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very snooty about the lower class or whatever. But for the most part, I found most people likable. And I think a lot of that does go to the performances, that they were able to pull off both sides of what they were doing. So yeah, this is a true, yeah, ensemble is a great way to put it. It's one of the best ensemble.
performances you're probably likely to see so is this a perfect film no but i thought this was creative as hell and since this had a wide release in 2025 it is in my top contenders for top films in 2025 i think This swung for the fences in the way it committed. We always have haunted house films and using it in this way was super fucking interesting. I thought the acting was quite good.
I thought that it does probably skew closer to like thriller or drama. I know some people didn't like this, but I haven't seen anybody as impassioned as you, Susie. My jaw is like dropped right now. I thought everybody was going to think this was ridiculous.
The characters are so overplayed. The mom loving the son so much and like not liking the daughter. They just like played into that way too much. The characters didn't make sense and then they had the like... the drug dealing friend who was like aggressive but then he just oh my god these were the most unbelievable characters in all of the movies we're talking about and then you have casper the fucking friendly ghost coming to save the day
that you can see through the mirrors now 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 ghost content. This is what happens when I don't have it in front of me. The ghosts. The ghosts. So many ghosts.
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, a.k.a. Projectile Vermint. And I did it again, listeners. You did. I fucked up the math. Again. Only this time it wasn't the scores. I just fucked up how much time we needed for each review. So if you're listening to this episode, you realized I miscounted and there are four. Count them. Four. parts of the cage match and this is the finale so you get a bunch of extra episodes this season
You know, look at all this content that you're getting back to back to back. So you get one extra week of weekly uploads into November. Aren't they lucky, Susie? Well, happy Halloween. You forgot happy Halloween. Right? It's Halloween. Well, we're time traveling right now. So it might be November 1st when this goes up. That sounds right.
So, happy belated Halloween, everyone. I hope you're not hungover listening to this, you know. I hope you had a wonderful Halloween. But here we are, back again, for the cage match. And Susie, did we time travel Mike back in? Mike, are you still there? Are you here for the finale part four? I'm still alive. Let's do it. All right, Susie, let's get into it.
We're heading into round five with Memories of Murder, 2003, in a small Korean province in 1986. Two detectives struggle with the case of multiple young women being found raped and murdered by an unknown culprit. we also featured memories of murder on the show back in season one on our true crime episode so susie and i have already spoken a little bit about this film
So we're interested in hearing what Mike thinks, but this is also a pretty prolific film. This is by the same director that did Parasite, correct? Question mark? Yeah. Yes. We have the same lead character. Right. So Susie, do you want to give your opening thoughts on Memories of Murder?
Sure. I thought this movie reminded me so much of how I felt watching Zodiac, where I was like, they're going to catch the person. They're going to catch him. They're not going to catch him. Are they going to catch him? And then you're just kind of left with this like unfinished feeling. I agree. I think this film has so much lead up.
And though I do like the ending, it's not a satisfying ending. And I also, I don't think this quite qualifies as a horror film. It's definitely a true thriller in a lot of ways.
The horror is kind of light. Very well shot. The pacing is pretty good. I do think this film's long as well, but that's just me. Mike, what about you? So, yeah, I had never... heard of this movie somehow and again i have because i listened to that episode but as a 45 year old man my memory is apparently um so i'm obsessed with uh this movie terence malik's the thin red line have you guys ever seen that not horror
So it's also a twin movie. It came out the same year as Saving Private Ryan and has been forgotten. I personally think it's the best war movie ever made. And mostly because it is the best shot movie I have ever seen. It is absolutely stunning. so the opening shot of this movie reminded me of that so i was like very excited from the very first shot because it was so awesome and i did not know that bong junho had directed this and then i found out i was like oh okay well this makes sense
It isn't really a horror movie, but this is a banger. You know, I have watched several movies for this podcast in my previous appearances that I've been mad you've made me watch. Cough, cough, slender man. but this one i was so happy i got to see because i thought it was so great um it is long like a lot of these korean movies we've talked about but i was locked into the story the whole time i also didn't love the ending though i do agree with that
But overall, I was blown away by this. I thought it was absolutely brilliant. I did learn one thing that was funny to me. I feel like this has been a theme in other similar movies. It's impossible to be fired if you're a rural cop in Korea. These cops are completely inept. Not a problem. They're completely corrupt. That's totally cool. Are you abusive? Sure. Here's a raise. Stick around. That is kind of silly to me, but maybe that's supposed to be a commentary.
now by and large i really really liked the movie again horror maybe not but it's just a movie i was just absolutely blown away So in terms of this, what happens in this movie, it is a cop drama, a cop thriller. So they're following a serial killer and it's about the multiple leads that they follow throughout the course of, I believe. I think the film takes place over a year or maybe two, but it's quite a long time. And ultimately, this film is actually based on a true case.
I think to date, the case has never been solved. And that is also how the movie ends. Ultimately, the cops spend all this time following all these leads. They think they get somebody. They think they can pin them down and they don't. they're unable to and the there's a large climax where the two cops basically have to grapple with the idea that they'll never be able to
to catch the person who did this, no matter how certain they are that they found somebody. And it's a very, very, very dismal ending. So in terms of storytelling, you know, it does keep you... for a while with the cat and mouse, but there are a couple parts where we're like, okay, how many times are they going to do this?
They do follow through on the same lead quite a few times. And I think by the second time that they almost catch them, you're like, oh, OK, how many times are we going to do this? So it's great. But also, I think this is another film that could have benefited with a little bit of editing and tightening. Susie, any thoughts on the storytelling? Well, first of all, the actual killer was found.
But he was not identified until 2019, but this was after the statute of limitations had passed on most of the murders. So that's depressing. This movie, that ending we keep talking about that was really unsatisfying. We have our lead. Well, one of the two investigators going to the same place he found the original murder victim at. So it's coming full circle. And a little girl tells him like, yeah, I just saw somebody else.
like looking there and he realizes oh it must have been the killer and he asks her you know what did he look like and she was like well he he just looked kind of plain and ordinary so it kind of made and then the the detective just stares into the camera and then black screen. But it makes you think of this idea that evil looks ordinary and there's no way to know who has the capabilities of doing what.
