1
00:00:04,360 --> 00:00:07,280
Speaker 1: Hey, you welcome to Weird House Cinema. Rewind, this is

2
00:00:07,400 --> 00:00:11,640
Speaker 1: Rob Lamb. Today it's gonna be We're gonna be revisiting

3
00:00:12,119 --> 00:00:15,400
Speaker 1: an episode that originally published five sixteen, twenty twenty five.

4
00:00:15,520 --> 00:00:21,760
Speaker 1: It is nineteen seventy one's Daughters of Darkness. Such as stylish, beautiful,

5
00:00:21,760 --> 00:00:24,520
Speaker 1: and haunting vampire story. Let's jump right in.

6
00:00:27,840 --> 00:00:35,159
Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

7
00:00:38,440 --> 00:00:40,960
Speaker 1: Hey you welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob

8
00:00:41,040 --> 00:00:44,680
Speaker 1: Lamb and this is Joe McCormick, and we're back with Yes,

9
00:00:44,720 --> 00:00:48,640
Speaker 1: another classic erotic vampire movie. I know it wasn't that

10
00:00:48,760 --> 00:00:51,280
Speaker 1: long ago that we covered nineteen eighty three's The Hunger,

11
00:00:52,120 --> 00:00:56,760
Speaker 1: But despite some thematic similarities, today's film, nineteen seventy one's

12
00:00:56,840 --> 00:01:01,800
Speaker 1: Daughters of Darkness is an entirely different manic experience. Like

13
00:01:01,840 --> 00:01:05,680
Speaker 1: The Hunger, it does paint with erotic cues while also

14
00:01:05,760 --> 00:01:09,240
Speaker 1: pursuing its own high minded ideas. It'd be easy to

15
00:01:09,720 --> 00:01:12,080
Speaker 1: dismiss this one, certainly if you just watch the trailers,

16
00:01:12,160 --> 00:01:14,160
Speaker 1: or maybe just look at a few posters as being

17
00:01:14,280 --> 00:01:17,679
Speaker 1: more in the exploitation zone. But this is a beautiful

18
00:01:17,720 --> 00:01:21,640
Speaker 1: and haunting film that is composed with deliberate style and intention.

19
00:01:22,240 --> 00:01:25,839
Speaker 3: Yeah, I would agree with that. Despite its main themes

20
00:01:25,880 --> 00:01:28,600
Speaker 3: being sort of love, sex and romance in the context

21
00:01:28,680 --> 00:01:32,720
Speaker 3: of murder and a vampire story, it's not a very

22
00:01:32,840 --> 00:01:37,840
Speaker 3: romantic film. Actually, it's like it shows a quite bleak

23
00:01:38,000 --> 00:01:41,880
Speaker 3: side of love, but is psychologically fascinating.

24
00:01:42,160 --> 00:01:46,640
Speaker 1: Yes, it's very, very fascinating on the psychological front. Now

25
00:01:47,120 --> 00:01:49,480
Speaker 1: other ways that it ties in with past episodes of

26
00:01:49,480 --> 00:01:52,880
Speaker 1: Weird House, I think we could consider this another off

27
00:01:52,920 --> 00:01:56,760
Speaker 1: season European holiday horror film. Okay, similar in ways to

28
00:01:56,800 --> 00:02:00,560
Speaker 1: Footprints on the Moon. Hmm, all right, I think it

29
00:02:00,720 --> 00:02:04,800
Speaker 1: is our first Belgian movie, though this was an international

30
00:02:04,800 --> 00:02:08,160
Speaker 1: co production, so ultimately, like this was a multi national

31
00:02:08,680 --> 00:02:11,480
Speaker 1: effort to make Daughters of Darkness. We'll get into some

32
00:02:11,560 --> 00:02:12,880
Speaker 1: of the details of that as we go.

33
00:02:13,200 --> 00:02:17,200
Speaker 3: There was a lot of seemingly random correlation between accents

34
00:02:17,280 --> 00:02:19,440
Speaker 3: and where characters are supposed to be from.

35
00:02:19,800 --> 00:02:26,119
Speaker 1: Yeah. Also, of note, this is our second Lady Bathory

36
00:02:26,480 --> 00:02:32,560
Speaker 1: Lady by film. This is a character that pops up

37
00:02:32,800 --> 00:02:36,320
Speaker 1: of course, is of course, you know, has historical origins,

38
00:02:36,760 --> 00:02:40,480
Speaker 1: but often pops up in far from historically accurate horror

39
00:02:40,560 --> 00:02:43,560
Speaker 1: and horror related media. So you hear her name pronounced

40
00:02:43,560 --> 00:02:47,960
Speaker 1: in various ways, from Bathory to BATORI we get the

41
00:02:48,080 --> 00:02:51,160
Speaker 1: I think the much more convincing buttry in this picture.

42
00:02:51,240 --> 00:02:54,840
Speaker 1: But a version of this character last popped up on

43
00:02:54,880 --> 00:02:57,639
Speaker 1: Weird House Cinema in the Paul Nashy film Night of

44
00:02:57,680 --> 00:02:59,160
Speaker 1: the Werewolf from nineteen eighty.

45
00:02:59,440 --> 00:03:03,639
Speaker 3: Oh okay, I vaguely recall that did we ever talk

46
00:03:03,720 --> 00:03:06,880
Speaker 3: about how there's a metal band that I've actually never

47
00:03:06,960 --> 00:03:09,240
Speaker 3: listened to, can't vouch from, don't know if they're any good,

48
00:03:09,280 --> 00:03:12,000
Speaker 3: but a metal band called Bathory seems like right kind

49
00:03:12,040 --> 00:03:15,040
Speaker 3: of theme, you know, murder, bathing in blood, that kind

50
00:03:15,040 --> 00:03:17,760
Speaker 3: of thing, some kind of metal band. But they've got

51
00:03:17,800 --> 00:03:20,400
Speaker 3: one of those calligraphy fonts on their name, and it

52
00:03:20,440 --> 00:03:22,000
Speaker 3: looks like it says bat Lord.

53
00:03:23,280 --> 00:03:27,440
Speaker 1: Well, that couldn't help I think the already confused issue

54
00:03:27,480 --> 00:03:28,760
Speaker 1: of the pronunciation there.

