Welcome to the cult classic horror show. conversations you've always wanted to have about the films you love. Shut up! Get rid of your distractions. And prepare yourself. You got a big surprise coming to you. You're not going anywhere. Welcome, welcome everybody to the cult classic horror show. Danny Bonin here with you guys. Scotty Bonin with you guys. We are the Blood Brothers and...
Carmelo Chimera. Oh, Batman's back. Just kidding. My voice is back, bitches. Damn right. I smell bacon. We're apparently a three-man podcast now. I don't know how else to get Rob to show up.
yeah yeah i guess we could start auditioning as replacement the show must go on the show must go on i just yeah uh i talk to him like all the time i'm just like oh yeah i'm doing the podcast this date he's like sounds good doing it that date and then Then he said he felt crappy today, and there's the flu going through this.
But he didn't officially say, I can't make it, let's reschedule. He just said, oh, flu's going through my house. I was like, oh, that sucks. Yeah, he did help us pick this night in time. So it's just so confusing when he participates in the scheduling. And Penn doesn't show up. Yeah. So once again, I keep saying it. Just everyone go give Rob some shit. You know what I mean? We give him enough shit and he'll just pop in. He'll show up.
shows up for the movies he wants to watch only y'all want him back yeah you're right he shows up for those uh yes we are talking about stir of echo Mmm. That's why I smell bacon. Class. All I remember from this movie is the heavily played painted black in the trailer. Oh, yeah. This was coming out. This was.
Now, did it release in 99, Scotty, or did they just film it? It filled the 98, released the 99. Ah, because I remember vividly. That sounds like... uh a long time ago and for me to have these memories but i have vivid memories of this of the trailer of this and paint it black being heavily used and then vivid memories of seeing this movie for the first time when it came out and like
were you being freaked out or we saw i don't know that i saw in theaters i don't think i saw maybe not maybe we just yeah but i bought the dvd right away i'm like dude fucking love this yeah and i remember it being pretty scary when it came out now you watch it some of the
Some of the gimmicks are a little old, but it was pretty scary at the time. It's funny. The director talked about how you could see Kevin Bacon's breath in that whole sequence, and he said 99 was the year of... seeing breath and horror movies and we didn't even plan it that way it's just like they they filmed it 98 and he had the idea two years before that and what how funny is that yeah lots of steam coming off the bathtub
Yes. We'll get into it because it was a mix of fake and real. Ooh, interesting. I actually, this was a good, I got some stuff. This was how you do a commentary. You know what's best is when you just have.
a director doing a commentary yeah that's honestly just like the the most information you're gonna get from a movie you know what i mean yeah i like to think that when we do the we've done the commentaries for some of our films and these live commentaries that We actually do a pretty good job when there's the three of us at divulging.
things that like a podcast like us would like to hear you know what i mean and yeah we tell stories from the set remember when this happened remember what happened and yeah yeah he was the director and the screenplay writer so like it helps like Carmelo does that too. Screenplay director and we all collaborate. So it's so much more information. As you can imagine, like if Carmelo was sitting there doing a commentary by himself.
it could be awkward you feel like you gotta talk the whole time and so you're divulging just every little thing you can and you know every ounce of it because you wrote it you directed it you like know every like minuscule little little like part of of what happens yeah what's carbello did you i know you watched it like a week or two ago was that your first viewing or have you seen this movie before no it was it was my it was my first viewing of this movie really
Yeah, I had never seen it before. What's your initial thoughts, reactions? What do you think? You know, I really liked it. I thought it was a... like it felt very like sixth sense to me, which I think is even also 1999 or maybe 2000. So it's like in that same wheelhouse. Yep. Yep. And I think it, it wasn't scary. I wasn't.
like really like like nail biting like oh my god but it was uh it was a real thriller and i really was like on the edge of my seat i was like oh what's going on there's there's these premonitions there's these visions there's these there's the ghost There's this guy going a little Jack Torrance and tearing up his house. There was a lot of good intrigue. I thought that it was...
It was really engaging and very well acted. I mean, Kevin Bacon really does a spectacular job in here. And there's no there's really no there's really no weak link in the cast either. You know, I mean, he's the clear. winner, but everybody does a good job. So just generally, I really liked it. I mean, I think if you asked me if it was like a really scary horror movie, I would have characterized it more as a thriller. But I mean, it's a ghost story, right? So it is...
You know, it is like this genre. It is our genre. It's just, you know. more suspenseful than anything well i always thought of it yeah did you scotty like i always remembered it as a scary movie but i saw it in 99 when i was 14 and and like it was sort of cutting edge at the time you know what i mean
Yeah, I remember it was, like, very, like, disturbing because I do remember before I watched it, I do remember, like, the fingernails cracking, the tooth getting ripped out, him, like, ripping his tooth. I remember, like, there was, like, some disturbing parts that I wanted to look away at.
I don't remember it being one of those movies where I had to sleep with the light on when I came home at night, like some of the other Possession movies we did. I think it was one of the first movies, and maybe you remember this, that stuck with me was her movement. Yes. I think this was pretty ring. It wasn't ring 2001 or something like that. I think you're right. The ring was, I want to say 2003 maybe. Scotty's probably going to look it up right now.
But I think it was the first time we saw this weird jerky movement in a ghost demon girl. Yeah, yeah. And it's cool. As soon as it happened, I was like, oh, yeah, I love that thing. That one is very huge.
Yeah, yeah. That was one of the things. Creepy Kozak girl walk. That was one of the... There were some scary moments, but it wasn't one of those ones where you... have nightmares but it was definitely at your seat like what's happening next psychologically getting in your head like is he is is he like
is he having visions or is it all in his head? Like what's, what's happening here? So it's, it was definitely, yeah. Like add your seat. What's going to happen next. And I thought it was very well done. Yeah. This is a quality film. This is a, this is a good movie. This is like, you know, Friday night looking for a good movie. It's got the elements. It satisfies those writers' checkboxes. Right, exactly. Still holds up to...
Definitely still holds up. It does hold up because even the only parts of this that rely on any real CGI are these hallucination hypnosis sequences. And they're like allowed to be weird. It's not like they're trying to create something real. Like when the, the church turns black or the theater in his head turns black. Yeah. You're not like, Oh, that's dumb. It's just like, Oh, his hallucination. Yeah. It's part of his messed up.
dream basically yeah it just doesn't it didn't occur to me to be like oh that wasn't realistic i was like no i did love how it was his like pov though i remember it like you don't see him it's just his pov of it of the theater and then stuff that was it's got some charm and is right out of Chicago. Carmelo's neck of the woods in Chicago. I have some locations I can talk that we'll get into, but yeah, it was very...
That had to bring it home a little bit, Carmel. Oh, yeah. There were parts when we were watching it that I was like, i know where that corner is like really it was a neighborhood in chicago yeah yeah like i even recognized the corner bar at one point and it's not like it's like a landmark you gotta go visit it's just yeah it's just another dive but it's yeah
When I first saw it, that looks like Chicago architecture for sure, just from going downtown with you a couple times. And the whole block party scene toward the middle of the movie is like... That's so Chicago in the summer. With the train combined. David Koepp, director, talked about the train a lot being cliched to overuse it in a Chicago-based film, but...
Got to use it a couple times for the production value. Yeah, you got to set the location. You got to set the mood, you know? Yeah, yeah. Do you have a little synopsis for us, Carmelo, if you haven't? watched stir of echoes recently uh we can go through yeah yeah for those of you haven't seen it in a while or have yet to see it uh stir of echoes is about a a family in the south side of chicago and uh father uh
Tom and his wife Maggie and their son Jake and they're expecting a new baby and you know just kind of a blue collar working class family and one day at a party Tom lets his sister-in-law Lisa hypnotize him and and She hypnotizes him to be more open-minded and unintentionally opens him to...
to receive visions from the spirit world and he doesn't know what's going on at first so he's not sure if he's going crazy or what and he can't really make sense of what he sees and it you know you later realize his his son is similarly gifted probably more so and it becomes clear that they're living with a presence in their house that's just trying to reach out to them and this presence is like the spirit of this angry girl and as as
Tom tries to figure out what's going on. He realizes that like, This girl is buried in his house somewhere and that he stumbled upon some sort of conspiracy after a premonition comes true of a neighbor boy killing himself. He finds a body only to realize that his best friend and his son.
covered up this murder and he gets the complete vision of these two kids attacking this girl. It goes wrong. She hurts herself. She dies. They bury her in the, in the basement. And, uh, In the end, the visions end up saving Jake's life and Tom's, you know, as they're attacked by the killers and an errand bullet.
flies through the the boy's bed but he's not there because he had a vision of it so after the the girl finds rest after they they vindicate her spirit she uh she gets to go off to you know wherever ghosts go and life returns to normal, but... Yeah, that's Star of Echoes. I'm afraid of the feathers. I like that so much. That ending sequence of the mom grabbing the bag, making sure the mom gets the bag because the knife's in the bag. I'm not going to come with you.
you mom nope because dude it was it's the yeah they really do a good job of presenting the family and the house and the vibe and the neighborhood and it just makes you feel like you just want to be their friends and like hang out at these parties and live in that house you know what i mean i would have set up the baby monitor i'm gonna bring it bring it with me go across the street to a fucking kegger and like drink some beers and listen to the baby monitor yeah that's
Hardcore Chicago parenting. No shit, man. Most of what I'm going to talk about is from Davey Kemp, the writer, director, screenplay writer, director. And he, yeah, specifically on that part, he's like, well, I wanted to make the parents. They're a little bit irresponsible in that they've had a kid, but they still want to live their lives and party. But, you know, they got the baby monitor, so they're thinking about it.