Yeah, so I'll kind of do storytelling and acting together because I think we've kind of covered those. Yeah, I'm glad you brought up Zodiac earlier, Susie, because that actually is probably one of my favorite movies of the last quarter century.
so it makes sense that i would like this one too because it does have a lot of the same uh vibes to it uh as far as the acting yeah i thought that was really excellent i didn't love the partner who just kept drop kicking people i don't know about him he wasn't my favorite uh but other than that i thought it was really strong um and obviously
Big fan of the story as well. So we've already kind of talked about how this may or may not be a horror film. So let's just go into scares from here. I think that this is a pure thriller from my point of view. I mean, the.
cat and mouse chase of a serial killer can be scary, and especially when you think about the reality that this was a real case. There are a couple interesting run-ins with the different suspects and their victims that are kind of... disturbing to see on screen but i wouldn't know i don't know if i would go as far as to say this is a pure horror film and that there's anything particularly scary about it but susie was there anything that you remembered from the film that sells us more as a horror
Well, there's one scene in the grass where you see the killer pop up over the way. I was like, what? What? And then just bam, he like comes and... this is like out there that was startling and scary which could be kind of horror horror-ish and then i don't know if it's so much scary as like just very sad when you see the girl's face of the one he kidnaps that like walked by herself when she could have walked with a friend and her you just see her like laying down
there's a little bit more sad than scary but most of the horror takes place off screen you don't really see what's happening to anybody Yeah, literally the only scene that I clocked is the one you mentioned when he's stalking her like a rice paddy and it's kind of at night and he's gotten behind and hidden there. I thought that was creepy as hell. But aside from that, not really much in the way of scares.
And any comments on cinematography? I mean, I think comparing this up against Oldboy and Parasite, I don't think this is as great as the two other films, but it's... up there as there's some great scenic shots a lot of the shots at night i like a lot of the night chases were pretty suspenseful and like this the composition made it easy to see but enough to still make like keep the suspense so
I'm thinking like middle of the road for these, but what do you think, Susie? I agree with everything you just said. Nothing like super special. That one scene at night with the mist and the man, but yeah. Yeah, well, like I said, this made me think of The Thin Red Line, which I think is the best shot movie ever. So obviously I had at least a few shots. And I will say it was more early on. The opening shots just kind of stunned me. And then once I kind of settled into it.
Maybe there wasn't as many like that, but yeah, it was very, very strong in my opinion. All right. Shall we go into the scoring? Let's do it. Okay. I'm going to give this a six on cinematography. What about you, Mike? I got a nine. I did a six as well. All right. And for storytelling, I am giving this a six because I did think this was pretty long. Mike? Eight. I gave it an eight, too.
I really like I also love Zodiac. Well, that's a great one. I do not like Zodiac. So there's where that comes full circle acting. I gave this a seven. I had eight. I had eight too. All right. And for scares, I gave this a two. Two. Three. All right. So this brings memories of murder. to a 73 this is a secondary round and memories of murder is against the lodge with a total of 91 so that is a really significant gap there
20 points between the two. Susie, you can't rescore this. Do you have any feelings? No. I think the Lodge should take this, so I'm not going to rescore anything just yet, and I'm assuming, Mike, you don't want to rescore anything. I don't, but I am sad to lose Memories of Murder. That was another good one, but The Lodge is a better horror movie. All right, so The Lodge will be going on to the quarterfinals, and we're going to be going into round six.
All right, let's go. It's going to be interesting. Yeah. So round six, we're starting off with long legs at long last from 2024. In pursuit of a serial killer, an FBI agent uncovers a series of occult clues.
that she must solve to end his terrifying killing spree so if i'm being honest this is probably my favorite movie on this whole list well horror movie like i said i think parasites better um i love this movie i re-watched it the other day and i loved it even more um the reason i love this movie mostly is it scares the out of me i felt in both times i watched it i just felt very unsafe
the whole movie I didn't know why but every shot just felt like there was something in the background waiting and there often is actually um it was just very creepy it felt off-putting i never felt comfortable and very few movies do that to me so uh bravo to them for doing that um i know nick's pit nick cage as always can be very uh
polarizing we'll say but i think his performance this is amazing and i think it's even better when you realize what he's trying to do and i know i said earlier that i don't like having to do research to learn things but when i heard that oz perkins talked about or actually i guess nick cage as well that he's supposed to be like this complete loser who wanted to be a glam rock star which makes sense because he's always listening to t-rex through the whole show or the whole movie
And when you realize that, and that's why he would have the plastic surgery. That's why he sings some lines like that's what he wants to be. But he's just a complete loser instead who happened to stumble upon a very evil power. I love that. And again, as I said, I'm an Oz Perkins stan. I think he might be one of the best directors working right now, at least as far as being able to create an atmosphere. And this is the best I think he's done, probably.
I mean, shoot, every movie he made has atmosphere. Even Gretel and Hansel, which I absolutely hated as a movie, has undeniable atmosphere. So I love this one. This is probably my favorite on the list, even though I didn't pick it to win. But I do think it is my favorite on the list. What do you guys think?
I'm going to go next because I know Lonely is not a huge fan of this movie. I actually love Rettle and Hansel. I think Lonely does too. But Long Legs, I also really like this movie. And I know that... A lot of people compared it to Silence of the Lambs and it pissed people off because they're like, how can you compare the two? But they did feel very similar to me. And this felt like an updated, almost mystical version of that.
This movie has such a great mystery. And the fact that I was guessing the entire time. and following the characters and learning things along with them and i didn't get bored i didn't want to like look away i i was like attention the whole time even though it was really long I did have a problem with the mystical aspect of this before I was...
But then I was like, let me just suspend disbelief. I can do it for so many other things. Let me do it for this. And that let me like fully appreciate this movie. And you're right. This is fucking scary. This movie is scary. but then there's lonely. Yeah. So I'm a silence of the lambs Stan and Oz. Perkins and I have a long relationship of never seeing eye to eye. We're not quite on the same relationship status as Ari Aster and I, but Oz Perkins and I, we're kind of hit or miss.
So I don't hate long legs at all. And actually on the rewatch, this is actually one of my highest scoring films of the cage match. I think this is a good movie. I just am not the biggest fan of it. Yeah, that's the... That's the long and short of it. I think it is too close to Silence of the Lambs.
And it didn't claim to be like an extension of that universe. So I think it just gets a little bit in its own way of trying to be too much like Silence of the Lambs. I think this is a beautifully shot film. I think that the cop drama that they provide is... crazy good I think the acting is amazing I just don't like the last half of the film I think the last half of the film stumbles all over itself and that is unfortunate the story did make a lot more sense to me the second time I watched it
which maybe improved my scores on it. But yeah, that's my opening thoughts. So, yeah, so we can get into the storytelling. So basically there's a series of very gruesome crimes that are happening. And in most cases, it is someone within a house killing other members of their family or people who live in the house. Yet they keep getting these letters and stuff that they know there's this killer long legs out there.
but yet they can find no evidence of him in the house at any point so though i guess central mystery is trying to figure out how this is possible what's the role going on and there's clearly some devil inspired like you said mysticism at play here um so yeah i think i agree i think the storytelling was stronger for me the second time because i did have questions about like how michael monroe's character is able to see some things and not others
um but then when you realize the connection um i guess we're spoiling everything here then the end that the mother has been an accomplice of long legs the whole time in an effort to try to keep her daughter safe
that i think it made a little more sense to me uh i agree do you have to send suspend disbelief some and that's why i would say storytelling while good is not going to be the highest score i'm going to give it um but overall i'm like i said i really really enjoy it what do you think susie I love this movie. Wait, are we on cinematography right now? What are we on? Sorry. Storytelling. Storytelling. It's like the mom made a deal with the devil.