55
00:03:28,960 --> 00:03:31,280
Speaker 3: Oh right, yeah, so you say, but Torri, I say

56
00:03:31,320 --> 00:03:31,840
Speaker 3: bat Lord?

57
00:03:32,280 --> 00:03:35,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, probably and bat lord you know it does?

58
00:03:35,960 --> 00:03:39,320
Speaker 1: You know? That's I think that's the confusing thing about it. Lady.

59
00:03:39,440 --> 00:03:44,320
Speaker 1: The stories of Lady Butry are often associated with a

60
00:03:44,400 --> 00:03:48,480
Speaker 1: bath of blood. Yeah, it's she's associated to some degree

61
00:03:48,480 --> 00:03:52,280
Speaker 1: with vampires and therefore vampires and bats, so you know,

62
00:03:52,320 --> 00:03:53,880
Speaker 1: things can get out of whack pretty quickly.

63
00:03:54,040 --> 00:03:56,760
Speaker 3: There's actually a scene in Daughters of Darkness where she

64
00:03:56,880 --> 00:03:59,200
Speaker 3: puts her cape up like a bat, even though she

65
00:03:59,320 --> 00:04:01,720
Speaker 3: never transform into a bat in the movie. We get

66
00:04:01,760 --> 00:04:05,240
Speaker 3: no animal transformations at all in the film, but she's

67
00:04:05,280 --> 00:04:07,280
Speaker 3: like standing up in a big sand dune in the

68
00:04:07,400 --> 00:04:09,960
Speaker 3: night time and we see the kind of purple blue

69
00:04:10,000 --> 00:04:12,080
Speaker 3: sky behind her, and she just like puts up the

70
00:04:12,120 --> 00:04:12,840
Speaker 3: bat wings.

71
00:04:13,000 --> 00:04:16,719
Speaker 1: It's a beautiful shot. Yeah, yeah, classic. This is a

72
00:04:16,760 --> 00:04:19,520
Speaker 1: film that has a very strong cult following at this point.

73
00:04:20,320 --> 00:04:22,840
Speaker 1: It's been popping up on lists for me over the

74
00:04:22,920 --> 00:04:26,919
Speaker 1: years whenever I look up interesting vampire films, you know,

75
00:04:26,960 --> 00:04:29,800
Speaker 1: certainly from the nineteen seventies, and this one also came

76
00:04:29,880 --> 00:04:32,800
Speaker 1: highly recommended from the folks at Videodrome here in Atlanta,

77
00:04:32,880 --> 00:04:35,279
Speaker 1: who I believe hosted a screening of it just last year,

78
00:04:35,279 --> 00:04:37,120
Speaker 1: but I don't think I was in town at the time,

79
00:04:37,160 --> 00:04:37,960
Speaker 1: so I did not go.

80
00:04:38,320 --> 00:04:40,120
Speaker 3: Am I right that you ended up picking this because

81
00:04:40,120 --> 00:04:42,840
Speaker 3: you were asking them for French films, and this is

82
00:04:43,120 --> 00:04:44,880
Speaker 3: this is as close as you could get to a

83
00:04:44,920 --> 00:04:46,279
Speaker 3: wee French movie you wanted.

84
00:04:46,480 --> 00:04:48,320
Speaker 1: They have a lot of French films, and there are

85
00:04:48,320 --> 00:04:51,440
Speaker 1: a lot of French horror films. It's I've found it

86
00:04:51,640 --> 00:04:54,919
Speaker 1: challenging over the years here to pick one, pick a

87
00:04:54,960 --> 00:04:58,760
Speaker 1: French weird house film that is also this sort of

88
00:04:58,760 --> 00:05:00,440
Speaker 1: film that would be fun for us to talk about. Like,

89
00:05:00,480 --> 00:05:05,360
Speaker 1: there's some really hard hitting French horror films and they're

90
00:05:05,360 --> 00:05:08,159
Speaker 1: not necessarily my cup of tea or necessarily what we'd

91
00:05:08,160 --> 00:05:10,480
Speaker 1: want to talk about on the show. I don't know,

92
00:05:10,520 --> 00:05:12,360
Speaker 1: and some others just didn't feel like the right pick

93
00:05:12,400 --> 00:05:15,400
Speaker 1: at the right time. So I'm always open to listener

94
00:05:15,560 --> 00:05:16,760
Speaker 1: suggestions on this front.

95
00:05:16,960 --> 00:05:19,920
Speaker 3: I've got a few on my list. Yeah, yeah, maybe

96
00:05:19,960 --> 00:05:22,400
Speaker 3: we'll get around to them. But again what you said earlier,

97
00:05:22,640 --> 00:05:26,400
Speaker 3: Daughters of Darkness, despite being an international production, is mostly

98
00:05:26,640 --> 00:05:30,320
Speaker 3: Belgian in origin, and it takes place within Belgium as well.

99
00:05:30,360 --> 00:05:33,720
Speaker 3: It takes place at a seaside town or a seaside

100
00:05:33,720 --> 00:05:37,400
Speaker 3: city on the Belgian coast called Ostan or I think,

101
00:05:37,440 --> 00:05:40,799
Speaker 3: depending on whether you have the Dutch pronunciation or the French,

102
00:05:40,800 --> 00:05:45,159
Speaker 3: it might be Ostend as well. But it's this like

103
00:05:45,360 --> 00:05:50,400
Speaker 3: deserted seaside community, which is one of the bleakest types

104
00:05:50,440 --> 00:05:53,159
Speaker 3: of settings. There is I've realized, like being next to

105
00:05:53,240 --> 00:05:57,200
Speaker 3: the ocean, but there being nobody on the beach, that's

106
00:05:57,240 --> 00:05:59,480
Speaker 3: the thing that gives me chills when I see it.

107
00:05:59,760 --> 00:06:03,240
Speaker 3: I didn't realize that really until this movie.

108
00:06:03,640 --> 00:06:05,880
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I mean this This film is very well shot.

