MOVIE REVIEW: The Monkey w/ Erica Fett

Hey everyone, this is Erica Fett, model, cosplayer, actor, and host of the Camp Cryptid Podcast, and you are listening to the Oblivion Barre Podcast. you Welcome to the Oblivion Bar podcast with your host, Chris Hacker and Aaron Knowles. Hello everyone and welcome to episode 183 of the Oblivion Bar podcast. I'm your swinging Uncle Chris and I'm here just to do my very best, even though that very best is pretty bad.

And joining me is America's leading parenting author slash habitually wounded Hobbit, my co-host and BFF, Aaron Knowles. Go back, Sam. I'm going to Mordor. That was pretty good. A little peek behind the curtain, everybody real quick. We were trying to figure out a nice rebuttal there and Aaron, you found it. That was the correct response. Good job, You're welcome. That's research does. True professional here, everybody. He knows what he's doing.

But, know, honestly, everybody, we're as you probably saw as you clicked on the episode. Aaron and I are not alone today. We are joined by the monster enthusiast, world renowned cosplayer and host of the sci fi horror podcast Camp Cryptid podcast. You may have also seen her in Playboy, Maxim, Elite Online, Tattoo Erotica, Inked Magazine and on the cover of Dynamite Comics 50th anniversary of Amperella. Not only that.

but she will also be co-starring in the upcoming indie horror film, A Gettysburg Horror as Nurse Payne. Erin, let's welcome Erika Fett onto the Oblivion Bar podcast. You can Well, hi guys. We're kicking it to you, Erika. You're like, hello. I'm like, let's give a little suspense. No, hi guys, thanks for having me on. Of course. Thanks so much for being here. was, you we were talking a little bit before the recording, Erica, and I wanted to sort of highlight that for everybody listening.

When we decided Aaron and I to do to review the monkey, we had to bring in a horror expert because while we enjoy the genre, we are not experts in this arena. And I don't want to put too much pressure on you, but you're going to be our subject matter expert during this review. Perfect, I love that. Can you tell the folks at home really quickly, just sort of give an overview of what you do, what the Camp Cryptid podcast is and why you love horror so much. Yeah, so hi everyone.

I'm Erica Fett. I am the host of Camp Cryptid podcast. And while it is named Camp Cryptid, I talk about everything from folklore, urban legends, cryptids, movie reviews, and basically everything in between. I think the horror is such a broad subject matter. So being able to talk about basically anything and everything is kind of what I love to do. I also do cosplay and I'm an actress. I've been in a few documentaries about cryptids.

And like you said earlier, I'm gonna be in a Gettysburg Haunting as kind of like the lead villain in it. So I'm super excited for that to come out. I just love being a ghoul in any way. So, but yeah, that's a little bit about me. Awesome. Well, Aaron's a cosplayer as well. I'm sure he was probably already familiar with your work and again, as horror fans ourselves and Aaron, right?

Like we often on the show, although we are like a comic book movie podcast, it seems like we like always gravitate ever so slightly to the horror genre, right? Absolutely. have, I think it's kind of an ongoing thing for both of us as we're growing in our love for just horror in general. And that's kind of happened since really like early days of the Oblivion bar.

Cause we started doing our Halloween specials and we, think we put so much more love into that even more so now because of this affinity that we have, it's growing for the horror genre. And I know for me, like I was a huge Just little whiny baby kid when I was younger. I hated horror movies. had nightmares all the time. Now I love a good horror movie. I love I still can't watch a human centipede, but I will watch the hell out of some other stuff. You know, I'm getting used to it.

I will say it's body horror is really is is an Erica. I'd love to hear your perspective on it. But I think body horror is the one thing that for me is still something that I'm very much getting used to as well as maybe even society because it's kind of, it's kind of feels like the newer sub genre of horror that's really taking a stronghold. Like, and I, and I'm not saying that there hasn't been a body horror in, in, in horror movies for decades.

You know, basket case was, I think one of the first movies that we covered. And there's a lot of body horror on that in basket case, not to mention basket case too, but it just, you know, I'd love to get your opinion on this. overflow of body horror like this subgenre that we're seeing a lot of with, you know, even the substance recently. Mm-hmm. actually what I was gonna bring up is I kind of think the substance kind of was body horror, but it was in like a mainstream way.

And so I think that having it be nominated for so many awards kind of brought more awareness to that genre. And then for me, I mean, it is kind of tough for me to also watch body horror. And I try to be objective and be like, okay, these are props. Like, look how great, you know, the costuming and props department did with that specific scene, but... You know, it's like watching Tusk back in the day. I watched it once and I was like, never again. I'm good. Like, I'm good. I'm good.

Definitely, definitely one that stuck with it still sticks with me. Right. Yeah. That's like that's an iconic role for Justin Long and just for like the eight twenty four filmography in general. yeah. And Eric, I think I heard on your podcast, I was listening to your favorite horror films of twenty twenty four. You mentioned the substance, but I also heard you mention as well. You're not a huge fan of like we'll just call it gore porn, you know.

And I think we're to talk a lot about that during the the monkey review, because I think that if you were going to slot the monkey into a horror subgenre, you could easily put it in that sort of gore porn, you know, genre. Absolutely, yeah. Before we jump in too much, I do want to ask you this about, I don't even know if it's a sub genre, a sub sub genre of body horror. Two Two subs down. Like the subreddit to the subreddit of Asian body horror films. know, I do happen to be a huge fan of those.

I've been for a long time. Tetsuo the Iron Man. I don't know if you've ever seen that one. Tokyo gore police, Meatball Machine, some of those. Like, do you have any affinity for those? what the audition, each of the keyers. I to me, I feel like that is in such a different realm, right? Because there's something artistic about that. I don't know. It just hits differently, you know? I would say those hit differently than something like Terrifier, right?

You know, because Art the Clown is, of course, an amazing, David Howard Thornton just kills that role. I would say that those are even different in those, you know? There's more of an art house style to them. A lot of them are based off also old, you know, traditions from Asian cultures, whereas it feels like the, you know, English Western side of the body horror genre is more of a satirical, your art house. And Berg, yeah, so there's definitely there's definitely many.

And then you just have your again, you just have your shock horror comedy, which, like I would say is like Terrifier Tusk, you know, where you touch. Tusk was like the satirical version of the human centipede, which, yeah, so, yeah. I good. Yeah, Erica, you mentioned this earlier, too, and I just want to echo it. The horror genre is so flexible. And that's what I think is so interesting about it, Aaron. And that's sort of feeds on to what we were talking about. It brings us back around.

I flexible. Yeah, we love flexible here. You it is when you could be, you know, a thing plus another thing like horror can be. It could be very appetizing for an audience because you can pick up many things. And I think that's going to be like a main, you know, sort of talking point when it comes to the monkey. And we'll get there. I think that's enough teasing here, Aaron, before we get into our news and notes. Tell the folks at home how they can support the Oblivion Bar podcast.

Well, honestly, the best way to do that is to go over to the patreon.com forward slash oblivion bar pod. Because if you go over and check out the Patreon, you know what you get? You get a bunch of free shit. You get access to bonus episodes. Well, those aren't free, but you get access to behind the scenes show notes. We also love to send out free stuff to our Patreon members, comics, stickers, shirts. I just ordered two new shirts. I'm so excited. We have tie dye oblivion bar pod shirts.

I had to get me one. I've been talking about this for weeks and I finally sat down and ordered it. Can I tell you something really quick as well? just went out and bought some envelopes. So everybody at home, if you're a Patreon member already, awesome. If you're interested, check this out in the next couple of weeks. I'm going to be sending out a small care package to all of our Patreon members. I just I do. Free comics, free stickers, all the things. Yeah, I think so as well.

Yeah, it's that and, you know, physical touch, Aaron, I'm always touching you. We're together. I'm always hugging. I'm always exactly. I can't wait to your hair. We are together. We are so versatile in the show. have no problem talking about our love languages, you know very very confident in our our in our love languages and our our hetero love for each other that's for sure but Aaron continue on yes please Yes. So the other thing about Patreon, you can try it for free.

You can get a seven day free trial. Just head on over again to patreon.com forward slash oblivion bar pod. We have the link in our show notes and it's just a great time. And when you do sign up, guess what? You get access to our weekly extra episode called the grid. it is our. Yeah, it's weird. We're like in a cave. The grid is our unfiltered, unformatted, unfettered. Triple X rated. Triple X rated, no kink shaming platform where we can just talk about whatever the fuck we want.

Yeah, we don't yuck anybody's yums and we lick everything. Yes. And also, I think we should also tease that Erica will be joining us over on the grid. It will not be as yucky as it normally is. will start or lucky. We'll turn it down a little bit this week, but it'll still be very front of brain sort of, you know, brain vomit. I think I'm just we're going to pick Erica's brain for that entire episode. So join us over there.

So, yeah, Aaron, like you said, Patreon.com forward slash oblivion bar pod. Go check it out. Enough preamble. Let's get into our news and notes.

and notes. news and notes, buddy. We got a good one this week after last episodes. my God. What would you would call a civil war at the Oblivion bar pod? We did not agree on Captain America, Brave New World, right? Yeah, you know, Erica, we were talking a little bit before the recording again. I keep referring to it, but I just want to let everyone know that you had mentioned you had not seen Brave New World.

