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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of

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Speaker 1: iHeart Radio.

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Speaker 2: Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob Lamb.

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Speaker 3: And this is Joe McCormick. And today on Weird House Cinema,

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Speaker 3: for the celebration of October 37th, we are going to

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Speaker 3: do another horror film. We're not quite out of the

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Speaker 3: woods yet. And in a surprise turn... We're doing not

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Speaker 3: a movie from 1981, but a movie from this year,

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Speaker 3: the 2026 movie Backrooms, directed by Cain Parsons. Rob, this

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Speaker 3: was your pick. What made you go for a movie

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Speaker 3: that was just in theaters?

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Speaker 2: It just resonated with me. Basically, I'd heard just a

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Speaker 2: little bit about it, and I'd heard some good buzz,

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Speaker 2: and then Uh, the opportunity to watch it one evening, uh,

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Speaker 2: with my wife came up, uh, earlier in October and

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Speaker 2: we're like, Hey, it's supposed to be spooky. Let's let's

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Speaker 2: dive into it. Let's give it a shot. We'll watch

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Speaker 2: 10 minutes of it and see if it's our thing. And, uh,

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Speaker 2: we both really loved it. It was just the most

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Speaker 2: fun and the most, I think legitimately, um, like deeply

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Speaker 2: creeped out that I'd been watching a horror movie in

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Speaker 2: a while. Like I remember getting up halfway through the

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Speaker 2: movie to go get something from the other side of

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Speaker 2: the house and it just made walking through the hallway.

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Speaker 2: an uncanny experience, and I just kept thinking about it,

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Speaker 2: you know, days and days later. So, yeah, it just

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Speaker 2: seemed like a good pick.

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Speaker 3: I should have known you were going to get here

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Speaker 3: on the show because you kept mentioning it.

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Speaker 4: Did you realize this?

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Speaker 3: Like, after you saw it, it would come up in, like,

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Speaker 3: most conversations.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 4: It was on your mind.

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Speaker 2: And I kept seeing it everywhere, yeah. So, yeah, it

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Speaker 2: was definitely on my mind. If you've been listening to

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Speaker 2: Weird House Cinema for a while out there, folks, you

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Speaker 2: know that we We do rarely pick contemporary bits of media.

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Speaker 2: We occasionally dig into something a little more recent. But

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Speaker 2: for the most part, we talk about films from the

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Speaker 2: 50s and 60s, mostly the 70s, 80s and 90s. But

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Speaker 2: before this episode, I think we'd only covered, what, seven

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Speaker 2: films from our present century. So, you know, this isn't

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Speaker 2: to say that we don't keep making weird films. There

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Speaker 2: are some, you know, there are great weird films that

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Speaker 2: come out every year. We just tend not to select

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Speaker 2: things that are that recent. And I don't know, this

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Speaker 2: one just resonated with me on a number of levels. Again,

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Speaker 2: legitimately creepy. It's also a film that clearly has a

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Speaker 2: lot of love for old media and references that love

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Speaker 2: quite a bit. So it just felt right. In the

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Speaker 2: same way, I guess, you know, for some of the

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Speaker 2: same reasons, I love the work of Panos Cosmatos and

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Speaker 2: the reason that we watched his The Viewing a few

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Speaker 2: years back, which is one of our more recent selections. Again,

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Speaker 2: deep love of retro media and also something that really

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Speaker 2: resonates with me.

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Speaker 3: I wasn't really familiar with its specific origins, but I

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Speaker 3: had the vague idea that this comes from like that

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Speaker 3: sort of creepypasta zone in some way. And this is

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Speaker 3: not fair, but that did make me think like, well,

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Speaker 3: how good could it be? But I was really pleasantly surprised. Like,

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Speaker 3: I thought this was a much more interesting and fresh, original,

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Speaker 3: thoughtful kind of horror premise than I've seen in a while.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Now, before we get any deeper, I

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Speaker 2: want to say that I went into it knowing next

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Speaker 2: to nothing about it, and so did you. And if

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Speaker 2: you know nothing about the movie right now other than

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Speaker 2: what we've told you, perfect. Go watch it right now,

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Speaker 2: then come back, because we're going to start getting more

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Speaker 2: into spoiler territory. And I also want to stress that

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Speaker 2: we'll reference the fact that the back rooms as an

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Speaker 2: idea are had its own life and its own origin

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Speaker 2: story before this film. But we're not really going to

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Speaker 2: get into all that. We don't really know about all that.

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Speaker 2: So just keep that in mind as we proceed. Certainly

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Speaker 2: write in if you are a pre-2026 Backrooms expert and

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Speaker 2: you want to fill us in about what has been

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Speaker 2: explored online or in video games and so forth. But

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Speaker 2: for the most part, we're going to be focusing on

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Speaker 2: the film.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Now, if you know anything about Backrooms, you probably know

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Speaker 2: that it concerns in no small way the horror of

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Speaker 2: liminal spaces. chiefly in the form of what appears in

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Speaker 2: the film as a seemingly endless realm composed of yellowish

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Speaker 2: rooms with harsh fluorescent lighting. And these vast halls and

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Speaker 2: rooms seem to be lifeless for the most part, disconnected

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Speaker 2: from our own physical reality and shrouded in mystery. It's

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Speaker 2: a cool concept that, as you pointed out, has roots

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Speaker 2: in sort of creepypasta groupthink, And then has been, I think,

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Speaker 2: more solidified in the ideas of filmmaker Kane Parsons, who

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Speaker 2: is the director of this film. He created a number

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Speaker 2: of videos that were published online that explored this concept.

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Speaker 2: And also, you can see various other clear influences on

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Speaker 2: the design as well. I think the virtual world of

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Speaker 2: video games is often cited as something that informs some

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Speaker 2: of the key ideas. I think even in like the original,

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Speaker 2: was it like 4chan message board origins of the idea,

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Speaker 2: it had something to do with like clipping into a

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Speaker 2: different space to use sort of video game speak. And

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Speaker 2: on top of that, though, I think it has, you

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Speaker 2: can point to various potential literary connections as well. Like

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Speaker 2: I was heavily reminded of Mark Z. Danielewski's 2000 novel,

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Speaker 2: House of Leaves, which concerns like, you know, strange, impossible

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Speaker 2: things hallways opening up inside of a strangely haunted house.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, finding passageways into these other worlds and empty spaces

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Speaker 3: that maybe go on forever and you don't really know

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Speaker 3: what they're for or how they came to exist, what's

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Speaker 3: in there. But there is, at the same time, this

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Speaker 3: urge to explore and a kind of terror about what

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Speaker 3: this place means.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a maze and there's a minotaur. And that's

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Speaker 2: pretty much the case with back rooms as well, as

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Speaker 2: we'll discuss. And speaking of mazes and minotaurs, of course,

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Speaker 2: I was also reminded of various concepts that were explored

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Speaker 2: by Jorge Luis Borges. One that we actually talked about

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Speaker 2: recently on the show, but then also in general, like

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Speaker 2: ideas of mazes and infinities and so forth. And of course,

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Speaker 2: there are numerous works of fiction in which a character

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Speaker 2: finds a magical portal to the unseen world. which this

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Speaker 2: is very much an example of, alongside the likes of

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Speaker 2: everything from Narnia and The NeverEnding Story to various bits

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Speaker 2: of folklore. The filmmaker in particular here, I think, has

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Speaker 2: also pointed to inspiration from Charlotte Perkins Gilman's 1892 short story,

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Speaker 2: The Yellow Wallpaper.

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Speaker 1: Oh, yeah.

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Speaker 4: Creepy one.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: A lot of yellow wallpaper in this movie, for sure.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: But the back rooms as we encounter them, this realm

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Speaker 2: as we encounter them in the film, I think it

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Speaker 2: taps into a number of specific things regarding artificial spaces

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Speaker 2: that we experience in life. I think on one hand,

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Speaker 2: just encounters with bad lighting and bad architecture, both of

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Speaker 2: which come with, I think, potential psychic damage to the individual.

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Speaker 2: I was certainly reminded of some of these images you

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Speaker 2: see online, examples of really weird... like do it yourself

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Speaker 2: design inside of a renovation home.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: I'm slightly reminded of an episode we did many years

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Speaker 3: ago now that was like the, I think it was

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Speaker 3: called something like the room of infinite uncomfortability or something

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Speaker 3: where we were trying to imagine what is the least

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Speaker 3: pleasant type of room to be in. And so we

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Speaker 3: looked at a lot of different psychology and architecture work

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Speaker 3: on like, what kinds of spaces do people like and

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Speaker 3: do people really not like? And so there are all

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Speaker 3: these interesting things you can discover. There are colors and

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Speaker 3: lighting patterns that make people uncomfortable. People don't really don't

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Speaker 3: like low ceilings. You know, there's a bunch of stuff

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Speaker 3: like that. And the back rooms takes advantage, I think,

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Speaker 3: of a lot of that stuff, just stuff that can

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Speaker 3: happen in interior design and architecture, maybe because people are

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Speaker 3: cutting corners or because it's on the way to becoming

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Speaker 3: some other type of space or something like that. but

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Speaker 3: just ending up with interior spaces that are unpleasant and

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Speaker 3: unsettling to the point of being hostile.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and also spaces that really seem pointless. It's like

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Speaker 2: strange little corners that are positioned in a way where

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Speaker 2: you're like, this has no purpose. There's no way you

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Speaker 2: could utilize this space. Why does this exist? So a

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Speaker 2: lot of that is explored as well. Another thing I

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Speaker 2: would point to is, uh, the place where our evolved

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Speaker 2: perception of dangerous spaces, uh, collide with the sort of, uh,

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Speaker 2: presumed safety of artificially lit human spaces. Uh, because one

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Speaker 2: of the things is that there are some shadowy, certainly

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Speaker 2: some shadowy or even dark corridors explored in the back

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Speaker 2: rooms as we see them in this movie. But like

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Speaker 2: the main spaces we see are those like really well lit,

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Speaker 2: you know, yellow rooms. And, um, Yeah, I was struck

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Speaker 2: how at times we're looking at an environment that you

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Speaker 2: might compare to, say, like a cave in which an

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Speaker 2: animal might dwell. But it's fully carpeted and has overhead

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Speaker 2: lighting and wallpaper. And so we have like a double

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Speaker 2: meaning or a double reading of the scenario where it's like,

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Speaker 2: of course, it's safe. It has wallpaper and lights overhead.

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Speaker 2: But at the same time, it's like a cave. It's

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Speaker 2: like some sort of a very suspicious environment.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: Well, it resembles a cave in that a cave is

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Speaker 3: a thing formed accidentally. Nobody planned it to be hospitable

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Speaker 3: to humans. And the back rooms feel that way, except

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Speaker 3: they are artificial interior. so it's like as if uh

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Speaker 3: artificial interiors were somehow formed accidentally by the same type

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Speaker 3: of processes that make a cave yeah.

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Speaker 2: Yeah um coming back to the the liminal thing there's

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Speaker 2: of course the you know the liminal weirdness of something

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Speaker 2: should be here but it isn't and then i was

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Speaker 2: also just i don't know about you joe but i

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Speaker 2: was reminded of Like dreams that I had when I

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Speaker 2: was a kid about like finding like strange rooms in

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Speaker 2: my house or in particular, a recurring dream I had

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Speaker 2: about finding a narrow space behind a stairway that was

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Speaker 2: just small enough for a child to like crawl into

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Speaker 2: it and then keep turning until you find like some

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Speaker 2: sort of a strange, tight, cozy space in the middle.

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Speaker 2: And so I kept thinking of that as well.

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Speaker 3: Actually a recurring dream type that Rachel has had her

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Speaker 3: whole life is, is finding different, uh, rooms that she

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Speaker 3: didn't know existed in her house. Apparently it just happens

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Speaker 3: over and over. It's extremely common dream. I don't think

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Speaker 3: I have this kind of dream very often though. I

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Speaker 3: have had some of them in the past. Um, I

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Speaker 3: remember one from when I was a kid that was

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Speaker 3: very vivid of, uh, not so much a room, but

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Speaker 3: finding a kind of passageway from somewhere in my house

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Speaker 3: that like led to a beach.

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Speaker 4: And that was like very memorable. Oh, wow.

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Speaker 2: Like dark city. That's a different movie entirely.

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Speaker 4: Kind of. Yeah. Shell beach.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: All right. Well, um, I don't know if you have

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Speaker 2: an elevator pitch for this one. I actually don't have

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Speaker 2: near as good, a good one as the one my

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Speaker 2: wife came up with when we were watching this together.

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Speaker 2: She said at one point, worst meow wolf ever. And

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Speaker 2: I think that does kind of, if you're familiar with,

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Speaker 2: with meow wolf and, This is the sort of artificial,

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Speaker 2: inspiring interior spaces that they create. That's kind of like

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Speaker 2: what we have here, except terrifying and unsettling instead.

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Speaker 3: I might say consumer House of Leaves or bureaucratic House

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Speaker 3: of Leaves. It has a House of Leaves style premise,

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Speaker 3: but I think a big part of the aesthetics of

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Speaker 3: how it's realized has something to do with banality, with like, unpleasant,

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Speaker 3: but also familiar types of interior spaces. So not so much,

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Speaker 3: you know, the, the strange fantasies where you, you know,

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Speaker 3: go down a staircase that goes on forever or go

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Speaker 3: into a, a labyrinth or a maze, but just things

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Speaker 3: like rooms we've actually kind of been in, like you

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Speaker 3: can recognize the back rooms. Like I went, there was

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Speaker 3: a hallway like this in my school, or, you know,

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Speaker 3: one time I had worked in an office building that

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Speaker 3: had a unfinished part that was like this, or, I

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Speaker 3: was thinking about like the service corridor behind the stores

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Speaker 3: and a shopping mall. There are really places that kind

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Speaker 3: of feel like this and they're not usually notable places.

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Speaker 3: They are banal. They are not meant to be interesting

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Speaker 3: or memorable, but we have experienced them. And the space

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Speaker 3: in this movie takes that kind of banal experience and

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Speaker 3: turns it into a maze like in House of Leaves.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a good point. And it reminds me that,

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Speaker 2: you know, if you look at the origins of the

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Speaker 2: whole backrooms thing, like it apparently originates with this photograph

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Speaker 2: from some middle America furniture store, you know, supposedly undoctored

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Speaker 2: of just this strange, empty, yellow space. So, you know,

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Speaker 2: it very much has an origin in the mundane world.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: All right. Well, if you would like to head on

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Speaker 2: out and watch backrooms before listening to the rest of

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Speaker 2: the episode. As of this recording, in the United States

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Speaker 2: at least, it's on HBO Max. That's where I ended

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Speaker 2: up seeing it. And I believe it was, of course,

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Speaker 2: in theaters earlier in the year. And I believe there's

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Speaker 2: about to be an A24 Blu-ray. It's coming out later

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Speaker 2: this month, I believe. So you can preorder it and

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Speaker 2: you should be able to rent it from wherever you

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Speaker 2: happen to rent your physical media in the near future.

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Speaker 4: Hmm.

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Speaker 2: All right let's talk about the people who made this

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Speaker 2: movie um the director of the film is kane parson

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Speaker 2: so i believe we mentioned already born 2005 american filmmaker

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Speaker 2: and musician often credited online as kane pixels whose prior

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Speaker 2: work mostly took the form of web series videos created

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Speaker 2: for youtube and the like um And in the case

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Speaker 2: of his Backroom series, this was a series based on

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Speaker 2: the Backroom's creepypasta that dates back to, again, I believe 2019.

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Speaker 2: These Backroom videos that he did proved highly successful. They

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Speaker 2: were viral. And A24 reached out to him at some

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Speaker 2: point about the possible creation of a feature film adaptation.

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Speaker 2: And here we are. Now, there's been a lot of talk.

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Speaker 2: online about how young Parsons is. I believe he was

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Speaker 2: 19 or almost. He was around 19 at the time

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Speaker 2: of the filming. And that's certainly notable. But of course,

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Speaker 2: we have to remember it's not unheard of. Orson Welles

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Speaker 2: was just a few years older when he made Citizen Kane.

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Speaker 2: And I'm especially reminded of a filmmaker we've discussed on

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Speaker 2: the show before, Michael Reeves, director of 67's The Sorcerers

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Speaker 2: and 68's Witchfinder General. He made his first feature film,

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Speaker 2: 68's The She-Beast, at the age of 22. And, of course,

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Speaker 2: made all of his films before the age of 25

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Speaker 2: because he died rather young. So, yeah, you do occasionally

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Speaker 2: see a filmmaker that is, you know, this self-assured and

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Speaker 2: artistically capable and also, you know, positioned to succeed in

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Speaker 2: such a cool way. So this is, as of this recording,

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Speaker 2: his only feature film, his first feature film. And I'm

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Speaker 2: excited to see where it goes from here. Yeah.

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Speaker 3: Uh, but do I understand correctly? Uh, he was the

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Speaker 3: director of the online short films that, uh, that are,

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Speaker 3: that were called the back rooms before this was made.

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Speaker 3: So in a way he had already independently cinematically explored

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Speaker 3: this concept. This is just the transformation of it into

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Speaker 3: a feature with like more fleshed out characters and stuff.

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Speaker 2: That's right. He directed these, wrote them like fleshed out

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Speaker 2: his version of the mythos, did the music. So heavily involved.

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Speaker 1: Hmm.

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Speaker 2: All right, the screenwriter for the 2026 Backrooms movie is

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Speaker 2: Will Sudik. I don't believe his age is public record,

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Speaker 2: but his other writing credits go back to 2013, and

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Speaker 2: they include episodes of such TV shows as Homeland, Borgia,

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Speaker 2: Ash vs. Evil Dead, and Westworld. Son of the late

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Speaker 2: screenwriter and producer Henry Brommel and writer-actress Trish Sudik. And

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Speaker 2: aside from having watched episodes of two of those shows,

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Speaker 2: I don't really know much about him or his work. However,

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Speaker 2: I do think the screenplay for Backrooms works rather well.

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Speaker 2: I like how it grounds everything in character, and it

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Speaker 2: weaves in these themes of memory and trauma in a

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Speaker 2: way that I think works to deepen the supernatural elements.

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Speaker 4: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: All right, let's get into the cast. Top build, we'll

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Speaker 2: discuss whether he is truly the protagonist. He's at least

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Speaker 2: positioned as the protagonist at first, but we have Chiwetel Ejiofor.

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Speaker 2: born 1977, playing Clark. Versatile British actor of stage, screen,

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Speaker 2: and TV, whose first TV credit was the 1996 BBC-HBO

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Speaker 2: TV film Deadly Voyage. He's part of a pretty solid

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Speaker 2: supporting cast, followed by a supporting role in the 1997

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Speaker 2: film Amistad. And let's see, after that, there was the

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Speaker 2: 2002 film Dirty Pretty Things, Twelfth Night or What You

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Speaker 2: Will in 2003, as well as Love Actually. And he

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Speaker 2: played the villain in 2005's Serenity. This was, of course,

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Speaker 2: the Firefly movie, followed by Children of Men in 2006,

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Speaker 2: American Gangster in 2007, Steve McQueen's 12 Years a Slave

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Speaker 2: in 2013, for which he was nominated for an Oscar,

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Speaker 2: The Martian in 2015, Doctor Strange in 2016. He played

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Speaker 2: the character Baron Mordo in that, reprised the role later

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Speaker 2: on in 2022 and may pop up again in the MCU.

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Speaker 2: He was in a TV adaptation of The Man Who

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Speaker 2: Fell to Earth in 2022, The Life of Chuck in

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Speaker 2: Venom in 2024. And he's also written and directed a

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Speaker 2: handful of other projects, including 2019's The Boy Who Harnessed

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Speaker 2: the Wind.

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Speaker 3: I wanted to talk about Chiwetel Ejiofor for a minute

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Speaker 3: because it's funny that this movie, The Back Rooms, interacts

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Speaker 3: a lot with feelings of nostalgia. And I have a

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Speaker 3: weirdly nostalgic attachment. to him, I think because several of

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Speaker 3: his movies were big for me in like my core

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Speaker 3: young adult taste forming years. I'm thinking about roles of

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Speaker 3: his in the early to mid 2000s when I was

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Speaker 3: in my late teens and early twenties. Around that time,

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Speaker 3: one of the movies that I got really attached to

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Speaker 3: was somehow I got a DVD of Dirty Pretty Things.

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Speaker 3: This was directed by Stephen Frears in which Ejiofor co-stars

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Speaker 3: with Audrey Tattoo and And I ended up watching that

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Speaker 3: movie a bunch of times then. The main characters in

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Speaker 3: that film are immigrants working in London, with Ejiofor playing

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Speaker 3: a medical doctor from Nigeria who is forced to leave

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Speaker 3: his home country, and he now works as a cab

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Speaker 3: driver and a hotel porter. And one of the main

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Speaker 3: social themes of the movie is about the different ways

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Speaker 3: that immigrant workers are exploited, but also put in these

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Speaker 3: Kafkaesque dilemmas where there are things that they must do,

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Speaker 3: but also cannot do. And I also remember it just

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Speaker 3: working as a really effective thriller and that it was

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Speaker 3: grounded by Ejiofor's performance as a hero who is both capable,

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Speaker 3: but also very melancholy. I remember him having kind of

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Speaker 3: a sweet, calming, but depressive kind of presence in that movie.

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Speaker 2: You know, I never saw it. I think it was

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Speaker 2: somehow this one ended largely off my radar.

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Speaker 3: I haven't seen it in many years now, but there

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Speaker 3: was a stretch in the mid-2000s where I probably watched

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Speaker 3: it like 10 times. I don't know. It became very interesting.

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Speaker 4: And cozy to me.

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Speaker 3: But there was also an interesting run in the 2000s

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Speaker 3: where he played several different, what you might call complex villains...

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Speaker 3: I haven't seen the Firefly movie since around when it

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Speaker 3: came out. And to be honest, I know Firefly was

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Speaker 3: like a huge touchstone for some people my age. It

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Speaker 3: never was for me. But I remember when I saw

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Speaker 3: the movie, Ejiofor in particular was really striking, I think

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Speaker 3: because he played this functionally vicious character, but his affect

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Speaker 3: was very polite.

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Speaker 4: And calm and soft-spoken.

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Speaker 3: I know he's not the only character like that in fiction, obviously,

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Speaker 3: but It was kind of different to me when I

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Speaker 3: first saw it, and I thought that was really interesting.

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Speaker 3: And he's also really great, I remember, in Children of Men,

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Speaker 3: which if you've never seen it, is an excellent movie.

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Speaker 3: Also haven't seen that one in a while, but I

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Speaker 3: similarly became obsessed with that movie after it came out in,

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Speaker 3: I think, 2006.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I remember the year it came out, thinking that

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Speaker 2: Children of Men was like the best film of the year.

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Speaker 2: And I think it was like the best film I

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Speaker 2: saw that year.

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Speaker 4: Totally.

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Speaker 3: And I haven't, again, I haven't seen it in a while, but, uh,

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Speaker 3: my memory of it is, is very fond. Uh, I

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Speaker 3: would imagine it feels even more socially relevant now than

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Speaker 3: at the time it was made, like the setting in

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Speaker 3: that movie, if you haven't seen it, um, uh, it

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Speaker 3: involves a future UK with a dystopian police state that

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Speaker 3: is very focused on restricting immigration with kind of military

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Speaker 3: police hunting immigrants and refugees and political dissidents and people.

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Speaker 3: They're getting blackbagged away to prison camps, obviously analogies to

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Speaker 3: the reality in the U.S. 20 years later, kind of hair-raising.

