yesterday I could have done, but it was ridiculously hot, and saying that, I should have gone to the cinema, because it's air conditioned.

Dan

Well, this brings Josh Hartnett back into horror. We love him, we loved him in 30 Days Of Night, you know, originally, he was in H20, and a couple of the faculty. So RJ says, he liked the film, it was good. The first 40, 45 minutes was incredible, but it didn't get any better than the first 45 minutes, but it's still a good film. And there may, he says, there may be some twists in there. Now, what I liked about the trailer, was there was a twist within the trailer.

Gav

Well, it's interesting, because obviously, yeah, the synopsis of the movie is a twist.

Dan

Yeah, which is cool. It's almost like he's saying, fuck you, I know I'm the twist guy. Well, here's your twist up front.

Gav

What if he did some AI of movie of Chubby Checker doing the twist, and that was it?

Dan

May I watch it?

Gav

So for anyone, I mean, so neither Gavin High have seen it, but we're assuming it's an AI Chubby Checker on stage doing the twist.

Dan

No, but for real, the trailer is Josh Hartnett takes his daughter to a Taylor Swift style.

Gav

Yeah, the date in it is a is a actual pop sensation, and he actually went to her and said like, he thinks she's the only one who could do that. Actually write an album around the movie.

Dan

No, no, it's his daughter. It's Shyamalan's daughter. Oh, that's part of the reason it's getting a bit of flack, because people are like, oh nepotism, because it's Shyamalan's daughter.

Gav

Of course, I'd put my kids in and give them a job.

Dan

But apparently she's good in it.

Gav

It's take your kids to work day.

Dan

But essentially from the trailer, it looks like Josh Hartner takes his daughter to this concert. It turns out everyone's on high security, because there's a serial killer called The Butcher. It turns out Josh Hartner is The Butcher, and he's trapped in the concert, and the concert is a trap for The Butcher. So we're kind of on the serial killer side, I guess. Can he escape? Will he escape? Should he escape? And he's got people tied up in his basement or something.

Gav

I have no idea. But that's cool, though. So he made her to do like be a pop sensation and write an album around it, he says. That's cool, though. She was already, I guess, doing music then.

Dan

I guess she'll go on and at least have some of a pop career.

Gav

Yeah.

Dan

And he wrote and he wrote and directed that. So he's not a director who rests on his laurels. He's got 21 credits just as director on IMDB.

Gav

He's got a couple of new things.

Dan

Yeah, he's got Labour Of Love and an untitled M Night Shyamalan project. But that is Shyamalan. Now, look, before we get into the movies, I love him. Yes, he's had a couple of misses, but he's had mainly hits, in my opinion. I get what I want when I go watch his movies, which whether that's a twist or not, there's an element of he'd be really good with Twilight Zone episodes. You know what I mean? He does really good, almost feature-length versions of Twilight Zone episodes.

Like The Sixth Sense would have been a great 45-minute Twilight Zone, but he turned it into a fantastic film. I love him. He's definitely got a little bit of Spielberg, meets a little bit of Stephen King, and a bit of Hitchcock in there for me. I'm glad that you like him too. I would say don't bother going to find Last Airbender or the other one, After Earth. I'm going to ignore those.

Gav

I'm going to check out The Beast In The Forest one again.

Dan

The Village.

Gav

Yeah.

Dan

Yeah, that's good. I've got it on DVD. I like that one.

Gav

I picked up earlier, randomly, before we get into it, Craig Fairbass is an English guy. Oh, I'm a big old lad. Cockney Gieser type. A kind of folk horror type movie I picked up on DVD earlier, for like some Celtic folk horror film or something, and he's an investigator. And I was like, all right.

Dan

Cool. I like the sound of that. Anyway, that's Shyamalan. Do do do do. And we'll probably talk more about him throughout the episode because now we're going to go into a trailer for Bruce Willis in Die Hard. No, no, sorry. Bruce Willis in...

Gav

Let's just do Die Hard.

Dan

Bruce Willis in The Sixth Sense.

Sixth Sense Trailer

You know the accident there?

Dan

Yeah.

Sixth Sense Trailer

Someone got hurt. They did? A lady. She broke her neck. Oh my God. But you can see her? Yes. Where is she? Standing next to my window. Baby, what are you shaking? Cole, what's wrong? Did you ever talk to your mom about how things are? I don't tell her things. Why not? Because she doesn't look at me like everybody else, and I don't want her to. I don't want her to know. Know what? Walking around like regular people. I don't see anything. Are you sure they're there?

Sometimes you feel it inside, like you're falling down real fast. You ever feel the prickly things on the back of your neck? Yes. That's them. They get mad, it gets cold. How often do you see them? All the time. They're everywhere. They want me to do things for them. I think that they know that you're one of these very rare people who can see them. So you need to help them. What if they don't want to help? I don't think that's the way it works. How do you know for sure? Is anyone there?

Dan

The Sixth Sense from 1999. Malcolm Crowe, a child psychologist, starts treating a young boy called Cole, who encounters dead people and convinces him to help them. In turn, Cole helps Malcolm reconcile with his estranged wife. It's a little bit of a spoiler, but this film scarily is 25 years old. How mad is that? It feels like quite a new film.

Gav

Yeah, because it just sits quite nicely in it. Well, you know, there's not like a load of CGI in it. It's quite a slow drama, if anything.

Dan

Yeah. Yeah. First time I went to see it, obviously didn't know about the twist. Everybody's very good back then at keeping secrets. There was not much of an internet.

Gav

The internet wasn't in your pocket. Everyone looked at every 2015 minutes.

Dan

Every 2015 seconds, really, isn't it? But I'll tell you something funny that did happen was there was a guy that was in my viewing of it, who came out, I think I've told this story on the podcast before, and went down the line of people who were waiting to go into the next show and saying, Bruce Willis is a ghost. Bruce Willis is a ghost. Bruce Willis is dead. Bruce Willis is a ghost. Now, he told loads of people. And at the time, I didn't really think much of it.

But over the years, I thought he ruined that.

Gav

No, he ruined it. But that shit is original gangster trolling. To the hardcore trolling in your face, bitches.

Dan

He's not posting up a clip on Twitter. He's not saying, oh, spoiler alert, there's a cameo in Deadpool by... He's actually going up to people.

Gav

Original troll bitches is probably T-shirt.

Dan

But I was also thinking, out of all of those people back then, most of them either wouldn't have really paid attention to him or it wouldn't have really sunk in what he was saying. They would have just thought, that's weird. There might have been one person who really paid, two people maybe, that paid attention and straight away they were like, if you're gay.

Gav

I used to love going to cinema. I was sort of like late 90s. Fucking well good.

Dan

1999 was a very, very, very, very good year. You know, you had The Matrix, you had this movie, you had The Blair Witch. Was it a scary movie came out as well? We had a lot of fun stuff coming out in 1999.

Gav

It's like going to cinema when I was younger though. It was quite fun.

Dan

Did you see this at the cinema then?

Gav

No, no.

Dan

You didn't. Did you see this spoiler free? Did you not know about it?

Gav

I don't remember.

Dan

You don't remember.

Gav

I know this movie, I knew was a bit mainstream. It didn't jump because obviously this is back in the day when I was still going, I wonder if there's anyone else in the world likes horror movies? Of course, Gav, otherwise they wouldn't be made, would they? And because we didn't have an internet and communities and podcasts and all of you lovely listeners to talk about and talk with.

And yeah, it didn't hit me in a mainstream way because, well, in a horror way, because I know it was a bit more mainstream, but I think I would have kind of got around to knowing that there's ghosts, that's cool. But you also had like, not that long ago, you had actually the ghost with Demi Moore, Bruce's connection there.

Dan

Oh, yeah.

Gav

Do you know, once part time, when he was going through his divorce with her, he was sort of going for a bit of a mental thing. He was out in some sort of Mexico or something like that. And Wee Man, you know, Wee Man with Big Brother, from, sorry, that's the magazine, from Jackass.

Dan

Yes, indeed.

Gav

He was there doing an advert or movie or something like that. And Bruce Pettis saw him and recognized him or whatever. He ended up spending the day with Bruce Pettis, and they also went naked swimming together.

Dan

Wow.

Gav

And Bruce was just drinking loads of booze, and they just got wasted.

Dan

The bravest man on this planet is Ashton Kutcher in some ways, because I've seen pictures of him.

Gav

Oh, shit. He just went, All right, Bruce Pettis, everyone's scared of you, but guess what? I'm banging your ex-wife.

Dan

And there's pictures of them, family pictures of them all together, because obviously Demi Moore and Bruce have got children in between them.

Gav

Is there any more of that Ashton Kutcher?

Dan

I don't know. I don't know, to be honest with you.

Gav

I wouldn't know either.

Dan

But imagine that, like the ex-boyfriend, the ex-husband of your new partner is Bruce Willis. It's pretty much his character in Friends, isn't it? You know, when he shows up in Friends as the dad. Oh, boy.

Gav

But yeah, just because of, I bet he can give a right old cold stare. I know Kevin Smith had a bad time when he did Let's Be Cops or no, not Let's Be Cops. Some cop movie. He made Cop Out.

Dan

Cop Out, that's it.

Gav

He said it was very hard work with him. So yeah, I imagine it quite hard. So yeah, actually, because you've got to give him some props for a be able to, because it matters one day trying to put his hand out, go shake. All right, that's it, Demi. I'm going to talk to him. I'm going to talk to him.

Dan

One other thing about Friends and Bruce Willis is Bruce Willis is the reason why Friends doesn't make any sense because obviously he comes into it for quite a lot of one of the seasons as Ross's, I think it's Ross's girlfriend's dad, but Chandler and Joey maintain that Die Hard is their best or favorite film of all time. So it doesn't work. The universe of Friends is flawed because surely they'd recognize him as or at least say you look just like the guy from Bruce from Die Hard.

Do you know what I mean?

Gav

They should have actually probably played that actual joke or had it playing on telly. Just be looking at him going.

Dan

Yeah, they should have done well with AI Gav. We can do that in the future.

Gav

I'm not going to spend my time thinking about how I can change little parts of Friends episodes.

Dan

Yeah, this movie's got Bruce Willis, Eddie Joel Osmond. It's got Tony Colletti, who we've covered before with her reddit tree.

Gav

She's a bit of a bit around for a while, but yet kind of under the radar, but always like a good performance. I'll tell you that. I can't think of a film she's been in right now.

Dan

Muriel's Wedding.

Gav

Oh, I would like to in the Murder Mystery one of recent.

Dan

Glass Onion.

Gav

No, the other one.

Dan

The first one. Knives Out. We also get one of the new kids on the block in this movie, Donnie Wahlberg. We're talking to Mark Wahlberg, who Shyamalan would work with later in his career. He worked with Donnie Wahlberg in this movie, who shows up as a very scary man in some pants in your bathroom.

Gav

OK.

Dan

That's that's one of new kids on the block. That's Donnie Wahlberg's little brother.

Gav

Whoa. Or older brothers.

Dan

I tell you what, he's hanging tough in those pants. He's hanging tough in those pants, isn't he? Jesus, there's a lot going on in those underwear. Come on, everybody, if you want to take a chance, just get on the score to the new kids dance. I quite liked new kids when they came out.

Gav

Of course, they were cool. I had until recently, the vinyl on the album, I would have given it away.

Dan

My favorite song of theirs was always, you got the right stuff, baby. That's a dope track. So let's get into this movie. Yeah, so you don't remember the first time you saw it. I saw it at the cinema and I bought it on VHS because me and my girlfriend at the time would have wanted to make sure it makes sense when it came out. And then-

Gav

The Sixth Sense makes sense.

Dan

Yeah, and now I own it on DVD. And obviously everybody knows now that he's a ghost. And what a lot of people know now as well is the color red is very significant in this movie. Whenever there is a ghostly encounter or something to do with Bruce's character breaking into our world. Oh, okay. Yeah. So the color red, whenever there's the color red, like the red blanket over the kid, the red door handle, the red doors of the church.

Whenever the color red is there, that means there is either a ghost present, usually Bruce Willis, which we didn't know at the time, or one of the kid ghosts that shows up.

Gav

It was interesting watching this at this time, obviously, I know what the score is, I have watched it since knowing the ending, but watching it as a reviewer this time, really watching it with knowing Bruce is dead. Do you know what I mean?

Dan

Yeah, and it works, there's no flaws that I can see.

Gav

I watched it kind of, Elijah was kind of there, and I was like, no, you can watch it, I think it's probably a 12. Is it a 12?

Dan

Probably a 12, yeah. It's not really.

Gav

It's a 15. I don't know why it would be a 12.

Dan

Yeah, I'm not sure why. I mean, obviously you see the kid with no back of his head.

Gav

Yeah, it's not bad. Anyway, Elijah is kind of watching, not really watching, but I actually said to him, look, I'm going to spoil this film for you. He actually dies out. So I actually let, because he wasn't really watching, he's not really appreciated. It's not, whatever. I'm not ruining Nick's experience for him. It's quite a long drama thing. He does like drama though, which is quite really, he does, it's weird to pick it up on drama. It's strange.

Anyway, yes, he watched it with those eyes, which is quite interesting actually. So I could gauge his reactions at times.

Dan

Yeah. Similarly, it's like Dust Till Dawn or something, where there's a twist in the middle or at the end. It's fun to watch films with somebody that doesn't know it's coming.

Gav

That too.

Dan

Yeah. I remember watching Dust Till Dawn in the cinema and me and my friend were just blown away by that moment where the Selma Hayek ramps out. It's like, what? I thought this was a Tarantino movie. What the fuck is going on? Well, let's get into this. So we start off with a great score, really good score. Again, evokes the changeling and those classy sort of 70s, early 80s horror thrillers that we used to get.

Gav

Watching both of these films, I watched The Sixth Sense like that, and watched Signs Of Charlie, funny enough. They're a big fan of the film. I've seen it before. I've had a deaf ear from swimming in my left ear. So the score for this, all my high ends gone, unless I crank it up really, really loud, can't have subtitles on everything. So I couldn't actually get the score for both of these, but I do remember it being a good score, but I can't remember.

Dan

Yeah, it's a very haunting score and very works well for this haunting film.

Gav

I may miss certain things audibly for reviews of both films because of this reason, I'm just saying.

Dan

Sorry, I didn't hear you. Can you say that again?

Gav

I might miss.

Dan

I'm joking. It was a joke that you play on somebody when they say they're a bit deaf. Sorry about that, everybody. Okay, so yes, great score, kick things off. And we see Anna. Anna is, we don't know at the time, she's the widow. Oh, no, she's not yet. She is Bruce Willis' wife and she's gone down.

Gav

They've got a wine cellar.

Dan

They've got a wine cellar. Well, he's a very decorated doctor, isn't he? A child doctor, a child psychologist. So they're celebrating. She goes down to the cellar to select a bottle of wine from all their expensive wine. And she feels a bit of a chill. Could there be someone in the cellar? Is somebody in the house? Maybe. And she goes up to David and says, Well, you won an award. You know, you're the best child doctor in the world, whatever it is. And he's very modest.

He's like, Oh, I'm just doing my job. I just know she's like, No, don't make fun of this. This this is real. This is your talent. This is your calling in life. And they obviously are very much in love. They haven't got any children themselves, but maybe that's what drives him to try and help other children. We don't really know that. And then they get a bit drunk and they decide to take it upstairs to the bedroom. So they head on upstairs.

And he does a funny thing, actually, Bruce, when he's talking like Dr. Zeus, isn't he? He says, Drunk I am, I am, I'm drunk. And he does a kind of little thing like that, where she says, you always sound like Dr. Zeus when you're drunk, which is quite fun.

Gav

Through the film, I found with M Night's writing, I was very impressed with his character info dumps in this, really not forced at all. There's just a little bit of her saying that, you're a great child doctor, and explaining to us who he is. And it keeps going, you keep getting more info, but it's not forced as slight as it's obvious, it is that what it is, well, if you're reviewing the film, I guess. I was really impressed with it. I think he's writing is very, very good.

Dan

The same thing can be said in signs as well, when we don't get told straight away that what's happened to Mel Gibson's wife.

Gav

Yeah, which was in the writing before the editing, but it's really nice the way it's done editing, which we'll get to. Yeah.

Dan

It's perfect. Yeah, I think he's very talented.

Gav

I think his writing is very good. And that's why I was, I think, probably got him the green light for this and them assigning Bruce Willis to it. Do you know what I mean?

Dan

The other thing he does well with his writing is he writes family very, very well.

Gav

Like, like, like who?

Dan

Spielberg? No.

Gav

Spielberg? Spielberg obviously doesn't write a lot of his stuff. It isn't him writing. But Spielberg knows family values and how to tap into that with everything which he's got at hand.

Dan

Well, the relationship between Cole and his mother, Tony Colletti, is wonderful. And it's not a conventional one because they're without a dad. So, you know, and then he's obviously a troubled boy. But he writes this, she's a loving mother. She loves him no matter what. And some of it is heartbreaking. Some of the stuff that goes in between them. And again, cutting to signs, that family dynamic between two brothers, adult brothers who are now raising these children.

Again, it's not conventional, but you feel like they are a real family. He does that so well with his writing. You're right. His writing is just, it's great. And that's what makes, you know, if you haven't got the writing, you might save the film with good direction and good acting, but the writing has to be there as well.

Gav

Well, good writing and good casting, this is what makes this film. But actually, I was just going to say, like, it's not film gods because it's not something like, oh my God, I have to watch it again. But every layer in this film is very, very high end professional.

Dan

What this film is clever about, though, is it does reward you with repeated viewings. Because how many people came out of that cinema the first time they saw this and said, I've got to see that again.

Gav

Oh, VHS, as soon as they came out to rent, or that would have been just fucking falling off the shelves.

Dan

Yeah, people would have been in blockbuster renting that out at the left right hand center. So they go upstairs to the bedroom.

Gav

Sexy times, finger in the bottom.

Dan

Sexy time for brews, but there's some broken glass. Someone's... Thanks, Gav. Someone's broken in by the looks of it. Have they? We don't know. There's a noise in the bathroom. And Bruce being the big manly man says, wait, wait there. And he sort of peeps around. And what does he see in his bathroom, Gav?