Aaron and I often on the show here, we've been again doing the show for almost five years now, and we generally come together on a lot of things. Our taste is very similar. We will often only differentiate, you know, in our ratings, maybe one or two points if that even we were so opposite on Captain America, Brave New World. He loved it. I had a real disdain for it. Say what you say the thing, Chris. it. I'm not ashamed of this.

But yeah, and it's interesting because a lot of times we often do come together on these things. But it made for a good episode. I've heard, Aaron, from many people that they really enjoyed hearing us argue with each other for two hours. my sister text me she's like that clip was hilarious. So anyways Captain America brave new worlds divisive post credit scene explained by director Julius ONA.

We're to try and do this spoiler free because Erica has not seen it but there's just certain things that you know sorry you know earmuffs. Marvel fans come to expect big things from post credit scenes in their films but Captain America brave new world didn't do that. It didn't it didn't. Even Aaron who enjoyed it could admit that these post-cursors... I can absolutely admit that it did not pique anybody's interest. It did not pitch anybody's tense.

OK, the film only features one end credit sequence and its reception has been anything but enthusiastic. Some fans are even calling it Marvel Studios worst post credit scene to date. According to Julius ONA, it was always the plan to have only one post credit scene. While speaking to the Collider, he explained that rather than multiple teases, they wanted to keep focus on Sam Wilson's journey as the new Captain America.

I quote, it was always the case that what felt organic for this movie was just leaning into a post credit sequence that could tease what's coming next. We wanted to tease it in a way that didn't become too explicit. This is about introducing Sam as our new Captain America. Is that how Julius Onon That's how I imagine. Very seductively, gentleman-like. It also turns out this post-credits scene wasn't even in the original shoot.

It was added during the last year's reshoots, which Chris has so eloquently told us were probably the reason he hated it. multiple rounds of reshoots, we should say there are three rounds of reshoots. yeah. So that explains the ambiguity of it. The leaders redesigned in that scene had already hinted at it being a late edition, but Ona confirmed it saying, was shot during our additional photography. We didn't know what our post-credit scene was going to be just yet.

As you know, there was a massive writer's strike. So that meant it was pencils down, not just on this movie, but pencils down on everything in film and TV. Nothing was happening. Eric, I'm going to kick it over to you again because you said you have not seen Brave New World. Now, just out of curiosity, are you a fan of the MCU at all? Were you ever are you still currently?

Yeah, I mean, I've watched a lot of the Avengers and I've watched a lot of the movies prior up to probably the last couple years. I think I've fallen behind because there's just been so many. But I love Captain America. I've cosplayed Captain America, like a boudoir pinup version of Captain America. And I love Anthony Mackie. So I was really hoping that this would be like a great, you know, a great movie for him. But yeah. Yeah. Don't take Chris's word for it. Well, you know, Aaron, it's funny.

We have literally heard it from all angles and it's been a week since we got that review out. And it seems like I think the masses are sort of thinking it's OK. Like it's not great. It's not terrible. It's just fine. I was definitely on the opposite side that Aaron, you were on the other side of that. So, Erica, just for your own knowledge here and for everyone listening, if you hadn't checked out that review that's from last week, Aaron gave it a four point five. I gave it a two.

at a five, which again, Aaron, I can't even think of many, many movies that I've given a two out of five again, you know, because art is hard, but that was minimum effort in my opinion. So and here's the thing, right, Erica? Here's the here's the real thing is that horror films rarely have to do reshoots because they come in fully prepared and they don't require a lot of CGI, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Aaron, does this make sense to you, though?

I mean, again, based on the fact that we both went in, you know, came out of the movie and thought, wow, what a very less than enthusiastic post-credit scene. makes sense, right? That's just reading this. So like, doesn't change how I feel about the movie, but I, but this, the tone of these, quotes really says a lot about that. Like we didn't know nothing was happening. We didn't know what our post credit scene was going to be. Usually this, feels the post credit scenes, scenes, plural.

usually feel very thought out, very like laid out in advance. And even if they're kind of like retconned in the future, like one example would be Thanos grabbing the Infinity Gauntlet saying, I'm gonna do it myself. That was completely retconned later on, but it was still quality. was still like, everybody was like screaming, ah, the guy's getting the gauntlet. But like this is just, did you, they should just had Liv Tyler do the fucking post-credits scene.

Yeah. Erica, Liv Tyler shows up in the movie to reprise her role from the Incredible Hulk from 2008. that's a good clean fun. Yeah. But as we said, everybody are, as I said last week, that movie is an atrocity and I think it's not watch it. Don't take it for it. Let's move on here, Erica. say for yourself. You don't have to have the last word just because you want to say bad things. Well, I agree with you. I think everyone should go see it for themselves.

It is a divisive enough of a movie that people should go make up their own minds. However, the movie is terrible. Erica, I'm to pass it to you. Do you mind? I would love for you to read this next bit of news here. Yeah, so some news about The Last of Us Season 2. It gets an April premiere date and HBO has released three new character posters for The Last of Us Season 2. And they've announced that the new season will premiere on April 13th.

The posters feature Ellie, Bella Ramsey, Joel, Pedro Pascal, and Abby, Kaitlyn Dever. And they come along with the tagline, Every Path Has a Price. Erica, how familiar are you to the Last of Us franchise, whether it be the TV show or the video games or whatever? listen. So my husband has played all of the games and I watched him play the games and I knew certain things that happened in the game and I was like, I am too much of a sensitive soul to handle another TV show that breaks my heart.

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to laugh at you. I'm not laughing at you. Jesus, that was insensitive. But it's true because that show will break your heart. Yeah, exactly.

And I knew about the one episode where it's I don't remember it's I don't know in the game I think the one guy is found hung like on yeah, so that episode and My husband told me about it and I was like I can't I can't that will literally rip me apart And so I stay updated through him and I think it's wonderful that you know a video game is getting such great reception being put into television form I think between The Last of Us and Fallout, which has been great, I think it's really

great to see these amazing games with these amazing stories really being received well. But yeah, I am, I just, gosh, it breaks my heart that it's so sad. Yeah. That episode with Nick Offerman. That's exactly my heart. I will literally cry for like four days. We actually talked about Fallout last week with Walton Goggins coming out and saying that he thinks season two of Fallout is going to be even better, which is good news. Aaron's a huge Fallout fan. sounds like you are as well, Erica.

I was gonna ask if you had watched Fallout at least, that was a phenomenal show. I'm on Silo right now, which is like kind of in the same vein. yeah, it's insane. Have you ever have you ever cosplayed as a dweller at all? So I have basically my dog, I want him to play dog meat and I have my vault suit and everything. So I'm like waiting for the weather to get nice and find like some decrepit spot where I can go shoot a cosplay. But yeah, like I have it all planned out for this spring.

But yeah, I'm obsessed with fallout. Like I have an entire, my other room, I have like an entire like wall that's dedicated to everything fallout. So. Well, you know, you're going to be able to find a lot of great decrepit spots in Catch a stray catch a stray. Hey, you know what? If you decide to bring that one to the next New York Comic Con, where I live on a military installation, there are some great decrepit, like weed grown spots I could bring out for a really good on location photo shoot.

All right, awesome. But yeah, so more news about The Last of Us. know, it picks up five years after the events of the first season. Joel and Ellie are drawn into another conflict with and I roll my eye. two are always conflicting. Yeah, those two so-and-so's with each other and a world even more dangerous and unpredictable. But like you wouldn't have a game if you didn't have, you know, ongoing conflict, right?

But season two will start Isabella Merkhead as Dina, Ariella Barr as Mel, Tati Gabriella as Nora, Spencer Lord as Owen, Danny Ramirez as Manny, Catherine O'Hara, whom I love so dearly, also guest stars in the secret role. David, don't be acting like a disgruntled pelican. And Jeffrey Wright joined the cast taking on the role of Isaac Yeah. And also Daniel Ramirez back. I mean, he was he was in Captain America last last week as as what's his name? Joaquin Torres. There you go.

Gosh, I had to pull that out of the recesses of my brain. Erica, I'm going to pass it off to you again. Does this entice you at all? Again, you said a moment ago you're not looking to get overly invested in a show that's going to tear you apart. However, this show has been decorated across the board. And you I'm just going to echo again what you said a moment ago in terms of video game content, whether it's adaptations of actual video games or let's say Secret Base over on Amazon.

There's just so much great video game adaptations out right now. I mean, you can make an argument for even like the Sonic franchise, the Super Mario franchise, all these things. Does this entice you at all, knowing all this, seeing all this to maybe pick it up, binge the first season and come in for season two in April? man, it would be tough. would be tough.

Just cause, you know, it's like with the video games, if they take the route that they go in the video games, you kind of anticipate certain things happening, right? I don't know. I don't know. It would be tough. Maybe down the road if like it, I don't know if they have certain people live that were supposed to like die. But yeah, I mean, I know it's great. Trust me. I hear great things about it. It's just, I...