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Speaker 3: But in that movie, Chiwetel Ejiofor plays an interesting and

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Speaker 3: complicated villain also. He's a revolutionary who's basically fighting the

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Speaker 3: good fight, but in doing so, he loses some of

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Speaker 3: his humanity and he begins to treat people as things

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Speaker 3: that can be sacrificed to achieve his political goals, which is,

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Speaker 3: I think, a very important type of character to experience.

403
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Speaker 3: It's like one of the real dangers of having too

404
00:22:26,730 --> 00:22:29,859
Speaker 3: overwhelming a sense of righteousness about yourself, even when you

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Speaker 3: are right. And I remember him showing that kind of

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Speaker 3: tragic moral evolution so well. So I don't know, he

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Speaker 3: just I associate him very much with like being 20

408
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Speaker 3: years old and coming to appreciate what good movies are.

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Speaker 2: Oh, that's, that's good.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: I mean, it's very strong performer and I think maybe

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Speaker 2: his presence here is one of the reasons too, that

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Speaker 2: I was more inclined to check out back ribs. Cause

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Speaker 2: I'm like, well, that's, that's, that's, that's not just the

415
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Speaker 2: kind of lead that you tend to have in a,

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Speaker 2: a throwaway, like sort of slasher monster film there. Maybe

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00:23:02,910 --> 00:23:04,330
Speaker 2: there's something deeper going on here.

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Speaker 4: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: We also have Renata Rhines-Vey. born 1987, playing the character Mary,

420
00:23:10,600 --> 00:23:15,140
Speaker 2: a Norwegian actress whose credits go back to 2011, including

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Speaker 2: the Norwegian horror movie Darkwoods 2 in 2015. She's worked

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Speaker 2: a few different times with Norwegian director Joachim Trier. I'm

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Speaker 2: not super familiar with this guy's work either, but her

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Speaker 2: first English-language film was 2024's A Different Man, starring Sebastian Stan. Um, and, uh, yeah, I,

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Speaker 2: I had never seen any, uh, this is the only

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Speaker 2: film I've seen with her in it. I'd not seen

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Speaker 2: anything else she was in, but I thought she did

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Speaker 2: a fine job here. I thought it was a good

429
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Speaker 2: performance and a, and ultimately a really well-written character.

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Speaker 3: An interesting character and performance. Uh, Rines Faye plays a

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Speaker 3: therapist and self-help author who in her own way is

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Speaker 3: a haunted character. Uh, we see memories of traumatic experiences

433
00:23:59,150 --> 00:24:02,150
Speaker 3: from her childhood where she was dealing with a parent

434
00:24:02,210 --> 00:24:06,570
Speaker 3: who seemed to be suffering from psychosis. But Rob, I

435
00:24:06,590 --> 00:24:08,020
Speaker 3: was thinking about it this way. I wonder if you,

436
00:24:08,430 --> 00:24:10,210
Speaker 3: you can tell me if you disagree with this read,

437
00:24:10,720 --> 00:24:13,800
Speaker 3: but I think she is somewhat unique as a movie

438
00:24:13,859 --> 00:24:18,220
Speaker 3: character because of the way that she seems to have

439
00:24:18,500 --> 00:24:23,520
Speaker 3: effectively managed the, the emotional pain and anxieties that come

440
00:24:23,660 --> 00:24:27,280
Speaker 3: from her backstory. And I'll explain a little more what

441
00:24:27,340 --> 00:24:30,659
Speaker 3: I mean there. I think it is much more common to,

442
00:24:31,300 --> 00:24:34,949
Speaker 3: when a movie character is dealing with painful memories or

443
00:24:34,990 --> 00:24:39,290
Speaker 3: traumatic experiences to portray, to portray them in the present,

444
00:24:39,410 --> 00:24:44,290
Speaker 3: in the story as having unmanaged psychological distress, or when

445
00:24:44,330 --> 00:24:48,320
Speaker 3: the stress is managed, it is managed poorly through unhealthy

446
00:24:48,380 --> 00:24:52,800
Speaker 3: methods like nervous avoidance or drugs and alcohol. And I

447
00:24:52,820 --> 00:24:56,100
Speaker 3: think it's common. I think this way of rendering characters

448
00:24:56,180 --> 00:24:59,840
Speaker 3: is much more common because Because unmanaged issues are thought

449
00:24:59,880 --> 00:25:03,260
Speaker 3: to be dramatically interesting. They heighten the stakes and the tension.

450
00:25:03,300 --> 00:25:08,280
Speaker 3: They give characters problems they need to resolve. So most

451
00:25:08,300 --> 00:25:10,620
Speaker 3: of the time you show a character having a traumatic

452
00:25:10,660 --> 00:25:14,630
Speaker 3: backstory like this, it is still in some sense unprocessed,

453
00:25:14,869 --> 00:25:19,190
Speaker 3: undealt with, and unsolved. And this character feels kind of

454
00:25:19,210 --> 00:25:22,230
Speaker 3: different because she basically does seem to have a handle

455
00:25:22,290 --> 00:25:22,770
Speaker 3: on things.

456
00:25:23,790 --> 00:25:26,510
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think this is a great point because, yeah, indeed,

457
00:25:26,609 --> 00:25:28,690
Speaker 2: we tend to watch movies about people who are a

458
00:25:28,710 --> 00:25:32,570
Speaker 2: bit of a mess. Again, it's generally thought to be

459
00:25:32,650 --> 00:25:35,010
Speaker 2: more heightened drama. You don't want to watch a movie

460
00:25:35,030 --> 00:25:38,530
Speaker 2: about someone who has it all together. But, of course,

461
00:25:38,810 --> 00:25:41,330
Speaker 2: I think you can tell great stories about people like that.

462
00:25:41,770 --> 00:25:44,130
Speaker 2: And it becomes even more, I think, essential when you're

463
00:25:44,150 --> 00:25:50,470
Speaker 2: dealing with tropes about certain identities or issues that are underrepresented.

464
00:25:51,030 --> 00:25:53,389
Speaker 2: And then, you know, you add to the heap of

465
00:25:53,430 --> 00:25:55,810
Speaker 2: this idea that, well, everyone is like that is like

466
00:25:55,869 --> 00:25:58,889
Speaker 2: this is a mess, you know, or anyone who has

467
00:25:59,170 --> 00:26:02,169
Speaker 2: some sort of a trauma is, of course, completely unable

468
00:26:02,210 --> 00:26:04,290
Speaker 2: to manage it, that sort of thing. And so it

469
00:26:04,390 --> 00:26:07,290
Speaker 2: is I didn't really focus on this when I first

470
00:26:07,350 --> 00:26:09,230
Speaker 2: watched it, but I'm so glad you pointed it out

471
00:26:09,340 --> 00:26:11,520
Speaker 2: because I brought this with me in my rewatch.

472
00:26:12,200 --> 00:26:12,460
Speaker 1: Yeah.

473
00:26:12,640 --> 00:26:14,920
Speaker 3: And so and you do get contrast in the movie.

474
00:26:14,940 --> 00:26:17,640
Speaker 3: Like you see, the characters are different. So like Chiwetel

475
00:26:17,680 --> 00:26:22,100
Speaker 3: Ejiofor's character in the movie. He has definitely poorly managed

476
00:26:22,500 --> 00:26:26,619
Speaker 3: psychological distress, like it leads to big emotional blowups and

477
00:26:26,640 --> 00:26:32,040
Speaker 3: he self-medicates with alcohol. But Rheinsfeld's character, she does still

478
00:26:32,260 --> 00:26:35,959
Speaker 3: show signs of pain and anxiety, and these are linked

479
00:26:36,119 --> 00:26:39,510
Speaker 3: to the memories of her childhood. But she does mostly

480
00:26:39,590 --> 00:26:44,250
Speaker 3: seem to have a handle on it through reason, through perspective,

481
00:26:44,450 --> 00:26:47,129
Speaker 3: and through cognitive techniques, I think. Like you see her

482
00:26:48,000 --> 00:26:50,699
Speaker 3: using cognitive techniques with her patients, but you get the

483
00:26:50,760 --> 00:26:53,260
Speaker 3: feeling that she has been through this herself also. Uh,

484
00:26:54,220 --> 00:26:56,020
Speaker 3: at one point in the movie, you do see her

485
00:26:56,080 --> 00:26:58,460
Speaker 3: getting kind of overwhelmed and you see her take a

486
00:26:58,510 --> 00:27:01,590
Speaker 3: pill in a moment of anxiety. I couldn't quite tell

487
00:27:01,640 --> 00:27:03,770
Speaker 3: if this was supposed to be taken as drug abuse

488
00:27:03,910 --> 00:27:07,970
Speaker 3: or just taking prescribed medication as intended. Um, I guess

489
00:27:07,990 --> 00:27:10,669
Speaker 3: you could read it either way, but it, it, it

490
00:27:10,710 --> 00:27:13,350
Speaker 3: didn't really amount overall to her seeming to have an

491
00:27:13,490 --> 00:27:15,390
Speaker 3: unmanaged problem. Yeah.

492
00:27:15,430 --> 00:27:18,500
Speaker 2: I didn't get a sense of, um, of uh of

493
00:27:18,540 --> 00:27:23,040
Speaker 2: drug misuse with that moment uh it felt like in

494
00:27:23,060 --> 00:27:26,419
Speaker 2: a heightened uh state of anxiety she maybe she she

495
00:27:26,480 --> 00:27:28,709
Speaker 2: turns to this you know but uh but yeah it

496
00:27:28,750 --> 00:27:30,650
Speaker 2: didn't seem unhealthy to me that.

497
00:27:30,210 --> 00:27:33,030
Speaker 3: Was not but it but anyway uh ryan space character

498
00:27:33,050 --> 00:27:35,850
Speaker 3: uh the performance i think captures this really well so

499
00:27:35,869 --> 00:27:39,590
Speaker 3: i was noticing several things about her she has a

500
00:27:39,850 --> 00:27:44,209
Speaker 3: very calm and controlled affect um she reads as somebody

501
00:27:44,250 --> 00:27:47,610
Speaker 3: who is practiced in bringing her emotions under the control

502
00:27:47,650 --> 00:27:52,090
Speaker 3: of reason and being thoughtful rather than reactive. So her

503
00:27:52,150 --> 00:27:56,060
Speaker 3: reactions in most scenes are very subdued. And this often

504
00:27:56,320 --> 00:28:01,300
Speaker 3: comes off as her being emotionally inscrutable. I was reading

505
00:28:01,340 --> 00:28:04,380
Speaker 3: a bit about this. I think historically that actually was

506
00:28:04,400 --> 00:28:08,659
Speaker 3: a common intentional presentation for a lot of people in

507
00:28:08,700 --> 00:28:09,659
Speaker 3: therapeutic roles.

508
00:28:09,680 --> 00:28:10,479
Speaker 4: I think there's been.

509
00:28:10,340 --> 00:28:12,950
Speaker 3: Some coming back on that and now and saying like

510
00:28:12,970 --> 00:28:16,530
Speaker 3: maybe therapists should not try to be emotionally inscrutable. But

511
00:28:16,910 --> 00:28:18,430
Speaker 3: I think there used to be more of a thinking

512
00:28:18,470 --> 00:28:21,110
Speaker 3: where like you want to be very careful to not

513
00:28:21,250 --> 00:28:24,630
Speaker 3: show reactions, you know, when people reveal things to you.

514
00:28:24,670 --> 00:28:27,800
Speaker 3: And she kind of has that feeling of somebody who's

515
00:28:27,859 --> 00:28:32,619
Speaker 3: practiced in not being reactive. Though it's also interesting in

516
00:28:32,760 --> 00:28:36,640
Speaker 3: scenes where this calm inscrutability inverts and she does have

517
00:28:36,680 --> 00:28:40,530
Speaker 3: to yell and show big emotion and seemingly like intentionally.

518
00:28:40,570 --> 00:28:42,190
Speaker 3: I'm thinking of the one scene where she has to

519
00:28:42,310 --> 00:28:45,650
Speaker 3: get through to another character and she yells at him suddenly.

520
00:28:45,670 --> 00:28:48,070
Speaker 4: And it's very surprising. Yeah.

521
00:28:49,130 --> 00:28:51,830
Speaker 2: And to your point about the changes in therapy approaches,

522
00:28:51,890 --> 00:28:57,400
Speaker 2: I do understand that for today's professional therapy practitioners, it's

523
00:28:57,520 --> 00:29:00,860
Speaker 2: generally regarded as solid wisdom that you don't follow your

524
00:29:00,900 --> 00:29:04,880
Speaker 2: patients into a pocket dimension. That's just generally bad form.

525
00:29:05,240 --> 00:29:07,060
Speaker 2: Just wait for them to come back out. Right.

526
00:29:07,200 --> 00:29:07,380
Speaker 1: Yeah.

527
00:29:08,760 --> 00:29:11,980
Speaker 3: But, you know, you can't always be professional. Sometimes the

528
00:29:12,000 --> 00:29:13,420
Speaker 3: curiosity gets the better of you.

529
00:29:14,300 --> 00:29:17,520
Speaker 2: But coming back to your point, yeah, I love, this

530
00:29:17,560 --> 00:29:18,880
Speaker 2: is one of the things I love about Back Rooms

531
00:29:18,920 --> 00:29:20,700
Speaker 2: is that it does kind of buck some of these

532
00:29:20,740 --> 00:29:23,570
Speaker 2: trends in modern horror. I have to say that I'm

533
00:29:23,610 --> 00:29:27,850
Speaker 2: a bit weary of horror tales that revolve around just

534
00:29:28,030 --> 00:29:34,050
Speaker 2: absolute worst case real life problems, you know, that get

535
00:29:34,930 --> 00:29:38,480
Speaker 2: too into the trauma of And so I liked how

536
00:29:38,500 --> 00:29:41,420
Speaker 2: this film doesn't show from trauma. Trauma is an important

537
00:29:42,100 --> 00:29:46,440
Speaker 2: plot point in the picture, and it explores that. But

538
00:29:46,760 --> 00:29:50,980
Speaker 2: it didn't feel like it was really digging its nails

539
00:29:51,060 --> 00:29:52,220
Speaker 2: into me over these issues.

540
00:29:52,240 --> 00:29:52,460
Speaker 4: Yeah.

541
00:29:52,900 --> 00:29:53,050
Speaker 1: Yeah.

542
00:29:53,950 --> 00:29:56,530
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it doesn't feel like wallowing because it's not

543
00:29:56,570 --> 00:30:00,650
Speaker 3: just showing all of the characters seemingly at their lowest point,

544
00:30:00,770 --> 00:30:03,590
Speaker 3: though one major character is very much at his lowest point.

545
00:30:03,710 --> 00:30:04,970
Speaker 2: Yeah.

546
00:30:05,260 --> 00:30:08,860
Speaker 3: But also, it's interesting because at the beginning of the story,

547
00:30:09,580 --> 00:30:11,580
Speaker 3: you have these two main characters, and it really feels

548
00:30:11,600 --> 00:30:14,560
Speaker 3: like Clark is going to be our protagonist, and Mary

549
00:30:14,620 --> 00:30:18,040
Speaker 3: is our secondary character who helps give perspective on Clark.

550
00:30:18,530 --> 00:30:21,260
Speaker 3: But by the end, it's interesting that Mary becomes our

551
00:30:21,280 --> 00:30:25,600
Speaker 3: protagonist and Clark is revealed as a kind of tragic

552
00:30:26,340 --> 00:30:28,640
Speaker 3: victim slash villain somewhere in between.

553
00:30:28,660 --> 00:30:32,660
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. I was not prepared for that shift either.

554
00:30:32,760 --> 00:30:37,350
Speaker 2: But I felt like the film and the screenplay achieved

555
00:30:37,410 --> 00:30:40,130
Speaker 2: this in a way that felt like a natural progression

556
00:30:40,190 --> 00:30:43,090
Speaker 2: and didn't feel like a crazy switcheroo or anything.

557
00:30:43,510 --> 00:30:44,050
Speaker 4: Totally, yeah.

558
00:30:45,420 --> 00:30:48,010
Speaker 2: All right, let's get into the supporting cast here, beginning

559
00:30:48,030 --> 00:30:51,090
Speaker 2: with the character Kat. Kat is the assistant manager at

560
00:30:51,150 --> 00:30:56,930
Speaker 2: Clark's Furniture Store, played by Lukita Maxwell, born 2001. If you,

561
00:30:57,610 --> 00:31:00,990
Speaker 2: like me, have watched TV Shrinking, the TV show Shrinking,

562
00:31:01,030 --> 00:31:03,950
Speaker 2: this is Alice from Shrinking. This is the main character's daughter.

563
00:31:05,090 --> 00:31:08,210
Speaker 2: And she's apparently also known for a role on the

564
00:31:08,210 --> 00:31:12,440
Speaker 2: 2021 series Generation. I had not seen that. So it

565
00:31:12,480 --> 00:31:14,310
Speaker 2: was for me a little weird, like, oh, it's Alice

566
00:31:14,440 --> 00:31:16,709
Speaker 2: from this other show I watch. And, you know, she's

567
00:31:16,730 --> 00:31:18,870
Speaker 2: going to end up having some sort of horrible fate

568
00:31:19,070 --> 00:31:22,530
Speaker 2: in the back rooms, no doubt. But she's really good here.

569
00:31:23,250 --> 00:31:29,390
Speaker 2: Indonesian-American actress. She gets to be charming and funny while

570
00:31:29,430 --> 00:31:32,790
Speaker 2: also very much getting to act in a horror movie. Yeah.

571
00:31:33,680 --> 00:31:36,800
Speaker 3: She, she's like one big raised eyebrow in this movie.

572
00:31:36,840 --> 00:31:39,320
Speaker 3: She's like get a lot of scenes of dealing with

573
00:31:39,380 --> 00:31:41,050
Speaker 3: Clark and being like, what are you doing?

574
00:31:41,480 --> 00:31:41,680
Speaker 1: Yeah.

575
00:31:42,200 --> 00:31:44,930
Speaker 2: Yeah. Like, I love the scene where she's like the

576
00:31:44,990 --> 00:31:47,350
Speaker 2: rats back and she's like, I thought we killed the rat.

577
00:31:47,370 --> 00:31:48,530
Speaker 2: And he's like, we killed a rat.

578
00:31:48,890 --> 00:31:49,350
Speaker 4: A rat.

579
00:31:49,430 --> 00:31:50,610
Speaker 2: Yeah.

580
00:31:51,790 --> 00:31:53,650
Speaker 4: But it reminds me of that scene in Jaws, right?

581
00:31:54,070 --> 00:31:56,969
Speaker 4: Oh yeah. They killed a shark, not the shark. Yeah.

582
00:31:58,080 --> 00:31:58,210
Speaker 1: Yeah.

583
00:31:59,760 --> 00:32:02,940
Speaker 2: So that's Cat. And then Cat has a boyfriend by

584
00:32:02,960 --> 00:32:07,420
Speaker 2: the name of Bobby, played by Finn Bennett, born 1999,

585
00:32:07,420 --> 00:32:12,120
Speaker 2: Irish-British actor who previously appeared in two high-profile HBO series,

586
00:32:12,220 --> 00:32:15,830
Speaker 2: True Detective, Night Country, and 2024. And this is the

587
00:32:15,850 --> 00:32:18,350
Speaker 2: main place I recognized him from, A Night of the

588
00:32:18,390 --> 00:32:20,310
Speaker 2: Seven Kingdoms, from just this year.

589
00:32:20,330 --> 00:32:22,790
Speaker 4: I didn't recognize him. Who was he in A Night

590
00:32:22,810 --> 00:32:23,710
Speaker 4: of the Seven Kingdoms?

591
00:32:23,730 --> 00:32:26,300
Speaker 2: He is, and I get all my Targaryens confused. He's

592
00:32:26,390 --> 00:32:29,990
Speaker 2: one of the many Targaryens even in that show.

593
00:32:30,170 --> 00:32:33,130
Speaker 4: Yeah. Oh, he's the, is he the bad Targaryen?

594
00:32:33,190 --> 00:32:35,040
Speaker 2: He's the one who, he's the bright flame. Yeah.

595
00:32:35,300 --> 00:32:38,480
Speaker 4: Okay. He's the, he's the really nasty one.

596
00:32:38,740 --> 00:32:39,120
Speaker 2: Yeah.

597
00:32:39,300 --> 00:32:39,420
Speaker 4: Yeah.

598
00:32:39,460 --> 00:32:41,900
Speaker 2: I think, I think so. I, again, I get my

599
00:32:41,940 --> 00:32:45,800
Speaker 2: Targaryen so confused, but yeah, very different character in this

600
00:32:45,880 --> 00:32:49,400
Speaker 2: because here he's the, he's your standard stone college AV

601
00:32:49,600 --> 00:32:54,960
Speaker 2: guy who keeps borrowing this camera first to film a

602
00:32:55,000 --> 00:32:57,630
Speaker 2: commercial for Clark And then to help Clark out with

603
00:32:57,670 --> 00:33:03,000
Speaker 2: his otherworldly explorations. Yeah. So, you know, we don't see

604
00:33:03,600 --> 00:33:05,820
Speaker 2: a fair amount of Bobby and Kat, but I feel

605
00:33:05,840 --> 00:33:08,140
Speaker 2: like it's a nice pairing. These two do a great job.

606
00:33:09,400 --> 00:33:12,820
Speaker 2: All right. We also have Mark Duplass appearing in this,

607
00:33:12,940 --> 00:33:15,560
Speaker 2: playing a mysterious character for most of the film by

608
00:33:15,580 --> 00:33:17,850
Speaker 2: the name of Phil. And I guess still mysterious at

609
00:33:17,870 --> 00:33:21,970
Speaker 2: the end of the film. But Duplass, born 1976, is,

610
00:33:21,990 --> 00:33:24,830
Speaker 2: of course, a veteran actor of both comedic and serious fare.

611
00:33:25,410 --> 00:33:28,709
Speaker 2: as well as just an all-around indie filmmaker who I've

612
00:33:28,730 --> 00:33:31,030
Speaker 2: seen cited in numerous places as just being like a

613
00:33:31,070 --> 00:33:34,900
Speaker 2: great teacher and advisor for creatives at pretty much every level.

