Speaker 1: On the Bechdel Cast.
Speaker 2: The questions asked if movies have women and them, are
Speaker 2: all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands, or do they
Speaker 2: have individualism? It's the patriarchy, z Ephyn bast start changing
Speaker 2: with the Bechdel Cast.
Speaker 1: Hale, Caitlon, Yeah, Hale, James Amon.
Speaker 3: It actually works pretty well, a little too well, a
Speaker 3: little too well, too well, a little suspicious, I think.
Speaker 1: Well, welcome to the Beymon Cast. My name's jaymon Leyman and.
Speaker 3: My name is Kymon Deraymon.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, wow, look at us, and this is the
Speaker 1: show where we talk about your favorite movies from an
Speaker 1: intersectional feminist perspective, using the Bechdel Test as a jumping
Speaker 1: point for discussion. But Kaitlyn, what the hell? Cape? Sorry,
Speaker 1: I'm so sorry, came on, came on? Came on, Deraimon?
Speaker 1: What is that? It's not gonna stop being funny to me?
Speaker 1: Buckle in for an episode? Uh, came on, Deraymond. What
Speaker 1: is the Bechdel Test?
Speaker 3: It is a media metric created by Alison Bechdel. I
Speaker 3: almost tried to make Alison Bechdel's name demonic as well.
Speaker 1: But she just leave her out of it.
Speaker 3: It's not Yeah, I'm so sorry, two days out.
Speaker 1: Of Pride Month and you're demonizing Alison Bechdel.
Speaker 3: Come on, damn anyway. It's a media metric, first appearing
Speaker 3: in her comic Dicks to Watch Out For in the
Speaker 3: nineteen eighties. It's often called the Bechdel Wallace test because
Speaker 3: it was co created by Alison Bechdel and her friend
Speaker 3: Liz Wallace. It was kind of created as a bit.
Speaker 3: It appears in the comic as as a bit specific.
Speaker 1: Yeah that like more references how few queer women there
Speaker 1: are in media. It's always more complicated that it's presented
Speaker 1: in the mainstream.
Speaker 3: Indeed, and there are many different versions of it. The
Speaker 3: one that we use is this, do two characters of
Speaker 3: a marginalized gender have names? Do they speak to each other?
Speaker 3: And is there conversation about something other than a man
Speaker 3: or about something other than Peymon? If so, it passes
Speaker 3: the Bechdel test.
Speaker 1: I guess are we to believe? I mean, Peymon is
Speaker 1: pretty aggressively gendered. I guess, yeah, yeah, so tell me
Speaker 1: about it. We can't like really talk like many like,
Speaker 1: we can't be like Paymon is a genderless entity. In fact,
Speaker 1: that's part of the whole thing, all right, never mind.
Speaker 3: The whole and yeah, we'll talk about it.
Speaker 1: Fuck what I was about to say. And today we
Speaker 1: are covering a movie that I am pretty sure we
Speaker 1: have gotten pretty consistent, especially during like horror movie season,
Speaker 1: We've gotten pretty consistent requests for since it came out,
Speaker 1: and that is our Asters twenty eighteen movie, Hereditary. And
Speaker 1: we have with us not just an incredible writer, not
Speaker 1: just an incredible person, but number one Hereditary fan. Let's
Speaker 1: get her in here.
Speaker 3: Let's she's a writer and author of the short story
Speaker 3: collection entitled Mouth, which just came out, so check it out.
Speaker 3: It's Paloma Ghosh, Hello, Hi, Hello, come.
Speaker 4: So my name actually does start with a pece so.
Speaker 3: Pala mon wow, pala, and it has a lot of
Speaker 3: the same letters as Peymon. So I kind of fucked
Speaker 3: that intro up. So it's Peymon gosh Hello, Hi.
Speaker 4: Although as a long suffering Digimon fan, I just I'm
Speaker 4: envisioning this as everyone's Digimon names right now.
Speaker 1: Oh, it kind of is.
Speaker 5: Wow.
Speaker 1: I was a Pokemon girl. I was basic. Oh I
Speaker 1: was basic. I know. Yeah, And the rivalry begins quick pivot.
Speaker 1: So we're re covering Hereditary Caitlin came on is under Duress.
Speaker 1: I'm really excited. I feel like we have a real
Speaker 1: range of opinions in the chat about Hereditary twenty eighteen.
Speaker 1: So let's start with you, Paloma. What is your connection
Speaker 1: to this movie? What is your history with Hereditary?
Speaker 4: So I am a fan of horror movies and try
Speaker 4: to watch like every horror movie that is supposedly good,
Speaker 4: even the ones that are supposedly not good. So when
Speaker 4: this came out, all of the talk about it was
Speaker 4: really exciting. People were like, I left the theater and
Speaker 4: like threw up or whatever. So I had to see it,
Speaker 4: and I saw it in theaters and it scared the
Speaker 4: shit out of me. I had trouble sleeping. I had nightmares.
Speaker 4: I had like, you know, wake up in the middle
Speaker 4: of the night, gasping nightmares. And I was so scared.
Speaker 4: And so I was like, this movie rules, because if
Speaker 4: you watch a lot of horror, when something genuinely like
Speaker 4: scares the shit out of you, it's exciting and not revolting.
Speaker 4: And as a writer, I was like, Okay, this was
Speaker 4: successful for me. I must immediately pull it apart and
Speaker 4: figure out why. So I watched it over and over.
Speaker 4: I have outlined it, I have like tracked scares. I've
Speaker 4: tried to figure out like the mechanics of how this
Speaker 4: movie fucked me up like badly, and a lot of
Speaker 4: people I know as well for a while.
Speaker 1: Yeah, whether you like this movie or you don't like it,
Speaker 1: I feel like it's almost import you have to be
Speaker 1: so hardened to the worlds for it to not fuck
Speaker 1: you up truly. But I'm curious about how Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: we'll talk about it, but like, I'm getting so amped
Speaker 1: and terrified to talk about this movie. Caitlin came on,
Speaker 1: what is your history with Hereditary?
Speaker 3: Okay? I saw it in theaters and it was probably
Speaker 3: the the most unpleasant movie theater going experience I've ever had.
Speaker 1: I remember, I think you maybe texted me after you
Speaker 1: saw this and you were just like, I've just had
Speaker 1: I've just had a hell of a night. Yeah.
Speaker 3: So I don't seek out horror movies as much as
Speaker 3: most other genres. It's not that I don't like horror.
Speaker 3: There are many horror movies I love, but I'm very
Speaker 3: easily startled and scary movies. Even when they're not very
Speaker 3: scary and not very good, they still make me so
Speaker 3: nervous and just like stricken with anxiety. And I'm pretty
Speaker 3: squeamish when it comes to like guts and gore and
Speaker 3: blood and body horror. So the odds are just stacked
Speaker 3: against me. So I struggle with a lot of horror movies,
Speaker 3: but I still see a lot of them. And I
Speaker 3: went to go see Hereditary because I heard that it
Speaker 3: was so scary and so well done and like very
Speaker 3: well directed, and there were incredible performances. So I went
Speaker 3: to see the movie and I walked away from it
Speaker 3: in full body pain because I was so clenched up,
Speaker 3: just like shoulders to my ears, like plugging my ears
Speaker 3: the whole time. It's just so tight and tense.
Speaker 1: So it worked.
Speaker 3: It worked. It was a very effective horror movie. There
Speaker 3: aren't that many jump scares. There's maybe only two or
Speaker 3: three things that might startle you, but it just fills
Speaker 3: you with well, I won't speak for everyone. It filled
Speaker 3: me with such dread such.
Speaker 1: I felt fine. I felt fine the whole movie, so just.
Speaker 3: But like dread that I've never felt before, Like other
Speaker 3: movies will be like, oh, I feel horrible for now,
Speaker 3: but here's another scene where I can kind of breathe
Speaker 3: a sigh of relief before the tension ramps up again.
Speaker 3: This movie was just constant dread and tension and scariness.
Speaker 3: So I walked away in pain. But I was also like, wow,
Speaker 3: that was like a beautifully crafted movie as far as
Speaker 3: like technical cinematography, editing, sound design, all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 3: The performance is incredible, Tony Kolett give the woman an
Speaker 3: oscar unbelievable. But also I was like, I never want
Speaker 3: to see that movie again. I refuse to cover it
Speaker 3: on the Bechdel Cast. It's the one movie that I
Speaker 3: won't do. I've publicly said this on the show, and
Speaker 3: yet here we are, Here we are, and I've watched
Speaker 3: the movie two more times to prep for this episode.
Speaker 1: It took half a decade, you know. It's like we
Speaker 1: slowly wore you down. We covered Midsummer a couple of
Speaker 1: years ago on the Matreon and.
Speaker 3: Now even we're here.
Speaker 1: So what was it? Did you feel any differently revisiting it?
Speaker 3: I felt the same because I forgot enough stuff that
Speaker 3: everything was pretty fresh upon the rewatch. The jump scares
Speaker 3: still scared the hell on me. The dread was still there,
Speaker 3: and I feel horrible right now. I just want everyone
Speaker 3: to know. Hell yeah, well the listeners out there, please
Speaker 3: get me your sympathy. Thank you so much.
Speaker 4: I thought on the sixth watch, I was like, it's
Speaker 4: not gonna scare me anymore. I've seen it so many times.
Speaker 4: It was Hubris. Still last night, I was just like
Speaker 4: in the dark, like, oh God.
Speaker 1: It's happening again. Literally, I mean, yeah.
Speaker 3: Jamie, what's your relationship with the movie.
Speaker 1: I feel like it's been a while since we've had
Speaker 1: an episode like this, but this feels like a classic
Speaker 1: Bechdel cast dynamic where I think I'm somewhere in the
Speaker 1: middle here where I didn't see this movie when it
Speaker 1: first came out, but I saw it shortly after, and
Speaker 1: I think came on. I was coming, oh, there's a
Speaker 1: cat pull on the cat sighting pull. Him and I
Speaker 1: both have a black cat and a gray.
Speaker 4: Cat and the hot girls special it really is.
Speaker 1: It's a sacred bot. So, yeah, I didn't see it
Speaker 1: in theaters. I wish I had. I would like to
Speaker 1: see this movie in theaters, would you?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 1: I mean truly, because I haven't seen Bo's Afraid Because
Speaker 1: no matter how much I like a director, if the
Speaker 1: movie's too long, I'm not seeing it in theaters so long,
Speaker 1: I just couldn't. But but ari Astor's first two movies
Speaker 1: I think are genuinely really good, and especially with Hereditary,
Speaker 1: even though I've seen it fewer times than I've seen Midsummer,
Speaker 1: it's I mean, whether you like it or not, it's
Speaker 1: a very special, uniquely terrifying movie. The fact that it's
Speaker 1: his first feature is absolutely wild. I was watching it
Speaker 1: with my boyfriend last night, and it it's almost frustrating
Speaker 1: that this, like you know, this like male Otur who
Speaker 1: from what we can tell at the time this movie
Speaker 1: came out, nothing meaningfully traumatizing has happened to him. He
Speaker 1: talks about that in interviews and then he makes this
Speaker 1: and you're like, and it's good, Like that's so fucked,
Speaker 1: But I think it is. I think it's like a
Speaker 1: really special movie. Yeah. The first time I saw it,
Speaker 1: I sort of was like, I've seen it all, like
Speaker 1: fucking shock me. And it does. And it's like, kind
Speaker 1: of in a campy sense, fun to rewatch, where it's like,
Speaker 1: you know, on even the first rewatch, it is so
Speaker 1: obvious the horrible thing that's going to happen. He hints
Speaker 1: at it like a humorous amount of times to the
Speaker 1: point where it's like, I think this was my third
Speaker 1: viewing of it, and I did laugh when they do
Speaker 1: the set of like, and here's this poll in the street? Interesting?
Speaker 1: And do you have your EpiPen? Interesting? Everything I like
Speaker 1: and dislike about ari Astors in this movie. I've watched
Speaker 1: this I've watched it now in three very different emotional spaces.
Speaker 1: I was having like a harder time with it this time,
Speaker 1: but not because of the movie itself, just because of
Speaker 1: sort of like some of the themes of grief and processing.
Speaker 1: Like I was having a difficult time with it, but
Speaker 1: I also think, Wow, another cat, and that's flee who's
Speaker 1: on one? Because Casper is in my bedroom and he's
Speaker 1: going to knock things down until he can be with
Speaker 1: his brother, until he can be with his other paym on.
Speaker 1: But yeah, no, I I feel like this movie has
Speaker 1: hit me different every single time. It's always terrifying. This
Speaker 1: is the first time I've seen this movie since I
Speaker 1: have done a lot of research like Field and books
Speaker 1: with spiritualism, we don't read books, not for this show.
Speaker 1: But Caitlyn, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. I've been cheating
Speaker 1: on you.
Speaker 3: I've read You've been reading this whole time, this whole time.
Speaker 1: Yes, I released a podcast about the history of spiritualism
Speaker 1: two years ago and I hadn't watched it since and
Speaker 1: so like it was interesting to engage with on that level.
Speaker 1: I don't know, this movie is fucking terrifying, and I
Speaker 1: it's so it's so hard to talk about for this
Speaker 1: specific show because so many things I get to I'm like,
Speaker 1: I don't know. On this viewing, I think it's fascinating
Speaker 1: and there's so much to talk about about how women
Speaker 1: and intergenerational trauma is shown in this story. And I
Speaker 1: still feel like it's weirdly a little left something to
Speaker 1: be desired and felt like a little trophy on the
Speaker 1: on the witch side for me. But the family side
Speaker 1: was like, I mean, I feel like that's what ari
Speaker 1: Astor does best, is like terrifying family horror dynamics. When
Speaker 1: it gets into the witchy stuff, it kind of loses
Speaker 1: me a little more. But I'm willing to be swung.
Speaker 1: I'm swayable here, Okay, But yeah, I like this movie.
Speaker 1: I just but every time I watch it, I feel differently.
Speaker 3: Well, I'm excited to dig in. No, I'm not I
Speaker 3: want to go watch Paddington instead.