And this is the aftermath of that. It's a really simple plot, but that takes you different places. And it was like a cat mouth, not a cat mouth, goose chase looking for the golden. I don't even know. I thought it was wildly original, too, how Longlegs was the person behind everything, but the way that the murders were carried out, I'd never seen that before.
I like when a movie does something different, even if it did borrow things from Sounds of the Lambs, it still had its own feet to stand on. I think the police procedural of this is really, really strong, but...
It takes a hard left turn into the supernatural that I don't think was necessary. And I don't think it adds to the story personally. I think it just causes questions that didn't need to be brought up. And the film falls on its face in the last... like quarter of the film especially because and i understand that's the whole point because the evil entity is satan the the villain is satan so it sort of doesn't matter when nick cage's character dies
Because Longlegs isn't actually the villain. Satan's actually the villain. It's sort of like you've killed off the character that everybody came to the movie to see. You killed off the character that we spent all this time watching. And now we're playing in a storyline that was created in the last 10 minutes of the film.
I don't think the storytelling, like it's tough because the police ritual is so strong, but the ending is not. So that's my thoughts there. All right. We can move in. But the ending is like.
the daughter has to face off against her mother so like that was i don't know i thought that was like the perfect ending her mom went into this trying to save her and then in the end like is is not saving her because of the pain she's going to put her through for having to kill her i don't know i just thought it was a great full circle moment but mike go on
Yeah, so we move on to the acting, which I think is spectacular pretty much throughout this movie. I mean, obviously, Mike Monroe is fantastic. And if you know what Cage is going for, he's great. But I want to shout out, I think, Blair Underwood, who played the other cop.
and alicia witt who i've seen in other movies that i don't think she's a good actress in who played mike monroe's mother was excellent i thought both of them were really excellent and even kieran and shipka who shows up for a very brief time and i am not usually a big fan of hers it's kind of hit or miss i thought her little performance was quite good actually and she did a good job so yeah strong acting for me everybody everybody was amazing
Yeah, the characters like totally transform themselves and Megaburro is amazing in this. I liked her in Watcher too, but this is definitely one of our better or best work, I should say. I like how she can take on so many different roles and... completely embody them like this is i love michael maro from it follows like absolutely love her from that movie and she plays a completely different character in every single thing i see her in and she's not like you don't
think that it's micah moreau you you think it's the character she's playing yeah there's a great scene in this when she meets blair underwood's daughter for the first time and she's just sitting so awkwardly on the side of the bed because he's such a socially awkward person she just handles and performs that so perfectly and she's invited to the birthday party she's like i guess i think that would be great uh very well done and again not what she's normally like
All right, so cinematography, I've already said. I think Oz, this is his best version of that. He's an unbelievable... creator of just shots and the fact that so many things were small in the shot and there was so much empty space behind so many shots that you didn't know what was there and i alluded to earlier if you guys probably are aware if you ever watch this movie again you should google the list of scenes where the devil is in it
because there's actually more than i realize in the background you actually see a horned figure and it disappears like it's not just then the reflection then it's like very very subtly disappears and all these probably six to eight it's very similar to um
hill house um mike flanagan's hill house there's a lot of ghosts hidden in the background so i last time i watched it i made sure to look for those i looked up the article because i knew i'd missed some of them i'd only seen a couple the first time through so just together just another cool thing that
there's a reason why it's there. And the fact that he makes it disappear is very creepy and cool as well. So yes, let him talk. He's off the charts in this one. What do you think Susie? I'm going to have to mimic you with that. I knew right away. when this movie opened and we're outside in the snow and she had the camera the way that whole shot and the way long legs comes up behind her that's when i was like i know i'm gonna love this movie
I think this is one of my favorites by Oz Perkins. It's incredibly strong. I love he is very multimedia as well. He always incorporates like typography and different styles into his work, which I think is really, really cool. And again, he's probably one of the best when it comes to color. I love his use of color. He's a lot of red.
in this one which i really really like so super strong all right and then finally scares like i said this is the scariest movie i've seen in a while it just very much upset me and i can't quite put my finger on it obviously there's not a whole lot of jump scares and stuff like that it's just incredibly unsettling and i felt unsafe
And it scared me. And many movies don't do that anymore. So it made me very happy. What do you think, Susie? Well, the dolls were exponentially creepy. But the scenes where Michael Monroe is in her house. And reading like the letters and then there's like the outside behind her, like the vast outside. I got that same feeling, Mike. Yeah, super scary. I did not think this was quite scary. I felt it was very minimal. There are some creepy atmospheric things going on but nothing.
I don't know. I think I've officially reached capacity for being pretty desensitized to this. I think the scene that stands out to me is Longleg smashing his face into the table. I mean, that's pretty... In your face, that's probably something that stands out, but I didn't think it was particularly scary. All right. Let's score this bad boy. Let's score it. Okay. Mike, what are you giving this for cinematography? Ten.
It's wonderful. Ten. Oh, my goodness. I'm doing an eight. I have a nine for the barn scenes, too. All right. Mike, storytelling. Eight. I gave it a seven just because of the orb. What did you say, Mike? I said eight. Eight, okay. I'm going to do a seven as well. Mike acting. 9. I gave this a 10. I think this had the best acting out of the bunch. I'm also giving it a 9. And then scares, Mike. 10. It's by far the scariest movie on this list.
Oh, my God. Seriously? I gave it a nine, especially the last creepy scene at the birthday party where you knew what was going to happen, and you're like, no. And I gave it a four. So this brings us to an even 100. Oh, no. The highest scoring film of the cage match. This action will have consequences. All right. Next one in round six is David Cronenberg's Crimes of the Future from 2022. Humans adapt to a synthetic environment with transformations and mutations with his partner Caprice.
Saul Tensor, celebrity performance artist, publicly showcases the metamorphosis of his organs in avant-garde performances. So I respect the hell out of David Krodenberg. I think he's a genius. but his movies aren't always for me um i'm really interested what's about to happen because i literally wrote in my notes lonely is going to hate this i wonder if i am wrong or right i don't know what made me write that in that moment
But I guess I'll find out in a few seconds. I think the world that Cronenberg created is so weird.
as he often does it almost gets to the point of being silly but i do think he toes the line pretty well all the way through occasionally silly but also occasionally effective and really interesting even if it's weird down towards the end though it gets just to nonsense a little bit towards me down the stretch i didn't really love it in the end so again i'm hit or miss a cronenberg i would not say this is my favorite of his a couple interesting ideas but not really my favorite here
lonely i'm dying to know is that right of course you are i did not like this yeah i didn't It's ironic because we are going to get to another Cronenberg film in a bit that I feel much more positively about. This is like the perfect storm of things I just don't really enjoy. I sound like a broken record saying that sci-fi is not my favorite.
subgenre but this also in particular like the the storyline relies heavily on like trusting the the world that the story exists in you have to sort of not ask questions about that world and just understand that These are the rules and regulations that exist in this reality. And I really struggle with that as a viewer. So this is like a perfect storm. I echo you completely, Mike, that I really respect the Gronenbergs as like.