109
00:06:07,400 --> 00:06:12,520
Speaker 1: A lot of intense selection went into the various scenes

110
00:06:12,560 --> 00:06:14,039
Speaker 1: that we have in the in the picture, and so

111
00:06:14,720 --> 00:06:18,440
Speaker 1: they really lean into this idea of you know, the

112
00:06:18,480 --> 00:06:21,840
Speaker 1: desolate seaside town of the of the coast being kind

113
00:06:21,880 --> 00:06:27,760
Speaker 1: of like the edge of civilization and time and so forth. Yeah,

114
00:06:27,920 --> 00:06:31,600
Speaker 1: definitely an off season vacation movie, though I'm to understand

115
00:06:31,600 --> 00:06:34,480
Speaker 1: they didn't necessarily shoot everything off season, like some of

116
00:06:34,520 --> 00:06:37,640
Speaker 1: this stuff was shot in July. Wow, huh.

117
00:06:37,960 --> 00:06:39,800
Speaker 3: To refine what I said a little bit, Actually, I

118
00:06:39,839 --> 00:06:43,320
Speaker 3: think it's specifically the fact that it's like a beach

119
00:06:43,560 --> 00:06:46,440
Speaker 3: made to be full of people, so you see chairs

120
00:06:46,480 --> 00:06:50,839
Speaker 3: and little changing houses and everything like it's it's usually populated.

121
00:06:50,880 --> 00:06:53,120
Speaker 3: I guess it would be less it would have less

122
00:06:53,120 --> 00:06:55,159
Speaker 3: of this kind of impact if it were more of

123
00:06:55,240 --> 00:06:57,719
Speaker 3: a beach in a wilderness. But it's not that it's

124
00:06:57,720 --> 00:07:00,600
Speaker 3: a beach right in the right world. The hotel let out,

125
00:07:00,640 --> 00:07:03,240
Speaker 3: so it should be full of tourists and it's not.

126
00:07:03,640 --> 00:07:07,320
Speaker 1: Yeah, even when they go to Bruges. Yeah, there's very

127
00:07:07,360 --> 00:07:09,840
Speaker 1: few people around. Like everything feels a little bit like

128
00:07:09,880 --> 00:07:13,360
Speaker 1: a ghost town for our characters here crazy the only

129
00:07:13,400 --> 00:07:14,000
Speaker 1: different world.

130
00:07:14,400 --> 00:07:17,560
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, the only local attraction in Bruges is the

131
00:07:17,560 --> 00:07:20,920
Speaker 3: the murder victim. He's like, yeah, get your tickets to

132
00:07:20,960 --> 00:07:23,360
Speaker 3: see the hand pop out of the gurney one more time.

133
00:07:23,440 --> 00:07:26,440
Speaker 1: Yeah, you guys didn't go to the museums. What's what's up? Oh?

134
00:07:26,480 --> 00:07:28,640
Speaker 1: They do ride uh what's it called? They write? They

135
00:07:28,720 --> 00:07:31,040
Speaker 1: ride one of those little boats in the canals. Yeah.

136
00:07:31,680 --> 00:07:33,240
Speaker 1: Is it a gondola if it's in Bruges.

137
00:07:33,400 --> 00:07:36,840
Speaker 3: I don't know technically, but they do ride one with

138
00:07:36,960 --> 00:07:43,120
Speaker 3: the dude wearing the the UFO Elvis sunglasses. They're crazy. Yeah,

139
00:07:43,160 --> 00:07:44,920
Speaker 3: we will have a lot to say. I'm sure about

140
00:07:44,920 --> 00:07:47,800
Speaker 3: the fashion choices throughout the film, because this movie is

141
00:07:48,600 --> 00:07:51,800
Speaker 3: extremely uh invested in style.

142
00:07:52,880 --> 00:07:55,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, because it's not only a film full of

143
00:07:55,160 --> 00:07:59,880
Speaker 1: dismal landscapes, but also just dazzling splashes of color, generally

144
00:08:00,120 --> 00:08:04,600
Speaker 1: red and green, sometimes white, pure light even and of

145
00:08:04,600 --> 00:08:07,440
Speaker 1: course darkness, and often all of these elements seem to

146
00:08:07,440 --> 00:08:09,480
Speaker 1: be like speaking in a code you know, like, why

147
00:08:09,560 --> 00:08:13,280
Speaker 1: is this actor wearing red right now? And what does

148
00:08:13,320 --> 00:08:15,240
Speaker 1: that mean when suddenly they're wearing white and this one's

149
00:08:15,240 --> 00:08:18,160
Speaker 1: wearing red. It doesn't feel random. It feels very intentional,

150
00:08:18,520 --> 00:08:21,320
Speaker 1: but like it's blinking a code to me that I'm

151
00:08:21,320 --> 00:08:22,400
Speaker 1: supposed to decipher.

152
00:08:22,760 --> 00:08:26,400
Speaker 3: Like the character Valerie is very coded as white and gold,

153
00:08:26,600 --> 00:08:31,520
Speaker 3: whereas the character of the Countess is very black, white

154
00:08:31,720 --> 00:08:37,679
Speaker 3: and red, which has some kind of unsavory associations. Even

155
00:08:37,720 --> 00:08:40,040
Speaker 3: if you don't make the connection consciously, I feel like

156
00:08:40,080 --> 00:08:42,160
Speaker 3: you can kind of sense it there. This looks like

157
00:08:42,200 --> 00:08:43,560
Speaker 3: a flag I've seen before.

158
00:08:44,240 --> 00:08:48,280
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I was watching some extras. I think I

159
00:08:48,360 --> 00:08:51,559
Speaker 1: was listening to the commentary track with the director and

160
00:08:52,200 --> 00:08:54,640
Speaker 1: one of the screenwriters, Harry come out. He said, these

161
00:08:54,640 --> 00:08:58,360
Speaker 1: are the colors of dictatorship, and they're reflected throughout the

162
00:08:58,400 --> 00:09:01,520
Speaker 1: film and also in this character. But then also sometimes

163
00:09:01,559 --> 00:09:02,360
Speaker 1: she's a mirror ball.

164
00:09:03,160 --> 00:09:06,240
Speaker 3: That's true. Yeah, the full sequin dress. Yeah, she's the

165
00:09:06,280 --> 00:09:11,080
Speaker 3: disco ball. Yeah, some fabulous gowns. Fabulous gowns. But like

166
00:09:11,200 --> 00:09:16,880
Speaker 3: some other romantically themed vampire movies, this movie also, I think,

167
00:09:16,960 --> 00:09:22,680
Speaker 3: is very concerned with the kind of subtleties of power

168
00:09:22,720 --> 00:09:25,800
Speaker 3: and domination within romantic relationships.