Speaker 1: Well, fun fact listeners, Caitlin and I are going to
Speaker 1: see a twelve one am screening of Despicable be four.
Speaker 1: That's right today, So any any dread or sadness is
Speaker 1: about to be wiped clean. Your brain will never be
Speaker 1: smoother than at two oh one am.
Speaker 3: The best palette cleanser. Imaginable, little guys, but no, I
Speaker 3: think this will be a very interesting discussion.
Speaker 1: I'm excited.
Speaker 4: I do have a quick anecdote about the first time
Speaker 4: that I saw in theaters.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4: So there is like this very good like it's not
Speaker 4: really a jump scare, but like a slow scare of
Speaker 4: like something in the background that slowly comes into focus
Speaker 4: towards the end of the movie.
Speaker 3: Yes, Tony Kollet hovering around the ceiling.
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, yeah that. And when I saw it in
Speaker 4: the theaters, around that scene, there is a fly buzzing
Speaker 4: through the house and in the like surround sound of
Speaker 4: the theater, I literally thought there was a fly in
Speaker 4: the theater. So I was looking around being like, where
Speaker 4: is this fly? And I missed the first time I
Speaker 4: watched it, I missed the initial jump scare, and then
Speaker 4: everybody in the theater started gasping, and then I looked
Speaker 4: and I was like, what happened? And I was so
Speaker 4: mad about that. But I saw it later.
Speaker 1: But this is why I want to see it in theaters,
Speaker 1: because it's like, you can enjoy this movie and you
Speaker 1: can be terrified this movie at home on your humble roku.
Speaker 1: But I feel like you do. And I feel like
Speaker 1: that that's true of all of his or all two
Speaker 1: of his movies I've seen. It's like the sound design
Speaker 1: is very much a part of it.
Speaker 4: The soundtrack as well. Colin Stepson really committed to that.
Speaker 1: Unreal It's so good. Oh, this is like Mammy Trauma
Speaker 1: the movie, and I like it.
Speaker 3: Mama Trauma. Let's take a quick break and then we'll
Speaker 3: come back for the recap and we're back spooky times.
Speaker 1: Thank you Kman.
Speaker 3: Okay, here's the recap. I will place a content warning
Speaker 3: here for every suicide, for mental illness discussions. There are cults,
Speaker 3: there's all kinds of scary things. There's lots of graphic violence. Yeah, truly,
Speaker 3: everything that might upset anyone.
Speaker 1: That is one of the things that this movie also
Speaker 1: does that I kind of forgot about because it had
Speaker 1: been at least three years since I've seen it. That
Speaker 1: always bothers me about Midsommar, a movie I generally really
Speaker 1: really like. But just like ari Astor loves to prescribe
Speaker 1: a specific mental illness to something that he doesn't know
Speaker 1: what he's talking about. He's done it at least twice.
Speaker 1: I yeah, sound off if he also does it in
Speaker 1: bo Is Afraid, but he does it with dissociative identity disorder.
Speaker 1: In this movie. He does it with bipolar disorder in
Speaker 1: the first couple of minutes of Midsommer, and I just
Speaker 1: wish he would stop stop that, because that's like a
Speaker 1: horror trope that is very subvertible that he has not done.
Speaker 3: I don't know, well, I mean, I think there's a
Speaker 3: much larger discussion to be had around mental illness as
Speaker 3: it's depicted in this movie, and how it conflates meant
Speaker 3: illness with evil oil. But we'll get there.
Speaker 4: Sorr.
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay. So in this recap, also, I left out
Speaker 3: some stuff just because there's so much detail in this
Speaker 3: movie that I had to kind of leave some stuff out. Also,
Speaker 3: I realized when I was reading a piece about this
Speaker 3: movie that's like summarizing the plot, I'm like, Oh, there's
Speaker 3: a whole thing that I didn't even understand or that
Speaker 3: didn't connect for me, So this recap might be kind
Speaker 3: of shitty.
Speaker 1: Well, Pulam, You're welcome to jump in whenever too.
Speaker 3: Yes. So we open on text on the screen, which
Speaker 3: is an obituary of Eileen Lee saying that she is
Speaker 3: survived by her daughter Annie, her son in law, and
Speaker 3: their two kids. We meet this family at their home.
Speaker 3: Annie is played by Tony Kolett, her husband Steve is
Speaker 3: gabriel Byrne. Their seventeen year old son Peter played by
Speaker 3: Alex Wolfe.
Speaker 1: Aka one half of The Naked Brother's Band Pluma. Did
Speaker 1: you watch that show when we were kids? No?
Speaker 4: I did not.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, there was a Nickelodeon tween show called
Speaker 1: The Naked Brothers Band starring Alex Wolf and his brother
Speaker 1: Nat and my brother and I were so invested in
Speaker 1: the Naked Brother's Band. Very weird that they called it that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but it was about like two young brothers and like
Speaker 1: Alex Wolf is literally I think like eight or nine
Speaker 1: in the series, and he's like, I want to play
Speaker 1: the drums. And so that was the only thing i'd
Speaker 1: ever seen him in, and then he was in Hereditary.
Speaker 1: So he's got range, which.
Speaker 3: I know him as kid from Jumanji, the newer Jumanji movies.
Speaker 1: Oh see, I kind of forgot about that. Yeah, so yeah,
Speaker 1: he's he's got range. She's in all kind I hear though,
Speaker 1: based on what Tony Kollett said about working with him,
Speaker 1: if I'm recalling correctly, he's an asshole. Oh no, what
Speaker 1: can you do? Damn? What can you do?
Speaker 3: So that's Peter played by Alex Wolf, and then their
Speaker 3: thirteen year old daughter, Charlie played by Millie Shapiro. They
Speaker 3: are getting ready to head to Annie's mother's funeral. We
Speaker 3: cut to the funeral where Annie gives a eulogy about
Speaker 3: her mother, how Eileen was a very private, secretive person,
Speaker 3: and the vibes are weird. At the funeral, there's a
Speaker 3: lot of people who Annie doesn't recognize and a strange
Speaker 3: symbol on a necklace that Eileen is wearing. And it's
Speaker 3: also here where it's established that Charlie has a nut allergy.
Speaker 4: There's also a lot of adults smiling weirdly at Charlie.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, there are I love this movie is like
Speaker 1: so I liked it this time, Like this movie is
Speaker 1: so paranoi at every level, and the fact that everyone's
Speaker 1: paranoia or like all of the characters who's were invested
Speaker 1: in really like they're paranoia and everyone's worst fear is
Speaker 1: true and then some and it almost feels, I don't know,
Speaker 1: it felt cathartic on this watch to be like, yeah,
Speaker 1: the most fucked up thing I could imagine is going
Speaker 1: to happen tomorrow. It's true for everyone.
Speaker 4: It tells you exactly what it is going to be
Speaker 4: the entire time, but then does something a little bit
Speaker 4: different than what you think it's going to do at
Speaker 4: each turn, right.
Speaker 3: It does subvert a lot of horror movie troupes. Like
Speaker 3: there's a dog in the movie, Rex the dog icon who.
Speaker 1: He makes it?
Speaker 3: Survives?
Speaker 4: No he doesn't?
Speaker 1: Does not? Wait what happened to the dog?
Speaker 4: No? Is it?
Speaker 1: Viewing number six where you figure out that Rex.
Speaker 4: Didn't make it at the very end, And I was
Speaker 4: laughing about this when I was watching it last night.
Speaker 4: They just like show Rex's body like in like the
Speaker 4: last scene, like very in passing being like just so
Speaker 4: you know, we killed the dog too.
Speaker 1: I kind of do think that, like you're I don't know,
Speaker 1: arist he's kind of a real one for that, he's
Speaker 1: a fake dog, so I know that whatever. I think
Speaker 1: that's kind of funny. I thought that, Yeah, like this
Speaker 1: the thing that feels like on the rewatch, you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: like all of the normal fake outs of like is
Speaker 1: this the creepy person but it's never the creepy person
Speaker 1: in the first scene, but in this movie, it is
Speaker 1: the creepy person in the first scene. They're also the
Speaker 1: creepy person in the last.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Well, it's all many creepy people.
Speaker 4: Yeah, in general.
Speaker 3: Oh, poor Rex the Dog. I well, I'm glad I
Speaker 3: missed it. I did not see the demise of Rex
Speaker 3: the Dog.
Speaker 4: And there's a lot of other things going on.
Speaker 1: There. Yes, yeah, Gabriel Burn is fully engulfed in flames
Speaker 1: at one point. That's the Those are the moment we're
Speaker 1: going to discuss shortly, and that are the two moments
Speaker 1: where I still gasp even when I know it's coming.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Oh okay, So the funeral is weird, and then the
Speaker 3: family returns home. We learn that Annie is an artist
Speaker 3: who creates miniatures, mostly depicting scenes from her life, her
Speaker 3: past and present. That night, Annie tucks Charlie in. They
Speaker 3: talk about Charlie's relationship with her grandmother, how Charlie was
Speaker 3: her grandmother's favorite, though she wanted Charlie to be a boy,
Speaker 3: and this is the beginning of a conversation revolving around
Speaker 3: gender and payman, so we'll examine that later. Finally, finally, finally,
Speaker 3: then Annie goes through some of her mother's things, like
Speaker 3: a book called Notes on Spiritualism, and there's a cryptic
Speaker 3: note inside to Annie from her mother about sacrifice and reward,
Speaker 3: and we're like, what's this about. Then Annie thinks she
Speaker 3: sees her mother's ghost. Then we see this miniature that
Speaker 3: Annie made depicting her mother trying to breastfeed baby Charlie,
Speaker 3: something that Annie had referenced a few moments before, but
Speaker 3: we didn't really know to what extent. And then we
Speaker 3: see this dirama.
Speaker 1: Basically Anne, I wrote this, Dad that like, if Annie
Speaker 1: were a real life artist, I would for sure have
Speaker 1: written an annoying paper about her in college, like I
Speaker 1: would have been like it would have been some sort
Speaker 1: of interesting gateway like miniatures as women experience. Anyone ever
Speaker 1: think of this one before? And but I love, I
Speaker 1: mean that's like a recurring theme in ari Astro's work too,
Speaker 1: is like miniatures inside of miniatures. And I also love
Speaker 1: Tony Kollett's like little I don't know, scary magne.
Speaker 3: Like glasses, magnifying glasses.
Speaker 1: Yeah, her like steampunk I thing I don't know.
Speaker 3: Okay. So then some more freaky stuff happens at school.
Speaker 3: Charlie cuts the head off of a dead bird. She
Speaker 3: will later make a doll type thing with it. Charlie
Speaker 3: takes after her mother as far as like being creative
Speaker 3: and artistic expression. Charlie has a whole collection of her
Speaker 3: mostly disturbing creations in her room. Also, there are creepy
Speaker 3: people lurking around at school and in the woods near
Speaker 3: their house. Strange symbols and words are popping up on
Speaker 3: the floors and walls of the house. The grandmother's grave
Speaker 3: apparently was desecrated. There's also this like light shimmer thing
Speaker 3: that we'll see now and then that kind of moves
Speaker 3: about autonomously. We don't really know what it is at first.
Speaker 3: Is it Payman? I don't know. Then Annie goes to
Speaker 3: a grief support group. We learn that Annie had a
Speaker 3: very strained relationship with her mother, and that Annie's mother, father,
Speaker 3: and brother all had pretty severe mental illnesses. Peter then
Speaker 3: gets invited to a party and Annie makes him take
Speaker 3: Charlie along. It seems like Charlie might have difficulty socializing
Speaker 3: with other kids, so Annie is like insistent that she
Speaker 3: go and socialize.
Speaker 1: Right, She's thirteen, so like, show me a socially functional
Speaker 1: thirteen year old.
Speaker 4: This is also after she's been like caught just like
Speaker 4: following a light barefoot in the yard and Annie needs
Speaker 4: to do this like project for this gallery and she's like,
Speaker 4: oh my god, why are you outside barefoot? I can't
Speaker 4: deal with this right now?
Speaker 1: Yeah, like, someone take charge of her. Although every time
Speaker 1: with Annie in this seed, I'm like, come on, mom,
Speaker 1: where she's she's like, okay, my seventeen year old stoner
Speaker 1: son definitely don't smoke weed. And You're like, I mean,
Speaker 1: I know it happens, but I'm like, come on, come on,
Speaker 1: I mean you know the consequence is outsized, but yeah,
Speaker 1: what you know, right, I don't know how she expected
Speaker 1: a neutral result.
Speaker 3: Right, Okay. So at the party, Charlie eats cake that
Speaker 3: turns out to have nuts, and she has a severe
Speaker 3: allergic reaction. So Peter rushes her out. He's speeding to
Speaker 3: a hospital, and then we get the scene where Charlie
Speaker 3: can't breathe, so she rolls down the window and sticks
Speaker 3: her head out of the window. There's something in the
Speaker 3: road at that very moment, so Peter swerves to miss it,
Speaker 3: causing Charlie to be decapitated by a telephone poll.
Speaker 1: And then this is the point where everyone in the
Speaker 1: movie is like, oh, oh, so it's that kind of movie.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the rules have changed, the shift has happened.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, because these are fake people, I feel
Speaker 1: comfortable saying that's fucking awesome, Like you just don't see
Speaker 1: it coming, and it's just like it's so no matter
Speaker 1: how many times you see it, it's shocking the way
Speaker 1: that it's done. I like, I don't know, because I
Speaker 1: didn't I've of the three times i've seen it, I
Speaker 1: only actually watched that the first time because I didn't
Speaker 1: know it was coming. Now I know to look away,
Speaker 1: But my memory of it is that it's very it's
Speaker 1: like almost campy practical effectie, which is probably the smarter decision,
Speaker 1: But I honestly don't know, because when I watched it yesterday,
Speaker 1: I was like ah No.
Speaker 3: It's not that camp. I mean maybe, but it also
Speaker 3: gets such a visceral, horrific response that it feels.
Speaker 1: Well as a horror head. Is it goofy or is it?
