Episode 64: Timeloops ft. Director Jim Byrkit

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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, well, right now one, and rotating guest content experts. 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 the

a show that will challenge the way you look at the genre. So let's get ready to get ugly. And as you can probably tell, the Ghost with the Blog Lonely is not here right now, and it's just me, Projectile Varmint.

Tonight's episode is going to run a little differently than usual. It's just going to be me and a special guest on the call for a little bit. But don't worry, we will bring back our favorite little lonely ghost later on in the episode, along with a... another mystery guest, but tonight...

The moment we've all been waiting for, or maybe just me, we're going to be talking to Dave Burkett, the director of Coherence, one of my all-time favorite indie sci-fi movies. I am so excited to have him here tonight. Welcome, Jim. Oh, that muted me. Okay, so you just introduced me and I said, hi, thanks so much for having me.

So we are a horror podcast here on Nobodies, but Coherence is one of those really special movies that is a sci-fi horror crossover. But Jim, where do you stand in the realm of horror sci-fi? You yourself, what do you want? watch? Are you a horror guy? Are you a sci-fi guy? Sure. Personally, I'm definitely more inclined to read science fiction, but there's certain horror that just absolutely speaks to me just because of the sheer level of creativity going on.

I have an overactive imagination, I will confess. And so horror sometimes really sort of scrambles my brain. I have very extreme reactions. It keeps me up at night. I get... dreams that won't go away so i have to be really careful with with horror and uh sort of be very selective about it but um yeah probably science fiction is is my go-to and then horror as a tangent because horror

can be so incredibly creative and kind of tackle such interesting metaphoric topics and really brings out the creativity of the filmmaker. Can you think of a movie that has stuck with you in that way? Maybe like hanging out in the corners of your mind, pops in and out every now and then? Oh my God, the scariest movie I ever saw. I don't even know the name of it, but it was a 50s.

you know, B movie that was playing on the, on the weekend, you know, TV channel. And I happened to wander in while my babysitter. was watching it when i was probably five years old and it was about these these monsters that had invaded a town and the way you fought them was with light so if you turned on the lights or you turned on your car's headlights or whatever that would get them. And that just messed me up. And that will creep into my brain at the terrible moments.

I mean, that's what a good movie does, right? It sticks with us. And a bunch of these sci-fi movies do that for me. Which brings us into tonight's episode. We're going to be talking about the fragility of time and space in science fiction. You know, thinking about time travel, alternate dimensions, and even alternate versions of ourselves.

I think as humans, we're just naturally compelled to ask questions about the universe and ponder all the what-ifs. For me, that has a lot to do with time travel and alternate dimensions. And it seems like I'm not alone because these questions have led...

to the creation of hypothesized paradoxes. So thinking about time travel, we have something called a temporal paradox or it's also known as the time travel paradox. It's a logical contradiction that arises from the of time travel specifically when future events influence the past in ways that create a really apparent contradiction or a loop and these are separated into two groups the consistency paradox and casual time loops

A prominent consistency paradox featured in media is known as the grandfather paradox. So this is a paradox that asks, what happens if you were to travel back in time and kill your grandfather? Well, your grandfather is dead, meaning that you are never... born which means you could have not been alive to go back in time which also means you could have never killed your grandfather but then that means your grandfather is alive so you would be born anyway and it creates this endless loop so the

grandfather paradox has been shown in sci-fi material all the time. We see it in Back to the Future in 1985. We also see it in Ray Bradbury's short The Story of Thunder in 1952.

And then we have the other paradox, casual loops. This paradox is also known as the bootstrap paradox or predestination paradox. It arises in time travel scenarios where a future event is the cause of a... past event which in turn causes the future event creating a closed loop where the origin is unclear so this means an event or object seemingly comes out of nowhere because it is casually linked to its own creation or existence and if that at all interests you i

Highly recommend checking out the movie from 2014 called Predestination. It has Ethan Hawke in it. It's great. It deals with this paradox, and it was something I really enjoyed. So as much as all of these paradoxes and conspiracy theories... are fun there are actually you know facts and thought experiments that do support time travel existing i'm not going to get into them but if you check out you know the theory of relativity which you've all heard about and the twin paradox you know

You might be swayed to think time travel could actually exist. So when I was coming up with our movie list for tonight, The list of media is so extensive that deals with, you know, time travel, paradoxes, all of this sci-fi abundance. I was just wondering. Jim, why do you think this theme is so prevalent in movies? Not even just in sci-fi, but horror and so many other genres. Oh, my God. Well, people love to think about time travel because it's just inherently entertaining, first of all.

And, you know, starting with, you know, stories in the 1800s, like a Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's court. Mark Twain was imagining, well, what if we just, you know, took a character from today and woke up in King Arthur times? Wouldn't that be? an amazing clash of cultures.

It's inherently interesting. It's inherently fascinating. And then it turns out to be really fun as a story structure because of all the things you just pointed out, that there's all these different potential rules that you could access and depend. Depending on the rules that you choose, it makes a different kind of puzzle for the movie. So like you said, if it was a closed loop,

movie where there's only one timeline and things are happening because they will always happen and they can only happen that way. That's really interesting to see things that were set up earlier. pay off later. And that's like Tenet. There's that one Harry Potter movie where they use, what is it, the time winder or whatever they do, little, they go back in time. And, you know, somebody who threw a rock earlier, they don't know who threw the rock, but later on.

realized it was them they were trying to you know get their own attention uh 12 monkeys is like that where there's really only one timeline even though people are going back in time then there's a completely other route of rules which is the multiverse version of time travel where you go back in time and you actually can create an entirely new branch

of reality. And that then gets into doubles, it gets into the multiverse, it gets into all of these timelines being as valid as any others. That's completely different than a closed loop, but it's also It's infinitely entertaining to see the theme and variation of the version of time that we're used to. Yes, I think time travel is a great vehicle to tell a story because, you know, a lot of the stories that are sci-fi and time travel related, they are rooted in reality. So it seems like...

