Hello, Internet, and welcome to Nobodies, the horror content podcast where we clean up the ugly things so you don't have to. Our bi-weekly show features two hosts and rotating guest content experts tackling the nitty-gritty complex horror topics. with the hope of making the genre more approachable for frequent flyers and newbies alike.
The goal of this show is to highlight diverse voices and perspectives in horror. This is your reminder that there may be discourse on this show that will challenge the way you look at the genre. So let's get ready to get ugly. I'm the ghost with the blog, Lonely, and I'm joined by my co-host and partner in crime. I'm Susie, aka ProjectileVarmint, and we are back talking about revenge. Have you ever gotten any kind of revenge on anybody lonely?
No, I wish. I have lots of people on the list. My plan, my grand revenge plan, now that you ask, because you've entertained me at this point. I had this grand plan where I wanted to invite all of my exes to my wedding and put them all at the same table. But I realized that the critical plot point here is that they would not only have to RSVP, but that they would also have to show up.
So there was a lot riding on this theory. And I think it says a lot about how highly I think of myself that I thought all of my exes would show up. So, but what about you? Have you ever enacted your revenge? Yes. Like a really cheesy revenge. So when I broke up with somebody, they always left their house on lock. So I went in and I just stole all of the remote controls for their devices. because you know you're going to look for them everywhere.
Do they know this? Have they ever reached out to you about it? I don't know. I don't talk to anybody. I don't know if we should release that onto the internet, but you know what? And I'll never find out. I'll never get the gratification of watching them search for that. That is probably just as bad as like taking one battery out. You should have left the remotes and taken all one battery out. And then like super glued them shut.
Yeah. Yeah. So you can't get me going on stuff like this because I, I think revenge is great as alluded to in the last episode. This is a great, I really want to splice audio in here. Have you ever seen pink flamingos? No. Well, in Pink Flamingos, Divine says Kill everyone now and don't first degree murder. And I think that's a great segue into our topic for this evening. So we are back with Sarah and Kelly from final girls, and we are going to continue our discussion on some deeply depraved.
femme revenge horror and round out our conversation for tonight. We have a few more films to discuss. And the next one is actually one that was recommended by Libby during our Horror Alphabet episode. So we were very excited to get on. On this film, finally, I'm not sure if Susie had seen this before, so I'm dying to get your thoughts on it because I actually think this might have been a first watch for both of us. And that film is The Nightingale from 2018.
Set in 1825, Claire, a young Irish convict woman, chases a British officer through the rugged Tasmanian wilderness, bent on revenge for a terrible act of violence he committed against her family. So before I pass the torch over to you, Susie, on this film,
I just want to set the historical context because I'll admit I knew very little about what was going on in the Australian history and how that related to the film. And I had just enough to get through my first watch, but I had to, I'll admit it does require a decent amount of historical context.
So just to set the stage for anyone like me who wasn't familiar with this period of history, the British began colonizing Australia in the late 1700s with the goal of just establishing something called a penal colony, which is where they ship out all the convicts. to get them out of the country. And later they planned to incorporate free people, in quotes, into the country. So Claire, our main character, is one of these convicts from Ireland who was relocated to Australia.
At the time this film takes place, something called the Black War was also taking place in Australia, and the core of this conflict is that, to no surprise to anyone, the British has yet again shown up somewhere with people already living there and then proceeding to steal everyone's land. That sounds very familiar. In this case, the British had continued to expand and pillage the land that belonged to the numerous Aboriginal tribes that already existed on mainland Australia.
The Aboriginal tribes resisted colonization and a genocide was carried out on their tribes. By the conclusion of the Black War, the original estimate of people living on the island was between three to fifteen thousand aboriginal tasmanians and by the time the war was over there was only documented a proof of only 400 survivors so a very massive death toll here
The film also uses several terms to describe the Aboriginal characters that may be historically accurate in relationship to the time period, but are considered to be discriminatory. in modern day, especially when used by people outside of the ethnic group. So we will not be using any of those words, obviously, in this conversation. But I just wanted to prep everybody who did not have any of that history because I know I didn't. But Susie, this was a wild film.
So when Libby was talking about this movie, I could feel how much weight this movie had, but I think I definitely underestimated exactly what I thought it would feel like. Watching The Nightingale, I almost felt... like smothered by sadness and anger i had all the feelings watching this movie at one point though it's even touching which seems like weird but
Overall, this was the hardest watch I can remember in a long time and not in a way that was like too gory. That wasn't the hard part. It was just the story was so depressing and there was just so much sadness. And from beginning to end, I was glued to the screen. And I think that even though this movie was...
about two hours long, the pacing marked really well to develop the characters. These characters were so well-rounded and the relationships that almost had this arc in the movie really made sense to me, especially the one obviously between Claire and Billy. So everything is taken away from Claire.
the army guy yeah yeah i think he's a lieutenant okay this british lieutenant literally is raping claire whenever he wants because he's also kind of in love with her or infatuated those two would probably be interchangeable to him and he ends up Killing Claire's husband and killing the baby and so that Ignites this like Claire to go get her revenge and along the way
She pays this guide, Billy, and that relationship between Claire and Billy just like was beautiful and heartbreaking. And I love this movie so much, but I will never watch it again. I am so with you on that one. It was so beautiful, but I don't ever want to watch it again. This one was.
so in addition to Promising Young Woman's opening scene, the sexual violence in this film was hard to watch because there are multiple scenes where women, because it's not just Claire, there's an indigenous woman as well, or aboriginal woman as well, who is also their gang rape. And it's so hard to watch. And then, of course, you know, there's the violence that happens during, especially Claire's, the first time she's raped.