Speaker 4: I feel like, so this is not the thing that
Speaker 4: I also feel like what scares people is really subjective,
Speaker 4: So what scares me is not like what scares all
Speaker 4: horror people. But this did not scare me. This wasn't
Speaker 4: the I was like, oh, but I feel like it
Speaker 4: was effective because and I've thought about this a lot.
Speaker 4: Why people get shocked, it's because I think you have
Speaker 4: so much anxiety from the like allergic reaction, anaphylactic shock,
Speaker 4: whatever's happening with the nuts, and you're worried that that
Speaker 4: is going to kill her, and you're really really focused
Speaker 4: on is she going to make it to the hospital.
Speaker 4: The music is also going off, and so this thing
Speaker 4: is now like a second not forecasted, well forecasted if
Speaker 4: you have seen it, but not otherwise forecasted thing that
Speaker 4: just like happens really suddenly. And I think the scariest
Speaker 4: part is because you don't see it. You just see
Speaker 4: his reaction and you feel like the weight of it,
Speaker 4: and then you get to hear and see everyone's reactions.
Speaker 4: And then the jump scare is when they show you
Speaker 4: the rotting head on the street.
Speaker 1: Yes, that does happen too, which is which is somehow
Speaker 1: like I don't know why that was like less. I
Speaker 1: don't know. Maybe it's because I saw this movie after
Speaker 1: I'd already seen Midsommar and it's just like, yeah, he's
Speaker 1: gonna do this. He loves fly on head. And they
Speaker 1: keep returning to that image too, of like the symbolism
Speaker 1: of like a rotting person.
Speaker 4: Well also the answer like a paymon thing.
Speaker 3: Like there's so much I don't so many references. I
Speaker 3: don't get. You do see her head come off, though,
Speaker 3: unless I watched like a director's cut or something, you
Speaker 3: see like her her head hit the pole and come off.
Speaker 4: I thought it was like a silhouette.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's enough that you like, definitely see what happens.
Speaker 1: Sure I haven't. I haven't voluntarily watched it in five years,
Speaker 1: so I cannot speak. I just but I know whatever
Speaker 1: I saw the first time was enough that I was like, look,
Speaker 1: I can't, I'm not gonna do it. But that's part
Speaker 1: of why I like watching card movies is the parts
Speaker 1: that are impossible to watch right right.
Speaker 3: The point is though, that Peter is in utter shock
Speaker 3: after this, and he just kind of drives home and
Speaker 3: goes to bed, hoping that it didn't actually happen. But
Speaker 3: the next morning Annie discovers Charlie's body in the car.
Speaker 1: That's the most horrific moment of the movie to me
Speaker 1: is watching that long shot of Peter in bed and
Speaker 1: just like seeing him internally count down the moments until
Speaker 1: his life is over. Basically, yes, it's just so horrible.
Speaker 3: It's so horrible. And then you see the shot of
Speaker 3: Charlie's severed head. There's ants crawling all over it. It's
Speaker 3: truly like one of the most haunting images I've ever
Speaker 3: seen in a movie.
Speaker 1: I hope Millie Shapiro, if she wanted it.
Speaker 3: Got that head about the prop head.
Speaker 1: If I was her, if I was like a child
Speaker 1: actor in a horror movie, I'd be like, give me
Speaker 1: the head. I want the head.
Speaker 4: Also, like that guttural scream is like something that Ari
Speaker 4: Astor used again in Midsommar, and it is like so
Speaker 4: effective because it touches like the deepest, like animal part
Speaker 4: of you that like feels aversion to like the warning
Speaker 4: scream of another human.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. I mean that without Tony Kollett's like ability, Like,
Speaker 1: this movie is way less effective if anyone's half assing
Speaker 1: that role because it's like she in like however, many
Speaker 1: scenes she's like making sounds and expressions that like almost
Speaker 1: feel inhuman but also but really human or maybe superhuman
Speaker 1: whatever it is, like, it's just it's it's terrifying.
Speaker 3: Like again, give her an Oscar such an incredible performance.
Speaker 1: She's awesome, and this was an even I mean I
Speaker 1: thought of I guess, like you know, Tony Kleett was
Speaker 1: such a successful character actor at this time, I think
Speaker 1: you would rarely see her outside of TV in like
Speaker 1: leading roles. But I think I first saw her in
Speaker 1: The Sixth Sense, where she was also playing a horror
Speaker 1: movie mom, but very different.
Speaker 3: But yeah, she does a great job communicating the just
Speaker 3: grief and devastation that she and her whole family are feeling.
Speaker 3: She is your mother, She is your mother. Everyone is devastated.
Speaker 3: Peter is very guilt stricken. An he goes back to
Speaker 3: the support group where she meets a woman named Joan
Speaker 3: played by Anne Dowd, whose son and grandson died recently.
Speaker 3: She gives Annie her number in case Annie needs someone
Speaker 3: to talk to. Annie and Joan then get together and
Speaker 3: Annie tells her a story about an instance that happened
Speaker 3: a few years back where while Annie was sleepwalking, she
Speaker 3: apparently doused herself and Peter and Charlie in paint thinner
Speaker 3: and was about to light them on fire while she
Speaker 3: was sleeping, but woke up when she struck the match.
Speaker 1: I do love how this information is introduced, because it's like,
Speaker 1: there's so many critical, horrific pieces of information introduced mid
Speaker 1: Tony Collette Ramble, and then she just always keeps going
Speaker 1: and you're like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, what what
Speaker 1: did you say? What did you do? It's great, it's great,
Speaker 1: but to her, it's like, so this.
Speaker 3: Happened, and she's describing how she was just as shocked
Speaker 3: as her kids were, but Peter has held it against
Speaker 3: her ever since.
Speaker 4: I feel like this movie does a great, like, I
Speaker 4: don't know, representation of how like we have our own
Speaker 4: family histories and our personal histories that we think are
Speaker 4: totally normal and downplay, and it's not until you tell
Speaker 4: it to another person that you realize that it's kind
Speaker 4: of messed up. And this happens repeatedly that she does,
Speaker 4: and the other person is like the viewer who's like,
Speaker 4: hang on, but you never get to hang on because
Speaker 4: they just keep they roll past it.
Speaker 3: They just keep barreling.
Speaker 1: That's true part of what I am really like drawn
Speaker 1: to about Annie's character. She's like the most extreme example
Speaker 1: of that. And you can see so much in her
Speaker 1: own art that she is trying to process these things.
Speaker 1: But it's not clear if she feels it feels like,
Speaker 1: at least to be at different. At most points, it
Speaker 1: feels like she is kind of in denial that her
Speaker 1: art is a way of processing her life. She's just
Speaker 1: sort of like, this is my work and this is
Speaker 1: my life, when they're so clearly interconnected, but she's using
Speaker 1: her I don't know. I'm really excited to talk about
Speaker 1: like women in art as a way of like synthesizing
Speaker 1: your life, because I just I don't know. I think
Speaker 1: this movie does it in a really interesting way because
Speaker 1: in most ways, when Annie's talking about her art, whether
Speaker 1: it's to her husband, who's really the only person we
Speaker 1: see her talk to about it, she is sort of like, well,
Speaker 1: what do you mean this is my work? Like this
Speaker 1: is a this is a neutral presentation and just like
Speaker 1: the most fucked up thing you've ever seen, and you're like, Annie, Annie, Annie,
Speaker 1: this is right.
Speaker 3: This happens. This happens next in the story where Annie
Speaker 3: is making a miniature of Charlie's accident with the head
Speaker 3: on the ground and everything, and her husband Steve comes in.
Speaker 3: He's like what the fuck Annie? And she's like what
Speaker 3: this isn't He's like, don't let Peter see that, and
Speaker 3: she's like, what this isn't about him? This is a
Speaker 3: neutral presentation of the accident, and it's like, rip Steve.
Speaker 4: She hates therapy, and it shows.
Speaker 1: Steve is processing grief honestly, like you know, rip to Steve.
Speaker 1: He did his best. He did his best. He was like,
Speaker 1: consider our son, and Annie was like, no, no.
Speaker 4: My husband and I were talking about at what point
Speaker 4: would we have left each other in the situation. Uh huh,
Speaker 4: We'll get to it. But there's an outburst that I
Speaker 4: think I would have been like, we're going to my
Speaker 4: mom's and you need to go work that one out.
Speaker 1: M yeah, yeah, like he would have been the tricky
Speaker 1: thing is like their kid. But it's like, if I'm Steve.
Speaker 1: I also thought that this is like, if I'm Steve,
Speaker 1: I'm like, you know, Peter and I. It's tricky though,
Speaker 1: because then you're leaving Annie by herself and t'sau without
Speaker 1: a support system. But it's like, you gotta It seems
Speaker 1: like Steve is trying to do the right thing, which
Speaker 1: just think about his kid, but he's kind of thwarted
Speaker 1: at every turn when it comes to trying to act
Speaker 1: in the best interests of his kid. Not to say
Speaker 1: that he couldn't have done better, but he was doing
Speaker 1: his best if it was just the two of them.
Speaker 1: If I'm Steve, I'm like, I'm going to Disneyland, Like
Speaker 1: I don't know, I'm going, I'm going somewhere.
Speaker 4: I feel like the turning point really was I think
Speaker 4: that she was becoming harmful to the kid's healing process,
Speaker 4: and you know, like I feel like it would be
Speaker 4: like for the sake of the kid that I would
Speaker 4: want to get out of that situation.
Speaker 3: The scene which we're coming up on soon. But when
Speaker 3: she like forces them to participate in a seance with her,
Speaker 3: and Peter's like very visibly upset, It's like, Okay, we
Speaker 3: need to maybe not be doing this.
Speaker 4: Tony Kolett that was my husband's point.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean because Steve really does try to, like,
Speaker 5: you know, he goes with her as far as he
Speaker 5: could go before drawing the line, and by that point it's.
Speaker 1: Unfortunately too late. But I don't know, yeah, I you know,
Speaker 1: like we're not parents. I can't say for sure, but
Speaker 1: it just seems like Steve was trying to do his best.
Speaker 1: And there's an interesting like choice in and maybe it's
Speaker 1: just like logistical our writing choice from ari Astor where
Speaker 1: Steve is like kind of a flat character in a
Speaker 1: lot of ways, where we're not led to believe that
Speaker 1: Steve has a support system to turn to. It's just
Speaker 1: everything is taking place inside of this miniature, and everything
Speaker 1: outside of the miniature is a little bit nebulous and
Speaker 1: confusing because we're not led to believe that Steve has
Speaker 1: family members or friends that he could really go to
Speaker 1: or that he feels comfortable going to about this, and
Speaker 1: so he's also kind of a prisoner in this dynamic,
Speaker 1: which is a real thing, just thankfully not pam on real.
Speaker 4: Right, Yeah, isolation is really important for this.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So the next thing is a dinner scene where Peter
Speaker 3: and Annie yell at each other and blame each other
Speaker 3: for the accident, and no one accepts any kind of
Speaker 3: accountability for any thing. This is something that Annie is
Speaker 3: kind of lashing out about, and so things are very
Speaker 3: very tense among the family.
Speaker 1: Tony Collette is so good in that scene.
Speaker 4: And it's amazing, I'm your mother.
Speaker 1: It's a meme for a reason.
Speaker 3: Then Annie runs into Joan again, who had recently met
Speaker 3: a spiritual medium who does seances, and the medium conjured
Speaker 3: the spirit of Joan's grandson, and so Joan is trying
Speaker 3: to convince Annie to come over, and she does, and
Speaker 3: Joan performs a seance and summons her grandson again. Annie
Speaker 3: gets freaked out and leaves. Then we see a scene
Speaker 3: where Annie has some scary dreams. She has sleepwalked into
Speaker 3: Peter's room again. She lets it slip that she never
Speaker 3: wanted to be his mother, that her mother pressured her
Speaker 3: into having kids. Annie tried to have a misc It
Speaker 3: turns out that Annie telling Peter all of this was
Speaker 3: also just a dream, but it's not clear if that
Speaker 3: is actually something that happened or not because it's framed
Speaker 3: as a dream, so we don't totally know, but based
Speaker 3: on the events of the story, we can maybe glean
Speaker 3: that that was true for Annie. Not sure, but anyway.
Speaker 3: Then Annie gets Steve and Peter together and performs a seance.
Speaker 3: They are skeptical and upset. Peter is very scared, and
Speaker 3: it seems like Annie summons Charlie's spirit using something that
Speaker 3: belonged to Charlie, which is a notebook that she used
Speaker 3: to sketch in and this summoning of the spirit seems
Speaker 3: to work, but then things go wrong where Charlie kind
Speaker 3: of embodies Annie and it's weird and scary.
Speaker 4: My favorite line from the movie is when Peter in
Speaker 4: that scene is going can't you feel it the air flexing?
Speaker 1: And I was like, ooh, it is like the most
Speaker 1: like accurate but also like teenage boy way of describing
Speaker 1: what is happening. M h.
Speaker 3: And then things really start to fall apart for the family.
Speaker 3: From this point on, Annie discovers that notebook of Charlie's,
Speaker 3: where her spirit seems to be drawing a bunch of
Speaker 3: pictures of Peter with his eyes crossed out. Not a
Speaker 3: great omen. Annie thinks she might be able to stop
Speaker 3: all of this if she burns the notebook, but when
Speaker 3: she tries to throw it in the fire. Her arm
Speaker 3: catches fire, as if she and the notebook share some link.
Speaker 3: Then Annie goes through her mother's stuff again and finds
Speaker 3: photos of her mother with Joan. Turns out that Joan
Speaker 3: knew Eileen all along. There are photos depicting them participating
Speaker 3: in some kind of ritual. There are strange symbols. There
Speaker 3: are books on the occult, and Annie reads a passage
Speaker 3: about someone named King Payman, one of the eight Kings
Speaker 3: of Hell, and he needs a vulnerable host to inhabit
Speaker 3: or possess, specifically a male host, and we're like, hmm, Peter,
Speaker 3: question mark. Then Annie goes up to the attic, where
Speaker 3: she finds the rotten corpse of possibly her dead mother,
Speaker 3: although the head has been removed so we can't really
Speaker 3: id her at this time now. Meanwhile, at school, Peter,
Speaker 3: as if possessed by some sinister spirit, bashes his own
Speaker 3: face against his desk.