I think they're excellent creatives and I think they're super intelligent people and they know how to shoot movies. I just think that some of their actual like writing and the way that it reaches audiences is not the most accessible. And that causes a lot of like breakdowns here. I did not enjoy Crimes of the Future. And I have some specific reasons why that I will get into. But Susie, what about you?
this is a movie where you have to fully like invest yourself into being in this universe kind of like in Blade Runner like that won't make sense to you unless you like fully commit and there are actually a lot of similarities between the two movies which is probably why i liked it so in Blade Runner you've got like the replicants and the humans and in Crimes of the Future you've got the people that can grow these organs.
and then the jobs relating to documenting the organs which is like quite complicated but this was such a wildly creative idea which i think is enough for it to mean something to me all right We can get into the storytelling. Yeah, I mean, it really comes down to premise and execution. And like I said, that's kind of what I think about Cronenberg in general. Incredibly creative idea.
So interesting premise for a story, interesting things to look at always with Cronenberg with the body horror and the different things happening with growing of the organs in the chair that Viggo Mortensen is in at times. But again, it then just gets so wacky and odd and so hard to understand the world, I guess, that it lost me a little bit in the end. What did you think, Lomi? I agree. I think.
one other so like Susie said you described it really well Susie this you need to really just be in this world and just kind of accept things as they are and it starts immediately with the script they it's like a reality like ours but it's not ours so they don't talk like people like they the script is very very clunky and I wonder if that's just on purpose it's just supposed to be the way they talk in this different reality but the script is super clunky and that took me out immediately and
One thing that I think was a miss was that there's not a lot of world building. It just is. It's just sort of like this is the thing that happens. And then one thing that they also do constantly in this film is they add more characters without adding any context as to who they are in context of the story. So I had a lot of trouble. understanding where this was going, why we would keep getting introduced to these characters.
what the goal of the main character was like because he also has like the main character has these different ambitions like does he want to be like this performance artist does like what does he actually want to do and then then we find out he's like in
who's with the cops question mark so yeah i struggled a lot with this storyline and i don't even think i could come in and describe the plot to you all i really know is that The first boy in the movie who was eating the trash can in the beginning was the boy that had his jeans.
and that were altered and his body was making all these new organs and when they did the autopsy on him the police intervened because the boy's organs were so messed up so his existence would just cause chaos in that world is that what you were getting from this yeah i feel like that's part of it but then there's also like the quote inner beauty pageant to which I said in parentheses, they're just making shit up now.
but see that's also a fault because it's like pick one either go with the third act being the inner beauty pageant or the autopsy like they didn't even need to bring in that inner beauty pageant so cornyberg has too many ideas maybe filter some But it was strange enough, but not too out there for me, which made it stupid. It makes me want to watch it again. I only watched it once, and I think this is one you got to watch multiple times to understand. Yeah, I could buy that.
um as far as acting goes i was kind of very split to me like i thought vigo mortensen and leia sedu were quite good i have no idea what the kristen stewart is doing in this movie and what she's trying to do and her partner was but just about as bad uh so i'm kind of split on the acting some great some i'd have no idea what do you think i'm echoing that completely but i did like the two girls the the ones that like
Killed. Were in on the killing. Of the other. Those two girls. Like the technicians. Yes. Yeah. I felt that this was like bare minimum for what this script was doing. It's tough because they're playing weird people in a weird story. So it's like hard to show. Like, who's good at what? I think the main lead is good enough for the story. My worst character in this was the detective that he was helping.
the acting like the line delivery was insane just like not like he just didn't fit into the world like by far I don't think Kristen Stewart was that bad but I also don't hate Kristen Stewart like as an actress so that's just me yeah I don't even know if she was bad I just don't understand what she was going for so it was a bit lost on me but she was going for something so I'll give her credit for that as far as cinematography goes I mean
So Cronenberg is going to show you interesting things. There's no doubt there. I don't know that the way he showed them was necessarily special in this movie to me, but you're always going to have to give him some credit for the way he's going to show you or what he's going to show you, I should say. What do you think about that, Susie? I don't think he built the world enough. We didn't see enough. And all of the shots...
He wasn't doing anything creative. I don't think that's a strong suit of his with cinematography. I think he's more like a narrative, plot, conceptual director rather than focusing on the cinematography so that... is weak for me in a lot of his movies yeah i agree what do you think lonely i didn't think this was very impressive at all um i mean the like the weird futuristic stuff like
When you first are introduced to the cinematography of like the houses and the rooms in this alternate world, like you are interested on what you're looking at, but then. As the film goes on, you realize you're looking at the same shots of the same things over and over. Some of the sets are just concrete rooms with random broken things in them. And I'm like, okay, like that's...
Like we're in this alternate reality where we have like chairs that like rebuild your organs and we're in a concrete room with like a pipe in the corner. Like that's that we need to think about that more. It's not I wasn't impressed by this at all, unfortunately. I think with the cinematography, if they had more like over the shoulder shots, like during the autopsies, like almost like the point of view of the people viewing this happening, it was a lost opportunity for that.
Yeah, I agree. And that maybe would help with scares, too, because, like, I mean, you know you're going to get body horror with Cronenberg, but there's not much more to speak of in the way of horror or scares, in my opinion. What do you think, Susie? Yeah, this isn't a scary movie. This is more of a cringy, like, I don't want to watch you cut that open or off.
I felt the autopsy of the kid is very fucked up. I think maybe because I was like bothered by the premise and maybe that was like it was giving me like sort of like a mental like block.
there because I thought it was super fucked up and also there's like this side like storyline happening that the father of the kid like they don't want to cause like a revolution of other people who are like that kid by doing this so it's like this like trying to make like a statement of his kid getting a live autopsy and that was also fucked up
So I was really bothered by that. And there's some like weird as per the Cronenbergs also have like this infatuation with sex. So there's like a lot of like random sex shit in this film. There's a point where like. Sex and pain. Like Sex and Pain, yes, exactly. And they have... At one point, they have sex while the machine is stabbing them. She unzippers the zipper that holds all of his organs in and then she proceeds to make out with his organs. That was disgusting.
Maybe that was kind of horror, though. I included that all in the body horror. I mean, there's hyper-realistic organs and operations. They sew up a man's face and like sew dozens of ears on him. They autopsy a kid and it looks pretty fucking realistic. for what we're looking at. So I thought it was like, even now I'm getting a little nauseous, like thinking about it. All right. I think that leads us to scoring. Let's score this bad boy.
All right. I'm going to give this a five on cinematography. What about you, Susie? I gave it a four for cinematography. We have the same shot over and over again. I gave it a five. All right. In storytelling, I'm giving this a three. Oh, I gave this a six. I thought it had an interesting plot. You had people, the bricks, when...