You can see the point, and this was great acting. You can see the point where she starts to disassociate. It's like a change in her eyes. And the same thing happens with Noelle in MFA, I noticed. you can see the moment where she just leaves her body. And it's so heartbreaking. And her arc with Billy, I totally agree. It was absolutely beautiful. And this film, between Claire and Billy, actually has my favorite quote from all of the films.
And it was there's it's towards the end. And Claire and Billy have gotten pretty close. They've they have had their arc where they kind of started out as strangers and maybe had a little bit. She had a little bit of, you know, resentment, racist resentment.
he just had this kind of like i'm just doing this for the money or just to get paid for my two shillings or whatever it was um and then they actually grow to become like um really dependent on each other it's really beautiful and then there's towards the end um claire asks him in a really
raw, vulnerable scene. She says, do you have men like this? And she's referring to these violent um these violent men that just are entitled that treat women like objects that um they're just she's she's basically saying like do you have these kinds of men historically in your communities and he says
No, I mean, I guess. But she says, well, how do you fix them? And he says, we don't fix them, we kill them. And I think that is what was kind of the point of all of these films when you talk about like rape revenge. And it's, you know, obviously not condoning any kind of murder or that, you know, anything like that. But that to me was just like, we don't put it up with it. Like, that's, that's not something we put up with. And it just made me feel like.
Why can't that just be the case for all of these movies? if that was ingrained in our society, in our communities, we wouldn't need these movies. We wouldn't need to have these discussions. It was just so powerful to me. And it's almost like Billy is the uncivilized one because he's an Aboriginal. he has the the clearest
answer of like what you should do. You shouldn't dismiss their behavior and maybe you shouldn't kill them, but they see what's happening and they deal with it. Unlike these more civilized cultures that Just let it happen. The other men turn a blind eye. They partake as well. So yeah, that was a really interesting point, Sarah.
This film is just, I can't, there, it is, I'm like speechless trying to even think of words to describe it. As I mentioned earlier, we're prepping for an episode on extreme horror and it is. It's so believable that so many extreme horror films are, the basis of the story is in war and the atrocities that come out of war.
Because these films leave this horrible dread and devastation in your soul when you finish watching this. I think this is the most gruesome, as you mentioned, Sarah, of the rape scenes that you see in this watch list. It is so gruesome because not only is it a rape scene, but it's also a murder. It's a double murder that happens.
Claire continues to experience flashbacks of parts of the scene throughout the movie. And one thing that I thought was incredibly well done in this film are the portrayals of her flashbacks. And as somebody with PTSD... It was very, it felt like watching, you know, a day, a day in my life, you know, like seeing the way that those flashbacks were kind of intermingling with real life, intermingling with her dreams. It was very, very well done.
One thing you guys have touched on a lot of this and the one part that I just wanted to get your thoughts on is there's a recurring theme that we see in this movie and in... one other on the list i'm trying to remember which one but it's this idea oh i think it's in um mfa so when the woman actually kills the man they enact their revenge There's always this thread of the women automatically feeling this guilt and remorse for the killings. They're kind of haunted by the killing after it's done.
And I guess it's supposed to allude to the fact that killing somebody isn't the answer. There's no satisfaction that's coming out of it. Do you guys have any thoughts on that? Because that is one of the big parts that Claire grapples with in the last half of the film, is after she murders the first soldier, she sees these visions of him over and over and over until the end of the film. I think that's almost like a juxtaposition of revenge as something like she felt like she had to do.
and she didn't really have a choice in it. It was like a primal force, whereas the men in the film had a choice to do what they did. and they did it without any remorse. So I thought it was pretty good to set those two up next to each other. I think that, just to expand on, because you're so right about the primal thing, I think the unique thing about Claire is that she's a mother.
And I think part of this is to, you know, avenge the murder of her baby. But, you know, there's a lot of when she's when she's killing the.
the the end sign guy um they at the end right right before he she gets like the last blow he says mother and that haunts her um and she's just i think i think that's a unique situation with Claire specifically but Kelly and I were actually just talking about this on one of our episodes that just As women femmes, we are just so conditioned, even when we are completely in the right, to be like, could we have done anything differently? And it's just I think that's such a huge thing.
in a lot of the, I mean, maybe except for Cassie in Promising You're a Woman, there's just this theme of like, oh, you know, what happened? Like, what happened here? What was the breakdown? Like, what could have been different? Not realizing that. It's not our fault. Nothing to do with us. One thing I noticed in this film was that the trauma that both Billy losing his whole family and, you know, most of his people in his tribe. And Claire's trauma, like it brought them together.
And I think that's something that like mirrors real life. I feel like lonely you and I were like brought together by trauma and it still binds us to this day. And trauma brings people together, especially women. If you think about most of the films that we watched for this topic, there's a group of women that are brought together by some sort of trauma. And I think that's kind of sad because women bound together by trauma. And it's almost like what happens to one happens to all of us.
It really is like a collective trauma that I think we constantly feel and we're going to continue to feel as long as horrible things keep happening to women. Right, and this goes to one of the comments that we had talked about earlier when we discussed MFA, which was this collective responsibility. that women put on themselves to protect and respond in these situations. And I think that also comes from this, in a sense, collective trauma.
It always interests me when like the conversations come up about sexual violence and the epidemic of sexual violence and the way that it's justified to men. And it's this idea that. oh, well, it could have been your sister or it could have been your mother or something like that. It's always an interesting point, right? Because why does it have to be? You know what I mean? Why does it have to be somebody close to you?
for you to rational or for a man in this a man in the situation to rationalize that trauma when in these movies it almost seems like the trauma is innate and it's like innately a response to understand and And just see where other people are coming from. I guess an MFA that is kind of a joke, the fact that these girls maybe haven't experienced the trauma. But in other situations, especially like in the movie The Nightingale, it very much is that, you know.