Speaker 1: This is another case of classic ari astor what's the
Speaker 1: most fucked up thing I could think to do right now?
Speaker 4: This is also right after he sees his own reflection
Speaker 4: in like a cabinet, and the reflection is smiling at him.
Speaker 4: That really scared me, I feel scared thinking about it now.
Speaker 3: I feel like that was used for the trailer when
Speaker 3: they were promoting this movie. Yeah, I kind of remember that.
Speaker 1: Oh.
Speaker 3: Anyway, Steve brings home an unconscious Peter, and then Annie
Speaker 3: runs up and is trying to explain how she thinks
Speaker 3: that burning Charlie's notebook will sever whatever sinister connection has
Speaker 3: been created. She begs Steve to burn the book, knowing
Speaker 3: that she will combust and burn because of this link.
Speaker 3: He won't do it. He wants to call the police.
Speaker 3: He thinks that Annie is having a mental break, so
Speaker 3: she throws the book in the fire again, thinking it's
Speaker 3: going to make her burst into flames. But surprise, it's Steve,
Speaker 3: her husband, who combusts and dies instead.
Speaker 1: I did not see this coming, Oh, and never see
Speaker 1: it coming, no matter how many times. And you're just like, yeah, Steve, Steve,
Speaker 1: you should have gone to Disneyland. Steve, you should have
Speaker 1: taken Alex Wolf to Disneyland, and then you know we
Speaker 1: would have been.
Speaker 4: But he loved her. You know, it's broke my heart.
Speaker 4: This is a love story.
Speaker 1: Actually, yeah, no, absolutely where it's it makes me sad.
Speaker 1: It makes me sad. Yeah, that like he was trying
Speaker 1: to do right by his family by Annie because also
Speaker 1: it seems like, I mean, just based on what we
Speaker 1: know about this family, that he has had to stand
Speaker 1: by her through. Really, I mean, we know that her
Speaker 1: kids had a weird to bad relationship with her due
Speaker 1: to the whole almost lighting them all on fire thing,
Speaker 1: And it seems like he has been put in the
Speaker 1: position repeatedly of having to be the like calm, most
Speaker 1: calming presence in the room. But it's like dipped so
Speaker 1: far that he is, you know, I don't think intentionally,
Speaker 1: but like his need to appease everybody and be present
Speaker 1: for everybody is ultimately like what brings his downfall and
Speaker 1: the downfall of like other people, because it's like he's
Speaker 1: never quite decisive. He almost emails a therapist saying she's
Speaker 1: a girl. He almost does a lot of things, but
Speaker 1: because of his love for his wife and his fear
Speaker 1: of hurting her, like, he never quite takes the step
Speaker 1: he needs to protect his kids. I don't know, it's
Speaker 1: so fucked. I don't know what I would do if
Speaker 1: I if I'm Steve, I'll be honest.
Speaker 4: I am.
Speaker 3: Hard to say when your family is being possessed by
Speaker 3: one of the eight Kings of Hell. You just don't
Speaker 3: know how to handle such a Wait, you won't know
Speaker 3: until you're there, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, And and this will happen to all three
Speaker 1: of us at some point. This is a part of
Speaker 1: the human experience that goes without saying.
Speaker 4: I'm alone in my house and all the lights are off.
Speaker 4: I might actually stand up to go turn some lights.
Speaker 4: And I'm gonna go turn the hallway light on really fast.
Speaker 1: This is beautiful.
Speaker 4: I I'm back.
Speaker 3: Okay, lights are on. We feel safe. So we've just
Speaker 3: seen Steve burst into flames and burn to death. Annie
Speaker 3: is shocked by this for a brief moment, but then
Speaker 3: seems to kind of disassociate. Then we cut to Peter
Speaker 3: waking up in his bed. He goes downstairs and discovers
Speaker 3: his charred father. He sees a creepy naked man lurking
Speaker 3: in a doorway. This is where we see Tony Klet.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: Annie perched up by the ceiling as if she flew
Speaker 3: or floated up there. Then she lunges at Peter and
Speaker 3: chases after him. He locks himself in the attic, but
Speaker 3: then Annie is in the attic with him, sawing her
Speaker 3: own head off with piano wire. So that's interesting.
Speaker 4: So sick.
Speaker 3: Peter jumps out the window, but then that light shimmer
Speaker 3: thing that we saw before seems to enter him and
Speaker 3: compels him to go up to the treehouse that I
Speaker 3: forgot to mention until now, But we have established this
Speaker 3: treehouse earlier. We got a Chekhof's treehouse, and now it's
Speaker 3: paying off because he goes up there and what's in
Speaker 3: the treehouse, Well, it's a bunch of stuff. It's members
Speaker 3: of a cult that worship King Payman. It's Charlie's head
Speaker 3: on a statue of King Payman. It's the decapitated bodies
Speaker 3: of Peter's mom and Grandma Joe is there and she's saying, hey, Charlie,
Speaker 3: we've I'm quoting the dialogue here, we've corrected your first
Speaker 3: female body and we gave you this healthy male host.
Speaker 3: And then she goes on to say, you are payment.
Speaker 3: We bind ourselves to you. Give us your knowledge and
Speaker 3: your wisdom and your riches. Hail payment the end.
Speaker 1: So yeah, cute Joni Mitchell's song, and.
Speaker 3: We're like, oh, wild song to end on the part
Speaker 3: that I didn't fully get was that that Charlie was
Speaker 3: Payman the whole time, and that her decapitation was this
Speaker 3: kind of planned out thing from the cult, Like the
Speaker 3: accident wasn't actually an accident. They the cult like made
Speaker 3: this happen so that Payman could be transferred from Charlie's
Speaker 3: body into Peter's body. And so that's the part that
Speaker 3: I didn't quite get that, like the accident was not
Speaker 3: actually an accident. I don't know if that was more
Speaker 3: clear to other people.
Speaker 4: But now, if you, I mean later on subsequent watches,
Speaker 4: you notice the symbol of the cult is on, Like
Speaker 4: on the way to the party, they pass a telephone
Speaker 4: pole and the symbol from the cult is on, like
Speaker 4: embossed in the telephone pole. Yeah, but on my first
Speaker 4: watch or even second, I didn't notice that necessarily. So
Speaker 4: it's pretty like I feel like the world building elements
Speaker 4: are given really minimally, and all of the stuff with
Speaker 4: the cult is happening really backgrounded, and the focus is
Speaker 4: really on the family. And maybe this is why you
Speaker 4: felt that the the cult stuff was maybe or like
Speaker 4: the witchy stuff was maybe less developed, because it seems
Speaker 4: to be kind of besides the point and really being
Speaker 4: used as an as an engine to heighten this family struggle.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's a pretty fair assessment.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, well, now that we'll let's take a book, Brazer,
Speaker 1: let's take a break and come back and get into.
Speaker 3: It, and we're back. Where to begin.
Speaker 1: I kind of want to start with the witchier stuff
Speaker 1: in here, because yeah, I agree plumbit that it's like,
Speaker 1: it feels like the supernatural elements of this are secondary
Speaker 1: and almost like used to amplify the family dynamics that
Speaker 1: are at the core of this. It's weird that this
Speaker 1: movie came out in twenty eighteen and because of like
Speaker 1: the cultural moment of early twenty eighteen. This is right
Speaker 1: after the Me Too movement begins, and so there's a
Speaker 1: lot of takes on this movie that feel a little
Speaker 1: dated in that sense, not to say that it is
Speaker 1: like inaccurate, but that I don't know, like, it was
Speaker 1: interesting going through the initial wave of reception, some of
Speaker 1: which I think was really insightful and some of which
Speaker 1: I feel like was like a little bad faith in
Speaker 1: how the material was received, because I think at that
Speaker 1: point it's like, oh, so we're saying all women are witches,
Speaker 1: and you're like, well, why is that a bad thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess on my end, like just based vaguely on
Speaker 1: what I know about spiritualism. What I thought was interesting
Speaker 1: is whatever. Spiritualism is a late nineteenth century movement that
Speaker 1: went well into the twentieth century. It was a religious
Speaker 1: movement that women were at the center of. And there
Speaker 1: are so many flaws that came with this religion. That
Speaker 1: are the flaws like at the center of a lot
Speaker 1: of religions where it was you know, taking and sort
Speaker 1: of mutating indigenous beliefs and reclaiming it as if they
Speaker 1: understood it, which was not true. You know, this is
Speaker 1: very much like a religion that was shaped and put
Speaker 1: on display by white women in the late nineteenth century
Speaker 1: into the twentieth century. But it is a rare religious
Speaker 1: movement that was driven by women, and that was very
Speaker 1: threatening to the religious institutions at the time because spiritualism
Speaker 1: intersected with all of these progressive movements. It intersected with abolitionism,
Speaker 1: like Frederick Douglass like fucked around with spiritualism. Like there's
Speaker 1: a lot of history that is like it was at
Speaker 1: its core a flawed but essentially progressive religion that women
Speaker 1: were at the center of and so there was a
Speaker 1: vested interest as this religion sort of continued to develop
Speaker 1: to prove that it was made up, which like depending
Speaker 1: on how whatever this is like in a very casually
Speaker 1: mean way to view religion, it's all made up. But
Speaker 1: there was a vested interest in like, no, this religion
Speaker 1: is extra made up because women are at the center
Speaker 1: of it, and so the heads of and and a
Speaker 1: lot of it was made of and I also still
Speaker 1: kind of believe in it anyways. But you know, there
Speaker 1: were the seance rituals that we sort of see in this,
Speaker 1: the idea of like table ceremonies, versions of the what
Speaker 1: would eventually become the Ouiji board, but you know, table movements,
Speaker 1: glass movements. All of this stuff was very inherent to
Speaker 1: what this was in the nineteenth century and a very
Speaker 1: mainstream way at one point, like Mary Todd Lincoln like
Speaker 1: brought in the creators of spiritualism to try to bring
Speaker 1: Abe back, like it was a mainstream movement for a
Speaker 1: while that was shut down when it was you know
Speaker 1: like oh well this isn't quite you know, actually the
Speaker 1: supernatural accessing it as if any religion in the world
Speaker 1: has been like, actually we have the ghosts like, no
Speaker 1: one has the ghosts, but we all have the ghosts.
Speaker 1: That's why we all have the ghost But I just
Speaker 1: I thought it was interesting that they went in on
Speaker 1: this religion that was driven by white American women, specifically
Speaker 1: for this generational trauma story. It like, I think it works.
Speaker 1: I just I don't know the way it's executed with
Speaker 1: the whole payment thing, I don't know. It felt a
Speaker 1: little like YadA YadA YadA to me. But also I
Speaker 1: know that there are six hour analyzes and a lot
Speaker 1: that I missed. I just thought spiritualism was like a
Speaker 1: cool entry point, and I didn't super love where he
Speaker 1: went with it. I guess I don't know what does
Speaker 1: everyone think.
Speaker 3: I mean, my one of my biggest issues with the movie,
Speaker 3: and I remember thinking this after I left the theater
Speaker 3: in twenty eighteen when I saw it then, was the
Speaker 3: what felt to me like a conflation of mental illness
Speaker 3: and evil demons and kings of hell and that kind
Speaker 3: of stuff where I think the movie is suggesting. And
Speaker 3: I will just put a disclaimer here to say that
Speaker 3: when a movie scares me so badly like this, I
Speaker 3: have a hard time thinking about it intellectually and critically.
Speaker 3: Just because my brain gets so scared. I feel like
Speaker 3: I had a similar problem on the episode we did
Speaker 3: on The Ring, where I'm like, well, I don't know
Speaker 3: how I feel about this movie from an intersectional feminist lens,
Speaker 3: because I'm too scared and my brain doesn't work right now.
Speaker 3: But the kind of general thing I feel is that again,
Speaker 3: the movie does a very harmful thing of conflating mental
Speaker 3: illness with evil and demon And you know, there's this
Speaker 3: idea throughout the movie of something being hereditary and being
Speaker 3: inherited from your family, and it kind of feels like
Speaker 3: the movie posits the question, is it mental illness that's
Speaker 3: being passed down through the generations or is it Payman
Speaker 3: that's being passed down like you inherit the demon king
Speaker 3: that your mother dedicated her life to, whether you like
Speaker 3: it or not. And I mean, I think you could
Speaker 3: also make the argument that it's not conflation, it's allegory,
Speaker 3: like Payman is a metaphor for mental illness the way
Speaker 3: that you can read like the Babaduk is a metaphor
Speaker 3: for postpartum depression. And I also see a reading of
Speaker 3: the specific mental illnesses that Annie describes her family members
Speaker 3: as having when she says, like, my father had this
Speaker 3: and died as a result, my brother had this and
Speaker 3: died by suicide. But what was being perceived and diagnosed
Speaker 3: as mental illness in Annie's father and brother was actually,
Speaker 3: I lean, trying to put paymen inside them. It was
Speaker 3: never a mental illness. It was the demon all along.
Speaker 3: And I see those interpretations, but I still can't help
Speaker 3: but feel that what the movie is doing here is
Speaker 3: very malicious, especially because the specific mental illnesses that are
Speaker 3: mentioned are ones that are very often demonized by media
Speaker 3: and horror movies, ones that have huge stigmas attached to them.
Speaker 3: So I think the movie is conflating mental illness and
Speaker 3: evil in a very harmful and stigmatizing way.
Speaker 4: I know what you mean, but I almost feel like, So,
Speaker 4: there's there's two places where I feel this, and I
Speaker 4: absolutely see what you're talking about.
Speaker 1: Here.
Speaker 4: Is one in like the family History of mental Illness,
Speaker 4: and they really get very specific with the types of
Speaker 4: mental illness, but then don't really go into too much
Speaker 4: detail aside from like the few tidbits that like Tony
Speaker 4: spits out in like a ramble of hers and it's
Speaker 4: like a very classic horror trope. Slash like thing that
Speaker 4: happened in real life, that when people are mentally ill
Speaker 4: or struggling with mental illness that is like affecting the
Speaker 4: way they interact with other people. That like, historically people
Speaker 4: have been like it's satan or like it's the devil.