You can also just put it on in the background while you're working on some of your cosplays, you know? And that way, like, if there's something, if there's something, like, know something's coming, let me just, like, let me just, you know, focus on this stitch here, you know? Yeah, no, you mentioned earlier like secret level and stuff like that. And I think that that was amazing.

Those kind of gave like a background to some of the things like different video games that maybe are well known, but less well known. And I think that that is something I like. I like those like little tidbits of like information like that. But man, it would be hard to convince me to watch The Last of Us. I don't remember what game it was. I think it started with a C, but there was a one of the episodes of Secret Level was Concord. I think it was called Concord.

And it was a game that was out for like maybe two weeks and it was completely shut down and withdrawn. And there's like an episode of Secret Level on that. So I just find it to be because I think it was like Amazon's actual like their own game or EA's somebody's game. Anyways, I think it's always really funny. But some of those Secret Level game, Secret Level episodes. were amazing. I think all of them were fantastic.

Yeah. Even if I didn't know what the content was or if I didn't fully had any, if I didn't have any interest in it, like that Pac-Man episode talk about like totally blowing your mind of like what you could do with the Pac-Man franchise by just again, very loosely touching on what that game sort of represents. Right. Yeah. All of them were super involved. Even the first one with like that guy and like the dragons and all that stuff. One was that Magic the Gathering or what was that? to say D &D.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They were all great. I totally agree with you guys there. One last question for you guys before we head out of here in terms of like prestige television with HBO. Now, I've been someone who's been sort of, I guess, sort of ironic pun here. If you want to say that, I guess I've been cutting the cord when it comes to streaming services, you know, Disney plus Netflix, HBO, you know, even Amazon Prime in certain instances. Erica, do you have HBO?

Yeah, HBO Max, I guess it's just called Max. Now, Aaron, I think you do you still have Max as well? Yes. OK, because we had one together and then we didn't then we got rid of it because we didn't watch it. Or at least I didn't watch it very often. But like it's stuff like this that gets me interested in redownloading it. How's the Dragon season three when that eventually or two is a two or three? Gosh, it's two, right? Three now. Three. Yeah, I don't even know. Yeah. Yeah. My gosh.

Where's there's a lot of content that sort of speaks on, Erica, what you were saying a moment ago. There's a lot of things to watch, even if you're interested in the topic. But My last question for you guys is it does this excite you to eventually re download? Well, Erica, you sort of already answered it. You said you're not going to watch this. But Aaron, does this excite you to possibly re download HBO and get this? If I don't have it, probably not. Probably not.

don't think that this necessarily, Last of Us, again, as we talked about before, I own the games. I do plan on playing them. I actually have them on PlayStation 3, so. sue me. But yeah, I don't know. This is not one that necessarily I have a lot of investment into. I did really enjoy the first season, but there's nothing like this. isn't one, like Pedro Pascal's, he's still sexy, he's still.

You know, daddy, daddy, you know, and I'll probably figure out how to watch it, whether it's on my parents account or something, somebody's account. But there's nothing that really is going to entice me to download a whole nother thing. I will say this. It's either Paramount or it's HBO. It might be Max. I think it might be one of the two. And they fucked up and they lost the Halo series. And I believe Netflix has now purchased it and will be taking on Halo. So. I am very pumped about that, yes.

Yeah. Okay. Let me ask one last quick question. What we got. What's your favorite streaming service, Erica? What's your favorite streaming service? yeah. It's free. and it sounds awful, it like they have ads, but the ads, they don't put them in weird places where it's like the climax and then there's an ad for two minutes. Yeah, it is. And honestly, I the best way I would describe to be is is like a 2000s mom and pop like video store and like your hometown.

Like I just think it's got a lot of good originals and it still has classics. But I just think for it being free and having so much content, especially when it comes to horror, if you're big horror or sci-fi fans or even documentaries, it's just, it's my go-to. Nice. I was not expecting that, but I've heard, I've been hearing that. Tooby, apparently it even got some nominations for the Oscars. So they're doing something right over there, apparently. Erin, what about you?

What's your favorite streaming service? Right now, honestly, it's a toss up between Apple, I hate. Again, we talked about this before. I hate the fucking user interface on that thing. Yeah, that's not good. As well as Hulu, because both of them right now have some amazing shows. Over on Hulu, like, I love watching Brooklyn Nine-Nine before I go to bed, and they have every season on there. They have a show called Paradise by, what's his name? Sterling K. Brown is producing that.

He's also starring in it. And that is a... If you have not watched Paradise yet, the first season is almost finished. think there's like two more episodes and it is a complete mind fuck of a, we're America's heading. So I love that. And again, like Apple TV is having some, they've just been having some bangers of some shows, know, Silo, Severance. There was a bat, I mean, speaking of monkeys, which we're about to cover, there was a show called Bad Monkey that was just a hilarious police like.

You know, I forget the guy's name. He was in Wedding Crashers. Vince Vaughn, yes. So he stars in Bad Monkey and it's an amazing show. if you don't, check out some of these shows over on Apple TV and they're amazing. You know, it's annoying is that my favorite streaming service is Peacock because the the office and Parks and Rec, I know it's super annoying and I am definitely a 33 year old that still loves the office and Parks and Rec.

But I'm just I'm going to have that streaming service for as long as those two things are on there. So not to mention they do have a couple. They have a pretty good movie selection. Conclave recently just showed up on there and they've got all a bunch of good horror as well. So, yeah, I can't I can't deny that Peacock is actually doing some good things here recently, but. That'll do for our news and notes, everybody. We are going to get into our review of the monkey.

So let's go ahead and get into that now.

All right, buddy, let's talk about the monkey, the brand new Oz Perkins film. Spoilers ahead, everybody. If you have not seen the monkey, do not go any further. Go ahead and pause this. Go see it. Your local movie. Aaron's tapping away. He's playing the drums. Pause it here and, you know, go watch it and then come back. So let's get into our initial thoughts here. And again, Eric, I'm going to go to you because you are our special co-host this week. I want you to give us your initial thoughts.

just a brief, less than 200 words how you felt about this movie. So I was really pleasantly surprised by this movie. Sometimes when short stories are adapted, you kind of lose the core of the story and the integrity of the story. And I feel like with this story, I really enjoyed it. And I thought it was very enjoyable. I thought that even the little aspects of gore were done in such a fun way. And I love that Osgood Perkins kind of put his own twist of like comedy into horror.

And to me, that's one of my favorite. kind of types of horror is like comedic horror. I just think it's so refreshing and I really just thought this was a fun movie. It had a lot of comedic relief and overall I just think it was just a very enjoyable time. Absolutely. Aaron, how about you? What were your thoughts on this movie? And I was thinking about you as I was leaving the theater. was like, what, what is Aaron's current thoughts? Cause I think we saw it the same exact time.

Not the time that I appreciate when you think about me, but I'll take it. I'm just gonna say that like, this is one of the few movies where I'm sitting in the theater and I just think to myself, what the fuck? Like there were several times where was like, what the fuck? Because honestly, I am a huge Stephen King fan, but I had not read this short story before going to this film. And I read it after. And to be honest, I don't think it would have helped me really much. I don't think so.

there's, think, I feel like this short story is is a, is movie is a quite a deviation from the short story. Even though there's like more similarities than there are deviations. However, I still could not help like sitting there and be like, that's a choice. You know, like these are choices that somebody made. Like I, and I will get into it, but like there's things like the cheerleading squad that's constantly showing up.

You know, there's this at the end of it, you know, again, we're there's going to be spoilers ahead. So we've already said that. Yeah. But there's like a ghost on a horse at one point. I'm just like, I don't remember. Like when I read the story, I'm like, there's not really a lot of that in there, but kind of. So I guess my initial reaction is is the fuck is this? Not in a bad way, not in a bad way. Erica, had you read the short story before seeing the film? All right. All right.

My initial thoughts are while watching the film, I agree with you, Erica. It was a great time. I sort of felt like I was on a roller coaster and I was just seeing the lights and colors and everything was just sort of passing me by really quickly before I could think about it too hard. And as I was leaving the theater, I was in my car and I sat there for a moment.

Cause what I like to do is I like to sort of, I'll sit in my car for a moment and I like to write like a quick review on letterbox or I'll just sort of like see what the thoughts are among the people who have seen it on, you know, that Thursday or Friday. You know, a lot of people were kind of feeling like how you were Aaron. They were like, what is this? Like, this is insane. This is insanity right here.

This is I feel like this was a movie that was made for like a younger generation of kids because of the just so many times and I don't know if either of you do this while you're in the theater. Do you ever find yourself like looking around at the other audience members and kind of gauging what their interest is or their experiences? And what I've noticed is kids today cannot hold their attention on the screen.

So unless there's constantly something flashing or occurring like big moments on the screen, their attention is turned to something else almost immediately. And this movie felt like there was just that constant shock, shock, shock. again, I just want to say, because I don't think I clarified much in the beginning of my initial thoughts, I did enjoy a lot of this movie. And just like you said, there were so many comedic moments. And when you can turn some of these almost grotesque deaths, Yeah.