614
00:33:36,700 --> 00:33:40,760
Speaker 2: You certainly hear about him mentoring young filmmakers, but then

615
00:33:41,180 --> 00:33:44,760
Speaker 2: I was watching something, a behind-the-scenes thing about TV's The

616
00:33:44,800 --> 00:33:47,520
Speaker 2: Morning Show. They were talking with Billy Crudup on that,

617
00:33:47,740 --> 00:33:51,010
Speaker 2: a terrific actor, top of his game, and he was

618
00:33:51,050 --> 00:33:53,780
Speaker 2: talking about how much uh, Mark Duplass, who was one

619
00:33:53,800 --> 00:33:56,060
Speaker 2: of his co-stars in that show, like helped him like

620
00:33:56,120 --> 00:33:58,900
Speaker 2: coaching him through, uh, or, you know, I forget the details,

621
00:33:58,920 --> 00:34:01,340
Speaker 2: but essentially helping him get through like a really difficult

622
00:34:01,360 --> 00:34:03,450
Speaker 2: material to try and figure out how to, how to

623
00:34:03,490 --> 00:34:06,469
Speaker 2: perform and how to do on the show. Hmm. Now

624
00:34:06,510 --> 00:34:09,850
Speaker 2: it's interesting. I was, uh, I was looking at some, um,

625
00:34:10,230 --> 00:34:14,549
Speaker 2: some additional online material here. And, um, in response to

626
00:34:14,610 --> 00:34:16,879
Speaker 2: some people saying like, well, there's no way Cain, Cain's

627
00:34:16,900 --> 00:34:20,770
Speaker 2: too young. There's no way he actually directed this film. Um, uh,

628
00:34:21,020 --> 00:34:22,859
Speaker 2: Duplass was one of the people who very much came

629
00:34:22,900 --> 00:34:25,879
Speaker 2: to his defense and said like, look, they, you know,

630
00:34:26,200 --> 00:34:28,259
Speaker 2: I think they might've in part hired me for this

631
00:34:28,320 --> 00:34:31,390
Speaker 2: role because I have this history, you know, coaching people

632
00:34:31,469 --> 00:34:34,390
Speaker 2: and helping young filmmakers out. But he said, I didn't

633
00:34:34,430 --> 00:34:36,770
Speaker 2: have to do any of those things. And Kane very

634
00:34:36,810 --> 00:34:39,029
Speaker 2: much was the director of this film. Like he was,

635
00:34:39,050 --> 00:34:43,770
Speaker 2: you know, very involved. He, you know, came prepared. And, uh, uh, so,

636
00:34:43,830 --> 00:34:46,910
Speaker 2: you know, I think very telling that Duplass, uh, was

637
00:34:47,250 --> 00:34:49,669
Speaker 2: a guy who very much vouched for Kane as being

638
00:34:49,690 --> 00:34:51,790
Speaker 2: the director of this film. So it seems like a

639
00:34:51,810 --> 00:34:55,210
Speaker 2: non-issue for folks trying to make a case that anyone

640
00:34:55,250 --> 00:34:59,600
Speaker 2: else directed it. Mark, of course, frequently works with his

641
00:34:59,620 --> 00:35:03,739
Speaker 2: brother Jay. And Mark's many credits include, let's see, the

642
00:35:03,800 --> 00:35:07,580
Speaker 2: found footage creep horror franchise. I haven't seen any of that,

643
00:35:07,719 --> 00:35:09,810
Speaker 2: but I've heard good things. Some of it's kind of

644
00:35:09,830 --> 00:35:11,850
Speaker 2: like a first-person video, right?

645
00:35:12,160 --> 00:35:14,910
Speaker 3: Yeah, I've seen the first one of the movies. It

646
00:35:14,930 --> 00:35:17,549
Speaker 3: was years ago now. I remember thinking it was very good,

647
00:35:17,590 --> 00:35:23,040
Speaker 3: but incredibly uncomfortable. Like, I mean, intentionally so, you know,

648
00:35:23,620 --> 00:35:26,020
Speaker 3: difficult to watch in exactly the way it's supposed to be.

649
00:35:26,040 --> 00:35:26,110
Speaker 1: Hmm.

650
00:35:27,989 --> 00:35:32,680
Speaker 3: Involves just a long string of excruciatingly uncomfortable scenes where

651
00:35:32,719 --> 00:35:34,940
Speaker 3: somebody's like, do I need to get out of here

652
00:35:34,960 --> 00:35:38,580
Speaker 3: or am I going to be okay? And it's like,

653
00:35:38,780 --> 00:35:42,100
Speaker 3: he keeps being right in between, like, should I run

654
00:35:42,140 --> 00:35:43,600
Speaker 3: away or is this okay?

655
00:35:43,620 --> 00:35:49,680
Speaker 2: There were a couple of other like real key sort

656
00:35:49,700 --> 00:35:51,870
Speaker 2: of indie pictures that I remember he was in. One

657
00:35:51,910 --> 00:35:56,900
Speaker 2: was 2012 Safety Not Guaranteed. And the other one, 2014's

658
00:35:57,160 --> 00:35:59,820
Speaker 2: The One I Love, which I saw that one. I

659
00:35:59,880 --> 00:36:02,900
Speaker 2: remember that one being quite good, having kind of a speculative,

660
00:36:02,940 --> 00:36:04,640
Speaker 2: almost sort of Twilight Zone element to it.

661
00:36:06,120 --> 00:36:08,570
Speaker 3: I saw Safety Not Guaranteed back in the day. I

662
00:36:08,930 --> 00:36:11,070
Speaker 3: don't remember loving it, but I liked the cast. I

663
00:36:11,090 --> 00:36:15,950
Speaker 3: think it was DeCross and Aubrey Plaza, I think, maybe. So, yeah,

664
00:36:16,010 --> 00:36:18,170
Speaker 3: I remember liking the people in it.

665
00:36:18,770 --> 00:36:18,910
Speaker 4: Yeah.

666
00:36:19,710 --> 00:36:22,359
Speaker 2: Yeah, other things that Mark was in include, let's see,

667
00:36:22,380 --> 00:36:25,870
Speaker 2: the TV series Room 104. And then The League. I

668
00:36:25,890 --> 00:36:28,890
Speaker 2: think The League was probably where I saw him initially.

669
00:36:28,910 --> 00:36:32,930
Speaker 2: It's a comedy series about a group of friends that

670
00:36:33,530 --> 00:36:35,950
Speaker 2: are doing like, what is it, eSports or something?

671
00:36:35,969 --> 00:36:36,450
Speaker 4: I don't remember.

672
00:36:36,469 --> 00:36:38,940
Speaker 2: I don't remember the sports thing they were doing, but

673
00:36:38,960 --> 00:36:43,620
Speaker 2: it was like a funny comedy ensemble piece. But anyway,

674
00:36:43,680 --> 00:36:47,560
Speaker 2: big supporter of indie filmmaking. And in 2025, the Duplass

675
00:36:47,600 --> 00:36:52,670
Speaker 2: Brothers Productions launched the Found Footage Feature Fund for Trans Filmmakers,

676
00:36:53,010 --> 00:36:55,490
Speaker 2: which I thought was rather cool. So, In this film,

677
00:36:55,530 --> 00:37:00,270
Speaker 2: a mysterious figure, though, but a very, I think, solid,

678
00:37:00,710 --> 00:37:02,350
Speaker 2: understated performance by Mark.

679
00:37:03,330 --> 00:37:07,190
Speaker 3: This has absolutely nothing to do with Duplass' performance. I

680
00:37:07,230 --> 00:37:09,990
Speaker 3: did find his part of the movie probably my least

681
00:37:10,050 --> 00:37:10,989
Speaker 3: favorite part of it.

682
00:37:11,090 --> 00:37:11,850
Speaker 4: Again, not because of.

683
00:37:11,870 --> 00:37:16,390
Speaker 3: Him, but his part is where the premise gets a

684
00:37:16,430 --> 00:37:20,379
Speaker 3: little bit of grounding in science fiction. And I was

685
00:37:20,620 --> 00:37:22,620
Speaker 3: thinking on that and I was like, it doesn't really

686
00:37:22,680 --> 00:37:25,110
Speaker 3: improve on the premise for me. I kind of wanted

687
00:37:25,150 --> 00:37:28,470
Speaker 3: it just to be more totally mysterious. But, you know,

688
00:37:28,530 --> 00:37:29,290
Speaker 3: maybe that's just me.

689
00:37:30,230 --> 00:37:33,610
Speaker 2: Oh, I mean, I can see that. I think one

690
00:37:33,630 --> 00:37:36,489
Speaker 2: of the challenging things about the Backrooms film, and I

691
00:37:36,530 --> 00:37:39,759
Speaker 2: remember on my first viewing especially, I thought about this,

692
00:37:39,800 --> 00:37:43,260
Speaker 2: is like when we initially encounter it, we know nothing

693
00:37:43,320 --> 00:37:46,420
Speaker 2: about it. And it's like all the mystery is intact.

694
00:37:47,150 --> 00:37:48,730
Speaker 2: And then by the end of the movie, we're not

695
00:37:48,930 --> 00:37:52,550
Speaker 2: going to explain everything away, but they have to sprinkle,

696
00:37:52,590 --> 00:37:53,710
Speaker 2: I guess they felt like they had to sprinkle a

697
00:37:53,750 --> 00:37:57,609
Speaker 2: certain number of crumbs on the ground for us to follow. And,

698
00:37:58,790 --> 00:38:01,529
Speaker 2: you know, where do you draw the line when you're

699
00:38:01,550 --> 00:38:03,670
Speaker 2: telling a story? Like how much of the mystery box

700
00:38:03,690 --> 00:38:07,650
Speaker 2: do you keep established there? And I don't know. I

701
00:38:08,230 --> 00:38:10,850
Speaker 2: think I ultimately ended up liking where they left things

702
00:38:11,130 --> 00:38:13,110
Speaker 2: because I felt like I really have so many questions

703
00:38:13,150 --> 00:38:15,390
Speaker 2: about what it is. And I have a few things

704
00:38:15,430 --> 00:38:17,710
Speaker 2: to think about without feeling like I explained it too much.

705
00:38:18,070 --> 00:38:18,710
Speaker 4: Yeah.

706
00:38:18,930 --> 00:38:21,830
Speaker 3: Obviously, there is no universal formula about how much to

707
00:38:22,170 --> 00:38:25,260
Speaker 3: reveal or keep mysterious. It's just a question of what

708
00:38:25,320 --> 00:38:26,980
Speaker 3: works in this individual story.

709
00:38:27,580 --> 00:38:28,719
Speaker 4: So, yeah.

710
00:38:28,920 --> 00:38:34,140
Speaker 3: But I did like his presence. He brings a kind

711
00:38:34,239 --> 00:38:39,000
Speaker 3: of sadness in the scenes where he is just a functionary,

712
00:38:39,100 --> 00:38:46,299
Speaker 3: where he's interviewing Reinsveig in the final scene. There is

713
00:38:46,320 --> 00:38:49,680
Speaker 3: a reluctance in him about, we don't know exactly how

714
00:38:49,860 --> 00:38:52,100
Speaker 3: that situation is going to resolve, but it seems like

715
00:38:52,140 --> 00:38:54,759
Speaker 3: it's not going anywhere good. And you sense this kind

716
00:38:54,800 --> 00:38:56,250
Speaker 3: of sad reluctance in him.

717
00:38:56,610 --> 00:39:02,210
Speaker 2: Yeah, I like that the performance engages this sad reluctance

718
00:39:02,230 --> 00:39:04,290
Speaker 2: that you're talking about, but also there's a sense that

719
00:39:04,310 --> 00:39:07,069
Speaker 2: he is a true believer as well. He's not just

720
00:39:07,170 --> 00:39:11,660
Speaker 2: an unbelieving bureaucrat. He also believes that whatever they're doing

721
00:39:11,719 --> 00:39:16,660
Speaker 2: is the most important thing in human history. All right,

722
00:39:16,680 --> 00:39:18,620
Speaker 2: let's move on to the rest of the cast here.

723
00:39:19,020 --> 00:39:24,140
Speaker 2: We have a creature suit performer. We have Robert Bobrovsky,

724
00:39:24,140 --> 00:39:28,379
Speaker 2: born 2000. Not going to say what he plays other than,

725
00:39:28,640 --> 00:39:30,680
Speaker 2: you know, this is a guy you bring in when

726
00:39:30,719 --> 00:39:33,360
Speaker 2: you need somebody who's seven foot seven to wear a

727
00:39:33,400 --> 00:39:40,020
Speaker 2: creature suit for you. A former Romanian-Hungarian basketball player whose

728
00:39:40,360 --> 00:39:43,920
Speaker 2: only other film credit was 2024's Alien Romulus, in which

729
00:39:43,960 --> 00:39:48,490
Speaker 2: he played the offspring, the hybrid creature that you encounter

730
00:39:48,510 --> 00:39:52,230
Speaker 2: towards the end of that picture. So, notable creature suit performer.

731
00:39:53,330 --> 00:39:55,750
Speaker 2: I didn't realize it was him when I was first

732
00:39:55,790 --> 00:39:57,450
Speaker 2: watching the film, but afterwards I was like, oh yeah,

733
00:39:57,469 --> 00:39:58,790
Speaker 2: that makes perfect sense. Yeah.

734
00:39:59,230 --> 00:40:01,950
Speaker 3: Glad this was not a CGI creature.

735
00:40:02,140 --> 00:40:05,319
Speaker 4: Yeah. Enjoy the suit performance. Yeah.

736
00:40:06,460 --> 00:40:09,560
Speaker 2: All right. We also have, these are a couple of

737
00:40:09,660 --> 00:40:13,990
Speaker 2: increasingly minor characters, but first of all, we have Mary's mother, Nora,

738
00:40:14,090 --> 00:40:19,550
Speaker 2: played by Krista Kosinen. born 1983, Finnish actress whose credits

739
00:40:19,610 --> 00:40:21,410
Speaker 2: include the, this is a film I've never seen, but

740
00:40:21,450 --> 00:40:24,960
Speaker 2: I've long kind of wanted to check out, the 2006

741
00:40:24,960 --> 00:40:30,020
Speaker 2: Finnish-Chinese co-production, also a martial arts Sampo movie by the

742
00:40:30,300 --> 00:40:34,180
Speaker 2: name of Jade Warrior. She's also in an upcoming Finnish

743
00:40:34,280 --> 00:40:38,450
Speaker 2: vampire Santa Claus film called Red Snow. And she was

744
00:40:38,469 --> 00:40:42,290
Speaker 2: also in 2017's Blade Runner 2049. Also, I think she

745
00:40:42,310 --> 00:40:46,520
Speaker 2: had a role in TV's Foundations. Here she plays Mary's

746
00:40:46,580 --> 00:40:49,500
Speaker 2: mother a bit part, but she's good.

747
00:40:50,200 --> 00:40:52,359
Speaker 3: I'm tempted to check out Red Snow because I know

748
00:40:52,400 --> 00:40:56,989
Speaker 3: of only one other Finnish Christmas horror movie, and I

749
00:40:57,010 --> 00:40:58,050
Speaker 3: remember liking it a lot.

750
00:40:58,070 --> 00:40:59,090
Speaker 4: It was Rare Exports.

751
00:40:59,280 --> 00:41:03,189
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, Rare Exports was great. Occasionally requested for Weird

752
00:41:03,230 --> 00:41:06,910
Speaker 2: House Cinema, so who knows? All right, this next one,

753
00:41:06,950 --> 00:41:09,009
Speaker 2: I'm not even sure this is technically a speaking role.

754
00:41:09,190 --> 00:41:12,260
Speaker 2: I think it's more of a cameo. But Catherine Isabella

755
00:41:12,320 --> 00:41:15,040
Speaker 2: plays the character Robin. I think this is just one

756
00:41:15,060 --> 00:41:19,060
Speaker 2: of the characters at Mary's party. You see her kind

757
00:41:19,080 --> 00:41:21,359
Speaker 2: of like talking to somebody, and we don't really hear

758
00:41:21,410 --> 00:41:26,990
Speaker 2: the conversation. But Catherine Isabella is a contemporary horror legend,

759
00:41:27,050 --> 00:41:31,790
Speaker 2: born 1981. Her credits go back pretty far. She was

760
00:41:32,310 --> 00:41:35,330
Speaker 2: a child actor as far back as 89, appearing on

761
00:41:35,390 --> 00:41:40,630
Speaker 2: things like Goosebumps, The X-Files, the 90s Outer Limits series.

762
00:41:41,110 --> 00:41:43,810
Speaker 2: And then in 2001, she starred as Ginger in the

763
00:41:43,850 --> 00:41:48,050
Speaker 2: acclaimed teen werewolf movie Ginger Snaps. And then her subsequent

764
00:41:48,090 --> 00:41:53,419
Speaker 2: credits include 2002's Insomnia, the Nolan picture. She's also in

765
00:41:53,500 --> 00:42:00,299
Speaker 2: 2003's Freddy vs. Jason. She's in 2012's American Mary. She's

766
00:42:00,340 --> 00:42:03,040
Speaker 2: the lead in that. I enjoyed that one at the time.

767
00:42:03,100 --> 00:42:07,540
Speaker 2: That's a Soska Sisters picture. And the Soska Sisters also

768
00:42:07,620 --> 00:42:12,649
Speaker 2: did the 2014 movie, See No Evil 2. This was

769
00:42:12,710 --> 00:42:16,830
Speaker 2: like a WWE produced horror sequel starring the wrestler Kane.

770
00:42:16,850 --> 00:42:17,790
Speaker 4: Okay.

771
00:42:18,350 --> 00:42:21,330
Speaker 2: And like the first one's terrible. And the second one.

772
00:42:21,430 --> 00:42:24,270
Speaker 3: Kane as in the mayor of Knoxville, Tennessee, Kane?

773
00:42:24,350 --> 00:42:24,690
Speaker 4: Okay.

774
00:42:24,810 --> 00:42:27,430
Speaker 2: He played like some sort of like generic slasher character.

775
00:42:27,790 --> 00:42:31,209
Speaker 2: First one was terrible. The second one, I'm not saying

776
00:42:31,250 --> 00:42:34,270
Speaker 2: it's great, but I feel like the Soska sisters did.

777
00:42:34,780 --> 00:42:37,240
Speaker 2: an amazing job considering what they had to work with.

778
00:42:37,650 --> 00:42:39,950
Speaker 2: So I remember finding it, you know, I find, I

779
00:42:39,989 --> 00:42:43,230
Speaker 2: remember finding it enjoyable at the time. And then Catherine

780
00:42:43,270 --> 00:42:47,810
Speaker 2: Isabella also played, um, Margo Verger on, uh, TV's Hannibal.

781
00:42:48,250 --> 00:42:52,350
Speaker 2: And then she also has a role in 2025's Tron Aries. Again, here,

782
00:42:52,410 --> 00:42:54,489
Speaker 2: very much a background character, a little, little more than

783
00:42:54,510 --> 00:42:57,360
Speaker 2: a cameo, but notable that she's there. All right. And

784
00:42:57,380 --> 00:43:00,819
Speaker 2: then finally getting into the music, um, Kane Parsons also

785
00:43:00,860 --> 00:43:04,000
Speaker 2: has a music credit here along with composer Ido van Bremen.

786
00:43:04,550 --> 00:43:08,710
Speaker 2: a Canadian musician and composer whose credits include 2025's The Monkey,

787
00:43:08,950 --> 00:43:15,950
Speaker 2: as well as The Keeper, formerly of the Vancouver-based band Brastronaut. Parsons,

788
00:43:16,530 --> 00:43:19,069
Speaker 2: in his own right, has self-released multiple albums under the

789
00:43:19,090 --> 00:43:23,049
Speaker 2: Kane Pixels moniker. And I haven't listened to everything he's

790
00:43:23,070 --> 00:43:24,910
Speaker 2: put out, but I was streaming a little of it

791
00:43:24,930 --> 00:43:26,570
Speaker 2: while I was working on notes. And I thought on

792
00:43:26,590 --> 00:43:28,110
Speaker 2: the whole, it was like really good stuff, you know,

793
00:43:28,230 --> 00:43:33,450
Speaker 2: ambient electronic and, you know, new. Clearly, he draws a

794
00:43:33,469 --> 00:43:37,509
Speaker 2: lot of inspiration from older ambient electronic work.

795
00:43:39,130 --> 00:43:41,850
Speaker 3: I'm trying to figure out what kind of band Brastronaut is.

796
00:43:42,710 --> 00:43:44,930
Speaker 3: Is it like space with brass instruments?

797
00:43:44,969 --> 00:43:46,940
Speaker 2: I don't know. I didn't actually have time to look

798
00:43:47,000 --> 00:43:50,560
Speaker 2: up Brastronaut and see what their general sound was.

799
00:43:50,580 --> 00:43:53,080
Speaker 3: I know of one other band that's like a, well,

800
00:43:53,219 --> 00:43:56,319
Speaker 3: I mean, apart from Sun Ra, I know of a

801
00:43:56,460 --> 00:44:01,570
Speaker 3: contemporary band that does kind of like space psychedelic type

802
00:44:01,670 --> 00:44:04,279
Speaker 3: music and has brass instruments. Uh, do you know comet

803
00:44:04,320 --> 00:44:04,819
Speaker 3: is coming?

804
00:44:04,840 --> 00:44:05,990
Speaker 2: Oh, I don't know this one.

805
00:44:06,020 --> 00:44:07,440
Speaker 4: No. Oh, give them a look up.

806
00:44:07,480 --> 00:44:07,660
Speaker 2: Yeah.

807
00:44:08,180 --> 00:44:09,860
Speaker 4: Uh, check out the song, uh, summon the fire.

808
00:44:10,320 --> 00:44:14,020
Speaker 2: Hmm. All right. Uh, in one more musical note, I'll

809
00:44:14,040 --> 00:44:16,500
Speaker 2: go ahead and mention this. Now, uh, the credits of

810
00:44:16,520 --> 00:44:19,890
Speaker 2: this film are going to roll over the 2026 boards

811
00:44:19,930 --> 00:44:22,750
Speaker 2: of Canada track. The world becomes flesh off of their

812
00:44:22,790 --> 00:44:26,870
Speaker 2: latest album Inferno, which apparently debuted the same day as

813
00:44:26,930 --> 00:44:30,799
Speaker 2: back rooms. Uh, so that was, uh, Nice how they

814
00:44:30,820 --> 00:44:33,200
Speaker 2: wove that together. I don't think I have to really

815
00:44:33,239 --> 00:44:35,660
Speaker 2: tell anybody listening to the show who Boards of Canada are,

816
00:44:35,710 --> 00:44:38,630
Speaker 2: but if you're not aware, talking about the visionary Scottish

817
00:44:38,690 --> 00:44:42,110
Speaker 2: electronic music duo responsible for such works as the landmark

818
00:44:42,110 --> 00:44:46,030
Speaker 2: 1998 album Music Has the Right to Children and 2013's

819
00:44:46,070 --> 00:44:49,230
Speaker 2: Tomorrow's Harvest, one of my favorite groups of all time,

820
00:44:49,530 --> 00:44:51,730
Speaker 2: responsible for some of the most important pieces of music

821
00:44:51,770 --> 00:44:54,529
Speaker 2: in my life. So I'm kind of primed to love

822
00:44:54,550 --> 00:44:57,089
Speaker 2: its inclusion here no matter what. But I do think

823
00:44:57,110 --> 00:45:00,700
Speaker 2: that this particular track, like the album uh, Inferno itself,

824
00:45:01,160 --> 00:45:05,150
Speaker 2: it does pair nicely with what back rooms is doing. Uh,

825
00:45:05,360 --> 00:45:09,399
Speaker 2: this particular track has some vocal samples from a 1983

826
00:45:09,400 --> 00:45:14,120
Speaker 2: educational film about, uh, embryology, uh, titled introduction to development.

827
00:45:14,610 --> 00:45:18,009
Speaker 2: And so the samples used in the track suggests pro both, uh,

828
00:45:18,130 --> 00:45:23,489
Speaker 2: processed nonsense and also detailed development of an organism. And

829
00:45:23,590 --> 00:45:26,230
Speaker 2: it's also notable if you, to get like deeper into

830
00:45:26,270 --> 00:45:30,480
Speaker 2: the comparisons between this film and the album, um, This

831
00:45:30,600 --> 00:45:34,020
Speaker 2: is the word becomes flesh, and then it's followed by

832
00:45:34,080 --> 00:45:36,660
Speaker 2: two additional tracks, Into the Magic Land and Blood in

833
00:45:36,680 --> 00:45:39,880
Speaker 2: the Labyrinth. Into the Magic Land and Blood in the

834
00:45:39,920 --> 00:45:42,509
Speaker 2: Labyrinth are not used in this picture, but the titles

835
00:45:42,590 --> 00:45:45,350
Speaker 2: alone kind of make me think of things that occur

836
00:45:46,130 --> 00:45:47,250
Speaker 2: in back rooms. Hmm.

837
00:45:59,710 --> 00:46:00,790
Speaker 4: Uh, do you want to talk about the plot?