Speaker 4: And also this comes up over and over again in
Speaker 4: horror movies about possession, where they initially think it is
Speaker 4: a mental or physical like illment, but it's satan that's
Speaker 4: like hysterical or like exactly exactly.
Speaker 1: That's a lot of like I felt like the most
Speaker 1: effective moment for me every time, even when you know,
Speaker 1: like it's hard for your heart to not be with
Speaker 1: Steve where he's like what like, but because he is
Speaker 1: so thoroughly convinced of what is going on, he is
Speaker 1: not able to believe his wife about what is going on.
Speaker 1: And she is right, like right, you can argue with
Speaker 1: her methods all day long, you know, but she's right.
Speaker 1: She is telling him what is happening, and he doesn't
Speaker 1: believe her. And I think that that is like a
Speaker 1: running theme throughout this movie of I mean, that is
Speaker 1: part of why Charlie is gone. She is trying to
Speaker 1: advocate for herself she's trying to say, like I don't
Speaker 1: want to go to this party. I don't want to
Speaker 1: be here. I'm sick, and like by the time someone
Speaker 1: takes it seriously, it's already too late. And like, I
Speaker 1: think the same thing. You kind of see the same
Speaker 1: thing happen to her mother where they are both suffering.
Speaker 1: And I agree that like the way that already asked her,
Speaker 1: you know, deals with explicit mental illness in general, I
Speaker 1: think is just like really messy and I just personally
Speaker 1: don't like it. But what I thought, I don't know, plumber,
Speaker 1: let me know you. I think that like what he
Speaker 1: was trying to do, and I am kind of on
Speaker 1: like how effective it is, but like what he's trying
Speaker 1: to do is almost like a comment on like hysteria
Speaker 1: and how women are so often told like no, you're
Speaker 1: not telling the truth. Something bad isn't happening, something is
Speaker 1: wrong with you, and there is a name for it.
Speaker 1: And the problem with that is like that does invalidate
Speaker 1: a lot of mental illness and talk around mental illness.
Speaker 1: But the core of what he's saying I don't disagree with,
Speaker 1: and there is especially because he's talking about spiritualism, it
Speaker 1: feels like grounded in some historical precedent too, of just
Speaker 1: like I just don't like what you're saying, and so
Speaker 1: I need it to go away, and I need it
Speaker 1: to go away by any means necessary. I don't know,
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 4: Yeah, what I was thinking about with that is that
Speaker 4: I wonder if the movie is trying to be like
Speaker 4: what if it was the thing that you were afraid
Speaker 4: it was, or what if the uncanny thing? What if
Speaker 4: it was real and it was not explained by the
Speaker 4: mental illness, And it's kind of like interacting with the
Speaker 4: history and the tropes in that way. But I agree,
Speaker 4: it's kind of like it's a little half baked. But
Speaker 4: I think the aspect that kind of graded on me
Speaker 4: was Charlie specifically, who exhibits like maybe having some issues
Speaker 4: like socially that might like need some like therapeutic intervention potentially,
Speaker 4: but it's because she's a demon. That's like where I
Speaker 4: was like, Okay, well, you know, just because someone has
Speaker 4: trouble making friends with kids their age and like she
Speaker 4: has like a very stilted way of talking, doesn't mean
Speaker 4: that they are an incarnation of like the ninth demon
Speaker 4: of Hell or whatever.
Speaker 1: Socially awkward thirteen year old girl. If all of them
Speaker 1: are pam On, we're fucked.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: I was reading different people's writing about this movie through
Speaker 3: the lens of disability and ableism. The movie doesn't say
Speaker 3: anything specific about Charlie, but some people were reading Charlie
Speaker 3: as being autistic based on various traits and behaviors she displays.
Speaker 3: And then separate from that, the actor who plays Charlie,
Speaker 3: Millie Shapiro, was born with clydal cranial dysplasia, which affects
Speaker 3: a person's bones and teeth often affects their height and
Speaker 3: facial structure. So to characterize Charlie in this way, that
Speaker 3: can be read as being neurodivergent. And this character is
Speaker 3: played by an actor who has a facial difference, and
Speaker 3: that's the character who has a demon living inside them
Speaker 3: and has had this demon in them since, like right
Speaker 3: after they were born. Has very ablest implications. But I
Speaker 3: also saw examples of people with autism saying they felt
Speaker 3: represented by Charlie, regardless of the implication that her atypical
Speaker 3: behavior and vocal stemming, for example, are actually a demon
Speaker 3: displaying these behaviors. So again open to many reads and interpretations.
Speaker 3: I also wanted to point out that there is ablest
Speaker 3: language surrounding Charlie, not directed at her exactly, but that
Speaker 3: scene where Peter's crush says Charlie drew a picture of her,
Speaker 3: and then this girl uses an ablest slur to describe
Speaker 3: how Charlie depicted her in the drawing, which I feel
Speaker 3: is still a veiled ablest insult toward Charlie. All this
Speaker 3: to say, there's a lot happening in this movie regarding
Speaker 3: implications surrounding mental illness and disability and neurodivergence and whether
Speaker 3: or not those things are actually a demon inhabiting someone's body,
Speaker 3: and none of it sits well with.
Speaker 1: Me, right, Yeah, Like that's I feel like where the
Speaker 1: issue is. It just kind of like interrupts I don't know,
Speaker 1: it interrupts part of what I like about this movie,
Speaker 1: which is, you know, it's a little absurd and like
Speaker 1: way over the top because it's fucking hereditary. But the
Speaker 1: idea that like this line of women have been far
Speaker 1: more powerful than anyone ever gave them credit for because
Speaker 1: of the way that people kind of systemically dismiss women's
Speaker 1: con concerns, women's ideas and I also feel like it
Speaker 1: kind of ties into you know, like the fact that
Speaker 1: Annie is an artist, and that is like doesn't seem
Speaker 1: like it's taken super seriously by anyone in her family
Speaker 1: or anyone around her. And I don't know. I like,
Speaker 1: on its face the fact that like, you know, these whatever,
Speaker 1: three four generations of women have been you know, dismissed
Speaker 1: as very sick, when in fact they were extremely powerful
Speaker 1: and misunderstood. I like that theme. I think it gets
Speaker 1: very messy. I don't think ari Astor, a first time
Speaker 1: male director, is the one to be able to present
Speaker 1: this in a nuanced and thoughtful way. But I like
Speaker 1: the core idea of it. But that's all a little
Speaker 1: like interrupted by having Charlie be the demon, like why why? Yeah.
Speaker 4: But at the same time, I keep thinking about what
Speaker 4: you had said earlier, that like what if your worst
Speaker 4: fear and like the worst thing you're thinking is actually true.
Speaker 4: This is like what if that child who's behaving oddly,
Speaker 4: it's actually because they're that like worst fear, like they're evil.
Speaker 4: So it's like that over and over again with all
Speaker 4: of these different things.
Speaker 1: I also don't think that Annie, like I, you know, whatever, narratively,
Speaker 1: Annie is not a great parent, Like she's not, and
Speaker 1: it seems like, you know, her mom was also a
Speaker 1: pretty like horrifically bad parent, and there is like I
Speaker 1: mean hereditary hat like has to do with this paymon shit,
Speaker 1: but it also has to do with behavioral patterns like
Speaker 1: Annie was. It seemed like went through I mean, we
Speaker 1: know went through a lot of really traumatic stuff when
Speaker 1: she was a kid, and the attitude in the house
Speaker 1: is we don't talk about it. And we see her
Speaker 1: repeat that pattern when she loses her mother and then
Speaker 1: she loses her daughter. She never talks to Peter, and
Speaker 1: I think, you know, like you can go any which way,
Speaker 1: but like in this family, Steve is the more emotionally
Speaker 1: intelligent parent and he's not great, but he's trying. And
Speaker 1: you just see Annie for all of these reasons that
Speaker 1: are understandable, but in terms of showing up for her kid,
Speaker 1: she doesn't. And like that scene between Peter and Annie
Speaker 1: at the dinner table is so gut wrenching because you
Speaker 1: can just feel ugh, like it like makes me feel
Speaker 1: sick when I watch it because you can just see
Speaker 1: like both of these characters want it to be someone's fault.
Speaker 1: And the truth is somewhere in the middle, which is
Speaker 1: why it kind of bugs me. Bugged me, and I
Speaker 1: think still bugs me that at the end we're kind
Speaker 1: of given a prescriptive answer as to why what happened happened.
Speaker 1: It did surprise me that we were given such a
Speaker 1: clear cut answer, but I sort of I guess, just
Speaker 1: like personally, I kind of preferred the stomach churning uncertainty
Speaker 1: of like why did this happen? Sure Annie's choice is
Speaker 1: contributed to it, and Peter's choice is contributed to it,
Speaker 1: but there's no clear answer, there's no clear fault. But
Speaker 1: the end of the.
Speaker 3: Movie, ultimately it was the cult.
Speaker 1: Well that's why. That's sort of why I don't like
Speaker 1: the witchy stuff towards the end, because it like it
Speaker 1: gives you. I thought it just kind of gave me
Speaker 1: more answers than I wanted in a way that felt
Speaker 1: almost like a little bit less haunting at the end
Speaker 1: to be like, oh, it was actually, you know, like
Speaker 1: the scary Treehouse cult that this was predetermined many moons ago,
Speaker 1: and like so now, I mean, not that it ends
Speaker 1: great for Peter, but you know, he can whatever rest
Speaker 1: assured that it wasn't his fault, which I feel like
Speaker 1: is almost a worse punishment than becoming the devil himself.
Speaker 1: Is always wondering like was this my fault? Like that's
Speaker 1: one of the most I think like horrible actual things
Speaker 1: that can happen to a person is having to wonder that.
Speaker 4: Right, Yeah, there's so much about blame in this movie,
Speaker 4: and I have in my notes. I have the word
Speaker 4: blame in big letters with a square around it because
Speaker 4: it comes up over and over again and how like
Speaker 4: blame can like distort relationships. But sure, I kind of
Speaker 4: feel the opposite of you on the committing to an answer,
Speaker 4: like a clear cut answer that there was a cult
Speaker 4: and there was a demon and all of this was
Speaker 4: I feel like so much horror that like is allegorical
Speaker 4: or like trying to represent or talk about things like
Speaker 4: commits too hard and the metaphor is like too neat clean,
Speaker 4: and this one is like messy a little bit, and
Speaker 4: like none of the none of the representations, like feel
Speaker 4: are like one hundred percent. We can't definitively be like
Speaker 4: this is about grief, or like this is about inherited trauma,
Speaker 4: or this is about mental illness or anything like that
Speaker 4: like all of that stuff is like in the soup,
Speaker 4: and what makes it cohesive is that there is actually
Speaker 4: a plot and a reason rooted in like the reality
Speaker 4: of the movie for all of these things to be happening,
Speaker 4: and ultimately, like all of the characters are kind of
Speaker 4: helpless in the face of the larger powers. And I
Speaker 4: think that's where I enjoy horror is just like when
Speaker 4: it lets go of the notion that we as like
Speaker 4: little people with our little dramas, have any sway on
Speaker 4: these like huge, old, supernatural things that are happening around us.
Speaker 3: Yeah, sometimes I wish I could be like, yeah, the depression,
Speaker 3: I'm constantly feeling that's just the seventh King of Hell
Speaker 3: weaseling his way into my brain.
Speaker 1: Maybe that's a personal thing because I would rather blame
Speaker 1: myself and my mom for those things.
Speaker 4: But that's like in a family drama, it's like it's
Speaker 4: yourself and the mom is the problem. And then that's
Speaker 4: like the lovely thing about horror, just like genre in general,
Speaker 4: it's like, but actually, there's like this third, sinister, magical
Speaker 4: thing that has nothing to do with you guys.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess that's personal. I just wish that there
Speaker 1: was maybe. I mean, I don't even object to like
Speaker 1: the inclusion of the cult. It's like you almost kind
Speaker 1: of get a second movie out of it. But I
Speaker 1: just wish maybe there was I don't know, Yeah, this
Speaker 1: is strictly a personal thing, but I wish there was
Speaker 1: a little more like leeway left for You're not totally sure,
Speaker 1: because cults are created by people, but this movie would
Speaker 1: have you believed because you see, like whatever spiritualism had
Speaker 1: sound off. You see that Tony Collette checks all of
Speaker 1: the classic spiritualist tricks. She looks under the table, she
Speaker 1: looks for this, she looks for that, and so if
Speaker 1: you've seen any seance rig, you know it's clear that
Speaker 1: like this is real, and that is like confirming the
Speaker 1: existence of this magic. I just I don't know, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I wish that that door was kind of left open
Speaker 1: a little bit. I've found myself like really drawn to
Speaker 1: like horror stories that let you have a little bit
Speaker 1: of both. I read a book recently, The September House
Speaker 1: by Carissa Orlando. It's a really good haunted house book
Speaker 1: that I feel like kind of like lets you have
Speaker 1: your cake and eat it too, where it is like
Speaker 1: a story that is grounded in a woman going through
Speaker 1: a mental health crisis and also ghosts surreal and like
Speaker 1: both of these things exist. I don't know, that's it
Speaker 1: was my ideal horror story where mental illness is a
Speaker 1: real and present force and also the supernatural is fucking
Speaker 1: with us at all times, and if you combine the two,
Speaker 1: you're fucked, which is maybe just like what I was
Speaker 1: looking for more from the conclusion of Hereditary then than
Speaker 1: there is. But yeah, again that's like a personal thing.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean, if the like cult and payment stuff and
Speaker 3: all the magic and mysticism is taken out of this movie,
Speaker 3: it would just be a really effective family drama about
Speaker 3: grief and generational trauma.
Speaker 1: You gotta have the goals.
Speaker 3: Yeah, But I do like that there is a lot
Speaker 3: of emphasis on blame and trust too, where like the
Speaker 3: families having troubled each other and where they can't trust
Speaker 3: each other, they are throwing blame around at each other.