They brought in the whole idea of the bricks and the people needing to eat the bricks. It was a well-rounded universe. I give it a five. All right. For acting, I am giving this a four. I gave it a five, just average. I gave it a six. I gave it for Vigo and Leia. And for scares, I gave this a five. You brought me up and I gave it a five too. It was at a two, but then I thought about the autopsy of the little boy.
Yeah, I went up to a four. All right. And that brings us to a 57, not quite the hundred from long legs. So I don't think any of us are going to rescore crimes of the future. Right. Nope. That is great. All right. Osgood takes this one to the quarterfinals. Does he have more than one movie in the quarterfinals? No, we got the monkey out. All right. We're in the homestretch, team.
Oh, this would be me in round seven. This is an old favorite of mine. We discussed this in our shapeshifter episode. Is that correct, Lonely? Yes, with Billy Dee and our pal Justin. We are talking about Possessor from 2020. So this movie is about an agent who works for a secretive organization that uses brain implant technology to inhabit other people's bodies, ultimately driving them to commit assassinations for high-paying clients.
i really like this movie this was my other choice for my top film uh i love in the very first scene you are thrust into this movie where a woman at a bachelorette party just kills somebody
And you just have no idea why. When a movie can open up with a question of me wanting to know what happened and really excited to learn more that's when i know i'm going to enjoy a movie pacing was perfect for me i love the sci-fi aspect of this movie i think the acting was spot on especially when our lead characters
starts taking on the personality of one of the other characters in the movie overall this is like super high on my list and now i'm regretting that i picked the other one mike how do you feel about possessor So sort of similarly than I did to the previous one in the sense that I love the premise. It is such a cool idea. And I was kind of lukewarm on the execution, though I will say I did like this better than Crimes of the Future for sure.
There are definitely some very, very cool scenes and visuals. There's definitely some tension, you know, with them trying to get back out. You know, the assassin's trying to get back out at the right time and not staying too long. But I disagree with Payson. I did have some problems with that. it was kind of slow at times and a little bit too artsy for my taste a few times but i will say the ending is fantastic
Like I was much lower on the movie, kind of through it. But the ending sticks with you. It is really well done. It is very violent and brutal. So I'm kind of hedging here. you guys have a chance to probably talk me up or down on a couple of these things based on uh what you say so we're not gonna talk you up okay yeah i'm probably Yeah, I'm going to sit most of this out and only speak when spoken to because I got scolded last time we talked about Possessor on the show.
I don't love the nonlinear timeline. And beyond that, I personally found what the film is trying to say to be very trite. I think that it's trying to say more. that it actually is and i just wasn't a fan of the like there's a lot of violence in here with no like reason
It just wasn't my fave. Not my cup of tea in the slightest. But I also recognize that I'm not the... I don't think I'm the target audience for this film. So I think some of my commentary might not be fair. So I'm not a fan of Possessor. I think the plot is pretty much summed up in the synopsis. We've got the agent who is played by Andrea Risborough. Is that right, Mike? Yeah, I think so. Andrea Risborough, yeah.
Yeah, and she played that character very well. You see her kind of like losing it along the way. She starts off very, almost stoic, and then she slowly starts to get... I don't know, like overcome by what she's done. And she just wants to do like one more, one more.
This is another one of those movies where you have to kind of put yourself in the world. There's this organization that can implant these things in your brain and they can use that technology so that you can kind of like transfer into other people's bodies, even though you're still.
yourself you're just in another place and you can take on their actions and our lead character goes into this one body and that's where most of the movie takes place she transfers into this person Colin Tate and the way our Andrea Risborough is able to play Colin Tate. It's like an actor playing an actor, which we talked about earlier in one of the other episodes. But I just thought that was perfection. And that's why I love this movie. But there are a couple times when...
It does get pretty slow. Like, you know what's happening. She's supposed to commit this murder, but she gets stuck in the body and she's trying to get out. And they kind of. played into that a little bit too much and that ran on for a little bit too long, if they have shaved off a little bit of it, I think the storytelling would have made more sense with the pacing too. Yeah, I agree. I had storytelling kind of mid, because like I said, the...
premise is great and there's certain parts that are good but it was so uneven for me that i couldn't give it super strong um and you mentioned the acting so i'll kind of lump that in here too i did think andrew rosborough was fantastic and she's definitely the star of the show
and a highlight of the whole thing for sure what do you think lonely i think this is a little bit stronger and a little bit more cohesive in terms of acting than crimes of the future but i think something that you have to work around is that you also in this you also have strange characters
playing in a strange world so it's hard to tell how much of this is clunky because of the script and the mechanics of the script and how much of it is clunky because of pure like acting prowess so this is a little bit higher on the list than Crimes of the Future for me, but not by much. And then we have Christopher Abbott, who's playing this character, Colin Tate, and they have this whole side story of him working this job, and they spend so much time in that world.
It almost felt like this movie was trying to talk about like being cogs in a machine in some way and always being controlled by somebody else. But they didn't lean into that. theme enough for it to like really shine i kind of pulled that out were you getting any of that mike when you're watching this movie i had not thought about that but that is a pretty good analysis of it
Yeah, I was just trying to keep up with what's going on because I didn't know who was who or what time it was. So good on you to pull out some really good thematic analysis there. Well, we were talking about Andrea Risborough and her phenomenal acting in this. And that really comes out in the last.
seen so she's going home and she's practicing being herself because like every time she inhabits somebody else's body she kind of like loses a little bit of herself and when she gets home she has to do a very like the hardest act of her life and she has to kill her own son what is this not exactly what question mark how did we get here
Because she chose her path and she could have gotten out many, many times. But she kept saying, just one more. I'm just going to do one more. And look what her choices led to. She's no good for anybody now. I think you made a point earlier, Susie, about the idea of being like a cognitive machine. I think the, because they also have this commentary on like the fragility of life and like.
this icarus idea of like pushing and pushing and pushing and like not knowing your limits and i wish similar to crimes of the future that they i know this is brandon grunenberg and not the father but like i wish they had stuck with one theme throughout the film and maybe that would have also given it some of the cohesion that i think it's missing across the board but do you want to talk about um some of the scares uh i some of the scares i think were just completely
gore driven there's nothing scary about this movie there's no pop-out moments there's no like really creepy feeling there's no uneasiness it's just like straight up gunshots to the head lots of blood spilling on the floor right so not a huge scare value for this one agreed and then cinematography is there's only a few cool time traveling type sequences that was the only thing i noted here
Yeah, I agree. I didn't have anything. I mean, it was above average because I, again, have to show you cool things for sure. But the way they went about it was I thought was fine. Yeah, there was nothing special about the cinematography for me, which I think is also something I noticed a lot in the Cronenberg movies. Yeah. Shall we score it?
I think it's cool that these two were right next to each other. I know they were in a different round, but it's kind of cool that we talked about them back to back. Susie, what are you giving this for cinematography? I think it's just mid five. Agreed. Five for me as well. I had six. Okay. Storytelling, Susie. Eight. I thought I love this idea of like be inhabiting somebody else's body, but not actually being them, but controlling them. I gave this a three.