Yeah. Well, you know, it feels very like, like blue collar party. They're not going to these like keggers and stuff, but you know, it's Friday night. Let's kick back a sixer. And yeah. You know, why not? No, it's no harm. You know, it's not like they're driving. So there's not like, you know what I mean? They're not like pieces of shit, but they're also like.
not the cleaver family or yeah you even see the baby monitor in like the background when he's doing like the little uh hypnosis you can see it like behind it's still there um I can go to the box office. Yeah, did you find some numbers? Yeah, budget was $12 million. And... for the run and on its opening weekend, the film ranked third in box office with a gross of 5.8 million and stayed in the top 10 for three weeks after a 14 week run, um, totaling, uh,
worldwide gross of 23 million dollars for box office yeah all right well well not bad well yeah let's uh we'll jump into it i got actually a decent amount of notes on it let's do it some are very interesting some are not so much so skip over those ones yeah it was the good shit so yeah david kepp writer director screenplay writer now he has written a lot and this was his second directing project. This is timely because he has a new film out. Oh, does he? The presence. Oh, did he do that? Yeah.
Okay, that looks cool. I didn't even, you know what? I meant to look and see what he's done since this film, and I didn't, because I'd be curious to see. Yeah, well, the thing he's most famous for almost right after this was Spider-Man. He wrote Spider-Man. With Tobey Maguire? Tobey Maguire. So like the first one that like made superheroes run the box office for the rest of the year.
He wrote the screenplay for that. He wrote the screenplay. And Sam Raimi directed, obviously, right? That's correct. So, you know, he did that. But more recently, he did... Presence. Did he write and direct the Presence? That's a good question. I was wondering. I'm just curious about that. He was a writer on Mission Impossible. No, Soderbergh directed Presence. Okay. And he mentioned Soderbergh.
Sorry. He was a writer on Mission Impossible, the original, and the original Jurassic Park. Oh, shit. Okay. He mentioned that Soderbergh actually helped him on this a little bit with some feedback and was a friend. I know Soderbergh's done a lot, too. Funny, and it's not really jumping ahead because it doesn't have to do with the section of the film, but he talked about how being a writer-director sometimes can be a little difficult if you don't have some kind of...
person to have a feedback mechanism in place with. Because if you have a separate writer and director, they're sort of both... creatively involved at the same level in how the film turns out and so it's easy for them to bounce ideas back and forth and they're both equally invested you know uh but if you're a writer and director you don't always you don't really have anyone that's
creatively at the same level of commitment that you are and so it can be hard he said if you don't have someone or a few people to to really like yeah bounce back and get feedback from so yeah um but maybe you think you Carmelo but I think that we all you have your brother and then we all sort of try to collaborate on things and you know well that's that's why I I'm so like I don't know kind of like pathetically insular about
our group as a like a foursome because i don't want to do it alone i don't want to feel like i'm the other one who cares it's nice when i'm like i'm working on unarmed right now and i'm like starting to get overwhelmed but nicholas is just as in it as as i am and i know when i get you guys up to speed you'll be right there with me and like we were even talking like crew today and i was like
jason potter they were like oh yeah you have a dp and i was like i fucking you better damn right i do damn right and uh and it's like When you've got that core group who can get into it with you and who know how you think and you value their input because you respect how they think, it makes it more fun and it takes a lot of pressure off. Oh, certainly.
So that's why when I'm doing a project, I'm like, let me involve Nicholas. Let me involve Daniel. Let me involve Scotty. Yeah. Oh, it's more fun that way. It's more fun. It is. You know, I mean, yeah, we can go do our own stuff. It's just. I have more fun with you. We have cigars. We're only doing this for our own amusement anyway. I mean, if you're like, if you're sitting out to do Citizen Kane.
or changed Hollywood forever. Like, I don't think you're going to, I think you're going to miss the mark. I got people who like made the game changing movies just set out to do what they thought was great. And then. Other people agree, right? Yeah. Have a good time doing it. Oh, fuck yeah. That's why we do it. Yeah, so David Koepp, screenplay writer and director, and I say screenplay writer because it is based on a book. So he...
He wanted to do something spooky and just had it in his head but wasn't coming up with a story. Found a book in a used bookstore by Richard Matheson, who wrote I Am Legend, who wrote... I mean, he's written a ton. He's written a lot of books. I just happened to read I Am Legend in the past. Of course, that was made into a movie and is awesome. But wanted to then...
do the movie based on this book, had his producing partner dig up the rights, take care of all that, and they move forward on it. So that's sort of how the story came to fruition. He, of course, wrote it into a screenplay. But was in contact with Richard Matheson, and Richard Matheson has said that he loves the movie and thought it did great justice. Loved the screenplay, approved it. Yeah, and so he actually must be...
Pretty old because I think Stir of Echoes, his book was written, I believe in the 50s or 60s. is when it was written. Richard Matheson died in 2013 at age 87. He was born in 26. It was 56 you said it was written? It's in the 50s or 60s. I think it was 50s. or something like that. I see it here. 58. Do you see when he wrote I Am Legend? It was 58. Let's see.
um i'll keep looking at that yeah no worries i actually read i we were in the airport once traveling somewhere on a family vacation 54 54 okay and on a whim i just bought i am legend arena the plane and It was pretty good. It was pretty good. But David Koepp, he grew up near – he didn't say in – near a working-class Chicago neighborhood, much like the one you see in the film. But he did say that his parents grew up –
in a hardcore working class neighborhood and had, and he had family that still lived within those neighborhoods. And, and so he brought that element to it, really wanted it to show through. And yeah, he, he talked about how. He actually grew. So he spent a lot of time after growing up or maybe I'm not sure what age, but being in Wisconsin then. And that's where a lot of his like.
growing up took place after chicago um but yeah he he wanted to and he talked about how like the corner bar that carmelo already mentioned in the block party scene was very reminiscent of and i forgot the name of it i should have written it down but a pub in wisconsin that they would go to it was it's called like ernie's pub or something they had like the ernie burger and and there was this really good cheeseburger that was huge and you know yeah every every place has a it's just relatable
It's like a home. It's like we film in Colorado, we film in Chicago. It was his home base. And I'll get a little more to that in a minute, but... Zachary, David Cope was the young kid in it. And then, of course, we have Catherine Irby as the wife who did a great job, not super well-known, but recognizable from some things.
And then they used a lot of local actors from around. David Koepp, while there, tried to attend as many plays as possible just to experience the theater scene and ended up using a lot of local talent to...
to do things. So for instance, the, well, I know at the, you know, the guy that comes in with his son at the end and owns the house that Kevin Bacon lives in. Yeah. He was, yeah, he was, in david kepp's first film and did some like voice work for him before that uh was an old friend uh but anyways his oh it was not his wife the other neighbor who's
you know sort of saves the day at the end oh yeah he's like everything yeah he's in so much stuff and did a great job but his wife was a local actress that did really well and so was the guy that is like the retard the retard oh yeah that guy that fucker he was like a local chicago actor as well
Oh, my God. Did a pretty good job. Connor O'Farrell is like the landlord guy. He's worked with them before, it looks like. Yeah, he has. Zachary David Cope that played Jake, he's only done like two things, this and The Wedding Singer.
Oh, okay. Well, this was his first film. He turned six while on set. He was good. Yeah, he was good. They did talk about how... and this isn't specific to him it's any any kids and as we may know a little bit of now in film is you just have to be ready to take your time and let them do their thing and instead of
Three to five takes, they were doing 19 takes to get what they wanted out of him. Which they knew and they were okay with. And he did a great job. And they... apparently auditioned a lot of kids in the chicago area and didn't come up with one they wanted to use no one could deliver a line without jumping out of their chair or falling around with with uh energetic excitement
So they cast him out of New York. And there are difficulties when you deal with children. They talked about how in the scene where he... We were just talking about where he says the feathers thing and he gives the purse to the mom. They were trying to get that done, but he had to leave because his hours were up. You can only shoot with kids for so long.
it's barely noticeable, but she walks out the door and then it's a blurred shadow looking, but you see him in through the glass of the door, watching her leave then. Yeah. Oh, really? And they said he had to leave before they did that. And so they went... door knocking down the street and found another kid and cut his hair and put him right there. What the hell?