Speaker 3: So and these are like things that are very familiar
Speaker 3: in a lot of family dynamics, So I think it's
Speaker 3: interesting that the movie explores those and I think that's
Speaker 3: why this movie has like a longer lasting legacy and
Speaker 3: is beloved by its fans more than a pretty like
Speaker 3: straightforward ghost story movie that fails to kind of dig
Speaker 3: deeper into you know, a character's internal struggle and you know,
Speaker 3: complicated family dynamics, which a lot of horror movies fail
Speaker 3: to do just because it's like it's a ghost story
Speaker 3: or it's a monster story and you know, not really
Speaker 3: digging deep into anything actually like interesting or thematic about
Speaker 3: the human experience or the human condition. I want to
Speaker 3: talk about payment and gender because.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, I guess there's something.
Speaker 3: There's something here in the text of the movie. So
Speaker 3: we learned we hear early on in a conversation between
Speaker 3: Charlie and her mom Annie. It's right after the grandmother's funeral,
Speaker 3: and Charlie says, Grandma wanted me to be a boy,
Speaker 3: and we don't really get any context for that or
Speaker 3: any other information aside.
Speaker 1: I feel like we're just like left to play on
Speaker 1: the classic successor thing.
Speaker 4: I don't know, Yeah, I feel like having grown up
Speaker 4: in a really patriarchal like family that my grandmother also
Speaker 4: was like I wish you were a boy when I
Speaker 4: was first born, So I like totally like breathed past that.
Speaker 4: I was like, oh, that's normal patriarchy stuff.
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, it could definitely be chalked up to that.
Speaker 3: And then as the movie goes on, and especially by
Speaker 3: the end, you find out why the grandma won her
Speaker 3: to be a boy because of the whole payment thing.
Speaker 3: And when Annie is kind of rifling through the book
Speaker 3: about King Payman, there's this passage that I paused on
Speaker 3: and wrote down as much of it as I could,
Speaker 3: but it's basically explaining that there's some text because if
Speaker 3: you look up payment on you know, scholarly journal Wikipedia,
Speaker 3: this is a thing Like this isn't an invention for
Speaker 3: the movie Hereditary, there's lore.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of horror movies have like encountered
Speaker 1: different versions of these guys.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but there's apparently some text called the Goaisha or something,
Speaker 3: and the book that Annie reads from says the Goisha
Speaker 3: itself makes no mention of King Payman's face. Then there's
Speaker 3: like text that's cut off other documentation describes him as
Speaker 3: having a woman's face, while something something some other text
Speaker 3: refers to him using strictly masculine pronouns. As result, the
Speaker 3: sexes of the hosts have varied, but the most successful
Speaker 3: incarnations have been with men and it is documented that
Speaker 3: King Payment has become livid and vengeful when offered a
Speaker 3: female host. For these reasons, it is imperative to remember
Speaker 3: that King Payment is a male, thus covetous of a
Speaker 3: male human body. So we find out, okay, this Payment
Speaker 3: worshiping cult needs a male host to put Paymin into.
Speaker 3: And then again through some things that are implied throughout
Speaker 3: the movie, we realize that Payman has been inhabiting Charlie,
Speaker 3: or had been inhabiting Charlie, but King Payment wasn't happy
Speaker 3: about that. He wants a male host. So that's why
Speaker 3: they orchestrate this whole thing to put Paymin into Peter's body.
Speaker 3: I don't know why that didn't just happen originally.
Speaker 4: Oh, they they explained that there's a part where I
Speaker 4: think it's in the in the like grief group therapy
Speaker 4: thing where she talks about how she wanted to distance
Speaker 4: herself from her mother because of like their toxic relationship,
Speaker 4: and she didn't let her go near her son at all, right,
Speaker 4: but then she felt bad about it, so she quote
Speaker 4: unquote gave her Charlie.
Speaker 3: Okay, okay, okay, got it. So that's why they use
Speaker 3: Charlie's body for king Payment to inhabit, but it's not
Speaker 3: quite working out because Payment is a misogynist and he
Speaker 3: hates women or something. I don't know what to make
Speaker 3: of this exactly.
Speaker 4: Or he's just like very like secure in his gender.
Speaker 1: And wants present body being put into their wrong body. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like we gotta decapitate this body. I don't like. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I didn't know what to make of it either, but
Speaker 1: I yeah, when I was reading back on criticism of
Speaker 1: the time, I feel like I didn't quite agree with
Speaker 1: the genter, like there's like a clear desire for a
Speaker 1: male leader. I don't know. I don't know because I
Speaker 1: think I like, ultimately what I decided is I don't
Speaker 1: know or understand enough about the underlying like.
Speaker 6: Satanist demonology, demonology. Yeah, it's like spiritualism, I get. But
Speaker 6: towards the end this movie pretty severely takes a left
Speaker 6: from that and gets full on into demon shit.
Speaker 1: And so this movie I feel like, lures you in
Speaker 1: with kind of like more friendly like women are in
Speaker 1: charge spiritualism, and then it takes a turn to demonism
Speaker 1: at some point in a way that like I felt
Speaker 1: out of my depth and it feels like and this
Speaker 1: is just like strictly based on observation, it seems like
Speaker 1: the demon shit is a little more patriarchal. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: just felt like a departure from what we were seeing
Speaker 1: before because spiritualism is historically driven by women, and demon
Speaker 1: shit seems like it is not. So I didn't know
Speaker 1: what they were doing.
Speaker 4: Demon stuff is for boys, like church church adjacent, which
Speaker 4: traditionally I think.
Speaker 1: Right, it gets more patriarchal. Yeah, it was just confusing.
Speaker 1: I wonder how much like ari Astor knows about this
Speaker 1: shit and how much of it is just like this
Speaker 1: is what I need to happen. What do I need?
Speaker 1: Like what horror tools could I use to make it happen?
Speaker 1: But yeah, I guess not that we're talking about it.
Speaker 1: It feels like there is kind of like a fake
Speaker 1: out with like leading with like spiritual practice that is
Speaker 1: both troubled and women of historically been leaders, and then
Speaker 1: kind of pivoting at some point to like, actually it's
Speaker 1: a more patriarchal demon thing. I don't know.
Speaker 4: I feel like the spiritualism part was actually a trick
Speaker 4: that the cult was playing on Annie, being like you're
Speaker 4: a medium and we can contact your child, and this
Speaker 4: is like, this is a spiritualism thing, but really they
Speaker 4: were like read this incantation that summons the demon and
Speaker 4: summon's your child. And by your child, I do mean
Speaker 4: the demon that was inhabiting your child, right, and like
Speaker 4: using the grief, like grief drove a lot of spiritualism stuff,
Speaker 4: I think, which I learned from your podcast actually, and
Speaker 4: this is like capitalizing on that for like other nefarious
Speaker 4: demon cult needs and it's all Rosemary's Baby from there.
Speaker 1: It is truely. I mean, it's like and Doud's performance
Speaker 1: is so clearly pulled from Raspberry's and like I mean
Speaker 1: that as a compliment, but it's like you can see
Speaker 1: how like interacting those movies are. I yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1: And and again it's like I guess it's everyone's my
Speaker 1: life is going to vary for like ari astor landing On,
Speaker 1: Like it's actually this scary patriarchal thing that ended up
Speaker 1: being kind of the internal truth of what's going on.
Speaker 1: It does explain how most women in this world seem
Speaker 1: to be absolutely fucked or beholden to this system. But
Speaker 1: I don't know. Yeah, the supernatural stuff in this movie,
Speaker 1: it's very possible that I just don't know enough, but
Speaker 1: it never quite connects for me. The family stuff really connects. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it just seems like a family of people who are
Speaker 1: all genuinely doing their best and are undercut by either
Speaker 1: mental illness or the work of the devil, and sometimes.
Speaker 3: Both, sometimes both. And I think ari astroposits one of
Speaker 3: those two things are the same thing, mental illness.
Speaker 1: And that devil.
Speaker 3: But maybe I'm just overthinking it.
Speaker 4: But uh, I don't want to. I don't know. I
Speaker 4: don't want to feel like that's the general way that
Speaker 4: or like the thesis of the movie. But I think
Speaker 4: it is like the what if of the movie, Like
Speaker 4: not that like mental illness and the devil are the same,
Speaker 4: but like what if they were? And that's like a
Speaker 4: weird place to land sometimes, right.
Speaker 3: I also think I'm influenced by something that we bring
Speaker 3: up on the podcast a lot, which is that early
Speaker 3: scene in Midsommar where there's a character who is explicitly
Speaker 3: stated to have bipolar and then she murders her whole
Speaker 3: family as if her bipolar drove her to murder.
Speaker 1: I was just I was just about to bring that
Speaker 1: up where that still is always gonna bother me more
Speaker 1: because Midsommar is not a supernatural movie. It's a cult movie.
Speaker 1: Like these are both cult movies, but Hereditary is also
Speaker 1: a supernatural movie. Midsummer is explicitly like in that world,
Speaker 1: we do not see magic shit happen. Any of the
Speaker 1: visions that happen in that movie are brought up by drugs.
Speaker 1: So like, I'll always be and I love Midsummar, but
Speaker 1: like I will always be bothered by him. That feels
Speaker 1: like the worst like explicit conflation of she is this
Speaker 1: and therefore this happened where at very least, and I
Speaker 1: still don't like how like it doesn't quite connect with
Speaker 1: me how the the two are connected. But at least
Speaker 1: it feels like there's the possibility of a what if.
Speaker 1: But in Midsummer there's it's just like text like bipolar
Speaker 1: people kill their families.
Speaker 4: You're just like in general, I like I like Hereditary
Speaker 4: better than mits Sommer because of I think the supernatural.
Speaker 4: Oh and I think it was just scarier period.
Speaker 1: It is scarier. But they both love rotting aheads and
Speaker 1: lighting people fire. He is like it's his strange addiction
Speaker 1: is doing that. But yeah, I don't know, I at
Speaker 1: least I don't know. While I find the supernatural stuff frustrating,
Speaker 1: sometimes it does temper some of the stuff that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't think ari Astor like, I don't think enough
Speaker 1: bad things have happened to him.
Speaker 4: I mean, we don't have to talk about his short films.
Speaker 3: I couldn't. I haven't seen them.
Speaker 4: Yeah I've seen, I just know about them. I shan't
Speaker 4: be seeing.
Speaker 1: I saw, I saw the Big One, and yeah, No,
Speaker 1: I just think that ari Astor is like I should
Speaker 1: in general, keep specific mental illnesses out of his mouth
Speaker 1: and his writing until we understand why he's doing it,
Speaker 1: because sometimes there does feel like a shock jockey, you know,
Speaker 1: which feels weird to say of an like an indeed
Speaker 1: horror director. But it does sometimes feel like, what's the
Speaker 1: most fucked up thing I could present in a way
Speaker 1: that you could still present something really really really fucked
Speaker 1: up and not be like bipolar made her do it,
Speaker 1: you know, or I don't know. In Hereditary it feels
Speaker 1: like there's a little bit more purpose, or at least
Speaker 1: an argument for purpose behind it. But it's this first movie.
Speaker 1: There's stuff that doesn't quite work.
Speaker 4: No, I think it succeeds for me on like a
Speaker 4: horror level. The other stuff I think is good, better
Speaker 4: than a lot of horror movies and like more thoughtful
Speaker 4: and like the character the acting is really good. I
Speaker 4: think really helps in the character work is interesting. But
Speaker 4: why I love this movie is like really more because
Speaker 4: the scares and the tension and it is just such
Speaker 4: an effective horror movie.
Speaker 3: Yeah, truly, Yes, it's so.
Speaker 1: I mean it's like impossible not to get completely sucked in,
Speaker 1: Like it's there's no movie I've seen that. I've seen
Speaker 1: movies that explore the same themes, but it's like uniquely
Speaker 1: like punishing and engrossing. And the performance, like there's not
Speaker 1: a bad performance in it. Everyone is like going at
Speaker 1: a ten the entire time. It's it's awesome.
Speaker 4: And the soundtrack, oh does work. I love to this
Speaker 4: is some of my favorite writing music is the soundtrack
Speaker 4: for this.
Speaker 1: It's so and I mean Poloma just like speaking to like,
Speaker 1: I love your books so much, and it feels like
Speaker 1: you are able to work in the supernatural into family
Speaker 1: dynamics and into friendship dynamics like so uniquely, but I
Speaker 1: think you do it better than mister Astor. But also
Speaker 1: he's great at it. But I just if anyone listening
Speaker 1: has not yet read Paloma's work, I think it does
Speaker 1: with this movie does better.
Speaker 4: Oh thank you, it's really it's really nice of you
Speaker 4: to say it's true.
Speaker 3: Going back to the conversation about gender, so when ari
Speaker 3: Astor was asked in an interview with Variety, is there
Speaker 3: ever a Charlie or is she paym on from the
Speaker 3: moment she's born? Ari Astor responds, from the moment she's born.
Speaker 3: I mean, there's a girl that was displaced, but she
Speaker 3: was displaced from the very beginning. So we have this
Speaker 3: male demon that inhabits the body of someone who was
Speaker 3: assigned female at birth. And some writers have discussed a
Speaker 3: trans masque read of this movie. I want to pull
Speaker 3: from a piece in the publication Them by Sasha Geffen
Speaker 3: entitled trans Horror Stories and Society's Fear of the trans
Speaker 3: Masculine Body. What the film Hereditary reveals about society's moral
Speaker 3: panic surrounding trans masculine people. This piece points out that
Speaker 3: most trans horror story to date have stoked a fear
Speaker 3: in the trans feminine movies like you know, Silence of
Speaker 3: the Lambs and Psycho, but Sasha Geffin points out that
Speaker 3: in general, in horror movies, a prevalent trope is the
Speaker 3: idea of quote, one gender swirled up into another creates
Speaker 3: a monster. The piece goes on to say, quote. Millie
Speaker 3: Shapiro's performance as Charlie abused the character with a deep
Speaker 3: pathos and clearly conveys that she feels alienated from her body.