I still remember the scene in the Nightingale where the other woman asks her where the baby is. And yeah, there's just this pause and everybody understands. what happened to the baby before she even says it it's very interesting and actually i know this movie is not at all related to this maybe slightly um you won't be alone
Mm hmm. Where she's learning. She learns more from being in a community or the creature learns more from being in a community of women than she does learning from a community of men, which is very interesting. That emotional intelligence is. Very, I don't know. It's hard because it plays so strictly on the gender binary, but it's an intense conversation. And the ending is...
It is a real sucker punch of reality, I would say, because it's not a satisfying ending at all. It's a sad, sad ending. At the end of the day, we don't know if Billy survives. we claire is alone like sure she got her revenge but there's a strong possibility that billy did not survive and now she's alone in this country where we've established that they are the enemy you know between Billy's people and
Claire has nobody left. It's just sad. It's a sad, sad ending. So this is definitely probably, I would say, the heaviest film on this list. It is not for the faint of heart, and it does have that heavy historical context. It's not an easy watch, but if you're interested, I would definitely give it a go. But Susie, this is a film that you have been talking about on the show for so long. And finally, it has a name and a story. So tell us about Violation.
so i used to call this the ice cream film it's violation from 2020 a troubled woman on the edge of divorce returns home to her younger sister after years apart but when her sister and brother-in-law betray her trust she embarks on a vicious crusade of revenge my opening thought is i love how this film went there it was in your face I feel like the way they portrayed the story of the rape and being believed and the interaction between our two characters.
That is, I feel like, a really realistic representation of what a rape story could go. Like one person adamantly believes it happens and the other person I felt like in this situation. adamantly believe that it didn't happen the way that the woman explained it.
i guess what i'm trying to say without being able to articulate it is perception is everything so we have two characters that experience the exact same thing but they see it in two totally different ways and they both think they're right and i think this has a lot to do with gender mainly that we have a man thinking he hasn't done anything wrong and it's pretty obvious that she was
violated. She was raped. And I think with rape culture, you have men that cannot fathom that they could ever do anything wrong or egregious because they're good guys. So I always wonder, do the men in these situations and the movies and maybe even real life actually think they did anything wrong? Because I'm scared to think that they don't. That's such a tough, that's a tough question, right? Because I think. Believe it or not, I think a lot of this is touched on in true crime films.
because you spend often more time with somebody. Like, I hate to look at this from a point of view of a murderer, but... I feel like in true crime media, we spend a lot of time with the murderer and we try to understand their motives. Whereas in rape revenge films, the point of the story is usually around the victim and we don't get. that inside look at the rapist.
I don't know if it leaves that gap in the story, like you mentioned, like, well, do they feel bad about it? And I think it also poses the question, does it even matter? Like, does it matter if he felt bad? Would we feel differently about the outcome of the story, especially in the case of violation? where there's this very, very intense ending. Would we feel differently about what she did to him if he felt bad? And to be honest with you, I wouldn't. So I don't know. But...
Even if we look at the films on this whole list, I feel like there's different levels of guilt, like in The Nightingale. We see that there are some instances where the main guy, he does realize what he's doing wrong and he tries to hide it and like hide that truth from people. And maybe, I guess, does that happen in violation? Because he does try to hide it. But he's more so hiding the relationship. He thinks they have a sexual relationship. He doesn't think that it was rape.
Whereas I think in The Nightingale, he definitely knew that he was raping her. I don't know. That's a really interesting question. Overall, as a whole film, did I appreciate the ending? Yes. But I think it took far too long to get there. And I would overall just love everyone else's thoughts on this because I do think I may have been a little harsh. Yeah, I agree that I think this movie is too slow. It's not, it's one of the ones that I enjoyed the least on the list.
It is very kind of unflinching and not romanticized. Like the way it's shot is kind of romanticized at times. Like it's a little bit too art housey. Sometimes they're doing like. super, super close-ups of skin and spiders and all this stuff. So I didn't love that. I agree that the kind of
the rape, which I think the characters are Miriam and Dylan. And so Dylan is her brother-in-law. And they obviously have a bond, like they've known each other for years. So this is another one of those heartbreaking ones where... she's out in the woods with him because she trusts him and they have a history of like being close friends you know in addition to him being married to her sister and then um And then he does this thing and I liked her confrontation with him after where she's like,
trying to you know all these movies kind of dance around the word rape um like it's almost never said and she can't like make him say it and he can't and you know she doesn't say it either but she just kind of comes to like No, I was unconscious. Like I refuse to believe, like you're gaslighting me and I refuse to kind of take that on. And because he's like, you kissed me. And as if that makes it OK.
But I liked that she was like, I don't know you. You know, she realized she had to realize after all these years that she actually didn't really know this person. And he was like, hey, I'm still me.
she's like no no i reject that i don't know you and then you know so this is not one of those movies where it's like swept under the rug or like she tries to like tell her sister and it's just the whole movie is just um yeah it is heartbreaking it does have a pretty crazy murder scene lonely you're quiet over there
Yeah, I'll just echo, you know, Kelly, what you mentioned about this being. So this leans heavily into art house. It's like there's a nonlinear timeline. It's like the Susie bingo card. Is there a nonlinear timeline? Does it have an ambiguous ending? Is there multiple things that are left unsaid? Yes, then Susie's going to love this film. Character development, problems between family members. Family drama. I will say that, okay, I don't know. Maybe this is where I got off on the wrong foot.