It could happen. And with this idea of time travel, you have the ability to just explore so much and tell so many different stories while still being accessible to a general audience. I mean, look at, um... The Twilight Zone, for example, that ran for just a few years, but yet everybody knows about it. It had all of these stories about moral dilemmas and the guests on all of those episodes. It was like The Tonight Show for sci-fi.

I just love using sci-fi as a way to tell stories. And there's so many different ways to do it. You know, some of those Twilight Zone stories just... have somebody going into the future which we're all we're doing all the time right now we're we're traveling into the future but they accelerate it you know they go to sleep and they wake up in a hundred years and suddenly you know there's that famous one about the guys that stole gold and

And they went and put themselves to sleep for 100 years, hoping that gold would be incredibly valuable, only to find out that gold has no value at all in the future. And so what a great little... you know, Oh Henry ending to a little 22 minute episode. So yeah, it's just, it's ripe for telling stories about ethical concerns, irony, but then you can also get into very deep. Questions about human relationships in the same way. It's just sort of unending the kinds of stories you can tell.

And coherence does just that. It tells a great story while still exploring this moral dilemma, but we'll get into that a little bit later. First, I would love to learn a bit. more about Coherence. So Coherence did quite well during its initial screening at festivals. This includes winning the titles of Best Screenplay, Best in Competition, and Best Feature Debut across the country. So what inspired

this creative process behind the movie. Why did you focus on interdimensional travel? Well, coherence exists because we had no money and I was dying to make a film. And when you have no money, you have to use what you've got. And I looked around and I said, okay, I've got a house and I've got some friends who can act and I've got a camera. So whatever I make has to be able to take place.

right here with no special effects and no other locations. And that... instantly just prompted this very twilight zone idea of what would happen if you looked out the window and saw yourself and there was a horror aspect to that a science fiction aspect to that but also a really interesting

opportunity to have character stories play out, especially if it was during a dinner party where tensions were already kind of high and there was all sorts of little miniature dramas going on. But to throw in a multiverse concept just seemed really... really interesting. And you have to realize this is before there were so many multiverse stories out there. It felt at the time like it was a pretty...

unique place. Now there's a couple hundred movies doing that, but at the time it felt very fresh and just like a real opportunity to make something cosmic like a Twilight Zone in a really affordable way. You definitely explore this idea of moral dilemmas and how certain characters would approach those moral dilemmas. Was there anything you were really trying to say about the human experience in this movie?

Well, coherence is really about lost opportunities and choices that we make that get us to the moment in time. where we are right now. And I think almost everybody, every thinking person at some point thinks about how weird it is that

Where we are right now is the sum of all these little choices that happened in our lives. You know, deciding to take that one meeting that led to... going to school where you did or deciding to answer the phone that one time where it turned out to be the person that you ended up dating or all these thousands of little choices that seemed so small at the time actually result in our lives.

And this was an opportunity to kind of have it all compressed down to one night and say, what if you saw all those choices that just branched out in the last couple of hours? What would that look like if you could actually interact? with those other versions of your life. And it seems like your characters in the movie all approach that question in a different way. I just love these characters.

It almost seems like they knew each other in real life. The chemistry between them just felt so real. Can you explain, you know, your process of choosing the actors and working? I think I noticed this had a micro budget. What was that like? Yeah, so this was, there is no script to this movie. You probably read about this was just done in five nights without a script, without a crew, with eight friends who did not know each other. They knew me, but they...

mostly had not met each other and they just had to show up at my house. And I said, we're going to do a very strange experiment. And trust me, it's going to be fun.

Each one of them would get a little paragraph from me as an email that would kind of talk about their character or a story that they might share that night. But they wouldn't know what the other characters were going to do. And that allowed for extremely natural... conversations where just they would look for an opportunity to express what they needed to or they'd ask questions if they had to and just kind of let it all bash together and just sort of let it all play out that way.

As a director, you have to realize when is a moment to step in and change the direction that it's going, and when do you just let them keep going? We always ask this question with directors that come on Nobodies. Is there any advice you would give someone who wants to make a movie or somebody who's looking to get into filmmaking? Well, that's easy. You just start making films. You just...

get your friends together and start with something very small, very doable and shoot it and edit it and see if you like it and then do it again and do it again and do it again. It's, you know, there's no excuse today. When I was in school, it was so hard just getting it. a camera you know and getting an editing bay was impossible but now that

Cameras are so amazing and your phone is such an amazing camera and you can get editing software for so cheap. It's really in the hands of almost anybody with a computer. And so all you have to do is write something and start shooting it. And that will lead to. more ambitious projects and at some point if you finish one to the point where you love it and everybody's saying it's great, then you enter a film festival and see what happens.

This might have been a movie with a micro budget, but it made a huge impact on viewers. I mean, you have like a 7.1, 7.2 on IMDb. Coherence is beloved by the sci-fi community, and I think just regular... people too because it's It's very accessible. And the characters, they seem like real people. But Jim, did you write yourself into any of these characters? And if this was happening to you, which character would you be? Because me, I'm totally a Beth.

I mean, I wouldn't be bringing the party favors to the dinner party, but I would do exactly what she did in this situation. Are you a Beth? Are you someone else? Well, I don't know. I would just be me kind of enjoying it, hopefully, and trying not to freak out. But yeah, we tried to include... We were mostly stable people, but we knew we needed at least one or two characters that were going to overreact.

because otherwise you're not going to have conflict. So the funny thing is that some people say like, I can't believe they're so irrational. And we're like, no, actually, that's exactly what a couple people would do. I guarantee you out of eight people, there's going to be one or two that just... absolutely freak out and scream too loud and get an idea to go over and hurt the other house. So I know for a fact that that is accurate and I stand by that completely.