838
00:46:01,070 --> 00:46:03,270
Speaker 2: We should, we should stop talking about boards of Canada.

839
00:46:03,910 --> 00:46:04,870
Speaker 2: Talk about the plot.

840
00:46:05,810 --> 00:46:06,930
Speaker 4: Anything you have to say about boards?

841
00:46:06,950 --> 00:46:08,790
Speaker 2: No, no, no. Maybe I'll come back to it at

842
00:46:08,810 --> 00:46:09,029
Speaker 2: the end.

843
00:46:09,469 --> 00:46:09,750
Speaker 4: Okay.

844
00:46:10,630 --> 00:46:13,370
Speaker 3: The movie is set in the early.

845
00:46:14,489 --> 00:46:14,560
Speaker 4: 1990s.

846
00:46:14,640 --> 00:46:17,880
Speaker 3: And I think that is important. There is something, and

847
00:46:17,980 --> 00:46:19,759
Speaker 3: we'll explore this more as we go on, but there

848
00:46:19,860 --> 00:46:25,600
Speaker 3: is something about, um, the kind of technology and media

849
00:46:25,620 --> 00:46:30,040
Speaker 3: sphere that was available at that time. And the way

850
00:46:30,100 --> 00:46:34,980
Speaker 3: we nostalgically look back on the interior, you know, sort

851
00:46:35,000 --> 00:46:38,890
Speaker 3: of the aesthetics and media of that time, that feels

852
00:46:38,930 --> 00:46:40,850
Speaker 3: to me important. It feels to me like part of

853
00:46:40,910 --> 00:46:43,370
Speaker 3: the mental space that this movie comes from. And maybe

854
00:46:43,410 --> 00:46:48,090
Speaker 3: the mental space that, in a way, the core, like

855
00:46:48,210 --> 00:46:50,250
Speaker 3: actual physical space of the movie comes from.

856
00:46:50,870 --> 00:46:53,870
Speaker 2: It's also nice to not have to establish that nobody's

857
00:46:53,910 --> 00:46:56,189
Speaker 2: cell phone works every time they go into the back rooms.

858
00:46:56,410 --> 00:46:59,560
Speaker 2: Because in a contemporary set horror film, You'd probably have

859
00:46:59,580 --> 00:47:01,359
Speaker 2: to do that every time. Why am I not getting

860
00:47:01,400 --> 00:47:03,819
Speaker 2: a signal? Yeah, it's nice.

861
00:47:04,180 --> 00:47:08,000
Speaker 3: All stories should be set before cell phones. Not really,

862
00:47:08,080 --> 00:47:12,719
Speaker 3: but yeah, it definitely does solve some problems. So yeah,

863
00:47:12,920 --> 00:47:15,660
Speaker 3: it takes place in the early 90s. And our main characters, again,

864
00:47:15,800 --> 00:47:21,609
Speaker 3: are Clark, that's Chiwetel Ejiofor, and Mary, that's Renata Reinsveig. Clark,

865
00:47:21,830 --> 00:47:28,040
Speaker 3: the character, is a frustrated... irritable single man in his

866
00:47:28,100 --> 00:47:32,160
Speaker 3: late 40s who is the owner and operator of a

867
00:47:32,360 --> 00:47:37,520
Speaker 3: not very successful maybe failing discount furniture store called captain

868
00:47:37,600 --> 00:47:42,020
Speaker 3: clark's ottoman empire uh very cute which is part of

869
00:47:42,060 --> 00:47:45,180
Speaker 3: a strip mall in the santa clara valley in northern

870
00:47:45,219 --> 00:47:49,719
Speaker 3: california so situate yourself mentally there already put yourself in

871
00:47:49,739 --> 00:47:52,700
Speaker 3: the parking lot of a vast strip mall a bunch

872
00:47:52,739 --> 00:47:55,509
Speaker 3: of big box stores and Stuff like that, or I

873
00:47:55,530 --> 00:47:58,430
Speaker 3: don't know if just maybe not even big box stores,

874
00:47:58,510 --> 00:48:01,770
Speaker 3: local stores, just big furniture outlets and clothing stores and

875
00:48:01,810 --> 00:48:04,170
Speaker 3: stuff like that all lined up in a row going

876
00:48:04,210 --> 00:48:04,950
Speaker 3: to the horizon.

877
00:48:04,969 --> 00:48:05,049
Speaker 1: Yeah.

878
00:48:05,730 --> 00:48:07,879
Speaker 2: They might've used to have a big box in this

879
00:48:07,980 --> 00:48:10,460
Speaker 2: one and it's gone. And now that that box is

880
00:48:10,480 --> 00:48:11,460
Speaker 2: filled by cabin Clark's.

881
00:48:12,219 --> 00:48:15,000
Speaker 3: And so Clark is a character, as we talked about earlier.

882
00:48:15,400 --> 00:48:20,860
Speaker 3: with a lot of unprocessed psychological pain about the failure

883
00:48:21,100 --> 00:48:24,359
Speaker 3: of his marriage to a woman named Barbara. Uh, we

884
00:48:24,420 --> 00:48:28,739
Speaker 3: never hear Barbara's side of the story in the movie, uh,

885
00:48:28,820 --> 00:48:30,759
Speaker 3: that we hear somebody kind of give voice to what

886
00:48:30,800 --> 00:48:34,090
Speaker 3: they imagine Barbara thinks, but Barbara never appears in the story.

887
00:48:34,110 --> 00:48:35,530
Speaker 3: So we don't really know what she thinks.

888
00:48:36,290 --> 00:48:36,930
Speaker 4: Uh, but in.

889
00:48:36,969 --> 00:48:41,589
Speaker 3: Clark's telling the problem between them was that he put

890
00:48:41,670 --> 00:48:46,590
Speaker 3: his own career aspirations, which, uh, included a career in architecture.

891
00:48:46,670 --> 00:48:49,270
Speaker 3: He wanted to be an architect. He put his career

892
00:48:49,350 --> 00:48:53,810
Speaker 3: aspirations on hold so that he could financially support Barbara

893
00:48:53,870 --> 00:48:57,930
Speaker 3: while she went to law school. But Clark's anger and

894
00:48:57,989 --> 00:49:02,489
Speaker 3: resentment and issues with alcohol led to a conflict in

895
00:49:02,530 --> 00:49:05,500
Speaker 3: which Barbara eventually divorced him, left him and divorced him.

896
00:49:06,140 --> 00:49:09,000
Speaker 3: And now he is living alone. It seems to be

897
00:49:09,040 --> 00:49:11,620
Speaker 3: living in his store, sleeping in the display bed.

898
00:49:11,640 --> 00:49:11,710
Speaker 1: Yes.

899
00:49:12,469 --> 00:49:15,440
Speaker 3: And he is trying to keep his business afloat, apparently

900
00:49:15,640 --> 00:49:19,689
Speaker 3: failing at that, clearly very unhappy with how his life

901
00:49:19,710 --> 00:49:22,960
Speaker 3: has gone. and he still has a drinking problem. Now,

902
00:49:23,300 --> 00:49:25,500
Speaker 3: one question is, at the beginning of the story, he's

903
00:49:25,560 --> 00:49:28,839
Speaker 3: in therapy with Mary. Do you know what prompted him

904
00:49:28,920 --> 00:49:31,280
Speaker 3: to go there? Is it some kind of court-mandated thing?

905
00:49:32,080 --> 00:49:36,239
Speaker 2: That's a great point. Does Clark seem like the kind

906
00:49:36,280 --> 00:49:41,120
Speaker 2: of guy who would seek out therapy? And that's an

907
00:49:41,180 --> 00:49:43,880
Speaker 2: even that's a different question, too, when you consider that

908
00:49:43,900 --> 00:49:46,259
Speaker 2: it's supposed to be the 1990s. And I think or

909
00:49:46,280 --> 00:49:50,040
Speaker 2: I like to think that today maybe the average man

910
00:49:50,100 --> 00:49:53,140
Speaker 2: is more likely to to seek therapy for for issues.

911
00:49:54,400 --> 00:49:57,400
Speaker 3: He very much believes he is not the problem or

912
00:49:57,739 --> 00:49:59,520
Speaker 3: to the extent that he is the problem.

913
00:49:59,580 --> 00:50:01,060
Speaker 4: It's just the way he is.

914
00:50:01,719 --> 00:50:07,009
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. That's that's an important plot element, to be sure. So, yeah,

915
00:50:07,030 --> 00:50:09,319
Speaker 2: I don't know if it's if we're to. imply that

916
00:50:09,380 --> 00:50:13,040
Speaker 2: it's some sort of court mandated thing, or perhaps he

917
00:50:13,380 --> 00:50:17,310
Speaker 2: just watches enough television and certainly is in pain and

918
00:50:17,390 --> 00:50:19,529
Speaker 2: maybe had a moment where he's like, I'm going to

919
00:50:19,550 --> 00:50:22,410
Speaker 2: call this number on the television and I'm going to

920
00:50:22,450 --> 00:50:24,610
Speaker 2: see if this can't help me. And then that leads

921
00:50:24,670 --> 00:50:28,110
Speaker 2: him to finding Mary as an actual in-person therapist.

922
00:50:28,469 --> 00:50:28,750
Speaker 4: Right.

923
00:50:28,790 --> 00:50:31,170
Speaker 3: So the other main character is Mary. Mary is a

924
00:50:31,210 --> 00:50:35,310
Speaker 3: therapist and a self-help author living in the same place

925
00:50:35,350 --> 00:50:39,259
Speaker 3: in the Santa Clara Valley. And Mary has written a

926
00:50:39,600 --> 00:50:43,800
Speaker 3: self-help book that is advertised on TV called The Window Within.

927
00:50:44,860 --> 00:50:48,830
Speaker 3: So Mary, as we mentioned earlier, also has trauma and

928
00:50:48,890 --> 00:50:53,250
Speaker 3: painful memories. We see that Mary's mother suffered from some

929
00:50:53,290 --> 00:50:58,489
Speaker 3: kind of paranoia or psychosis. It led her to barricade

930
00:50:58,590 --> 00:51:02,150
Speaker 3: Mary and herself inside their house for long periods, covering

931
00:51:02,190 --> 00:51:07,640
Speaker 3: the windows with newspaper, hiding from something that she feared outside. Uh,

932
00:51:07,800 --> 00:51:11,620
Speaker 3: early in the movie, we see Mary watching during, I

933
00:51:11,660 --> 00:51:13,980
Speaker 3: think the demolition of her childhood home.

934
00:51:14,239 --> 00:51:15,620
Speaker 4: Did you take it that way?

935
00:51:15,640 --> 00:51:15,839
Speaker 2: Yeah.

936
00:51:15,900 --> 00:51:16,020
Speaker 1: Yeah.

937
00:51:16,040 --> 00:51:19,739
Speaker 2: And that's a great creepy, surreal shot early on where

938
00:51:19,780 --> 00:51:22,299
Speaker 2: we see her and her mother and what they're doing

939
00:51:22,320 --> 00:51:24,430
Speaker 2: is they're sticking their hands in the concrete. Like you

940
00:51:24,469 --> 00:51:26,569
Speaker 2: often do in front of pals. Like we have, we

941
00:51:26,590 --> 00:51:28,870
Speaker 2: have some concrete with handprints in it out in front

942
00:51:28,890 --> 00:51:31,710
Speaker 2: of our house there. And so we're shot looking up

943
00:51:31,730 --> 00:51:34,820
Speaker 2: at their face and then above their heads. this crane

944
00:51:34,880 --> 00:51:37,739
Speaker 2: comes in and like drops rubble on them or seems to,

945
00:51:37,820 --> 00:51:41,509
Speaker 2: it's not, not actually taking place. It's the, the memory, um,

946
00:51:41,710 --> 00:51:44,750
Speaker 2: clashing with the destructive reality that she's witnessing.

947
00:51:45,510 --> 00:51:49,270
Speaker 3: She, uh, adult Mary ends up finding and keeping a

948
00:51:49,860 --> 00:51:52,799
Speaker 3: broken off chunk of the concrete driveway that had the

949
00:51:52,840 --> 00:51:55,200
Speaker 3: handprint she made in the wet cement as a child.

950
00:51:55,600 --> 00:51:57,800
Speaker 3: And she carries this around with her later in the movie.

951
00:51:58,810 --> 00:52:00,650
Speaker 3: So in the present, at the beginning of the movie,

952
00:52:00,690 --> 00:52:04,230
Speaker 3: Mary is Clark's therapist. And we're going to talk some

953
00:52:04,770 --> 00:52:08,280
Speaker 3: details about her therapy method in a minute. There's something

954
00:52:08,300 --> 00:52:10,719
Speaker 3: I wanted to go ahead and mention here, just that

955
00:52:10,760 --> 00:52:13,500
Speaker 3: I noticed about our two protagonists. I didn't notice this

956
00:52:13,580 --> 00:52:16,020
Speaker 3: while I was watching, but thinking back on it later.

957
00:52:17,940 --> 00:52:24,790
Speaker 3: So this movie is obviously invested in recreating and reminding

958
00:52:24,930 --> 00:52:28,380
Speaker 3: us of the aesthetics of things that were not really

959
00:52:28,450 --> 00:52:33,460
Speaker 3: meant to be remembered. This obviously comes through in the

960
00:52:33,540 --> 00:52:37,940
Speaker 3: feeling of the backrooms themselves as a space. They're like

961
00:52:37,980 --> 00:52:41,460
Speaker 3: these in-between spaces that are not beautiful and they're not

962
00:52:41,500 --> 00:52:46,279
Speaker 3: very functional. The real interior spaces that they're modeled on

963
00:52:46,520 --> 00:52:49,439
Speaker 3: are for passing through on the way to something else

964
00:52:49,719 --> 00:52:53,299
Speaker 3: or they're for Maybe they're unfinished. They're for later furnishing

965
00:52:53,340 --> 00:52:56,520
Speaker 3: and filling with something that matters. But as we see them,

966
00:52:57,120 --> 00:53:00,420
Speaker 3: they are empty and unrealized in a way that feels

967
00:53:00,480 --> 00:53:06,960
Speaker 3: almost hostile. But this movie extends that project of recreating

968
00:53:07,020 --> 00:53:13,739
Speaker 3: the aesthetics of disposable, liminal, forgettable things in its within-narrative media,

969
00:53:13,860 --> 00:53:18,279
Speaker 3: the media within the movie, such as TV commercials. So

970
00:53:18,300 --> 00:53:21,610
Speaker 3: I think it's really interesting that Both of the main

971
00:53:21,690 --> 00:53:27,830
Speaker 3: characters in this movie have their own TV commercials. Both

972
00:53:27,870 --> 00:53:31,710
Speaker 3: of these commercials are modeled on the style of ads

973
00:53:31,830 --> 00:53:34,050
Speaker 3: that people our age, like you and me, Rob, I

974
00:53:34,070 --> 00:53:39,489
Speaker 3: think probably remember from childhood. So Clark's commercial is this

975
00:53:39,850 --> 00:53:43,230
Speaker 3: ad for his furniture store where he's playing this hobbling

976
00:53:43,330 --> 00:53:46,210
Speaker 3: pirate character who's hawking his goods and telling people to

977
00:53:46,270 --> 00:53:50,290
Speaker 3: come in. People who remember early 90s TV will no

978
00:53:50,310 --> 00:53:53,779
Speaker 3: doubt recognize ads like this. I think every town had

979
00:53:53,800 --> 00:53:56,880
Speaker 3: their own commercials for local businesses. Maybe it was a

980
00:53:56,920 --> 00:54:00,080
Speaker 3: car dealership or a furniture store. They tried to get

981
00:54:00,100 --> 00:54:03,759
Speaker 3: your attention by having somebody dressed up in a ridiculous costume,

982
00:54:03,840 --> 00:54:08,350
Speaker 3: doing a funny voice, and yelling about unbeatable prices, like

983
00:54:08,410 --> 00:54:12,129
Speaker 3: playing the character to get you into the store. And

984
00:54:12,150 --> 00:54:18,220
Speaker 3: this commercial very clearly excellently recreates the feeling of those commercials.

985
00:54:18,280 --> 00:54:23,029
Speaker 3: I remember from childhood. Meanwhile, Mary, she also has a

986
00:54:23,050 --> 00:54:27,210
Speaker 3: commercial and it is an ad for her window within

987
00:54:27,430 --> 00:54:31,230
Speaker 3: books and tapes, which will, these will be familiar to

988
00:54:31,310 --> 00:54:35,190
Speaker 3: anybody who remembers like TV ads for self-help video cassettes

989
00:54:35,270 --> 00:54:38,150
Speaker 3: about how you can quit smoking or you can hypnotize

990
00:54:38,170 --> 00:54:41,230
Speaker 3: yourself into weight loss, you know, one 800 numbers to

991
00:54:41,510 --> 00:54:45,460
Speaker 3: get these tape sets. And again, These types of commercials,

992
00:54:45,500 --> 00:54:48,239
Speaker 3: I think, are interesting in how they interact with the

993
00:54:48,300 --> 00:54:51,279
Speaker 3: themes of the backrooms because, again, they were not the

994
00:54:51,320 --> 00:54:55,279
Speaker 3: kinds of things that were meant to be remembered years

995
00:54:55,410 --> 00:55:00,130
Speaker 3: later or dwelt upon or analyzed. They're not works of art.

996
00:55:00,610 --> 00:55:03,650
Speaker 3: They existed just to get something done. They're trying to

997
00:55:03,710 --> 00:55:06,009
Speaker 3: get you to call a phone number or open your

998
00:55:06,030 --> 00:55:09,110
Speaker 3: wallet and buy a product, and they were expected to

999
00:55:09,170 --> 00:55:13,390
Speaker 3: be forgotten. But because, especially for people of a certain generation,

1000
00:55:13,590 --> 00:55:17,130
Speaker 3: they were part of our childhood. They get stuck in

1001
00:55:17,170 --> 00:55:19,739
Speaker 3: the back of our heads. And we come back and

1002
00:55:19,780 --> 00:55:24,700
Speaker 3: remember them in weird ways. I myself have strong memories

1003
00:55:25,000 --> 00:55:30,220
Speaker 3: of this scammy infomercial selling self-hypnosis tapes that I watched

1004
00:55:30,260 --> 00:55:32,299
Speaker 3: at my grandmother's house when I was little. And I've

1005
00:55:32,360 --> 00:55:34,500
Speaker 3: thought about it a lot ever since. There's like a

1006
00:55:34,540 --> 00:55:37,670
Speaker 3: scene where I should have looked up who this guy is.

1007
00:55:37,730 --> 00:55:38,290
Speaker 4: I don't remember.

1008
00:55:38,350 --> 00:55:41,360
Speaker 3: He was selling self-hypnosis tapes. And he's, he's pitching you

1009
00:55:41,440 --> 00:55:45,400
Speaker 3: on the idea that like your brain can, can actually

1010
00:55:45,440 --> 00:55:48,000
Speaker 3: control anything in your body. So it can help you

1011
00:55:48,040 --> 00:55:50,980
Speaker 3: like get over addiction or weight loss or whatever it

1012
00:55:51,040 --> 00:55:52,920
Speaker 3: is you want to do. And the way he illustrates

1013
00:55:52,980 --> 00:55:56,259
Speaker 3: that is that he can make your heart race by

1014
00:55:56,320 --> 00:55:59,360
Speaker 3: telling a story about, uh, some kind of danger or

1015
00:55:59,390 --> 00:56:02,730
Speaker 3: that he can make you imagine biting into a lemon

1016
00:56:02,770 --> 00:56:05,130
Speaker 3: and your mouth will water as you imagine it. So

1017
00:56:05,150 --> 00:56:08,229
Speaker 3: he's like, therefore you can hypnotize yourself, your body into

1018
00:56:08,270 --> 00:56:12,940
Speaker 3: doing anything. Uh, obviously I, I don't think that's correct, but, uh,

1019
00:56:13,239 --> 00:56:15,480
Speaker 3: but it was like a very captivating idea when I,

1020
00:56:16,020 --> 00:56:17,779
Speaker 3: when I was, however old I was at the time

1021
00:56:17,840 --> 00:56:21,710
Speaker 3: I saw this. Uh, anyway, uh, I, I just thought

1022
00:56:21,750 --> 00:56:25,489
Speaker 3: it was notable that. That both of these characters have

1023
00:56:25,530 --> 00:56:29,590
Speaker 3: their own TV spots and that these commercials really vibrate

1024
00:56:29,650 --> 00:56:33,650
Speaker 3: on the same uncanny frequency as the backroom spaces themselves.

1025
00:56:33,710 --> 00:56:39,239
Speaker 3: They're nostalgic and unsettling at the same time, they Both

1026
00:56:39,260 --> 00:56:41,989
Speaker 3: of the commercials display a kind of parody of the

1027
00:56:42,050 --> 00:56:47,150
Speaker 3: people selling things through them. Clark's parody is this cartoonish

1028
00:56:47,210 --> 00:56:51,290
Speaker 3: pirate persona. He's very jolly and loud, while Clark is

1029
00:56:51,350 --> 00:56:57,620
Speaker 3: really full of emptiness and inward-turned rage. And Mary's ad

1030
00:56:57,860 --> 00:57:03,359
Speaker 3: is the kind of commercialized mind-over-matter guru stuff, the people

1031
00:57:03,400 --> 00:57:06,660
Speaker 3: who sell these self-help tapes. when we see that Mary's

1032
00:57:06,719 --> 00:57:09,860
Speaker 3: real persona, I think, is much more grounded and modest

1033
00:57:09,960 --> 00:57:13,009
Speaker 3: and at odds with that kind of sales pitch. And

1034
00:57:13,050 --> 00:57:16,190
Speaker 3: in fact, I think in the scene where we see

1035
00:57:16,270 --> 00:57:19,390
Speaker 3: Mary watching her own TV commercial, she seems a little

1036
00:57:19,430 --> 00:57:21,690
Speaker 3: disgusted by it or maybe skeptical of it.

1037
00:57:21,790 --> 00:57:25,740
Speaker 2: Yeah, at least there's some confliction there for sure. The

1038
00:57:25,760 --> 00:57:28,860
Speaker 2: more I think about it, the idea that her brand

1039
00:57:28,940 --> 00:57:32,520
Speaker 2: is maybe couched in self-help that does seem like the

1040
00:57:32,560 --> 00:57:35,390
Speaker 2: kind of thing that Clark would be drawn to. If

1041
00:57:35,470 --> 00:57:37,930
Speaker 2: Clark realizes that he has some sort of problem he

1042
00:57:37,950 --> 00:57:41,550
Speaker 2: needs to work through, self-help is probably the first thing

1043
00:57:41,590 --> 00:57:43,650
Speaker 2: he's going to think of because he has it very

1044
00:57:43,690 --> 00:57:46,330
Speaker 2: much like, I can do it myself and or I

1045
00:57:46,370 --> 00:57:49,310
Speaker 2: don't need help anyway. Let me just grab this book

1046
00:57:49,370 --> 00:57:52,030
Speaker 2: and then I'll fix me. And then maybe that comes

1047
00:57:52,070 --> 00:57:53,210
Speaker 2: to the level where it's like, well, maybe I can

1048
00:57:53,250 --> 00:57:55,810
Speaker 2: just expedite this by just actually setting up an appointment

1049
00:57:55,850 --> 00:57:58,990
Speaker 2: with this lady and I'll get myself fixed in just

1050
00:57:59,270 --> 00:58:00,930
Speaker 2: a week or two, couple of sessions max.

1051
00:58:01,380 --> 00:58:01,620
Speaker 4: Yeah.