Gav

It's a man in his little whitey tidies.

Dan

Well, he's got something, he's packing something down there. Good Lord.

Gav

I didn't, didn't notice.

Dan

My eye is always drawn to the pants bulge, as you know.

Gav

You always see the bulge.

Dan

Always, whether it's bacon or whoever. At the brithro, at the brithro, Kevin Bacon's bulge in there, didn't I?

Gav

Bacon's bulge.

Dan

Yeah. So yes, this is a boy, he figures out this is a boy called Vincent Gray, a boy that he treated many years ago and diagnosed as, you're just having trouble with your parents' divorce, that's all.

Gav

Well, let's get to it. He sees dead people, yes?

Dan

Well, he does, yes. It's later, he later finds out.

Gav

Let's just go there, because I like to really review the film in that sense.

Dan

So he says to him, he says to him, you don't know so many things, you let me down, you said it was just a divorce, but you don't know what I see in the dark when I'm on my own.

Gav

Assuming Bruce said to Spencer, oh, blah, blah, blah, there isn't obviously dead people, he's not seen dead people as a kid and left him. So that kid then obviously went on to chat to lots more dead people, see dead people all the time, but he's just driving him to the point of suicide. And, but, gonna take out old Brucey.

Dan

Yep, so he has a little bit of backwards and forwards. Bruce tries to calm him down. He does a great thing where he's like, this is 199 Sycamore Drive. I think you've probably got the wrong house. I'm gonna call the police. And the guy just pulls a gun out, shoots Bruce in the stomach, and then you don't see it. It's very nice, though, a little subtle. We pan away and we hear the gunshot, and we know he's killed himself. Now, this is actually what's killed Bruce. Bruce is dead.

But we, as a first time audience, would never have suspected that.

Gav

But for this review, we know he's dead. So through this, let's just keep it that way, because then we can, not that we're gonna find any problems with it, because it's pretty solid, but.

Dan

And you'll notice now that Bruce doesn't speak to anybody in the whole movie other than Cole, from now on, because he's dead.

Gav

Well, he does speak to his wife, but he thinks she's given him the hard shoulder.

Dan

Yeah, she doesn't respond.

Gav

Yeah, so it's so sneakily done. I mean, because, because though, what's so funny about this, we're watching a ghost movie, the whole time, we're watching a ghost on the screen for the whole movie, but we don't know that.

Dan

What's more tragic as well than a ghost that doesn't know he's a ghost?

Gav

We don't know he's a ghost either.

Dan

Yeah, he can't, that's, and you hear that a lot, ghosts don't know they're ghosts. That's why they're sort of still hanging around. That is tragic.

Gav

But I love the fella M Night didn't write this. He just came up with this, then went back and added it. And it was like, you know, it's the icing on the cake. But like, so it's so funny that he's a ghost the whole time, but it comes across, though, as a drama for a very long time. Yes, because you don't this isn't horror. It doesn't say horror. It's got drama, suspense, mystery, psychological, thriller, psychological drama.

Dan

So we cut now to the present day and we see Cole leaving his apartment. He's probably about nine, eight or nine.

Gav

Next fall, isn't it? We actually cut to.

Dan

Is it?

Gav

So it's about a year later. Next fall. So yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dan

Bruce is waiting outside with a little notepad, making his little notes. And in the normal days, it would be a bit creepy.

Gav

But OK, first question, how did he get assigned the assignment?

Dan

Well, he's just drawn to Cole because Cole has the powers to talk to the people.

Gav

I've got my notes on this child. It's like, no, you haven't, have you? What are you looking at?

Dan

Yeah, exactly. At the end of the movie, obviously, he suddenly realizes he doesn't remember how he's got to the restaurant or got to the house or anything like that. He just suddenly appears there. And obviously, it's just him drifting through our, you know, dimension.

Gav

So I'm guessing it's like his ghost kind of was just floating along and happened to be around in that area still because he can't go because he's kind of. Because he can only go at the end when he's been let go from his wife saying it's fine.

Dan

And also when he knows he's dead.

Gav

Yeah. So at the end of it, we don't know that he actually goes. He's kind of in denial.

Dan

Yeah, he's in denial at the moment.

Gav

Right.

Dan

He just thinks he's still a child psychologist.

Gav

So, okay. So he's a ghost for the whole thing.

Dan

But also, don't forget, the universe wants him to fix Cole.

Gav

Yes.

Dan

Because he will help Cole to help the ghost. So he's almost like...

Gav

In some sense, he's got two missions to become an angel, could we say?

Dan

Yeah, because once he's done his mission and made Cole help all these other ghosts...

Gav

Because Cole helps other ghosts, yeah.

Dan

Yeah, and you could even do a grown up sequel, not that I'm saying they should, where Cole is still helping ghosts, do you know what I mean? Because of Bruce.

Gav

The film is essentially about helping others. Yeah. And that will get you into heaven.

Dan

Yeah, I guess.

Gav

Wow, deep. Deep man.

Dan

That is deep. Yeah, so he goes over to Cole. Cole looks very awkwardly at him and runs, sort of scoots off, and Bruce follows him. He goes into a church through a big red door. He finds Cole inside the church. She goes over, he says, hello there. I'm Dr. Malcolm Crowe.

Gav

I love this bit. So I look at Cole and I'm like, ah shit, he's like, fuck it, it's another one.

Dan

Yeah, cause he's gone in the church thinking, maybe he won't come in the church cause he's a ghost, but he goes in the church and he sits like this.

Gav

You know, as is the case, you know, like kids out of Bruce Willis has just been dumb as shit. All right, kid, I'm your new social worker. Oh, not in a Jimmy Savile.

Dan

No, no, no. So they talk for a little bit. He sees some scratches on Cole's arm, which he makes note of wondering, perhaps it's a parent or something, but we know what we know now that it's ghosts that try and attack him because when he doesn't listen to the ghost, they get angry with him.

Gav

He says to Cole, Well, I see we missed an appointment today. Cole must be like, Oh, no, me and you, you're a ghost. We don't have an appointment today. I don't have a appointment with ghosts on a daily basis. I'm not going to any appointment. And he just can't say it. He should say to him, I'm not coming to your appointment, you fucking dead.

Dan

But the reason he can't say it is because his whole life has been traumatized by bloody ghosts just popping up all over the place and going, help me.

Gav

It's that classic thing where something's going on at home, but he just can't tell his mum whatever, but his mum thinks it's like he's suicidal, he's into something like some sort of drugs or he's doing, do you know what I mean? She thinks it's some other totally different thing, which is a dark thing. And it's not, the kid's stuck. And it always pulls your heartstrings as well.

Dan

Well, the other reason that that works is because, you know, his dad left and she's working two jobs. She's working like 15 hours a day, trying to keep money to coming in for him and her. He's struggling in school. He hasn't got any friends, which we'll find out in a minute. So he feels, if I tell my mom, this crazy shit is going on, it's gonna throw a spanner in the works and, you know, it's gonna rip apart this little family dynamic we've got.

So he's trying to be a big boy, even though he's eight or nine, he's trying to like suck it up and bottle it up. And at the end of it, going back to what you were saying about him thinking, oh, for god's sake, these ghosts, at the end of it, Bruce says, so I'll see you again soon, I guess.

Gav

I know, he must be thinking, oh no.

Dan

Please don't. Bruce gets home and his wife is asleep. So, as he walks in, there's a bit of a chill in the air.

Gav

We assume that he's just sat down, first time listeners, second time listeners, you know, there's a ghost not making any indentation on that bed whatsoever.

Dan

And he goes into the cellar or the basement, which he doesn't really.

Gav

He goes to work.

Dan

And he starts pulling out all these books.

Gav

Even his ghost is dead. He's not going to work. Stop going to work.

Dan

He translates one of the Latin phrases that Cole said to him in the church, which translates to, And from the darkest depths, I cry out to thee, O Lord, save me. Jesus, that's deep for a little boy to say that to me in Latin. So he writes this down.

Gav

And the kid again, though, is an incredible actor.

Dan

Oh, he's fantastic.

Gav

Performance is amazing.

Dan

And then we meet Lin, Cole's mum. This is a great little scene, again, a very poltergeist moment coming up.

Gav

It puts me in mind of the witch kid.

Dan

Yeah, yeah, we get that. This kitchen scene now is very poltergeist for me, because we meet Lin, played by Tony Coletti, Cole's mum, and she's, you know, she's shutting all the kitchen cupboards and doors because they're all left open.

Gav

Interesting, Spielberg obviously had his fingers involved with poltergeist. And this is obviously, yeah, a straight rail like a poltergeist. I'm thinking that he's taking some real influences from some films.

Dan

Well, she says, eat your breakfast before you go to school. Then she pops out of the room to go and grab something. When she comes back in the room, every single cupboard and drawer in the kitchen is open. And in fact, she actually screams a little bit because it is quite shocking. And then she says, this obviously isn't the first time this has happened. You can tell from her reaction. She sort of says, were you looking for something, Cole? And he sort of looks around and goes, the Pop Tarts.

And she's like, yep, they're up where they always are in this cupboard. And then he says, what are you thinking, mama? What are you thinking? You're thinking bad things about me.

Gav

It's just straight away, you just feel so much for everybody and everything.

Dan

Oh my God, this is so sad that a little boy is asking his mom.

Gav

Some good horror movies, but obviously this doesn't come across as a horror movie. It's not labeled as a horror is what I'm saying. And some of the best horror films are just the drama in them is what you're so like into the characters, what's going on in the story, you feel for an emotion so much that when things happen, the horror, you feel the horror. That's what makes a good horror movie.

Dan

Yeah, and he says this to her a couple of times throughout the film. He says, are you thinking bad things about me? Mom, do you think I'm a freak? She's like, look at me, look at my face, I'd never think that about you. So again, so I talked about earlier that family dynamic, the love between mother and son is incredible and acted so well by both of these two. And then when he gets up to go to school, she sees his hand prints on the table where he's obviously sweating so much.

Also demonstrating he didn't open the cupboards because his hands were on that table the whole time while she was at the room, leaving those hot hand prints on the table. So yeah, spooky times, she suspects it, but she doesn't say anything. And he just goes outside with his buddy who puts his arm around him and says, come on then, Carl, let's go to school. And then when they get around the corner, he goes, did you like my acting? Yeah, did you like that? And basically, he's a pretend friend.

I think he pays him or something, doesn't he? Does he give him some money to pretend to be his friend? Or does his mom?

Gav

Reassure him that that's what happens. It's just so, and it's so sad, because it's, I know the situation having a kid that doesn't got any friends at school really is trouble. My kids just struggle with friends for whatever reason, I don't know why. All of them do. And I can see from the situation why he's so sweet, he's trying to make it look like, because he knows his mum has enough troubles and stuff to make it look fine. Here pay a kid to pretend to be his friend.

Dan

Oh, so sad. And then obviously he goes into school.

Gav

So like the writing in this, for a first time film director making his movies, it's like, bloody hell.

Dan

I know, calm down, Shyamalan.

Gav

Actually saying that, not first time movie, I've got to keep saying this, this is his third feature film, so I've got to keep that in mind.

Dan

Yeah, that's true. And also he's written a lot of stuff.

Gav

First studio film, I assume.

Dan

Cole gets home from school and, oh, for fuck's sake, Bruce Willis is sat in the living room. Oh, I thought I'd got rid of this ghost.

Gav

Oh, fuck, he's with my mum now. It's like coming back and Jerry Dandridge is sitting there with my mum.

Dan

Eating an apple. Hello. In a horrible cardigan, don't get me started on it.

Gav

It's a venus, I think, anyway.

Dan

But there's no interaction between Bruce and his mother. And obviously we know that's because Bruce is a ghost and no one can see and hear him other than Cole. But it looks like, to the first time audience, they've just been having a chat about. Oh, it's done so well, isn't it?

Gav

I'll tell you what, I thoroughly enjoy, I've written loads of scripts. I thoroughly, we've written scripts. I thoroughly enjoy it. Sometimes you think this movie's never probably going to get made, but I love writing it because in your head, you're making the movie, only you can see it. And it's the best fucking movie when you're writing it, it really is. So when he realized that moment when Bruce is dead, when he went back in to put all the set pieces there, so how do I start this up?

Oh, I have just Bruce opposite, it looks like they've been chatting. That exact thing must have made him is probably jizzing every time he came up here because it has just been so much fun.

Dan

Well, mum goes in the kitchen to make dinner and leaves Hayley with this ghost, or Bruce, and he's heartbreaking in this scene as he is in most scenes. Bruce says, do you want to talk to me today? He just shakes his head and he says, well, I want to play a mind reading game with you.

Gav

He's like, I don't want ghosts playing mind reading games with me today.

Dan

And it's basically to try and get him to sit down to talk. And he basically says, if I say a fact, if it's true, then you take a step towards me. And if it's not true, you take a step back. So we asked him lots of questions. Like, he does like a funny thing, because he's a child psychologist. And then he says, you have a secret, but you don't want your mum to find out about it. And he takes a step towards him and he asks him a few questions.

And then as he moved forward, the camera moves forward nicely. And then as when he starts getting things wrong, the camera moves back as well away from Bruce. So it's all, it just, it's so classy. It looks great. And then he says, Bruce makes a bad guess about why he had trouble at school. And he says, nope, you got that wrong. It's because I did some bad drawings.

Gav

That's the screwdriver in someone's neck.

Dan

And it made everybody freak out in the class. And you know, I don't draw like that anymore. Now I draw rainbows and unicorns and little dogs running around because no one freaks out about unicorns and rainbows. And it's such a great little performance from this kid. And then he just says, You can't help.

Gav

This kid is just so grown up.

Dan

He says, you can't help me, Dr. Crow. And then just like leaves him and Bruce is like, Oh, I fucked that one.

Gav

He does say that, you're nice, but you can't help me.

Dan

Yeah, he does. And Bruce is thinking, shit, back to the drawing board on this one.

Gav

All right, I'm going to go tell Jerry down at work about this and then off he does, stomps down to see Jerry and Jerry's just there going, Jerry, answer me. Oh, Jerry's not answering me. Goes to see Bill too. Bill too, stop answering me, Eva.

Dan

No one's, they're all ignoring me. Well, he goes to the restaurant and he's late. And it's his anniversary.

Gav

Does he just go home and go to sleep on the sofa?

Dan

I don't know, I think he just sort of appears.

Gav

Thinking his wife's pissed off at him every night.

Dan

Well, he goes to the restaurant and he's late and he says to his wife, I'm really sorry.

Gav

At one point does he go, I have not had a shit in at least four days and I've not felt like it. It's really weird.

Trailer

Actually, I haven't even eaten anything.

Dan

I haven't eaten anything.

Trailer

I haven't eaten anything.

Dan

I don't remember how I got in this room. How did I get here?

Gav

What is going on?

Trailer

Really weird.

Dan

But because it's supernatural, I think we allow that, don't we? He just appears in these places where he's meant to be.

Gav

What the funny thing is though, this is a beautiful thing. As moviegoers, we see an edited version of a film. We see someone edited to look cool, edited to look rubbish, or not funny, or anything like that. If I want to see those horror movies where we have Halloween ends, but it's the whole movie, like the whole five days not edited down. So it's just Michael's actually standing around waiting or whatever.

Dan

Goes for a shit.

Gav

Yeah, that sort of thing or whatever, you know.

Dan

Well, it is kind of explained in this scene. It kind of explains in this scene there, because he goes to the restaurant where he and his wife, where he proposed to his wife and it's their anniversary and he says to her, I'm really sorry. I know I'm late. I'm really having trouble with this case where I just can't seem to keep track of time. I don't, it's slipping away from him. So he's almost explaining, like, I don't know how I got to places, time sort of go in.

Gav

It's really well done. This would make, not that I would want to really watch it really, but it would make a fantastic double bill with Ghost.

Dan

Yeah, I suppose it would, yeah. And we did Ghost for a Valentine's episode years ago. I still really rate that film.

Gav

No, no, it's fine. The movie's fine.

Dan

Obviously, though, he thinks his wife is incredibly pissed off at him because he's late to the restaurant on their anniversary. She's not speaking to him. She's had her dinner. She's finishing her coffee. She's probably had a glass of wine. And then he goes to pay the bill. She snatches the bill, pays it, and then just says to herself, but he thinks to her, Well, happy anniversary, Malcolm, and just walks off. And he's sort of like, Oh, for god's sake, I've had a bad day at work.

The kids ignore me, and now my wife's ignoring me. It's not going well.

Gav

Even when he's dead, he's still going to work, and his wife's having a go at him and giving him an ear-bashing.

Dan

And if you notice, he wears, in every scene he wears...

Gav

It's what he thinks.

Dan

And in every scene, he wears a variation of what he was wearing on the night he was killed as well. So that was another clever thing they did with wardrobe. So we cut night of Bruce and Cole chatting and walking along. And this is where Cole says, everybody thinks I'm a freak. You know, I'm used to it. Everybody thinks that. And he stops him and he says, don't you ever buy into that bullshit. And he goes, you said the S word. He says, well, I'm sorry, but...

Gav

And I just thought that I'm using as well.

Dan

He says, you're not a freak. You know, you are your own person, and you shouldn't ever let anybody tell you that. And it's a really lovely little pep talk, really, from an adult to a child here. Quite cute. Cole gets home and his mum is dusting. I'm sorry, he's not home yet, but his mum is doing some dusting, and she notices something in the photos, doesn't she?

Gav

It's like a light, isn't there?

Dan

In every single photo, there's a little... What would you call that, Gav?

Gav

Is that like a little streak of a very over-disposed light bulb or something, yeah?

Dan

Yeah, looks a bit like a lens flare, but even as a baby, next to his face. So we now know, because we've seen this multiple times, that that is showing us there's always been the presence of a ghost near Cole. But his mum looks at it and thinks, I wonder, why did I always have shit cameras everywhere?

Gav

Bruce, we're not having those cameras again. Next time we'll get better ones and disposable ones. But Bruce is obviously dead.

Dan

So Bruce and Cole talk about his dad leaving and, you know, and how that affected him and how it made him feel. And while they're talking, his mum is in his room and she finds some bad writing, writing where it's like other people are speaking through Cole, automatic writing. She doesn't say anything about it at this point, but she'll bring it up later. And she's worried because she's already knows that he does bad drawings. Now she's found bad writing.