And if anybody feels differently, I will fight them on that. But right now we are going to say goodbye to Jim Burkett for a while. But stick around, listeners. He will be coming back again at the end of our episode to discuss three other sci-fi films that deal with...

similar themes as coherence. Right now we are going to zoom ahead into the future, maybe in an alternate dimension, I do not know, but I am welcoming Billy Dee and Lonely so we can start our discussion of coherence. Of course. Coherence. One of my favorite films of all time, as historically known on the show. But I'm here. I'm here for the time travel.

Actually, I don't think this is a time travel episode anymore. It's a time loop episode. That's how long it's been, how long it's taken to get this episode.

together the theme has changed the space and time continuum has changed but don't worry we have someone here who understands this a lot more than i do so honestly he's like the the placebo for me right now we have billy d billy d are you gonna help me out here i will try my best i was actually surprised um that you were gonna do this because i figured this movie would have you running for the hills well that's why i brought you on

Cause I knew my backup and we can like two against one her, I guess. Yeah. I don't know if we'll change your opinion, but yeah, we'll see. So we had to have, there's only one person. in our reviewing circle who understands any of this shit as well as Susie. And that's Billy Dee. So obviously we needed to have him back for this, this lovely episode about time travel.

time continuum nonsense the last time billy was here to talk about weird shit i mean i all i can remember is our shape shifter episode and how wonderful that was because billy was the only one in tune to whatever the hell is going on so i have a feeling we're headed into the same kind of environment susie

Oh, and I can't wait because we are talking about one of my favorite indie sci-fi movies, Coherence. This was directed by Jim Burkett, who we just spoke with, and it is from 2013. IMDb says... strange things begin to happen when a group of friends gather for a dinner party on an evening when a comet is passing overhead and that is such a simple

And this really is like a simple movie. There's not a lot here. It doesn't go deep. It doesn't go metaphorical. And that's kind of why I love it. What are your opening thoughts on Coherence Lonely? I know this was a first time watch for you. So I've actually watched Coherence several times against my will. I've watched it. So I did watch it, you know, the first time not knowing what to expect. And then this has been a rewatch to review it for the show.

My opening thoughts are, I think, so a lot of people like this. I know that a lot of other people do like this. I think this is just a perfect example of a film that is just not my cup of tea. It is almost too simple.

to the point where i'm not really quite sure what we're supposed to take out of this like for the longest and this is something we're going to get into the longest time i really thought this was a time travel movie but it is not a time travel movie it's an alternate dimension type movie or maybe it's not i really struggle with

this whole entire sci-fi plot and i also get this there's another movie about a dinner party i think it's called the invitation that i also get this confused with in my head which is an entirely different yeah it's an entirely different plot altogether but

Those are my opening thoughts. I struggle with this film. It's not something that comes naturally to me when I think about finding any symbolism here or trying to figure out what the goal is of the film. I really struggle with it because of the sci-fi premise. It strikes me. It's like sort of... The Schrodinger's cat film. I think that's what's happening here. And I didn't do well in any science beyond.

you know, eighth grade bio. So that might be why I'm struggling so much. But Billy, what are your opening thoughts on Coherence? Okay. So when I first saw Coherence years ago, I didn't know what to think about it so much that I immediately rewatched it. So, Billy, three words. How do you feel about coherence? I love it. Oh, that was perfect. Three words. So, Billy loves coherence. We're going to try and bring Lonely over to the dark side here. For me, coherence is a perfect character study.

every one of these characters that comes to the dinner party they come with their own personality and that personality stays consistent throughout the entire movie and i think that has a lot to do with why i love this movie because we know i love movies that really explain why people are doing certain things and when those character

plots and arcs happen it just makes me so happy like everybody at this party reacted in a way you think they would react just by meeting them in the first third of the movie because the first third of the movie is all character development and i think

lonely that may have held you back a little bit because I know that's not something you enjoy so I think that's a great point because you know just to speak to the character development i'm gonna try to be kind of like impartial to the film because like objectively if you like sci-fi films you're probably gonna like this to some extent i just acknowledge this is not like my

favorite subgenre and i you know i'm just never going to be a fan of something like this so objectively one of the biggest things that people say when reviewing this film is how strong the characters are and how strong the piece is acting wise you know looking at some of the reviews that kind of

made the film big when it first came out like I'm Bloody Disgusting and Fangoria they all talk about how well the cast performs particularly in the way just like you said Susie how natural their reactions seem given how complicated the plot is, like how complex what's actually happening is they behave like real people in a lot of ways.

i just find it to be challenging to spend so much time with these characters and then that sort of is not the point of what we're watching like it's not like sort of what happens to them kind of doesn't matter when we can't figure out what is actually happening because i struggle with the the sci-fi element of this whole strodinger's cat experiment that's happening here with the boxes and the flashlights and the ping pong paddles and

all of the running back and forth between the houses and I can also get into how a section of this film is just them walking back and forth between houses but I will stop there with the characters. On the surface, the character development is probably one of the stronger parts of the film. Let's just break it down for anybody who hasn't seen the movie yet. The first third of this movie, these dinner guests come together to celebrate a special event, which is a comet coming overhead.

they're sitting down at the table discussing like what the comet is and the weird things that are happening and that's a good chunk of the movie and then we move into the comet passes overhead and things start going a little weird all the power goes out and they look on the street and there's only one other house that has power so they make the decision to go over to that house and then we learn as the audience along with that no we learned before them that that other house is

like their other selves another dimension where they exist in that dimension and that is almost two-thirds into the movie and the last third of the movie is them trying to figure out like what to do we've got this problem And now we need to solve it. And a lot of that is not really scientific, but there's a lot of thinking going into it. And it does kind of get a little confusing. And by the fourth watch, I think I finally had a grasp on it.

