Father Malone's Weekly Roundup - Longlegs, Trap, Penny Dreadful

selling it months in advance. Not that I'm complaining. The Christmas mania always drove me a bit bonker, so having its polar opposite around is not the worst thing in the world. Plus gives us an excuse to do a themed episode. It's just horror. We're just doing horror stuff, but relevant horror stuff. How would you describe your legs slender? Oh, dainty, Sure, that's accurate. Would you describe them as long as hypothetical? No,

of course they're not. You're not long legs. Nicholas Cage is long legs.

the bodies sign of one word.

his crimes. Each of the victims' families have commonalities. They all have a daughter, and those daughters were all born in the same birthday, and in the end, one member of the family slaughters all of them before taking their own life. Though all the clues in several taunting ciphers left behind. Let the authorities know that this is all the work of one man Osgod Perkins Ozgod Perkins is an interesting cat. Yes, he's Anthony Perkins's son, Norman Bates.

My girl and I have alakoi named Norman Bates LAIKOI are those werewolf cats. He's perfectly named. He stares at you uncomfortably for a very long time. But putting aside mister Perkins's parentage, he is a filmmaker after my own heart. He makes tiny, independent, self contained, generally slow burn horrorflex They're economical and thoughtful, and they can actually elicit dread and not just real world, contemporary or period stuff either.

I thought his film Dreteline Hansel was terrific. Hansel is so hot right now, that's for you, Jess. So when he set his sights on Silence of the Lambs as a framework, I was really intrigued. And it mostly pays off. Mostly it's period piece set in the nineties. It must be jarring for young viewers for a character to announce that they need to make a phone call and then leave the room, potentially leave the building and find a payphone,

and once they do, they're tethered there. The attention to detail, like in all of his films, is off the charts. And I really like Michael Monroe. Like Jane Levy, she feels like an accidental scream queen, which is the best kind, but she also has what I call Cianna Miller syndrome. She's a wonderful actress, but she looks like a dozen other more successful actresses all at once. If you've ever read A Scanner Darkly by Philip K. Dick, the lead

character is an undercover agent. He wears this suit that's constantly cycling through personas, so you never really quite get a glimpse of who they are. That's Michael Monroe, but she's great here. I'm not taking anything away from her. I would say that the real standout of the film is Blair Underwood just dropping into her mind everyone how fucking awesome he was and is and can be. But he is not the best thing in Long Legs. Oh No, that is Alicia Witt. She plays Michael Monroe's mom, which

is bracing. I saw Dune in the theater. Her folks, tiny Alicia Witt, She's all great up here. And she's a mom in long Legs, and she's better than I've ever seen her sincerely. She's got maybe ten minutes of total screen time, and she wrestles the spotlight onto herself with some incredibly naturalistic weirdness. She deserves all the awards and more weirdo parts. I love her, But this isn't the FBI story, and it isn't the weird mom tail. No, this is about the serial killer long Legs. Who is

long Legs. I'll tell you he sounds a lot like the character Charlie from Peggy Sho got married, and he looks like he overdosed on a steroid like pregna zone. Same weird vocalizations, weird misshapen head that does nothing but distract you. I've read reviews that claim he was unrecognizable. I didn't know it was Nick Cage until the end credits. Are you out of your fucking minds? Look, there's nothing revelatory in his performance here, which I'm not saying is

bad in any way. It's great, but we've seen wilder and weirder choices for mister Cage. This is really just stock in trade. If the movie resonates, it's not because of him. It's despite him. Nearly every interaction with long legs is shot from the neck down or some other obfuscation. When I was watching it, it seemed like a stylistic choice, and maybe it is, but I, for one, would have filmed his shoes the entire time rather than yank the audience so forcibly back to reality every time he's got

a close up. It's a strange thing to have committed to. He's a serial killer, flying under the radar for decades. Actual serial killers can do this because oh he was so quiet, he was a nice guy. Oh no, I never would have suspected they're inconspicuous. Everybody will remember the falsetto Pillsbury, dull boy interrogating young girls about their birthdays. Everyone. There are handmade dolls that figure into the plot of this film. I kept expecting them to come to life

and say, that guy's weird. Maybe it's me. Maybe you'll be swept away with the magic of heavy prosthetics. I hope you do. I wish I had, because the movie itself is as good as you've been hearing. It's just not for the reasons you've been hearing. Much loved a ghost Rider, but he's just kind of ruined it for me. Ultimately, I'm recommending this because Osgood Perkins is such a good filmmaker and he needs to keep at it. Also, Nick said he won't be doing roles like this anymore, so

we've got that going for us, which is nice. Okay, tiny Legs, time for your choice. Rips picks, rips picks. I should get a Paul Schaeffer like bumper here. Remember anytime they would do a bit on Letterman, they'd cut to the World's Most Dangerous Band who'd have a theme song ready, which is usually just some wacky rave up with an organ swirling and Paul Shaffer screaming the name of the bit over and over again. HP. Can you hear me? The magic of HP? Everybody. I don't say