So yeah, and then Cole ends the scene with, he just says, I just don't want to be scared anymore. And in the way only a cute little boy can say to Bruce Willis. And yeah, we know that this boy really needs help. We're not quite sure what it is yet. And then Bruce is home. And this is where he overhears Ashton Kutcher or someone like that turning up to flirt with his wife upstairs.

Gav

I love it. He's downstairs and the door's going, are you gonna get that?

Trailer

And he's just shouting out, are you gonna get that?

Gav

It's like, oh, bless him. He doesn't know he's dead, does he?

Dan

And his wife runs a jewelry shop. So he hears her employee who's kind of flirting with her. Oh, hi, yeah, I'm just on my way to town. There's that fair, did you want to come with me? That, no, all right, well, look, I mean, what I'll do is I'll stop off on the way back as well. You know, if you fancy a drink sometime or a coffee. And then when he leaves, Bruce looks out and sees him get in his car and he goes, keep walking, asshole, keep walking. It's a very John McClane moment.

He says, keep on walking, tough guy, or something like that. And he's thinking, why is that guy flirting with my wife when I'm down in the basement going through my books? That is cheeky. Good stuff. And now we get Stuttering Stanley.

Gav

It would have been surprising if she had just had something and she went out, got drunk, got a bar, came back with a bloke, started banging. It'd be like, what are you doing? You're not even going to talk to me.

Dan

Anna, stop it.

Gav

Stop riding here. I'm not going to sit here, watching this.

Dan

Especially if Bruce was lying in the bed and he looks around and they're just banging away.

Gav

I will not stay. All right, I will sit. I will watch. I will if I have to.

Dan

How did I even get here?

Gav

I will take my clothes off and watch what's going on.

Dan

I might have a little cheeky ghost wink. Imagine if it turns out that it was Bruce Willis' ghost that gave Danak with the blowjob.

Gav

Weird. Even weirder that you thought that.

Dan

Well, you know, still want to know who it was. So, in school, we got the history class and the teacher is here, Stuttering Stanley. Or he's not called Stuttering Stanley at this point.

Gav

The teacher.

Dan

He's just the teacher. But he says, no, this school is very historical. Can anybody tell me why? Anybody in Cole puts his hand up? He's very surprised that Cole has put his hand up. He thinks brilliant. He never speaks. What is it? It's where they used to hang people. No, it was a court house and a court room. No, they used to hang people and they used to make them die in front of their families.

Gav

By the way, though, the funny thing in this movie, we don't know that this kid sees dead people for ages. We still don't know this for such a long time yet.

Dan

So we just think he's a little monster.

Gav

We just think this kid is like, what the fuck? So really, and we don't know Bruce is actually dead either. We're sucked into the drama of this film, like I said, we're just completely involved with this story.

Dan

But then the teacher, when he corrects him and says, no one was ever hung here, I don't know who's told you this nonsense. Then Cole says, stop looking at me like that. I hate it when people look at me like that. And he kind of freaks out and the teacher says, what are you talking about? And he says, you're a stuttering Stanley. That's what they used to call you when you were a kid. You had a terrible stutter when you were a kid. Stuttering Stanley, stuttering Stanley.

And he says it over and over again, to the point the teacher just screams in his face, shut up, you little freak. A teacher screaming in your face, shut up, you freak. Gosh, wow. And it's obviously, this is gonna get Cole into a bit of trouble, because Cole is now in the principal's office on his own while his mum is being spoken to, et cetera. But luckily Bruce comes in to speak to him and he says, you want to see a magic trick, kid?

He does like a silly magic penny trick to try and share him up a bit. And it does make Cole like him a bit more when he says, you're not a good magician, but I didn't know you were funny. And this is sort of, it's quite a cute moment. And then back at home, Bruce comes home and sees his wife. She's watching the wedding video downstairs, and she's upstairs showering and crying. And he sees in the cupboard that there's some antidepressants.

And he thinks, well, she didn't tell me that she's on antidepressants. Why's she so upset? It's not like I've died or anything, is it? Jesus. Well, it is Bruce, it is. Horrible scene now at the kid's birthday party. Poor Cole. His mum's saying in the kitchen, well, thank you so much for inviting Cole because he's got no friends and he never gets invited to anything because he's a little fucking freak. She doesn't say that.

Gav

So that's the director's cut.

Dan

That's basically what she's saying there. And she says, you know, it's really nice that you've you've invited him. But the poor boy is at this party all on his own. You know, he's trying that magic trick on someone who just tells him to fuck off. And he basically spends the whole party while all the other boys are playing. He just sort of sat on the outskirts sort of watching all the other kids.

And the kid whose birthday is, is the one who was in a commercial for, I don't know what it was, like cough medicine or something when he was a kid. So this kid thinks he's like going to be an actor or something.

Gav

That's what's really good at the end when he's a village idiot, or village simpleton, he's really gutted in the play.

Dan

And Cole is the king of life though. While he's there, we see a red balloon. See the color red calf? And the red balloon floats up the top of a spiral staircase. And Cole thinks there was 99 of them, and that means there was 99 clowns each holding a red balloon. That would be your worst nightmare, wouldn't it? 99 it's.

Gav

If they were all singing that song.

Dan

Oh, my God, Kim, Tim Curry times 99, all going, 99 red balloons, George, you got to float down here. You'd just be like, I'm out. I'm out. For anyone who doesn't know, Gav's two biggest horror phobias really are, apart from body horror, are clowns and monkeys.

Gav

Monkeys, I've actually adopted them into my mind a lot more.

Dan

You haven't got full on chlorophobia with clowns, but you're just uncomfortable with them.

Gav

I just don't really like them.

Dan

So I always used to tease Gav with, imagine a monkey dressed as a clown chasing you.

Gav

I don't know what it is.

Dan

I don't know what it is, but it's coming at you. Cleopatra, coming at you. So yeah, this balloon floats up to the top of the stairs and Cole decides to follow it up. When he gets up there, he hears a voice going, let me out, let me out of this fucking cupboard. Let me out now. And he thinks, right, that's probably a ghost. I'm not going anywhere near it. And then those two boys come up the stairs.

One of them was the child actor from a commercial and they go, oh, Cole, do you want to be in a little play with us? We're going to put on for the party. And Cole bless him. He's like, Yay, friends, what do I have to do? And then they grab him and shove him in the cupboard.

Gav

Tommy Tamasino.

Dan

That's his name.

Gav

Actually, I reckon Tommy Tamasino is probably going to go on to do all right, because that name is pretty cool.

Dan

Yeah. Yeah. Starring Tommy Tamasino. Pretty decent. I think he's going to do all right. But yeah, they lock him in the cupboard, and then the music gets turned up, and all you can hear is this banging and screaming, and he's clearly really distressed. It's quite a horrible scene, actually. We don't know what's going on in the cupboard, and his mum kind of hears a little bit of screaming over the music, and eventually she goes upstairs and she says, what's going on?

And they're like, he's in the cupboard. So she tries to break the cupboard open and pulls him out. He's passed out cold. And yeah, Ghost has been, God knows what, grabbing him, screaming at him, and those boys locked him in there with them little shits. So Dr. Shyamalan shows up now, because he likes to have a little cam here when he shows up.

Gav

He's doing his Hitchcock, isn't he?

Dan

He actually hates, hated his, in this film and in Signs, funny enough, he hated his performances and tried to really edit them down.

Gav

Yeah, it's funny, because when he came on in Signs, I was like, mm, Milb's a pretty decent actor.

Dan

Milb's a pretty good actor.

Gav

He's done some really good dramatic pieces before, different films, and he can really put it. And I was like, fucking hell, that must have been really hard playing with Milb Gibson's mug in your car window, looking at you, and you're acting it with him to, you know, and it's okay, but yeah, it's, I think, actually, he actually should have had someone else play that role.

Dan

Well, a little bit of trivia about that scene in Signs, I know we're jumping ahead.

Gav

The person will not be able to do it, so he just steps in.

Dan

One of Shyamalan's close relatives died two days before they shot that scene, so he channeled basically everything in it and said, I'm going to do this without really looking at you.

Gav

I still think it should have been cast, recast, and he should have just done a cameo.

Dan

Yeah, I know what you mean. I like seeing him in it, though, little Hitchcocks.

Gav

Yeah, but Hitchcock would be just standing outside of a flower shop.

Dan

With a cigar.

Gav

That's it.

Dan

Just that one I went looking through the... Oh no, that was Vince Vaughan, sorry, in the remake.

Gav

Vincey Wanky, baby.

Dan

Vincey Wanky, baby. Yes, so Dr. Shyamalan says, look, we've examined your son. It wasn't a seizure. We don't really know what it was, but he's okay. However, Mrs. Sear, I would like to talk to you about all the cuts and bruises on him. And she's like, do you think I would hit my child? And he's like, social services are here. They want to speak to you right now. Oh shit.

Gav

I remember being at the hospital with Charlie when they're little.

Dan

When they fell off the sofa and smashed their head. I remember that.

Gav

I went to the hospital so many times with Elijah never really. He's too damn cautious, which is a shame really. But yeah, I was always at the hospital with him. Anyway, I went along and then they asked a question that the doctor did.

Dan

Dr. Shyamalan.

Gav

And I started answering. And they went, no, not you. And I was like...

Dan

The child.

Gav

I had to go quiet. And they wanted Charlie. And Charlie was pretty young to answer the questions. And I was like, oh, what?

Trailer

You think, I haven't done this.

Gav

They're stupid.

Dan

When Edith fell over on the landing and split her head open, she had a hole in her forehead. And we called, obviously called the ambulance, and it was pissing blood. They didn't ask me and Alice anything like that, because we were both crying our eyes out, because our sort of 18 month old little girl was pissing blood out of her forehead and she had a triangular shaped hole. So they just whisked her off in the ambulance and glued it shut. And that was all that was ever said of it really.

But the nursery they go to is very on it with things like that, you know, which is good. It's good.

Gav

Absolutely. I'm not bothered that they ask me. I don't look like a totally innocent person, I suppose. I still have beard and shaties.

Dan

You do end up shitting yourself. When your kid hurts himself on the weekend, you think, oh for fuck's sake, I'm going to have to explain to the nursery on Monday what happened. I kicked Jack in the head one of the days because I tripped over their train set and kicked Jack in the head and hurt him. He didn't bruise or anything, but I didn't tell them I kicked him in the head. I just said, oh, he bumped his head on the weekend. He's all right there.

All day, I was thinking, please do not tell them that daddy kicked you in the head. Please do not tell them that daddy kicked you in the head. And he didn't, thankfully.

Gav

I'd like to say my kids would probably say that, no, he's all right. He doesn't try to curse. He doesn't try to curse. He's all right.

Dan

He's all right.

Gav

You don't have to cart him off.

Dan

For the record, Gavin and I are very nice and don't hurt children. So for anyone listening that might be about to report us, but Dr. Shyamalan reports Tony Colletti, and she ends up having a serious conversation with them. Bruce talks to Cole in the hospital. This is the scene. This is the scene. And he's trying to tell him a bedtime story. Now, I never caught, picked up on this before.

When he's telling them the bedtime story, Cole stops him and he says, you've never told a bedtime story before have you? And Bruce says, no, I haven't. And he says, yeah, all good stories need a twist. I've never caught up on that before, that Cole actually says, all good stories need a twist, to Bruce Willis.

Gav

He probably slipped that in. Afterwards, and afterwards it went, yes.

Dan

Shyamalan, you bastard. So Bruce then says, look, I just want to talk to you. Why, you know, about this then. He says, well, I want to ask you something. Why are you so sad? And Bruce says, I'm not sad, you know. I don't know why you think I was sad. He says, well, I will tell you what happened. You know, there was somebody I couldn't help once, and there were repercussions because of that. So I feel a bit that this may be some unfinished business.

And then Cole says, all right, I'm ready to tell you my secret now. And this film, this scene has been ridiculed and parodied, but actually, it's a great scene, and it's not as cheesy as you might think it is. He just says, I'm ready to tell you my secret now, and you're waiting, and he just says, I see dead people. And Bruce Willis' reaction is fantastic.

He says, right now, or when you, you know, and he says, no, all the time, all the time, just walking around, they don't even know they're dead. And it's so chilly. He says, no, no, no, all the time. I fucking see them every day. I'm looking at one right now, Bruce. Right fucking now.

Gav

Unfortunately, he doesn't say that.

Trailer

But I was gonna say.

Dan

But bedtime now, Cole's home, and mum tucks him in. Obviously, he's wiped out from his seizure, whatever it was.

Gav

Oh, it was 50 minutes in, and that's the point now. We've just got a bit where it says, I see dead people. 50 minutes into the film, we now have turned this film, which is a drama, into, which is way past half, ain't it, Mark, into something which has opened up the realms of horror, because we now have the first time we do see later on, we know that there's a possibility we might see a ghost ourselves.

Dan

Yeah, because up until this point, We didn't before. We just think it's a troubled boy, who might be being abused.

Gav

And maybe a slight dark mystery drama.

Dan

And Bruce is in a bad relationship with his wife.

Gav

Yeah, it's not even a mystery, is it? It's just a drama.

Dan

Yeah. So mum tucks Cole into bed at home, and she sees he's got holes in the back of his sweater. And she takes his sweater off him, and there's scratches all over him. So she thinks it's the bullies, because she phones up one of the mums, and she goes in on the mum on the phone. Keep your boy away from my boy. Those little shits you get, as you would, you know. And yeah, she's pretty pissed off.

Gav

That mum got off the phone, and then shouted at her kid to come downstairs, and he got a fucking ass whooping.

Dan

He got a hiding, absolutely hiding.

Gav

He went to bed crying that night, hungry.

Dan

There's a scene in a film called A Christmas Story, which is my favorite Christmas film of all time.

Gav

I really enjoyed watching it for the first time, properly last year.

Dan

Oh, I'm so pleased.

Gav

I really enjoyed it.

Dan

There's a scene where he says a swear word and his mom asks him where he heard it. And he just says the bully at school. And his mom goes over to the phone and calls up the bully's mom and says, I just wanted to let you know that your son said, and then she covers her mouth up and she says it. We don't hear it obviously, because it's a PG. And then in the background on the other side of the phone, you just hear, Scott, come here. And then you hear all this like, whoosh, whoosh.

And he's like, what did I do, mom? What did I do? What did I do? It's bad, but it's fun. So yeah, Cole gets up for a pee in the middle of the night.

Gav

Wait, like I said, now he's basically opened up, everybody in the cinema has now gone, oh.

Dan

Edge of the seat now.

Gav

But they would have seen the trailers and it would have had spooky stuff.

Dan

And as he walks off to the bathroom for a pee, the temperature drops, someone walks past the doorway and he goes back in the kitchen. No, mum's in the kitchen, mum, what are you doing up? She turns around, it's not his mum, it's a lady who's had domestic abuse. And she says basically, I'm doing everything I can for you, everything I can, you're going to hit me again? Is that what you're going to do? You can't have me anymore. And she shows her wrists and she's got slit wrists.

So this is a lady obviously that killed herself over domestic abuse. So he thinks, fuck this, I'm going into my den. So he runs into his den where he's got a red blanket, the colour red.

Gav

It has lots of church ornaments, we find out.

Dan

Yeah. And so that's our first ghost.

Gav

Yep.

Dan

School play. Bruce is talking to Cole about the play and about dead people. And he says, I want to talk to you a bit more about the, you know, what you told me. And then Cole stops dead in his tracks and looks. And Bruce says, can you see a dead person now? Can you see a ghost? And he goes, yes, there's three of them right there. And there's three people hanging, just staring at him from the courthouse back in the day. And they're just staring at Cole. It's very, very, very uneasy.

But Bruce can't see them. But he believes him. He's starting to believe him a bit. And then...

Gav

His mum's, they're sitting at a table and his mum's saying, did you take a bumblebee pendant? And he's saying, no. And I feel really sorry for him here, because obviously he's saying, no. We know the reason that he didn't do a ghost on it. But we have to go along with what his mum's going, thinking like, why do you have to lie to me?

Dan

Yeah, she says, he says to her, mum, I promise you I'll never lie to you. And it was her mum's bumblebee pendant. And he says to her, I promise you I didn't do it. She's like, go to your room. You're not having the rest of your dinner. And obviously she's very cross. But he goes to his room. And as he gets there, there's a boy in his room. He says, hey, do you want to see where my dad keeps his gun? And he turns around and obviously it's a boy that played with his dad's gun.

And he's got nothing on the back of his head where he blew his back of his head off. So there's another ghost there. Then he runs, this is so sad, he runs into his mum's room, crying and crying and crying. And just, can I please sleep in your bed tonight? And you know, as any parent would say, yes, of course you can. And she says, just tell me what's wrong. And he can't tell her what's wrong. So she breaks down crying. My god, this film had me in tears in a couple of scenes.

This was one of them, like just seeing her wondering what's wrong and him not being able to tell her what's wrong. It's just so sad. And then we see Bruce's widow, oh, spoiler, at work in the jewelry store. And she gives a gift to her employee, the one that flirted with her earlier. And he gives her a hug. And then it looks like they might be about to kiss. But then Bruce does the windowing, doesn't he?

Gav

What's he playing at?

Dan

He's doing the windowing.

Gav

If he was actually, so he thinks he's still real. He thinks the best way of doing this is, oh, you're not going to kiss my wife. I'm going to throw a rock at her window and then I'm going to run off.

Dan

Scoot off down the street.

Gav

Do you think he's actually running off down the...

Dan

That'll teach him.

Gav

That'll teach him not to do that again. That'll put him off doing it, rather than go in there and say, Oi, if that was his wife, you would definitely go in there, wouldn't you?

Dan

He speaks to Cole next and says, I've decided I don't think I can be your doctor anymore. And Cole says to him, please.

Gav

Keep an eye on my wife, she might be kissing the other employee.

Dan

People that are actually alive. She might be kissing living people. Cole says, please don't leave me, please. And Bruce and Cole both cry at this point. And he says to him, some magic is real, because they talk about magic tricks earlier. And it's just so beautifully written and the performances, you know, I can tell Bruce would have read the script and thought, man, I've got to do this, you know, because Bruce Willis is an actor.