1052
00:58:01,920 --> 00:58:03,860
Speaker 3: Well, maybe that brings us to, we should, we should

1053
00:58:03,900 --> 00:58:06,220
Speaker 3: talk about the therapy scene toward the beginning of the movie,

1054
00:58:06,240 --> 00:58:08,620
Speaker 3: because I think it's very important and they come back

1055
00:58:08,660 --> 00:58:11,470
Speaker 3: to it later in the story. So one of the

1056
00:58:11,530 --> 00:58:14,470
Speaker 3: first scenes in the movie after like the prologue is

1057
00:58:14,510 --> 00:58:19,130
Speaker 3: this therapy session between Clark and Mary in which Mary

1058
00:58:19,450 --> 00:58:22,720
Speaker 3: asks Clark to go through an exercise in which they

1059
00:58:22,760 --> 00:58:25,020
Speaker 3: like role play the scene of the night that his

1060
00:58:25,080 --> 00:58:25,800
Speaker 3: wife left him.

1061
00:58:26,790 --> 00:58:27,230
Speaker 4: And so the.

1062
00:58:27,210 --> 00:58:30,890
Speaker 3: Story involves him coming home late, drunk and breaking some

1063
00:58:30,930 --> 00:58:33,930
Speaker 3: glass in the kitchen. His wife wakes up and he

1064
00:58:33,990 --> 00:58:36,570
Speaker 3: ends up getting very angry at her. There's all this,

1065
00:58:37,090 --> 00:58:39,740
Speaker 3: you can tell there's this pent up resentment and anger,

1066
00:58:39,800 --> 00:58:41,940
Speaker 3: and it just kind of comes out when he's been drinking.

1067
00:58:42,980 --> 00:58:47,060
Speaker 3: And so they, they role play through this interaction. And

1068
00:58:48,240 --> 00:58:52,700
Speaker 3: it clearly Clark is skeptical of the exercise at the beginning,

1069
00:58:52,720 --> 00:58:56,760
Speaker 3: but it, It really reveals just how raw and unresolved

1070
00:58:56,780 --> 00:59:00,370
Speaker 3: the pain of the relationship is because even just trying

1071
00:59:00,410 --> 00:59:03,950
Speaker 3: to act it out causes this big outburst of anger.

1072
00:59:04,130 --> 00:59:07,850
Speaker 3: It gets the better of him and he actually does

1073
00:59:07,910 --> 00:59:09,450
Speaker 3: sort of become in the situation.

1074
00:59:10,200 --> 00:59:10,920
Speaker 4: They're imagining.

1075
00:59:10,940 --> 00:59:14,960
Speaker 3: I was also noting the way Mary speaks to him

1076
00:59:15,020 --> 00:59:20,290
Speaker 3: during the role playing. Again, she does not perform emotional reactivity.

1077
00:59:20,310 --> 00:59:24,470
Speaker 3: She's very calm and soft-spoken but firm about her side

1078
00:59:24,490 --> 00:59:28,130
Speaker 3: of the argument. And the way I interpreted that was

1079
00:59:28,230 --> 00:59:32,100
Speaker 3: that the fact that she is calm and quiet, but

1080
00:59:32,160 --> 00:59:37,380
Speaker 3: also resolute, is especially infuriating to him. I think because

1081
00:59:37,560 --> 00:59:41,080
Speaker 3: it makes it harder for him to remember the situation

1082
00:59:41,540 --> 00:59:44,020
Speaker 3: as one in which Barbara was the problem.

1083
00:59:44,040 --> 00:59:46,240
Speaker 4: Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1084
00:59:46,490 --> 00:59:50,070
Speaker 2: Because in his mind, he is the rational one. And

1085
00:59:50,270 --> 00:59:53,690
Speaker 2: this exercise is really exposing, like, he's the one that's

1086
00:59:53,730 --> 00:59:57,910
Speaker 2: bringing irrationality to the scenario. He's the one who's drunk.

1087
00:59:57,950 --> 01:00:01,030
Speaker 2: He's the one who is maybe even certainly on the

1088
01:00:01,050 --> 01:00:05,459
Speaker 2: cusp of violence. And yeah, this exercise makes that clear.

1089
01:00:06,760 --> 01:00:12,080
Speaker 3: This early scene also introduces an interesting character issue, which

1090
01:00:12,160 --> 01:00:16,100
Speaker 3: is Clark's inability to take responsibility for his behavior. And

1091
01:00:16,680 --> 01:00:19,240
Speaker 3: there are actually several different ways he does this in

1092
01:00:19,280 --> 01:00:24,360
Speaker 3: the movie, but he engages in this verbal distancing exercise

1093
01:00:24,380 --> 01:00:27,340
Speaker 3: that you hear people do all the time, actually. Like,

1094
01:00:27,440 --> 01:00:34,550
Speaker 3: he will simultaneously acknowledge, but then also excuse or dismiss

1095
01:00:34,830 --> 01:00:38,470
Speaker 3: questions about his own behavior by saying things like, that's

1096
01:00:38,530 --> 01:00:41,680
Speaker 3: just how my brain works, or that's just how I'm wired.

1097
01:00:43,220 --> 01:00:47,360
Speaker 3: It's counterintuitive that people often try to escape responsibility for

1098
01:00:47,400 --> 01:00:50,340
Speaker 3: a behavior by essentially saying, this is typical for me,

1099
01:00:50,420 --> 01:00:53,340
Speaker 3: but people do this. And a lot of people also,

1100
01:00:53,440 --> 01:00:56,010
Speaker 3: it's surprising how much that seems to work as an

1101
01:00:56,070 --> 01:00:59,680
Speaker 3: excuse for it's like you can sometimes get people to

1102
01:00:59,760 --> 01:01:03,189
Speaker 3: think that you are only vulnerable to criticism for doing

1103
01:01:03,230 --> 01:01:06,990
Speaker 3: something bad. If that thing is not how you would

1104
01:01:07,050 --> 01:01:10,710
Speaker 3: normally behave, you know, like, uh, people act like, well, well,

1105
01:01:10,750 --> 01:01:13,580
Speaker 3: that's just Clark being Clark, you know, nothing you can

1106
01:01:13,600 --> 01:01:16,580
Speaker 3: do about that. Um, and then the other thing is,

1107
01:01:16,760 --> 01:01:21,820
Speaker 3: is the distancing reference to the brain or to one's wiring. Like, um,

1108
01:01:22,940 --> 01:01:25,130
Speaker 3: There's a way in which you could argue that a

1109
01:01:25,180 --> 01:01:29,750
Speaker 3: person is not responsible for their own psychological tendencies. In

1110
01:01:29,770 --> 01:01:32,330
Speaker 3: a certain sense, I think that is true. But if

1111
01:01:32,350 --> 01:01:35,610
Speaker 3: you're thinking at that level, that's true of everything about

1112
01:01:35,650 --> 01:01:37,130
Speaker 3: a person, good and bad.

1113
01:01:53,650 --> 01:01:57,240
Speaker 2: Um, you know, any kind of corrective measure or management, but, um,

1114
01:01:57,890 --> 01:01:59,540
Speaker 2: but yeah, I guess you can also take it the

1115
01:01:59,560 --> 01:02:01,200
Speaker 2: other way and be like, yeah, I'm being, I'm being

1116
01:02:01,240 --> 01:02:03,840
Speaker 2: irrational right now, but it's just me, baby. That's how

1117
01:02:03,960 --> 01:02:06,510
Speaker 2: I'm wired. So, um, you know, take it or leave it.

1118
01:02:06,540 --> 01:02:08,720
Speaker 2: Like that's, that's not going to get you anywhere. Yeah.

1119
01:02:09,800 --> 01:02:10,890
Speaker 4: Uh, yeah. So it's interesting.

1120
01:02:10,910 --> 01:02:13,250
Speaker 3: So he, he does this kind of stuff early in

1121
01:02:13,270 --> 01:02:14,990
Speaker 3: the movie and this will come back later in the

1122
01:02:15,030 --> 01:02:18,050
Speaker 3: scene where, uh, where the, the role playing is sort

1123
01:02:18,070 --> 01:02:19,050
Speaker 3: of reenacted.

1124
01:02:19,070 --> 01:02:19,150
Speaker 1: Yeah.

1125
01:02:28,450 --> 01:02:31,530
Speaker 3: So that's the important character stuff early on. But I

1126
01:02:31,550 --> 01:02:35,190
Speaker 3: guess to get into a somewhat chronological description of the plot,

1127
01:02:36,310 --> 01:02:38,660
Speaker 3: let's see, we could talk about the prologue. The prologue

1128
01:02:39,320 --> 01:02:41,880
Speaker 3: has a found footage style thing, which I think the.

1129
01:02:43,470 --> 01:02:46,690
Speaker 3: Again, the original Back Rooms videos, like the short films

1130
01:02:46,750 --> 01:02:49,350
Speaker 3: that this was based on, those are more found footage style,

1131
01:02:49,410 --> 01:02:49,810
Speaker 3: aren't they?

1132
01:02:49,910 --> 01:02:53,760
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. I believe that this introduction in the film

1133
01:02:53,860 --> 01:02:56,720
Speaker 2: is kind of stylistically has more in common with what

1134
01:02:56,760 --> 01:02:57,720
Speaker 2: had come before.

1135
01:02:57,780 --> 01:02:57,940
Speaker 4: Yeah.

1136
01:02:58,420 --> 01:03:01,700
Speaker 3: So it's first person, somebody with a video camera, and

1137
01:03:01,800 --> 01:03:04,860
Speaker 3: they are wandering through or exploring. It's like a worker

1138
01:03:04,940 --> 01:03:08,900
Speaker 3: exploring the Back Rooms, the place, you know, the main

1139
01:03:08,960 --> 01:03:12,150
Speaker 3: location of the film is. It is this apparently vast

1140
01:03:12,250 --> 01:03:17,490
Speaker 3: series of weird, mostly empty rooms and hallways. It's like

1141
01:03:17,770 --> 01:03:20,910
Speaker 3: imagine like a windowless office building that has not yet

1142
01:03:20,950 --> 01:03:25,390
Speaker 3: been furnished, except in except just weird like angles that

1143
01:03:25,410 --> 01:03:28,800
Speaker 3: don't make sense and kind of seemingly random sizes of

1144
01:03:28,880 --> 01:03:30,510
Speaker 3: passageways and things like that.

1145
01:03:30,920 --> 01:03:33,740
Speaker 2: Like if you've seen Severance and I'm to understand Severance

1146
01:03:35,000 --> 01:03:39,940
Speaker 2: probably took some inspiration from like pre Backrooms, the movie Backrooms.

1147
01:03:40,710 --> 01:03:43,950
Speaker 2: But imagine the world of Severance, but a little grimier.

1148
01:03:44,150 --> 01:03:48,610
Speaker 2: Maybe grimy is not the word. Yellower. We'll just say yellower.

1149
01:03:48,630 --> 01:03:49,510
Speaker 2: A little mustier.

1150
01:03:50,050 --> 01:03:52,570
Speaker 3: There are grimy parts of the back rooms. Other parts

1151
01:03:52,610 --> 01:03:57,200
Speaker 3: just seem kind of clean and unused. So this worker

1152
01:03:57,340 --> 01:04:00,040
Speaker 3: in the prologue has some familiarity with the environment. He

1153
01:04:00,080 --> 01:04:02,720
Speaker 3: has a bunch of sensors and electronic equipment set up

1154
01:04:02,740 --> 01:04:05,000
Speaker 3: in the central room. So he's doing something official.

1155
01:04:05,020 --> 01:04:05,520
Speaker 4: He is an.

1156
01:04:05,540 --> 01:04:09,320
Speaker 3: Explorer of this place. But he becomes worried when he

1157
01:04:09,380 --> 01:04:12,680
Speaker 3: detects some kind of movement in the back rooms with him.

1158
01:04:12,700 --> 01:04:15,840
Speaker 3: He thinks there's something in there. And then there's this

1159
01:04:15,900 --> 01:04:18,180
Speaker 3: great weird scare with something that bursts out of a

1160
01:04:18,260 --> 01:04:20,480
Speaker 3: hallway at him. And you can't quite tell what it

1161
01:04:20,550 --> 01:04:22,510
Speaker 3: is because it's grainy footage. But then you get up

1162
01:04:22,570 --> 01:04:24,210
Speaker 3: close to it and it's revealed to be, I think,

1163
01:04:24,250 --> 01:04:28,730
Speaker 3: a dead seagull. So he tries to call for backup

1164
01:04:28,830 --> 01:04:32,110
Speaker 3: on his radio, again, implying he's part of some larger operation.

1165
01:04:32,170 --> 01:04:35,450
Speaker 3: But eventually he gets chased by this terrifying figure that

1166
01:04:35,470 --> 01:04:38,880
Speaker 3: the audience can't really see. It is something tall and

1167
01:04:38,980 --> 01:04:43,760
Speaker 3: spindly with long legs and an asymmetrical gait. Presumably, when

1168
01:04:43,780 --> 01:04:46,120
Speaker 3: this thing catches up to him, the worker is killed.

1169
01:04:46,300 --> 01:04:47,990
Speaker 3: But we don't learn anything else.

1170
01:04:48,530 --> 01:04:52,850
Speaker 2: Even in this short intro bit, it does establish that

1171
01:04:53,070 --> 01:04:56,370
Speaker 2: clearly there's what appears to be electric lighting all over

1172
01:04:56,410 --> 01:04:59,770
Speaker 2: the place in the back rooms. But these operatives have

1173
01:04:59,810 --> 01:05:02,360
Speaker 2: had to bring in their own power and establish some

1174
01:05:02,400 --> 01:05:07,530
Speaker 2: sort of like a forward operating base within the back rooms. And,

1175
01:05:07,840 --> 01:05:09,870
Speaker 2: you know, you don't see much of that. Nobody explains it,

1176
01:05:10,110 --> 01:05:11,950
Speaker 2: but you just kind of pick up on it. And

1177
01:05:12,010 --> 01:05:13,370
Speaker 2: I like how that worked visually.

1178
01:05:14,270 --> 01:05:17,110
Speaker 3: So after this, we meet our main characters, Clark and Mary,

1179
01:05:17,150 --> 01:05:19,360
Speaker 3: as we were talking about a few minutes ago. We

1180
01:05:19,380 --> 01:05:22,260
Speaker 3: see them in therapy together. We also see them living

1181
01:05:22,320 --> 01:05:28,440
Speaker 3: their private, solitary lives. Are there any more pre-Backrooms discovery

1182
01:05:28,500 --> 01:05:30,430
Speaker 3: scenes you want to talk about from early in the film?

1183
01:05:30,890 --> 01:05:33,050
Speaker 2: I mean, I do just love how all of the

1184
01:05:33,150 --> 01:05:35,530
Speaker 2: interiors in the film that are not in the back

1185
01:05:35,600 --> 01:05:38,780
Speaker 2: rooms still have that kind of back roomsiness to them.

1186
01:05:38,840 --> 01:05:42,020
Speaker 2: You know, like something about like the way Clark's office

1187
01:05:42,220 --> 01:05:45,660
Speaker 2: is presented, the way Mary's apartment is presented. Like there's,

1188
01:05:46,100 --> 01:05:48,700
Speaker 2: you know, I don't think Mary's apartment is creepy per se,

1189
01:05:48,800 --> 01:05:52,190
Speaker 2: but you see some of those, I don't know, some

1190
01:05:52,230 --> 01:05:56,070
Speaker 2: of the same elements in place where maybe you're just

1191
01:05:56,410 --> 01:06:00,040
Speaker 2: sort of primed to think about creepy design elements. in

1192
01:06:00,080 --> 01:06:02,700
Speaker 2: this film. But, um, uh, and I also found it

1193
01:06:02,740 --> 01:06:05,080
Speaker 2: creepy that she slept in complete silence. I don't know

1194
01:06:05,120 --> 01:06:08,040
Speaker 2: how people do this. Like no white noise machine, no radio,

1195
01:06:08,080 --> 01:06:11,410
Speaker 2: no music, no fan, just silent room. Hmm.

1196
01:06:12,640 --> 01:06:15,330
Speaker 3: I usually do that. So maybe I creep you out there.

1197
01:06:15,450 --> 01:06:16,930
Speaker 2: I don't know. Maybe so. I don't know. What are

1198
01:06:16,950 --> 01:06:18,430
Speaker 2: you a vampire? I don't understand it.

1199
01:06:19,170 --> 01:06:21,990
Speaker 3: Another, another back roomsy thing before we get to the

1200
01:06:22,030 --> 01:06:26,230
Speaker 3: back rooms there, especially in the downstairs part of Clark's

1201
01:06:26,270 --> 01:06:30,260
Speaker 3: furniture store, not enough furniture in the furniture store. The

1202
01:06:30,360 --> 01:06:33,770
Speaker 3: upstairs is a little more populated, but then the downstairs,

1203
01:06:33,810 --> 01:06:36,550
Speaker 3: it looks like there's too little inventory spread out in

1204
01:06:36,590 --> 01:06:37,530
Speaker 3: this big space.

1205
01:06:37,750 --> 01:06:41,650
Speaker 2: Yeah, you have some creepy liminal elements going on here

1206
01:06:41,670 --> 01:06:45,930
Speaker 2: as well. And this downstairs showroom, this reminded me of

1207
01:06:45,970 --> 01:06:48,530
Speaker 2: a couple of spaces that I visited in Denver over

1208
01:06:48,550 --> 01:06:52,770
Speaker 2: the summer. They weren't furniture stores, but just the way

1209
01:06:52,790 --> 01:06:55,150
Speaker 2: that they were laid out, they had like an expansive

1210
01:06:55,270 --> 01:06:59,010
Speaker 2: basement area. with like some sort of a central staircase

1211
01:06:59,050 --> 01:07:01,490
Speaker 2: going down into them. And then like, you know, you're

1212
01:07:01,510 --> 01:07:06,870
Speaker 2: just in windowless shopping zone down there. So it definitely

1213
01:07:06,890 --> 01:07:08,780
Speaker 2: took me back to those spaces. I don't know. I

1214
01:07:08,820 --> 01:07:11,340
Speaker 2: guess it depends on like sort of what region you're in,

1215
01:07:11,380 --> 01:07:13,900
Speaker 2: but I don't recall seeing a lot of showrooms like this,

1216
01:07:14,560 --> 01:07:15,540
Speaker 2: like in the American South.

1217
01:07:16,360 --> 01:07:18,959
Speaker 3: You notice how you often can't see the other half

1218
01:07:18,980 --> 01:07:20,540
Speaker 3: of the room, but it really looks like it's kind

1219
01:07:20,580 --> 01:07:22,800
Speaker 3: of dark over on the other side of the stairs.

1220
01:07:22,820 --> 01:07:24,080
Speaker 3: Like what's going on over there?

1221
01:07:24,140 --> 01:07:26,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, I kind of get into the sort of cave

1222
01:07:26,540 --> 01:07:30,340
Speaker 2: psychology that is uh directly employed by the back rooms

1223
01:07:30,400 --> 01:07:33,220
Speaker 2: proper yeah yeah and it makes sense because this is

1224
01:07:33,240 --> 01:07:35,800
Speaker 2: like the the antechamber to the the back rooms in

1225
01:07:35,840 --> 01:07:38,410
Speaker 2: many way this is where the portal is going to open.

1226
01:07:40,070 --> 01:07:42,050
Speaker 3: Oh another scene early on we should mention is the

1227
01:07:42,070 --> 01:07:45,110
Speaker 3: scene where they're filming the tv commercial furniture store which

1228
01:07:45,170 --> 01:07:46,210
Speaker 3: is quite funny.

1229
01:07:46,830 --> 01:07:49,430
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah uh clark is in the pirate get up

1230
01:07:49,510 --> 01:07:53,680
Speaker 2: as captain clark cap and clark rather And he's like,

1231
01:07:53,740 --> 01:07:55,470
Speaker 2: he falls all over the place, falls out of a

1232
01:07:55,510 --> 01:07:58,790
Speaker 2: chair while they're trying to film this and losing his temper.

1233
01:07:58,810 --> 01:08:01,530
Speaker 2: And in a way, I guess this is supposed to

1234
01:08:01,750 --> 01:08:03,910
Speaker 2: be him sort of like at his lowest. Like this

1235
01:08:03,970 --> 01:08:07,670
Speaker 2: is as far away from the architectural career that he

1236
01:08:07,730 --> 01:08:11,440
Speaker 2: imagined for himself. And just trying to get through this

1237
01:08:11,500 --> 01:08:14,960
Speaker 2: dumb commercial for this dumb business and can't even do that.

1238
01:08:15,580 --> 01:08:18,200
Speaker 3: And they're also kind of criticizing the concept of it.

1239
01:08:18,240 --> 01:08:20,639
Speaker 3: It does seem somewhat muddled. Like, is he a pirate

1240
01:08:20,660 --> 01:08:22,700
Speaker 3: captain or is he supposed to be a sultan?

1241
01:08:22,720 --> 01:08:23,200
Speaker 4: Yeah.

1242
01:08:23,320 --> 01:08:25,519
Speaker 3: He's making references to both.

1243
01:08:25,860 --> 01:08:28,510
Speaker 2: Yeah, because it's Captain Clark's Ottoman Empire, which I guess

1244
01:08:28,530 --> 01:08:31,490
Speaker 2: they're selling Ottomans. That's the thing, like sofas or something.

1245
01:08:31,610 --> 01:08:34,210
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's a pun.

1246
01:08:34,270 --> 01:08:36,849
Speaker 2: But yeah, one that maybe raises more questions than it answers.

1247
01:08:37,790 --> 01:08:41,549
Speaker 3: Anyway, eventually we get to the discovery of the back room.

1248
01:08:41,670 --> 01:08:43,990
Speaker 3: So that happens when Clark is alone in the store

1249
01:08:44,110 --> 01:08:48,300
Speaker 3: one night. The story has been having continuous problems with electricity.

1250
01:08:48,340 --> 01:08:50,360
Speaker 3: He's had an electrician down there looking at the breaker

1251
01:08:50,400 --> 01:08:55,049
Speaker 3: box and there appear to be some weird modifications to it.

1252
01:08:55,790 --> 01:08:58,030
Speaker 3: And and so one night he's there. I think he's

1253
01:08:58,050 --> 01:09:01,540
Speaker 3: trying to watch TV and. uh he's having some whiskey

1254
01:09:01,600 --> 01:09:05,040
Speaker 3: in a showroom bed and then uh the power is

1255
01:09:05,080 --> 01:09:07,280
Speaker 3: on the fritz so he's like well i gotta go

1256
01:09:07,300 --> 01:09:09,060
Speaker 3: see what's going on so he goes down into the

1257
01:09:09,100 --> 01:09:12,260
Speaker 3: basement of the store and discovers that one of the

1258
01:09:12,380 --> 01:09:16,770
Speaker 3: walls in the basement showroom is permeable and that things,

1259
01:09:16,950 --> 01:09:19,910
Speaker 3: including his body, can pass right through it, even though

1260
01:09:19,950 --> 01:09:20,670
Speaker 3: it looks solid.

1261
01:09:21,229 --> 01:09:23,990
Speaker 2: Now, before he comes down and finds the entry to

1262
01:09:24,110 --> 01:09:26,150
Speaker 2: the back rooms, is this the part where he's watching

1263
01:09:26,189 --> 01:09:27,439
Speaker 2: Santa Claus Conquers the Martians?

1264
01:09:27,729 --> 01:09:30,320
Speaker 4: Oh, God, it might be. I know he's watching it

1265
01:09:30,360 --> 01:09:32,219
Speaker 4: at some point. This would make sense, yeah.