enough about him. HP does every music cue on everything I'm involved in. He does the weirding way media bumpers. You hear at the start of all the shows on the network. He's got a band camp site you should be going to when it's linked in the description. You know HB has a dog. No, I don't think she co hosts anything, but she can speak English. Oh my god, it's a twist. And that's the thing that comes to mind when you consider the filmmaker behind Ripley's pick. It's

another current one. What's going on here? We're supposed to be doing older stuff that people can get really easily. When are we gonna do Phantom of the Paradise and Dawn of the Dead. I guess when current stuff stops and being so yddamned excellent anyway, currently in theater or some probably streaming from m night Shyamalan. This is trap.

as if it could be more happening than Signs. It's the story of a dad played by Josh Hartnett, who's taken his daughter to her favorite pop stars concert at an indoor arena. He begins to notice significant police presence and discovers that the FBI and local law enforcement are there to catch a notorious serial killer. No one can leave a scary situation, particularly if you're the serial killer.

Shamalan is channeling Brian to Palmer and Alfred Hitchcock more than Rod Serling and Steven Spielberg for this flick, and it is most welcome. It's a cat and mouse thriller where the mouse is already in the trap and is surrounded by hundreds of cats. The concert features Lady Raven, a thinly veiled Taylor's swift character played by Selika Knights Amalan. That's two Shamalan children hitting the scene this year. His other daughter Ishana wrote Indirected Watchers, which we covered a

few episodes ago. Nepotism is only a negative when the beneficiary can't deliver. These kids deliver. Selika is remarkable not only for the solid, really solid performance, but also she wrote all of her character's songs and performed them. I'd say she's the standout she would be in any other case. But the fact is this film is anchored by a performance by an actor I've been a fan of for a long time. I think the early part of his career got derailed by a dismissive just a pretty boy

thought of him. But I've always thought of him as an interesting actor, and I think the rest of the world is going to have to agree after this film. It's pure acting here. While there's tons of great dialogues throughout. It's everything unspoken by Heartnett that really conveys everything. We don't need one line from another character to let us

know that the police are there for him. You read every emotion, every panic, every machination on his face, all the while trying is best to convince his daughter that all's well and they're just having a fun concert going experience together. Shamalan seems like one of the only filmmakers left who knows the power of a slow zoom in giving us the whole scene and then taking us into the meat of it. I love that his filmmaker has never been in question, and I don't think you can

ever accuse him of anything less than being stylish. I mean, he's great in it. He cameos again, sure, but he's a better actor than we give him credit for. He plays Lady Raven's uncle, and speaking of great Hayley Mills identical twins. She plays the FBI profiler, coordinating the police and providing a constant stream of information that not only illuminate the Butcher as a character, but let us know how formidable she is. And that's a good word for

her performance. Formidable. The whole thing is formidable. I don't want to give anything away, but there's no giant twist here, gang no giant revelation, so don't go in with that expectation. This is a puzzle box, and a really well crafted one. It makes you feel for everyone involved at different moments, and the payoff are satisfying. Also Josh Hartnett, Yes, we do. We have to recommend a TV show. It's been a while, and because we have a spooky theme, it has to

be horror adjacent, which is a tall order. Unless we've been talking about Josh Hartnett, and unless the entire series wasn't available on showtime, and unless we're discussing one of my favorite series of all time from John Logan, starring Eva Green, Timothy Dalton, Reeve Carney, Harry Treadaway, Rory Kinnear, Billy Piper. And Yes, and Josh Hartnett, this is Penny Dreadful.

Scooby Doo and Batman hanging out together. But it was that book and subsequent film adaptation that seemed to stoke the fires of hey, let's jam a bunch of fairytale characters together and stuff like Once upon a Time, or hey, let's jam a whole bunch of fairytale characters together like grim or hey, well you can get the idea. The best of them easily handily is John Logan's series Penny

Dreadful Oscar Winner. John Logan, Yes, that one. He wrote Gladiator and the Aviator and Skyfall and Specter, and in twenty fourteen he created this series. It's said in London in eighteen ninety one. Hart Knet's character, a genuine American cowboy sharpshooter who's come to England with a traveling Wild West show, is our proxy and through him we are led into a world of Victorian depravity thanks to the finest authors of the age. He's befriended by Vanessa Ives,

played by Eva Green. Do I have to tell you how much I love Eva Green? I can do a dozen podcasts about her. But anyway, Vanessa's best friend has been missing for some time, and she and her friend's father are on the constant hunt for her. Vanessa's friend is Mina Murray. Fans of Acula ought to recognize the name and her father. While not Alan Quartermain, he may as well be. He's an explorer and an adventurer, played

with his usual fucking excellence by Timothy Dalton. During their investigation through the grimy, sooty streets of nighttime London, they enlist the aid of a medical student named Victor Frankenstein and make the acquaintance of a society dandy named Dorian Gray. Mash Up with gravy, Yes, it is so on its face, I can understand it getting lost in the shuffle back in the day, and it's continued obsolescence, even though everyone seems to be howling for mashups these days. So maybe