Gav

How much fun it would be to do the performance.

Dan

People don't know that Bruce Willis is a fucking great actor. You know, I know he's done loads of action movies, but within those movies, especially Die Hard One and some of the other stuff, he's he's an incredible actor. You know, he sells the everyman so well in Die Hard. He's and he's so subtle in this film. You know, he's not running around in his vest. He's just walking around in his suit and tie talking to a little boy. But it's so subtle and it's done so well.

Same with Mel Gibson in Signs. You know, it's so subtle and there's a great moment now. I know I love it and I've talked about this before. I love it in horror movies where we get a tape and we either play it backwards or we turn up the volume or we hear something on a tape that we didn't know was there the first time. I love it when they do that in horror movies.

Bruce is listening to a tape, the one with Vincent Gray, the boy that shot him at the beginning, because he's thinking about his shooting. He keeps having flashes of it. He's listening to himself. All right, Vincent, yes, no. Oh, hang on a minute, Vincent. I've just got to leave the room. We'll leave you and your own in this room for a moment. Then he hears something on the tape. He turns it up and turns it up and turns it up.

And he just about makes out someone saying something in, I think, like Italian or Spanish. And I think what it translates to is something like, I don't want to be dead. I want to be alive or something like that, but it's in another language. He doesn't know that at the time, but he definitely hears a voice on the tape. So this is where he twigs. And he thinks, okay, I'm going to help Cole now. I can definitely help him because, okay, I believe in ghosts. I've just heard that on the tape.

So he gets home to his wife, just as that man is leaving his wife's house. Oh, Ashton Kutcher is scooting off up the road.

Gav

Doing his flies up.

Dan

To do another, what was that show he did? Punk'd, was it Punk'd?

Gav

Yeah, I think so.

Dan

Yeah, doing his flies up. Demi Moore is like, just wiping off the corner of her mouth.

Gav

I did find the film slightly dragging a little bit for me here. Just a little bit. For some reason, I was just a bit like, you know, I don't know why, just was. Even though we had some new like things go on, revelations in the script of what's happening and stuff, I still was a bit like, I was dragging a little bit here now.

Dan

Well there's a subplot now. Now when you introduce a subplot later in a film, in most films that would be boring, but I really like this subplot because this is, this is the fix for both of them though.

Gav

I guess he had to because he couldn't do it earlier on because this is an early on scene really, but only if we knew that he saw ghosts. If he early on said, I see dead people, then the rest of the movie was him going on with his different adventures, helping different ghosties, you know. That would be, this would be like the first one because it's a young girl and stuff.

Dan

Like Columbo just helping different people, but it's a little boy helping.

Gav

It is weird that this now goes on. It's a little like, okay.

Dan

But I love this. So he sees a girl, a ghost girl show up in his den. She's being sick going, I feel much better now. I'm feeling much better now. And then he's really scared of her initially. There's a terrifying moment where the, you know, the blanket is over her and he pulls it off of her. And eventually he says to her, he plucks up the courage and he goes back in the room and he says, is there something that you want to tell me? And obviously she then tells him her story.

So the next day we see Cole and Bruce on a bus together. And they're going to where she's told him where she lived when she was alive. And it's her wake for her funeral.

Gav

So as Bruce as a ghost, when he walked into the funeral, was he like, well, let me do the talking. And he's just going, you're a fucking ghost, you still don't know. Cole at this point is probably going, I'm totally just going to keep this gag going. He doesn't know he's a ghost. I'm going to keep this playing for a while.

Dan

Or when they got on the bus, Bruce says, oh, that was a nice driver. He didn't ask me to pay. It's lovely.

Gav

Yeah, but like, why is everyone so nice? But why does everyone keep ignoring me? So anyways, like Cole, let me do the talking and if he walks in, oh yeah, yeah, I know it's a bit weird that I'm here with my patient and we've just come here. We have no connection whatsoever. Is it really odd? It's really weird. You're not listening to me. All right, all right, I guess you're in mourning. Are you? Nope. And just no one's listening to him at all.

So he's like, except Cole. Cole, you're the only person that will listen to me.

Dan

The way that they can infiltrate this wake is because Cole is wearing a suit and he's a little boy and it's a little girl that's died. So most people would probably just think this little boy knew the girl.

Gav

He's fine. Because I thought that when I saw him walking around with the box, I was just like, no one's going to think like a kid. So I know what I'm going to do. Honestly, I'm a funeral crasher as a child. I put on my suit. I see that in my, oh, you look nice. Where are you going? Don't worry about it. I'm going to go down the arcades in my suit. Actually, I'm crashing funerals.

Dan

Nick, it's that I'm stealing things from people's houses while they're in grief.

Gav

Oh, God, that is dark.

Dan

It is, isn't it? Well, he goes to the house while everyone's crying and upset, and he goes upstairs. And he overhears somebody say, I heard that she was in bed for the last two years. And now I heard that the younger daughter is starting to get ill as well. So this munchausen is my proxy that we find out about. The mum's now doing it to the other daughter as well. But he goes in the room and this always makes me jump when the hand comes out from under the bed and grabs his ankle.

Cause I've got a phobia, like a fear of that in real life. I used to have nightmares about hands coming out from under my bed and grabbing my feet.

Gav

So sneaking into your house.

Dan

Fuck you. If you do, you don't want to hide under my bed. Let me tell you that.

Gav

I don't want that. What if I miss it? Like I missed it. I'll just have to wait. And then it all just gets into the sexy hour.

Dan

What if you grab Alice's ankle?

Gav

The sexy hour.

Dan

Yeah.

Gav

That's what I'm worried about.

Dan

And the bed starts bouncing up and down on top of you.

Gav

Oh no.

Dan

And then you hear, call me gaff. Call me gaff. You know, you like it. I like it when you call me gaff.

Gav

What? When Alice says that? Yeah.

Dan

I'm just throwing funny things into the mix. Let's do the pegging. Let's do the pegging. You'd be like, Jesus, I'm learning a lot about Dan tonight. Fucking hell. Anyway, enough of pegging me. So the boy goes, yes, the girl grabs him and she basically says, you know, here's a video tape. And Cole thinks, well, this is obviously her secret tape.

Gav

For our younger listeners, it's an old format for watching films.

Dan

Four DVDs and Blu-rays. Now, this is a dark moment now, because you've got this poor, grieving father, who's just lost his sort of 12 year old daughter, and he gets given a video tape.

Gav

Great performances again, like the way he kind of chuckles when she says something on the video.

Dan

Yeah, because he, you know, if I'd lost my child and someone handed me a video tape, I'd think, oh, great, this is memories of her. Let's put it on right now.

Gav

It's not, it's not good.

Dan

He puts it on and it's her doing a little puppet show. Oh yes, we're going to dance together.

Trailer

Ha ha ha.

Dan

And then she quickly moves it out of the way when she hears her mum come in the room. So we're seeing this through the secret camera on the shelf behind the teddies. The mum comes in and she says, I'm feeling much better now, mummy. And she's like, well, you know, you always get sick in the afternoon. So you're not going out again. You know, you need to stay in bed and get better. And then she comes right up to what she doesn't know is the camera.

And she's like pouring like drain or bleach or some shit into this. I don't know what it is she's pouring in there, but she's basically poisoning her daughter. And so this is Munchhousen by Proxy, which for anyone who doesn't know, Gav's show covered, Gav's other show covered it. The High Strangeness. And it's where, you know, one of the most famous cases is M&M. His mom had it. And there's lots of famous cases where a parent will make their child sick to sort of keep them as it were.

It's very sad and it's a very real thing, but yeah, this is what was happening to this poor little ghost girl. So the poor dad in front of the entire funeral, watches this as do a lot of the funeral goers and realizes, you know, what's going on. So the mom's at the funeral, rearranging the flowers, and everyone's looking at her again. Doh, you bitch.

Gav

In the other rumors, two guys dressed as a Pulp Fiction, Samuel Jackson.

Dan

They are, aren't they?

Gav

And they're watching Halloween Live, Resurrection Live, on the internet.

Dan

Brilliant. I don't know why that's tickled me. And they all sort of look at her like, oh, you are in trouble now, girl. And she looks around and the dad says, you killed our daughter. You poisoned her. And he begs that she is fucked. And then Cole goes outside, talks to her little sister and says, Kyra, this is the little clown doll that your sister wanted you to have. She said it was your favorite. And she said, if you keep this with you, you'll never ever be without her.

So it's a really cute moment. And then things start picking up for Cole then, now that he's helped this ghost.

Gav

He's King Arthur.

Dan

He gets cast as fucking King Arthur.

Gav

I like the fact that the teacher has kind of forgiven him, which is good. It was teachers giving him the part, and he says, thanks very much. So I was like, please, everything go well. Please, everything go well. And it does. He pulls the knife out, doesn't fall over or anything, his trousers don't fall down. He does it. Yep.

Dan

And Bruce smiles. He's in the crowd. Mum wasn't there, but Bruce is like a surrogate parent almost at this point. Ghostly parent.

Gav

Bruce is standing in the middle of the aisle, just standing there where everyone else is sitting down. But he's like, none of you fuckers even pay me any attention anymore. So I'm just going to stand here right in the middle.

Dan

I could stand here with my trousers around my ankles.

Gav

None of you care about me anymore. I'm fed up of no one listening to me anymore.

Dan

Bruce smiles. He's happy. And then he says to him outside, you know, did you think it was good? He said, I think you were brilliant. And I think Tommy Temesino was shit. I thought he was awful as the town dunce in this.

Gav

He says, I've got an idea. I think I know how you can talk to your wife. Wait till she is asleep.

Dan

He says, she'll listen to you no matter what then. She doesn't have any choice.

Gav

She's asleep.

Dan

So you keep going to her and go, you fucking bitch. I hate your food. You're fucking dickhead. And I've always found out she's your sister. And his wife might go, I'm not actually asleep. I heard all of that, you bastard.

Trailer

That's what I hear, bitches.

Dan

Anyway, he says to him, I don't think we're gonna see each other anymore now. And he says, no, I don't think we will either. And he says, okay. So then we see a really sad scene where Cole is in the car with his mum. And there's been a car, a bike accident. And Cole says, I'm ready to tell you my secret. I'm mum. And she's like, oh, okay, what's that gonna be? Thinking, oh, what is it? Heroin? What's going on here? And he says, I see people, I see ghosts. They ask for my help.

And the way he shows this is that he knows that the guru in the bike accident is dead and she's standing next to his window at the car. And then his mum starts crying thinking he's losing his mind. But then he says, and grandma says hi. She looks at him and says, what? You shouldn't say that. And he says, no, she visits me sometimes. She said, she saw you dance that one time when you were a kid.

You had a big fight and she didn't go to your ballerina, you know, ballet recital or something, but actually she secretly did. And she watched and she said, you were like an angel dancing around. And she said, you ask her a question once when you went to her grave, and she wants you to know that the answer is every day. And his mum is balling on. I'm getting a bit teary actually, just recounting it to be honest, which is a first for the show actually.

And he says to her, the answer to your question is every day. What did you ask your mum? And his mum says, I asked her, did I make her proud? And it's just so well written, just so well written and...

Gav

And performed.

Dan

And performed, of course.

Gav

Again, it seems, I remember watching this, and I was just like thinking, because I'm reviewing it, I'm thinking, I'm sure this was early on in the film, because this is such a weird place still to like here. It feels so weird. It feels like stuff that should be early on in the film. So it's interesting.

Dan

They hug, they're close again. She knows he has got these powers. I cried at this point.

Gav

And I was a dead person down there. Why is that? Because they're standing next to my window.

Dan

She's standing there, but their brain's hanging out, Mum. And then we get your final scene where Bruce gets home.

Gav

Because that's 14 minutes before the end, which is also an interesting choice, went to him to then tell his mum. But it kind of concludes the whole thing. I was always feeling sorry for it. And now she believes him because he proved some facts with it.

Dan

Yeah, he's won.

Gav

So it concludes that, it wraps it up.

Dan

He's got his mum, he's helped a ghost and possibly going to be helping more. He's been the lead in the school play and he's helped Bruce. Because now Bruce goes home to his wife, who's asleep watching the wedding video. He walks in and he hears, Hey, Malcolm. And he thinks, what? But it's the wedding video where they're sort of saying, you know, they're all talking to the camera.

Gav

By the way, I did have tears. I just saw my notes.

Dan

With that bit with the mum?

Gav

Yeah, it says like, because it's one of those things, when I used to, Elijah doesn't go to school now, but I would stand at the site then, but I wouldn't leave until he had gone around the corner, just in case he'd look back. And 2% of the time he would get to the end and look back. 98% of the time he would just keep going, which is fine. But I always said I'd be there.

And if I was never there and him to look back, and I knew that he'd look back and I wasn't there, that would destroy me, even though it's the most simplest, littlest thing. So that whole thing, the story of that was just like, oh my God.

Dan

Yeah. And it hit me hard, obviously, because my mum. So yeah, it was just well and very well written. And funny enough, just on a tangent, I listened to an interview with Oliver Platt randomly, who is a comedy sort of actor. He's done some serious stuff. And he was talking about it when his wife died and he was left with his son.

And he said there was days where he dropped his son at school and then he'd just sit in the car for the whole day because he didn't want to be away from his son and wait for his son to come out of the school. And he'd just spent the whole day in a car reading, waiting for his son to come back out of school. Like that's so sad, like horrible.

Gav

Yeah, but that would have been something which, for him, actually helped him cope.

Dan

Yeah.

Gav

So I think it's a coping mechanism.

Dan

Well, Bruce gets home, the wedding video is on, but his wife is asleep. So he does what Colton says, he sits down and he talks to her. And he says, you know, I know I haven't always been there. And she says in her sleep, I miss you. And he says, I miss me. I'm right here. And then she says, why did you leave me? And he thinks, what? And then she moves a little bit and she drops something on the floor. And it's his wedding ring, which rolls along. He looks at his hand and it's not on his finger.

He thought he was wearing his wedding ring the whole time.

Gav

Cut to Cole saying sometimes, they don't know that they're dead.

Dan

I know. And normally this is too cheesy when you hear like.

Gav

But like in the cinema, if you were watching that or whenever we all watched it, if you didn't know the twist, it would be like, whoa.

Dan

Yeah.

Gav

What would have been even better though, if you cut to loads of little clips of him and just scenarios of him just standing there, all these people were chatting a joke in a bundle and him going, ha ha ha ha ha. And no one looked at him and going, what is that with you lot? And him just walking off in different scenarios.

Dan

Or like a bus driving through him or something.

Gav

Ah, how did the bus drive through me? And just stuff like that.

Dan

But yeah, he realizes it does cut to table for one, you know, with his wife, there's never been any two-way interactions. He then realizes that the cellar door has actually been barricaded the whole time, meaning she doesn't ever want to go down where he used to do his work. And then he sees Anna's cold breath is the final thing. And he realizes, I was shot in the stomach, I died. And that's it. And he just says to her, well, I can go now, my work is done.

I think I had to help someone and I think I did. And then he kisses her and says, I love you. And I promise you everything will be different in the morning. And it ends on their wedding kiss on the wedding video, which is really lovely. And yeah, he goes and hopefully she'll be able to start moving on now. Because he was hanging around.

Gav

It concludes that as well. So brilliant writing. Yeah, amazing writing again.

Dan

Really amazing, amazing writing, great direction, fantastic performances.

Gav

So dead people can't see dead people in this.

Dan

No, I guess not.

Gav

Only old Cole, bless him.

Dan

Yeah, poor boy. And Donnie Wahlberg hanging tough.

Gav

Then Donnie could himself. So he became what he was. He'd be like, sorry, kids, you can see me. I used to be like you, but I killed myself. So I'm not a good role model.

Dan

Don't do what I did. Don't ever go in Bruce Willis' bathroom in your pants with a gun. Don't do that.

Trailer

So thumbs up.

Dan

Oh, hell of a thumbs up for me. It's close to being a film, God's film. It's famous for its twist. It's famous for that couple of lines.

Gav

Yeah, I think it is a couple of little bits. I don't know. I think it's very good. It's not a movie I tend to watch very regularly. I will watch this again at some point, but not a lot.

Dan

I mean, it's very highly for me. I give it a nine out of 10 on IMDB, which is extremely high.

Gav

I'll give it a seven out of 10.

Dan

But yeah, it's incredible film. Everybody listening to this will have seen this. But if you haven't seen it for a while, do go back, watch it again, look for those performances, and look for the color red and look for the little interaction that Bruce has with anybody other than Carl. It's incredibly well-woven story and performed incredibly well. But that's The Sixth Sense. I knew we were both going to love it and we did.

Gav

It was a really fun movie to review actually. And I really appreciated the writing.

Dan

Yeah, and I agree with you. And I didn't until reviewing it.

Gav

I don't notice quite, you know, I'm very much picture and sound. I don't notice writing sometimes. Hip-hop, I don't sometimes notice the MCs, what they're saying as such, more the beats, you know.

Dan

Yeah, whereas I'm the MC. No, it's the words. And yeah, you're right. I don't notice the writing very often when we're doing reviews. I normally notice performances or the story, but it's the writing behind the story in this one. And what I will quickly just say is in Unbreakable, which was Shyamalan's next movie with Bruce Willis, I feel that that is one of Bruce Willis' best performances of his career in Unbreakable. It's not a better film than this, but it's a very good film. And...

Trailer

I might have to check it out again.

Dan

Yeah, it's a great film. But...

Gav

I was speaking of which, I listened to some of Eminem's new album and every time for me, it's just like, get some better beats. Like, every time he gets like two, a couple of songs which are like, oh nice, you can nod your head. The others are just like, what is this cheesy shit?

Dan

Well, talking of Eminem, one of his biggest fans, Bill Murray has just walked in the room.

Trailer

Bill?

Dan

Bill?

Gav

William Murray?

Dan

Bill did have a track or a guest appearance on the Eminem album, but apparently he was cut out because it was too rude, even for an Eminem album apparently. Didn't you, Bruce? Bruce? Not Bruce, Bill. Sorry, Bruce Willis is over there. Bill's over here. Jesus Christ.

Gav

Of course.

Dan

They're all in my room at the moment, Gav, get them out. Bill, please, can you take us into World Of The Strange?