But I like when a movie makes you think like that. I really like that. So I have a question. We just talked about how these people react like people, right? And sure, maybe they do. But I don't know. But maybe this is just me. This is sort of going back to our Texas Chainsaw conversation, Susie. I don't know if I would do what these people did if given the bit of the situation. I don't know if. All the power went out and there was a comet and there was a house.

across the street and there were glow sticks and shit i don't know if my first response would have been to like conduct this very intense science experiment also i think it's very convenient that there's someone with knowledge of science in this friend group maybe it's because i went to art school but i have

have no one in my friend group who would be like quantum physics like let's do this box experiment i know this i know about that i know about the the surface level of physics i took that class in college I failed that class in high school. Billy, where do you see yourself on the spectrum? Would you start this thought experiment or would you be totally lost? That certain aspects of this, I kind of hear my sister saying.

this is some white people shit because it it gets a little bit ridiculous um as far as the the box thing and like you know like i see what they're trying to do but i wouldn't do any of that um and i don't think we get to a point where one of the characters is visiting a bunch of different houses and there are houses where nothing has really changed as far as they know what's going on so it's not

all iterations that are doing the same thing at all so i think that you know you would i would just stay at the house but if i stayed at the house then there would be no movie right

yeah also in the first we have our first section of the film where we arrive at the party and the big thing the overarching thing And this is also something that I'm challenged by. So we're introduced to the dinner party and the big event that is happening. There is a comet that's going by that's like the big event. So on one hand, we're supposed to be given this like celestial event.

that may be the reason why weird things are happening but then we also have this schrodinger's cat experiment so but when you learn about schrodinger's cat in physics there's no special thing that has to happen for schrodinger's cat for that theory to exist you know what i mean you don't need a comet going by for schrodinger's cat to like happen

You know what I mean? Can anyone explain Schrodinger's cat before we say it again and again and again? If you put a cat in a box, that cat could be alive or it could be dead. You don't know unless you look in the box. You're forgetting the poison. a vial i was getting there there's also like a vial of poison in there but you don't know if that kills the cat or not

Because you haven't looked at the same time, the cat is dead and alive because you don't know which outcome the cat took. It's almost like they are, the house is the box and the people are Schrodinger's cat. So in that theory you've just explained, there is no caveat that involves a comet or a celestial thing. Well, the person looking at the box is that celestial. Other. The variable. Well, my whole point in bringing up this Pandora's box of shortening girls cat in the box is...

One of the first pieces of dialogue we get that starts to indicate that something's going haywire is Hugh's brother, who happens to be a physicist, which, again... because we're all just happened to be related to a physicist, tells him to call him if anything strange, in quotes, happens during the comet passing.

Like, is that a thing that happens when comets pass? Do strange things happen? Like, I don't know if that's like a comet occurrence. Why would he say that? That's such a strange thing to say. Well... I mean, if we're going to nitpick things and that's what you go for, yeah, that is a little weird. But, I mean, we're having literally a shower, like a meteorite shower tomorrow night.

You know what? Maybe something strange will happen and I will call you. So, Lonely, if something strange happens during the meteor shower tomorrow night, please call me. I will. I just made it more real. Was... Was the original idea for Night of the Living Dead that like a comet or something passed overhead and that was what created the zombies? That is true. And now that you're saying this.

One of the I can't remember if Jim said this in his interview earlier in the show, but in some of the information that exists on Coherence, Jim cites Twilight Zone as one of the major kind of.

inspirations for coherence in the way the story is told and when you think about it it does really mirror a twilight zone episode where we do spend a good chunk of time like building up the story and then it happens right i think a lot of twilight zone episodes are like that we spend the first 15 minutes learning something And then everything happens. So to go to that point, you know, maybe I could see that being a Twilight Zone storyline. Oh, there's a comet coming and then.

polarity ensues so maybe that's the vibe i don't know i'll stop talking about the comet I just thought it was really weird that the brother was conveniently a physicist and conveniently was like, call me if anything weird happens, and then an entire space-time continuum opens. well we can talk about the cinematography because i feel like if there's a pro to this movie other than the characters for you i feel like you might

appreciate the cinematography. It was really like romantic and cozy. It just looked natural and polished. And even when they went outside, and I know you didn't love them walking back and forth, but that also felt like a little trippy, a little celestial. So I enjoyed the cinematography.

i agree i think it definitely did there are and i think where like my overall just not being the biggest fan of this film comes from it's like the overall disappointment at the end like we get through all this and it's like I'm still confused, but I agree while watching it, especially those scenes where they're going back and forth between the houses. You do get a little bit of suspense and it does feel a little otherworldly and that we are.

kind of onto something. I think during my first watch of this, I may have even initially thought this was about aliens. Wait, why were you confused? First, what were you confused about? Alright, well, when I watch a film, my first thought is never space-time continuum. I was like, oh shit, like, there's aliens.

now there's aliens in the houses yeah i don't my brain doesn't think like this i never oh my gosh i feel like you're probably the only one that thought aliens billy you can't back me up at all you have nothing to support me nothing at all no no so you know when i initially saw this i thought that it wasn't until they left the house

or until they all left and walked down that like roulette wheel corridor that they refer as it um i didn't i thought that was when the separation started happening but the separation is happening like the very first scene wait what yeah okay so you have so all the characters you you have emily kevin mike beth lee hugh amir and laurie so it starts it starts with emily driving

and the first line, she's talking to Kevin on the phone, and she's going to the party. You hear Kevin say, I felt like I had a lot of time. Her phone cracks. when her phone cracks into another dimension when her phone cracks and she gets to the house that's quite possible but she's at a different house oh my god she gets to the house She gets to the house and Mike, Beth and Lee are there and they're all talking. Now, Beth and Lee make a comment about a vase.