1266
01:09:32,720 --> 01:09:36,640
Speaker 3: So he's got, what's his name, the tough Martian with

1267
01:09:36,680 --> 01:09:37,700
Speaker 3: the mustache.

1268
01:09:37,880 --> 01:09:42,880
Speaker 2: Yes, yes. This really freaked me and my wife out

1269
01:09:42,920 --> 01:09:45,470
Speaker 2: as we were watching it. Because, of course, if you

1270
01:09:45,510 --> 01:09:47,150
Speaker 2: listen to the show, you know about Santa Claus Conquers

1271
01:09:47,170 --> 01:09:50,290
Speaker 2: the Martians. MST fans are big Santa Claus Conquers the

1272
01:09:50,330 --> 01:09:53,590
Speaker 2: Martians fans. We've covered it on Weird House before. But

1273
01:09:54,990 --> 01:09:57,580
Speaker 2: when my wife and I were watching the film, we

1274
01:09:57,600 --> 01:10:00,180
Speaker 2: were particularly creeped out because we both have this distinct

1275
01:10:00,240 --> 01:10:03,700
Speaker 2: memory of going to a furniture store, a lot like

1276
01:10:03,880 --> 01:10:07,639
Speaker 2: Captain Clark's, in North Carolina while we were visiting her parents.

1277
01:10:08,340 --> 01:10:10,540
Speaker 2: And this was years and years ago. But I think

1278
01:10:10,580 --> 01:10:12,839
Speaker 2: we were buying her dad a new Lazy Boy recliner

1279
01:10:12,860 --> 01:10:15,570
Speaker 2: or something. The store, again, was very much like this

1280
01:10:15,610 --> 01:10:18,250
Speaker 2: furniture store, and they were playing Santa Claus Conquers the

1281
01:10:18,270 --> 01:10:21,930
Speaker 2: Martians in there. They had no idea what MST3K was.

1282
01:10:21,990 --> 01:10:23,510
Speaker 2: They just said, oh, yeah, we play this every year

1283
01:10:23,530 --> 01:10:25,650
Speaker 2: because we really like it. And we're like, oh, wow.

1284
01:10:25,810 --> 01:10:29,050
Speaker 2: But this was one moment in the film where it

1285
01:10:29,070 --> 01:10:31,300
Speaker 2: felt like it was kind of like reading our minds. Wow.

1286
01:10:31,400 --> 01:10:32,200
Speaker 4: That's pretty creepy.

1287
01:10:32,439 --> 01:10:34,640
Speaker 2: Yeah. But at any rate, to get back to it, yes,

1288
01:10:35,140 --> 01:10:37,939
Speaker 2: Clark has gone into the basement, and he has found

1289
01:10:38,920 --> 01:10:42,680
Speaker 2: basically a door-shaped space in the wall that he can

1290
01:10:43,510 --> 01:10:46,250
Speaker 2: stick his hand through and then ultimately he ends up

1291
01:10:46,330 --> 01:10:48,219
Speaker 2: falling through it into the back rooms.

1292
01:10:49,040 --> 01:10:51,780
Speaker 3: Yeah, and this leads to a very memorable sequence which

1293
01:10:51,840 --> 01:10:56,620
Speaker 3: is just Clark's first exploration of the back rooms. Again,

1294
01:10:56,689 --> 01:10:59,490
Speaker 3: he goes into this space that we've already described it

1295
01:10:59,530 --> 01:11:03,410
Speaker 3: a few times now, but it has this Imagine like

1296
01:11:03,450 --> 01:11:08,269
Speaker 3: a windowless office building with just rooms at weird angles

1297
01:11:08,330 --> 01:11:12,250
Speaker 3: and of weird, seemingly random sizes connected by these long hallways.

1298
01:11:12,290 --> 01:11:16,139
Speaker 3: And it just seems to go on forever. So when

1299
01:11:16,150 --> 01:11:18,939
Speaker 3: he first goes in the very first room, there's this

1300
01:11:19,040 --> 01:11:22,059
Speaker 3: huge pile of furniture in the center of the room.

1301
01:11:23,240 --> 01:11:24,900
Speaker 3: And you look at it and you wonder like, what

1302
01:11:24,979 --> 01:11:28,280
Speaker 3: is that about? It almost feels like it's related somehow

1303
01:11:28,320 --> 01:11:30,380
Speaker 3: to the fact that this room butts up in the

1304
01:11:30,460 --> 01:11:34,470
Speaker 3: real world against a furniture showroom. Uh, and so there's

1305
01:11:34,510 --> 01:11:39,090
Speaker 3: like this furniture glob in the middle of the room,

1306
01:11:39,530 --> 01:11:42,430
Speaker 3: but none of it appears to be usable as furniture

1307
01:11:42,490 --> 01:11:43,950
Speaker 3: because it's just this pile.

1308
01:11:43,979 --> 01:11:46,640
Speaker 2: It's like, some of it seems fused together.

1309
01:11:46,920 --> 01:11:47,240
Speaker 4: Yes.

1310
01:11:47,479 --> 01:11:47,700
Speaker 2: Yeah.

1311
01:11:48,420 --> 01:11:52,380
Speaker 3: Um, And then he goes on from there and finds

1312
01:11:52,439 --> 01:11:57,300
Speaker 3: these empty hallways, yellow and off-white fluorescent lights. There is

1313
01:11:57,340 --> 01:11:59,580
Speaker 3: a stop sign in the distance in one.

1314
01:11:59,500 --> 01:12:00,580
Speaker 4: Hallway, so.

1315
01:12:01,900 --> 01:12:05,980
Speaker 3: The spaces of the back rooms are not completely empty.

1316
01:12:06,240 --> 01:12:11,650
Speaker 3: There is a sense of weird, extremely sparse little accents

1317
01:12:11,850 --> 01:12:15,769
Speaker 3: of furniture and decoration which make no sense. Some things

1318
01:12:15,850 --> 01:12:21,030
Speaker 3: appear in altered forms, maybe kind of cubist imitations of things.

1319
01:12:21,630 --> 01:12:25,010
Speaker 3: Other objects are embedded in the floors or in the walls,

1320
01:12:25,070 --> 01:12:28,890
Speaker 3: kind of half sticking out. Clark eventually finds, I think,

1321
01:12:29,030 --> 01:12:31,130
Speaker 3: is it a cardboard cutout of a caveman?

1322
01:12:31,150 --> 01:12:35,769
Speaker 2: It is, yes, yes. Some sort of like a dude

1323
01:12:35,800 --> 01:12:38,920
Speaker 2: with a beard dressed like a caveman, cardboard cutout, and

1324
01:12:38,960 --> 01:12:40,360
Speaker 2: it's playing some sort of audio, right?

1325
01:12:40,600 --> 01:12:43,580
Speaker 3: Right, it's playing a tape on a loop that sounds

1326
01:12:43,600 --> 01:12:45,780
Speaker 3: like greetings in a lot of different languages.

1327
01:12:46,229 --> 01:12:48,250
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I looked this up. This is, I believe,

1328
01:12:48,270 --> 01:12:54,580
Speaker 2: the 1977 NASA Voyager Golden Records greeting in 55 human languages.

1329
01:12:54,820 --> 01:12:57,870
Speaker 4: Wow, interesting. I didn't realize that while I was watching it.

1330
01:12:59,540 --> 01:13:02,220
Speaker 2: This does seem to be, like, we the viewer recognize, oh,

1331
01:13:02,240 --> 01:13:05,320
Speaker 2: this looks like something that is piped in. Like, we

1332
01:13:05,360 --> 01:13:09,360
Speaker 2: see the trailing electrical cords and tubes, and this maybe

1333
01:13:09,400 --> 01:13:12,120
Speaker 2: has something to do with the character that we saw

1334
01:13:12,140 --> 01:13:12,660
Speaker 2: die in the introduction.

1335
01:13:14,970 --> 01:13:18,150
Speaker 3: There's also a security camera in one room. And I

1336
01:13:18,189 --> 01:13:20,910
Speaker 3: think Clark isn't aware that it's any different from any

1337
01:13:20,930 --> 01:13:24,310
Speaker 3: of the other stuff there. But later we see Mark

1338
01:13:24,330 --> 01:13:28,050
Speaker 3: Duplass looking at a computer monitor somewhere and he sees Clark.

1339
01:13:28,130 --> 01:13:30,330
Speaker 3: So he's monitoring whatever this feed is.

1340
01:13:31,910 --> 01:13:33,769
Speaker 4: So Clark keeps exploring.

1341
01:13:33,810 --> 01:13:36,189
Speaker 3: At one point, he is chased by something that we

1342
01:13:36,260 --> 01:13:38,560
Speaker 3: can't see and eventually finds his way back to the

1343
01:13:38,600 --> 01:13:40,820
Speaker 3: portal in the wall that he came through. So he

1344
01:13:40,860 --> 01:13:45,019
Speaker 3: comes back out terrified. But he can't stay for long. So,

1345
01:13:45,140 --> 01:13:47,040
Speaker 3: you know, you might think, well, I'm never going in

1346
01:13:47,080 --> 01:13:49,549
Speaker 3: there again. I don't know what that's about. But Clark

1347
01:13:49,860 --> 01:13:52,849
Speaker 3: can't let it go. He's fascinated. So eventually he goes

1348
01:13:52,930 --> 01:13:53,430
Speaker 3: back in.

1349
01:13:53,810 --> 01:13:56,290
Speaker 2: Yeah. In fact, like pretty immediately he runs back in

1350
01:13:56,330 --> 01:13:59,530
Speaker 2: and like grabs a stool, I think. Almost like he

1351
01:13:59,570 --> 01:14:02,269
Speaker 2: has to prove to himself that this all actually happened.

1352
01:14:02,310 --> 01:14:04,790
Speaker 2: He has to bring something back out. And later we'll

1353
01:14:04,810 --> 01:14:06,550
Speaker 2: see that he's continued to do this.

1354
01:14:06,830 --> 01:14:09,110
Speaker 3: Yeah, so he becomes obsessed with the back rooms. He

1355
01:14:09,229 --> 01:14:11,850
Speaker 3: brings a bunch of stuff from in there out into

1356
01:14:11,890 --> 01:14:14,019
Speaker 3: his furniture store, and it's kind of piled up all

1357
01:14:14,060 --> 01:14:17,979
Speaker 3: around the basement. He also starts making maps of the layout,

1358
01:14:18,120 --> 01:14:18,919
Speaker 3: which is interesting.

1359
01:14:18,939 --> 01:14:24,720
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, extensive maps. And it's interesting to think about

1360
01:14:24,820 --> 01:14:28,260
Speaker 2: Clark as an architect in all of this, or certainly

1361
01:14:28,300 --> 01:14:32,480
Speaker 2: as a man who had aspirations of becoming an architect. Because,

1362
01:14:32,500 --> 01:14:34,380
Speaker 2: you know, architecture is, of course, both an art and

1363
01:14:34,420 --> 01:14:37,139
Speaker 2: a science. And I think for Clark, too— we might

1364
01:14:37,660 --> 01:14:41,120
Speaker 2: extrapolate that it's also about control, about creating the illusion

1365
01:14:41,140 --> 01:14:45,450
Speaker 2: of control, especially in his own personal life. And he

1366
01:14:45,490 --> 01:14:49,010
Speaker 2: becomes enraptured here with a place that defies both art

1367
01:14:49,130 --> 01:14:51,490
Speaker 2: and science. You know, like the designs in the back

1368
01:14:51,530 --> 01:14:55,269
Speaker 2: rooms are not aesthetically pleasing and they don't make design

1369
01:14:55,330 --> 01:14:57,510
Speaker 2: sense either. Like it's almost a really kind of an

1370
01:14:57,670 --> 01:15:03,330
Speaker 2: anti-architecture at play. But he becomes enraptured by it. And

1371
01:15:03,530 --> 01:15:07,020
Speaker 2: as we'll see, ultimately kind of gives into it And

1372
01:15:07,140 --> 01:15:10,960
Speaker 2: seems to find a kind of release in like no

1373
01:15:11,020 --> 01:15:14,420
Speaker 2: longer aspiring for like beauty or reason.

1374
01:15:15,500 --> 01:15:19,160
Speaker 3: It's like he can. Yeah, that's interesting. And it's also

1375
01:15:19,220 --> 01:15:22,320
Speaker 3: now like he has a project that doesn't depend on

1376
01:15:22,400 --> 01:15:24,930
Speaker 3: any other people, you know?

1377
01:15:24,950 --> 01:15:26,769
Speaker 4: Yeah.

1378
01:15:28,050 --> 01:15:28,190
Speaker 2: Yeah.

1379
01:15:28,920 --> 01:15:32,519
Speaker 3: But anyway, he tells Mary about it during a therapy session,

1380
01:15:32,540 --> 01:15:35,500
Speaker 3: but his framing is very defensive. It's like, you're going

1381
01:15:35,520 --> 01:15:38,840
Speaker 3: to think I'm crazy, but this is real. And when

1382
01:15:38,900 --> 01:15:42,320
Speaker 3: she doesn't immediately seem to believe him, she also doesn't

1383
01:15:42,360 --> 01:15:45,800
Speaker 3: really disbelieve, she just doesn't really respond.

1384
01:15:46,160 --> 01:15:49,059
Speaker 2: Yeah, like she doesn't believe him, but she also doesn't like,

1385
01:15:49,640 --> 01:15:51,620
Speaker 2: he's kind of like, have you ever sectioned somebody before?

1386
01:15:51,650 --> 01:15:55,349
Speaker 2: Have you ever had somebody committed for what they think

1387
01:15:55,370 --> 01:15:58,180
Speaker 2: they've encountered? And she's You know, she's not sort of

1388
01:15:58,220 --> 01:16:01,059
Speaker 2: falling for this bait either and being like, oh, yeah,

1389
01:16:01,200 --> 01:16:02,600
Speaker 2: that's crazy. You need to be put away.

1390
01:16:02,939 --> 01:16:03,780
Speaker 4: Yeah.

1391
01:16:04,020 --> 01:16:06,600
Speaker 3: No, she's just trying to, like, rationally talk through it

1392
01:16:06,640 --> 01:16:09,470
Speaker 3: with him. And he gets upset by this. And he's like,

1393
01:16:09,490 --> 01:16:11,000
Speaker 3: I'm going to prove it to you. I'll prove it.

1394
01:16:12,290 --> 01:16:15,830
Speaker 3: So Clark then enlists the help of his employee, Kat,

1395
01:16:16,210 --> 01:16:21,080
Speaker 3: and her boyfriend, Bobby, who filmed the TV commercial to

1396
01:16:21,120 --> 01:16:25,300
Speaker 3: help him document the back rooms on video. This leads

1397
01:16:25,340 --> 01:16:27,680
Speaker 3: into a sequence where they're like back there trying to

1398
01:16:27,740 --> 01:16:29,940
Speaker 3: map it out with a video camera. It ends in

1399
01:16:29,960 --> 01:16:33,760
Speaker 3: some terrible results. There's this great scene where they send

1400
01:16:33,860 --> 01:16:38,080
Speaker 3: Bobby down this long descending diagonal chute using a rope

1401
01:16:38,180 --> 01:16:40,420
Speaker 3: going into a room that is full of piles of

1402
01:16:40,520 --> 01:16:45,080
Speaker 3: dirty laundry in which he finds some of his own clothes.

1403
01:16:45,810 --> 01:16:49,280
Speaker 3: We see him in the movie wearing this T-shirt that

1404
01:16:49,310 --> 01:16:53,550
Speaker 3: says End Departide and he finds his own shirt. saying

1405
01:16:53,570 --> 01:16:56,860
Speaker 3: the same thing on a pile downstairs. Um, so it

1406
01:16:56,900 --> 01:17:01,139
Speaker 3: seems like something like of the characters is somehow manifesting

1407
01:17:01,240 --> 01:17:02,900
Speaker 3: or ending up in these places.

1408
01:17:03,700 --> 01:17:04,019
Speaker 4: Yeah.

1409
01:17:04,120 --> 01:17:06,599
Speaker 2: And then also this room feels also like a layer,

1410
01:17:06,689 --> 01:17:10,330
Speaker 2: like has something been collecting this stuff and it's just the,

1411
01:17:10,370 --> 01:17:14,170
Speaker 2: a very, um, unsettling sequence and you know, something terrible

1412
01:17:14,189 --> 01:17:17,719
Speaker 2: is going to happen. And then we see this shadowy

1413
01:17:17,800 --> 01:17:20,990
Speaker 2: form begin to emerge. Um, and we, we don't really

1414
01:17:21,030 --> 01:17:23,870
Speaker 2: get a great look at it. It's very, um, abstract.

1415
01:17:23,910 --> 01:17:27,970
Speaker 2: I kind of got the sense of like a giant, um, uh,

1416
01:17:27,990 --> 01:17:30,889
Speaker 2: pterosaur of some sort in the way that its head

1417
01:17:30,930 --> 01:17:33,690
Speaker 2: seemed to be shaped. Uh, but you know, clearly he

1418
01:17:33,810 --> 01:17:35,910
Speaker 2: gets one glimpse at this and he, he tries to

1419
01:17:35,950 --> 01:17:37,330
Speaker 2: make a run for it. He's like, pull me up,

1420
01:17:37,390 --> 01:17:40,810
Speaker 2: pull me up. And, uh, and things just get progressively

1421
01:17:40,850 --> 01:17:42,559
Speaker 2: worse from there. Yeah.

1422
01:17:42,820 --> 01:17:44,880
Speaker 3: Uh, so of course this leads into a kind of

1423
01:17:44,939 --> 01:17:49,370
Speaker 3: chase sequence, um, where Bobby, uh, He, I'm making it out.

1424
01:17:49,290 --> 01:17:52,150
Speaker 2: Of torn apart off camera, but torn apart.

1425
01:17:52,490 --> 01:17:56,240
Speaker 3: Clark and cat are chased. Uh, Clark is chased through

1426
01:17:56,420 --> 01:18:00,540
Speaker 3: increasingly nightmarish spaces. He ends up at one point in

1427
01:18:00,700 --> 01:18:04,320
Speaker 3: the Christmas room. I thought this was brilliant. It's this

1428
01:18:04,479 --> 01:18:09,130
Speaker 3: dimly lit room decorated for Christmas as if by aliens, uh,

1429
01:18:09,229 --> 01:18:12,110
Speaker 3: which provides a great opportunity to talk about the creepiness

1430
01:18:12,130 --> 01:18:18,410
Speaker 3: of Christmas. Like, um, I think because it, Christmas provides

1431
01:18:18,470 --> 01:18:21,689
Speaker 3: an opportunity for things that are a mix of nostalgic

1432
01:18:21,750 --> 01:18:25,570
Speaker 3: and uncanny. Like when you sometimes look at Christmas decorations

1433
01:18:25,630 --> 01:18:29,550
Speaker 3: or maybe Santa Claus figures from decades past, they can

1434
01:18:29,610 --> 01:18:32,229
Speaker 3: look pretty creepy, but they also make you feel kind

1435
01:18:32,260 --> 01:18:35,740
Speaker 3: of warm and familiar at the same time. Like the

1436
01:18:35,820 --> 01:18:40,380
Speaker 3: familiarity provides a special kind of vulnerability to the uncanniness.

1437
01:18:40,520 --> 01:18:41,800
Speaker 3: So it's very interesting.

1438
01:18:42,260 --> 01:18:45,220
Speaker 2: Yeah, like Christmas decorations, especially out of context, can feel

1439
01:18:45,260 --> 01:18:49,220
Speaker 2: very garish. because it's like we have a plastic tree

1440
01:18:49,260 --> 01:18:51,240
Speaker 2: in your house and it's covered with lights and tinsel

1441
01:18:51,300 --> 01:18:54,720
Speaker 2: and tiny models of things. It's a lot, but we

1442
01:18:54,760 --> 01:18:57,060
Speaker 2: also have deep emotional investment in it.

1443
01:18:58,090 --> 01:19:01,610
Speaker 3: The entities that he encounters in this room are also interesting.

1444
01:19:01,650 --> 01:19:04,389
Speaker 3: So I read online that people call these things the

1445
01:19:04,490 --> 01:19:06,630
Speaker 3: still lifes. I don't think they use that term in

1446
01:19:06,650 --> 01:19:08,610
Speaker 3: the movie, or if they did, I don't remember that.

1447
01:19:08,689 --> 01:19:10,550
Speaker 2: Yeah, they don't use the term. They also don't say

1448
01:19:10,590 --> 01:19:11,070
Speaker 2: back rooms.

1449
01:19:13,189 --> 01:19:19,360
Speaker 3: Again, these are like cubist imitations of people. They're human shaped.

1450
01:19:19,800 --> 01:19:24,620
Speaker 3: They're sort of half animated, half alive, moving, but seemingly

1451
01:19:24,660 --> 01:19:29,220
Speaker 3: without intelligence or comprehension. I was thinking about them like

1452
01:19:29,320 --> 01:19:34,180
Speaker 3: a poor attempt to capture the appearance of a living person,

1453
01:19:34,800 --> 01:19:36,700
Speaker 3: but without agency or purpose.

1454
01:19:37,240 --> 01:19:39,460
Speaker 2: Yeah. And I think there, I think there's also a

1455
01:19:39,620 --> 01:19:45,070
Speaker 2: clear inspiration from like digital distortion images. So like the, the,

1456
01:19:45,130 --> 01:19:48,170
Speaker 2: the woman that we see, especially like her face looks

1457
01:19:48,290 --> 01:19:50,450
Speaker 2: like if the only thing you had to model a

1458
01:19:50,910 --> 01:19:55,040
Speaker 2: woman's face off of was like a really, um, messed

1459
01:19:55,100 --> 01:19:56,719
Speaker 2: up video clip where like.

1460
01:19:56,600 --> 01:19:58,600
Speaker 4: A face is tracking lines.

1461
01:19:58,200 --> 01:20:01,020
Speaker 2: Yeah like tracking lines or something yeah and so there's

1462
01:20:01,060 --> 01:20:03,219
Speaker 2: like some degree of that going on with the different

1463
01:20:03,340 --> 01:20:08,309
Speaker 2: entities like the the non-human non-living human shaped entities the

1464
01:20:08,390 --> 01:20:09,830
Speaker 2: encounters in the back rooms.

1465
01:20:10,010 --> 01:20:12,490
Speaker 3: There's also a man in a wheelchair with a lamp

1466
01:20:12,530 --> 01:20:15,130
Speaker 3: attached and then there's also a man with like six

1467
01:20:15,490 --> 01:20:29,080
Speaker 3: eyes yeah So eventually this thing chases Clark. Clark ends

1468
01:20:29,160 --> 01:20:32,080
Speaker 3: up in some watery part of the back rooms. It's

1469
01:20:32,160 --> 01:20:35,470
Speaker 3: this weird tiled area, sort of a bathroom, but sort

1470
01:20:35,510 --> 01:20:39,130
Speaker 3: of an indoor pool kind of flavor. And he is

1471
01:20:39,750 --> 01:20:45,270
Speaker 3: seemingly maybe attacked, but we don't initially know what happens. Anyway,

1472
01:20:45,310 --> 01:20:50,990
Speaker 3: this leads into Mary's investigation. So Clark leaves an answering

1473
01:20:51,030 --> 01:20:53,090
Speaker 3: machine message for Mary that makes her feel like she

1474
01:20:53,130 --> 01:20:55,520
Speaker 3: needs to follow up with him. So she goes to

1475
01:20:55,540 --> 01:20:58,320
Speaker 3: the furniture store, finds it empty with the door open,

1476
01:20:58,540 --> 01:21:02,370
Speaker 3: seemingly abandoned for several days. She goes in, she finds

1477
01:21:02,390 --> 01:21:05,950
Speaker 3: the portal to the back rooms and then explores it. Obviously,

1478
01:21:06,030 --> 01:21:10,030
Speaker 3: she is frightened and astounded. And once inside, she meets

1479
01:21:10,290 --> 01:21:13,890
Speaker 3: Clark there. It's at this big mural on the wall

1480
01:21:13,950 --> 01:21:16,830
Speaker 3: that he has apparently made. And, uh, what, what is

1481
01:21:16,850 --> 01:21:18,610
Speaker 3: he saying when they meet? He's like warning her not

1482
01:21:18,650 --> 01:21:19,910
Speaker 3: to be too loud, I think.