Trailer

Hi, welcome back to World Of The Strange. World Of The Strange.

Dan

Strange, strange, strange. Let's twist again, like we did last summer. Now, Bill is an expert twister, aren't you Bill? And Shyamalan is known for his twists, although as we've discussed, he didn't do that many.

Gav

Funny enough, there's another movie in the cinemas at the moment, which is obviously not the M Night one, which has possibly got some twists. There's actually a twister movie.

Dan

There is, Twisters with an S, another late sequel. What was big 30 years ago? Right, let's do a sequel to it, great.

Trailer

It wasn't that big though.

Dan

It was a sleeper here, it's pretty well liked.

Gav

Yeah, I've got it on Blu-ray, it's fine.

Dan

I'll stream the movie when it comes out for streaming.

Gav

I was going to go to the cinema, but Sarah and I just didn't get a chance to go do it. This weekend, though, I'm going to go watch Alien Romulus.

Dan

Yes, that looks fucking phenomenal, doesn't it? Have you seen the trailer? Yeah, I know you don't normally do trailers, but it gets you hyped, man.

Gav

Well, I did recently, I think I said before, did I say before about the Alien Out Of Space audience?

Dan

Yes, you did, yeah, yeah.

Gav

So really up for that. And I started watching Prometheus, which I went to bed, I've seen the movie lots of times. But yeah, I'm up for some Aliens at the moment, so I watch a new Alien film in a cinema. Great.

Dan

I might try and get to see it, actually.

Gav

Yeah, you should, because I bet it's going to have all the sort of sound effects and score be the same, you know. It'd be slimy and dark.

Dan

What I might do is watch Alien and Aliens over the next couple of weeks and then try to get to the cinema to watch Alien, almost because I know it's set between the first two, isn't it?

Gav

Yeah, I was thinking of watching Alien again, actually.

Dan

Great movies. Okay, well, talking of twists, the reason I mentioned that is because, you know, obviously Shyamalan. But what I'm going to do here is have a little list of real life twists and coincidences. Coinkydinks? Coinkydinks? Coinkydinkies? Have you seen my Coinkydinky recently?

Gav

I like the name Coinkydink.

Dan

Coinkydink. Why do you like it?

Gav

It sounds nice when it rolls off your tongue. Coinkydink.

Dan

Coinkydink. Okay, fair enough. Well, now we know one of Gav's favorite words. It's not even a real word. It's just a mispronunciation of another word. That does sound like my...

Gav

Dink in the winky.

Dan

Right, we're going off on a crazy penis tangent as always. So let's talk about some real life coincidences and twists. Got a few little ones here. So the first one is the twin tragedy. In 2002, two identical twin brothers were killed in separate accidents on the same road in Finland two hours apart.

Gav

I actually looked into the early version of the film I'm making now, which the early version was me and you, the podcasters. I actually looked all into coincidences and stuff. We did it as like a podcast thing. And I looked at all these, so I'll remember that. And it was really interesting. Go ahead, please carry on.

Dan

So they were 70 year old brothers, riding their bicycles on two hours apart, and they were both hit by trucks on the same road in Finland, 1.5 kilometers apart. No connection to each other. The accidents were completely just a coincidence. But how strange is that these twin brothers made it to 70 on the same day, within 2 hours of each other, both killed in exactly the same way?

Gav

It's weird.

Dan

That is weird, isn't it?

Gav

How can you explain stuff like that?

Dan

You can't. It's just fucking...

Gav

Is it because it's all fake?

Dan

Maybe. Or is it because, you know, there's... one twin didn't want to live without the other, and the universe was like, you came into this world together, you're going out together, who knows, you know what I mean? It's weird, isn't it? Well, the next one involves Mark Twain, the renowned American writer, Mark Twain. He was born in 1835. He was born on November the 30th. The reason that date is significant is because it was the same day that Haley's Comet made its closest approach to earth.

Mark Twain later learned this as he grew up. And he always said, I predict I'll go out with the Comet as well. Well, do you know what? He did, because he died on April the 21st, 1910, which was the same day as the Comet's next closest approach to earth.

Gav

Yeah.

Dan

That is mental.

Trailer

Yeah, it's weird.

Gav

Have you got the one about the guy in the boat?

Dan

Not sure. I know the one about the lady on three boats.

Gav

The one about the boat is a really long one. But yeah, it's a massive coincidence.

Dan

Well, there's a lady who worked on boats, and she's been called the Unsinkable Nurse. She mainly works as a nurse, and she worked on three different boats. The first boat she worked on was the RMS Olympic in 1911, when it collided with a warship and sank. There were barely any survivors. She was a survivor there. She then went on to work on a little boat called the Titanic, Gav, which was struck, as we know, by an iceberg in 1912. She was one of the few survivors of that.

And then in 1916, she was on the HMHS Britannic, which hit a mine and sank, and she was one of the few survivors on that.

Gav

Literally. The third time it happened, she's literally like...

Dan

Not again.

Gav

She's literally like cracking knuckles, getting really... At least there's no icebergs.

Dan

How amazing is that, that she survived the Titanic?

Gav

How amazing or how unlucky is she having to be in them all?

Dan

That's crazy, isn't it? Either that or she's incredibly a bad luck charm, and you never want her on your boat ever, because every boat she gets on... Or maybe she's a terrorist, Gav.

Gav

Yeah.

Dan

Maybe she's the one doing this. She planted the iceberg. Is that possible?

Gav

Maybe.

Dan

I got another one about twins here.

Gav

Okay.

Dan

They lived parallel lives. So Jim Lewis and Jim Springer, both called Jim, were separated at birth, and they were given the same name, Jim. And they found out about themselves during their adult lives, and they managed to reunite at the age of 39. They realized they had a lot of similarities, but obviously both called James, or Jim. Now, that was a name that was given to them by their adopted families.

So just by chance, the families that adopted them called them James and then nicknamed Jim, they both married a woman called Linda, and then divorced Linda, and then remarried a woman called Betty. So that's both of them, married a woman called Linda, and then remarried a woman called Betty. They both had a son called James Allen. James Allen is the middle name. How crazy is that? They both had a dog in their youth called Toy. No one names their dog Toy.

These two had a dog when they were children called Toy.

Gav

They must have been naming the animal. They probably named the animal Toy, I guess. Chose someone called Betty, because the other one probably already had the Betty. Do you know what I mean? It just felt right. And then choosing the son, the kid's name just felt right.

Dan

It's like the universe is sort of tying them together.

Gav

They could figure out each other that this was the correct one. Like ding, ding, ding, Betty.

Dan

They both worked as sheriffs as well. They were both sheriffs. So they both went into law enforcement. And they realized that their favorite holiday destination was the same Florida beach town. So they would have probably walked past each other by chance at some point. But that is nuts. They didn't know they were twins. Imagine seeing a guy over there, oh, that looks like me. What's your name? Jim? No, I'm Jim. No, I'm Jim. No, I'm Jim. This is my wife, Linda. No, this is my wife, Linda.

It's my son, James Allen. This is my dog, Toy. Hang on a minute.

Trailer

Are you me?

Gav

Weird.

Dan

That's a weird one, isn't it? The next one is going to cause a little bit of discussion, potentially around safety, health and safety. In 2008, a British cab driver, British cabby, called Tom Burchill. Good old Tommy. He saved the life of a wheelchair banged woman after her wheelchair had fallen onto the train track. Well, there we go. However, one year later, he was driving along and he saw another person in a wheelchair who had fallen onto the train track. It was the same woman.

Trailer

Oh my God.

Dan

That he'd saved the year before.

Gav

So he went up and went, Oh God, I've been here before. Went over and went, it's you again.

Dan

You daft cow.

Gav

What are you doing down there? That sound like Bob Hoskins doing it.

Dan

You need to get some better breaks on your wheelchair. That's twice you've fallen into the tracks.

Gav

Bob Hoskins, what are you doing over there?

Dan

You're fucking doing it. That's a nuts one, isn't it? But also, is it maybe she wanted to go on the train tracks and he keeps trying to... She's like, I've had enough of this. I'm going to wheel on to the tracks. Oh, it's him again. For fuck's sake.

Trailer

It's you again. Someone think you're trying to fucking do a purpose, lover.

Dan

I am. Fuck off.

Gav

Fuck off. I am, you cunt.

Dan

This next one's crazy. So in 1914, there was a French soldier called Henry. He narrowly avoided death when a bullet was fired at him by his ex-girlfriend's brother in anger. It grazed his face and lodged itself in a tree. However, do you know this one?

Gav

Didn't the boyfriend get killed?

Dan

So the brother thought he'd killed that guy. So he blew his brains out there and then. Obviously, the guy had survived it because it grazed his face and lodged itself in a tree. In 1920, so six years later, the guy then decided, oh, that tree that's got the bullet in it, I'm going to cut it down actually. And he blew up the tree with dynamite because it was a big tree.

Gav

That's right.

Dan

But it dislodged the bullet.

Gav

The bullet hit him.

Dan

Fired straight into his face and he died of it. The bullet that went into grazed his face six years later, the bullet came back into his face and killed him.

Gav

That's Final Destination shit.

Dan

That is Final Destination. That's Tony Todd pulling your nipple rings out.

Gav

Death will wait for you.

Dan

Why does he pull out that kid's nipple ring in front of his friends?

Gav

I don't remember that. Oh yeah.

Dan

Yeah. It's horrible. Don't do that, Tony. That's a weird one, isn't it? Yeah.

Gav

I had an earring pull out my ear. Gone.

Dan

Yeah, I've had that in the past.

Gav

Fucking no one is shit. I lost my earring.

Dan

I had the top of my ear pierced and it was Friday the 13th and I was walking home from the pub when some guys decided to jump me and my friend. And we managed to fight them off. But in the morning when I woke up, I realized they'd ripped my earring out the top of my ear and I had a big split ear. And I never bothered to get it re-pierced. I just let it heal.

Gav

Yeah. I need to get one. I was DJing and I had a lot of bags and I took a bag off my shoulder and it just literally just hooked my ear and just fucking ping. And what?

Dan

Ping.

Gav

Ping.

Dan

The next one involves Sir Anthony Hopkins. So he was preparing for his role in the film adaptation of a book called The Girl From Petrovka. And he was searching London for this book. It was a rare book and he couldn't find a copy of the book.

Gav

Do you have Fly Fishing by JR.

Trailer

Hartley?

Dan

Imagine Anthony Hopkins walking into your Waterstones. Hello, good man. I was wondering if you had a copy of The Girl From Petrovka.

Trailer

Oh my God.

Dan

It's a Hannibal Lecter. No, we don't. Well, in A Strange Twist Of Fate, he was waiting at a train station. And he looked down on the floor and underneath the bench next to him was a copy of the book that he's been looking for for the last year. However, it wasn't just a copy of the book. It was also a signed copy by the author of the book. How nuts is that? Not only did he find the book, but he found a signed copy by the author.

Gav

Because life is a simulation. It is not real.

Dan

Oh, God.

Gav

It can't be.

Dan

Okay.

Gav

How did that happen? Give me a clear answer how that happened.

Dan

Simulation. Don't get me involved in your conspiracy.

Gav

It's just some weird things, isn't it?

Dan

In the early, this next one is, involves a book as well. In the early 1900s, there was a lady named Anne Parrish. And she was looking through a bookshop with, I believe, her husband in Paris. And she found a book, a children's book called Jack Frost and Other Stories. And she said, oh my god, to her husband, oh my god, this brings back so many memories. I think I have this book as a child. This, oh yeah.

And she started flicking through the book, you know, when you find something from your childhood and it triggers those nostalgia. And then her husband said, hang on a minute, go back to the front cover. And it was her book from a child. She had written her name in it. You know, this book belongs to Anne Parrish, aged whatever, like we all did with our books. It was her own book. She'd found it in a person.

Gav

In a so above, so below with the piano.

Dan

Oh yeah.

Gav

And the bum key.

Dan

Bum key. That's what I'll say. Bum key.

Gav

Bum key monkey. If I ever have a monkey and I get to the point where I'm going to adopt a monkey, really to get over it, I'm going to call it bum key.

Dan

Great.

Gav

But if it takes my keys and puts up its bum for a game, that's not going to be fun. It might be a funky monkey.

Dan

Funky monkey, brass monkey.

Gav

Bum key.

Trailer

Bum key.

Dan

Anyway, there's two more of these. The next one is 2009. A Croatian man called Ivan was brushing his teeth when a stray bullet entered his home and struck him in the teeth, but he was wearing false teeth and it became lodged in the tooth, which saved his life. So his false teeth saved his life. Two years later, another stray bullet came into his home and hit him in exactly the same spot again, stopped only by his false teeth. Those false teeth saved him from bullet twice.

What are the chances, simulation, what are the chances of a bullet hitting you twice? It's like being struck by lightning twice in the same place. Well, we're going to end on a light note now. Mid 90s, 1995, a lovely couple from the UK. And they won the National Lottery Jackpot. Changed their lives forever. However, ten years later, they won the National Lottery Jackpot. The odds of $283 billion to one. They've twice won the UK National Lottery Jackpot. Ten years apart.

They're now in the Guinness World Record Book and the History Books. And it's raised questions about the nature of luck and probability or simulation, as Gav would say.

Gav

Or fixed. Not really scams.

Dan

Their surname was not Camelot. Camelot are the company that used to run the National Lottery. So there you go, Gav. Strange and weird and wonderful twists and coincidences. Can you think of any? No. That you'd like to say, that are clean.

Gav

Not really.

Dan

The only one I know of, I can't think of one. I probably could if I racked my brains, but there's one I think I told you well fair, where a friend of mine was in Thailand, out in rural Thailand, and they hitchhiked to the next village, jumped in the back of some guy's truck. And when he got to the village, he jumped off the truck and he heard someone call his name.

And it was an old classmate from his school that just so happened to be in that same little village out in the middle of nowhere in Thailand. And that kind of freaked them both out, but then they hung out together for a couple of weeks, probably went their separate ways. Weird, weird. Well, if any of you lovely listeners have got strange coincidences or strange twists and tales, let us know.

Or even if you're just good at doing the twist, send us a video of you twisting, and we'll play it on the podcast. You'll just hear like, be good.

Gav

Chubby checker impression.

Dan

Chubby checker and the fat boys doing the twist.

Gav

So Bill's going to take us out. And then after that, you're going to hear the trailer for Signs.

SPEAKER

That's all the time we've got for this week on World Of The Strange.

Trailer

Some animals around the county have been acting funny, some of them violent. It's almost like they act when they smell a predator around. Amman, Nairobi, Bangalore and Jerusalem as the latest. Same shows on every station. Every station? It is the eighteenth reported crop sign in that country in the last seventy-two hours. I'm a little scared.

Gav

All this stuff on TV.

Dan

Joe Gill's was in here talking about the end of the world. They're staying in the shadows.

Gav

It's called probing.

Dan

To make sure things are all clear.

Gav

Clear for what?

Dan

For the rest of them.

Trailer

There's a monster outside my room. Can I have a glass of water? Ground forces are being assembled. It's like war of the worlds. I believe it's going to pass. Don't be afraid.

Dan

They're in the house.

Gav

Soins from 2002, rated 12, so you can take the young youngsters with you an hour and 46 minutes. A widowed, former, reverend, living with his children and brother on a Pennsylvania farm finds mysterious crop circles in their fields, which suggests something more frightening to come, and they think it's the Walthington brothers.

Dan

Lionel Walthington.

Gav

I think it's Lionel Walthington and his brothers.

Dan

Pennsylvania 65,000.

Gav

Yeah. I really like this film. Sarah said she watched it again, and I think she said boring. I really like this film. I like alien films, so I like the ones when you get pedigrees for alien films, like there's got Mel Gibson in there, etc, etc. So I like Jordan Peele's latest one. I think that's a really good alien movie. You know, as UFO movies, shall I say, rather than alien, not to get, not the Xenomorphs.

Dan

Contains the most terrifying scene in any Shyamalan movie, in my opinion, the Brazilian Children's Party.

Gav

Yes.

Dan

Which is in many film lists, is in, always makes the top 100 scariest scenes.

Gav

Was, yeah, it's up there with the old Exorcist III, you know.

Dan

It's just, and Joaquin Phoenix's reaction to it, it sells it as well, you know.

Gav

Yeah, he's to sit back, yeah, totally. It's really well done.

Dan

Go on, sorry.

Gav

Birds and Night Of The Living Dead, were the influences for this?

Dan

Indeed, yeah, he made everybody watch the Birds quite a few times on set. The other reason this is a Gav movie all over is it's single location. It's a bit of a precinct, sort of precinct 13, you know, it's got all of that thrown into it and aliens. So this has got you written through Chuck Mel Gibson in the mix and fucking hell, you must be in heaven. I saw this at the cinema. Funny enough, the bit that made me jump the most at the cinema was the pantry door, the hand under the pantry door.

That's a good one as well.

Gav

I really love the crop design of the crop circles and the size of them, that's brilliant.

Dan

Yeah, and they did that for real, you know, and Mel Gibson said that the standing and looking at those crop circles helped him get into character because once you see that, you think, okay, I see where this film, you know, what these aliens are capable of. Sadly, I think, yeah, I think sadly crop circles have been proven to be a bit of an urban legend and a myth and made up.

Gav

But how cool.

Dan

But there was a time where we all believed that they were real and this film still, you know, leans into that. Talking of Hitchcock and the Birds, the score for this, and we'll get into it in a minute, but the score for this is phenomenal.

Gav

And he told the composer to take the best of Encounters of the Third Kind and Hitchcock movies like Psycho and do something with them. And the opening score is, you just know you're in for a treat.

Dan

I'm going to have a listen to them on Spotify, the soundtracks, because I, like I said, deaf ear.

Gav

Yeah, especially SignsGav. I highly recommend Signs. It's up there with Psycho, you know, and the reanimator. It's got that kind of driving, chilling, thrilling noise. The performers in this, Mel Gibson, phenomenal. He, you know, we love Mel. He's done some bad things or said some bad things, but he's fantastic in this as a man who's lost his faith.