I'm thinking of the aunt just running outside and, believe it or not, that was, her name. So my cat's named after her character. was, just Twilight freak. I'd forget what her first name is something levy. had a second cousin in Elmdale who did telemarketing. He made a ton of money. Turns out his entire business was illegal and he lost everything. Not quite the same. Yeah, no, he went to prison, which is terrible. But but he is learning Spanish. No mas le duele. I think it means stop.

hurts. But yes, she's Eugene Levy's daughter. And I was just like, my God. And then when she runs outside with her head on fire and then the little details as you go further in the movie where there's the trail of Char along the ceiling that you see at one point where she it's there's it is entertaining in so many detailed aspects. But at the same time, I'm just like I was like, is this where movies are going? it did have that like constant like flatten.

know the audience can't see what I'm doing right now. Like I'm waving my hand. Aaron is currently just like doing this thing, right? Jellyfish is, you know, away from the camera. But yeah, it's like, that's what I felt. Okay. Well, you know, I, as I do Aaron and my most pretentious way possible, I was trying to look at what Oz Perkins was saying. I hate this part of the review where Chris goes on to this long monologue. I was trying to look at like, what is he trying to say here?

Cause I agree with you. is so like, bam, bam, bam. Always like there's no, there's even like cuts in this movie that are so, there'll be like this long drawn out scene. It's like shock and awe and it'll like sudden cut next scene. Right? It's almost like, again, like you said, trying to keep your attention, but What I sort of took from this and I'd love to hear your guys' thoughts on this is that I think he was sort of trying to highlight the abruptness and sort of sudden unplanned death, right?

death is coming for all of us, everybody. Just letting you know right now, death is on the way for all of us and it's going to hit us all when we least expect it and when we don't want it to happen. And we just have to accept that. And I think that's kind of what the overarching thought of the movie is, in my opinion, is we can't plan for this. You know, there's nothing we all die alone. I say that and that sounds morbid, right? You're like, wow, Chris, chill out.

But Tatiana Maslany's character, the mother, literally after the funeral has that almost monologuish moment where she's talking to her kids and she says, everybody dies. And that's life. And to be honest, I almost felt at that moment like this movie was kind of taking taking a note out of Quentin Tarantino is like his, you know, he has his real universe and he has a cinematic universe.

And this felt like a universe where death had become such a like if there's just imagine if there's like objects like this monkey. This may not be the only object like out there, you know.

And so death is a a formidable force in this world that is just unexpected, brutal, people just don't really, if anything, they're cheering for it because it's like an event, you know, because it's just so without warning, you know, whereas some people, you know, in our world, it's like people get, you know, arterial diseases and brain tumors, and it's like there, it's just like. It's a horrible, it's a horrible death and you'll have a cheerleading squad outside your house if it's that brutal.

All right. Yeah. Erica, let me ask you this. So, you know, again, as the cryptid, you know, subject matter expert on today's episode, what would you compare this monkey to? Is there like a direct parallel, you know, monster, I'll say, or entity spirit, what have you, that sort of mirrors this idea of you wind it up and it randomly kills someone, something?

mean, there's a lot of concepts of haunted dolls, You have, like, Robert the doll, have Annabelle that are kind of like these dolls that have these negative, demonic forces with them. When it comes to cryptids, I almost want to say Mothman, because Mothman is sometimes seen as an omen of death, right? I think it's so funny that this is like, when you think of this monkey, it is like a very classic icon in horror. You know, we've seen this monkey before.

So I just think that what better... than the monkey to bring death, right? Like you look at it you're like, okay, that thing's evil. Yeah, yeah, well I was explaining to my wife like, you know, I'm a huge fallout fan also and whenever you like these monkeys are in the game and they're Terrifying like people booby trap these monkeys.

So whenever you see one, you'll give to be you have to be ready for death Yeah, so like if you're a fan of the fallout franchise, you know what you're getting into when you see the monkey but I will say that the the the monkey is such a cool like totem of death Yeah, and I find it so fascinating because like in the short story And I don't understand necessarily why they changed it. we'll talk about it. OK, but yeah, they changed it from having cymbals to beating a drum.

But if you saw the popcorn bucket. Now we talk about popcorn buckets a lot in this. The popcorn bucket is so cool. You got one? I held one. They wouldn't sell it to me the night of because it was an early screen. They're like, waiting for the actual release. like I didn't get a chance to buy one. But I'm like this thing is honestly one of the best, most detailed and best quality builds. Like popcorn buckets are getting intensely like detailed.

this one, cause you could move the arms to like beat the little drum. I'm like this, imagine waking up in the middle of the night after seeing this thing. And it's like just sitting there. Like I would do that to my, to my partner. I would do that. I would just move it around to like different parts of the house just to fuck with. Yeah. To me, honestly, I think it's the most ingenious thing that AMC could have done is to have these collectible buckets.

And to me, when I got mine, I was so excited because I have the Nosferatu one too. And I was like, what better way than for people who love horror to have these affordable, I think it's very affordable too, affordable pieces for your collection. I just honestly like, and like you said, it is such great quality that... It was hard for me to pass up because I saw it and I was like, are you kidding me? Yes. Like amazing. But yeah, no, it is too good. Yeah, I showed off Chris.

got the collapsible popcorn bucket, the shield from Captain America. And I was like, this thing is like just it's gorgeous. I do feel this. I don't know if Chris is going to keep this in the show or not, but I do feel the need to say this to you, Erica. You are part of the crew right now. You're an honorary co-host. Feel free to jump in. If we're being assholes or saying something unnecessary, even if you just have something to interject, feel free to jump in. cool. That's right.

Appreciate y'all. want to get into the summary of this thing? Yes, I do. I want to get in the summary, but I want to ask you really quick because Aaron, this is something we often talk about in these movie reviews is how did you guys see it? Because I saw it in Dolby and gosh, did that not just enhance this whole? Gosh, golly, this movie was it sounded great, right?

That the just like long legs, it had great sound production and I really I don't know who does that for Oz Perkins and his films, but it may just be neon, honestly, but it sounded great. Aaron, how did you see it? I saw it and then I'm going to I need to pose a question. We can move on because maybe it's answered later later, but I have terrible. I have a bad brain. It's actually, it's medically diagnosed. It's bad brain.

Aaron's the only case in the entire U S. Thanks But I saw it on IMAX, which was I think phenomenal because again the detail, the goulash in the sleeping bag scene, just everything really popped great colors and all of that gore. And before I lose this question, was there a weirdness with the era, like the years? like, I hope we're going to address this because like that really threw me off. I'm talking, we're talking about like 99 and nobody's carrying around a Game Boy playing Pokemon.

So, uh, saying that Erica, how did you see it? I saw also in IMAX, yeah. Okay. Good deal. Did you have any rude guests? Because Aaron often we're cursed. We have a monkey following us around and it's called bad guests at movies who don't know how to act in public. So no, actually there was about like, we went to like a one o'clock showing, right? And there was about PM, PM. gosh, no. Early matinee, early matinee, okay.

Ooh, So we went at about 1 p.m. and there's about 10 or 15 other people in the theater and it was very quiet. It was very great. And the only thing I did notice is that when the lights came on and we were leaving after, you know, we'll probably get into this after the keeper scene, we walked by the guy at the end of our aisle and there was popcorn literally everywhere. I was like, what is... What happened here? He did one of these he did like, You know, like these.

I was like, honey, how did you spill that much popcorn? my gosh. honeyed him. Dude, I was like, honey. And Erica's nomination for Oh Honey Award goes to, we're going to have a Oh Honey. With the popcorn bucket, the monkey. I want to go back to your question though. I so agree with you and Eric, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this too. What era are we in at any point?

Like I thought that did a great job of sort of articulating that this is definitely like early eighties when the kids are kids, right? When the two brothers had to have been like the 70s or the 60s. had to have been because if you look at his pilot's uniform, if you look at the vehicles they're driving, any of this stuff, like even their clothing, like look at the clothing of the uncle and the aunt, very 60s, 70s, like free love swingers.

Like there was no way this was in the eras that they were labeling on the screen, which to me tells me that this is more of a potential like alternate earth. Like, not that it matters to the story, it's just like, actually, you know what? Fuck that. I'm going to say that it does matter because if you were a fan of Stephen King writing, you understand that he has interconnected universes and they're all on different planets and they all have different like example, settings and everything.

So just read any of, you know, the gunslinger saga or the dark tower saga. Yeah, I mean, even when we come to present day, right, whenever we get like the adult version of Theo James's character, Hal, I guess, and Bill too, because he's both characters. But we'll get to the cast here in just a moment. But when we get to present day, it still doesn't mirror anything to present day. It's not 2025. That's not what I saw.

I think the only thing I saw that was like reminiscent of current technology was the air pods the kid was wearing Sure. Yeah. All right. Well, Aaron, we've put it off long enough. Go and give us a summary here of the monkey. Okay, how do you want this red? Usually we have like a, you know, do you want to? like creepy, you know, circus music behind you. So you use it however you want to articulate that. Okay, okay.

When twin brothers find a mysterious wind up monkey, a series of outrageous deaths tear their family apart. 25 years later, the monkey begins a new killing spree, forcing the estranged siblings to confront the cursed toy. All right now Erica, I want you to read this next little bullet point that I have here in the transcript because it sort of speaks to what you were saying earlier about the correlation between comedy and horror. Okay, how do I follow up that though? Right.