169
00:09:26,440 --> 00:09:28,680
Speaker 1: Yeah, as many have pointed out over the years and

170
00:09:28,760 --> 00:09:31,319
Speaker 1: will become obvious in our discussion but also in any

171
00:09:31,360 --> 00:09:33,840
Speaker 1: of your individual viewings of the picture, it's a film

172
00:09:33,880 --> 00:09:38,160
Speaker 1: deeply concerned with the patriarchal control, and we might very

173
00:09:38,280 --> 00:09:46,400
Speaker 1: roughly see Stephan, our lead male character, as paradoxically an

174
00:09:46,400 --> 00:09:49,640
Speaker 1: individual who exists on both sides of this control, directly

175
00:09:49,679 --> 00:09:54,680
Speaker 1: subjicated by patriarchal control and also exerting increasingly violent patriarchal

176
00:09:54,720 --> 00:09:58,200
Speaker 1: control over his new bride and any women who ventured

177
00:09:58,200 --> 00:10:02,520
Speaker 1: too close. But again, not all of this often feels

178
00:10:02,559 --> 00:10:06,880
Speaker 1: like it is very It's presented in a at least

179
00:10:06,880 --> 00:10:09,800
Speaker 1: a semi cryptic fashion, so it's not too on the

180
00:10:09,840 --> 00:10:12,760
Speaker 1: nose with a lot of these points. Sometimes it's a

181
00:10:12,760 --> 00:10:14,839
Speaker 1: little on the nose, but but a lot of it.

182
00:10:14,840 --> 00:10:16,160
Speaker 1: It gives you a lot to think about. It's a

183
00:10:16,200 --> 00:10:18,680
Speaker 1: lot to contemplate concerning the psychology of the picture.

184
00:10:19,080 --> 00:10:21,240
Speaker 3: I liked what you said about it feeling like it

185
00:10:21,280 --> 00:10:24,920
Speaker 3: takes place in another world that's really sinking in for me.

186
00:10:25,000 --> 00:10:26,280
Speaker 1: Now. I don't think I.

187
00:10:26,280 --> 00:10:29,600
Speaker 3: Put it in those words myself, but yes, this movie

188
00:10:29,640 --> 00:10:34,119
Speaker 3: does feel like it is a place where the characters

189
00:10:34,160 --> 00:10:38,200
Speaker 3: have kind of ventured outside of reality and outside of

190
00:10:38,240 --> 00:10:42,760
Speaker 3: normal life into these otherwise deserted play places. Like I

191
00:10:42,760 --> 00:10:46,440
Speaker 3: think it's significant that most of the film takes place

192
00:10:46,559 --> 00:10:51,520
Speaker 3: in luxury environments, environments where people go for recreation to

193
00:10:51,559 --> 00:10:54,360
Speaker 3: have a good time a fancy expensive hotel or these

194
00:10:54,360 --> 00:10:59,360
Speaker 3: beachside resorts and tour buses and train compartments and you know,

195
00:10:59,400 --> 00:11:03,079
Speaker 3: like a luxury train compartment in private compartment. They're all

196
00:11:03,120 --> 00:11:08,040
Speaker 3: like places where rich people play. And our characters come

197
00:11:08,120 --> 00:11:11,280
Speaker 3: into these places where rich people play, but they're deserted

198
00:11:11,320 --> 00:11:14,040
Speaker 3: of all the other people. It's like they were set

199
00:11:14,120 --> 00:11:16,640
Speaker 3: up as some kind of experiment, like just to have

200
00:11:16,800 --> 00:11:22,120
Speaker 3: these characters in particular kind of clash together and interact.

201
00:11:22,559 --> 00:11:27,400
Speaker 3: There's something that feels intentionally kind of surreal and artificial

202
00:11:27,440 --> 00:11:30,120
Speaker 3: about it, like that it is supposed to feel that way,

203
00:11:30,280 --> 00:11:34,319
Speaker 3: that like we're kind of dolls being played with. Does

204
00:11:34,360 --> 00:11:35,160
Speaker 3: that make any sense?

205
00:11:35,760 --> 00:11:39,200
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it does. And like to the dreamlike aspect

206
00:11:39,240 --> 00:11:41,480
Speaker 1: of things, the non reality aspects of things. I mean,

207
00:11:41,520 --> 00:11:44,079
Speaker 1: there was at one point in one of the extras

208
00:11:44,120 --> 00:11:48,400
Speaker 1: I was watching or listening to, the director said films

209
00:11:48,400 --> 00:11:51,559
Speaker 1: are not reality, they are dreams. Which I think is

210
00:11:52,280 --> 00:11:55,120
Speaker 1: something that does It certainly resonates throughout this picture.

211
00:11:55,360 --> 00:11:58,280
Speaker 3: That makes sense having seen this movie. Yeah, that spirit

212
00:11:58,360 --> 00:12:00,840
Speaker 3: is running through it. There is a dream like quality

213
00:12:00,880 --> 00:12:07,200
Speaker 3: where you know, actions aren't always fully explained, they're not

214
00:12:07,240 --> 00:12:11,120
Speaker 3: always logical, but they also make a kind of symbolic sense.

215
00:12:11,240 --> 00:12:13,680
Speaker 3: It feels like they mean something, even if you couldn't

216
00:12:13,679 --> 00:12:14,400
Speaker 3: say what it is.

217
00:12:15,400 --> 00:12:18,760
Speaker 1: Yeah, and this is of course intensified by so many

218
00:12:18,800 --> 00:12:20,960
Speaker 1: of the different visual choices that are made. There are

219
00:12:20,960 --> 00:12:24,040
Speaker 1: these frequent red out transitions that I really liked in

220
00:12:24,040 --> 00:12:27,079
Speaker 1: the picture, which of course, you know, feels very appropriate

221
00:12:27,080 --> 00:12:30,800
Speaker 1: for a vampire film, a film concerned with blood, but

222
00:12:30,880 --> 00:12:33,600
Speaker 1: it also just adds to this feeling that like everything

223
00:12:33,720 --> 00:12:36,400
Speaker 1: is some sort of a fever dream, you know, and

224
00:12:36,440 --> 00:12:40,240
Speaker 1: we're just sort of, you know, redding out from one

225
00:12:40,280 --> 00:12:43,520
Speaker 1: scene into the next, as the blood is surging to

226
00:12:43,600 --> 00:12:44,480
Speaker 1: our head or something.