I give it a six because I guess that is a cool premise. How about acting, Susie? I love the acting of Andrea Risborough playing Christopher Abbott. And I think that's extremely hard to do to still be yourself while playing somebody else and us knowing it's Andrea Risborough and not Christopher Abbott, if that makes sense. So I gave the acting an eight. I gave this a five.
I gave him a seven. Right. And scares Susie. I'm going to do four there. It wasn't scary, but there was that really brutal scene at the end. Yep. I did the same thing. I gave this a three for the same reason. yeah i have a three for the same reason look at that all right and that brings possessor to a 63 in this secondary round it is against new order and new order is at a 76. So 12 points. Susie, you've already, you can't rescore. So Mike, do you have any desire to rescore Possessor? I don't.
No, I'm sort of stunned New Order is about to be in the quarterfinals, though. But no, I'm not going to resign. i'm not i thought i that was one of my top films so i'm very happy to see that so new order is going on to the quarterfinals and in our last round our last review of the cage match everything else beyond this will be scores we are finishing up with a doozy a film so close to my heart i love this fucking movie infinity pool 2023 james
James and M. Foster are enjoying an all-inclusive beach vacation in the fictional island of La Tolka when a fatal accident exposes the resort's perverse subculture of hedonistic tourism, reckless violence, and surreal... horrors so this is brandon cronenberg's second film on the neon resume and
I fucking love this movie. This is one of my top films. It might have been my top film from 2023. I can't quite remember off the top of my head. I think Hussara actually might have beaten this one out, but it was very close. I love this film. This is a contemporary retelling, in my humble opinion, or a contemporary foil of The Picture of Dorian Gray. This tells hedonism.
in the best way possible in modern culture this is where it takes a sci-fi premise and makes it absolutely fucked up in a way that i found very believable and creepy I think this is insanely creative. I think it sticks to its bit. It really needs to shorten itself a little bit. It really would benefit with some brevity, but I think this is an insane movie. Mike, I don't think we've ever talked about this film, so very curious on what you think of Infinity Pool.
Yeah, so I like this better than Possessor for sure. So I think this is the better of the Brandon Cronenberg movies because of it does what I feel like Possessor and Crimes of the Future don't. I think it executes its original idea much better. Just the fact that you have these rich people who can go wherever they want and do whatever they want with no consequences. It's such a real idea. But in this infinity pool, it's told in such a sci-fi way, which.
I would have never expected what came out of this movie to happen. I think some of the coolest scenes in this movie are when they're arrested and they go into that dome-like room and they watch... what happens as a consequence for their bad behavior. And I think we've talked about cinematography not being a really... pro for the Cronenbergs but this cinematography in this movie I can't wait till we get to that category because I think it was phenomenal
Agreed. So the premise of Infinity Pool is James and his wife are on a vacation and they meet some friends at the resort who have traveled here before. So they're getting some tips. They end up going off. which is a big no-no. They've been told not to do this. They get drunk, they're out at the beach and then they're driving home and James hits and kills somebody in the car.
At that point, his new friend Gabby is like, don't tell the police. That's bad. The police are corrupt in this country. It's not like where we're from. And then they find out that in La Tolca, there is a special policy for foreign travelers that if they commit a crime, they can have themselves cloned. And the clone can deal with the repercussion of the crime. So for James, his repercussion for killing someone is to be killed by the person's family.
That's his repercussion. You killed somebody, so now the family of that person is going to kill you. So James... He married into a rich family. His new wife pays the fee. And James now has to watch a clone. He has to get a clone made of himself, which is already an interesting process, interesting sequence. And then he has to sit there and watch the clone. of himself get murdered which now you might be thinking okay this is really fucking trippy but it's cool as fuck
It is cool as fuck. It is so existential and strange. In terms of the storytelling, I think that's the best way to describe it. This story is insane. It has an insane premise. The delivery of how the story is told is crazy. There are some very long exposition pieces that don't need to be there. To your point, Mike, like some of this is like weird for weird sake, but there's gotta be at least an eight minute orgy.
in this movie like it is long it is a long scene there's several scenes of like doing drugs and stuff and i know it's supposed to add on to the hedonistic like narrative we're doing but that really could have been cut out but i really give brandon kronenberg so much props for sticking to this brand of this film sticking to what he wanted to do
And keeping it uniform because the tone is consistent and entertaining throughout the whole film. I think this is really fucking cool. I wish that he had shortened this a lot because I could give it a higher score. But Mike, what did you think of the storytelling on this?
Yeah, like I said, I thought it was much more cohesive and coherent than some of the other movies with Possessor, which, again, I do like, but a little less cohesive. One of the cool things I like about this, and I honestly cannot remember if I... was realizing this as i was watching the first time where i heard someone say it and i thought back but the idea that you're not entirely sure whether it's the original person or the clone at any time like when that process happens
who's left behind who gets murdered as punishment yeah like that's up to some sort of debate and i think that's super cool and also you know would probably come out even better on rewatches when you try to if you can figure that out even if you can't figure out the idea that's possible makes the story all the more complex i think so no i do i think the storytelling is pretty strong in this one i love the idea of morality in this so these characters
specifically our lead character Skarsgård when he figures out his consequences have no repercussions the moral aspect gets taken away and you can see his character then say well then i can do whatever i want so it's kind of this whole idea of well we have checks and balances for a reason because things like this when you realize you can get away with whatever that does it actually affect your moral code or not? This is such an excellent narrative.
our current society because it doesn't side with the rich if anything it absolutely villainizes them and it plays with this idea of like if you had enough money to cheat death Would you do it? And we watch James basically struggle with this idea of absolutely hating himself. He hates himself for what he ends up doing. But at the same time, he can't.
get enough of it and it gives you this idea of like well when you now hate yourself as much as james says in this situation how far would you go to stop the cycle it's just insane it's like eat the rich to the nth degree because everyone in this story is so hated and so unlikable and i think that goes right into acting so
I know, Susie, you're not a fan of Mia Goth, but I love her in this. I think she does an amazing character as Gabby. I also think, oh my God, is Skarsgard the League in this? Yeah. Oh, it is Scar's Guard. Okay. I'm trying to remember which Scar's Guard it was. It obviously wasn't Bill, so it had to be the fucking other one. So Alexander Scar's Guard is also great in this.
I think they commit to the good to the characters and they deliver a really high level. But Susie, did you like Mia Gotham this or is this also a miss for you? I hated her, but I think that's what they were going for.
so i think she did that well and she didn't do her typical like whiny weird i'm better than you act so i like that i do think she does play the weirdo quite often and she's typecast as the weirdo so i wonder what it would have been like if we had a different character playing gabby but i didn't hate her in it but i hated her in it yeah yeah
I think the acting is quite strong in this. I like her. She's kind of got two parts to her because, you know, first she has to be alluring. I don't know if she has to be, but she's to be alluring to kind of lure James in.