Now you have to do that exact voice, Erica. Go. No, no, no. I was like, oh man, I'll sound like a creep. Just alter my voice after this. So as many people now know, this is based on the 1980 short story by Stephen King. Many have connected this to Edgar Allan Poe's short story, The Murders and the Rue Morgue from 1841. Both stories reflect on symbolic use of inanimate objects being a representation of death. those being the monkey and the razor-wielding orangutan and Poe's tail.

King famously said when he asked about this comparison of comedy and horror, the thing is humor and horror are Siamese twins. I think that it stops being funny when it starts being you. And agreed, right? As soon as everything's funny, everything like we have been sort of trained through media literacy and just living in 2025 that like our brand of being shocked today is laughing at it, right? Or downplaying it in some sense.

But the moment that Grim Reaper thing, what's the thing he carries around, Aaron? What was it called? Or maybe thank you, Scythe. Thank you. And that Scythe is pointing at you. Things stop being so funny, right? So. I'm just terrified right now because a razor wielding orangutan. I know, I was like, how do I say that? Orangutan. It's not orangutan. I am honestly like it's stuck in my brain. I don't know if you can see, but I'm like nearly on the verge of tears.

I'm just like imagine, you know, like orangutans walk like that. know, like I'm just like thinking about this fucking razor wielding orangutan and like it's scaring me. That's the most terrifying thing that I can think of right now. Who thinks of that? So this is the 86th live action adaptation of a Stephen King piece of work. This adaptation was written both by Oz Perkins and Stephen King. So it's nice to, I'm of two minds with this everybody.

I was about to say this is nice that Stephen King has his stamp of approval on it. However, and I say this with all the respect to the world as again, as I think all three of us are pretty big Stephen King fans to various degrees. Stephen King's quality control varies from time to time. I think I think he just loves when people adapt his work, when people are celebrating horror. like what was the movie, Aaron, that he said he it was the flash. Somebody somebody asked him.

He went to see the flash last year and he said it was the best superhero movie he had ever seen. And I was like, honestly, his recommend his like endorsement of that movie got me really excited because at that time, Aaron, if you remember, and Eric, you probably don't remember, you know, I'm sure I don't know if you've seen the flash or even care about it, but. Not a great movie. think sort of across the board, think most people outside of again, Aaron think that so babies and microwaves.

That's what there's a scene in that movie. But Stephen King gave his stamp of approval. And I was like, after that movie, it kind of made me think like, no, is Stephen losing a little bit or does he just love everything? Right. When it comes to his works, mean, I think that, you know, whether there's maximum overdrive that was also adapted as a short story. So I think with him, I think after that, I think he took more of like the hands out, like the hands, you know, off approach.

And I think that Oz Perkins is kind of celebrated right now. He's hot. He's like the hot new director, right? So I think that with the success of Long Legs and then having him kind of being this kind of like prominent director now in horror, I think that it was like... kind of a way for Stephen King to know that his, story would live on and kind of like a unique humorous way, right? Yeah, that's a great point.

And Aaron, you talked about sort of the differences between the short story and the movie. And I think as someone who has only skimmed the short story, Aaron, again, you're going to be our subject matter expert when it comes to the short story. I think some of those changes made sense, right? Or at the very least didn't make it any worse, which I think is, you know, not bad. So because the short story is obviously like, think that there's a, again, there's a lot of similarities.

The short story does take time, take the course over like several decades, father, son. Yeah, I'm excited to talk about this more, but like one thing I would say is, you know, talking about Stephen King's adaptations, again, they can go really good. They can go really bad. I mean, we got like The Shining, which Stanley Kubrick, that's nothing like the book, but it still is a very thought-provoking film. I think Kubrick actually made that movie in spite of Stephen King.

Stephen King. There's this. Sorry. I don't mean to cut you off, but like there's a scene in The Shining where the car is flipped over in the snow. And I'm forgetting the gentleman, like the guy who's like the manor caretaker, what have you. He's driving through the snow and he sees a car on the side of the road upside down. And in the book, it's blue. And in the movie, it's red. I could have I could have that reverse, honestly.

And it was because it was a note from Stephen King saying that the car had to be. that color from the book and Kubrick purposely made it the opposite. I have a real problem with The Shining. The book was warm and the movie was cold. I think one of the things that people relate to in my books is there's a warmth, there's a reaching out and saying to the reader, I want you to be a part of this. With Kubrick's The Shining, I felt that it was very cold. In my novel, the hotel burns.

Kubrick's movie, the hotel freezes. Stanley Kubrick knew that I had a problem with the shining. Shelley Duvall is Wendy. She's basically just there to scream and be stupid. And that's not the woman that I wrote about. The images are striking. There's no doubt about it. Jack Nicholson's face in the doorway. He... Here's Johnny. And don't get me wrong, I love everything else the man did. I just didn't like that one. I did like the little boy that played Danny Torrance.

Of course, since then, Here's Johnny has become associated with my name forever. So like that's a great example. You're so right. But yeah, and I'll let you go ahead. Well, I was just going to say fast forward. mean, you have obviously it, which has been done numerous times, which is, every time it seems to get better, but then you get books and movies like again, the, dark tower, you know, the dark tower, Matthew McConaughey, Idris Elba. They couldn't save that.

mean, a lot of people might've loved that one, but me, it just, it just felt like fan service because of all the, just seemed like a fan service movie where they just wanted to shove a bunch of Easter eggs into a movie. They couldn't really wrap their head around conceptually. Felt like a very milk toast version of that story, right? They are adapting it into a television series now. So I'm hoping it gets a little bit more love.

But that being said, I would hope that with Stephen King's level, his stature, his dedication to the medium of writing that, know, some of these like much, you know, like this film, Oz Perkins did a great job. I think did a great job. And if Stephen King signed off on it, great. I hope that going forward, anything else that's done, which You know, he, again, 86, I don't know how many other books or authors you've seen 86 other films of, but this one definitely, I mean, maybe J.K.

Rowling, but this, we need to do more like this. So this is the answer to your question earlier. And you had this question about why did they change it?

You know, in the, the original story, it was the tambourine slap, you know, you know, monkey and this version, we got the drums and that's because due to Disney having the copyright to what's called the jolly chimp, which is the, again, the one from the short story, again, see toy story three, everyone remembers the scene where the, the champ is like on surveillance throughout the film. the film adaptation made the switch to the drums. Now the song the monkey plays throughout the film is 1907s.

I do like to be beside the seaside and here's a little little snippet of that 1907 version here. Everyone's delight to spend their summer holiday Down beside the side of the silvery sea I'm no exception to the rule, in fact, if I'd my way I'd reside with the side of the silvery sea But when you're... okay. So pretty creepy, right? I think they chose a pretty good selection for him to, you know, bang along to.

Chris, you remember when we had, God, we had Beneath the Trees, Patrick Harkness on the show, his title of his comic was based off of a song. And I don't know if you ever get a chance to listen to that one, Erika, but there's a comic friend of ours and he wrote an Eisner-winning book and it was called Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees and the title is based off of this really creepy-ass song. It sounds a lot like that. It's like, it's like scary town meets Dexter. that.

Yeah, it's check it out if you're a good chance beneath the trees where nobody sees but I also love the fact that it reminds me because initially whenever I see this this thing I think of again a song off of the fallout soundtrack, which is like I don't want to say And it's just think it loved that creepiness of that like old school feel I mean you add like the crackles in there of like the you know, like the old like record player Yeah All right. So let me ask you this, Erica.

I would love to start with you here. Just ballpark unless you know the answer, which would make this segment a lot less fun. What do you think the kill count is in this movie? Just ballpark. my gosh, my god, 29. Okay, Erin, how about you? Okay, Erica, you were closer. It is 22. 22 kills in this movie. This movie is 90 minutes long, everybody. There's 22 deaths. they get a lot accomplished in that amount of time.

And that would be the pawn shop owner, Annie, Lois, Uncle Chip, Aunt Ida, the two neighbors, Barbara, the girl at the swimming pool, Ricky, Bill, the busload of cheerleaders. And this also doesn't include the widespread of death and destruction seen at the end of the film. that's... maybe argue thousands of people, because it is Maine, there's no more than like thousand people in this town, honestly.

I again, I love this movie simply because of the shocking Death seeds that just like kept occurring. I hope that we get a chance and I hope it's in this I haven't gone through the script there are you know Transcript sorry. I do have bad brain transcript all the way. I hope the question is in there like favorite death well, let's I don't have that question. Let's get into it. Aaron, tell us your favorite death of the monkey. God, is, I don't know if I have one because.

He's like, I want to talk about it, but I don't have an answer here. There's so many good ones. Like I really love the exploding pool scene. Yeah. Yeah. Barbara's death. The real estate agent there at the house. That's my favorite because I was not. I honestly and Erica, I'm like you. I think I heard you say at one point that you don't get jump scare very often. Like during horror films, you sort of train yourself through like the music cues and all that. Same. Right.