227
00:12:44,960 --> 00:12:47,640
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's interesting. There's another thing I was thinking about

228
00:12:47,640 --> 00:12:51,240
Speaker 3: the transitions in the movie. Did you notice a kind

229
00:12:51,240 --> 00:12:54,160
Speaker 3: of weird pattern where a scene will kind of like

230
00:12:54,640 --> 00:12:58,360
Speaker 3: escalate to negativity where characters, like at the end of

231
00:12:58,400 --> 00:13:02,640
Speaker 3: a scene are in maximal conflict, and then it'll cut

232
00:13:02,720 --> 00:13:04,520
Speaker 3: and that'll be the end of the scene, and then

233
00:13:04,559 --> 00:13:07,600
Speaker 3: the next time we see the characters again, they are

234
00:13:07,960 --> 00:13:12,960
Speaker 3: behaving cooperatively or even happily together, and do you know

235
00:13:12,960 --> 00:13:13,800
Speaker 3: what I'm talking.

236
00:13:13,520 --> 00:13:15,640
Speaker 1: About, Yeah, yeah, I know what you mean. Yeah, there's

237
00:13:15,640 --> 00:13:18,600
Speaker 1: several key examples of this, and they Yeah, it does

238
00:13:18,640 --> 00:13:20,640
Speaker 1: sort of add to this kind of dreamlike quality, but

239
00:13:20,720 --> 00:13:23,480
Speaker 1: also in a way that I mean, it doesn't in

240
00:13:23,520 --> 00:13:26,280
Speaker 1: the sense that the dream we see here is a

241
00:13:26,280 --> 00:13:28,600
Speaker 1: reflection of real life. So it's not like the characters

242
00:13:28,640 --> 00:13:33,280
Speaker 1: are behaving like unrealistically, but we were getting that kind

243
00:13:33,280 --> 00:13:35,800
Speaker 1: of like kaleidoscope vision of their lives.

244
00:13:36,000 --> 00:13:39,600
Speaker 3: I'm thinking specifically of the kind of like horrible awkwardness

245
00:13:39,720 --> 00:13:42,840
Speaker 3: while while they're on the bus returning from Bruges, well,

246
00:13:42,960 --> 00:13:45,520
Speaker 3: Valerie and Stephan they have this kind of argument about

247
00:13:45,559 --> 00:13:48,120
Speaker 3: something that really should be a major red flag about

248
00:13:48,120 --> 00:13:51,200
Speaker 3: Stepha and like this guy is oops, I'm married a

249
00:13:51,240 --> 00:13:54,640
Speaker 3: serial killer. Like this guy is not good, and then

250
00:13:54,679 --> 00:13:57,480
Speaker 3: it gets even weirder from there, and then we cut

251
00:13:57,480 --> 00:13:59,160
Speaker 3: away after that, and the next time we see them,

252
00:13:59,160 --> 00:14:01,080
Speaker 3: they're coming in the or from out of the rain,

253
00:14:01,240 --> 00:14:04,160
Speaker 3: like laughing and just you know, having a great time.

254
00:14:05,000 --> 00:14:07,640
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I mean, maybe they're they're kind of faking

255
00:14:07,679 --> 00:14:09,920
Speaker 1: it a little bit there, I don't know, but we.

256
00:14:09,880 --> 00:14:14,000
Speaker 3: Don't see the resolutions from those moments where the terror

257
00:14:14,080 --> 00:14:16,400
Speaker 3: or the awkwardness is just left hanging.

258
00:14:16,360 --> 00:14:20,240
Speaker 1: Yeah, which I think kind of works in a major

259
00:14:20,280 --> 00:14:23,520
Speaker 1: way because since we don't see resolution, we don't see

260
00:14:23,520 --> 00:14:26,800
Speaker 1: them patching it up. For us, it feels all the

261
00:14:26,840 --> 00:14:30,240
Speaker 1: more unresolved. You know, we don't see the tender moment

262
00:14:30,320 --> 00:14:34,000
Speaker 1: that allows them to move on to the next few hours,

263
00:14:34,040 --> 00:14:36,520
Speaker 1: So we're like, what are you guys doing here? This

264
00:14:36,600 --> 00:14:39,280
Speaker 1: is not working. This is a this is a doomed

265
00:14:39,360 --> 00:14:41,480
Speaker 1: romance even without vampires involved.

266
00:14:41,680 --> 00:14:45,840
Speaker 3: Okay, So normally we would do some trailer audio about

267
00:14:45,880 --> 00:14:48,280
Speaker 3: the film that rob understand that you checked out the

268
00:14:48,320 --> 00:14:49,720
Speaker 3: trailers and they're no good.

269
00:14:50,160 --> 00:14:53,200
Speaker 1: Oh they're they're terrible. Like, I'm so glad I watched

270
00:14:53,200 --> 00:14:56,080
Speaker 1: this movie without having seen a trailer for it, because

271
00:14:56,120 --> 00:14:58,680
Speaker 1: this is one of those cases where the trailers either

272
00:14:59,280 --> 00:15:03,040
Speaker 1: misrepresent things about the film or outright spoil things, and

273
00:15:03,080 --> 00:15:06,440
Speaker 1: certainly visually spoil a lot of the key moments. So

274
00:15:06,760 --> 00:15:10,520
Speaker 1: I would advise against the trailers. Just just pick up

275
00:15:10,520 --> 00:15:12,360
Speaker 1: the film if you want to see it, and if

276
00:15:12,400 --> 00:15:15,120
Speaker 1: you want to see it, You're in luck because this

277
00:15:15,200 --> 00:15:17,520
Speaker 1: one's presently available to stream, at least in the States

278
00:15:17,560 --> 00:15:20,200
Speaker 1: on a number of platforms, including Shutter and two B,

279
00:15:20,440 --> 00:15:24,320
Speaker 1: so like there are options at all, you know, budget levels.