Joaquin Phoenix, who I do sometimes think is a bit overrated, but I really like him in this because he's quite, he's got a lot to tell with his story, but he does it through his acting rather than his, there's one line he has towards the end, we'll get to it where he says, the scariest thing I've ever seen is my brother. That look in your eyes where I realized you'd lost your faith and you thought we were all dead. I never ever want to see that again.

You're my big brother and I look up to you and I idolize you. I think the kids are fantastic in it. Rory Colkin, McCauley's younger brother, one of his younger brothers.

Dan

Elijah Ford is the kid from Home Alone.

Gav

I mean, he looks so much like him. And Abigail Breslin's first movie. She is adorable in this as Bo and so cute and funny. And they must have let her outlive some of her stuff. She had lived some of her shit, obviously. She must do, because kids couldn't say that scripted. Yeah. But again, that's Shyamalan's direction. He works well, you know.

Dan

And I bet Mel Gibson is brilliant as a dad-like character actor, working with kids. I bet he's really generous.

Gav

Yeah, I can imagine. So again, we've got some great performers that again, sell the performance, the writing again, we're going to be harping on about all the way through this.

Dan

What was Mel's thing that everybody didn't like?

Gav

So there was a couple of things. One of them was he was pulled over by a cop and he went on a bit of a Jewish, anti-Jewish rant to this cop who was a woman, I believe, as well.

Dan

What was he drinking? Why did he?

Gav

He was drink driving, I believe, yeah. So not only is he drink driving, but he's also been anti-Semitic and anti-women. And then there was another thing that happened where he left his wife a voicemail, which I've heard, where he uses the N word in really bad ways.

Dan

Is she of a colored skin?

Gav

No, no, he just threatens her. No, he just threatens her. I'm not even going to be comfortable saying what he says on the podcast. I'll tell you what, fair. If you guys want to know, you can look it up, you can probably find the recording. It's not very nice. So I think he was going through, I'm not excusing it at all. It's awful.

Dan

Going through a mental situation.

Gav

But he dropped away from the limelight for a while, didn't he? And then he came back with The Passion Of The Christ, directed that. And he seems to have just sort of sheltered back into Hollywood again now.

Dan

What does that say though? What a strange choice of film to go for with something where you, whatever side you're taking of it, because religion is such a... If you ever want to upset someone, so you don't believe... If you think football is rubbish and you don't believe in a God, do you know what I mean?

Gav

Well, he's a deeply religious man in real life. His father is a priest, I believe. And his dad actually called in to a radio show once. And again, unleashed a tirade of racial abuse.

Dan

So he goes out for his dad. Obviously, he remembers he's from Australia, like 70s.

Gav

Yeah, not great.

Dan

Early 70s, probably, growing up.

Gav

I met a lot of racists in Australia. I know we've got a lot of Australian listeners. I did meet some racists there.

Dan

Yeah, so what an interesting choice of movie to come back to do that after like the anti-Semitic stuff.

Gav

But I think Redemption was part of it. He wanted to do something maybe in his eyes.

Dan

It's quite a full-on thing to go for, but as a film maker, I like Mel Gibson, I like him as an actor and a director. He's a great actor, a great performer, but he's a bit of a Mel tangent here, guys.

Gav

No, that's why it's what we're here for. But he's also, he's easy to look at. Mel Gibson, there's something about his face that's comforting. You feel like he's a dad, he's a hero, he's a protector, he's all of these things wrapped up in one, which is why him as the head of this family, as he starts to lose his faith, we worry for the family and it takes him to get his faith back and tie everything together, you know.

Dan

He hasn't directed that many things, notable stuff really.

Gav

Apocalypse is another one.

Dan

Braveheart, Passion Of The Christ, Apocalypse and Hacksaw Ridge, that's it. But in development, he's got three movies, but one of them which I believe is actually still gonna be happening is Lethal Weapon 5.

Gav

I hope it doesn't.

Dan

Because Donna said to him, if I die, because I don't think they were, Richard Donna was prepping it with them, passed away in his 90s in there, like 91 maybe. He said, will you do it to Mill, direct it if I pass away?

Gav

Fair enough. This film is very different to The Sixth Sense. Obviously, it's Aliens, but also it's a real comment on faith. And not just faith, as in religion, but also as in what will be will be, signs, literally the name of the film, you know, it's... And again, I don't want not to harp on about it too much, but since losing my mum, there are things that I now see, there are reasons that things happen, and reasons that things come back around, like coincidences in life.

You know, and that's the way this film ends. A lot of people don't like the way this film ends, but I really love that his daughter leaves water everywhere, his son had asthma, and all of these little things that lead up to Swing Away, Meryl. I just love that on her deathbed, his wife almost saw the future, you know, and she'd laid all this stuff out all the way through her life until she died, and that's what took him to get his faith back.

You know, I'm not a very religious person, but I love that the last scene, cut to the spoiler, is him back in the dog collar, and he's a reverend again, and he's found his faith again, you know? It's a lovely wrap up, really, to this story, but it all takes place during a fucking alien invasion film. Single location, like we said, a farmhouse, the cornfields, there's something about those fucking cornfields that are scary.

Dan

It's kind of pre-internet, really, but we do have, the farmers, especially, we do have TV being our outside world, and it actually shows us the whole world outside and what's going on with the crop circles, and they're getting worse and worse, like all of the worlds.

Gav

Yeah, and it's quite scary, isn't it, when they're watching, you know, these lights are in the sky, a bird's just flown into an invisible force field and all that kind of stuff. I love all of that. And like we said, it's the performances and the writing all together that sell this. Um, yeah, it's great. Did you see this at the cinema?

Dan

Do you remember? No, a girlfriend and I round a house randomly, and it's normally be upstairs in the bedroom sort of thing. But I think it was, uh, sat in the living room in the afternoon. I think I must have been excited. It was coming out. So I went to the video shop and probably rented it out as soon as possible that day. That's why I think, I was like, why do I watch it in the afternoon? I remember watching it in the afternoon, and still being spooked out by it.

Gav

And how does an alien invasion film also, how can it be so moving that there was a couple of times during this I got teary as well, you know? He's done a great job with his writing. He could have just told a straightforward alien invasion film. There was that one recently where the girl doesn't speak all the way through it. I can't remember what it's called now, which is a bit similar, but the girl on her own in the farmhouse and she doesn't speak. Do you know what I mean?

I can't remember what it's called now. There's no words throughout the whole movie. It's just her in a farmhouse and these aliens come.

Dan

Oh yeah, I watched it.

Gav

I can't remember what it's called now.

Dan

I can't remember what it's called. I didn't like it. I was annoyed by the fact that there was nothing to it. I wondered what it was script or something.

Gav

I understand.

Dan

We need all these movies. We need like Rubber, that movie about the killer tie. We need all these types of films. You know what I mean? So yeah, that film needs to be there, but I didn't enjoy it. I just want to say something.

Gav

I prefer to watch A Quiet Place.

Dan

Yeah, those movies don't interest me either.

Gav

I like the first one. I haven't seen the second one. I haven't seen the third one yet, but I will get around to them at some point. Okay, well, should we get into the story?

Dan

Yeah, absolutely.

Gav

Of the Hess family, the tragic family. So, Mel, we wake up with Mel. Oh, we wish. We wake up. Sorry. He's on the farm. And, you know, he's waking up and you hear some screaming in the field. What's that noise?

Dan

It's the noise, actually. The cameras are static. Then all of a sudden, the smell just flies into it. If you've seen that movie with Daniel Craig, the alien cowboy on the Paris and Ford, Cowboys vs Aliens. That's like how he comes into shot as well, just from sitting down and straight into the camera. But yeah, we got like, dad, dad. So we understand.

Gav

What did you say that film was called?

Dan

Cowboys vs Aliens.

Gav

Mandela Effect. It's actually called Cowboys and Aliens. Everybody thinks, including me, that it's called Cowboys vs Aliens, but it's called Cowboys and Aliens. Mandela Effect. It's a simulation.

Dan

Oh, well.

Gav

But yes, he comes flying into it, doesn't he?

Dan

So we know he's a dad and there's some children. So he runs downstairs. It's quite good. Then we see another house opposite in a staircase. Someone runs downstairs, back in Phoenix. We realize obviously it's his brother. I think you can kind of figure that out yourself fairly easily without any signposts.

Gav

Yeah.

Dan

And they're like, where, where, where? And they both, oh yeah, because you actually hear dad, uncle. So you're like, oh, OK, just to give you that information. Again, M Night is very, very simple scripting, making things very clear for people without any hard work. And I like a movie. Does that make me work? Yep.

Gav

Uncle Merrill, dad, uncle Merrill, dad. Come on, come on, have a look at this. Come on, look at this. And you get there, Morgan says, you know, look at this. This is crazy. What's going on here? And we cut straight to it. We're over two, three minutes in. There's a crop circle.

Dan

I love it.

Gav

And we get a beautiful aerial shot before drones of this huge crop circle.

Dan

Because it says, are you hurt? What's wrong? Mel says to the kids and just like, just look over there and the dogs are just barking and barking and they just look up and it's just their shocked faces of seeing it. And that's when we see the massive like drone shot, but it wouldn't be a drone shot, but like a helicopter shot or crane, whatever. Yeah, it's brilliant.

Gav

And Mel calls someone on the phone and he suspects it was the local gang, the Warfington Brothers.

Dan

This is why I love this. And then the female sheriff comes down and I just really like everybody in it. And it's all nice and simple and quite like easy going and just nice. And yeah, it's no, no, not trying too hard. Just like-

Gav

It's a great blueprint, isn't it? We're basically, we get quite a few films, but there's a family on a farm or in a, you know, a location like this. A sheriff pops up occasionally, a local sheriff that knows everyone, including this family and what they've been through. We pop into town maybe once or twice, and you know, there's another farm that lives further away, the Wolfeington Farm or something. And it's very simple, you're right. And it all works so nicely. It's not overcomplicated.

Sheriff shows up. The dog's a bit sick. I'll take the dog outside. She's peed all over herself. Not sure what's going on there. And the sheriff shows up and says, sorry about this. Sorry, there's water everywhere. Hang on a minute. Mel Gibson explains, Bo's got this weird thing about water, little girl. She leaves like five glasses of water in every room. This one's contaminated. This one's got dust in it. Well, this is because the aliens are allergic to water, Gav, aren't they?

Maybe this is as close as we get to a twist in this, but it's more coincidence really, or signs like the name of the film. I think this film was gonna be originally called the Farm Invasion or Invasion or something like that. Not a great title. Not a great title. So she says to him, a lot of animals are acting up in the town actually.

Dan

I did like the fact that the old lady, she just said she just come from a shop where the old lady had been down there spitting on all the skateboards.

Gav

That's right, spitting interfaces.

Dan

Because some skaters went past her and she really hated it, so she went and went down and spat on all the new skateboards down at the shop. I was like, nice. Well, not nice. I don't want skateboards being spat on, but at least skateboards were name checked in the movies.

Gav

Well, it's a random story, isn't it? She says she was spitting on them all, and by the time she got done, the whole place was covered and she must have had a cold. I don't think I'm going to eat for a couple of days.

Dan

Yeah, I always like background stories, stuff like I said before, you know, it's nice.

Gav

Just a little insight into what's going on in this time.

Dan

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You need that stuff.

Gav

Outside, the dog snaps the bow. Quite a terrifying moment, actually, and they sort of a bit worried about the dog. So because it's a really German shepherd, isn't it? It really goes for the little girl. But while that's going on, Mel's in the...

Dan

Well, the girl says the water tastes funny, and they give the try to give the bowl of water to the dog. And then he goes crazy.

Gav

And while that's happening, Mel's in the field with the sheriff and he's showing her the crops. And she says, well, what... Who could have done this? Who could have bent the corn over but not broken it?

Dan

Nothing actually affects the water. So why is... That girl's just saying it so that all the water's around there, so they can smash the bats into the water. So really, it was a reason to get all the glass of water there to get smashed by Wacky.

Gav

Something in the universe makes Bow leave water everywhere because it's almost like she knew that water was going to be needed everywhere at some point.

Dan

So actually, because it makes you think, especially if you've seen Cabin Fever, it makes you think that the water is actually contaminated. That's a part of the film.

Gav

Yeah, it's a little red herring.

Dan

It is, I just realized, and it's not anything.

Gav

Just to throw you off the center a bit. So Mel and the sheriff are discussing how somebody could have made these crop circles, to do use a machine, to do it by hand. It's pretty crazy. We're not sure. Then, like I said, she says, before she leaves, she says, Oh, father, just to let you know, a lot of animals are acting up at the moment, all around town. So keep an eye on your dogs, because, you know, he says, Please don't call me father. So we another bit of exposition. He used to be a priest.

He isn't anymore, but it's done in a very realistic, subtle way. He gets back to the farm and poor old Morgan, his boy, is bloody stabbed up the dog and killed it. Yeah, pretty fit on. He takes his Aspen Healer out and he says, He's such a loving dad. He says, What happened? What happened? Are you okay?

Dan

Come here.

Gav

He doesn't have a go at him or anything. He just grabs him and hugs him.

Dan

I think he knows he's not like it. He's just like a killer.

Gav

He says, Are you all right? Are you hurt? He says, No, no, but he, he went for Bo. I think he wanted to kill Bo, my sister. And Bo is obviously really scared, set up on the little climbing frame. See, he takes her down and he says to Joaquin, take the other dog and tie it up nice and tight in the barn. He knows something weird is going on. And the sheriff pulls the big old, it's like a big fork used for barbecue, isn't it? He pulls it out, she pulls it out of the dog. So it's all kicking off.

And we get a lovely first time we hear this now, night time and the crickets all go silent. And they do this a couple of times, which means perhaps something is approaching the house. I love that. Crickets go silent, just me or you? Do you like it as well?

Dan

Oh, no, no, no, no, it's a great, it's a very simple thing, just cutting out noise and having complete silence is a great atmosphere buildup.

Gav

And we've all been here now, Mel wakes up and his little girl is stood right there, staring at him.

Dan

Yeah, if you've got children, that is, if not, weird.

Gav

That is weird. She says, can I have a glass of water, please? There's a monster in my room. Yeah. And he's like, oh, for God's sake. All right, gets her some more water, sits her down, tucks her in and she's talking about their mum a little bit. Why do you talk to mum when you're on your own? He's like, it just makes me feel better. OK, then he tucks her in and this bit is quite scary. What does he see, Gav?

Dan

He just looks out the window, over the other roof and there's a figure all in black, like it's in like yoga pants and a fucking yoga top or some shit. Tight, tight top, just black figure.

Gav

Just staring at him.

Dan

Pretty creepy.

Gav

So he goes to wake up his brother, Meryl.

Dan

They set a plan.

Gav

He says, the Warfington Boys are here. And Meryl is like, I want to kick their fucking asses. Let's get them.

Dan

Meryl just wants an ass whooping.

Gav

He says, we're gonna go out, we're gonna act crazy. We're gonna, here's what we're gonna do. You run around one. He's like, shout, swear, curse. I'm not gonna curse.

Dan

He's like, I am crazy out of my mind.

Gav

I am so angry right now. Somebody is gonna get an ass whooping. And it's funny.

Dan

But they're gonna, the plans are, they're both run out, one left, one right, and then circle back round and flank them essentially.

Gav

Yeah.

Dan

And, but there's no one there when they get around there.

Gav

Well, they see a shadow.

Dan

They see the light. The security light goes off.

Gav

And whoever it is, there's always one or two steps ahead of Joaquin. And he doesn't understand it. And then they hear someone up on the roof.

Dan

Well, they can't, they go into each other. And they're like, where the hell is it? And all of a sudden, they hear the roofs. They both look up and go, oh no. So we all know now something's on the roof.

Gav

Joaquin actually says, are you sure it's the Worthington boys?

Dan

And then all of a sudden, the swing's moving. They turn around behind them, the swings are swinging and the crops just moving. So something was there and ran into the crops.

Gav

And that's a little ET Easter egg, because there's a scene in ET where the swing moves on its own like that. And we know that ET's just buggered off into the woods.

Dan

Actually, the next day, the sheriff tells us... We do find out that the... And it's really, again, it's a very sneaky exposition coming in from different means. The sheriff does it quite a lot, actually, because she says earlier, father, and in this event she says, don't call me father. And then she says, oh, it's so great, you moved into your brother's place after what happened. So we're getting like, what's happening, what's going on, very subtly bringing into it.

Gav

Just drip fed, drip fed. Yeah, because Meryl says, I don't feel like I'm doing anything. And she says, you're doing more than you know, because he's been another parent, almost like a good uncle looking after the kids.

Dan

Again, this is where it was so easy for M Night to go, right? This is where I'm going to explain everything that's going on. She sits at the table, asking questions. Maybe someone didn't like you leaving the church. So we're straight away like, OK, we know what's going on. And then she says about maybe, because they don't have a description, they're just like it's dark. And then she's saying, maybe it's like, I've seen some of those Swedish Olympians, they can jump and run pretty fast.

Those six foot people, girls, ladies, you know. And he says, well, maybe, just maybe, let's just take out the fact, if it isn't a six foot Swedish Olympian outside our house running around, what do you think it is? She goes, I don't appreciate this psychosom. And then he's like, look, honestly, I can run fast.

Gav

He says, I'm pretty fast and I'm pretty strong. And he was faster than me. And whoever it was got up on our roof in like five seconds.

Dan

Me personally, I love this because it's the mystery element. But we know it's aliens. We know that, we know as the audience members, because we've come to watch a movie called Signs with Crop Circles, we know that that's actually aliens doing that. And they're actually already here. But I really like the mystery element to it.

Gav

This bit's also done in quite a comical way as well, because she says, you know, what do they look like? And they're like, I'm not sure. She's like, were they tall or short? And they're like, it was very dark. Okay, so were they a giant or were they a midget? Well, it wasn't a midget. Okay, so it was a giant. And then Mel just says, again, it was very dark. We couldn't see it. It's just quite a fun little scene. And she says, somebody in town saw somebody that looked a bit odd and tall.

They were speaking a funny language. So maybe this is where she says, maybe it was a Scandinavian Olympian. And he's like, excluding that fact. And he's a bit rude to her. And she's like, please don't speak to me like that. So they still respect the sheriff a little bit, you know.

Dan

Yeah, totally.