Like Beth is like, oh, I like this vase. And Lee's like, oh, I got it at the galaxy hut or something. That same conversation happens at the end of the movie. where Emily realizes that she is again at a different house. So it's those four at the house and then Kevin and Hugh show up together.

So those could be a different Kevin and Hugh. Yeah. And then Kevin and Hugh, they leave. There's at least five Kevin and different Kevin and Hughes that we see in the movie. And then Amir and Lori show up and. It's hinted that they are already in a different coming from a different area, because when Mike is talking about being an actor on the show Roswell.

Lori is like, Lori's like, I watched all of it. Which actor were you? And he's like, I was one of the main ones. I was there on all the time. So I just got goosebumps because the fact that I have seen this movie probably six times. And right now you're telling me that the moment the characters walked into the house, they're walking into a different dimensional house is just like blowing my mind.

right now lonely keeps going that's why that's do you everybody's so creative it's just you know like sure sure i guess so like i I believe you, but I don't know. I just feel like maybe this is where, Susie, we have this conversation all the time with films where your suspension of belief is just much bigger than mine. I don't believe that. Because how do we know that? How do we know? We could just be making this shit up.

Because we're falling cracked in the car, and that's when the comet passed overhead, and if the comet is the catalyst, then she drove right into a different dimension right there. But you know what? I support that theory. Exactly, Susie. We have no parameters. Because again, going back to the theory that this concept is based on Schrodinger's cat, there is no comet required.

to make the thought experiment true i almost wish this was just maybe i just have to say yeah sure it's the comment and that's what caused all of this and maybe i'll like the idea better I mean, maybe it's like a reference of you assume that they're all the same people, but until you actually lift the lid off the box and look deeper, that's when you realize that they're all different and so many different iterations you could.

The deeper you watch and look for, I mean, there's clues all throughout it. You know, there's not five million as they reference in there, but the director, I've heard the director talk about at least five or six different. you know, Hugh and Amir's. Yeah. So I want to come back down to earth for a moment.

How would you both describe this as a horror film? And this isn't me being condescending. I genuinely, you know, I'm curious. As people who are fans of this film, where do you identify the horror elements in this film? Because there is no... like body horror there's no i don't even think we get do we get a kill in this at all i don't think so well kind of at the end where she kills herself and puts well does she because then he gets the phone call from her oh so she's near death in the car

But the horror comes in at the end when she's like this race against time trying to find her way back to the house she thinks is her original house and like going into all the different like that. is just like an unsettling feeling there's so many films that i don't think are like completely horror but could be very close and horror jason and i think this is one of them what do you think billy

I don't think she's trying to get back to her original house. I think the horror comes in from the evil within yourself, the things you know you're capable of, the darkness within yourself.

for instance, is a character who is a recovering alcoholic, and he's afraid once he realizes that there are multiples of him, that one of them could be drinking and he knows when he drinks he goes crazy so there's the fear in that now when emily is looking for a new place i i think she's looking for something a better place um there's the talk of her being a dancer and losing her she has like one shot at

at getting a step up into fame in the limelight and that gets taken from her by someone else. There's also... a very subtle discussion between Emily and her boyfriend Kevin where he's going to leave the country for four months and he wants her to go. And she cannot make that commitment. She doesn't know it's very wishy-washy. That's creating strain on the relationship. The house that she does come into.

she looks in the window and she sees everyone having a great time she sees a version of herself and kevin snuggling up on like a little chair together when she goes inside the house you hear emily and kevin are talking with other people about how emily's agreed to go on this trip and it's going to be great and wonderful so i think she's trying to

commit to something that she was afraid to commit to before in the hopes of having a better life. And she ends up shitting the bed on that because she tries to take herself out. And at the end of the film, spoiler, she's outside talking to Kevin and his phone rings and it's her calling him. I'm assuming from the bathroom in the tub being like, why the hell am I in this bathtub?

Why do I feel drugged? Why is my head bleeding from being hit by the toilet? And what did she think was going to happen from that? How is she going to get rid of her other self? I don't know. And that's also doing a callback to when they're talking about how comets have passed overhead before and have done weird things. and how i think it was the story like in 1923 in finland a comet went overhead

And then a woman called the police saying, this man is not my husband. This man is not my husband. And the police were like, well, your husband's here. He's standing here. And she's like, this is not him because I killed him yesterday. Yeah. I just got chills again. I love this movie. Love it.

So do we want to go into clothing? Clothing. We're in clothing right now. Do we want to go into closing thoughts? Lonely? Why don't you close this out with your closing thoughts? I think she left. I'm at another dimension. I'm at the house across the street looking for the podcast where we don't have to talk about this film. No, I'm just kidding. I would never be that. Hey, Lonely. I don't want you to feel bad.

And I don't want to get into ageism here, but I'm almost twice as old as you. And a lot of movies that I hear that you don't like, and I completely valid why, when you were talking about David Lynch. I completely understand that. And, but a lot of times I think it does come with a certain lifespan. I guess what I'm trying to say, like there are movies that.

When I watched when I was 25, I couldn't, I hated, I didn't, I could not accept them. I could not deal with them. Some, for some reason, I don't know why in my old age now, if I go back and watch some of those, I'm picking up on things. I don't know if it's an experience thing, if it's just, you know, of course, watch 25 more years of movies. I don't know.