280
00:15:24,960 --> 00:15:27,800
Speaker 1: And there's an excellent Blu ray of it out from

281
00:15:27,800 --> 00:15:31,360
Speaker 1: Blue Underground from several years back, and that's what I

282
00:15:31,400 --> 00:15:34,120
Speaker 1: watched it on. I rented it from Videodrome, and it

283
00:15:34,160 --> 00:15:36,760
Speaker 1: has a great array of extras and commentary tracks.

284
00:15:37,720 --> 00:15:39,600
Speaker 3: I just had to stream this one. But yeah, I

285
00:15:39,640 --> 00:15:41,880
Speaker 3: would say more than most of the movies we watched,

286
00:15:41,960 --> 00:15:43,680
Speaker 3: this is one where I really want to know more

287
00:15:43,720 --> 00:15:47,120
Speaker 3: about the process, so I would be interested in those extras.

288
00:15:47,320 --> 00:15:50,720
Speaker 1: I want to know what the creators were thinking. Yeah,

289
00:15:50,760 --> 00:15:54,400
Speaker 1: it's fascinating. I didn't have time to even explore all

290
00:15:54,880 --> 00:15:57,840
Speaker 1: of the extras, and because they're like three different commentary tracks,

291
00:15:57,920 --> 00:16:02,640
Speaker 1: you know, like multiple hours worth of content, and you know,

292
00:16:02,640 --> 00:16:04,880
Speaker 1: it seems like there's a lot of interesting behind the

293
00:16:04,880 --> 00:16:07,960
Speaker 1: scenes stories and you know, I'll pass on some of those,

294
00:16:08,000 --> 00:16:10,320
Speaker 1: but you know, this is a film that people have

295
00:16:10,360 --> 00:16:14,120
Speaker 1: been talking about ensuring their experiences making it for decades

296
00:16:14,160 --> 00:16:16,000
Speaker 1: at this point, and so you know there's a lot

297
00:16:16,040 --> 00:16:26,160
Speaker 1: of lore out there, all right, Let's talk about the

298
00:16:26,160 --> 00:16:28,600
Speaker 1: people who made the picture, starting at the top with

299
00:16:28,680 --> 00:16:32,840
Speaker 1: Harry Kommel, the director and one of the screenwriters. Born

300
00:16:32,960 --> 00:16:36,440
Speaker 1: nineteen forty Belgian film director, best known for this film

301
00:16:36,520 --> 00:16:40,000
Speaker 1: certainly internationally, which achieved cult status throughout Europe and the

302
00:16:40,080 --> 00:16:43,600
Speaker 1: United States and is now considered a classic of its genre.

303
00:16:44,440 --> 00:16:46,600
Speaker 1: He was active as a director from around nineteen fifty

304
00:16:46,640 --> 00:16:50,000
Speaker 1: three through two thousand and three, and while Daughters of

305
00:16:50,080 --> 00:16:53,720
Speaker 1: Darkness was his big cold hit, his most critically successful

306
00:16:53,760 --> 00:16:56,920
Speaker 1: film was the follow up I believe it also came

307
00:16:56,920 --> 00:16:59,920
Speaker 1: out in nineteen seventy one, The Legend of doom House

308
00:17:00,200 --> 00:17:04,480
Speaker 1: or It's also known as Malpatry. That one stars Orson

309
00:17:04,560 --> 00:17:06,000
Speaker 1: Wells and Susan Hampshire.

310
00:17:06,800 --> 00:17:08,239
Speaker 3: I've had this one on the list for a bit,

311
00:17:08,320 --> 00:17:11,240
Speaker 3: but I've never seen it. Of course, it's seventies Orson Wells,

312
00:17:11,280 --> 00:17:14,960
Speaker 3: which I'm here for that, and it just looked like

313
00:17:15,040 --> 00:17:17,960
Speaker 3: it looked suitably weird, so I've been wanting to check

314
00:17:17,960 --> 00:17:18,640
Speaker 3: it out for a bit.

315
00:17:19,080 --> 00:17:21,919
Speaker 1: Yeah, supposed to be great. Another picture of his note

316
00:17:22,000 --> 00:17:25,320
Speaker 1: is nineteen sixty nine's Monsieur Howarden, which also has something

317
00:17:25,320 --> 00:17:27,800
Speaker 1: of a following concerning the tale of a nineteenth century

318
00:17:27,800 --> 00:17:30,399
Speaker 1: French female cross dresser whose two male lovers fight a

319
00:17:30,480 --> 00:17:33,840
Speaker 1: duel over her, apparently based on an historic person, but

320
00:17:33,840 --> 00:17:36,840
Speaker 1: I don't know the full story there. But as far

321
00:17:36,880 --> 00:17:40,600
Speaker 1: as Daughters of Darkness goes splendid work here and the

322
00:17:41,240 --> 00:17:44,080
Speaker 1: interview extras that I've watched and listened to, he comes

323
00:17:44,080 --> 00:17:48,679
Speaker 1: off as very detail oriented. I know that others have

324
00:17:48,720 --> 00:17:51,240
Speaker 1: also talked about him being very detail oriented and a

325
00:17:51,280 --> 00:17:55,600
Speaker 1: bit weird. But he points out that with Daughters of Darkness,

326
00:17:55,640 --> 00:17:57,399
Speaker 1: they really wanted to make a film that was not

327
00:17:57,440 --> 00:18:01,840
Speaker 1: only artistically solid but also fun, giving its genre trappings,

328
00:18:02,600 --> 00:18:04,439
Speaker 1: and you know, I would I would say that I

329
00:18:04,480 --> 00:18:07,480
Speaker 1: agree with that. It's you know, it's not you know,

330
00:18:07,520 --> 00:18:10,320
Speaker 1: it's not you know, an explosion every minute or anything

331
00:18:10,359 --> 00:18:11,879
Speaker 1: like that. A lot of people have pointed out that

332
00:18:11,920 --> 00:18:14,520
Speaker 1: it has maybe kind of a slow burn build in

333
00:18:14,560 --> 00:18:19,679
Speaker 1: some respects, certainly for a genre picture, But yeah, I

334
00:18:19,680 --> 00:18:22,080
Speaker 1: feel like it was pretty fun throughout.