I did. So I met you on the show before. My watch buddy is usually my father in law. So let's just say this is not a film you should watch with your father in law. Oh yeah, no. Because there's like a 15 minute full frontal... strip tease oh my god it's so crazy he's like sorry tmi he's like fully erect for like this whole scene it is crazy yeah and you know props to him and you know him and nosferatu and in the new movie can go head to head on a contest with that. The dueling of the dick.
Because that prosthetic was insanity anyway. Or if that was all natural, good for you, my guy. Let's talk about that scene a little bit longer because that's like a huge part of this movie. Do we have to? She does a strip. I mean, it's I get it. I get it. It's the dueling of power. Right. So she was her. She was drunk and this she was taken advantage of and she was raped. And in this. you know, striptease, she uses her sexuality as a thing that gives her the upper hand. And basically...
He's an idiot, basically. He's easily fooled. That's all it took to fool him. literally give her the opportunity to murder him and then the the murder is quite physically intense like she's a kind of a small like petite woman and she's able to take down this man like with brute basically with brute force i mean yeah she does tie him to a chair but
she ends up like beating him and strangling him herself and then dismembering him. So as Susie has alluded to on the show before, um spoiler the she chops him up and turns him into ice cream like goes and you're probably like oh that'd be kind of hard to do what do you do with the chunks oh no no
She goes quite far with this whole thing. She drains the blood. She goes to a motel to dump the blood down the toilet. And then what actually ends up in the ice cream are his bones. Are his bones at the family reunion. When her sister, the last scene is like her sister eating the ice cream, right? Yeah. Oh, that's true. What are we saying there? come full circle for a moment, right? We had a conversation with MFA Promising Young Women about this burden that women feel.
to protect each other and protect others or to prevent trauma from reoccurring. And we have the same thing happening here, right? There's this, not only with the couple that she meets in the parking lot at the motel.
where she sees a couple arguing and she... she tries to stop the argument she says don't talk to her like that she and to the point where the wife is like stop like please stop like i can't deal with this And there's like this idea, at least I took from it, Kelly and Susie, I'd love to hear what you think, where she's like, I need to kill him not only to avenge what happened to me, but so he doesn't do this to my sister because he was this nice.
guy that I trusted and now he's shown potential that he isn't this thing and she will never believe me that he committed this atrocious act so I'm just going to kill him so he never does it again. I think that's definitely part of it because she straight up tries to tell the sister, like, I know you love him. But, you know, he's not who you think he is. And even after he has, like...
And she has told the sister, like, she can still see that they're, like, lovey-dovey with each other. Like, the sister is not accepting it. She basically completely pins it on Miriam. She literally says, like, I knew I couldn't trust you. And so it's never like, I think there's a real danger there to, to the sister. And you also have to wonder why Miriam never mentions anything to her husband.
Well, and I was going to mention the husband, too, because there's kind of an uncomfortable scene where she is like in bed with him and she's like, I want to fuck.
And he's like, well, no, it's not a good idea. But she's like still persistent and she like climbs on top of him and everything. And so I was kind of like, oh, wow. So is her... trauma kind of like coming out in this way now where she's like doing you know things to her husband that he doesn't want and i think it also to your point kelly about that whole interaction i think it's
Coming back to that idea of guilt and what could have been different, I think the way I saw it was that she was also grappling with this idea that She may have done something to lead her. Was it her fault? Like, was it her fault? Exactly. So she's thinking, okay, well, I have this damaged marriage. And if I do this, this is the thing that's going to fix it, right? It'll undo what happened. I mean, it's a creative ass ending. I mean, I never would have thought that's where we were going.
Like I never would have thought that would have been the end result. But so if you skew in Susie's realm of reality, if you really like that, you know, more art housey vibe, you probably will enjoy it. I mean, it is beautifully shot and the acting isn't too bad. It's just the pacing is a little interesting for me. Well, and I think it was, sorry, I think it was written and directed by the star as well. So it must have been like a big passion project for her.
You can definitely see it in her acting, too. Which makes you think, like, where did this story come from? Yeah. So unfortunately, we're going to end tonight with probably one of the weaker films, and that was The Apology from 2022. 20 years after the disappearance of her daughter, a recovering alcoholic is preparing to host her family's Christmas celebration when her estranged ex-brother-in-law arrives unannounced, bearing nostalgic gifts and a heavy secret.
So as I just mentioned, this is probably one of those films where we could have left it out, but we kept it in for our femme revenge episode. And I want to discuss that. Like, do you think this is more of a femme revenge film or would it fall under another category? What do you think, Lonely? OK, so I. It was a real slog to get through with this. Because by like 40 minutes into the film, literally nothing has happened.
So not to like put a damper on psychological horror, but I think this might just lay more firmly in a psychological horror space because I think what this film was going for is to present you with like an unreliable narrator. and make you question kind of like, okay, well, what is the truth and what is happening here? at least that's the way i took it so i i mean it is femme revenge in that we have the mother character and she does have a loss that she's encountering
If I'm totally off base here, please correct me because I'll be totally honest. I had a lot of trouble following this because there was a lot of nothing happening. I actually kind of liked this movie. It kind of did draw me in. Like you obviously know. going into it, like what the basic premise is. I kind of like these very small scale, kind of like single location types of movies where it almost plays out like a play. but just like this kind of human drama between these two people.