Gav

And then Bo comes in and says, dad, the TV is broken. And he's like, what do you mean broken? He's like, the same channel is showing the same programs on every channel. What do you mean?

Dan

Which alerts them all, like, oh, that's not good. So the sheriff or the cop goes in there as well to see what's going on.

Gav

And they're showing that news is showing that there's crop circles popping up all over the world.

Dan

India, America, that would be, especially if you go in the actual garden.

Gav

And Morgan says, it's probably extraterrestrials. So he's already like, cool, this is aliens, this is cool.

Dan

And basically, then after that, they have no TV, then eventually they listen to the radio in the car, and the mail's like, no radio now for a little while, and just cuts them off. It's like, you're turning off them, you're mow them.

Gav

Well, the sheriff says, maybe you would distract your family and do something normal by like, taking them into town, just for the day, go for pizza. So he does, he says, that's good advice, thank you. Because, you know, he's a man of the cloth, so somewhere deep down, he is a good soulful person. So he takes his family into town.

Dan

And also, still probably quite hard for him to believe that there would be such a thing.

Gav

Yeah, a man of god, believing in aliens.

Dan

Even though he doesn't believe in god now, he's still going to have some beliefs, especially if aliens are really spying, still be like, no, you know.

Gav

So yeah, we get some more exposition now. We get into town and everyone splits up, the kids go and buy a book.

Dan

Book on extraterrestrials.

Gav

Like a really crappy book with crap drawings in it. But he gets all of his information from this book. So they're in there buying a book, the boy, the kids.

Dan

Mel's in the chemist and just this woman's stuff. She says like, basically, I'm scared you at the end of the world. Can I just confess to you? Like the woman who's serving him, she's quite young. Then just start confessing all this stuff to him. I wonder what she said.

Gav

Yeah. And at the end of it, he says, he goes into the pizza place and he goes, I never want any of you kids to hang out with Tracy Abernathy again. So whatever she's told him is pretty full on. Because even though he said, I'm not a priest anymore, she still confesses.

Dan

Any other comical bit with the other customer after she confesses for a while, just pops his head around behind Mel, because he's in the crowd, audience listening, the audience queue listening.

Gav

And then the other bit of exposition we get is that Merrill is considering joining the army, getting away from it all. While he's in the army office, the other guy says, there's another guy in there says, don't you know this guy is? This is Merrill Hass.

Dan

Before that, though, the guy that's sitting there chatting to him, a general or whoever he is, they answer questions and stuff, army guy, just starts explaining about what's going on with the crop.

Gav

Oh, yes, he does.

Dan

And he starts saying like, this is basically a probing mission. They're basically just coming down here, probing around, having a look what's going on. This is what they do. Once they realize it's safe, then the others will all come down.

Gav

Yeah, because he says, strangers have been spotted all over town in the last couple of days.

Dan

And he says it's a classic probing mission or whatever, tactical.

Gav

No one can see their faces. They hide in the shadows and they keep away from people. Yeah. And he says, they're probing for an, basically he says they're probing for an invasion. It's like a reconnaissance before the invasion. So he's already switched on to this army guy. And then he recognizes Meryl and says, hang on, I know you. He says, yeah, yeah, I hold a couple of records. And he's like, yeah, you hit that, you home run and.

Dan

He's got five records. But we find out that all he does is he just, he's like Happy Gilmore. And he just swings back all the time. So he's got the most outs.

Gav

And he goes up to the guy that disses him and does that like stamp and move thing, you know, to scare the guy a bit. And the guy does flinch a little bit. It's quite funny. So we get that there's an aggression somewhere deep down in Meryl, which is fine. But he's also, it's almost like moving in with his brother is helping him as well, because he's now arranging children. He's managing his aggression, you know, and he's doing a good thing.

Dan

He's, they're all in the dining room against the food. And they see, see the kids don't know who it is, but they see the man, director cameo, who killed Meryl's wife.

Gav

Oh, it's M Night Shyamalan. He's the one that killed your wife.

Dan

It's like it's the director.

Gav

Yeah. And the kids don't know who he is, but that's Ray Ready. It's Ray Ready is his name.

Dan

Ray Ready.

Gav

Ray Ready gets in the car, then he sees them, then he drives off again.

Dan

You ready, Ray Ready? I'm ready. Ready, Ray, Ray's ready, ready, ready.

Gav

Let Ray come on over.

Dan

Exactly. How confusing.

Gav

You ready, Ray? Yeah, you're right. That is weird, isn't it? I'm ready. Ray's ready.

Dan

Ready?

Gav

No, I am Ray Ready.

Dan

I'm Ray Ready. Who's ready? Ray, you ready? I'm Ray Ready. No, are you ready, Ray?

Gav

No, Ray Ready.

Dan

They find a baby monitor. He's got a baby monitor. He goes, I found this in the loft. It was Bones.

Gav

Yeah, because earlier on, the sheriff said, she was explaining to him how the walkie-talkies were. She said, I probably got an old radio somewhere in the station. I can give it to you to play with, because she wants to look after this kid. He's lost his mum a year ago. But yeah, she says, in the meantime, find a baby monitor. So he does. He's found the baby monitor. And when they pull up at the house, the baby monitor starts making a weird noise. And he says, oh, maybe it's a signal from them.

And he stands like, oh, for God's sake, what do you mean them? And then they say, it sounds like a code or a signal. And it's like, and then the little boy says, sounds like there's two of them having a conversation. So his dad snatches it off of him and he stands up and it becomes clearer and then Merrill grabs it and it becomes even more clearer. So they all end up climbing on top of the car and listening to this, what sounds like two bugs talking.

Dan

Eventually, they form some sort of human centipede.

Gav

Oh God.

Dan

The girls at the front were holding up the monitor really high up. So they've done some sort of human centipede aerial, not actually attached to each other via a bummer.

Gav

I get what you mean. Glad you clarified that. Apparently, there's another cut of this film where the alien's speech is really demonic and scary.

Dan

It's not an actual human centipede.

Gav

No, God, no. No, I'm being serious. But they decided to go for like the clicking sound more because it wasn't as, it would have got the film perhaps at a higher rating because it was a little bit more demonic. So it's nighttime again and the dog, the remaining dog that hasn't been stabbed up with a boy is seems quite scared of something in the crops. He barks and snaps at Mel Gibson. So Mel, big, strong idiot that he is, takes his flashlight and heads into the cornfield at nighttime, Gav.

Dan

Oh, great.

Gav

Fucking hell.

Dan

Yeah, but you want this, don't you? Oh no, I don't. He still thinks it's the Wolfenstern brothers.

Gav

He does, yeah. So he goes into the field with his torch and he hears, but he says quite loudly, I don't believe any of this nonsense. And I don't believe your silly crop circles. And you're not going to get famous if that's what you think. And if it is you Lionel Wolfenstern, then you're in deep trouble. And he classic drops the torch, picks it up, shakes it a little bit. And he sees a leg, a thin spindly leg. Just step into the cornfield.

Dan

It's good though, isn't it?

Gav

Oh, it's spooky. He chases it though. And then he just heads back inside. And this is where something's switched in him now. And he just says, let's turn on the TV now.

Dan

Yeah.

Gav

He's interested in what's going on. And on the TV, they're talking about this light in the sky.

Dan

It's got to the point of just a lot of lights all over the sky. Yeah.

Gav

So it's a bit independent state now, you know.

Dan

And they're going to tape it. They tape it on Meryl Swimsuit special tape.

Gav

It's so funny. He says, he says, we've got to take this for posterity. This is the little boy. And they're like, well, okay. So this is back when you would put a tape in and record what was on TV. And I think he pulls out Bo's ballerina, ballet recital or something. And then he goes, Uncle Meryl, I'm using your tape. And Uncle Meryl's not even paying attention. And it just says swimsuit edition on there. So he's taping over a softball porn. Poor Uncle Meryl. Poor Uncle Meryl.

And the news reports, you know, are on all night. The whole family stay up all night watching it. Obviously, the kids fall asleep, but Graham and Meryl, they stay up all night long. And they're wondering if it's the end of the world.

Dan

Another Spielberg reference here, Poltergeist reference. This is basically Poltergeist. Them at night time, whispering away to each other.

Gav

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love that scene in Poltergeist, when they all stay up.

Dan

Yeah.

Gav

As a family, you know, in the same room. But Meryl says, you know, is this the end of the world? That's what they're saying. And they start discussing, Meryl says to him, in this world, there's two things that people believe. They either believe in luck, or they believe in God or signs. There are no coincidences in this world. And I've written a note here, which is, there's really good brother energy, because on paper, they don't look like, or seem like they make good brothers.

But the chemistry between Mel Gibson and Joaquin Phoenix, particularly in this scene, is really, really good. It feels like there's history between them, and they've grown up together. And he says, my wife, you know, the reason he doesn't believe in God anymore, he's revealed now, why he doesn't believe in signs. He says, when I looked in her eyes as she died, you know, the last thing she said to me, she said, swing away, Merrill. Do you know why she said that?

Because all of the synapses and things in her neurons and her brain were firing away, and she thought she was somewhere else, and she was reliving old memories as her brain died. That's why. And he says, there is no God. And that's why he quit the church, why he doesn't have any faith anymore. So it all spills out here now.

Dan

He says, we're all on our own, and leaves it like that. He can fucking drop the app. It's a fucking negative.

Gav

Thanks Mel. Fucking hell.

Dan

And then it's flashback to his wife, and he's in his father clothes, turning up to an accident. It's just like a bit of it.

Gav

And he's, yeah, and the show comes up to him.

Dan

Cuts to waking up.

Gav

We only see a little bit, but we get again, we get drip fed that, and we wake up and the TV is now in the closet.

Dan

It's a really nicely edited and paced film.

Gav

This is, and Meryl is watching the news in the closet. He says, I thought I'd be what, I thought it was easier if I watched it in here, so the kids don't get scared. And he's just watching it in the closet, which is fine. But that's brilliant for later when the TV gets wheeled out in the final scene. It makes sense as to why they're moving the TV. And the schools are closed, so the kids are happy, you know?

And Meryl explains, you know, the ships seem to be invisible now, because a bird flew where the ships were. Now it's daylight and they seem to hit like some kind of invisible field and then fall down. And I think he is this where Meryl Gibson says, everybody in this house needs to stop watching TV and get some fresh air and eat some fruit. He's trying to be a bit of a dad, and then he goes up to his kids. What are they wearing, Gav?

Dan

Tin foil hats.

Gav

Tin foil hats. What are you doing? We're reading this book. They believe every word in this book. And they're like, look, there's aliens.

Dan

They can be hostile.

Gav

Yeah, he says there's two types of aliens, hostile or friendly. And unfortunately, or horny.

Dan

Is that the third one?

Gav

Well, he's just a kid getting his information from one of these coffee table books we had as a kid, you know, and the pictures in the book are crudely drawn.

Dan

Some house and there's like this alien ship just spraying them, burning the house.

Gav

That bit is really spooky, isn't it?

Dan

Because he says, Oh, it looks like our house. Then there's just like some people on the floor burning. He goes, oh.

Gav

And that is pretty weird. Then the phone rings.

Dan

M Night, the director ringing up with some direction.

Gav

Hey Mel, you're doing a great job because you just try and be a bit more shirtless in the next scene. We haven't seen your pecs yet. But now it's Ray Ready ringing up.

Dan

Ready, ready, Ray? I'm ready.

Gav

He says, is that Father Hess? And then you hear a noise in the background, like something running or thumping, and then the phone hangs up. So Mel says to his kids, I'm going to go over to Ray Ready's house. I think he just rang me. I'm a bit worried about him. Yeah. Okay. And Beau says, I'm getting weird feelings about this. To her brother. And he says, oh no, not your weird feelings again. Is it a bad feeling? And she just looks at her brother.

Now I'd be chilled to the bone if my little sister said to me, I just don't want you to die. He's like, who said I'm going to die? Who said I'm going to die?

Dan

Who said we're going to die?

Gav

What? But she's almost a bit like a Ray, not Reagan from the Exorcist, she's a bit like Carol Anne, isn't she? She's obviously got some kind of sensory perception or something. Do you know what I mean?

Dan

Yeah.

Gav

So Mel heads over to Ready Ray, Ray Readies. He's ready to go and see Ray and ready he is. So Ray Ready. And he knocks on the door. There's no answers. He looks inside the signs of a struggle. There's a chair knocked over. And then he looks around behind him, and Ray Ready is in the car. And he's ready to leave. Ray is ready. And he's got all his stuff packed in the back of the car. And the Mel notices that Ray Ready is bleeding.

And he basically says, you know, that night, I fell asleep at the wheel and I killed your wife. I never fell asleep in the car once in my whole life. But it had to be that time. That's that five minutes patch of road that your wife was walking along on.

Dan

It was like it was meant to happen. So I don't want to hear that. If that has been my wife. I don't want you to say, I think it's meant to happen that your wife died. Really?

Gav

And Mel wells up here. Really, he's a good, he's a good crier, like I've always said. And he kind of forgives him a little bit. And he says, Shyamalan says, I'm gonna go ahead to the lake. I've heard rumors that they don't like water and they're not sort of landing anywhere near water. So maybe they're allergic to water or something. Anyway, that's what I'm going to do. Oh, by the way, I managed to trap one of them in my pantry. So whatever you do, don't open the door.

Dan

It's a great ending of that scene to go, it drives off.

Gav

You're like, what? Well, you just apologized for kidding my wife a year ago. Now you're telling me you've got a fucking alien in your pantry. Exposition dumps. Jesus. Cut back to Meryl. He's watching a Brazilian news broadcast.

Dan

He's well into it. He's getting completely sucked into it. He's down the YouTube rarithole, isn't he?

Gav

Yeah. If he had YouTube now, he'd been watching it for 24 hours straight. So, yeah, let's talk about this scene. Let's break it down. It helps that it's in Brazilian, in Portuguese. They're screaming in Brazilian, these kids. We can't understand what they're saying. Apparently, it translates to, it's behind the garage. It's behind the garage.

Dan

He's saying, so for most children. Yeah.

Gav

Vamanos, Vamanos, because he wants to see like he's there.

Dan

Quite funny. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Basically, they see something going to the hedge, or they think it's something behind the hedge. So the kids' part is being filmed, the person with the camcorder and the kids, they all run over to the window and the kids are all there and they move the kids out of the way. And it's just a long shot of an alley. Then just all of a sudden we see behind the hedge, not Michael Myers, but an alien come by and just step in the shot and walk past.

But it's just kind of creepy and it looks all right. It's fine.

Gav

It looks good, doesn't it?

Dan

Someone in a suit, obviously.

Gav

It's terrifying and Joaquin jumps and screams. He rewinds it and then pauses it on, you know, he's been recording all the news and they, he stares at this image of this like grainy image of this thing stepping between a bush and a building. And it's really scary. It's genuinely really scary. Back at Ray Reddy's house, Mal does the opposite of what Ray Reddy said. He goes inside, he goes to the pantry and he sees something, a shadow under the door of something in the pantry.

He says, hello, I'm with the police. I am a police officer. He's terrible, terrible at lying.

Dan

He still doesn't want to believe that it's an alien.

Gav

He says, we got some of your gang downtown in the paddy wagon. And then he thinks, why am I saying all this? I'm reciting lines from like a 50s gangster film. And he says, if you come out now, we'll offer you the same deal we offered them. And he's saying all these like cliched things. And no one says anything. He looks under the door, he can't see anything. He grabs a knife. He looks, uses it to try and look for a reflection. Can't see anything. So he walks away, a bit scared.

Then he thinks, no, no, what am I scared of? Comes back in. And as he goes back down with the knife.

Dan

And the camera focuses on what we've seen. So it's kind of scary. It's like kind of like found footage in a little bit in some good found footage bits. But you're like, oh, I really don't want to see what's going to happen. I know something's going to happen.

Gav

And it's a little hand with four fingers comes out from under the door and he cuts off one of the fingers and you hear it.

Dan

It was a bit confusing. I was like, has he cut off his own fingers? What's going on? It's really shocked at that point or edited weirdly. I don't know. I think shocked weirdly. Do you make close ups?

Gav

He's fully on board now with the aliens because he gets home to tell his family. And he says, yeah, they can't read our minds with these on. And one of them says, apparently they have got chameleonic skin and they can change their skin to match their surroundings. That's why we can't see them so well. So all this stuff's coming out on the news, you know, and they start discussing, you know, what's going to be the outcome of this invasion?

And Mel says, well, listen, I saw one of them just now at Ray Reddy's house. And they're like, whoa, what the fuck? You saw one of them? And he's like, yeah, shall we go to the lake? I vote that we go to the lake. So Mel puts his hand up. Meryl puts his hand up. And the kids don't. They say, no, this is our home. This is where we live with our mom. We want to stay here. We're scared because they're kids, you know? They want to stay at home. Of course they do.

And Mel says, well, I get two votes because I'm voting for mom as well. And he's like, that's bullshit, dad. You can't pull that one on us. And then one of them changes them. I think Beau changes her mind. So they end up having to stay in the house. He says, all right, well, what we're going to do is we're going to board up all the windows and doors. So there we go. This is where it begins the invasion.

Dan

Yeah, it's good.

Gav

There was a scene here where I've misremembered it, where Merrill's outside and he throws a stone into the crops. And in my head, I thought the stone came flying back out.

Dan

No, that must be. Yeah, yeah. Your Nelson Mandela effect.

Gav

Yeah, that's probably what it is. Probably happens in another film. The news reports now are saying there's more and more like cities. Yep. It's a global event.

Dan

And World Of The Worlds gets a bit of a name check.

Gav

Yeah, he says it's like World Of The Worlds, isn't he?

Dan

So they have a Last Supper.

Gav

The newsman is emotional. He starts like, he's trying not to cry when he says, you know, this is a military manoeuvre and the history books are going to be rewritten. And I, I may God speed to you all. And obviously the kids are worried. And this is where Morgan says to Joaquin Phoenix, I wish you were my dad. Cause he finds him more comforting. He says, don't you ever let me hear you say that. You're lucky to have him as your dad. Never let me hear you say that.

And it's like, wow, this family is, they're falling apart. Yeah, the last supper, Gav. The last supper.