335
00:18:21,880 --> 00:18:25,240
Speaker 3: There are certainly sometimes when it gets it gets very dark,

336
00:18:25,359 --> 00:18:29,000
Speaker 3: but it's not. It's a very attention gripping picture.

337
00:18:29,119 --> 00:18:30,120
Speaker 1: It is it is.

338
00:18:30,160 --> 00:18:33,159
Speaker 3: It is easy to stick with, at least in my experience.

339
00:18:33,640 --> 00:18:35,919
Speaker 1: All Right, moving on to some of the other writers,

340
00:18:36,240 --> 00:18:40,520
Speaker 1: Pierre Drew born nineteen forty three was also associate producer.

341
00:18:41,800 --> 00:18:45,240
Speaker 1: He is also a director in his own right. In

342
00:18:45,320 --> 00:18:48,439
Speaker 1: the extras on the Blue Underground discs, he reminisces on

343
00:18:48,480 --> 00:18:50,760
Speaker 1: the three weeks he spent writing the script with Harry

344
00:18:51,359 --> 00:18:54,919
Speaker 1: before the director who's also present in this extra with him,

345
00:18:54,960 --> 00:18:57,919
Speaker 1: reminds him that it was actually three days. They are

346
00:18:58,000 --> 00:18:59,920
Speaker 1: somewhat older at this point. It had been a long time.

347
00:19:01,680 --> 00:19:06,760
Speaker 1: But that sounds like Roger Corman and Charles Griffith. Yeah,

348
00:19:06,840 --> 00:19:10,639
Speaker 1: it's different recollections on how this came together. Yeah, but

349
00:19:10,760 --> 00:19:13,960
Speaker 1: came together it did. Drew's other credits as a writer

350
00:19:14,119 --> 00:19:19,520
Speaker 1: include nineteen eighty seven's Mascara starring Charlotte Rampling Let's See Then.

351
00:19:19,560 --> 00:19:23,440
Speaker 1: Also Jean Ferry nineteen oh six through nineteen seventy four

352
00:19:24,240 --> 00:19:27,400
Speaker 1: also credit on the screenplay French writer who also contributed

353
00:19:27,440 --> 00:19:30,320
Speaker 1: to Maltpatri that we referenced to earlier. And there are

354
00:19:30,320 --> 00:19:32,320
Speaker 1: a couple of other names that are also cited for

355
00:19:32,359 --> 00:19:35,920
Speaker 1: work on the screenplay. And I believe Kummel and Drew

356
00:19:36,040 --> 00:19:40,199
Speaker 1: also mentioned an American who did something. But I believe

357
00:19:40,359 --> 00:19:43,600
Speaker 1: that Kummel and Drew are considered like the main writers

358
00:19:43,640 --> 00:19:44,280
Speaker 1: on this picture.

359
00:19:44,480 --> 00:19:47,119
Speaker 3: But at the center of this movie, you've got a

360
00:19:47,119 --> 00:19:50,760
Speaker 3: bathory or a battory or a vampire. Let's say, so,

361
00:19:52,240 --> 00:19:54,040
Speaker 3: who is our vampire countess?

362
00:19:54,359 --> 00:19:58,440
Speaker 1: It is Delphine serik who lived nineteen thirty two through

363
00:19:58,520 --> 00:20:03,080
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety. And oh, my goodness, she is amazing in this.

364
00:20:03,080 --> 00:20:06,280
Speaker 1: This is just this is just a breathtaking performance. This

365
00:20:06,359 --> 00:20:09,560
Speaker 1: is one of those performances where anytime she is on

366
00:20:09,600 --> 00:20:11,960
Speaker 1: the screen, and thankfully she's on the screen a lot,

367
00:20:12,200 --> 00:20:15,879
Speaker 1: you're just totally captivated by every little choice she's making,

368
00:20:16,680 --> 00:20:20,160
Speaker 1: you know, with her body language, with her voice. I mean,

369
00:20:20,200 --> 00:20:25,040
Speaker 1: her voice alone is just amazing. What are our eyes doing?

370
00:20:25,080 --> 00:20:28,040
Speaker 1: You know? Everything is just such a complete and total performance.

371
00:20:28,760 --> 00:20:33,960
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, The the way she embodies a kind of

372
00:20:35,040 --> 00:20:40,680
Speaker 3: violent glamour, this kind of passive aggressive predation, the way

373
00:20:40,680 --> 00:20:44,359
Speaker 3: she's always the way she's always saying, like be nice

374
00:20:44,440 --> 00:20:44,680
Speaker 3: to me.

375
00:20:45,400 --> 00:20:48,359
Speaker 1: Oh man, it's so evil and it's so good. So

376
00:20:48,440 --> 00:20:53,480
Speaker 1: playing our Hungarian countess. We have yet Lebanese born French

377
00:20:53,520 --> 00:20:59,040
Speaker 1: actress Delphine serig here ye star of stage and screen,

378
00:20:59,359 --> 00:21:03,040
Speaker 1: also film director in her own right, a major European

379
00:21:03,080 --> 00:21:06,440
Speaker 1: star in her day, as well as a prominent French feminist.

380
00:21:06,760 --> 00:21:09,480
Speaker 1: She rose to stardom with nineteen sixty one's Last Year

381
00:21:09,480 --> 00:21:13,080
Speaker 1: at Marion Bed, which was based on the novel by

382
00:21:13,320 --> 00:21:16,320
Speaker 1: Alan Robe Grillat, an author that I've read quite a

383
00:21:16,320 --> 00:21:18,480
Speaker 1: bit of, but I've never watched any of his films.

384
00:21:18,680 --> 00:21:20,359
Speaker 1: This was an adaptation of his films, and then he

385
00:21:20,440 --> 00:21:23,320
Speaker 1: directed a number of films, but I have not seen

386
00:21:23,359 --> 00:21:27,080
Speaker 1: any of his film work. The picture in question, Last

387
00:21:27,160 --> 00:21:32,240
Speaker 1: Year at Marion Bed was directed by Francis alan Renee,

388
00:21:32,280 --> 00:21:37,760
Speaker 1: who subsequently cast Serigh in nineteen sixty threes Muriel and

389
00:21:37,840 --> 00:21:40,840
Speaker 1: subsequent films of note for her include nineteen sixty nine's

390
00:21:40,840 --> 00:21:45,800
Speaker 1: Mister Freedom, nineteen seventies Donkey Skin, seventy two's The Discrete

391
00:21:45,840 --> 00:21:49,040
Speaker 1: Charm of the Bourgeoisie, nineteen seventy threes, The Day of

392
00:21:49,080 --> 00:21:52,520
Speaker 1: the Jackal, in nineteen seventy four's The Black Windmill.