You know, she has grappled with the disappearance of her daughter for 20 years. And then she's about to find out the truth, which, of course, like as Lonely pointed out, it's definitely an unreliable narrator because. first of all why would you trust anything that this guy says at that point but also he's clearly trickle truthing her like with the story that he gives her like oh it was an accident and like oh
no, I didn't like rape her. Like she was kissing me. Okay. She's 16. But like, anyway, the mom keeps rebutting with that information. But, um, I don't know. I was curious to see what was going to happen when things kind of ramped up. I don't think that the ending... totally works like there's some closure there um different from the closure that we get in the other movies where someone is like brutally murdered um you know they kind of trick him into confessing which
Like, okay. But so it's not, yeah, I don't, I didn't really view it as revenge for her, but more like just kind of getting closure for her daughter.
I thought it was kind of like a cop-out ending, to be honest, because the reason he's going to the house is because he wants her to kill him for what he did because maybe he just can't do it to himself and then you're having a man that like wants to die go to going to a house and we know that this is not something she's capable of so we know that's not going to happen in the end and it just didn't like we knew Darlene wasn't going to do that so it just didn't make that much sense to me.
But before that happened, I thought the twist was going to be that he actually didn't.
kill the daughter and i was hoping that he just came there to like help darlene with closure and she ends up killing him that would have been the ending i liked but we got this instead i was kind of wondering about that too uh and i i also agree that it was a cop-out ending partially because it's really predictable like with the whole like no i'm not recording like look my phone's over there it's like okay there are other ways to record things um but
Yeah, the ending doesn't totally work, but I do like... the stuff kind of leading up to once the neighbor comes over janine garofalo just really random um then it it kind of lost me because then it just got kind of like a little bit looney tunes in the house with them like fighting him and stuff but um I will add, though, that though I wasn't a big fan of the execution, the premise of this is incredibly dark. Like, when you start to really think about it, it is really fucked up.
Because it kind of peels back a layer in rape revenge that we, I don't think there is a lot of in the genre. And I guess, thank God, right? That's not an encouragement for people to make that media. A lot of the rape revenge films, even the ones we talked about tonight, they happen sort of external from a family other than, I guess, violation, right? But in this case, we have an uncle like very clearly admitting to predatory behavior with his 15 year old niece. Like that is.
something about that just like really makes me physically ill to even think about. And I guess, and I don't know. And are we, is. Is there any commentary on the audience? are we supposed to feel any remorse for him, right? Like, are we supposed to forgive him? It's a good question from this, you know? I don't think so. Hell no. No, like, and there was many times in the movie where I was like,
I thought she was kind of underreacting to things. I was like, I'm sorry, you just learned, you know, that your daughter who you've been missing for 20 years. was murdered and raped, definitely, by her uncle. Yeah, I get that she's not capable of shooting him in the head or anything, but... Man, that's like the worst thing I can imagine. And so we don't really get that kind of catharsis that you might get with a movie like this.
The one point I will say just in that scene, Kelly, one thing I thought that was super cool is they do that weird mirror flashback type thing where when he tells her.
oh when she sees her daughter yeah she's in the kitchen and she sinks to the floor and you're sort of in the past and present at the same time and i did think that was really cool so when she receives the news like she sinks to the floor by the kitchen sink and she's she's responding to him but she's also seeing like what we assume to be a memory of her daughter as like a very young girl like not even
like 15 years old like she's you know got to be two or three and it was i thought that was such an amazing encapsulation of that maternal grief so i thought that was super cool i wish we had that level of what i i thought would be like emotional competency throughout the rest of the film I feel like it has its pros, but it wouldn't be my favorite off the list.
Susie, any other final thoughts on this one? No, this movie is a lot like a movie I'm going to mention in deep cuts called You'll Never Find Me. If you like that back and forth.
like heavy on the dialogue, heavily on the buildup in the relationship, then this is a movie for you. If you need a lot of action and you need a lot of different things happening this is like kelly said it's a single scene location you're gonna hate this movie Yeah, that is funny because it actually reminded me of another movie too, which was called A Good Marriage.
which is based on a Stephen King short story. And so she, a wife learns that her husband has like a dark secret, which is that he's a serial killer. And then so they kind of have this like psychological cat and mouse. And so I liked that. You know, I mean, one of my favorite movies, it's not a horror movie, but the movie Lock with Tom Hardy, which is literally just Tom Hardy driving in a car. Like, that's the whole movie. And he's just on the phone. Like, he's just making phone calls.
And so I'm kind of fascinated when you can get like intense. tension and drama from such a simple premise. I don't know, I think there's really something cool about that in juxtaposition to these wild and crazy shoot-em-up horror movies too. Lonely, we need to do a single location horror episode. I'll love it. You'll hate it. I'll call out sick for that episode. You'll need to get surgery. Yeah, I have to plan an invasive surgery in the next four weeks.
shall we move on to best and worst yeah let's move on to the best and worst of the fem lens rape revenge subgenre and sarah do you want to start us off with the worst in this subgenre Well, I know we probably agree on this one, but we didn't mention it, but the woman... I know we all probably feel the same way. That one was just... I didn't... It was just too hard to watch. I mean, it was...
It felt to me like a story. There were a lot of subplots to that one, but that one, a big subplot that I picked up was that a lot of this behavior is learned. from generation to generation and I don't know it just it was hard for me to watch it all of it was it was well done but I don't I don't know if I needed to see what that just felt like a torture film. Like like it didn't like torture porn almost. So that was probably that's one of my least favorites.
So to explain to the listeners the egregious error I've made in the show writing. So I previously had the movie, or I did have the movie The Woman from 2011 on the watch list. Upon returning to the watch list to finish the show notes, I was like, oh no. That was directed by a man. So I struck it from the list, but.