He was a little stockier and put him in his clothes. I wouldn't have noticed if he hadn't said it. I didn't even notice that really the kid was in the door when she left. But I can relate. You know those moments in film where, yo, we have to get this right. We have to find the kid. They're in the bar, like blah, blah, blah.
then it's so important at the time and then you see the final cut and they're a blur in the background you're like oh we could have just yeah yeah exactly um but anyways back to sort of chronologically here. The first thing we get introduced to Zachary David Cope laying in his bed, and this is the first time we hear some whispers and our first little creepy factor here. They said they spent a lot of time on these whispers.
in post in the sound room just bouncing him around the room and getting him right and uh so that's a little interesting tidbit but then we see them leaving him again we talked about the baby monitor and everything And what's funny, another David Kemp Wisconsinite thing, he remembers the night they filmed just specifically the scene of them walking out of their house and you sort of see this cool church off to the side there.
The Packers were playing that night. This made me think of Scotty because we played a concert one night and the Nuggets were playing and that's all I could think about. Important playoff game. Very important. But that's because they lost the game that night. Whatever. But he said the Packers were playing that night, and he just is so etched in his memory.
that he was so distracted because the Packers were playing this big game while they were trying to shoot that that night. Really? It was just a thing, yeah. I don't know who it was, but someone that knows him well or was on the crew. was quoted as saying he's a great director except when the packers are on oh god david kepp loving the packers huh oh i'd be the same way if i was directing like the nuggets were like the championship game checking the score on the phone
Was that a cut? Yeah, sorry, cut. He said they were playing at Lambeau Field. maybe it was a nfc champion yeah or it could have been uh what year this was 90 99 98 99 maybe it was a playoff game yeah or so he was uh just sort of distracted he said But anyway, so the cool thing about this block, and I'll talk about a little bit. Well, we'll fish in and out of some locations here. The side of the street that there are actual houses on that they walk out of.
That is George Street in Chicago. And then when the camera shifts and looks across the street to the party house that they go to, that's actually in Wicker Park in Chicago. Oh, nice. Yeah, and so they were... not next to each other and a lot of the movies like this this block quote unquote that they live on is made up like four different locations um and so so they actually had to build
a semi-facade-looking balcony that Kevin Bacon's sitting on with the monitor with his window in the background across the street. They had to build just a little faux balcony across the street they were using at the time. And so I don't know why they just wanted to get the feel. They liked the party house one in Wicker Park because the train is right there behind them, and they caught the train a couple times going by. And they were super happy about that.
is wicker park where's that at carmelo is that like actually on the north side um okay and uh it's like now at least anyway it's a really trendy cool area to be in you know it's okay Like the Chicago thing is for a neighborhood to be kind of.
broke ass. So starving artists move in and then the starting artists make the neighborhood cool. And then people with money move in because it's cool now. And then they develop it and they price out the starving artists who then have to leave. And that's what happened.
yeah basically so in any case wicker park's really fun to hang out in now there's a ton of shit okay that's north that's like where chris's family is around right like she her family is from the north side but they're they're not they're they're not over there okay wicker parks maybe a little more I don't know. I'm not the best with geography, but it's further south and it's west.
It's still like in traffic like an hour and a half away from your house, right? Well, if you try to cross Chicago in rush hour traffic, it's two hours to go from one side to the other. If you try to go off traffic. 45 minutes anywhere in the city. Wow. Isn't that that movie with Josh Hartnett and Wicker Park? There is a movie called Wicker Park, isn't there? Matthew Lillard.
no rose rose burn i think it is called wicker is it called wicker parks it's called wicker park oh yeah i cried man i don't know if it has anything to do with chicago but maybe it does it i don't know you cried what is it a drama yeah it's it's chicago it's it's about it like a young chicago uh yeah he's in a cafe it's his long lost love yep so it's a drama it's like a
romantic drama or something yeah i remember seeing it it's it's actually uh very emotional i remember seeing it when it first came out in 2004 or whatever you know Yeah, that's the very same. All right. I already mentioned that David Koepp was tight with Soderbergh, but also Brian De Palma lent some advice on this. Oh, yeah.
I saw he painted the set. Yeah, he did. They were good friends. And he... David Kemp actually is a man of his craft. He talked about some of these shots and how Brian De Palma... would use this in his films shots where they're very long and they sort of span the room during throughout the course of the shot. And it's not. necessarily a close-up it's more of a wide or medium shot and so a good example was
I don't know that you would remember this just from the movie because it's one of these random things. There's a couple times, like, they're talking in the kitchen, him and his wife, earlier on in the movie. And you sort of get the whole span of the kitchen while they're talking. It never cuts. I forgot what even they're fucking talking about at the time. But he just talked about how those types of shots are so much harder than they look. And when he sees them in films.
They're very reminiscent of Brian De Palma and earlier cinema of Brian De Palma and early Spielberg and things. And he just really appreciates them.
So one such shot, not as complicated as what I just mentioned, but it was De Palma's idea to do this shot. Now we've moved into the house where he's asking to be hypnotized. It hasn't happened yet, but we have this slow... pushing on kevin bacon that happens when he's sitting in this chair for the whole first half of this scene where they're all talking and you hear other people talking but it's just slowly pushing it on him and finally when they start talking more about hypnosis
becomes more traditional with the two shot and go back and forth from her to him. But, you know, just sort of interesting. That was specifically something Brian De Palma was like, you should do this in this scene. Like just have a slow pushing on Kevin Bacon, sit on the chair here. So. DePaul, the direct to Mission Impossible, where he was on the rider, of course, one of the riders. They probably were friends there. I did see that, though, that he did stop by setting.
recommended that long take of him with the long dialogue scene and stuff. Now that I'm thinking about what you just said, it does trigger like, oh yeah, I kind of do remember that. And you guys already talked about... the hypnosis being pretty cool and that was a big important thing for david kepp is he wanted to shoot it exactly like it described it in the book which was this whole movie theater thing he said oftentimes in film it's just sort of
always done the same way oh someone's being hypnotized it's two people sitting across from each other someone's spinning a watch and it's you know it's just sort of the same thing but he wanted it all to be from the person being hypnotized point of view. And then we don't really know what happened and he comes out of it and we don't really know what they saw. You know, we know what he saw, but he doesn't have an idea. And so, um, Kep said that.
sometimes you film a movie that just to do one scene you have a an idea in your mind and you're like this is it we're gonna we're gonna make a movie right right and like He said that was sort of what this movie theater sequence was. He had this in his mind and he's like, this is the way I want to film it. And the movie came out. So it is really one of his favorite.
I love this. We see it again later in the film when it tells him to dig. But yeah, he wanted to do it exactly like it was. And so he said they did. They went, they found a theater that also had a drop-down movie screen.
in Chicago, and... of course the seats turning black and the walls turning black was all the screen turns well everything goes black that's how it hooked you like like you're saying yeah yeah but everything else was pretty much i mean later on when it shows him floating in the chair that was a
crane arm with some green screen fabric over it that they you know rotoscoped out and so um the the weird finicky thing is that they were trying to get those words on the screen very blurred or out of focus and He said no matter how out of focus they made it, you could still clearly read what the words were. And so they had to do a bunch more in post and it ended up looking like you can barely see anything until they come into view. I freaking love that scene where like...
it like really like it like fades slowly up even when he's floating in like the chair and yeah it's going close to the screen like oh fuck here here here comes what's what's gonna happen somebody to jump out the screen what's gonna happen and then you just see like the word sleep okay okay we're good we're good we also get introduced to some of these flashes here and obviously flashes are a big part of this film flashes meaning
These visions he has, and they're cut very tightly and quickly together. Her fingernail chipping off. I'll get to that, too. The fingernail just gets me. um but he he talked about the flashes being a big stylistic choice and one of his inspirations i just brought this up because we just talked about rod steiger in um
The last in The Kindred. The Kindred. Right. But he talked about how this movie called The Pawn Broker with Rod Steiger having flashbacks of the Holocaust is what sort of inspired these.
quick flashes of visions that in his film i just thought it was a coincidence oh we were just talking about rod steiger so yeah heck yeah look at that yeah um interestingly enough too the pin going through the hand uh in the flash in the flashes or what he sees you know i i mean he said they just paid a dude a hundred dollars and he actually did it twice but
He shoved a safety pin through the skin between his thumbs. I was wondering how the hell they did that. If I'm completely drunk, maybe I would do that. You would, but you'd hate yourself for it the next day. Yeah. He was like, let's pay the guy 100 bucks. He did it twice. Just a local talent in Chicago. He didn't elaborate, which I was like.
You need someone who can dislocate their thumb, and it turns out they're right beneath your nose the whole time. We were looking for someone the whole time, and I'm like, wait, I think Liz can do it, my wife. What? We've been looking. There are so many times. Yep, I know. That was one of those moments I just looked at you and I was like. If you guys haven't heard the story, we needed someone to dislocate their thumb in our film Sim Eater.
oh my god and so we were like oh let's find someone we can get a close-up of them dislocating our thumb it'll look like jesse's doing it and and we were like searching for a couple weeks and i like was talking to a girl who could maybe do it and maybe we could get her there and And somehow it came out, Scottie's like, oh, my wife can dislocate her, though. We're like, what the fuck? Have you not been paying attention? I kind of want to know. Wait a minute now.