And then, you know, later when everything kind of twists against him, she's kind of enjoying the power over him and controlling him. And she's playing that role. So I do tend to like Meagoth. I do think she's particularly strong in this. And I didn't have a whole lot of experience with Alexander Skarsgård.
when i'd seen this movie because i don't think i'd seen the northman yet which is another um obviously big movie of his but um yeah i think he's excellent as well so yeah pretty strong acting throughout what are mia goth's like intentions like what is she trying to do in this movie because she obviously is like wants to ruin well in faster's life like what why she wants to do that's like you know whatever i'm gonna do
a little literature foil for you i see that like if you've ever read picture of dorian gray one of the characters is lord henry and he is a very like morally gray like horribly like hedonistic person and he basically fucks up everybody's life in the entire story tangentially just because he feels like it like he he's like the worst character of the entire book
And that's why, you know, if I continue with my picture of Dorian Gray like foil here, I see like that is a character that I've seen in other media in the past. So she sort of doesn't have a motive. It's she. She does it because she wants to, like to echo what Mike just said. Do I get points, Mike? Would you agree with my literature foil? I am very impressed with you bringing literature here. The English teacher approves of you. Good job. That's all I need in my life is approval.
Let's talk about the scares. There's some really crazy body horror in this, per the Cronenbergs. I think, to your point, Susie, the craziest and scariest scenes are in the fucking dome. Because there's two sequences. It's the cloning. Because it gets more like vicious and violent as he continues to clone himself. And then as he watches himself get killed over and over. Is there anything you wanted to add on that, Susie? The scene where they're all wearing the masks in the car.
that was pretty yeah and then they go into that house and they just start killing everybody um i don't think there was anything like super scary i think it was that again more of that unsettling feeling and i Maybe the body whore. I'll give the body whore because when he's like stabbing himself or when there's a point where he's killing himself. Yeah, I mean, the scariest thing to me is the fact that these.
ultra rich people can get away with anything and that's not far off from the truth in real life so i mean as is over the top and as far as this goes at that point is not missed on me and that is terrifying because you know as a teacher you won't be surprised to find out i am not amongst the super rich um so i can't do anything i want nor would i do these things of course because i'm a moral person but uh yeah that is pretty scary yeah the house scene is a good example of that
All right. And I know we just to finish off on cinematography, I think this is a very strong. piece of the Cronenberg resume as it comes to cinematography it is experimental but I think it pays off for what we're trying to do in this film it's very experimental it's very strange there's interesting shots like the orgy scene and the every time they do
things get very interesting on camera and the cloning scenes as well. There's a lot of use of like color and light. I think it gives sci-fi in the best possible way. What about you, Susie?
This is the first time I feel like the Cronenbergs are really working with the camera and changing the angles. There's some side angle shots. We have some above shots. We have like... a lot of close-up shots during that scene where he's driving the car and he hits the person but this the standout is definitely the cloning scene when you've got the lights flashing on him and the grid on his face and you're like pulling back and see
how large that space actually is, we're really getting the whole scope of what's going on. You even have scenes going through doorways and walking down hallways, which is nothing I've seen before in the Cronenbergs movie. Yeah, I'd echo all the same things. I think this is one of the better shot ones, at least compared to his previous one, which makes sense.
Filmmaker's hero, Brandon Cronenberg, still a relatively young filmmaker. He's going to get a little better at each thing and try new things each time out. And I think he definitely did that this time. All right, it's time. Our final score of the cage match. Susie, what are you giving this for cinematography? I gave this an eight. Me too. I gave this an eight. I had a seven. And for storytelling, Susie?
I gave this an eight. Me too. I gave it an eight. I had six. And acting? I gave this an eight. I did too. Surprise. What am I going to give for scares? I don't know. Mike, what are you giving for acting? I had seven. All right. And scares. I am giving this a six because I'm going to ruin the pattern. I gave it a five. I had a three, but I think I'm going to switch it to a four. All right. And that brings infinity pool to an 83. And this is going up against in the earth.
in the earth which it should slaughter let's hope it does in the earth is coming out to a 51 so that is a clear 30 point lead and i have no desire to rescore what about you mike No, we're good. All right. It is that time of night. We are officially in the quarterfinals. This means that all of our films have already been scored. So for all the following rounds, we will have the opportunity to make a case for our top pick and rescore.
if necessary at this point mike and i both still have our wild card so we can rescore anything is possible This will go by relatively quickly, especially because Susie doesn't have a wild card. So Susie, I guess you're the referee in case we ruin our friendship with Mike in this exact moment. Let's go. Let's just get into it. For quarterfinal round one, we have Parasite up against Oldboy. So right now Parasite is at a 78 and Oldboy is at a 71.
I think this is a clear winner. I would not score Old Boy higher than Parasite, so I have no desire to rescore. I think it's the stronger film with storytelling and cinematography. But what about you, Mike? Yeah, I agree wholeheartedly. Parasite is the better film. And again, even though neither are particularly horror, I still would choose Parasite over Oldboy. So I agree. I would have done that. Round quarterfinal round two. We have Titan A with 73 and Cuckoo with 76. Very close. Very close.
I have no desire to rescore. I think Cuckoo is the stronger of the two films. I also enjoyed it more, but I don't know, Mike, you liked Titan a lot. This might be the one you rescore. Yeah, I like them both. It's funny how they're so close because I like them fairly similarly. I do think I enjoyed... Cuckoo more. So I think I'm okay with what's going on. I'm not going to use a rescore here. I've got bigger fish to fry, as they say, coming up maybe.
All right, and then on to round three of the quarterfinals. These are the two highest scoring films in the cage match so far, and that is The Lodge, which is Mike's pick to win with 91, and Longlegs with A.
Crisp 100. Oh, boy. So this is actually tough for me, too, because I like both of these films, but I do like the lodge more. So. this is where i'm fucked because because my i i love both these movies a whole lot like i like them a lot i would probably say i like and more likely going to re-watch long legs more
I chose the lodge originally because I was not sure what you guys thought of long legs. That's the only reason I didn't pick it. That would have been my second choice. So the question is, do I want to like. Like, do I have to feel like a winner that I picked the right thing or do I want the movie I actually like more to go on? And so this is tricky, but it's a nine point difference. Correct. Right. So I'd have to really do some rescoring.
And I'd have to do it on Long Legs, which is my favorite movie. This is poor planning by my part. I should have looked at the brackets further down. See, this is why I never win March Madness. I think... I think I'm not going to rescore it. I think I'm willing. I don't need to be a winner. I'm not one of those people. I don't have to be. I'm happy my team's made it this far. And the fact that my favorite movie might win the whole thing is good enough for me.