Everyone else on the call was like, absolutely not. We have suffered enough. We have to talk about this. We have to talk about this film. And, you know, it's so interesting you mentioned that this feels like a torture porn, Sarah, because this is the same director. I'm not sure if any of you are familiar with the film The Girl Next Door. or the book The Girl Next Door by Jack Ketchum.
Yeah, it's the same guy. So Jack Ketchum also wrote the source material for this. So that all makes sense. And his books tend to be, they're splatterpunk, close to splatterpunk novels. that he ends up being a part of mostly basically a tourist reporter on film. So I think he hit the nail right on the head with that. And I...
apologize very deeply for it. Let's get the synopsis of this movie because you made us watch it. It's from 2011 when a successful country lawyer captures and attempts to civilized the last remaining member of a violent clan that has roamed the northeast coast for decades he puts the lives of his family in jeopardy and that might sound like a good synopsis and an interesting movie but it literally was the worst movie I've ever seen in my entire life.
The characters are ridiculous. They're parodies of themselves. The worst part of it was the soundtrack. It's like somebody in the movie knew somebody in a garage band and it just played the entire movie. It's like really nasty, grungy movie, grungy music that didn't make any sense. I want to just read the synopsis of the main character because I feel like it really sells what you're saying. Chris Cleek is a mentally deranged and misogynistic country lawyer who lives with his wife, Belle.
Like, you know what I mean? Like, if you are, it's just insane. I'm sorry. I'm sorry I did this, but continue, Susie. Did you know, though, that this is a sequel? to a movie called the offspring from 2009 that goes into the whole story of the clan from the northeast coast and then It spawned like a third movie called Darling from 2019, which is directed by a woman.
pollyanna mckintish yeah whatever i think it's the person who plays the woman yes she is the woman so it loosely it loosely works for what we're talking about for worsts here and it also has your girl from joke face It does not. It does. She is the daughter who gets pregnant by maybe her father. By maybe her father, yeah. That's definitely her father. Does this girl get typecast? It's like.
people who are involved in incest because that's the freaking it literally had every terrible trope every disgusting trope in a movie like this was just jammed in here It's a suffer fest. It is. There was one scene that really struck me, though, that I saw as a theme. for a lot of these and that was when the very cliched misogynistic dad was cleaning her. And the wife is looking on. She's standing a couple feet behind. And the woman and her kind of lock eyes.
And the dad is just being disgusting. You know, he's just like basically molesting her. And then, you know, the wife is standing there kind of in horror.
And he says, oh, don't be jealous. You know, it has to be done. But the look that the woman gives her is kind of like are you gonna like they didn't even need to speak the same language but you got what they were saying between each other and that that was kind of a theme was that kind of betrayal of you know people that could help like the dean and mfa you know she could have helped but she kind of betrayed noel so that was the one thing i did like about that film
Or the friend and promising young woman who could have believed her. So there's that theme of someone not stepping in, just like in reality, somebody who could step in that doesn't. Yeah, because even the daughter, like the pregnant daughter helps out when she can to kind of like, you know, protect the woman at times, like from the disgusting little incel son.
who, yeah, is definitely growing up to be like his dad. And I guess, yeah, my biggest issue with this movie is just that, like, okay, if all this terrible shit was going to happen in maybe, like, the first 10 minutes, and then the rest... was like a complete revenge fest, like by the way, then maybe I would be on board, but we don't see any revenge until like the last five minutes of the movie. that's not satisfying or enjoyable or anything. It's just miserable.
and we also left out the fact that this family or the dad and the son are are domesticating people to be dogs but why is there other it's like the sister That's why he tells the wife, like, oh, this was your shame, because she gave birth to a daughter who, like, was born without eyes. Like that's what he's, that's that word that he keeps using. It's like anaphthalmolia or something. So that's his daughter. Oh God, even worse. Yeah. I know. I miss that.
Well, if you were enthralled by this discussion. and feel that you need to consume this media. I would just recommend you read the book by Jack Ketchum. Jack Ketchum, despite all of the enormous flaws in this media, It's a very interesting, he's an interesting writer. And to the point where, you know, you made Sarah about the way the role of the bystander in atrocity, that's kind of like Jack Ketchum's whole thing. So if that is interesting to anybody, check out the book.
Well, I consumed A Girl Next Door in both the movie and the book form way too young. And that's probably why I ended up this way. But, you know, that's where you could find that. We've taken quite the segue. And you know what? I deserved it. Kelly, I don't know if you have a different answer prepared, but what is your worst from the subgenre? The woman was going to be my answer only because I don't feel like I can fairly give I spit on your grave as an answer just because I have not.
seen them but like i just in theory want to have that series as my answer but in terms of movies i have seen yes the woman is the worst I spin out of your grave is was like I couldn't even finish it so yeah I'm I it's not even on the same plane or league I think. Susie, do you, do you have any more feedback or are you still going to say the woman? The woman. Okay. And probably darling and probably the offspring. Darling has an interesting religious overtone, so I was kind of...
I don't think that's going to save it. Okay, all right. I'm not going to contribute to the worst category because I've cursed the episode. So let's move on. To best. Let's go back up. Let's just bring it. We'll end high. Sarah, what would you say was your best, either from this watch list or another film that fits this subgenre? Well, from this list, I definitely think Promising Young Woman, but it doesn't necessarily count as a horror. And it's also a male director.
one of my favorite movies of all time is selma and louise and when we were kind of i was going through like my notes with this it's not it's not necessarily a rape revenge although you can see kind of the The way they handle being on the run and everything they do, all the occurrences in that plot, it's kind of revenge. so it's not on our list and it's also not entirely fits the genre but um
But yeah, I definitely like Promising Young Woman was probably my favorite from this list just because it like the reasons we all said it's paced really well and acting was great and just an interesting story. So what about you, Kelly? Yes, out of this list, I agree. Promising Young Woman is the strongest. I am also going to cheat a little bit with the movie by a male director because my favorite femme revenge horror movie is actually Death Proof by Tarantino.