Scotty, find out. Did he ever handcuffed one night and she found her way out and he realized it? I think that she finally fulfilled this fantasy of her thumbing his butt.
and there was like a crack and he was like are you okay and she's like no no i can this is this i can do this look at it keep doing that i like the dislocation that that like little knuckle sound yeah yeah and that's why he didn't tell us sooner he didn't until that happened and then he had to pretend like yeah dude yeah and just forgot and definitely didn't learn last night with liz
That's her hand in Sin Eater. So, yeah, we all know that now. Finally, we found someone. Oh, yeah, my wife. Guilty as charged. Yeah. For any tech nerds out there, all his flashbacks and visions were shot with a 14mm portrait lens. Just to get that certain look. And now we arrive at, yes, the fingernail coming off, which I couldn't. honestly i couldn't watch it like i've i watched it a couple times and then i watched the commentary and i had to look away because that just really makes me
Oh, and his, him pulling his teeth out and stuff too. I know. I didn't mind the teeth so much. The fingernail just really got me. And he talked about David kept said that the fingernail didn't really land. It wasn't doing anything until they added. the wet celery crunch sound effect along with it. Oh, that'll do it. It'll do it. And that's what, you know, put the icing on the cake. That's what topped it off. You didn't mention the hypnosis sister.
Ileana Douglas, she's been in a ton of stuff. She has. She was really good at Lisa. Yeah, no, she has. You mentioned the tooth. Speaking of the tooth, the whole idea was to do this tooth gag in one shot. It didn't quite end up working that way. But basically what happens is he looks in the mirror. He pulls the prosthetic tooth off with his hand.
And you can't see the bottom of his hand in the shot. And he's holding like a fake tooth with his pinky. And so he pulls the prosthetic tooth off, drops the fake tooth into the sink with his pinky. the camera pans down real quick to see that fake tooth that he dropped. He's supposed to wipe his mouth real quick and it comes back up and now he's clean. And like, it never happened, you know?
But he said something about how they had to linger on the sink too long for him to clean up. And they ended up, I think, just whip pan cutting anyways. But that was the idea. But he did have the tooth in his pinky and dropped it. And I actually thought... he pulls the tooth out but I think it's fairly obvious it's just like a veneer it's like a thin
It doesn't look like a full tooth. It looks like there's a tooth there still. They must have painted his tooth black or something. It's a prosthetic on top of it, but it just didn't look like... It looked like he pulled off a covering of a tooth, not a full tooth. Yeah, totally did. Yeah, I thought it was weird. Then we sort of get introduced to her.
In a bit, the way they did these movements I'm talking about that stuck in my head, these jerky movements, is they shot her at six frames per second and had her move quarter speed. So if you... might not know but most films are shot at 24 frames per second um which catches people moving naturally whatever if you were to shoot someone moving naturally at six frames per second
they would look like they're going very fast. They would just be a little bit weird. They look like they have a little bit of pickup speed to them. But by her moving purposefully at quarter speed, like they would just say, go slow in your movements.
and they shoot it at six frames per second, it sort of brings her back up to normal speed, but gives this weird jerky movement to it. And that's how they did it. So it's not really any kind of digital effect or anything. It's just... the way they shot the film yeah so she was just walking normally
Well, not normally, at quarter speed. Quarter speed. She had to do all her movements at quarter speed while they shot it at six frames per second. That's a freaky moment there. It's all cold and has that blue tone to the screen and stuff. Yeah, they pretty much do that any... she's on screen moving is what he said. Nice.
Besides the very only way she's happy and finally found. Yeah, of course. So Samantha Kozak was played by Jennifer Morrison. And I just realized, I looked her up. I'm like, oh, she looks familiar. And I just realized she's like the main character in Once Upon a Time. the abc oh yeah that is her episodes yeah i didn't realize that hell i didn't i never put that together the swan and once upon a time yeah but now that you mention it that is that's her i mean yeah many years apart yeah
Look at that. A little Easter egg is the babysitter is reading The Shrinking Man by Richard Matheson, which is another popular novel of his. David Koepp said that in this... in this universe of his film, Richard Matheson exists and has written all the books he has indeed written, except for Stir of Echoes. Got it. Really? Nice.
But yeah, another side note here. I've talked a little bit about how I think he really appreciates his craft. He talked about that he had all these great ideas in his head. They didn't, some of them didn't quite make it to screen or didn't quite turn out like the way he wanted. We're about to see how far down the line it is. We're about to talk about one now with the sort of the noise and the red.
going on when they leave the babysitter. Yeah. Actually, I wonder if I read. Oh, it is. I am at the note right now. So basically. He has this sort of red vision along with a buzzing noise. We take that as he's being warned or something, that something bad is going to happen. Something's not right. And it does come across great.
he had a vision, David kept that, that it would just be a sound. This would just be a sound that would happen. There wouldn't be anything visual. And that's how it would come across. And they tried that. And he tried.
just tons of different sound effects and he said it didn't play until he visually put something there because you couldn't really it was like is that does is that just an actor's head is everyone supposed to hear that sound what's what is that you know yeah and it didn't really play until they put in this red vision and then another thing with that sequence is that
He was trying to really play that when Kevin Bacon was shuffling through the crowd, trying to get in the game, realizing something was wrong, turning around, that was supposed to be very loud and in stark contrast to... The silence of cutting back to the babysitter, trying to listen intently to the baby monitor. Yeah, that was a cool sequence where it would cut back. But in his head, he was like, oh, I was picturing this deafening loudness.
with kevin bacon and then this deafening silence with the baby monitor i could see that it was pretty chaotic during that like football stadium scene yeah and he said it came across a little but not nearly to the contrast he wanted sure in his head And then he said something I thought was cool. Coppola was quoted as saying, on a good day, he gets 25% on film of what he had in his head.
yeah really yeah so you can picture things so much in your head and and they come out a certain way on screen and you just have to know that you know Yeah, I have to say, sorry, going back, that jump scare, the first one where Samantha's on the couch and he turns on TV and it's all fuzzy and he sits back and she's like right there. I remember that moment, but it freaking got me again. I was like, oh, fuck. God. I like how he tries to recreate it.
And, you know, do the remote again and sit over trying to do it. And you, he does like three times and you think she's going to appear, but he's never does. It never happens. Yeah. That part kept said, got a little bit of a laugh. And he said that he included that because he likes... He pictures them having... I guess not Kevin Bacon's not having fun with this, but... It's something interesting that is interrupting his maybe otherwise boring life. And that's what we all want.
supernatural things to do and be like he said if that would happen to me i'd be there sitting on the couch trying to make it happen again like what are you gonna do if you saw something you're gonna try and make it show up again right right right that's one of the most realistic things i've seen in any of these
you know, you like turn the corner and see a ghost and like, it's really spooky. And then I love how he just like keeps recreating it. And the camera keeps going for the jump scare and there's no jump scare. It was really clever. Like if you turned the corner and saw a ghost, she'd be like.
And then he looked and it disappeared. You'd be like, hold on, let me try that again. I'm freaked as shit right now, but let me try that again. Right, right. People in the movie lights out, you know, and they turn out. Oh yeah. Oh yeah, dude. And then they do it. They play with the light a couple of times.
and it's like that is what i would do i mean i would be peeing my pants when you see the movie you're like stop run but in real life you'd be like the fuck was that exactly that movie's fucking scary too he talked about yeah lights out and just the idea of it's scary and then the movie was cool but yeah uh but he kept talked about a lot of inspiration he had for this film and
one of them being with the playfulness of the of the spirit or the haunting he related it to poltergeist and craig t nelson and they come home and the mom has like the helmet on the kid they're using They're using the spirit, like, as fun because it's, what is it, like, drags him across the room over and over again or something? Right, right. I forgot exactly what happened, but he related to that. But he did say that the movie was greatly inspired by...
Poltergeist in that regard. But not only that, so I'll list off Poltergeist, Rosemary's Baby, Exorcist, Close Encounters. These are all films he said that really play hard on the domestic aspect of the family being in a house. and their relationship you know um poltergeist they have this family here much like this exorcist is not the whole family but they're there
There's some exorcist references, a smoldering good looks and a priest can help you out, you know? Oh yeah. Yeah. He's got some Easter eggs. One that. I thought was blaringly obvious that he never mentioned is the shining like with the kid and the, Oh yeah. It's so shining. Oh yeah. He never even mentions it as an inspiration or a reference at all. But you have the dad and the kid here doing the same thing. Yeah. He's got the pickaxe.
they got they kind of had the same visions and stuff too yeah there's the x-ray eyes and shiny is one of those movies where like i just feel like if you were a filmmaker and not even just a horror filmmaker shining and like cubrick shit falls under that category of like If you are a film person, you've seen some Kubrick or you're at least familiar with his work. So it's really hard to think of any filmmaker professionally dedicated their life to it. Who isn't at least.
tangentially inspired by it oh for sure i agree yeah i agree that's just that's just my feeling i mean people came up to us after our movies and was like oh did you mean to make it look like xyz I'm like, well, no, I wasn't thinking about that at the time, but I've seen XYZ. And so, yeah, I probably was up in here. It's probably up in there. Yeah, so true. Another location, the street that.