1483
01:21:20,150 --> 01:21:20,570
Speaker 4: Yeah.

1484
01:21:20,650 --> 01:21:20,849
Speaker 1: Yeah.

1485
01:21:20,870 --> 01:21:23,830
Speaker 2: Cause you get the impression that it's because the thing

1486
01:21:23,850 --> 01:21:26,809
Speaker 2: that is wandering around there, the Minotaur in this maze

1487
01:21:26,880 --> 01:21:30,780
Speaker 2: that we haven't gotten a clear glimpse of, um, because

1488
01:21:30,820 --> 01:21:34,380
Speaker 2: of that, we should keep our voices down. And also

1489
01:21:34,420 --> 01:21:36,640
Speaker 2: Clark is clearly, I mean, he was already spending a

1490
01:21:36,680 --> 01:21:39,009
Speaker 2: lot of time in here and now he's maybe in

1491
01:21:39,020 --> 01:21:43,139
Speaker 2: here full time. So he's, he's really learned, um, his

1492
01:21:43,200 --> 01:21:46,160
Speaker 2: way around, uh, and, and how to avoid whatever this

1493
01:21:46,200 --> 01:21:46,860
Speaker 2: other thing is.

1494
01:21:47,560 --> 01:21:49,979
Speaker 3: When she hears it though, I think, doesn't he say,

1495
01:21:50,100 --> 01:21:53,030
Speaker 3: it's just me? It's kind of puzzling thing to say

1496
01:21:53,050 --> 01:21:55,490
Speaker 3: that doesn't make sense at the moment, but I guess

1497
01:21:55,530 --> 01:21:58,870
Speaker 3: later it will. Um, and then there's also a little

1498
01:21:58,970 --> 01:22:01,450
Speaker 3: talk of like what this place is. Does he say

1499
01:22:01,490 --> 01:22:03,950
Speaker 3: it's like, it's like every place that there ever was.

1500
01:22:04,530 --> 01:22:07,330
Speaker 2: Yeah. Getting this in definitely into this sort of, uh,

1501
01:22:08,090 --> 01:22:11,910
Speaker 2: more Hayes, uh, ish idea that, uh, of other infinities, uh,

1502
01:22:12,410 --> 01:22:15,690
Speaker 2: that the back rooms may indeed be infinite, and maybe

1503
01:22:15,729 --> 01:22:19,310
Speaker 2: they are based in some way by some mechanism or

1504
01:22:19,370 --> 01:22:23,689
Speaker 2: another off of every space that has ever existed or

1505
01:22:23,790 --> 01:22:28,440
Speaker 2: could possibly exist. It reminds me of some of these

1506
01:22:28,490 --> 01:22:33,100
Speaker 2: ideas about the nature of infinities, but also the idea

1507
01:22:33,120 --> 01:22:37,080
Speaker 2: of a multiverse and the idea that in a true multiverse,

1508
01:22:38,080 --> 01:22:42,809
Speaker 2: the vast majority of universes would be such that physical

1509
01:22:42,850 --> 01:22:46,170
Speaker 2: matter couldn't form in the same way that in borges's

1510
01:22:47,530 --> 01:22:50,809
Speaker 2: the library of babel most of the books are illegible

1511
01:22:51,070 --> 01:22:53,269
Speaker 2: like it has not only all books but all possible

1512
01:22:53,310 --> 01:22:56,390
Speaker 2: books and most of those books just have gibberish in

1513
01:22:56,430 --> 01:22:59,870
Speaker 2: them like it's just a random accumulation of things and

1514
01:23:00,590 --> 01:23:02,410
Speaker 2: we get a sense of that here we don't see

1515
01:23:02,450 --> 01:23:06,210
Speaker 2: really the spaces in the back rooms where like presumably

1516
01:23:06,250 --> 01:23:07,470
Speaker 2: i guess there are spaces in the back rooms that

1517
01:23:07,490 --> 01:23:09,639
Speaker 2: are just like solid masses or just you know or

1518
01:23:09,680 --> 01:23:12,360
Speaker 2: in some way can configured that humans couldn't even pass

1519
01:23:12,400 --> 01:23:14,979
Speaker 2: through them uh but we just see a portion of

1520
01:23:15,020 --> 01:23:16,000
Speaker 2: the infinity here.

1521
01:23:17,040 --> 01:23:21,179
Speaker 3: Yeah uh so anyway uh in this scene that there's

1522
01:23:21,220 --> 01:23:23,740
Speaker 3: high tension we don't know what's coming but uh but

1523
01:23:23,820 --> 01:23:27,450
Speaker 3: before the thing can arrive clark actually surprise attacks mary

1524
01:23:27,610 --> 01:23:31,010
Speaker 3: chokes her unconscious and then she wakes up later tied

1525
01:23:31,050 --> 01:23:34,370
Speaker 3: to a chair uh apparently in some kind of kitchen

1526
01:23:34,390 --> 01:23:37,290
Speaker 3: uh she's in like a kitchen along with clark sitting

1527
01:23:37,330 --> 01:23:39,250
Speaker 3: at a table tied to a chair with several of

1528
01:23:39,290 --> 01:23:42,559
Speaker 3: these other humanoid entities like the uh the woman in

1529
01:23:42,570 --> 01:23:45,640
Speaker 3: the red business suit with the cubist face and uh

1530
01:23:45,960 --> 01:23:48,620
Speaker 3: the other two main figures are there also.

1531
01:23:48,939 --> 01:23:51,020
Speaker 2: Clearly i think there's a little bit of inspiration from

1532
01:23:51,060 --> 01:23:54,099
Speaker 2: the texas chainsaw massacre here because of course in that

1533
01:23:54,160 --> 01:23:57,950
Speaker 2: film sally like loses consciousness wakes up tied to a

1534
01:23:58,010 --> 01:24:01,780
Speaker 2: chair at a dinner table with the enemies with the

1535
01:24:01,820 --> 01:24:05,280
Speaker 2: Sawyer clan. And here we get Clark and his new friends,

1536
01:24:05,320 --> 01:24:10,559
Speaker 2: his still-life friends, in some sort of a strange back rooms.

1537
01:24:10,840 --> 01:24:14,040
Speaker 2: He's found something like a house that he seems to

1538
01:24:14,080 --> 01:24:17,840
Speaker 2: be living in here. It's the most habitable space I

1539
01:24:17,860 --> 01:24:19,639
Speaker 2: think we've seen in the back rooms thus far.

1540
01:24:20,220 --> 01:24:23,759
Speaker 3: So here we get some explanation of what Clark thinks

1541
01:24:23,920 --> 01:24:27,860
Speaker 3: the back rooms are. He kind of describes this idea

1542
01:24:27,880 --> 01:24:30,939
Speaker 3: that the back Backrooms and these entities that inhabit it

1543
01:24:31,100 --> 01:24:36,600
Speaker 3: are misrememberings, that they're like a memory of things in

1544
01:24:36,620 --> 01:24:39,220
Speaker 3: the real world or of things that happen to people,

1545
01:24:39,900 --> 01:24:43,200
Speaker 3: but they are altered by the process of remembering over

1546
01:24:43,270 --> 01:24:47,290
Speaker 3: and over again, where original details are gradually lost or

1547
01:24:47,410 --> 01:24:51,470
Speaker 3: misremembered and are replaced by new details, just like the

1548
01:24:51,510 --> 01:24:53,390
Speaker 3: memories in our heads. I mean, it's true when we

1549
01:24:54,220 --> 01:24:57,080
Speaker 3: you know, when we remember things, we feel very certain

1550
01:24:57,120 --> 01:24:59,479
Speaker 3: that we're remembering them the right way, but we're actually

1551
01:24:59,560 --> 01:25:02,380
Speaker 3: in large part often recreating them, kind of coming up

1552
01:25:02,400 --> 01:25:04,020
Speaker 3: with new things to fill in the gaps.

1553
01:25:04,280 --> 01:25:07,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. So the memories we recall the most are

1554
01:25:07,180 --> 01:25:09,340
Speaker 2: the ones that have been changed the most, because every

1555
01:25:09,380 --> 01:25:12,580
Speaker 2: time we draw them out, they're susceptible to change.

1556
01:25:13,600 --> 01:25:17,340
Speaker 3: But a very interesting question is, what is doing the remembering?

1557
01:25:17,800 --> 01:25:22,830
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. And that's left unanswered, is it? is it

1558
01:25:22,870 --> 01:25:25,650
Speaker 2: some sort of a, an alien intelligence or something that

1559
01:25:25,729 --> 01:25:28,970
Speaker 2: is working like an intelligence that is doing this? Is

1560
01:25:29,010 --> 01:25:32,130
Speaker 2: it a process? Is it like a process of our own, uh,

1561
01:25:32,780 --> 01:25:35,490
Speaker 2: collective intelligence? We don't know. And that's part of the,

1562
01:25:35,700 --> 01:25:37,120
Speaker 2: the lovely mystery here.

1563
01:25:37,760 --> 01:25:41,920
Speaker 3: I mean, I think there's some, at least implicit suggestion

1564
01:25:41,960 --> 01:25:44,300
Speaker 3: that it is a kind of intelligence, a kind of

1565
01:25:44,340 --> 01:25:48,650
Speaker 3: an alien intelligence, um, because of the way that the

1566
01:25:48,689 --> 01:25:51,720
Speaker 3: back rooms are remembered as if by something that doesn't

1567
01:25:51,760 --> 01:25:54,540
Speaker 3: understand what it's looking at when it perceives the world,

1568
01:25:54,600 --> 01:25:57,420
Speaker 3: which is interesting because it reminds me of passage just

1569
01:25:57,439 --> 01:25:59,700
Speaker 3: in that Borges story we talked about just last week.

1570
01:25:59,920 --> 01:26:00,939
Speaker 4: And there are more things.

1571
01:26:01,600 --> 01:26:05,100
Speaker 3: Borges has this aside when he's looking at alien furniture,

1572
01:26:05,160 --> 01:26:09,100
Speaker 3: what a lot of overlap there is here. Um, he

1573
01:26:09,180 --> 01:26:12,679
Speaker 3: talks about how like a sailor on a ship can

1574
01:26:13,000 --> 01:26:16,260
Speaker 3: see the rigging, but the passenger on the ship doesn't

1575
01:26:16,340 --> 01:26:20,230
Speaker 3: really see it because they don't understand what it's for.

1576
01:26:20,360 --> 01:26:23,610
Speaker 3: And thus when they see it, they can't really imagine

1577
01:26:23,689 --> 01:26:25,950
Speaker 3: like how it is used. And thus they kind of

1578
01:26:26,090 --> 01:26:30,570
Speaker 3: don't see it. And that's the feeling of what I

1579
01:26:30,610 --> 01:26:33,590
Speaker 3: get about, about these places that are being created in

1580
01:26:33,610 --> 01:26:37,349
Speaker 3: the back rooms. It's like something, saw spaces created by

1581
01:26:37,410 --> 01:26:40,610
Speaker 3: humans and the things that fill them, but didn't understand

1582
01:26:40,630 --> 01:26:43,210
Speaker 3: what they were and so couldn't recreate them in a

1583
01:26:43,250 --> 01:26:44,370
Speaker 3: very effective way.

1584
01:26:44,390 --> 01:26:48,440
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. And interesting, too, that there seem to be

1585
01:26:48,490 --> 01:26:52,240
Speaker 2: very few copies of humans in here, at least as

1586
01:26:52,300 --> 01:26:55,400
Speaker 2: far as we see them. Almost like if there is

1587
01:26:55,439 --> 01:27:00,080
Speaker 2: an intelligence that's viewing things, it sees organisms as very

1588
01:27:00,120 --> 01:27:04,360
Speaker 2: much secondary to the spaces that organisms make, like whatever

1589
01:27:04,380 --> 01:27:07,460
Speaker 2: it is, has so little understanding of organic beings that

1590
01:27:07,780 --> 01:27:10,820
Speaker 2: the main emphasis was on the spaces and the furniture

1591
01:27:10,880 --> 01:27:11,650
Speaker 2: and things like that.

1592
01:27:12,020 --> 01:27:12,589
Speaker 4: Yeah, totally.

1593
01:27:13,650 --> 01:27:15,670
Speaker 3: So Clark here has Mary tied to a chair. He

1594
01:27:15,729 --> 01:27:18,530
Speaker 3: has kind of lost it at this point. And he

1595
01:27:18,550 --> 01:27:22,590
Speaker 3: wants to force Mary to do the role play again

1596
01:27:22,710 --> 01:27:25,670
Speaker 3: from their therapy session of the argument that he had

1597
01:27:25,729 --> 01:27:28,420
Speaker 3: with his ex-wife. But he wants her to.

1598
01:27:28,350 --> 01:27:29,840
Speaker 4: Make it go his way. He wants her to.

1599
01:27:32,550 --> 01:27:35,440
Speaker 3: Roleplay the argument, but to tell him it's not his fault,

1600
01:27:35,560 --> 01:27:38,479
Speaker 3: wants her as Barbara to admit that it's her fault.

1601
01:27:38,760 --> 01:27:41,299
Speaker 2: And of course, at this point, not only has he

1602
01:27:41,820 --> 01:27:44,500
Speaker 2: attacked her and caused her to lose consciousness and then

1603
01:27:44,540 --> 01:27:47,210
Speaker 2: tied her up, but he has also demonstrated that the

1604
01:27:47,290 --> 01:27:50,330
Speaker 2: still life entities don't feel pain. He can stab them

1605
01:27:50,370 --> 01:27:53,030
Speaker 2: in the neck as needed and they don't react and

1606
01:27:53,050 --> 01:27:56,349
Speaker 2: that you can eat them. And of course, he pulls

1607
01:27:56,450 --> 01:27:59,860
Speaker 2: out what looks like a cross between like stuffing and

1608
01:28:00,350 --> 01:28:03,760
Speaker 2: marshmallow fluff fluff yeah yeah like this is what's inside

1609
01:28:03,780 --> 01:28:07,519
Speaker 2: of them and that he says you can eat it

1610
01:28:07,920 --> 01:28:09,980
Speaker 2: um i guess he would know he's been in here

1611
01:28:10,260 --> 01:28:12,760
Speaker 2: like thriving.

1612
01:28:12,460 --> 01:28:13,850
Speaker 4: What else has he been eating yeah.

1613
01:28:13,930 --> 01:28:17,130
Speaker 2: Yeah um and and i guess the idea like here

1614
01:28:17,170 --> 01:28:20,190
Speaker 2: is like yeah whatever is has led to the creation

1615
01:28:20,229 --> 01:28:21,890
Speaker 2: of the back rooms it like just has this sort

1616
01:28:21,910 --> 01:28:25,970
Speaker 2: of vague idea that like organism meat is also sustenance

1617
01:28:26,030 --> 01:28:28,639
Speaker 2: and somehow it takes the form of this We would

1618
01:28:28,689 --> 01:28:32,380
Speaker 2: barely identify as meat or food, but has some sort

1619
01:28:32,420 --> 01:28:34,540
Speaker 2: of sustenance to it here. Yeah.

1620
01:28:35,060 --> 01:28:38,870
Speaker 3: So in this role play, obviously intimidated because of the

1621
01:28:38,930 --> 01:28:42,900
Speaker 3: violent implications. here, Mary goes along at first. But eventually

1622
01:28:43,160 --> 01:28:46,280
Speaker 3: she kind of she makes a turn and she yells

1623
01:28:46,360 --> 01:28:48,360
Speaker 3: at Clark. She yells at him trying to get him

1624
01:28:48,400 --> 01:28:51,080
Speaker 3: to snap out of it. And she sort of gets

1625
01:28:51,160 --> 01:28:53,160
Speaker 3: through to him, I think, with the idea that he

1626
01:28:53,280 --> 01:28:56,940
Speaker 3: can't always put the blame on other people or even

1627
01:28:57,020 --> 01:28:59,860
Speaker 3: just blame his brain. Because at one point she says,

1628
01:28:59,939 --> 01:29:05,750
Speaker 3: you are your brain. And strangely, I didn't quite expect

1629
01:29:05,810 --> 01:29:07,849
Speaker 3: it to work, but I think she kind of like

1630
01:29:07,910 --> 01:29:09,870
Speaker 3: at least halfway gets through to him, partially.

1631
01:29:09,890 --> 01:29:12,890
Speaker 2: Yeah, because he does begin to untie it because she's like,

1632
01:29:12,910 --> 01:29:15,349
Speaker 2: you know, I can't help you, but at least you

1633
01:29:15,370 --> 01:29:17,910
Speaker 2: should let me go. You can stay here, but let

1634
01:29:17,950 --> 01:29:21,770
Speaker 2: me go. And so he He begins to untire, and

1635
01:29:22,189 --> 01:29:25,960
Speaker 2: he says, I'm sorry, though it's unclear if he's truly

1636
01:29:26,000 --> 01:29:29,360
Speaker 2: sorry and what is he sorry about, because the one

1637
01:29:29,380 --> 01:29:32,000
Speaker 2: implication is that he is sorry that he kidnapped her

1638
01:29:32,100 --> 01:29:34,680
Speaker 2: and tied her up and lured her into the back

1639
01:29:34,700 --> 01:29:38,200
Speaker 2: rooms to begin with, but also something is arriving at

1640
01:29:38,240 --> 01:29:42,030
Speaker 2: the same time. So there's the possible interpretation here that

1641
01:29:42,070 --> 01:29:44,189
Speaker 2: he is sorry for what may be about to happen.

1642
01:29:44,550 --> 01:29:45,070
Speaker 4: That's right.

1643
01:29:45,410 --> 01:29:49,700
Speaker 3: Though he also, I think he says before Or maybe

1644
01:29:49,880 --> 01:29:54,900
Speaker 3: as he's untying her, he says like that he he

1645
01:29:54,939 --> 01:29:58,140
Speaker 3: gives some indication of culpability or says he's sorry or something.

1646
01:29:58,180 --> 01:30:00,260
Speaker 3: But doesn't he also say, I don't want to change?

1647
01:30:00,860 --> 01:30:01,139
Speaker 2: Yes.

1648
01:30:01,400 --> 01:30:05,099
Speaker 3: He says like he maybe he can accept some responsibility,

1649
01:30:05,160 --> 01:30:07,150
Speaker 3: but he also is not going to he doesn't want

1650
01:30:07,160 --> 01:30:09,310
Speaker 3: to get better. He just wants to be how he is.

1651
01:30:09,530 --> 01:30:11,690
Speaker 3: And he has to stay here in the back rooms.

1652
01:30:12,370 --> 01:30:12,490
Speaker 2: Yeah.

1653
01:30:13,330 --> 01:30:16,010
Speaker 3: Um, so anyway, he's, he's going to be letting her go,

1654
01:30:16,050 --> 01:30:18,990
Speaker 3: but then something comes upon them. And finally, we're going

1655
01:30:19,090 --> 01:30:22,060
Speaker 3: to see what it is. That's been chasing people this

1656
01:30:22,080 --> 01:30:27,260
Speaker 3: whole time, this big, um, ungainly large, this tall monster

1657
01:30:27,340 --> 01:30:30,180
Speaker 3: that everybody's been running from. And when we see it,

1658
01:30:30,380 --> 01:30:35,940
Speaker 3: what is it? It is this giant nine foot tall

1659
01:30:36,170 --> 01:30:43,139
Speaker 3: parade puppet, like imitation of Clark himself. in his pirate

1660
01:30:43,200 --> 01:30:47,560
Speaker 3: costume from the TV commercial. Uh, so it is pirate

1661
01:30:47,700 --> 01:30:52,090
Speaker 3: Clark in this exaggerated larger than life form. But again,

1662
01:30:52,270 --> 01:30:54,350
Speaker 3: like some of the other, like some of the still lifes,

1663
01:30:54,860 --> 01:30:58,410
Speaker 3: it's not quite human looking. It's a little like, like

1664
01:30:59,010 --> 01:31:02,270
Speaker 3: a human form being remembered by something that doesn't understand

1665
01:31:02,330 --> 01:31:03,150
Speaker 3: human anatomy.

1666
01:31:03,530 --> 01:31:06,350
Speaker 2: Yeah. And trying to like patch it together based on

1667
01:31:06,410 --> 01:31:10,720
Speaker 2: this cartoon character. And so it's just an abomination. But

1668
01:31:11,439 --> 01:31:13,500
Speaker 2: now we understand what he was talking about when he said,

1669
01:31:13,540 --> 01:31:16,740
Speaker 2: it's just me. Because this is in some way like,

1670
01:31:17,300 --> 01:31:20,019
Speaker 2: this is like a still life version of himself or

1671
01:31:20,050 --> 01:31:25,510
Speaker 2: some distorted idea of who he is. And he really

1672
01:31:25,550 --> 01:31:27,290
Speaker 2: begins to try and reassure the thing. We get the

1673
01:31:27,330 --> 01:31:30,570
Speaker 2: impression that maybe he's talked it down before. But he's like,

1674
01:31:30,610 --> 01:31:32,620
Speaker 2: it's okay. This is Mary. And she says, we don't

1675
01:31:32,640 --> 01:31:35,200
Speaker 2: have to change. Like, this is great news. You don't

1676
01:31:35,240 --> 01:31:36,280
Speaker 2: have to do anything violent.

1677
01:31:37,800 --> 01:31:40,439
Speaker 3: But it doesn't work. Something has ruptured, I think. In

1678
01:31:40,479 --> 01:31:44,580
Speaker 3: this encounter with Mary, there is a... Whatever change has

1679
01:31:44,620 --> 01:31:48,720
Speaker 3: happened in Clark has, I think, reverberated out to Pirate Clark.

1680
01:31:48,820 --> 01:31:51,660
Speaker 3: This thing in the back rooms. And it doesn't like

1681
01:31:51,700 --> 01:31:56,650
Speaker 3: this change. And it reacts violently by basically eating Clark. Like,

1682
01:31:56,689 --> 01:31:59,530
Speaker 3: it grabs him and bites into his neck. We don't

1683
01:31:59,570 --> 01:32:02,769
Speaker 3: see everything it does, but it seemingly tears him to pieces.

1684
01:32:03,310 --> 01:32:08,890
Speaker 2: Yeah. Shortly thereafter, we see... the pirate Clark monstrosity, like

1685
01:32:08,950 --> 01:32:12,950
Speaker 2: dragging a body behind it. And that's presumably human Clark, uh,

1686
01:32:12,990 --> 01:32:14,330
Speaker 2: probably dead at this point.

1687
01:32:15,229 --> 01:32:17,689
Speaker 3: Uh, so this turns into a long chase sequence, this

1688
01:32:17,729 --> 01:32:20,290
Speaker 3: long tense chase through new parts of the back rooms

1689
01:32:20,330 --> 01:32:23,710
Speaker 3: where Mary's running away and pirate Clark is chasing. At

1690
01:32:23,890 --> 01:32:25,689
Speaker 3: one point they get to this thing. That's like a

1691
01:32:26,010 --> 01:32:28,810
Speaker 3: void room. That's so creepy.