I think maybe some of these things that you don't like now, you might, if you return back to them in 20 years, you might like them a little bit better. You might see things that you connect with. So the next episode is where we go fast forward in time, 25 years, and we have the same conversation. And Susie calls me on the phone. It says, hey, do you like the film now? And I'm like, what are you talking about? So. Ballad, Billy. Very ballad.

You know, I would say in closing, this is just not my cup of tea, but there are things that are good about the film. And I do think, you know, if you are a fan of sci-fi, you're going to like this film or at least give it a shot, I would say. I think it's a valiant effort. especially this was a micro budget film it became kind of has a cult following at this point for this pretty small project and it was a directorial debut and also jim was lovely to talk to like

Even though my audio has disappeared from that dimension of the episode, he was lovely to speak with and was super smart and fun. And for that, I would say, hey, sure, it might not be my cup of tea, but it might be somebody else's. And I also respect this as Susie's. one of susie's favorite films and that's that's okay i mean she doesn't on my films

Maybe a little bit. So that's it. I'd say those are my closing thoughts. I don't know. And I also tried to do some research while you guys were talking about other comment things that have happened because I'm trying to back up this theory here. And I have not found any comment research. If we find any more about more comets doing weird stuff, maybe I'll get behind it. But Billy, what are your closing thoughts? So I see how a lot of people aren't going to.

fall head over heels in love with this film but i think if you are a fan of the process of how a film is created this one has a really good story so just yeah whatever jim um talks about how he made it i find it quite interesting there's you know there's the interview on this episode there's a bunch of uh interviews and talks on youtube where he breaks down everything was created and the way he describes it you would think it wouldn't work at all and

For some people, like Lonely, that's where it lies. But I just find it fascinating, and it's a poignant little indie film that I'm going to probably watch a few more times before I... exit this life. And now I need to watch it a few more times with what you've said, Billy, so I can see if that tracks.

Oh, this was a lot more fun than I thought it was going to be, but I'm going to have to say goodbye to you guys because I got to jet back into the future so I can talk about some other movies with Jim Burkett. Well, Billy, what dimension are we going to now?

the fifth dimension nice susie we'll report back And now we're going to rewind and travel back in time to talk with Jim Burkett, the director of Coherence, about three science fiction films that deal with time travel, interdimensional travel, and alternate versions. of oneself. First, we're going to start with Time Crimes. This is a Spanish language film. A man accidentally gets into a time machine and travels back in time one hour. Finding himself will be the first of a series of disasters.

of unforeseeable consequences. So, in Coherence, our lead character, Emily, is faced with this moral dilemma of how to handle a run-in with herself, be it a self from another dimension. And here in Time Crimes, we see this happening with our lead Hector, and he's trying to now...

navigate, you know, running into multiple versions of himself and having this dilemma on how to handle these multiple versions. So I included this film in our lineup because it has been floating around in the indie movie discussion as one of the best. time travel horror crossover movies out there it does have a very impressive imdb score of 7.1 out of 10 and in rotten tomatoes it's a 90 metacritic scores are a little bit lower but not by much

What are your opening thoughts on this movie, Jim? I absolutely love this movie.

I just watched it again a few days ago, and I could not believe how well it held up after these years. I'm a big fan of the director, Nacho Vigalando. He's made several great films. But Time Crimes... so small and yet so big at the same time and Such an advanced, bonkers labyrinth of possibilities starts to unfold so quickly where this guy, he's only going back, like you said, I think it's an hour and a half to deal with himself because he's trying to figure out how to...

get back to be the one in his life. And he keeps realizing, well, if I can lure myself, my older self into the time machine, then I'll get rid of him. But it gets bloodier and bloodier as it goes and messier and messier and just kind of explores what happens when someone behaves in such a selfish way that they don't understand the ramifications. And it's perfectly acted perfectly. directed if you haven't seen it see it in the next 48 hours and give yourself a treat yeah absolutely

I don't know if it's because it's a Spanish language film, but it feels like very giallo to me, just the way it was shot, the colors, and some of the actions of the characters. Did you get that vibe?

Yeah, well, it's shot on film and it's shot in this location that has a very sort of, you know, foreign mystery film to it. And it's not that the... performances are broad at all they're actually very grounded but the faces are so expressive and the music is so expressive and the camera angles are so inventive that I can definitely see why you'd feel that way I think it's a more advanced version And it just captures this nightmare that unravels so organically. And within, you know, 35 minutes.

it gets to be one of the most complex nightmares you've ever experienced. Oh, completely. The suspense and the logical horror in this is deep. And the storyline... If you watch it and you really pay attention to some things, you'll get that, like, gratification of, you know, these little breadcrumbs of what happened in the beginning of the movie becoming more clear later on. Like that phone call that Hector 2 gives him.

And then we see what happens with that and why he drops the phone. And then the drawing that the scientist draws to show him about the time. that comes back later. And even like the stabbing incident and how the guy got bandaged, there's so much you have to pay attention here. But if you put in that time and effort, it totally comes back to you in the end. That's really the genius of the film is that he... primes all these elements you know he sets up things like who's the guy in the

Bandage. Why is the girl standing there? Why is the bike where it is? And then as it proceeds, you get to see exactly why those things happen, because they're going to happen again. They're going to happen in this time loop. And he's specifically trying... trying to recreate all of those things so that he can lure himself to his own demise. Yeah. Did you think at the beginning, I thought Hector was kind of pervy when he was like looking at the girl and then like.