You see when he's trying to chase the kid down initially and then the bus station and also the theater where they filmed the dream sequence stuff was in a place called Joliet. Is that South America? Yeah, Joliet's a place, all right. Is it? Joliet is a horrible shithole area in Illinois. It's just a... Is it outside the city? It is outside the city. It's like Southwest-ish. It's like a different, I don't know.
It's just not a nice place to go. It's not that it's that ghetto or hood. I'm not saying it's like this dangerous place. It's just this like shitty gray place. It's like Greeley, Colorado. They have a plant there that makes something so it always smells there. It's like a river that's polluted. I would describe it as gray. It's just not very much either. eye candy. Yeah, there's nothing to look at. There you go. Another little sort of mess upset that I thought was funny is...
He has this double dream sequence, right, where he wakes up, the Groundhog Day type thing. and the second time he goes over there, and the kid really shoots himself, and he has to break the window open. He grabs a chair off the porch or something, and you see a Virgin Mary statue.
in the window as he throws the chair. Right. And it gets knocked over and then he, it cuts back and you see the broken window again, but the Virgin Mary statue standing up and then he calls to the window and knocks it over. Right. The hell? I didn't notice that. Yeah, I didn't either tell Kep pointed it out. I thought he was like, our miracle of Virgin Mary is okay after the chair goes through the window. Nice.
So that happens. He shoots himself. That was that kid's first movie ever, by the way. He was a local, too, around Chicago. And I know Carmelo said there really isn't any weak point.
But if there was, I would say maybe the two brothers in the sequence. But it might have been, again, we just talked about this last film. It might have been a choice because it played very... dream sequence and it played very uh 50s kid yeah well don't you ever do anything you're not supposed to yeah yeah kind of kind of corny and stuff yeah and and it's like i sort of took it as like
It was from the ghost perspective, you know, like it's this weird, scary situation with these like guys that kill her. She's not remembering their good qualities or them being normal. She's remembering like, they're like monsters. Yep. Yeah. I mean, you're right. If there were, if there were weak links, it was, it was probably them. But it didn't play. I wasn't watching it and taken out of it. No, no, no. And if anything, if it was a choice.
if anything it added a little thing to remember which was yeah yeah it added some i mean it made it kind of sinister you know yeah like trying to act like 50s like boys will be boys and then They fucking killed this poor girl. The actress who played Samantha actually ended up being a lot of stuff. Yeah, well, Scotty was just talking about...
Once upon a time. Once upon a time. Right. I think it's going to spring out again. Yeah. Jennifer Morrison. Yeah. She's been at your mother for a while too. Oh, okay. One of the star tracks. She's been at a lot. Her and Bacon. and Ileana Douglas and Kevin Dunn are probably the most. Yeah. Kevin Dunn's a really recognizable character. He's been in a ton of shit. He did amazing, too. I like him, too. He's good in everything. He's really good. Another little tidbit is that...
It was supposed to be. The song was supposed to be Break On Through from the Rolling Stones. But they couldn't get it for some reason and had to go with Paint It Black. What? I had to include this tidbit because Painted Black was so tied to this movie in my mind when I was a kid. I don't know why. It was in the trailer.
It only shows up in the movie briefly once, but it was all over the trailer. How could they get that and not break it through? Who knows with those things? Break on through is the doors, isn't it? You're right. It is the doors. If they're the same artist, yeah, it is Doors, right? Oh, you're right. I just feel like... If you can afford the stones, you can afford the door. Am I wrong? Jim Morrison must be a stickler. Yeah, maybe it was. Yeah, I don't know.
The Stone song is great in this. It is. It is great. Yeah. I get to see how thematically the door song. It's kind of creepy. Yeah. Break on three. Yeah. To the other side. But is it, and correct me if I'm wrong, the version of peanut black that plays in the movie when it's not the stones. It's a cover, right? Yeah, it's a cover. Yeah. And we learned about this in our own filmmaking experience that, you know.
And as a, as like a copyright lawyer, I can tell you, you can get different kinds of rights to things. And one of those, like you can get the sync rights to the song. Like you can use the song in connection with this movie and only with this movie. But that's different than getting the rights to the master recording that the song is. So you can get the sync rights even for a song like that.
for maybe something like in the 20s of thousands of dollars, right? In that kind of range. And then you can have someone cover it for you for just a few grand. You can even have them cover it for you in a way that sounds... almost exactly like the original like they didn't quite in this they kind of did let it be their own cover but you know that's way cheaper than getting the master the master recording rights are probably in the six figures yeah wow
So, so even like, like any movie you see that's like 3 million or under, if they've got a recognizable song, they probably licensed it for like 20 grand and then paid a cover band. two or three grand to do their own version of it. That's cool that that's allowable, that they can do that. That makes sense. For any fellow metalheads, the Black Dahlia murder has a...
amazing cover of painted black that I'm sure they paid $0 for and just did it. And I don't know what the legalities are surrounding that, but. Yeah, well, sometimes you just get away with stuff. Yeah. I was going to ask you, was that Night of the Living Dead that Jake was watching? Yeah, I actually have the note. Actually, at first, it was a Hammer film. that he was on. And then Samantha kept turning it. Then it switched to some weird...
creepy kids show called Lidsville at the time, or from the 70s, I think. Kep said it was from the 70s. Lidsville, I think it was what he said it was called, which is ironic because he said it looks way creepier than the horror films that were on yeah these weird ass you know oh yeah that the feebles running around kids film yeah that was that was kind of disturbingly it does look like meet the feebles but then it does go to night of the living dead after that which what famously has no
rights associated with it or something like that. Isn't that like a thing that Night of the Living Dead is public domain or something like that? Or at least these days, I thought it was a thing. Was it Night of the Living Dead or was it another? I think it was Night of the Living Dead. It was Night of the Living Dead. Yeah, it was. It's in so many movies now. There's no rights for it. You can just use it. I think it's a thing. I thought that was a thing.
covered it yeah we talked about how they lost it and it like became public domain due to fault of people not doing the right shit to your copyrights and stuff and yeah so i i don't really recall but Yeah, that was kind of a cool sequence where, you know, the bathtub's steaming hot, and then she cools, Samantha cools it, and then...
Then it's just to go to the basement to light the pilot light. He talked about how, yeah, of course, her cooling, the steam disappears and it sort of like draws into her. You can sort of get that from it. There was a lot of steam there. Yeah, the water becomes... I think that's the only reason the digital scene works is that it's surrounding specifically her who's also not really there. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah.
So when she's initially filling the bathtub, it's real steam. It's not real steam. They smoked it. It's like haze or smoke. Yeah. And then when she's sitting there stirring it, of course, that's all digital steam. I think the only reason it didn't bother me a whole lot is because, yeah, it was like, she's not really real, and it's not really, it's just sort of all this weird shit. Yeah. It's like the supernatural shit happening.
Yeah, and she sucks the heat out of everything, so that's why, obviously, that happened. Right. So, yeah, it goes down there and everything. I thought I had more notes about that, but maybe I... I guess I did. Yeah, it was digital, Steve, right there. But anyways, the kid, oh, we were talking about how the kid shot himself. Then they go on to the cemetery scene. They actually built those statues that Jake sort of references.
talks to for a second oh hi there which I thought was cool but also a little bit extra But yeah, they built those three that are there. Yeah. Did you notice anything? Did you know anything about him doing like the voice, like Jake's voice? Yeah. They talked about how all they did was... That was kind of creepy. They just, in post, what they call it, they messed with a harmonic something and it halfway through the sentence and bam. It was super, super duper simple. That was cool.
they said they tested it a bunch fucking with the voice for like the entire line so when the whole line not just the drop in the middle and they tried all these different voices and they tried messing with it and it just didn't sound creepy or right at all and yeah They finally just simply dropped it in the middle of his line, and they thought it worked great, and they got a lot of gasps from audiences and things like that. I will say, upon re-watching yesterday, it's...