Speaker 3: During a phone interview, film critic Caden Mark Gardner tells
Speaker 3: me he recognized his own childhood gender dysphoria in Charlie's
Speaker 3: on screen presence. This is now a quote from Caiden
Speaker 3: Mark Gardner. When I was growing up, even though I
Speaker 3: didn't realize I was going through gender dysphoria, I was
Speaker 3: in these baggy hoodies and genes a lot of the time,
Speaker 3: sort of the way Charlie was dressing, he says. Together
Speaker 3: with film critic Willow maclay, he publishes Body Talk, a
Speaker 3: series of conversation about films that speak implicitly or explicitly
Speaker 3: to the trans experience. Many of these films are horror movies,
Speaker 3: as horror is one of the only genres where the
Speaker 3: sanctity of the body is regularly disrupted, where the distress
Speaker 3: of something akin to gender dysphoria is expressed legibly on screen.
Speaker 3: Hereditaries transition allegory involves not only the violent death of
Speaker 3: a girl, but also the torture and eventual evacuation of
Speaker 3: a CIS male body. Parentheses Peter that Charlie's transition requires
Speaker 3: so much physical violence speaks to a lingering anxiety among
Speaker 3: sis people, that transition is at best a form of
Speaker 3: mutilation and at worst a kind of death, a sloughing
Speaker 3: of one body in exchange for a new, different one.
Speaker 3: The piece goes on, I think the whole thing is
Speaker 3: worth a read. We will link it in the description,
Speaker 3: But I thought this was just a really interesting interpretation
Speaker 3: of that aspect of the movie.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I do feel like it's like another demonstration of
Speaker 1: how open to interpretation kind of this story remains. And
Speaker 1: I feel like that's been a conversation around a lot
Speaker 1: of horror movies that we've covered, and how many of
Speaker 1: the horror movies we've covered are made by ariastrotypes of
Speaker 1: you know, like white GUYO Tours. And it doesn't make
Speaker 1: the movie less good or less impactful, but it does
Speaker 1: make it that guy again.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Yeah, I feel like I feel this. A lot
Speaker 4: of horror is like women centric and then also made
Speaker 4: by men. Yes, and it is so like steeped in
Speaker 4: this like fear of womanhood and like things that like
Speaker 4: in this movie, like women are in this, like they're
Speaker 4: part of the secret, and like men are kind of
Speaker 4: inert and like I feel like that is present in
Speaker 4: this movie and in a lot of movie that puberty, pregnancy.
Speaker 4: It's like all of these things that happen to women
Speaker 4: and that women experience are horrific and like unfathomable to
Speaker 4: the men who are creating these pieces.
Speaker 3: It's the topic of so many horror movies the class.
Speaker 4: And in this one, it's motherhood in a way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we didn't quite get into this, but yeah, the
Speaker 1: idea of like, I don't know, the idea that like
Speaker 1: this is a mother who is an artist and yet
Speaker 1: her like her art is conflated so much with her
Speaker 1: family life, and like her dysregulation in some way is
Speaker 1: connected to her art. I don't know. I just say
Speaker 1: there's so many different entry points to this movie, to
Speaker 1: the point where I truly don't know what ari Astor
Speaker 1: is trying to say. I just know that the viewing
Speaker 1: of this movie feels very individual where I've always come
Speaker 1: at it of like my read of the movie has
Speaker 1: always been like, women are far more powerful than people
Speaker 1: give them credit for. Mothers are far more powerful than
Speaker 1: people give them credit for. But because of all of
Speaker 1: this various nagging, like that kind of all goes unseen
Speaker 1: and that all you know compounds to what I think
Speaker 1: is kind of like a dissatisfying conclusion. But like what
Speaker 1: you just said, ploment is just as valid to read
Speaker 1: of like the fear of like what generations of women
Speaker 1: are doing, and an anxiety around women and being kind
Speaker 1: of subjugated and defeated by them in like Steve's case.
Speaker 1: And I don't know, there's just like so many inns
Speaker 1: to just seeing this movie, and I like that there's
Speaker 1: not a definitive one, and that's probably why people still
Speaker 1: love it so much.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And that's part of why I also really like
Speaker 4: this movie is the is that there are so many
Speaker 4: interpretations and so many things being represented and played with
Speaker 4: throughout the movie. And it is not like this like
Speaker 4: one to one metaphor for anything in particular, and that's
Speaker 4: like what is so what makes it such good horror
Speaker 4: is that you can find something to fear because there
Speaker 4: are so many things, as you said, entry points, and
Speaker 4: that's why I think it hits for so many people.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think there is also something to be said
Speaker 3: for the fact that we know Annie's character far better
Speaker 3: than we know her husband.
Speaker 1: We know next to nothing about him other than he's struggling.
Speaker 3: He's struggling and he's doing his best. But yeah, we
Speaker 3: see Annie working very often. We see Steve at work
Speaker 3: one time, but we don't know what he does and
Speaker 3: it's not relevant to anything. He's sidelined. Steve is for
Speaker 3: many chunks of the movie, and that's feminism.
Speaker 1: Well, it's like at least attempting to explore or like
Speaker 1: has you I don't know, I don't know. I feel
Speaker 1: like this movie is weirdly a step forward. But speaking
Speaker 1: to what you were saying a little earlier, Plobo, like,
Speaker 1: I always get hyper agitated when you know, regardless of
Speaker 1: how much I like dislike whatever, good, bad, and different
Speaker 1: in the movie when a like Oteurs burst onto the
Speaker 1: scene is a guy centering a woman's experience and being
Speaker 1: like I wrote this, I got it, I figured it out,
Speaker 1: and like, often it's horrible, Often it's awesome, But I
Speaker 1: just like I get into like a looping thing of like,
Speaker 1: but they'll always get another chance. It doesn't matter if
Speaker 1: they nail it or not. And like, do people ultimately care?
Speaker 1: Why is Ari Aster centering women in his piece? I
Speaker 1: don't need the answer, but sometimes I just get conspiratorial
Speaker 1: and I'm just like it felt like, especially in the
Speaker 1: late twenty tens, a lot of men And you can't
Speaker 1: say this for Astor because this is his first feature,
Speaker 1: but in this time there are a lot of men
Speaker 1: who were suddenly centering women in their pieces to be like,
Speaker 1: buh the no no no no, Like in disregard everything
Speaker 1: I said before, I actually have always cared about women's
Speaker 1: internal lives, and like I just took me til twenty
Speaker 1: nineteen to like do it, and then you watch it
Speaker 1: and you're like, well, this fucking sucks, and like, so
Speaker 1: I don't know. I think that I also bring an
Speaker 1: inherent anger to Yeah.
Speaker 4: I also feel like it's just like maybe semi unrelated
Speaker 4: pang about like how difficult it is to be a
Speaker 4: woman doing horror. It's so like male dominated, and yet
Speaker 4: the stories are all so frequently about women, and so
Speaker 4: I feel a bit of resentment about that.
Speaker 3: I have several theories as to why that is why
Speaker 3: men fixate on like women in horror stories because they're
Speaker 3: afraid of them.
Speaker 4: Well, they're scared of women.
Speaker 3: Let women's bodies do and I'm speaking like cis normatively here,
Speaker 3: I realize that. But as far as like pregnancy and periods.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like pussy monsters, have we covered on this fucking shell.
Speaker 1: They're like the scariest in the world, and it's like
Speaker 1: a vagina.
Speaker 3: So that's one thing. I also just think that because
Speaker 3: men tend to see women as weak and jostile and fragile,
Speaker 3: and we need to be protected and we need to
Speaker 3: be We're so delicate that the things that happen in
Speaker 3: horror movies, you know, the horrific imagery and and the
Speaker 3: stalking and the chasing and the killers stabbing, it's I think,
Speaker 3: perceived to be more horrific when those things happen to
Speaker 3: women than if, oh, if these things were happening to men, Oh,
Speaker 3: they'd be able to fight off the stabby killer or whatever.
Speaker 3: I think I think that part of the horror of
Speaker 3: so many horror movies is this is happening to a woman,
Speaker 3: and doesn't that make it so much scarier?
Speaker 1: Right, I agree, but I also like, I don't think
Speaker 1: that that's really what are a astro, but it's all
Speaker 1: of that to this movie too, like it's impossible not to.
Speaker 4: And also, like with Possession, like so much possession movies
Speaker 4: are about possessing women or children because of the corruption
Speaker 4: of innocence, and like, even if like this isn't the
Speaker 4: thing that our astor like went to the desk thinking about.
Speaker 4: When you write in genre, you bring everything to the
Speaker 4: table because like inherent in doing genre is you have
Speaker 4: to interact with everything that's been done before because of
Speaker 4: tropes and trends and things like that. So you know
Speaker 4: it is worth talking about for sure.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Men be bringing their biases too.
Speaker 1: I mean we are too, we just don't get to
Speaker 1: do it as.
Speaker 4: And women write fantastic horror, so I mean and there
Speaker 4: are Again, It's like, even since twenty eighteen, I feel
Speaker 4: like there has been some shift in terms of like
Speaker 4: who gets to tell mainstream horror stories.
Speaker 1: But always room for more movement because I was, yeah,
Speaker 1: as I was getting all worked up talking to my
Speaker 1: boyfriend about like why first time directors centering women regardless
Speaker 1: of genre, even when I like the movies. I'm still
Speaker 1: like slightly side eyeing it, which is not fair of me,
Speaker 1: but is how I feel. But in any case, you know,
Speaker 1: the real kind of stress test of like, is this
Speaker 1: genre being meaningfully diversified? Isn't like who gets to make
Speaker 1: one movie, but who gets to make three? Because I
Speaker 1: think in the last you know, five, like half decade,
Speaker 1: we've seen a lot of people get to make their
Speaker 1: first movie, but we have not seen a lot of
Speaker 1: people get to make their second movie. And so I
Speaker 1: don't know. I feel like the landscape for especially genre
Speaker 1: film is shifting, but it's a lot of people making
Speaker 1: their first movie. I want to see a more diverse
Speaker 1: group of directors make their third and fourth movies and
Speaker 1: like have the same sort of freedom to explore that
Speaker 1: the ari Astors of the world do. We're getting off topic,
Speaker 1: but I.
Speaker 4: Mean, yeah, I will say ari Astor and also Jordan Peel.
Speaker 4: I think they made like two great horror movies and
Speaker 4: then we're like, but I'm not a horror director, and
Speaker 4: then made like a third movie that's not horror and
Speaker 4: I haven't seen bos Afraid, but they might be like
Speaker 4: good movies. But I want like people to commit to
Speaker 4: the genre and keep making scary movies.
Speaker 1: I don't know, and that's why I will be seeing
Speaker 1: every m Night Shyamalan movie for the rest of my life.
Speaker 1: And that's that is my sacred voalve. I mean, I
Speaker 1: guess sometimes what he does is more thrillers, but still
Speaker 1: they're cousins.
Speaker 3: Is close enough.
Speaker 1: I'm really excited for the new m Night Chamblin movie.
Speaker 4: I'm always excited for the It's like, you know, even
Speaker 4: if they're not good, they're great, or even if they're
Speaker 4: not great, they're good.
Speaker 1: They're always like confident, big swings. They're firmly comfortable in
Speaker 1: the genre they're in, and it's just like a riot.
Speaker 1: It's a riot. Oh. The first movie I saw after
Speaker 1: I got the vaccine for COVID was Old, and I
Speaker 1: was hoping you'd say, Old, what an amazing return to
Speaker 1: the movies, What an amazing They're just high concert? What's
Speaker 1: the new one?
Speaker 3: The new one is like, oh, I just saw a
Speaker 3: trailer for it.
Speaker 1: It looks awesome. It's like there's a they're at like
Speaker 1: a stadium concert and there's a serial killer, and then
Speaker 1: you find out it's the protagonist that's the serial killer.
Speaker 1: It's because mister Shimelan loves his twists.
Speaker 3: What's his name, Josh?
Speaker 1: I can't wait.
Speaker 3: Who's the Josh in the movie?
Speaker 1: I don't know. I know the Josh of which you speak.
Speaker 3: Yes, it's Josh Hartne.
Speaker 1: Yes. Yeah, I guess the moral of our Hereditary episode
Speaker 1: is go see Trap in theaters on August second. I
Speaker 1: am genuinely a trap. Thirty thousand fans, three hundred cops,
Speaker 1: one serial killer, no escape. Yeah, I'm going. Wow, I'm going.
Speaker 3: Does anyone have anything else they'd like to say about
Speaker 3: the movie Hereditary?
Speaker 4: I could go on about the scary stuff for a
Speaker 4: long time, but I'd love to let you sleep tonight.
Speaker 3: So I mean, well, we'll be up late anyway watching Minions.
Speaker 4: So healing, healing, up late, healing?
Speaker 1: Yes, is there? I know that you said there's like
Speaker 1: a lot of technical stuff that you were impressed by
Speaker 1: and research. Is there anything in particular that's stuck out
Speaker 1: on that end because we don't really cover that stuff
Speaker 1: as much in the show.
Speaker 4: So I definitely was tracking, like I went through the
Speaker 4: movie and was tracking like the progression of fear with
Speaker 4: a two step of like uncanny and then scary, and
Speaker 4: just like I think it was really effective how those
Speaker 4: two things were balanced throughout the movie and then heightened
Speaker 4: to like an eleven in like the third act. Also
Speaker 4: the way that he played with the viewer's anxiety around
Speaker 4: what was going on on screen and then use the
Speaker 4: momentum of that anxiety to subvert, like to give a
Speaker 4: new twist. Like an example would be when Peter is
Speaker 4: going walking through the room, as we talked about, and
Speaker 4: then Tony's in the corner, and then you think that
Speaker 4: he's going to interact with her, but then it turns
Speaker 4: and it's something completely different, and that happened with the
Speaker 4: head lobbing off as well. And then also in the attic,
Speaker 4: when you know that the body is there and you're
Speaker 4: expecting the thing for him to encounter to be the body,
Speaker 4: and you're bracing yourself for the headless, dead body, but
Speaker 4: he turns around it's something completely different and totally terrifying.