I can sort of tell when something's about to happen. But for whatever reason, I just did not see Barbara getting a shotgun straight to the dome in that moment. And And again, to speak on like the environment, it being in Dolby just made that shotgun blast really hit hard. So, Eric, how about you? What's your favorite kill of the movie? You know, I also love the pool scene. You know, when the leg goes flying, I literally was like, this is so good. It's just so good.

the shop owner, the pawn shop owner, like just the initial, that's like the first, like initial death because he just, it's like, it pulls back his fucking intestines out of him. And I'm just like, what, but Chris, here's what I want you to do. I'm going to, I'm going to step back from the microphone a little bit and I want to hear you give me a shotgun blast out and I'm going to, I'm going to reenact when I witnessed the realtors death. Okay. Okay, you ready?

Shit like that was me in the theater like I did not see that coming I did not see it coming it was Like it caught me so off guard close second is honestly, Theo James's bill at the end of the film, the bowling ball to the face. the most like in your face, make a pun to, yeah, yeah, exactly. To his mother. Like he spent this entire movie trying to avenge his mother. And it just so happens that the thing that kills him is this, the one of the last objects owned by her.

I'm also gonna throw this out there, Chris. It's a callback even further. Because if you notice, like at the beginning when he's bullying his little brother, he holds the bowling ball over his head at beginning of the movie. He's like, he wanted to kill him so bad from that point. And that's what killed him. That's what eventually took his life. And I fucking love that it brought it right back to the beginning of the movie. man, Erica, I would love to pass it to you here.

Talk about our director here. We've got, you know, well actually I'm not gonna even say anything. I'm gonna hand it off to you. Talk about our director. So, Osgood Perkins is known for recent films like The Black Coat's Daughter, I Am the Pretty Things That Lives in This House, Gretel and Hansel, and Long Legs. And Os Perkins is the son of actress Barry Berenson and actor Anthony Perkins. And Perkins' first acting role was in Psycho II. The second one, oh my God, Psycho II. I can't talk today.

I'm having bad brain too. Bad brain today. I be the first to you, I cannot read from the transcript. I write this thing. I know exactly what it says and yet I somehow can't just split the words out. It's like, so Perkins' first acting role was in Psycho 2 in 1983, in which he briefly appeared as a 12-year-old version of his father's character, Norman Bates. And Erica, did you know that?

Did you know that Anthony, that first of all, Oz Perkins is the son of Anthony Perkins and Anthony Perkins was Norman Bates in the original Psycho. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. That's pretty cool, right? That's incredible. Well, and this is not cool, but it is interesting, I think, or at least like very bizarre, if not interesting that Barry Berenson, she actually, died in the 9-11 attack. Like she was in one of the planes during the 9-11 attacks. which is insane, right?

And, Oz Perkins, he actually talks about this here. He says, Perkins says this about adapting the monkey and comparing it to the short story. Says, I took liberties like a motherfucker. They had a very serious script, very serious. I felt way too serious. And I told them it doesn't work for me. That thing with the toy monkey is the people around it and they all die in insane ways. So I thought, well, I'm an expert in all of that.

Both my parents died in insane headlining, making headline making ways. I spent a lot of my life recovering from tragedy, feeling quite bad. It all seemed unfair. You personalized grief. Why is this happening to me? I'm a bit older now and you realize that shit happens to everyone. Everyone dies sometimes in their sleep, sometimes in truly insane ways like I experienced, but everyone dies. And I thought maybe the best way to approach this, this insane notion is with a smile full circle guys.

And that's what we were talking about earlier. It's like, it's so morbid to think about. Yeah, we're all meat sacks and we're dying. We're all closer to death right now, right now, right now. Like we're just we're just seeing closer to death. But why not enjoy it sounds kind of hokey, but why not just like have fun and smile a little bit about it?

There's there's no point worrying about it because it's going to happen like there's zero zero point of preparing for it or worrying about it because it's going to come for all of us. Right. Well, I got a question for Erica. said, you have any, are you familiar with Barry Berenson's work? Cause you're a model as well. Are you familiar with her work? No, not at all actually. Okay. Like I knew she had modeled a little bit back in what like the 50s and 60s, right? I mean, it's yeah.

But no, not really. And that's that's the one thing though that I Chris you mentioned earlier also that this movie kind of You were like searching for a message in it, know Erica you said the same thing You're like what's the kind of like there's a message like and I think that that's one thing that I've been starting to do as well and trying to figure out like what is the what is the director what is the writer like trying to tell me and that's what I kind of

felt from this movie if there was any kind of message behind it was the fact that again this may be like in an alternate like world where death is not necessarily, I don't want to use term radicalized and not celebrated, but kind of just like it's an enthusiastic event, especially when it's like something that's kind of crazy. And that definitely kind of tracks, in my opinion, from this director, because when everything he's used to is these like headline making tragic.

deaths and then you write a story about a movie where it becomes the reality of like tragic deaths are the news making news grabbing thing. It's it is interesting and maybe again that translates into the message where yes, we're all going to die eventually. It doesn't have to be something that we have to constantly be on the lookout for or try and push off. But at the same time, it's also not going to be something that's going to be televised or or, you know, editorialized or just celebrate it.

It's our death is going to be. possibly by ourselves in a pool. No, so yeah, so it's like that's something that you got to kind of come to terms with and just live your life like you can because you don't know what's in store for you. Mm hmm. Yeah. You know, I will say we've all been sort of very we've been celebrating this movie so far. And I think honestly, we all have. We all had a good time with this movie.

My one big gripe and Erica, I'd love to get your thoughts on this, too, because you've also seen Long Legs. I felt the same way, although I definitely saw what Oz Perkins was trying to say with this movie a lot more than maybe with Long Legs. Although, again, I did enjoy that movie as well. What I really would like to see Oz Perkins do and we're actually going to see it later this year. He has another movie coming out, another horror film coming out.

in 2025 called The Keeper that's also starring Tatiana Maslany that he's not writing and all of his films up to I think the Black Coat Starter, is an early 824 film. So I am the pretty thing that lives in the house, Gretel and Hansel and Long Legs. He wrote all those movies.

I say this respectfully, but I think this like the biggest shortcoming with a lot of his films is they all feel just slightly half baked and they all feel like a little half hazard and like the direction or like sincerity of it all. It almost feels like Oz Perkins is laughing at us watching his movies. They all they feel a little spiteful. Do you feel that at all, Erica, while you're watching these movies or am I alone in this?

When I was watching The Monkey, I very much felt like when I was watching it and knowing his backstory, you know, losing his family in such tragic ways, I almost wonder if like, this was, I don't want to say like a way for him to cope, but bring like humor to something so horrible. You know, I don't know. Like it's hard to say for me, because I do see what you're saying about long legs, right? Because there were so many different other things going on with that.

And I loved long legs, don't get me wrong, but also I was kind of like, damn, the hype for this is really crazy. Like... But yeah, I mean, I just, think I need to see more of his work and kind of like really do a deep dive on like, I don't want to say like him as a person, but kind of see like what his personality is like, right? Cause if he's like some smug asshole where it's like, okay, well yeah, of course, like, fuck us, right? But you know, I guess it just really depends.

But the way that I took this movie, was kind of like, especially knowing his past, I was like, how else can you like see a woman explode into a pool? and it'd be kind of like funny in a way, right? After it happened, I was like, I just kind of like chuckled, was like, okay. You know, so I think that there is something kind of beautiful in that to kind of like lessen the sadness of the moment, right?

Especially with the cheerleaders, like you said, I was like, what the fuck is going on with these cheerleaders? You know? Yeah, Aaron, you mentioned this earlier, the death of the pawn shop owner, that sort of immediately told us that, hey, I promise you this is not the last death you're going to see. Like there's going to be some crazy shit happening. It's an instant desterilization of the death moment, right? Because there's some moments where death means everything, right?

In a movie, like that's the core crux of it all. And there's other things where it happens so often that it means literally nothing and it becomes sort of, it's just interesting. dichotomy of that thought of like, death and its role it plays in our movies, you know, it's just interesting. And Oz Perkins, as we've been talking about, seems to think that it's more funny than anything else, right?

Well, yeah, because I think that there are a lot of movies where the central, like, kind of pivotal idea is that if you lose a character, it's a sad thing or it's a tragic thing, you know? And then in this one where it is, again, satirical to the point where it's like, man, we're going to be lucky if anybody makes that alive.

You know, it's definitely turning those kind of themes on their head and really giving us something that we're not used to seeing, but that really still can drive a message home. Mm hmm. Absolutely. I do want to say really quickly, Perkins, you he started his career in film as an actor. And a lot of people know him as Uncle Chip in this movie. Right. But in Hollywood, he's done six degrees, six degrees of separation. He was in Legally Blonde. And then he's also in none of the T-movie.

He's the uninterested guy at the party. If you guys have seen that movie that Chris Evans, his sister tries to hit on and he's like. Hi, my name is Katherine. Yeah, I know. We just had sex five minutes ago. That's Oz Perkins. So it's just funny to see him do now doing these kinds of movies, right? So the movie costs $10 million. Here's the cool thing about that is that horror films cost nothing to make. Therefore, actually us three going, they made their budget back like that.