I don't know if it's aged the best because they've done so much with audio these days, but it's cool. Yeah, it's creepy. I'll go back to where you were. Yeah, but also they go to the cemetery. They built those statues for it there. And then they talked about how this was sort of a rough shot with a kid. You had this crane shot of him, not really a crane, but a dolly shot of him walking in and walking behind these police officers.
took a bunch of takes, and they were running out of daylight. And you can't really tell on the film, but the reverse between him and her... towards the end where the cop is talking to her back and forth his section of it it's like basically nighttime and hers it's still that golden hour um oh really but you can't i couldn't really tell while watching it honestly he talked about it the Yeah, Neil. And to his credit, Kep said that he actually met with Spielberg.
before shooting this to get his advice on working with kids because Spielberg famously has great performances from children in his films. Spielberg just said, you have to... be able to let them paraphrase and and like don't have the parents work the material too much with them because and i understand that if they get caught and it has to be said a certain way they'll just fumble over that over and over again you know
But if they can sort of just say it in their own way and you just communicate that to them before each take. Oh, sure. Yeah, he said that let them do their thing and you'll get some of the best unscripted lines of the movie that way. Yes. And more natural acting reaction and stuff. Yeah. Oh, another funny thing. Now we move into, we've met Neil. She's the, you know,
she goes out to meet him instead of him. He's all distracted playing the beginning of paint of black on his guitar, the kids there. And, um, So she goes out and they said, kept said while scouting for that alley that they used, he actually stepped in human shit while we're looking at the alley. Yeah, I think this place is ratty.
Low grade enough. That'll happen. The Chicago Tourism Bureau actually intentionally spreads human feces in certain areas just to set the mood, you know? You want to feel like you're in authentic... downtown chicago somewhere it was human shit it could have been he had a vision i think human shit is fairly distinct i mean i guess if you had a big dog it could look similar but yeah
I don't know how they know. Homeless guy's got to go poop somewhere. It's right there in the alley. Why not? That's true. That's true. Kep's wife actually plays the woman at...
Ileana's house or apartment whatever it is when Kevin Bacon goes in and is like reverse it reverse it you gotta get rid of the shit in my head the Spanish that's talking yeah yeah so that's that's David Kepp's wife and he said that that's supposed to subtly hint that she's a lesbian but he's like it turned out not to be very subtle everyone just assumed that's what it was for yeah and uh his wife graciously stepped in to do that um she and then she did good
Then another element of the film is orange juice, right? Like there's orange juice. He just chugs. And it makes you want to chug orange juice. I need to go buy cartons of orange juice tonight or tomorrow. No, I'm still thirsty. As soon as you said orange juice, I was like, damn it. Chug it straight out of the carton, too.
doesn't watching those sequences just make you want to chug orange juice it does yeah but even as i was watching i was like there's so much fucking sugar in that you can't drink orange it's true and his whole fridge is like lined with cartons of orange juice but like I guess seriously, if you were like sundown to sun or sunrise to sunset, just digging or smashing concrete.
like you probably will use all those calories. That's true. That's very true. That's very true. Oh my God. When he, when he gets very thirsty after these, whether he's working in the backyard or yet it happens after both hypnosis sessions. He doesn't spring. You know, you'd spring for water, but he springs for the Miller Lite the second time.
Yeah. Oh, dude, that light ice-cold beer will quench your thirst. I don't know if orange juice, because I guess orange juice does kind of quench your thirst. You guys are killing me right now. I'm going to get something to drink. You're thirsty. You did. Yeah, yeah. I got some ice water right here. I got a little water. I finished my whiskey.
whiskey already now i have this uh water right here go for it um but anyways so yeah uh the orange juice david kept just said is random because there's no real reason there's no real juice He said it doesn't really have a purpose. He just thought it'd be cool if he was obsessed with chugging orange juice. Not Gatorade, not water, not milk. I like the orange juice. It is refreshing.
Yeah. Apple juice. Just to put a little twist in it. I'm not a big fan of apple juice. I don't know. I like it. Really? Yeah, I like apple juice. I'd probably like orange juice more, though. I'd rather chug me some orange juice than getting down on the apple juice. Straight out of the carton. Did you notice that when he's digging... This is just my note. Did you notice when he was digging in the backyard and started arguing with his wife that...
There's like a neighbor in the background just watching them the whole time. I didn't notice it until I watched the commentary. Maybe. I don't think so. There's just a guy. Like standing in the yard next to them in the background. Maybe I did see that. He's very in the background. He's very in the background. You can't see a face. He's sort of a silhouette. And he's just watching them like the whole time.
I wonder if that was planted there, or if he was just... That's what I'm wondering, too, and I was expecting David Kemp during the commentary to at least say something. Oh, you know, we put our grit back there, or we wanted to have the neighbor back there just to... for this reason or that reason but he didn't say anything about it so i'm wondering if there's no way it could be accidental like if there's a dude in the background just watching all the cameras rolling
They would have fixed that. They would have been like, we got a guy in the background. Move him out. They would have seen that. They would have been like, I know it's your house, buddy. We're filming here. Unless he was an asshole. Unless they're like...
Someone went over to talk to him and was like, could you please stay out of your backyard while you're filming? He's probably like, fuck you guys. You didn't rent my place. I'm going to watch the filming. I want to get this. I want to see this. I'm not moving it. I just thought it was strange that...
He would just be there sort of watching over there. I don't remember seeing a glimpse of that, but I'd have to go back and watch it again. How funny that is. I don't know. It was weird. This is also the part where she... he sort of predicts the phone call and she gets the phone call about her grandma dying, you know? Oh yeah. Yep. Yep. That's yeah. Comes in. They have that big fight. This was another thing. This was a, another thing that, um,
David kept wanting to take right out of the book was not, sorry, not right. It is right out of the book, but he changed the dialogue slightly so that it reflected a vivid memory of his. He said that he vividly remembers. the news of his grandmother dying happening like that his mom answered the phone was like what and then she did and that was it and he like knew he was in the other room and he heard that and he knew his grandma had died
And so he wanted to just have the exact same thing happen here. He said he did that a lot in this film. He said the house greatly resembled the house he was living in at the time. And so did Richard Matheson said the same thing about the house. that it very much resembled the house that he was living in when he wrote the book. And then same with the Chicago stuff. And then this thing about the grandma dying. And he just worked a lot of personal things in there, which he said is.
what he likes to do because he said he feels like a more quality film comes across then because he can sit there and write.
spy movie scripts but he doesn't he's never been a spy and he can't relate to that you know but but he has two kids and has this family aesthetic and can portray that in his in his screenplay yeah and that's the camera carmel i while you were getting grabbing a drink i'm just curious did you when they're digging and him and the wife start fighting there's a random i didn't notice till my second watch through
There's a random neighbor in the background just watching him the whole time. Did you notice that? Holy shit, really. I didn't really notice either. Just some fucking guy, like a silhouette in the background. And during the commentary, Kep didn't mention it at all. I was waiting for him to be like, oh, that's...
we put bob in the background to to just have like someone there but now i'm like was there some asshole neighbor that like they requested to steer clear of his backyard but he just wouldn't do it or so you know right right exactly there's there's a qualm that i had so So I know, like, he goes to Ileana's house, Lisa, and he sees the second vision, tries to get her to reverse it and change me back, whatever. And he sees the word dig. Like, it's...
It's going to be Samantha that's, like, talking to him through that hypnosis, it seems like. Like, hey, here's where to find me. Dig. Like, I'm not leaving your mind until you find me and I bring my body to justice. Like, she could have put, like, break brick. Yeah, not dig. Dig is not the right word. Or knockout wall. Wall. Wall would have been better. Basement wall. Like dig.
Or maybe, though. I don't know if you can fit basement wall on that screen. Wall. Because he's digging, and he doesn't have to dig. He just has to knock on a wall. He doesn't have to dig on a wall. I know. That really sucks. But, yeah, he wastes so much time.
digs open the house and it's like it was in the wall the whole time but but maybe she hates the house she just wants it completely poured up i like that she's just oh he hates the neighbor he owns the house he's the one that owns it she's like fuck up his whole damn yard yeah right he's in on it too so it's like fuck this whole thing up i'm gonna have him dig and then i'm at the last
second i'm gonna make him like slip and hit the wall behind him yep kept it say that he's sure the owner of the house they used wasn't thrilled about the backyard oh yeah i bet but they actually the interiors of the house was all on a set and the exteriors were on location obviously so yeah
Hopefully they at least filled the fucking hole. Oh, I'm sure. Yeah. I'm sure the yard wasn't even in good shape to begin with. It was probably one of those weed yards that was. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So whatever, you know. But oh, and also, and you wonder this while watching the movie, he kicks the bucket and it breaks the window. Totally unintentional. Really? That was? That was amazing. Totally unintentional. He said Kevin Bacon had the, had like...
the good know-how to just keep walking like it was supposed to happen. You know what I mean? Yeah, right, right. He said it totally was not intentional at all. So they ended up using that take then. Yeah. That's true. You never know. Something good like that happens, you know? Yeah, we dug up your backyard. We broke your window. We broke your window. She breaks it, too. His wife breaks it when she slams the door. Breaks the window, too. That's true. I thought that was fun. But then he does...
You know, we see the whole sequence where the hose doesn't work. He goes into the basement and then he looks at the basement floor and it's like, oh, this might be where I'm supposed to dig. There's a little cool jump cut there where he starts to climb the ladder. stops, gets down, looks down at the floor, and then you think it's reversing to what he's looking at, which it does. It shows the floor. But then the next thing that happens is the pickaxe comes into view and hits the floor. And so...