1692
01:32:28,830 --> 01:32:29,510
Speaker 4: It was great.

1693
01:32:29,550 --> 01:32:33,849
Speaker 3: This like infinite pit with doors and balconies going all

1694
01:32:33,890 --> 01:32:36,309
Speaker 3: the way around all of the, the four sides of it.

1695
01:32:37,030 --> 01:32:41,490
Speaker 3: And just going down forever into nothingness, darkness below. But

1696
01:32:41,530 --> 01:32:45,519
Speaker 3: then up above it has these stairs, rickety looking stairs

1697
01:32:45,580 --> 01:32:48,740
Speaker 3: leading up to a trap door. Mary goes through the

1698
01:32:48,760 --> 01:32:51,620
Speaker 3: trap door pursued by the pirate and emerges into a

1699
01:32:51,860 --> 01:32:54,760
Speaker 3: weird copy of Clark's furniture store.

1700
01:32:54,780 --> 01:32:57,840
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's not entirely sure at first what it is.

1701
01:32:57,860 --> 01:33:00,729
Speaker 2: You think, oh, she's made it out somehow. But then

1702
01:33:01,050 --> 01:33:02,850
Speaker 2: things become, they're not lining up.

1703
01:33:03,189 --> 01:33:03,990
Speaker 4: No windows.

1704
01:33:04,070 --> 01:33:05,210
Speaker 2: We're still in the back rooms.

1705
01:33:05,590 --> 01:33:07,990
Speaker 3: Yeah, but it's like a back rooms version of the

1706
01:33:08,030 --> 01:33:11,070
Speaker 3: furniture store. Uh, she's forced into a showdown with the

1707
01:33:11,130 --> 01:33:14,310
Speaker 3: pirate where she, she fights back and defends herself. Well,

1708
01:33:14,350 --> 01:33:18,309
Speaker 3: she breaks its peg leg with a coat rack and eventually, uh,

1709
01:33:18,439 --> 01:33:20,440
Speaker 3: just when it's like getting on top of her, she

1710
01:33:20,479 --> 01:33:22,920
Speaker 3: manages to kill it by whacking it in the head

1711
01:33:23,380 --> 01:33:26,700
Speaker 3: with the chunk of concrete from her childhood driveway. Um,

1712
01:33:26,760 --> 01:33:29,760
Speaker 3: which is, uh, yeah, so some kind of resonance there,

1713
01:33:29,820 --> 01:33:32,660
Speaker 3: but then suddenly she has an encounter. She is collected.

1714
01:33:33,380 --> 01:33:39,640
Speaker 3: by people in hazmat suits. So we get this coda

1715
01:33:39,720 --> 01:33:43,140
Speaker 3: where she is taken in by this organization for which

1716
01:33:43,220 --> 01:33:46,920
Speaker 3: the person in the prologue was working. She meets with

1717
01:33:46,979 --> 01:33:50,980
Speaker 3: Mark Duplass, and we learn that they're working for what

1718
01:33:51,020 --> 01:33:54,000
Speaker 3: is called the Async Facility. There's one part, I think,

1719
01:33:54,020 --> 01:33:57,090
Speaker 3: where we see an autopsy of the pirate through glass.

1720
01:33:57,100 --> 01:33:59,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, I missed that in my first viewing. The second viewing,

1721
01:33:59,189 --> 01:34:01,750
Speaker 2: I'm like, oh my goodness, there's Pirate Clark back there

1722
01:34:01,790 --> 01:34:02,170
Speaker 2: on the slab.

1723
01:34:11,170 --> 01:34:12,650
Speaker 4: This last part is ambiguous.

1724
01:34:12,990 --> 01:34:16,170
Speaker 3: We don't understand exactly how good or how villainous these

1725
01:34:16,229 --> 01:34:20,420
Speaker 3: guys are. There's an interview where Mark Duplass' character wants

1726
01:34:20,600 --> 01:34:23,620
Speaker 3: information from Mary about how she found her way in,

1727
01:34:23,700 --> 01:34:27,780
Speaker 3: what she saw there. They're also still trying to understand

1728
01:34:27,840 --> 01:34:31,470
Speaker 3: the backrooms, what the backrooms are, whoever they are. And

1729
01:34:31,570 --> 01:34:34,250
Speaker 3: Mary's fate at the end remains unclear, but there are

1730
01:34:34,270 --> 01:34:36,750
Speaker 3: kind of some suggestions that maybe they're not going to

1731
01:34:36,790 --> 01:34:38,650
Speaker 3: let her live or not let her leave.

1732
01:34:38,670 --> 01:34:41,769
Speaker 2: Yeah, a lot of questions about where we even are.

1733
01:34:41,850 --> 01:34:44,350
Speaker 2: I don't think we're in the back rooms anymore. I

1734
01:34:44,390 --> 01:34:47,390
Speaker 2: think the async headquarters are outside of the back rooms.

1735
01:34:48,030 --> 01:34:49,889
Speaker 2: But there are a few things that Phil says where

1736
01:34:49,910 --> 01:34:52,310
Speaker 2: it leads you to be unsure. And the way that

1737
01:34:52,350 --> 01:34:55,710
Speaker 2: the room is positioned with these, we can see what

1738
01:34:55,890 --> 01:35:00,390
Speaker 2: is apparently sky through like some high glass strips in

1739
01:35:00,410 --> 01:35:03,380
Speaker 2: the room. but it also reminds us of some of

1740
01:35:03,420 --> 01:35:06,120
Speaker 2: like walls painted like sky that we've seen in the

1741
01:35:06,160 --> 01:35:06,740
Speaker 2: back room.

1742
01:35:06,860 --> 01:35:10,479
Speaker 3: So early on, there's this horrifying room that has all

1743
01:35:10,500 --> 01:35:11,800
Speaker 3: the walls with this wallpaper.

1744
01:35:11,840 --> 01:35:12,840
Speaker 4: That's like a seaside.

1745
01:35:12,860 --> 01:35:12,939
Speaker 1: Yeah.

1746
01:35:13,189 --> 01:35:14,930
Speaker 4: It kind of appearance.

1747
01:35:15,390 --> 01:35:18,390
Speaker 2: So, yeah, I think this is something I, I, I

1748
01:35:18,410 --> 01:35:20,710
Speaker 2: get the impression fans are still trying to piece this out.

1749
01:35:20,750 --> 01:35:23,090
Speaker 2: Like where even are we at this point? And yeah,

1750
01:35:23,130 --> 01:35:25,630
Speaker 2: then what is a sink want? Are they going to let,

1751
01:35:26,010 --> 01:35:27,550
Speaker 2: let her go? Are they going to let her live?

1752
01:35:27,570 --> 01:35:30,700
Speaker 2: Are they going to let her go? Um, we end

1753
01:35:30,820 --> 01:35:34,900
Speaker 2: up like the last frame is like clearly venturing back

1754
01:35:34,939 --> 01:35:37,990
Speaker 2: into the back rooms and seeing another still life that

1755
01:35:38,030 --> 01:35:41,090
Speaker 2: seems to be based on Mary, um, just sort of

1756
01:35:41,110 --> 01:35:43,410
Speaker 2: like sitting in a chair doing nothing. And that's, this

1757
01:35:43,470 --> 01:35:46,030
Speaker 2: isn't explained like what, like what, you know, what does

1758
01:35:46,090 --> 01:35:49,090
Speaker 2: it mean? Maybe it just means that, you know, Mary

1759
01:35:49,350 --> 01:35:52,450
Speaker 2: also like perhaps everything else in our world has some

1760
01:35:52,510 --> 01:35:56,200
Speaker 2: sort of a doppelganger somewhere in the back rooms or,

1761
01:35:56,990 --> 01:35:59,970
Speaker 2: her proximity to what has transpired in this film has

1762
01:36:00,010 --> 01:36:03,840
Speaker 2: also has led to this manifestation. I don't know. Yeah.

1763
01:36:03,939 --> 01:36:04,179
Speaker 4: Yeah.

1764
01:36:04,780 --> 01:36:07,679
Speaker 3: Very interesting. One of the, the one image I kept

1765
01:36:07,760 --> 01:36:11,800
Speaker 3: thinking of after the movie is this part where Mary

1766
01:36:11,979 --> 01:36:17,220
Speaker 3: is remembering her childhood home. And then the camera pans

1767
01:36:17,300 --> 01:36:20,490
Speaker 3: down from that memory of the childhood home through the

1768
01:36:20,630 --> 01:36:24,870
Speaker 3: floor into a weird version of the same room with

1769
01:36:24,950 --> 01:36:29,410
Speaker 3: some details mixed up. And then on through another floor

1770
01:36:29,650 --> 01:36:35,479
Speaker 3: into an even more modified version of the room, less detail,

1771
01:36:35,530 --> 01:36:39,280
Speaker 3: more things changed. And down and down and down through

1772
01:36:39,320 --> 01:36:44,100
Speaker 3: more and more levels into increasingly detail-stripped copies of the

1773
01:36:44,160 --> 01:36:47,360
Speaker 3: room until finally we pan down into a room that

1774
01:36:47,420 --> 01:36:51,479
Speaker 3: is nothing but floor and blank walls. And then below that,

1775
01:36:51,660 --> 01:36:55,320
Speaker 3: we pan down into another floor where new details are generated.

1776
01:36:55,390 --> 01:36:57,070
Speaker 3: I think one is a gaping doorway.

1777
01:36:58,229 --> 01:37:00,090
Speaker 2: Uh, and where does that go? Yeah.

1778
01:37:00,210 --> 01:37:02,610
Speaker 3: And I was, I really liked that. What it was

1779
01:37:02,670 --> 01:37:10,589
Speaker 3: implying this idea that like people's neuroses and, and terrible memories,

1780
01:37:10,670 --> 01:37:13,100
Speaker 3: or maybe even maybe good and bad memories, who knows,

1781
01:37:13,140 --> 01:37:17,540
Speaker 3: maybe sticky memories somehow generate the contents of the back

1782
01:37:17,600 --> 01:37:21,500
Speaker 3: rooms and the mechanism by which they do that is

1783
01:37:21,760 --> 01:37:24,080
Speaker 3: iterative forgetting and substitution.

1784
01:37:24,100 --> 01:37:24,180
Speaker 1: Yeah.

1785
01:37:25,689 --> 01:37:30,100
Speaker 2: Yeah. Like you could see the, The distortion of a

1786
01:37:30,280 --> 01:37:34,559
Speaker 2: traumatic or joyful memory into this thing that is unrecognizable

1787
01:37:34,620 --> 01:37:39,680
Speaker 2: from the actual experience. This gateway to pleasure or woe.

1788
01:37:40,660 --> 01:37:43,700
Speaker 2: And then also this sort of world-building idea that what

1789
01:37:43,740 --> 01:37:46,049
Speaker 2: we see is kind of like the default back rooms.

1790
01:37:46,070 --> 01:37:49,550
Speaker 2: It's just kind of like, it's just this, the way

1791
01:37:49,570 --> 01:37:53,210
Speaker 2: everything is distilled down. Like it's everything in our reality

1792
01:37:53,270 --> 01:37:57,889
Speaker 2: distilled down to its most mundane and detail-stripped form of itself.

1793
01:38:01,370 --> 01:38:03,480
Speaker 2: I do want to talk briefly a little more about

1794
01:38:03,520 --> 01:38:06,880
Speaker 2: Pirate Clark because when I first watched the film, I

1795
01:38:07,000 --> 01:38:11,300
Speaker 2: wasn't sure how I felt about the revelation that the

1796
01:38:11,340 --> 01:38:13,600
Speaker 2: monster is this giant pirate creature.

1797
01:38:14,320 --> 01:38:16,400
Speaker 4: I like that part. I was unborn.

1798
01:38:16,420 --> 01:38:20,150
Speaker 2: I grew to love it. Certainly, by the time I

1799
01:38:20,210 --> 01:38:24,330
Speaker 2: re-watched the film, I was all in on it. But

1800
01:38:24,630 --> 01:38:27,189
Speaker 2: it is kind of a tricky thing because you have

1801
01:38:27,210 --> 01:38:29,090
Speaker 2: the mystery of the monster and then you're going to

1802
01:38:29,150 --> 01:38:32,420
Speaker 2: reveal what it looks like. That's always a risk. Is

1803
01:38:32,479 --> 01:38:35,349
Speaker 2: the reveal going to match the mystery and the feel

1804
01:38:35,390 --> 01:38:38,410
Speaker 2: of the mystery? And certainly the aura of the back

1805
01:38:38,450 --> 01:38:41,769
Speaker 2: rooms itself is so overpowering and so well done at

1806
01:38:41,830 --> 01:38:44,970
Speaker 2: that point. And I will admit, it did make me

1807
01:38:45,010 --> 01:38:47,310
Speaker 2: think a little bit about the Treehouse of Horror episode,

1808
01:38:47,350 --> 01:38:50,689
Speaker 2: Attack of the 50-Foot Eyesores. Remember where the mascots are

1809
01:38:50,729 --> 01:38:53,310
Speaker 2: running amok and Paul Inca has to come up with

1810
01:38:53,350 --> 01:38:57,000
Speaker 2: a jingle to stop those monsters. One, two, three. Here's

1811
01:38:57,040 --> 01:38:59,760
Speaker 2: a fresh wave. It's trouble-free. It's got the Paul Inca guarantee.

1812
01:38:59,820 --> 01:39:00,860
Speaker 2: Just don't look. Just don't look.

1813
01:39:01,360 --> 01:39:02,600
Speaker 4: Guarantee void in Tennessee.

1814
01:39:02,620 --> 01:39:06,729
Speaker 2: Yeah. But again, I ended up really liking it. I

1815
01:39:06,770 --> 01:39:09,070
Speaker 2: liked how it also, of course, as we've been saying,

1816
01:39:09,150 --> 01:39:14,660
Speaker 2: grounded everything in character. and in these themes of trauma

1817
01:39:14,920 --> 01:39:19,810
Speaker 2: and how this is generated to some extent in this

1818
01:39:20,330 --> 01:39:24,450
Speaker 2: unseen world of the back rooms. Oh, and also I

1819
01:39:24,510 --> 01:39:26,650
Speaker 2: mentioned Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, but there's also a

1820
01:39:26,689 --> 01:39:28,990
Speaker 2: scene where I think it's Phil and his family are

1821
01:39:29,010 --> 01:39:32,439
Speaker 2: watching The NeverEnding Story on television, which of course is

1822
01:39:32,479 --> 01:39:37,040
Speaker 2: a nice nostalgic media reference, but also that is a

1823
01:39:37,080 --> 01:39:39,920
Speaker 2: film that deals with a gateway to a fantasy realm.

1824
01:39:40,840 --> 01:39:45,260
Speaker 2: Certainly in the Michael Enda source novel, it deals with infinities.

1825
01:39:45,780 --> 01:39:47,860
Speaker 2: So I thought that was a nice little Easter egg

1826
01:39:47,920 --> 01:39:48,240
Speaker 2: as well.

1827
01:39:48,820 --> 01:39:49,040
Speaker 1: Yeah.

1828
01:39:50,240 --> 01:39:54,290
Speaker 3: And it is not just a realm of heroics and

1829
01:39:54,590 --> 01:39:56,770
Speaker 3: positive fantasy, but one of dangers too.

1830
01:39:56,810 --> 01:40:00,210
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. One of lurking dangers and then also like

1831
01:40:01,110 --> 01:40:05,550
Speaker 2: vast non-human dangers, you know, the nothing. So one wonders,

1832
01:40:05,610 --> 01:40:08,440
Speaker 2: you know, yeah. What would the nothing match up with

1833
01:40:08,520 --> 01:40:09,780
Speaker 2: in the back rooms? I'm not sure.

1834
01:40:10,160 --> 01:40:14,320
Speaker 3: Man, having the never-ending story actually appear in the movie

1835
01:40:14,560 --> 01:40:19,070
Speaker 3: is so potent in terms of the way it evokes

1836
01:40:19,110 --> 01:40:21,990
Speaker 3: the nostalgia theme. There are all these other things in

1837
01:40:22,010 --> 01:40:27,090
Speaker 3: the movie that show this weird intermingling of nostalgia with

1838
01:40:27,189 --> 01:40:30,769
Speaker 3: the uncanny and these terrible traumatic memories that are also

1839
01:40:30,880 --> 01:40:34,140
Speaker 3: wrapped up in these cozy nostalgic feelings that they're not

1840
01:40:34,240 --> 01:40:35,200
Speaker 3: really separable.

1841
01:40:35,740 --> 01:40:41,070
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. And, you know, speaking of nostalgic media, of course, again,

1842
01:40:41,110 --> 01:40:43,889
Speaker 2: as I mentioned earlier, when we go to credits, we

1843
01:40:43,990 --> 01:40:46,410
Speaker 2: were hit with Boards of Canada and Boards of Canada

1844
01:40:46,450 --> 01:40:55,020
Speaker 2: have long proved themselves experts at indulging in our collective

1845
01:40:55,040 --> 01:40:59,019
Speaker 2: nostalgia for old media in ways that we generally don't

1846
01:40:59,040 --> 01:41:02,009
Speaker 2: even recognize, like more or less connecting with the source

1847
01:41:02,090 --> 01:41:06,070
Speaker 2: vibe rather than like particular samples that we're going to

1848
01:41:06,110 --> 01:41:08,070
Speaker 2: be directly familiar with. Yeah.

1849
01:41:08,550 --> 01:41:08,730
Speaker 1: Yeah.

1850
01:41:08,750 --> 01:41:12,300
Speaker 3: You've never heard this particular thing, but it resonates so

1851
01:41:12,360 --> 01:41:13,880
Speaker 3: strongly as a type.

1852
01:41:13,580 --> 01:41:14,740
Speaker 4: Of thing you remember.

1853
01:41:14,760 --> 01:41:19,179
Speaker 3: Yeah. I guess like the rooms in the back rooms,

1854
01:41:19,700 --> 01:41:22,090
Speaker 3: which you've never seen this room before, but you know

1855
01:41:22,150 --> 01:41:22,750
Speaker 3: this place.

1856
01:41:23,010 --> 01:41:23,929
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.

1857
01:41:23,950 --> 01:41:24,550
Speaker 1: Yeah.

1858
01:41:25,330 --> 01:41:28,110
Speaker 2: So, yeah, again, I thought it was just very well crafted. Yeah.

1859
01:41:28,850 --> 01:41:31,479
Speaker 2: And certainly as far as horror goes, very thought provoking.

1860
01:41:32,100 --> 01:41:36,090
Speaker 2: It's not every every. every horror picture that really resonates

1861
01:41:36,390 --> 01:41:38,670
Speaker 2: with me in this way where I keep thinking back

1862
01:41:38,710 --> 01:41:40,510
Speaker 2: to it. Uh, though I guess that there were a

1863
01:41:40,510 --> 01:41:42,250
Speaker 2: couple of films like that for me this year. So

1864
01:41:42,270 --> 01:41:45,700
Speaker 2: in a way, good year for horror, 2026, uh, the

1865
01:41:45,720 --> 01:41:48,980
Speaker 2: fictional are, there's also a lot of non-fictional horror and

1866
01:41:49,000 --> 01:41:52,400
Speaker 2: that was not good. But, uh, in terms of the fiction, I, uh,

1867
01:41:52,620 --> 01:41:53,380
Speaker 2: I did appreciate it.

1868
01:41:53,760 --> 01:41:53,940
Speaker 1: Yeah.

1869
01:41:54,880 --> 01:41:57,900
Speaker 2: All right. Well, anything else to say about back rooms here, Joe? I,

1870
01:41:58,140 --> 01:41:58,720
Speaker 2: I'm all done.

1871
01:41:58,740 --> 01:42:00,500
Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah. Got it all out.

1872
01:42:00,800 --> 01:42:03,689
Speaker 2: Yeah. We will. I, in, in, Our next episode of

1873
01:42:03,700 --> 01:42:06,010
Speaker 2: Weird House Cinema, I think we will retreat into our

1874
01:42:06,070 --> 01:42:10,930
Speaker 2: own back rooms, into the media of the past as

1875
01:42:10,950 --> 01:42:12,610
Speaker 2: opposed to the media of the present. But it was

1876
01:42:12,670 --> 01:42:14,610
Speaker 2: fun to discuss the film. I think, like we were saying,

1877
01:42:14,630 --> 01:42:16,309
Speaker 2: for the first time, a film that actually came out

1878
01:42:16,350 --> 01:42:20,150
Speaker 2: this year. And I think it's a special one. I

1879
01:42:20,170 --> 01:42:21,930
Speaker 2: think they did a great job here. I'm interested to

1880
01:42:21,990 --> 01:42:25,510
Speaker 2: see where they go in the future because it looks

1881
01:42:25,530 --> 01:42:27,020
Speaker 2: like there is going to be a back rooms, too.

1882
01:42:28,180 --> 01:42:29,860
Speaker 2: of some sort I don't know if it's going to

1883
01:42:29,880 --> 01:42:33,120
Speaker 2: be a direct like narrative sequel or like more stories

1884
01:42:33,200 --> 01:42:35,730
Speaker 2: that sort of take place there but I'm on board

1885
01:42:35,770 --> 01:42:38,650
Speaker 2: to check it out whatever it is yeah all right

1886
01:42:38,770 --> 01:42:40,630
Speaker 2: we're going to close it out here but we'll just

1887
01:42:40,670 --> 01:42:42,910
Speaker 2: remind everyone that stuff to blow your mind is primarily

1888
01:42:42,930 --> 01:42:45,590
Speaker 2: a science and culture podcast core episodes on Tuesdays and

1889
01:42:45,610 --> 01:42:48,430
Speaker 2: Thursdays but on Fridays we set aside most serious concerns

1890
01:42:48,470 --> 01:42:50,670
Speaker 2: just talk about a weird film on weird house cinema

1891
01:42:51,110 --> 01:42:53,690
Speaker 2: if you're on letterbox look us up we're on there

1892
01:42:53,750 --> 01:42:55,550
Speaker 2: as weird house and we have a nice list of

1893
01:42:55,590 --> 01:42:57,510
Speaker 2: all the movies we've covered over the years and and

1894
01:42:57,550 --> 01:43:00,590
Speaker 2: sometimes a glimpse ahead at what comes up next. And

1895
01:43:00,630 --> 01:43:02,870
Speaker 2: wherever you get the show, we just ask that you rate,

1896
01:43:03,130 --> 01:43:05,630
Speaker 2: that you review, that you subscribe. If you're on Netflix

1897
01:43:05,750 --> 01:43:08,130
Speaker 2: watching us, give us a couple of thumbs up and

1898
01:43:08,170 --> 01:43:10,189
Speaker 2: ask to be reminded about future episodes.

1899
01:43:10,930 --> 01:43:13,969
Speaker 3: Huge thanks, as always, to our excellent audio producer, J.J.

1900
01:43:13,990 --> 01:43:14,429
Speaker 4: Posway.

1901
01:43:14,910 --> 01:43:17,559
Speaker 3: If you would like to give us feedback on this

1902
01:43:17,640 --> 01:43:20,200
Speaker 3: episode or any other, to suggest a topic for the future,

1903
01:43:20,340 --> 01:43:22,920
Speaker 3: or just to say hello, you can email us at

1904
01:43:23,040 --> 01:43:24,840
Speaker 3: contact at stufftoblowyourmind.com.

1905
01:43:32,400 --> 01:43:34,840
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1906
01:43:35,220 --> 01:43:38,570
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1907
01:43:38,590 --> 01:43:40,930
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