Dan

But they can't eat after they make all the food, make all this different stuff. Mel's like, yeah, then they can't, no one eats. So he gets angry with them. Then they all do a big cry and a hug.

Gav

Oh, I love this scene. I love it. Totally get this scene.

Dan

He didn't want to do a prayer, basically.

Gav

Yeah, so he says to them, what should we have for dinner? And Joachim says, well, we should probably eat quickly, so let's have something quick. And they were saying, no. And he doesn't say it, but basically, this could be our last family dinner. So one of them wants spaghetti, one of them wants French toast, one of them wants roast potatoes, one of them wants chicken, teriyaki, and Mel wants cheeseburgers. So they make all of that up. And you're right, because he doesn't say a prayer.

Morgan says, I hate you, you let mum die. Bo starts crying, so sad. Let's see a little girl crying. So Mel says, well, I'm gonna eat all this food. I'm gonna eat some of this spaghetti, some of this cheeseburger. And then he starts cry eating, which is just so sad and pathetic to see Mel Gibson cry eating. And then, yeah, you're right, they all cuddle. Merrill doesn't particularly want to get involved, but he gets grabbed by his brother and pulled into the big family hug.

And then the monitor picks up a voice. And then the TV signal drops. And they just say, it's happening. And it's quite ominous, isn't it?

Dan

Yeah, yeah, it's good.

Gav

The crickets stop. It's time to board up all the windows and doors.

Dan

Oh, the dog's killed because you can hear it.

Gav

Oh, yeah, you hear it outside.

Dan

Because I was surprised early on, they had the dog death and it showed the dog dead. Early on in the film was, I was very rebellious.

Gav

And because the kids are so scared and because this is the last time they might all be able to talk to each other, Mel Gibson now tells each of them their birth story, which is really cute. And apparently these are Shyamalan's kids' birth stories for real. One of them smiled within a few minutes of being born, his dad. The other one was told they looked like an angel. So that was quite a cute little moment. And we hear some footsteps and the wind chimes.

Dan

They're here.

Gav

We see shadows running past the boarded up windows. They weren't able, they didn't have enough boards to do one of the windows, so they had to board up the door to the spare bedroom, hoping they don't get in. They hear them running around and then Merrill realises they didn't board up the attic, Gav. They're inside the attic. So, let's go down to the basement. Oh, great. I love going down to the fucking basement. And that's where they go.

And something tries to turn the door knob, but they use an axe to jam it shut. And they say, where's Bo? Where's Bo? There she is. She sat over there. Okay, good. The radio isn't working in there. Something starts banging on the door. And after a while, they figure out, well, they're not trying to get in. They're trying to distract us. What could they be distracting us from? What did this barn used to be? It used to be a coal chute.

And that's a War Of The World reference as well, because they hide out in a coal chute. And then they realize they were banging on the door to distract them from the fact one of them had tried to climb down into the coal chute.

Dan

Because apparently, they're very good problem solvers.

Gav

Yes, like raptors from Jurassic Park.

Dan

I guess, and then the boy is grabbed by the alien.

Gav

Oh, no one saw that coming. He grabs him, and it kicks off a terrible asthma attack. And he cannot catch his breath. And again, we got a fantastic Mel Gibson performance now, where he's being a dad. If you were in that situation, this is what you would do. Breathe with me, listen to my chest, feel my chest. We'll get through this together. The pain's not gonna be around forever, and he helps his son calm his breathing down, and get through this asthma attack.

But he still needs his medicine to fully get through it. While he's helping his son, he's speaking to God. He says, don't you do this to me again. Don't you take another one of my family. I hate you, God, I hate you. And it's so, like, emotional. Wow, and his brother sees him saying all this, and he confronts him about it later on. We should turn off the lights to save the batteries. Okay. And then we get the, a little bit more about the death of Mel's wife.

He turns up at this crash site and says, the sheriff says, what do you know? And he says, I heard there was an accident involving my wife. Yeah, she was asking for you. Oh, so she's talking. Is she in the ambulance? No, because she's been severed by the truck that hit her, and she's pinned to the tree in such a way that once we take the truck out, she'll die instantly, because that's all that's holding her together, is the truck.

Dan

Wow.

Gav

Are you telling me this is the last time I'll be able to talk to my wife? That's where we end the flashback. Emotional. This is why Ray Ready is so cut up about it, because he killed Mel's wife with his truck. We wake up in the morning and they hear chatter on the radio. He says, they're leaving, they're leaving. People are claiming that they've run away. There's a weakness that they have. We don't know what it is yet.

But apparently watch out because they like to use poisonous gas on people, which they can fire from their bodies. And Meryl then says what I mentioned earlier, which is you're my big brother and I look up to you and I want to be everything that you are. Never let me see you lose faith like that again in front of your family. I never want to see that look in your eyes again. So they grab the baby monitor. They don't hear any noise. That's good enough for me, they say. Let's go up.

Up the cellar they go. It's daylight. Yep, it's all clear up here. Great. They carry Morgan upstairs. And Bose says, oh, they're dancing on the TV. Let's get the TV in here. And he says, yeah, wheel the TV in so that you can see it.

Dan

I really love, we can find out, there's an alien there. I love the reflection. It's only keep it in reflection really, well, I didn't show it so much. And I also love the fact that the alien is holding the kid. It's got a camo hand, camouflage hand. It's just so I can change to the whatever the kid was wearing.

Gav

And also apparently this reflection bit is from, what's the Hitchcock movie? Where he sees the reflection behind him of the assassin. Is it North by Northwest, isn't it? He sees the reflection behind him. I think it's North by Northwest. Oh, okay. Yeah, and because the alien effects, let's be honest, they're not great at the end. But because we see most of it in reflection, all through like a glass of water, it gets away with it for the most part.

But yeah, essentially there's an alien in the room. Fuck, there's one left over. And it's the one that Mel injured because it's missing a finger as well. So this one's got beef. It's holding Morgan and it tries to spray gas. But because he's got asthma and his lungs are closed, he doesn't breathe the gas in, so he doesn't die, which is another sign along with the water and Swing Away Merrill. And he now remembers the last messages from his wife. Tell Bo, no, tell Morgan to be silly.

It's okay to be silly in play. I can't remember what her message for Bo is. And then she says, tell Graham, and he's like, I'm here. I'm Graham. But she doesn't recognize him anymore because she's dying. And then he says, the last words are, tell Merrill to swing away. So he then spots the baseball bat. And whacking Phoenix, what did he get up to Gav?

Dan

He just starts swinging away like a happy Gilmore.

Gav

He fucking pounds this alien to a pulp and then starts smashing water, which we realize is burning the alien then. And that's why the aliens left Earth, because they realize most of the planet is covered with water.

Dan

I always wonder what the alien does, sprays in the kid's nostrils here. I always wonder what they do.

Gav

They talk about it on the radio. They said watch out because they spray poisons gas. But because Morgan's got asthma and his lungs have been closed, it doesn't affect him. It doesn't affect him.

Dan

I always wonder what was going on there.

Gav

So yeah, they take him outside and they manage to... He wakes back up. And all of these things were signs leading up to this. And this is where Mel has his revelation. And he says, that's why Bo left water everywhere. That's why he had asthma. And that's why she said swing away. I get it now. I get why the universe was pointing everything in this direction. And then we get one final little shot where we see the broken window upstairs where the aliens got in and it pans around to a snowy day.

So we know we've got to the winter now. Mel steps out of the bathroom. He's back in his priest outfit. We hear the kids downstairs laughing and talking to Uncle Meryl. And they all live happily ever after.

Dan

I think aliens are stupid. What if they just came to the UK and it rained?

Gav

Well, that is something that people say about this film. They say the twists were ridiculous. And also, why would they choose a planet where like 70% of it is covered in water? Because most of our planet is covered in water.

Dan

Yeah.

Gav

But who cares about that? It's a great film, very entertaining, great alien invasion film.

Dan

Anyway, the aliens are using the water to go to their portals.

Gav

Well, you know that, don't you? Because they live under the water. This is a fantastic film.

Dan

Yeah, I enjoyed this movie.

Gav

Probably top three for me. This Sixth Sense and Unbreakable, his first three films out of the gate, you know, he's never, RJ. McCreely mentioned to me, he thinks he peaked on this film. And I think he probably did. I don't think he's, those first three films, although The Visit is good, and he's had a couple of good ones here and there. I feel like his top, his first three films are his top three films.

Dan

Yeah, it's weird when you look at all, there's nothing I'm really like playing away with, but he's, he is a strong filmmaker, it's funny.

Gav

So yeah, this is obviously a thumbs up from me, I'm guessing from you.

Dan

Yeah, thumbs up from me.

Gav

If you've not seen this for a while, go back and watch it again. Highly recommend it. It's a great alien film, one of my favorite alien invasion films, great performances and again, great writing. I think that's something that echoes that we've said, now with both of these films, it's all about the writing, the direction and the performance. And that's what makes a great director. That's why Spielberg's films and Tarantino's films are so good.

They're well written, well executed, great and well performed. So there was nothing more to be said for me, I fucking love this film. So that's our Shyamalan. It's not the first time we've covered him. We covered Devil, which he produced. Certainly not our first Mel Gibson and our first Bruce Willis films. But I hope it's not our last Shyamalan film. I'd like to do The Visit at some point. So there we go.

Dan

Yeah, good film. Do check out and check out his new movies. His new movie Traps in the Cinema. Not that we're paid to promote that, but there you go.

Gav

Yeah, if you like a bit of Josh Heronette, then go see it. I'm definitely going to be checking out. I think I'm going to try and watch Knock on the Cabin as soon as I can, really, because I feel like I should have probably seen that leading up to this episode, but I didn't because I've let all our listeners down.

Dan

And I'm a fool, a terrible person. Let's go for an outro, let's do it. And we're back again.

Gav

And we're back again to say goodbye. Goodbye. That was episode 161 of Shyamalan. Do do do do do episode. Do do do do, ba ba ba ba. Great director, we haven't covered him really, so it's lovely to talk about him. And two classics really, especially The Sixth Sense, is regarded as a bit of a horror, thriller, ghost classic. So finally we can tick that one off our list. But, Gav, I hear you are about to ask me a question. What is coming up next? Oh, I'm glad you said next. What is coming up next?

Well, our next episode is a Patron Pig, pig, pig, pig, pig. And we're very excited for the next episode. It's a Giallo special. Our patron, Kevin S. Fife, our bearded brother from across the pond, has selected 1973, Sergio Martino's torso and paired it up with the Argento classic from 82, Tenebrae. Wow, there's going to be black leather gloves, boobs, throats being slashed and crazy dubbing. I'm going to love it.

That's episode 162. After that, episode 163, we'll be finishing up the Final Destination franchise with Final Destination 3, 4 and 5. Yes, a triple bill. Hold on to your seats. Don't get on your roller coasters and aeroplanes because it is going to be death knocking on the door. Looking forward to that one.

Dan

Yeah, it'll be good.

Gav

Yeah. I can't remember 4.

Dan

I can't remember. 4 and 5.

Gav

3, 4 and 5.

Dan

3, 4. So roller coaster, car track.

Gav

Yeah. And I can't remember what 5 is actually, no. Fuck. Oh, well. Oh, bridge, bridge. Oh, that's a good one. And after that, well, we'll be coming up towards October.

Dan

Ooh, spooky.

Gav

So to get you all prepped and ready for spooky month, we'll be taking another director special with a Terrence Fisher. Yes, classic Terrence Fisher of Hammer of Fame, a double Bill of two of his movies. We picked two creature titles, although there's not really a creature in one of them. 1959, Gabba selected The Hound of the Baskervilles, a Sherlock Holmes story. Yeah. And we paired that up with My Choice, 1961's Oliver pissed as a fart read in Curse of the Werewolf.

Dan

Yeah, really interesting. So yeah, old Terrence Fisher.

Gav

Terry Fisher. So we can talk about his filmography. Obviously, good chance to talk about Hammer Horror. And both of those movies, is Hound of the Baskervilles Hammer?

Dan

Yeah.

Gav

It is, isn't it? Yes. So yeah, a couple of Hammers.

Dan

There's obviously many versions, because it's Sherlock Holmes' story. But Hammer did one with Peter Cush.

Gav

There's only one, exactly. There's only one version with those two boys in it. So yeah, that'll be fun. Fun episode as well. And that, like I say, that will get us ready for the spookier time of year as well. So that's what's coming up. We've got some Jallow, some Final Destination and some Terrence Fisher. So stay tuned guys. Thank you to everybody for listening, for sharing, liking, commenting, as always. Hope you enjoyed those. Remember to tell us your thoughts on what we've said.

If we've said something that you don't agree with, we do agree with. If you like the films, if you've never seen them, did Gavin Ive fucking spoil The Sixth Sense for you? And if we did, tough, you should have seen it 25 years ago. Yeah, but you know. And also, if you've ever had any very strange, weird coincidences or twists in the tales in real life. Well, I think I'm going to do some housekeeping now, then we can say our goodbyes. Are you happy with that?

Dan

Absolutely.

Gav

Is there anything you wanted to add?

Dan

Not really.

Gav

Before I do that? No? Good, good. Well, as always, we are a proud member of Legion Podcast Network.

Dan

Absolutely.

Gav

Did you like the dramatic pause there?

Dan

It was very dramatic.

Gav

The pause. Thank you. We also fall under the umbrella of Deadbolt Media. More on that in a moment. If you want to find out more about Legion Podcasts Network, just go to legionpodcasts.com. I don't know why I'm saying it to you, like you're the audience.

Dan

I know, but it's fine.

Gav

Do you notice that? I do that. I'm acting. It's strange. We've been a member of the network for 10 years. So legionpodcasts.com, go there. You can find out all of our shows and all of the other shows under the network umbrella. You can email me and Gab directly at the podcast on hauntedhill outlook.com. And we're on Facebook. The podcast on Haunted Hill is the name of the Facebook page. Come and join our fun community of people.

It's going to get busy soon, because as we approach October and everyone starts doing their 31 days, which is only just over a month away, believe it or not, it's crazy and people will be posting what they're watching all day long, every day in October. Legion also has a Facebook page. Just check out Legion Podcast Network. We're available wherever you're listening to us now. Most podcast platforms and platforms as well. Spotify, YouTube, Podknife, Podbean, PodApp, Apple, if it's still going.

I've heard it was shutting down. Podcast Addict and we're on Instagram, the podcast on Haunted Hill Insta, all one word. Deadbolt Media is our umbrella. Deadbolt Films is our production company. Underneath that, you will find not just this podcast, but Gab's other show called...

Dan

The High Strangest Podcast, talk about weird and strange things of my loveliest era.

Gav

True Crime, Serial Killers and all that kind of stuff. Bigfoot, Bigfoot Aliens, Bigfoot Alien Ghosts. That would be your dream. And you can go to deadboltfilms.com, where you can find out more about those two podcasts, our podcast, that other podcast, as well as the short films, the feature films and the comics that we've produced as well. The Tentacle Comics. Lovely. And you can go to Instagram, Deadbolt Films for more.

And there's a YouTube channel, which is where you'll find lots of cool stuff, currently working on something that was on our YouTube channel, but isn't anymore. But excited for something, when you've got put that together, Gav. Yep. Anything you want to say about that?

Dan

The new comic.

Gav

No, the the film that was in pieces.

Dan

Oh, Amanda. Still working on the moment, the found footage film. We're kind of putting it up and just putting it back together as it was an episodic thing, but then we took the best bit. So it's a weird one, but making a feature film out of it. So it's a bit of a strange one at the moment, but we get there.

Gav

It was created during the pandemic.

Dan

It started. So it's a bit of a weird one.

Gav

Sorry, it started.

Dan

We're still shooting for it now, like shooting last night for it, which is weird.

Gav

And finally, we are on Patreon. So if you want to, you can become a Patreon supporter for as little as a pound or a dollar a month. You can help the podcast continue to grow and just tick along nicely really, because my headphones need replacing, so you can actually go. As you can see, they're a bit disgusting. So yeah, what we do with that is we use that. Any money we get to buy equipment, rent and buy films that are obscure, that we might need to review for you lovelinesses.

There are benefits to being a Patreon supporter. You will get a t-shirt first off, in one of three colors sent to you, wherever you live in the world or universe, or under the water with the aliens, if Gav had his way. You also get your choice, so every three episodes, it's a Patreon pick, pick, pick, pick. And as I explained, Kevin is our next Patreon.

He gets to wear the pretend crown for the episode, send in an email with messages and why you picked those two films, and we will review your two films for you. So it's fun. You also get access to our entire back catalog through Patreon. We release old episodes every Friday. On Freaky Friday, we're releasing old episodes. And occasionally, we release bonus content on there, exclusive bonus content. And sometimes, our episodes go up early as well to patrons for a week. So lots of benefits.

You don't have to do it, but if you do, we would really appreciate it. And, of course, all of our patrons get thanked by name right now. So thank you very much to Dante. Thank you very much to Don Collier, to Matthew Godley, Jamie Jenkins, Kevin S. Fife, who is our next patron. Sarah Kaye, Rachel, RJ McCready and Lex Boo.

Dan

Hey, thank you so much, guys.

Gav

Thank you ever so much. Thank you. We love you all. We love all of you listeners and all of you Facebook people and just people even just glance at me in the street. We love you.

Dan

I thought you said the thing, glans.

Gav

I love your glans, Gav. I do love your glans.

Dan

You do take care of yourselves, ladies and gentlemen. Guys, gals, non-gender and everybody else in the world. Be careful.

Gav

And one thing I would forgot to mention, which we never do, I keep forgetting to do it, is if you do come across us, it's your first time or you haven't yet, please leave a review or a rating on any of the platforms you use. We haven't really had one for a while. So yeah, that kind of thing. But yeah, it's a good night from Bruce Willis, who has been a fucking ghost the whole time.

Dan

It's a good night from a little kid that sees dead people, which must be a nightmare at night times.

Gav

It's a good night from Wacken Phoenix, who lives in the barn in his brother's farm.

Dan

And it's a good night from the Walthamton brothers.

Gav

Oh, those fucking Walthamton boys.

Dan

Good night.

Gav

Good night, Gavin.

Dan

Thank you for listening to the podcast on Haunted Hill. We will be back again real soon.

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