The director talked about this, how it was essentially a boost forward in time. It wasn't just the reverse of him in that moment. I see. It moved forward to him with the pickaxe, right? That makes sense to me. Yeah, and he said that he pulled that directly from Jaws. I guess there's a part where they're talking about, oh, you're not going to get that shark cage. You're nuts, right? And then the reverse shot.
where you would think would be like his reaction is actually just him like in the cage then you know what i mean so it's jumping it's jumped all this exposition or anything that didn't need to happen. And he's like, he thought the audience really appreciates things like that. And so it jump cuts right to that moment. Yeah. It was like very intentional. It just jumped to that moment, but he had already gone out to get the bat.
pickaxe gone back down the stairs but just jumps to it yeah yeah yeah exactly um but you're you talked about how yeah the axe hits the wall and kepp wasn't really happy with that so at this point during filming they shot this towards the end And he's just running out of time. He's running out of time. He talked about how... What's that like? How are we going to find the body? Oh, I think we... Dude, I think we ran out of time trying to find bodies in a wall. Yeah, we sure did.
I had to have a little hissy fit with some of the crew, and we finally were able to get some of that stuff. Animal bodies. Yeah, so he talked about how he... If he had the time, he wished that that shot would have gone differently. He thought that the crumbling wall looked a little bit janky and that thinking back, he...
would have got it from overhead when it hit the wall. Like it would be this overhead shot of Kevin Bacon digging and the backswing would hit the wall and it would be this overhead shot. It looked more like an accident that way. Yeah, and you wouldn't see... the wall look at quite as fragile you know uh and then he also said that him pulling it apart was it's tough to get and they ended up going with
Samantha's POV for most of it which we see from inside the brick from inside the plastic because they weren't getting what he wanted from the other side but then he did say he ended up thinking that was best anyways like we were forced to do that and i think it was best anyways yeah i agree completely the the pov from inside the plastic is creepy like yeah it was great that's yeah yeah and he said that of course if they had more time they had a little more budget
on any given day if they were doing that he wasn't getting what he wanted they would just move to something the next day while the crew rebuilt the wall and they did it again and again but they just didn't have that luxury you know yeah so um And again, he was running out of time. And this was when Kevin Bacon runs over to tell the neighbor that he found all this. And I want you to know first, but I'm going to go to the cops.
And he was saying that they had the rain going, they paid for the rain, and Kevin Bacon had been waiting around for four hours to do that scene. And they were running out of time. He said, Kevin, all right, it's time. You really have to get this in like one take because we're basically out of time. Really? And he said that was it. He nailed it. That was the take. Really? Nice. He nailed that. That's awesome. Yeah.
He said there was one moment where they clashed a little bit on set. It was some unnoticeable shot when they were in Ileana's apartment.
before she tries to hypnotize him again they're like over by the corner window and it was supposed to be this like two shot they ended up doing one of those shots I described with De Palma where it's sort of just like wide on both coming around long dialogue and they clashed on that for a little bit like they started to do it traditionally and kevin bacon said the pacing is all off it's not working and
director was like well i think it should be this way and then he sort of had to leave and cool down and they he thought about it was like well maybe so and then they found a way that they could do it so he was like ended up working great He just said, I think sometimes if you don't have some of those tensions, it doesn't turn out as good as it could have. Oh, yeah. Yeah, you need that. I agree. What's funny about the rain that I mentioned, they had this fake rain on set, is...
The wife on her way there and then getting there, it's raining on her car, of course, while she's driving. And they specifically picked a night to do that quick little insert shot when it was pouring rain. And they did it, and he said that the actual pouring rain looked super fake. And so they really actually had to do fake rain to make it look real. What? Oh, that sucks.
I don't know how it looks fake. What a chance is there. Yeah, he said it looks fake. So, yeah, I think that's pretty – I got just a couple more here. Oh, at the end when – She's sort of freed up and...
She walks out the door and the car comes around the corner and goes through her ghost. Yeah, that's cool. That was completely Kevin Bacon's idea. Oh, really? And so was the clasping of the... hands in front of the moving truck as it pushed in that was great because they wanted a way to kept talked about how you know when it's over it's over and sometimes there's too much at the end of endings and He wanted a nonverbal way to sort of show that everything's...
in place so that it didn't slow down the pacing and right right they thought that was a good way to do it i liked it yeah she walks off she has a red coat on she's free and she's happy and then the car kind of runs in her go yeah you can tell that she's gone off to where like carmel said wherever ghosts go when they're happy yeah it was kind of a cool way to do it where like
she's walking off. And at first I was like, Oh, that's kind of neat. And then the car goes through her. And I thought, okay, that was a good little flourish. Yeah. Yeah. Like, okay, she's, she's going off. Yeah. And then like them.
the u-haul truck pulls up of course they're they're moving out the place is demolished and and he you see that hand grab where yeah like they're like they're good now i love they're good good finally and the ending of course ultimately is them driving and the kid hearing the whispers from all around dealing with it but uh that's what we see the he had one written an original ending that you actually saw the birth of The baby, because she's...
Pregnant, I guess? Yeah, she's pregnant. Okay, that's what I thought. But not too far along. Which doesn't come up often. Yeah, it does. Yeah, I didn't even remember right now. It's mentioned like the second scene by Ileana, and that's it. So... The original ending was you see the birth of the baby, and somehow it's portrayed that that baby is also psychic, like the kid. And that was going to be the ending.
That's cool. Yeah, a little involved, of course. And he just said he liked the idea of the kid hearing the whispers and everything and passing through his house. Yeah, that was good. That was better. and he's plugging his ears like god dang it yeah like it's not over but it's it's it doesn't ruin the movie it's not like some stupid jump scare where the ghost is still mad at you like the girl from the room
Yeah. But it was like, hey, it's still going on. So let's just be straight about this for a second. We've all thinking it. This kid has the shinning, right? He's got the shinning. He has the shinning. Yeah. For sure. The cop calls it the eyes. He's got the eyes. Yeah, exactly. And it's like a bald, charming black guy, just like Scatman Crothers in the show. Yeah, it is. Slightly feminine.
be a little feminine and shine the shitting you want to you want to get sued i'm glad you know what i was doing i guess we'll know in mr rebecca's two with rob low when we i never watched no i think i ever watched that it got like pretty bad reviews i i was looking into it it's like american psycho 2 with mila kunis probably yeah it got some it was like a It looked like it was some decent reviews, but not really. I mean, compared to Star of Echoes 1, it's not that.
worst reviewed on imdb yeah okay it still it still looks like it decently got maybe i'll give it a watch i don't know i don't even know what it's about a lot i like grab low too yeah But I mean, it's like 6.9 versus 4.5. And you really got to take these with a grain of salt. Oh, yeah. You take those. You do.
I think it's just movies like Flatliners that's like a pretty well loved classic 6.6 you know and like the older movies always have higher oh it could be the shittiest older movie ever and it's a 9.8 exactly you're like come on now or an eight point you know any any movie past like 88 has a eight or above on imdb it's just yeah it's just a given so yeah you gotta take that in in account too
The homecoming. The homecoming. I think that wraps up a stir of echoes. I was going to do some reception there. It said the reviewers felt that the film, a lot of the viewers felt the film suffered by being released shortly after previous high-earning occult films of the year, The Sixth Sense. And guess what else? The Blair Witch Project. Oh, and Kep talked about. Kep did say.
that unintent like obviously he has no control over what else gets released he said that this was unfortunately released along and he didn't name names alongside many other similar films at the time And at the moment, maybe could... got lost in it and he just said that he hopes it will stand the test of time and not be remembered alongside those other films it was great i mean it's kind of overall now i think it's almost a classic and you know that's it's a lot of reviews on imdb and
Oh, yeah, it says The Mummy was also with Brennan Frazier. Oh, yeah, that's a great movie. I mean, that's a little, even that, I guess it's horror, but it's action-adventure. I mean, this is very similar to... Sixth Sense. I would say Sixth Sense is the main standout. And that's like, that's tough because that's one of the most famous movies of all time. Yeah. But I think the fact that like, we're going back to look at this now after all this time.
And even looking at the IMDb rankings, like the movie is going up in popularity, probably continues to be relevant. And so I think that plus the star power of Kevin Bacon, plus it's a good movie. I think it will stand the test of time. Now that we.
have covered it and we'll release this in a little bit we set the standard as we know we've brought pizza hut back to life and that's true we are your arbiters i mean you can be ready for stir of echoes to be more popular than six cents now you should get ready for the stir of echoes reboot Oh, yeah. We haven't even covered Sixth Sense yet. That's true. What's Sixth Sense? Yeah, we single-handedly saved. Is that movie, you know, Signs? No, no, that's Signs. Yeah, I like Signs.