So I don't know if anyone here has seen that. That one is kind of a rape revenge. thriller in the sense that Kurt Russell plays a stuntman who drives a quote-unquote death-proof car, which he uses to ram into other cars filled with pretty girls that he sees. And that's his way of raping them. It's explicitly stated that it is a sexual thing. half of this movie has, like, the most satisfying turnaround of, like... the women get to take over and fight back that I have ever seen.
And I watch this movie all the time. We're probably going to do it on our podcast too. But it's a really satisfying, like fun, crazy movie. And you don't have to watch any like rape scenes, you know, just car accidents. Yeah, I really love that movie. Susie, that sounds like one that you would like if you haven't already seen it. I don't love Quentin Tarantino, though. I don't either, but...
Kelly, you may have sold me. I'll give it a try. That's fair. I saw this movie. It was, okay, full disclosure, it was part of the, like, Grindhouse double feature that he did with Robert Rodriguez, which I didn't like Planet Terror at all. But this movie I saw in the theater and it's like you want to just stand up and cheer at the end.
I will go next so we can end on you, Susie, and transition so smoothly into the next segment. But I would say of this watch list, I would say The Nightingale. Again, a film that I really enjoyed for its art, but would not be able to rewatch. Sarah and Kelly included a film directed by a man. I'm going to break the rule as well. And Say the Dark from 2018. I know we've talked about the film on the show at length before.
But it does follow. What's cool about the dark in this conversation is though it's directed by a male director, it does have instances of sexual abuse.
a young girl and a young boy so it's their their suffering is sort of intertwined in the film and it's also a very interesting take on rape revenge as well because it leans into a zombie genre as well so i would say that fits roughly here but we can argue about it later susie Well, I have a different kind of best because I'm doing a show and it's season four of True Detective and it was.
directed by a woman. This installment takes place in Alaska and it features the disappearance of eight men from a research station and the murder of a native woman. I'm not going to spoil any of this because This was probably my favorite season of all of True Detective. And what you'll love about this, Lonely especially, is... There's this organization called Illuminative, and it's a Native women-led racial and social justice organization.
dedicated to challenging the narrative about Native people. And they got some Native artists, Native musicians, and Native actors So it's not like white people playing, you know, indigenous Alaskan people, which I really appreciated. And it also stars Jodie Foster. And she just brought it in this. It was scary. It was eerie. And it also goes into this.
ethical discussion of pollution but also like mining in a town that that's their only source of income so it's like if you take away the mines then the people in the town have nothing to fall back on it was just like all over a really good show, and I recommend it to anybody. But back to our topic on rape revenge and why I'm putting it in this category.
This has some pretty badass revenge in the hands of women. The female characters are diverse, but they all play some part in a collective revenge against the men who wronged our victim in this movie. I just love the way this series portrayed this. So go out and watch it. Have any of you seen this? It is so high on my watch list. I was going to say, I saw the first two seasons, but I am not caught up. Well, this is definitely better than two and three, so.
And then I also have one directed by a man because we're going there too. And it was Furiosa, a Mad Max saga. And my husband told me it bombed in the theaters, but I thoroughly enjoyed that movie. i actually haven't seen that yet but i want to that's that's pretty high up on my list for sure it's a must see i would watch it again too it's that good kelly i think we have it on our list to cover As Furious as a final girl. Good point. Sorry, we have like 60 movies on our list. Better get watching.
And I might give you two more because we're moving into our deep cuts and surface wound segment. And in this segment, we're going to recommend movies we've actually seen. So if something has 5K or under reviews on IMDb, we'll call it a deep cut.
And if it has something between 6 and 10K reviews on IMDb, we're calling it a surface wound. This was really hard this week because women directed... femme revenge films just you know there aren't a lot of them so i've got locked in from 2023 and this is more of Maybe like a psychological drama. A kindly nurse tries to unlock the secrets of a coma patient's injury and discovers the bitter rivalry infidelity, betrayal, and murder behind them.
So it's very loosely fitting into this list, but I needed something. So we got it. And we also have You'll Never Find Me from 2023. Patrick, a strange and lonely resident, lives in a mobile home at the back of an isolated trailer park. During a violent storm, a mysterious young woman appears at his door seeking shelter from the elements.
Also very loosely fitting in this list, but we're included in it anyways because we needed something. All right. And it is that time. It is that time of the evening. We are winding down. The fire is dwindling. It is time for closing thoughts. So our last question to ponder this evening is a big one. So I'm very curious to see how we will respond to it. And it is. Do you think that consuming rape revenge horror is vital to being a true horror fan? Why or why not?
Susie, do you want to start? Sure. I think everybody has their likes and dislikes. I don't think I would have ever chosen to watch The Nightingale. That's just not the kind of horror fan I am. I don't think I probably would have watched any of these movies. No, obviously not. You like what you like and you avoid what you don't like.
why would i want to put myself through something like that horrific if it's not something i and i have to wonder like people who really ingest these movies and enjoy them i i don't even i don't know what i can say about that I don't think you need to see it to be a horror fan.