Totally investigate a little bit further. But then you kind of have this character arc where he's he's a terrible person because of what he's doing. But is he really a terrible person? Because. It seems like all of it is for the love of his wife, but I liked that character arc. I don't know what I would have done in his position if I would have walked off into the sunset and let the alternate me.

just enjoy life as it is or try to do what he did and set things in a way where he could, you know, go into this life and, you know, carry on from that point after he got rid of the Hectors. It's ethically confusing because normally in a doubles movie and we're used to people doing something to themselves, you know, we're like, well, yeah, I would do violence to myself. I wouldn't do it to other people. But in this one, he's fairly off.

hole to that girl because he's trying to lure her into the position. that he knows she needs to be in order to make him, his other self, do something. And that is awkward and very uncomfortable to see a man do that. And it's, I think, fairly... inexcusable, but he's also the protagonist at the same time, so it's very conflicting. It's a moral dilemma for the viewer.

Yeah. And I think just even in terms of for such a small movie, having such great art direction, you know, when they get to that lab and they get that very elaborate. time travel device. Like that's some substantial production design going on. And I just loved the effort to make that part as good as it could be.

scientist in the lab is actually the director. Yeah, that's Nacho. A neat little tidbit right there. And this director has directed a bunch of amazing films. And most recently, I think it was... The one with Anne Hathaway, Colossal, which seems so different from this, but you can still pick up on some of the subtleties that bring it together.

For sure. He has a wicked sense of humor. He has a wicked sense of the absurd. And I think Time Crimes is actually the most sort of stray faced that he does sort of more traditionally horror. The others get into some. truly absurd places and are funny.

The next movie we're going to talk about has a little bit of comedy mixed into it. It is The One I Love from 2014. A troubled couple vacate to a beautiful getaway, but a bizarre circumstance further complicates their situation. So this movie is directed by Charlie McDowell, and he has this really special talent for blending genres. He specifically adds a little bit of romance and suspense into his storytelling. This is the same director that...

That went on to make The Discovery from 2017 with Jason Segel. Very similar vibe. Good movie as well. The one I love, though, I feel like this is a super relatable movie that anyone can watch. It's rooted in reality. with everyday people and this real couple with these real problems. And those problems are amplified when they go to the guest house on this property and they run into these alternate versions of themselves. And it puts them in this moral...

dilemma similar to Time Crimes about what would you do? What would you do if you ran into an alternate version of yourself and that version was better? I think this movie is so well made, so well paced. so interesting once you think you know what it's about it sort of levels up and does a different thing it's got surprises it's got very satisfying uh turns

You think that they're never going to truly interact with each other, and then all of a sudden they turn around, they're just sitting there at the dinner table, inviting them to have dinner with them. You're like, oh my God, this is escalating very quickly. And like you said, it's about this... relatable thing, which is what would happen if you and your...

were faced with a better version of you and how frustrating that is and how humiliating it is and how much conflict and jealousy that would create. And I think they kind of perfectly... touched on all that and and that one that one is very interesting because it came out very close to coherence and it had an ending that was exactly like one ending we were considering for coherence where they end

up together but somebody realizes that they're actually you know with a different version than they thought see I know we're talking about the one I love, but in Coherence, I really wanted her to just like seamlessly fit in there to be a happy ending. But I'm glad you went with the ending. You did. So the ending of The One I Love, some people say it's pretty predictable. What did you think about the ending, Jim? The ending was kind of what I was hoping it would be. It was...

set up well, so I don't think it was a huge surprise. And like I said, we were considering the same ending for Coherence, but for other reasons, we decided not to do it. So I was actually really happy that somebody took that ending. could see what it looked like when that idea was taken.

When I was watching this movie, I was thinking that the guest house was like an alternate dimension. I didn't even think about the idea of clones. I like how this movie surprised me like halfway through with... them finding the little book of all the information and I thought that was really clever but it wasn't like too absurd and you're right the pacing is spot on and that ending had a little bit of action and then it had me thinking what was

would I do if I got away from there and then realized what our character realizes about who he took with him? Yeah, and it kind of ends the only way. it can end with that kind of setup. And I was just so happy to see such good performances. I think they're both excellent in it. Those are like just two great actors having a great time. And it never even occurred to me.

that there weren't actually two versions of them. I didn't get caught up in going, how did they do that shot with both of them? I just truly believed that there was two of them in all those scenes.

Yeah, it was pretty seamless. The acting was great. In our next movie, we also have a really strong standout performance by Alison Brie. She plays Sarah from our next movie, which is Horse Girl from 2020. Here's the synopsis. Sarah is a socially isolated woman with a fondness for arts and crafts, horses, and supernatural crime shows. her increasingly lucid dreams trickling into her waking life.

So this movie isn't really that much of a horror movie, and it's not even that much of a sci-fi movie, but I had to include it tonight once I found out that Jim also adored this movie. Yeah, I liked this movie, mostly because I really just enjoyed Alison Brie. But I would agree, I don't personally consider this a horror movie or a science fiction movie. This is almost like a poem about mental health.

and the way that they see the world and it seemed to be coming from a different place than when we think of traditional horror or science fiction seemed to be much more internal and not concerned with any tropes or conventional storytelling. It was really just felt like a poem to me about somebody's very... Well, this is like a one-woman show with Alison Brie. And there's so many sequences in this movie that were...

So bizarre and left me with this really strange feeling. But at the same time, I couldn't take my eyes off the screen. Sure. There were some really... maybe intense scenes where she's going through different spaces, especially in her lucid dreams. That one scene when she's, you know, cutting the... the fabric to make a doorway and then going into that white room. I thought the cinematography was beautiful in this movie.

I loved that part, and I loved the fabric suit that she made for herself. I just thought it had elevated to such a bizarre place at that point, and it didn't need to make sense. That's where I really felt like, okay, this is a very internal. moment where someone's

just being an artist rather than a storyteller, and that's fine. I think there should be movies like this. And again, I don't think it would have had the same impact if it didn't have Alison Brie, because she just, to me, came across like she could do anything.

a movie star that could handle giant movies or tiny movies or arty movies or very sensitive stories. And so she just seemed like the perfect vehicle for... the filmmaker's vision and I probably won't see this movie again but at the same time I thought it did exactly what it was trying to do Yeah, so yeah, not horror. I maybe failed on that part. In my mind, I think I remember watching it and just feeling distressed. So maybe that's why I clumped it into this category.