I just want to give a quick shout out to my friends, Cal and Kristen, without whom I would not have watched this movie and without whom we would not be covering this right now. They were right. They were razzing me about movies I had not seen. Oh, really? Yeah, but... i was 10 when this came out so yeah no
Me and Danny watched this. It was kind of on my radar, but I didn't really think about it because there's so many out there. Well, it just feels like any movie that you saw, I still feel like on this podcast, if I... experienced a movie being released and coming out it's not old enough to be a classic yeah exactly we're old now we're like right Nightmare on Elm Street was the classic, and that was 20 years old when we were talking about it. This movie's 26 years old. I mean, God, it's crazy.
I remember I had to dig the DVD out of my DVD collection that's buried in my basement. I'm glad you had it. It's upstairs. I had it with the special features. It seems like... DVDs with the special features. And maybe I'm wrong. I just don't shop around for these things anymore. But it seems like those were more the norm and the standard back then. Like if you bought a DVD of the movie, it had the special features. It had the commentary. I agree completely. Yeah, it feels like now.
You have to scour – maybe not scour, but you have to at least – check and make sure you're buying a blu-ray that like has the features you want on it yeah yeah it's it's true there's a lot of versions of the movies and they get released and re-released without the quality stuff that you're looking for and my whole thing and i think this is what you were saying
So sorry if this is a repeat, but if I'm going to go through the effort of collecting the physical media, then I want the collector's experience. If I just wanted to watch the movie, I could just stream the movie. The experience is insane. For sure. What's funny though, is that. Scotty had that and, you know, I...
I happened to own like dust till dawn and it had all these special features. And yeah, I'd never, we never watched it even before. We never watched the special features. Yeah. When I was young, I would watch a lot of them because remember you couldn't. call up anything you wanted at any time so it wasn't like now where there's i could watch a new show every day and i would not ever catch up to the amount of content it's true no that that is very true at that time
It depends on your level of love for the film. I mean, it was Evil Dead. Yeah, I fanboyed out. I've watched the commentary on my Evil Dead. I don't know if it's on other ones, but I had the old, we've done this from all. I had the old book of the dead, evil dead. Yeah. And it has simply has a Bruce Campbell commentary on it. It's him by himself. And I've watched that fucking commentary like five times because he's so.
entertaining to listen to the movie, you know? Yeah. Or like, you know, my other favorite commentary on the exorcist TV. Oh God. Oh yeah. Yeah. So bad. William Friedkin that just narrates the entire movie scene by scene. God, the worst. Oh, God, man. But anyways. As to Rebecca's, I think on our next episode, we're going to...
cover the gate. I just got to make sure I can find the special features and stuff. I thought that was a good choice. We should do the gate. I remember that as a kid. I don't remember the details, but I remember watching it as a kid and it being pretty entertaining and classic. I think we'll do that. With Stephen Dorff? Yeah. Is it? Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Young Stephen Dorff. Young. Young Stephen Dorff. Yeah. So.
All right, well, let's move on quickly to what did you watch? And actually, to be honest with you guys, we recorded and released last... the last episode and we're recording this one pretty early because we're out of town next weekend when we would normally be recording it over Valentine's day weekend. Uh, so we probably haven't watched a whole lot in between the last.
Five days since the last time we recorded, but maybe this Wednesday early or next Wednesday. I was going to do the next, the normal time next Wednesday. So we're, we just recorded, but. You guys won't hear this for about... It doesn't matter to you guys, but it'll be a week and a half from when we recorded this, basically. I actually did watch a fair bit this week. I watched a movie because I was six.
I watched Due Date with Zach Galifianakis and Dougie Jr. Hilarious. That's great. And then I watched this one I want to cover. Have you guys heard of Ghostwatch? I don't know if I have. This came up when I was doing press for Name the Demon, and one of the podcasts asked me, have you heard of Ghostwatch? I don't know how we slept on this shit, but this is, it was paranormal activity. It was, it was late night with the devil, like 20 years earlier. This was one of those things where like.
You remember when Orson Welles in like the 40s did a radio broadcast of War of the Worlds and people thought it was real and aliens had invaded? Yeah, yeah. This is what happened. The BBC aired this documentary as a live broadcast. and they presented it as a real news story investigating a haunted house on Halloween. They used real BBC newscasts in the documentary. and it fooled people and over a million people called the bbc thinking it was real really ptsd it led to a suicide what yeah it
Part of the gag was that you could call in to see, oh, I saw a ghost, I saw this, or here's a haunted thing that happened to me. And you couldn't really. If you called in, they would say, hey, we use the normal BBC call-in, but it's actually a program. It's all fake. But too many people called. So the lines were jammed. So no one got that message. Meanwhile, if you're watching the show, calls are being taken. Wow. It was creepy as fuck. You watched it?
i watched it and it was great and we should cover it because it's on shutter i saw yeah i see it ghost watch i see it one time On Halloween in 1992. Wow. Never aired again because of all the damage it caused. And it was so popular because I know you're going to ask me, where can we get some special features?
2017, they produced a whole documentary about the documentary. That's awesome. It didn't freak you out, though. It's good. It's reminding me of the one we watched when we guested on Aaron's podcast.
whatever the knwb oh yeah special or whatever it was where it was something similar similar yeah yeah it was i think it was more obviously a gimmick but uh because it was made um earlier with to look like that with vintage commercials and and stuff like that sort of a cool little thing but yeah that's right
I'll have to check that out. That's awesome. It's creepy. And remember, it's 92. It's not going to have any crazy special effects, but it's on par, I think, at least in terms of what you see and don't see.
first paranormal activity. You can see the influence and the immersiveness of it is what made it land. I'll check it out. We should cover it. And I think even at the end, if you're like, You know, if I've oversold it, I think at the end you'll say, you can see how it influenced so much after that it's worth us covering it.
Because it's clearly influential on every conference movie. A million people called in to get it's a real thing. Including the host's mother. The host was a real BBC newscaster. And she was calling the BBC. She thought her son was in danger. Oh my God. Jeez. I got to check it out for sure. Watchers. What, did you watch anything? Or is that it, Carmelo? I've started watching the cartoon Samurai Jack, and it's fucking awesome. Oh, okay. All right. All right.
Do you watch anything, Scotty? I just, I finished that one, that series, The Perfect Couple, that's more like suspense thriller with the cold kid. I found out who the killer was, so. Nice. I'm not going to tell you guys, but. Me and Liz started White Lotus, that popular TV show. You know what I got? How is it?
Four or five episodes in and it lost me. I just watched one episode, so I'm not sure about it yet. Yeah, I gave up on it. Really? Okay, we'll see how it goes. It was very popular. I know it's only six episodes the first time.
season so i it'd probably be an easy easy watch no one rushed out to watch mads the film truly shot in one yeah i just i haven't had time oh shit yeah that's all right i want ads i need to watch i i saw actually i saw a trailer for it right after I got off the podcast last week and it looked really awesome yeah no worries I um
I watched the first season with Shannon of Yellow Jackets. I haven't watched that yet. Oh, yeah. Kathleen was recommending that. Yeah, it's pretty good. It's starting to turn more supernatural now. It's like plane crash, soccer team. It was on Showtime. you know in 2021 or whatever 2020 and was very popular yeah it's got the girl from fallout the main girl from fallout if you've watched any of that and then a couple other people but yeah so it was pretty good
A little bit unrelated. I finally watched Carry On with Jason Bateman and Taron Egerton. It was good. It was a nice little Christmas. They released it around Christmas, toting in a... Christmas type movie, but it really isn't. It takes place on Christmas Eve at an airport, but that's the only thing linking it to Christmas. There's no mention of Christmas again after the opening. They're like, oh, it's New Year's Eve.
Sorry, Christmas Eve. Joel Egerton and Jason Bateman. Nice. Jason Bateman plays the bad guy and does a really good job. He's not... in a funny role at all and does really well nice let's check it out it's pretty good it's like a just a fun thrill ride you know nice so it's uh it's a good time he's like a uh egerton is like a
works one of the machines you go through security and you put your shit through you know yeah on the conveyor belt and bateman is basically forcing him to let a suitcase come through that has something in it and he's yeah yeah so it's pretty good pretty good but nice yeah so but no that's about it
I didn't watch anything else either. Yeah. Sweet. Well, it's only been a week, so hey. Yeah, yeah. It's weird this year, so. I will go watch Mads. I'll watch Mads. Yeah, check it out. It's crazy how they must have done it. I still want to watch the one with Demi. more too. Substance. I gotta see substance. It was good. Yeah. Good stuff. I want to go see Presence. I want to go see Hard Eyes. I want to go see Wolfman. Yeah, some Hard Eyes. Good too. Wolfman for sure. Yeah.
All right, guys. I think we're going to try. I got to find it, but I think we're new to the gate next. The gate. Maybe plan for that, but we'll see what happens. Hopefully, Rob will be joining us for that. All right, guys. Thanks for joining us. Catch you next time. Later. Later, everybody. Don't you blame the movies. Movies don't create psychos. Movies make psychos more creative. There will be blood.