Speaker 4: And that just like relentless, like feeding into someone's fear
Speaker 4: and then using that fear as a jumping off point
Speaker 4: on something even scarier, I think is really great. It is.
Speaker 1: I feel like, yeah, like a lot of what made
Speaker 1: this movie work for me, especially for the first time
Speaker 1: but also like it is a movie that very much
Speaker 1: rewards on reviewing because it is like playing on what
Speaker 1: you expect to happen with a jump scarre. It is
Speaker 1: playing on like tropes and like, I don't know, it's
Speaker 1: like many Bechtel Cast episodes. I end by being like, well,
Speaker 1: I talked a lot of shit, but this movie fucking rips,
Speaker 1: and I will be watching it again.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's definitely a horror fans horror movie, I think,
Speaker 4: because it kind of knows your psychology of having seen
Speaker 4: a lot of these movies.
Speaker 3: For sure.
Speaker 1: I hope that ari Astor makes more horror movies. I
Speaker 1: was about to say I will watch Bo's Afraid, but
Speaker 1: you know, I'm gonna temper that. I actually don't know
Speaker 1: because it looked it's so hard to like. It takes
Speaker 1: a movie with a very long run time to dissuade
Speaker 1: me from watching a movie where Patti Lapone and Nathan
Speaker 1: Lane play the parents. But oh yeah, I know, like
Speaker 1: two Broadway legends playing the parents of the psychological movie.
Speaker 1: But it's three hours long, So what are you gonna do?
Speaker 1: I don't know if I'm gonna see kinds of kindness?
Speaker 1: You know, it's three Hours Long.
Speaker 3: Didn't care for it.
Speaker 4: I am looking forward to like Long Legs.
Speaker 1: I heard it's so scary.
Speaker 4: I'm hoping it will be the next Hereditary for me.
Speaker 4: That's that's why I've been thinking about it and this
Speaker 4: because that movie. I went to see it in theaters
Speaker 4: and I was like, yes, I have been utterly frightened.
Speaker 4: And I've been I've been chasing that high and longing
Speaker 4: for it, and I want to go and see Long
Speaker 4: Legs and be utterly frightened. I hope all these people
Speaker 4: talking about how they like left the theater crying are
Speaker 4: not exaggerating.
Speaker 1: I have not seen a an Oz Perkins movie yet,
Speaker 1: so I am I'm really interested.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think I'll see it.
Speaker 1: That's the kind of nepotism I can get behind.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think I'll see it and then probably have
Speaker 3: just full body pains all over again.
Speaker 4: Yay.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I will be saying I'm excited to see Long Legs.
Speaker 1: I'm excited to see Trap.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Those are the two horror horror entries I'm excited to
Speaker 1: see coming up. Yeah, and whenever, whenever the next Saw
Speaker 1: movie comes up, because that's where Caitlyn and o oh yeah,
Speaker 1: baby eleven that's the slasher horror franchise that Caitlin and
Speaker 1: I are fully on the same page about.
Speaker 4: Oh oh baby, Like some months ago, I watched every
Speaker 4: single Saw movie.
Speaker 3: I'm working my way through.
Speaker 1: What's your favorite.
Speaker 4: Let me tell you. When you watch every single Saw
Speaker 4: movie within a span of like two weeks, watching like
Speaker 4: one sometimes two a night, they really blur together. I think, like,
Speaker 4: and some are really just so bad. But I love
Speaker 4: the commitment to like the twist that doesn't make sense.
Speaker 4: The twists, it's like it's like soap opera levels. It's
Speaker 4: like a ton noveloped by the end of it, Like it's.
Speaker 3: Like you never see them coming.
Speaker 4: No, You're like, oh. And then the music every time
Speaker 4: the music is like it's like so so extra. I
Speaker 4: love it entirely.
Speaker 3: It's the best franchise.
Speaker 1: It really is in every I mean, you know, say
Speaker 1: what you will about his methods, but he does want
Speaker 1: to play a game, and I celebrate that.
Speaker 3: I mean, feminist icon Jigsaw.
Speaker 1: It's true, he loves his wife.
Speaker 3: Hereditary does pass the Bechdel.
Speaker 1: Test, Yeah, I mean at many.
Speaker 3: Points, Oh, Joan and Annie, Oh they're talking about seances. Oh,
Speaker 3: they're talking about grief et cetera. Annie talks to Charlie. Yeah,
Speaker 3: there's there's numerous passes our nipple scale, though.
Speaker 1: I don't know pass past.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't think it's I don't know how to
Speaker 3: sign it. So a scale of zero to five nipples
Speaker 3: where we rate the movie, examining it through an intersectional
Speaker 3: feminist lens. I have no freaking idea for this movie. Again,
Speaker 3: my brain ceases to work for movies this scary, so
Speaker 3: I can't really think about them.
Speaker 1: I would probably if I'm making a stab at it,
Speaker 1: I would probably fall somewhere in the middle here, or
Speaker 1: maybe maybe a little on the generous side of the middle.
Speaker 1: I don't know. It is really tricky one. You know,
Speaker 1: this movie certainly centers women, but also I mean this
Speaker 1: specifically the case of Charlie goes out of its way
Speaker 1: to demonize girl for a reasons that I'm still like
Speaker 1: not clear on outside of in the terest of a twist.
Speaker 1: Why that decision was made, I don't know. I really
Speaker 1: don't know. IM My instinct is somewhere down the middle.
Speaker 1: But even that feels a little nebulous.
Speaker 3: It almost feels like, I mean, this is something I
Speaker 3: probably should have brought up earlier. But all the women
Speaker 3: or girls that we see on screen or that we
Speaker 3: know about but don't really see because they are dead,
Speaker 3: I e. The grandmother are like harbingers of a scary
Speaker 3: cult and like, you know, evil witchy types, and then
Speaker 3: all the men are just like, don't do they're boring?
Speaker 1: Well, see that I don't hate is all women are
Speaker 1: witches and all men are boring. Like that's a kind
Speaker 1: of like prescriptive thing I could get complete.
Speaker 3: That's one view of it. But I also think that
Speaker 3: there would be people who walk away from this being
Speaker 3: like women are evil and men are just innocent bystanders.
Speaker 1: Well I don't.
Speaker 3: I don't read it that way, but I think there
Speaker 3: are people who would.
Speaker 1: But even so, it's like, ultimately they are still serving
Speaker 1: the patriarchy. That's what I find more frustrating, is like
Speaker 1: they have a lot of agency, but still they're like, no,
Speaker 1: the devil is a man, the devil is a sis man,
Speaker 1: and we feel that that is certain.
Speaker 3: I don't know where's Queen payment.
Speaker 1: They didn't want her, we had her, they killed her.
Speaker 4: I know.
Speaker 1: So the answer is I don't fucking know. I don't know. Paulavi,
Speaker 1: do you do you have a feeling on this, you.
Speaker 4: Know, I would also like probably put it on like
Speaker 4: the middle to like higher middle. I don't know, it's
Speaker 4: hard to there's definitely a point five in there somewhere.
Speaker 4: Is it a three point five or is it a four? WHOA,
Speaker 4: I'm not sure.
Speaker 1: I would go I would go three maybe three pot
Speaker 1: because it's like there's clear intent two, Like there is
Speaker 1: intellectual curiosity about what women are experiencing in this book,
Speaker 1: which maybe is like the bars on the floor for
Speaker 1: a lot of that, like that's true, but this movie
Speaker 1: is like deeply interested in what Annie is going through.
Speaker 1: It is clearly like we know that Annie, well, actually
Speaker 1: we don't know. I feel like it's almost maybe a
Speaker 1: litmus test for like who are you gonna believe here?
Speaker 1: But like Annie is ultimately right about perceiving what is happening,
Speaker 1: but she is struggling with mental illness. It's not all
Speaker 1: like the answer is a little bit in between, but
Speaker 1: ultimately it's like it's not like a lot of horror
Speaker 1: movies I've seen have led to like it was all
Speaker 1: in her head and that is the tragedy of it,
Speaker 1: But it's not all in Nannie's head, like It's part
Speaker 1: of the tragedy is that people don't believe what she's saying,
Speaker 1: and the same is true for Charlie, even though her
Speaker 1: being a demon yeah kind of muddles that a little bit,
Speaker 1: which is why that choice never makes sense to me.
Speaker 1: But like it's not like the movie is disinterested in
Speaker 1: what she's experiencing. I just feel like the results a
Speaker 1: little all over the place.
Speaker 4: Kind of in the opposite direction of the feeling of
Speaker 4: being too afraid to process this. I think I enjoy
Speaker 4: the fears that this presents, and it's like tilting my
Speaker 4: bias maybe like more in favor that you know. It's
Speaker 4: I'm like trying to separate like what I love about
Speaker 4: it as a horror movie and like how I would
Speaker 4: assess it as from like the Bechdel cast perspective, right.
Speaker 1: I Mean, it's a tricky one for this show because
Speaker 1: I don't think this movie is trying to be overtly
Speaker 1: feminist or not. And that's fine, but yeah, when it
Speaker 1: comes down to like how are the women of this
Speaker 1: world and story treated? I guess for me on my
Speaker 1: personal like how much I enjoy it, rating gets higher
Speaker 1: in this specific world that we're talking about I would
Speaker 1: probably have downed it about a three, three and a
Speaker 1: half on a good day.
Speaker 3: Oh see, I think, and maybe this is just my fright,
Speaker 3: but I would give it like a two. I think
Speaker 3: because of my perceived conflation of mental illness equals evil,
Speaker 3: demonic possession, and because our Astra has kind of a
Speaker 3: checkered history with that, and in two of his movies
Speaker 3: there's some questionable stuff happening regarding mental illness and conflating it.
Speaker 3: It's like, you know, violence or demonic possession or whatever
Speaker 3: it is. I really struggle with that, So I think
Speaker 3: I'll land on a two. But I also acknowledge that.
Speaker 3: And again, I think this is like a very well
Speaker 3: directed movie and the production design is incredible, the cinematography,
Speaker 3: the performances. But I will never watch it again because
Speaker 3: I'm just too scared.
Speaker 1: And this time you mean it, and this time I
Speaker 1: mean it.
Speaker 3: If someone if someone else says come on to my
Speaker 3: podcast to talk about hereditary I'll say no, thank you.
Speaker 1: If someone says come on to my podcast, I will
Speaker 1: say no.
Speaker 3: I will normally say yes, but not if it's a
Speaker 3: hereditary thing. Anyway. So yeah, two nipples, and I'm giving
Speaker 3: them both to Rex the dog, who I think in
Speaker 3: my memory survive.
Speaker 1: Tell yeah, yeah, I guess I'm gonna go three point
Speaker 1: two five, and I I get to give one get
Speaker 1: I would give one to Annie. I'm to give one
Speaker 1: to Anne Dowd's performance when she's pretending to not know
Speaker 1: about the doormat, because I just think it's a really
Speaker 1: funny moment where she's like, Oh, your mom made these,
Speaker 1: that's weird. I really enjoy that moment every time. Give
Speaker 1: one to Charlie. She did nothing wrong. She didn't ask
Speaker 1: to be born for crying out loud.
Speaker 3: She didn't have to have a payment demon put inside her.
Speaker 1: I know. And I'll give point my last point two
Speaker 1: five to Steve. He did his best.
Speaker 4: I think I would be swayed down to like a
Speaker 4: three because, if I think about it, everything we've talked about.
Speaker 4: I have also had my critiques about how how those
Speaker 4: types of things landed in this movie. Do I have
Speaker 4: to give these away?
Speaker 3: You don't have to.
Speaker 1: You don't have to. You can keep them for yourself.
Speaker 4: I don't know if I want to keep those in
Speaker 4: my house. I think they'll bring some bad juju.
Speaker 3: You can put them in the treehouse if you.
Speaker 4: Want yeah, we can put the space heaters on for
Speaker 4: them to keep them warm as well.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, well, Paaloma, thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 4: Thanks so much for having me and talking about this
Speaker 4: with me.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh. And before you go, tell us a
Speaker 1: little bit about your book and where we can where
Speaker 1: we can find it.
Speaker 4: So my short story collection is called Mouth. It is
Speaker 4: a collection of eleven dark, weird, surreal stories that are
Speaker 4: mostly centered on women. So if you liked Hereditary and
Speaker 4: you like weird stuff and want to feel uncomfortable while
Speaker 4: reading or watching something, maybe check out my book, which
Speaker 4: is wherever books are sold.
Speaker 3: As I say, we'll link to it in the description.
Speaker 1: Of this episode wonderful it fuck it rocks and.
Speaker 3: Uh where else can people follow you on social media?
Speaker 4: Maybe you can find me on Instagram and a very
Speaker 4: infrequently to Twitter at Polo mioo.
Speaker 3: And you can follow us on Instagram at Bechdel Cast.
Speaker 3: You can subscribe to our Matreon at patreon dot com
Speaker 3: slash Bechdel Cast, where there lives an episode on Midsummar.
Speaker 3: So if you want to check out our thoughts on
Speaker 3: ari Asta's other horror movie from this era.
Speaker 1: Yeah, don't, don't hold your breath on the bow as
Speaker 1: Afraid episode, but uh, you got your aster episodes, you freaks.
Speaker 3: Hope you're happy, but yeah, go over to our Matreon.
Speaker 3: It's five dollars a month and it gets you access
Speaker 3: to the entire back catalog of our over one hundred
Speaker 3: bonus episodes and enjoy a fun, goofy little theme that
Speaker 3: we conjure up every month.
Speaker 1: And you can get merch at tepa slash The Bechdel Cast.
Speaker 1: It's later polohoma is. I'm gonna let her go to
Speaker 1: bed and uh, don't let payment bite. Bye bye bye.
Speaker 3: The Bechdel Cast is a production of iHeartMedia, hosted by
Speaker 3: Caitlin Derante and Jamie Loftis, produced by Sophie Lichterman, edited
Speaker 3: by Mola Board. Our theme song was composed by Mike
Speaker 3: Kaplan with vocals by Katherine Voskresenski. Our logo and merch
Speaker 3: is designed by Jamie Loftis and a special thanks to
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