I can find a new audience. Frankenstein's first experiment comes calling. By season three, we're hanging out with Doctor Jekyl. It's a smorgasboard of Victorian naughtiness and oh how naughty. I listened to Brent Goldstein's podcast and he always asks his guests what's the sexiest film that they've ever seen. I'm always a bit flummixed to choose one of my own, But if the question was sexiest television series, it's Penny Dreadful in all its blood soaked, depraved and horny glory.

The blood. There's a scene, no spoilers where two characters dance at a ball that is absolutely drenched in blood. The walls, the floors, the sconces the dancers, and it's one of the most alluring images I've ever seen. Oh and here's something. The show is many things, but it's a horror show first and foremost, and it manages to accomplish something ninety nine percent of self avowed horror television cannot. It's actually scary. The season two premiere has more genuine

fright than ten seasons of American horror story. Ooh bho. I just creeped myself out remembering one of the characters I enview virgin viewers. The series follows many plots, many characters, many threads, but it also doesn't skimp on illuminating the various forms of entertainment that would shape the twentieth century. We spend a good deal of time at the Grand Gugnol Theater. I hope I pronounced that right. I probably didn't. They spend time at a waxworks, a shadow show early

forms of animation. Logan has always had an ear for stylized period dialogue, and I think this show is his crowning achieved. Also, the production design is top notch movie quality. All of it is movie quality. Now. A quick caveat the series is three seasons should have been four. I get the sense it was plotted for four. Logan has said he chose to end the series, but the truncated way in which the third season wraps up every plot thread does not feel like the season we'd received thus far.

It feels like they knew they were getting a fourth season, planned it, and then just prior to going to camera for season three, were informed they weren't being renewed. I might be Devil's advocating for Logan here, because while it is an ending and it does satisfy the various plot threads we've been following. It feels rushed and wildly unfocused

for what is such usual laser precision. It's odd, and it prevents this from being my absolute favorite show of all time because it's this close, this close, Ripley, I now realized that this is a topic way larger than a wrap up episode. I may need to devote a bit more attention to the series, maybe over on the Patreon channel. Episode by episode. We can do it, Ripley. Yes, it's gray bearded, silver Fox, Timothy Dalton. She's in. Should I be worried about you anyway? Benny Dreadful? Please go

watch it. Give the first couple of episodes a go. It is tops as far as shared universes go, and it makes Victorian stuff scary again. That in and of itself is worth your time. You know what, Wait, I can't wrap it up. I need to scream the virtues of a couple of the performers here, and I haven't mentioned either yet. That's how fucking snacked with talent. This show is. Season two features Helen McCrory and Sarah Green as witches. Helen McCrory most will know as Draco Malfoy's

mom in the Harry Potter films. She's icy in those films. She's everything here, calculating, sweet, seductive, and horrifying. She could do it all, and she does it all here. She passed away a few years ago, so fuck you death. Quit taking all the greats. Sarah Poole plays a character named Heckty, and she's a potential third side to a

triangle between Josh Hartnett and Eva Green. So that's great because unlike most romantic triangles faulty angle, here all three characters are super strong and you can see the appeal of them all around. Oh and she's horrifying. I am gonna spoil something. The witches in Penny Dreadful transform into chilling creatures that remain sexy and scary in equal measure. I fucking love this series. I'm gonna stop. We're gonna wrap this up, wrap up the roundup. Thank you everyone

for listening week in and week out. You've made the show double in popularity over the past few months, and I'm humbled and grateful. If you want more of something or less of another, let me know. We're open to suggestions. I'm open to suggestions. You can reach me at follow alone seven to one at gmail dot com. And if you want to support the show, head on over to Patreon and become a subscriber. You can sign up for free. You won't get anything, but my ego will grow two

sizes that day. Paid members get episodes early and ad free, and evidently are gonna get a new show dedicated to Penny Dreadful. Fuck. Now I've said it, so it's gonna happen. That's patreon dot com slash follom alone or if money's a bit scarce, boy, ain't it, you're gonna help us by giving up it's a five star review on Apple Podcasts, or sharing it or just telling someone about it. Either way, anyway, thank you for listening. This Friday, We've got an episode

of Anthologies attach. I haven't decided which one you're getting with. The choices are all fun, so tune in then and until next time. Here's a line from Penny Dreadful. I'm not gonna use a clip because I'm a ham. No, we don't have ham anyway. Here's the line. You will not die while I'm here. You will not surrender while I live If I have one goddamn purpose in my cursed life, it's that