We could have included so many movies in this list about like our alternate selves. But right now we are moving on to our media recommendations. So we're going to talk about some of the best. and Jim will give us his best of this category, and we're just going to skip worsts. So Jim, what's your best in this category?

Well, I have two that I really recommend for anybody interested. And the first one is 12 Monkeys by Terry Gilliam. And the second one is Primer. That was, you know, a 2003. micro-budget movie, kind of like Coherence, that won Sundance and is looked at as the grandfather of all indie time travel movies.

I have such a deep affinity for 12 Monkeys that I watch it probably every year. I think that movie is brilliant. And I love the little romance that's intertwined in that movie. One of my favorite all-time movies. movies for me i thought the movie primer from 2004 is Just this mind fuck that I watched so many times in order to understand it. And every time I watched it, I like picked up a little bit more and I appreciated it a little bit more. It is not for the faint of heart that do not.

want to pay attention to what they're watching. Primer is so interesting because for...

Two-thirds of the movie, it's going very carefully and keeping the viewer up to date. And it's saying, okay, this is how we got here, and this is what we did next. And it's a procedural. It's very careful. But then the last third or maybe the last... quarter of the movie it just leaves the audience behind and it says okay we're not even going to try to to catch you up here it's too bad either you can follow it or not and it just goes at its own pace like a rocket

I do have some other favorites that I want to mention now to see what you think about them. Have you ever seen Dark City? Oh, of course. Yeah. I love that movie. Nostalgia, maybe, but it holds up if you rewatch it. That's a very visual movie. Alex Proyas, David Goyer, I think wrote that, right? And it's just got great visuals of, you know, flying people that are rearranging reality. Every time we wake up, we're in a new reality and we don't even notice.

Yeah, and such a, like, creative original idea that I'd never seen before. I also love the Benson-Moorhead trilogy. Have you seen those? Resolution? The Endless and Synchronic? Yeah, I think my favorite is The Endless. I think something about that, again, low budget. character driven. It's got this cosmic anomaly that is so brain twisty and satisfying. That just really speaks to me. And I saw that movie.

And I reached out to those guys because I loved it so much. And then we ended up becoming friends. It's just so magical. It just makes me feel like there's magic in this world. Exactly. Exactly. And then we have cosmic dawn. Have you heard of that one? It's recent. It's from 2022. I don't know that one. It's about a girl who witnesses her mother's abduction by aliens, but it jumps back and forth in time. And it does it in like a really... vibey way. Yeah, great.

The other one that comes to mind is Donnie Darko. If you kind of want to brush up against the darkness and light all at the same time, there's something very freeing about that movie, even though it's got a scary... core to it. But I just, I think that movie is sort of perfectly executed as well. And also has a little romance, even like a childhood romance, woven through the storyline, which always brings me in as a watcher. It's just something that is a hook for me.

Yeah, and it's got a little bit of Steven Spielberg wonder, you know, riding your bike at night under the Milky Way. It captures that feeling really well.

Yeah, absolutely. I'm so sad. Our time is running down and we're going to have to say goodbye to you soon, Jim. But we have one question for you, a closing thought. It's a simple one. If you had the opportunity to travel through time, would you? I absolutely would. I would want to go far far into the future check it out for a while and then come back to the time that I am right now.

Ah, well, I don't know if I would go in the future because I always overthink things. So I feel like the whole time I was in the future, I would be thinking that I was like butterfly affecting something and destroying the whole world. So I might just... have to hop on your future and then we can go back. You can invite me to one of your dinner parties and then we can brainstorm ideas for coherence too.

Yeah, and we'll bring a camera so that we can prove where we went and we'll make a little documentary and we'll get famous. Well, you'll get more famous. I don't know about me, but...

Jim, this has been truly a pleasure and an honor to have you on Nobodies. This is something that I will remember forever. Again, thank you. And where can the listeners find more of you and your work and keep up with... what you're doing uh you know well you can watch coherence right now on amazon prime for free and it's also available on some other things yeah please buy it you can get the dvd you can get the blu-ray from oscilloscope

But I just finished a show that I made over the pandemic called Shatterbelt, and that's four episodes that are kind of Twilight Zone-like episodes. that we're just really proud of because, again, they're handmade, they're homemade, but they're cosmic concepts. They're amazing and funny. Oh, thank you. Buy those, buy those too. Yeah, exactly. They're all just... with friends and no crew and no money, but just pure love. And they're available on Amazon and Apple.

and I don't know where else, but Shatterbelt. If you liked Coherence, please watch Shatterbelt and tell me which one you like the best. Well, thank you, Jim. Thanks for making coherence and for answering my DM and joining us on the show tonight. I'm so grateful for it because it's people like you that keep it going. And for some reason, this movie still has a life 10 years after it came out. And it's just because of fans like you that reach out. So thank you so much.

Well, you can find me over on filmstagram at projectile underscore underscore varmint. I'll be shooting my shot more often. And you can also find Lonely and her horror reviews and rants for Lonely Souls. over on Instagram at Lonely Horror Club. She tries to post reviews at least once a week and cause problems on Filmstagram whenever possible. You can also find her writing on her website, LonelyHorrorClub.com.

Thank you, dear listeners, for tuning in to episode 64 of Nobodies. As always, sources, additional reading, and all 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. Keep up with our antics on Instagram at nobodiesforpodcast. And last, but especially not least, please like, subscribe, and... Whenever you get your podcast.

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