No one else has to see this movie and they are on top budget wise. So they're good. And that's why we're seeing more and more of these horror films, especially in the early part of the year, because it gets those.

those publishers, those production companies in the green immediately that way when they start putting out some art house crap at the end of the year for the Oscars, the, you know, the Norah's of the world and you nickel boys and all that, that no one goes to see, but a couple of us it's okay. They get their awards at the end of the year and they get their money at the beginning of the year. And it's looking good right now.

The monkey currently is on track to get $14 million domestically in its opening weekend. So it'll beat that budget 15 to $20 million. This will be a success. It's going to. blow that out of the water, think this is gonna make, I mean, if I were a betting man, I'd say somewhere in the 30 to $40 million range. It's currently on track to be the second highest opening for any neon film ever. Ironically enough, Perkins's first film with neon long legs has that record currently at 22.4 million.

So long legs was a huge success. think we all were, if we weren't going to see it opening weekend, we were at least noticing that everyone else was going to see it opening weekend. So. And this film was actually financed through atomic monster, which consists of director James one neon co-founder and CEO, Tom Quinn, DC studios, co-president, Peter Saffron and well-regarded producer, Fred Berger. So incredible team.

and it seems like everything that I see that atomic monster logo in front of it's usually an insane movie. So I'll also say one more thing from before we get in the cast here and one hour and 38 minutes. Did you guys feel that this movie? Was, did it feel about that long? Did you feel it dragging at any point? Like how was the, how was the like actual view of this movie? felt like it was like an hour and a half, yeah.

Like, I mean, it was, went by pretty fast though, because it was enjoyable, but I feel like I could have probably had like another 20 minutes and I still would have been okay. Sure. Yeah, it did feel pretty snappy. Yeah. Aaron, how about you? I felt like it was a little long. Really? At what point did you feel like this is getting to be a little too much? I want to say it was probably about the time, you know, when they're at the hotel and the pool scene occurs, like when they finally realize.

Maybe write it half, through?

Yeah. Yeah, because I think I think honestly like there was just a couple of parts like like to me take out the part where where you know with the kid who wants to go back and get the the monkey from from bill Yeah, you know that was like that to me was like an unnecessary part about it And I could have like, know You could have left that off and it would have been like still a perfect movie with a perfect lens No, no, no, no, no, that's none of that is like part of the story

I just assumed that they were trying to stay close to the actual, you know, original story. And that's why he was in there. But yeah. OK. Odd choice, I guess. But all right. All right, Aaron, let's get into the cast here. I think it's actually a pretty good cast overall. Yeah, so the cast, Theo James plays Hal and Bill Shelburne, which I'm hearing a lot of rumblings. Apparently Theo James is tasty. He's delightful.

He's hunky from what I, the rumblings that I've As our subject matter expert, are you a fan of Theo James and his aesthetic? No, straight up, I like him because his name is Theo and my dog's name was Theo. That's the only reason I remember. He's a good looking guy, though. And I think that he did a great job kind of emulating two different types of people, but still pulling it off right. Kind of like the unhinged version of himself, which I think was really fun. I would love to see him.

Yeah, I would love to see him do more like unhinged roles like that. I just think it was really fun. But yeah. Let's talk about that, let's talk about that tuxedo. With the flames, you know? And the weird mullet that he had there as well. I will say that that Bill was definitely my favorite character development from this entire movie. they almost neither neither version really made sense to me because Theo James is a good looking guy. He's pretty stacked. He's he's a unit. Right.

Like but he can't play a nerd and he can't play like a like a has been right. Exactly. He's a specimen. Like as soon as I saw him in the supermarket, I was like, there's no fucking way. He would at least be working at like an LA Fitness or something. I just know he's working at some mom-and-pop grocery store.

no that's that that to me was unbelievable I was like if you're gonna get a guy do not get Theo James to play like this this like like no that guy knows he's good-looking You know, the the narration throughout the film I really liked and I like Theo James's voice for that. You know what it kind of reminded me of though? And I know I don't know if either one I know Aaron, I don't think you're really a big sports fan, Eric.

I don't know if you are, but it kind of reminded me of the narration from Oh dang it. I just had it. Not the rookie. What's the baseball? The Sandlot. Gosh, there it is. The Sandlot. It reminded me of him sort of just narrating the whole movie like that. What do you what do you what what do you do? Do like the you're not a sports fan. I think you're talking to talk about like fucking like the World Series 2023 and who like narrated that and I'm just like, I dude, I've seen the Sandlot.

Jesus like, oh, you don't do sports fan. I feel like you can't podcast unless you've seen the Sandlot, right? It is a prerequisite, I'm pretty sure, yeah. I so offended right now. was a microaggression. Christian Convery as young Hal and Bill. No. He was the he's the little kid in sweet tooth on Netflix. Erica, we reviewed sweet tooth on here and it was it was pretty bad. We were both like pretty annoyed by it. I love that kid. That kid has a punchable face.

Tatiana Maslany, which we all love, know, Lois Shelburne. She's got a lot of stuff going on right now. I'm pretty excited about for her upcoming films. And you were talking about The Keeper coming up. Colin O'Brien as Petey. Rohan Campbell is Ricky. Sarah Levy. That's you there we go. As on Ida Osgood Perkins as Uncle Chip. That shit was funny. He was hilarious as Uncle Chip.

Adam Scott as Hal and Bill's absent father, Captain Petey Shelburne, Elijah Wood as Ted Hammerman, Tess Degenstein as Barbara, Danica Dreyer as Annie Wilkes, Laura Mendel as Hal's ex-wife and Petey's mother, Nico Del Rio as rookie priest. What the fuck? You know about the rookie priest? That's one of the things, yes, the rookie priest.

That's one of the things where like, feel that that's why they like, they had a rookie priest up there is because maybe in this world, because the amount of funerals that they have to have on call, like there's only certain willing people willing. wildly inappropriate the entire time. Yes, yes, like, like, dude, yikes. Right. Yeah, yeah. That and, and, and, and again, we talk about like, again, maybe, okay, so I'm starting to piece things together here.

I'm starting to have like, you know, the, the, it's always sunny in Philadelphia. Like things are lining up. Yeah, I got the whiteboard and the string. That's why the priest was so young. because you have to have backups like alternates because maybe the priest even died or the fact again that you have to have so many going.

And then also that's why Hal's boss at the grocery store was like this young kid because maybe the supervisor passed away and somebody had to be quickly promoted to becoming like the manager. So like you got to think that there's got to be a lot of young people doing like senior positions in this world because of that. Could be. I don't hate it. So at the babysitter's funeral there at the beginning of the film, it's revealed that the name of the little the girl there was Annie Wilkes.

This is the same name of Kathy Bates character in Misery in 1990, of course, also written by Stephen King. So that was a pretty interesting little tidbit there. It's all connected. OK, so, Aaron, we're going to go. This is probably the last thing we're going talk about the film review. And I love for you to talk about it you had this question earlier.

Yes. So at the end of the film, Hal and Petey, father and son, they drive through the devastated town, accepting their fate as the monkey's owner to prevent the key from ever being turned again. At an intersection, a pale, black eyed man riding a pale horse, his name was Death, implied to represent the pale horseman from the Book of Revelations, passes by and acknowledges them.

This moment was directly lifted from the short story and has never been explained by King, but Oz Perkins shed some light on his interpretation. pull this from the story. I maybe I'll go back and reread it. There's some crazy shit in the Bible, right? Perkins said, I just go towards the end and I was like, I think I should probably just go after it.

At this point, we've reached such levels of absurdity, we might as well just drag the pale writer out and show him and have him be a part of the universe because all bets are off. We've created this unhinged reality. Let's bring mythos into it. So my question for you both are is whatever, however you say that, what do you think that meant? Cause Stephen King, as you said, there has never given an explanation. I think purposefully and I was Perkins sort of gives his rap on it all, but.

I'm gonna go last because I think I have a pretty good end. Okay, so Erica, how about you? What do you think that meant in that moment? for me is that they were like faced with death, right? And it's like you come face to face with death. His son saw it, everybody that was there saw it, and it was kind of like moving on from it, right? It's kind of like picking up the pieces and just going about your life because it's there in the background and it's all in how you move on from it.

Sure. Yeah, I like that. honestly, I tend to agree. I'm just going to add a little bit based on the mythos of the four horsemen in the book of revelations. The I cannot say his name. It starts with a T, but the pale horseman that actually rides that horse is supposed to be the embodiment of death. Aaron, you were joking there, but it's actually correct. That is the embodiment of death. And he's the only of the he's only the only one of the four horsemen that don't wield any type of weapon.

He actually uses Hades to He do his attacks, I guess. don't know. Maybe he just draws him out like a Pokemon and like, hey, kill, kill that person or whatever. And I think the monkey represents death. I think the monkey is Hades. That's what explains the ash on the ceiling, because, you know, the pale horseman comes and grabs up Hades is, you know, offerings or what have you. And yeah, that's the way I sort of interpret it.

And it's also just Oz Perkins sort of being funny and being like, hey, look, they're partners in this whole thing. And I'm watching you. You got my guy and I'm watching you. What about you, So there's a quote and it's been said and used a lot it's by Bhagavad Gita And it's from a Sanskrit sculpture scripture. Excuse me.