I think everyone has their limits, just like they have their likes and dislikes. And I don't think anyone needs to subject themselves to something that might potentially re-traumatize them if there are other ways to have these conversations. Like, yes, it's an interesting...
different perspective and way to start these conversations and to portray certain kinds of experiences. But there are other ways. And I think what matters first is our safety and our comfort and there are just other ways to have this discussion. I'm kind of with you too. If people are really into it, I'm kind of like, oh, can you tell me why? Because that's different.
Yeah, I just think that we just, in general, shouldn't gatekeep, like, what it means to be a true fan of anything. You know, like... I watch a wide range of horror movies some people you know love. Hitchcock movies. Some people love watching Saw. Like I don't discriminate like you know based on what people prefer so and definitely what Sarah was saying about like you know don't re-traumatize yourself if some of this is a sore subject for you for reasons
then just don't worry. Don't subject yourself to it. There's no need. There's so much content nowadays with movies, shows, games. Just find what you like and what makes you entertained. So the reason the origin of this question is I think it's one about the sensitive nature of this content that we've been talking about.
But it's also selfishly has to do with an interesting article I saw recently about Terrifier 3 and how if you do not consume the Terrifier genre, the Terrifier media, how could you possibly? be a horror commentator it's like i just have no desire i know it's If anyone was asking if, you know, if you've got a bingo card near you, yes, a man did say it anyway. But I just think it's really interesting. I really like what you said, Kelly, about this idea of like gatekeeping.
So, you know, just to echo what everyone else has already said, no, definitely not. Susie and I often joke on the show about losing our horror cards, end quote. for opinions that we share on, you know, popular films in the genre that, you know, will upset the fandom. And that itself is a jab in the weird, like, personality politics that exists in the horror community on what makes a quote.
And that's why, you know, going to conventions is always an interesting experience for me. You know, as a woman in horror, like, it's a really interesting place to kind of, like, see those opinions, like, in full swing. Once we start getting to a place where we're regulating what people should and shouldn't watch to kind of be deemed worthy enough to be in a community, like we start to sound like a cult.
And how serious do we need to take ourselves for this to be our cult? Like if we're going to make a cult, it should be about something a little bit more substantial than this. Yeah, I get that. You know, and I think it's irresponsible, you know, to expect people to consume media that could be potentially harmed, well, to them, based on some arbitrary standard of making sure people are horror enough. to have a say in the community.
You know, at the end of the day, I really don't care. And then whenever I make comments about this, about, you know, Well, people shouldn't, you know, anytime I express, you know, human empathy, I'm like, you shouldn't watch things that upset you. People are like, how could you be so weak? You know, it's just a movie. It's just a movie. I really don't care about the people in my DMs talking about the snowflake mentality and political correctness culture.
The number of people who cannot consume rape revenge content due to trauma is exponential. There are people in your own lives that I would bet money that you have no idea the close proximity they have to this issue. Sexual violence is an epidemic. And if gore hounds want to call the people who can't consume that content, you know, snowflakes, there's a certain level of empathy that's kind of lacking in that conversation. And that's, you know, a bigger thing to unpack. And unfortunately, that is.
the view by not a majority but a minority in a lot of different groups of you know, popular things. And you're going to see that everywhere. So take it with a grain of salt. I don't care. And that's why people get alienated from like even dipping their toes in.
because people like that well and you know just to like put it out there like we we mentioned before we started recording like how rare it is to have to two women in the horror community podcasting in the same room like and now we have four look at this anomaly we're experiencing now we just need four more i know we could be
i love it but you know just like to your point susie it becomes alienating you know if there's like this unlike if there's this intimidating thing about horror that makes you feel like you're you know you're boxed out it's it's just not great alludes to another episode we've got brewing in the distance but
We could go on and on and on on this topic, but Susie, will you take us out? I wish we could go on and on. Maybe not on this topic, but maybe another one. So if you two ever need some guests on your show, just give us a call. Thank you so much, Sarah. Yay. We would love to have you. Definitely. You know where to find us. It's right here. Yeah, we're not going anywhere. Sorry, guys. But thank you. Thank you so much for coming on the show and sharing your time with us. We really appreciate it.
So where can the listeners find more of you and your work? Or do you want me to do it? I usually do it on our podcast, but Kelly, if you want a ticket. For sure. I mean, you can find us on Blue Sky and Instagram. As we always say, we're having a lot of fun discussions on Blue Sky. We love when people comment and we can kind of like get into these topics with everyone.
And then we are also at final-girls.com. And then, of course, just any podcasting platform that you use. We are out there. So please. Join us. And yeah, again, thank you so much for having us, even though this was a really challenging, dark subject. to cover um i think that it was a very valid and important discussion to have so i agree thank you so much for having us and i'm really we're honored to be able to talk about this with um people that i think You know, just as
just inspire us with these questions. I mean, just going through the questions that you sent us in advance, I was like, okay, this is, This is going to be a very thoughtful and important conversation. So just thank you for all the thoughtfulness that you put into it and for bringing us on. We are very, very excited and honored. Glad to share the airwaves with both of you. Yay, two more horror friends. I love it.
And when I'm not here, you can find me on filmstagram at projectile underscore underscore varmint. Can't forget the double underscore. I always forget that. You can find my horror reviews and rants for lonely souls over on Instagram at lonely horror club. I try to post reviews when I can and cause problems on filmstagram whenever possible. You can also find my writing on my website.
lonelyhorrorclub.com. Thank you, dear internet, for tuning into episode 53 of No Bodies. As always, sources, additional reading, and all of that fun stuff will be in our show notes. Call us. If you want to leave us a message, you can give us a call at 617-431-4322. And keep up with our antics on Instagram at Nobody's Horror Podcast. get your podcasts.