So I'm going to hold my, I'm not going to rescore yet. I'm not going to rescore either because I think, you know, the point, the comment that you made that stood out to me, Mike was like, what film would. i actually re-watch and i would re-watch longlegs where i don't think um the lodge has a ton of re-watch ability so i think longlegs is going through
Yeah, I feel like The Lodge, once you know the twist, it's hard to watch it again and still have that same, like, wow moment. And then round four, this is... this breaks my cynical ass heart because I wish these two films weren't up against each other we've got New Order with 76 and Infinity Pool with 83
I love both these films and I love how they have similar in some ways, like subject matter, like talking about class and they ended up against each other. Isn't that funny how things happen that way? I do not think I'm going to rescore because. I think Infinity Pool delivers more as a complete piece, whereas New Order, it delivers a lot in the first punch, but there were still some things lacking. So I do not think I'm going to rescore.
Yeah, me neither. I think Infinity Pool overall is a better movie for sure. And more of a horror movie, again, even if it's not quite traditionally so. So now I think Infinity Pool should go on. All right, Mike, we are in. the final the absolute final rounds here so we are down to the wire there are only four films remaining parasite cuckoo long legs and infinity pool we will follow the same process in the quarterfinals so in the first round of the semi-finals we have parasite and cuckoo
So Parasite has 78 and Cuckoo has 76. All right. I mean, Cuckoo's more of a horror movie for sure. Right, right. For sure. I also would be kind of stunned if that was in the finals, but I don't know. What are you going to do? I like toward because I don't know if we should let a non horror strictly horror film win. Let me look back at the scores. Okay. I think I'm going to rescore. I think I'm going to use my wild card on.
Let's take a look at Cuckoo. I'm going to rescore acting for Cuckoo to a nine. And resource cinematography to a seven. And that brings cuckoo to a 79. Yes. Good choice. All right. So that's our final. We're going to score it to a 79. And then round two, long legs and infinity pool. There is no way, even if I still had my wild card left, there was no way I could rescore this film to top.
Longlegs, as much as I love Infinity Pool more than Longlegs, I do not think I could rescore it fairly. So it's up to you. I don't think you're going to take one for Cronenberg, are you? No, no, no, no. Longlegs leads to go on. For sure. All right. We are in the final round. So let's just take them. So Susie, you are the silent bystander. This is the moment we've been waiting for.
How do you feel about the two remaining films? Tooth and long legs. I love it. I love that those are against each other because they're very different films, but I know which one I would pick. I think we know which one I would pick. We know which one Mike would pick. But Lonely, you are kind of the wild card here. I don't, I mean, this, I feel like.
I've come full circle once again, like the last cage match. It's hard to argue when a film... is good like technically very good and long legs is technically very good it's a strong film in all the ways and i wouldn't say it's a bad film and to be honest i do think
Out of the films on this list, it is the strongest. I do think Long Legs is the strongest neon film we've watched because it has the most capacity to reach a mass audience. And we've seen that already in the way that the film kind of took by storm in the last year. And it's also the scariest on the list. By far the scariest movie on this list. Yeah, and I think what's going to be awesome about Long Legs winning here, too, is that for me, and I know Neon's been around forever.
But like it, for me, it put neon on the map. Like I started associating neon with movies and it started with the fact, and we didn't even talk about this when we talked about the movie, the trailers were brilliant. I actually you're going to you're going to laugh and think I'm a psychopath. I have actually shown the trailer in my classes before because we talk about in writing how.
You know, there's difference between a foreshadowing where you give away too much and little. So we talk about movie trailers. We say some movie trailers tell you everything. And then sometimes you might still want to see it because you want to see the actors or whatever. But long legs... was scary and you had absolutely no idea what it was about it was ambiguous right but if you go back and watch the trailer it gives away the entire movie but you have no idea until you've seen the movie
But once you've seen the movie, you're like, oh, they show you everything because you know what all those switches are. So anyway, I got a little off track there, but check out the trailer. I forgot to mention that earlier. But I do think it put it on the map. And I think because it was such a humongous success.
uh at the box office that it should represent neon and i feel like neon has taken off more since then and obviously os perkins has helped i think his next movie is also coming out on neon uh later this year keeper um
So yeah, it's a really good representation for Neon, I think. We did a good job. Yeah, and I think that's the winner. The winner of the whole cage match season is... long legs with an even 100 and i would love to go back in time and check and see what hereditary scored way back in the day i think if it
It was probably very close. I think that's one of the highest rating films we've ever reviewed on the show, which is amazing. And I echo everything completely, Mike. I think this is such a great... film because of its opportunity to reach audiences and that's what we want in horror is that we want horror to be accessible and we want it to be a great representation of how horror can be interpreted as art and I think Longlegs is a great
a great place to start for that and i can acknowledge all those things about the film even if i don't care for the ending susie any closing thoughts from you on our champion I'm excited Longlegs made it to the end because I do love that movie. And I wonder what it would be like if in the future we matched Longlegs up against together.
And see what happened because together is getting a lot of, a lot of buzz. A lot of people are liking it. I know, I know. So we'll have to call Mike back in February. I think this means we all have to sing a T-Rex song now, like Long Legs. Is that how we have to end this show? After a few hours, maybe we got it in us. For a long time after I saw Long Legs, I would be like cooking or some stuff and I would literally do the little jingle. Let me in now.
Hey guys! It's delirium right now. We've been on the mic for six hours. You shouldn't tell people that. Audience, you don't know that. You don't know that for real. If we had been on the mic for six hours, you know how long Susie has to edit this? No. Sorry. Sorry.
Alright, and just like that, another cage match has come to a close. It has been a wild... long long long ride we are so incredibly grateful to you mike for not only giving us this time to record with you but also all the prep that you had to do and you did this all around your real life that That happens offline. So, Mike, thank you so much for joining us tonight. I had such a great time. Finally, where can the listeners find you?
uh thank you guys for having me it's an honor to be here always but particularly on the october uh spooky season is obviously very important to us so super cool to be a part of that and i am thankful to be here it was a lot of fun I think we did a good job. If I may say so ourselves, let me say so ourselves, say so myself. Anyway, you can find me on Instagram at that horror teacher, as well as X and blue sky, the same handle when I will resume writing some more.
Reviews with October coming up. I like to do a lot more. My wife and I always watch one horror movie a night in October and we call it Shocktober. So be looking for that coming up soon. And when I'm not editing through six hours of. commentary you can find me on filmstagram at projectile underscore underscore vermin
You can find my horror reviews and Rants for Lonely Souls over on Instagram at Lonely Horror Club. I try to post reviews whenever I feel like it and cause problems on filmstagram whenever possible. You can also find my writing on my website, Lonely Horror Club. Thank you, dear internet, for tuning into episode 68 of Nobodies. As always, sources, additional reading, and all that fun stuff will be in our show notes. Do you want to riot over our champion pick? Well, leave us a message.
it will maybe answer it if you're nice 617-431-4322 and keep up with our antics on instagram at nobody's horror podcast we would love if you could like subscribe or leave a review wherever you get your shows. And from our little horror family to yours, have a happy and safe Halloween.
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