Now I am become death the destroyer of worlds and so I'm kind of gonna gonna kind of Take away a little bit from what you said Chris because I feel like yes I feel like that was death and I feel like there's a kinship between that monkey and Bill and Hal and the son because they know what this item slash weapon is. This is a weapon of death. It is a totem of power and death.

And the fact that the pale rider reveals himself to them is saying that you like, you know what you have, you are basically like, you have this power and like you have, like you need to wield it correctly. So I think it's like, you know, it is a mutual like understanding. It's almost a respect. Yeah, I like that interpretation. Yeah. Okay. Well, I think we've talked about the monkey and its entirety to death here to make a pun. Let's give our final thoughts here.

Eric, I'd love to get your final thoughts on the monkey. Just overall thoughts after talking about everything. How do you feel about it? And then we'll go and give our ratings here. I thought it was an enjoyable watch, think from start to the end. I think it was something that didn't take itself too seriously, which I love to see in horror, because so many people try to do so many edgy things. But I think that this was done in a great way, a great enjoyable way.

And I really enjoyed it, honestly. I would highly recommend it to people, especially if they just want something kind of like not so serious, know, very serious scenes and just something that's very lighthearted. Sure. Aaron, how about you? I really had mixed emotions while watching this, you know, I think just kind of the same with Stephen King's work. I think Perkins had a really good time with this and he made a really good product, a really good experience with it.

And so I think that even if you don't enjoy The Monkey in the moment, you're gonna walk away. You're gonna kind of, it's one those movies that you're gonna think about. And the fact that you can think about it and pull more from it. shows that it was an experience that you needed to have.

so I really, looking back on this, it was really an enjoyable movie, a really enjoyable experience that despite its silliness, despite its comedic sense of death and mayhem and murder and gore, really kind of had a really interesting and profound like philosophy. And so I had a good time with it. I'm still having a good time with it. Yeah. You know, I sort of talked about it in the opening there with my initial thoughts.

And I think on the surface, if you want to just go in and have like sort of a fun, it's going to be a bunch of gore and fun deaths and like all that. If you just want to go in for that, you're going to get that right. But I think if, and I think this is why I love it is because you can watch it on multiple layers, right?

If you really want to think about it terms of like what familial trauma does to people, like trauma is passed down from parent to child in very interesting and mysterious ways, right? And we see that with PD in this movie through Adam Scott's PD, right? You know, like he's him leaving like he's doing the same thing to his little PD, like the multiple layers of PD are being abandoned. And it's crazy. This is what's happening. Right. So like there's multiple there's that.

Right. And again, I just really love the the quality of the film. Like Oz Perkins is a master behind the camera. The sound design is incredible. Like the small little nuances like again, what Aaron was saying, like with the ash and just all of it just really worked for me. I just find it really interesting. Death is like, it's not inspired by revenge, like what, you know, the one brother wanted to do. It's totally random. I find that so fascinating and sort of scary at the same time.

And I think it was like really excellently shown throughout this movie. again, if you're looking for a little more, some more layers, this movie has this in spades. If you're looking for just some fun kills, I think you'll get that as well. So I think that'll do it for our review of. The Monkey, let's go ahead and rate this thing out of five David A. Weiner's as we do every single movie review.

Of course, David A. Weiner being the director, the producer, the writer of In Search of Darkness, part one, two and three, the In Search of Darkness. What was the other one, Aaron? Oh, In Search of Tomorrow, sorry. And In Search of Darkness, 93, 94. Erica, what are you gonna give The Monkey out of five David A. Weiner's? Man, I'm teetering between a four and a four and a half. Like a 4.5. wow. I like it. I like that. Definitively though. 4.25. there you go. First one.

First one of the show's history. We allow it. We'll allow it. We'll allow it. All right, Aaron, how about you? I'm gonna give it a 3.5. I thought it was, a great experience. Not one that would be, know, like, I don't wanna say not like award-winning, but definitely a great message, a great time. Definitely recommend for other people to watch, but probably not one that I would put on in the background to do like chores or something. Maybe, we'll see. Like, I'll have to figure it out.

I'll try it out. But yeah, I think a three and a half is where I'm at. Yeah, Erica, you know, I don't know if you know this or not, but like for us on the show, we often say that like three is at least recommendable. Yeah. 3.5 is I would say a strong recommend for is I really love this. 4.5 is like, holy crap, that blew me away. And then of course, five is like, all. I've never given a five. I was just about to ask y'all what's your what's what your fives I've given two fives on the show.

was Good Maverick as a five. And then I gave a five for X-Men 97 as well, the TV series on Disney+. So Erin has never, well, I mean, you just gave a 4.5 to Brave New World last week. So there's your most recent one, right? Yeah. yeah. And read into that as much as you'd like everybody. But I'm glad Erin that we are. Of one mine, I guess now we will give it a 3.5. That's good news. We're back on track. We've strayed, but we came right back to each other. We're like, I don't know.

What's the animal that goes away and comes back? A bird of some sort, maybe? A boomerang phoenix. There it is. Phoenix named boomerang. think the thing to take away is that while we've all been recording this, and even though this is a film that focuses on death and tragedy and gruesome deaths, we've all been laughing and smiling.

So I think that that says a lot about this film, without having so many gruesome deaths and so much deep tragedy that the fact that we're all three smiling and enjoying, that just shows that this is an enjoyable film. Right. Exactly. if we had, if we, sorry, go ahead. I was gonna say, and you don't have to have trauma to do that. mean, even though we do, I think depending on your level of trauma that you're may vary on your trauma. But yeah, I totally agree. Right.

Like this had been a drag and been really self-serious and sort of a little preachy even. Yeah. Yeah. We all be like, man, that was really like dour. Like honestly, Long Legs had some funny parts, but I kind of felt like that throughout that movie. Like that movie felt really sort of self-serious in some ways, but also like really silly in other ways. So I think this was like. I think he sort of swung the pendulum in the other direction. And now it was like more silly than serious.

Although I will say that scene with Tatiana Maslany where she's screaming and the blood's coming out of her eyes, that kind of freaked me out a little bit. I'm not gonna lie. Yeah. All right, everybody. Well, that'll do it for episode 183. That'll do it for our review of The Monkey. Thank you so much for listening. Erica, thank you so much, first of all, for joining us here on the Uploading Bar. It's such a pleasure to have you here on the show.

Again, we're such a fan of just what you do in general. And we will have you on. whenever you want ever again doesn't have to be horror related or whatever, but I'm going to pass it off to you. Is there anything you want to say to the listener? And then also I would love for you to just sort of plug all the things that you're doing currently. my gosh. Well, I want to say thank you to Aaron and Chris. You guys are amazing. I just, love what you guys have going on here. It's so fun.

And you two just have such a great charisma together that I just, I love it. Yeah. I know I'm like, want to give you guys high fives because you're just amazing. But yeah. So anytime y'all want me on I'm here. But yeah, you can just check out my Instagram. Everything is like Erica Fett. My podcast is Camp Cryptid and hopefully I'll have some news about my new horror movie at Gettysburg Haunting soon and then I can get everybody, have you guys do a review. yeah. Awesome.

Maybe that's the next thing you come on is you can come on to talk about the movie. That'd be awesome. Yeah, I would love. Cool. Good deal. And I'll have links for everything from Erica in the show notes, everybody, if you want to just go there for an easy access to all that. So all right. Well, that'll do it. Erica, again, thank you so much, Aaron. Take us out of here. All right. Subscribe to our podcast, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, Audible, iHeartRadio.

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He's at KXD graphics on Instagram. Thank you, Dream Kid for all of our musical themes. Thank you to DJ Skyback for our grid theme and don't forget to tip your bar to enter 20 % or more. Okay. Again. Yeah. Like I said, I don't know why the speed was there, but you did a pretty good job that time. You know, no fumbles from what I could hear. And Erica, we always like to tell everyone to tip your bartenders 20 % or more. Did you ever serve at all?

Like you ever bartend or, or, you know, host or anything? I worked at a subway. Oh, I was a sandwich artist. I highly, highly recommend what you guys say 20 % or more. That was my first job. I worked at a port of subs. No way. Yeah. I ate way too many fucking sandwiches. loved, I walked home. I smelled like sandwiches all the time, but I still ate them. I love, to this day. you still smell the smell? Like you can still smell what it smells like there. yeah.

Yeah, like the bread the fresh fresh break fresh baked bread in like a sub shop has this very particular smell that you will never forget and it's almost like home Yes, it is. It's comforting. It's comforting. As someone who's never worked at Subway, can tell you, know exactly, I can smell the smell right now, actually. Everyone at home's smelling it. Go to your nearest sandwich shop and just take it in. I used to hate pepperchinis.

And one time when I was at work, co-workers, dared me to drink like a cup of pepperchini juice and I just chugged it. And like ever since then, pepperchinis are like my favorite thing on the planet. Yes. If you want a good pickle, Jimmy John's with your sandwich. There you go. All right, everybody. Well, thank you so much for listening to the ability bar this week before we get on the topic of pickles. We're going to. To the grid, if you want to talk about it, I'll do it for episode one.

83. Thank you so much for listening. We will see you all next week for episode one. 84.