393
00:21:52,280 --> 00:21:55,520
Speaker 3: Donkey Skin multiply recommended to us. That's been on the

394
00:21:55,760 --> 00:21:56,880
Speaker 3: weird house list for a bit.

395
00:21:57,160 --> 00:21:59,159
Speaker 1: Well, if she's in it, all the more reason to

396
00:21:59,200 --> 00:22:01,800
Speaker 1: see it. I had not seen her in anything before,

397
00:22:01,920 --> 00:22:05,080
Speaker 1: but yeah, she was at the time a big star,

398
00:22:05,320 --> 00:22:09,560
Speaker 1: and that like the the only actor that they actively

399
00:22:09,600 --> 00:22:11,600
Speaker 1: tried to get for this picture, and then we're kind

400
00:22:11,640 --> 00:22:15,040
Speaker 1: of shocked that they were able to get her attached

401
00:22:15,080 --> 00:22:19,119
Speaker 1: to the to the film. In some of the commentary tracks,

402
00:22:19,160 --> 00:22:22,119
Speaker 1: like the they point out that apparently she was paid

403
00:22:22,160 --> 00:22:25,879
Speaker 1: in cash, like a purse is full of like a

404
00:22:25,920 --> 00:22:28,960
Speaker 1: whole bunch of European cash. I don't know what that means,

405
00:22:28,960 --> 00:22:33,400
Speaker 1: but I like it. It sounds like it means something. Yeah,

406
00:22:33,440 --> 00:22:36,080
Speaker 1: so basically I'm to understand. So again, this was a

407
00:22:36,160 --> 00:22:41,480
Speaker 1: multinational production here, and she was the only person who

408
00:22:41,520 --> 00:22:45,040
Speaker 1: was intentionally cast for the picture. Everyone else was provided.

409
00:22:45,920 --> 00:22:49,639
Speaker 1: I believe Harry Kumbo's words were sight unseen by the

410
00:22:49,680 --> 00:22:54,680
Speaker 1: various international producers. So Canada sent somebody, the US sent somebody,

411
00:22:54,760 --> 00:22:58,200
Speaker 1: Germany sent a couple of people, and then it had

412
00:22:58,400 --> 00:23:02,280
Speaker 1: had to come together, you know. I believe it's the

413
00:23:03,920 --> 00:23:07,760
Speaker 1: I believe John Carlin, who plays stuff in the commentary

414
00:23:07,760 --> 00:23:09,920
Speaker 1: track with him, he pointed out that, like the cast

415
00:23:09,920 --> 00:23:13,199
Speaker 1: here was kind of an accident, but then again it works,

416
00:23:13,440 --> 00:23:15,359
Speaker 1: And he made a great point. He said, like any

417
00:23:15,359 --> 00:23:17,800
Speaker 1: good movie is kind of an accident, like if it

418
00:23:17,840 --> 00:23:20,760
Speaker 1: comes together and works, like there's so many forces just

419
00:23:20,800 --> 00:23:23,080
Speaker 1: completely out of anybody's control. That's true.

420
00:23:23,200 --> 00:23:26,040
Speaker 3: A film is pretty much always a collaboration, so there's more,

421
00:23:26,359 --> 00:23:29,040
Speaker 3: there's more chaos and how it comes together, and also

422
00:23:29,160 --> 00:23:31,520
Speaker 3: i'd say, because of that, a little bit more magic

423
00:23:31,680 --> 00:23:34,520
Speaker 3: than something that is an art project created by just

424
00:23:34,560 --> 00:23:35,119
Speaker 3: one person.

425
00:23:35,720 --> 00:23:40,080
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, Now, as far as I can tell, everyone

426
00:23:40,440 --> 00:23:45,000
Speaker 1: was excited to work with sarag on this, and everyone

427
00:23:45,119 --> 00:23:47,800
Speaker 1: just had really nice things to say about working with her.

428
00:23:48,480 --> 00:23:50,560
Speaker 1: By all accounts, she brought note on not only her

429
00:23:50,600 --> 00:23:53,879
Speaker 1: own sheer talent and effortless charisma to the production, but

430
00:23:53,920 --> 00:23:56,600
Speaker 1: she was one of those actors that helped elevate everyone's craft,

431
00:23:56,800 --> 00:23:59,800
Speaker 1: you know, like in people she had scenes with, she

432
00:24:00,040 --> 00:24:03,520
Speaker 1: would go out of her way to improve their performance

433
00:24:03,560 --> 00:24:06,560
Speaker 1: and make them feel at ease, and then she would

434
00:24:06,640 --> 00:24:09,480
Speaker 1: even improve upon things, improve upon the direction that was

435
00:24:09,520 --> 00:24:11,360
Speaker 1: given her, in ways where the director was like, well,

436
00:24:11,400 --> 00:24:13,960
Speaker 1: that was obviously the right choice because you made it work.

437
00:24:14,520 --> 00:24:17,040
Speaker 3: There are so many things about her performance that really

438
00:24:17,080 --> 00:24:20,520
Speaker 3: work very well. But one of them, again that I

439
00:24:20,600 --> 00:24:23,960
Speaker 3: have to emphasize, is the way that she is so

440
00:24:24,320 --> 00:24:28,760
Speaker 3: flawlessly threatening in a subtle way. There's like a subtext

441
00:24:28,800 --> 00:24:32,680
Speaker 3: of threat in the way that she is overtly passive.

442
00:24:32,840 --> 00:24:35,440
Speaker 3: She will make a little kind of plea or a bid.

443
00:24:35,640 --> 00:24:38,760
Speaker 3: So she says multiple times to a character be nice

444
00:24:38,800 --> 00:24:41,800
Speaker 3: to me, or says like please about something in a

445
00:24:41,840 --> 00:24:46,280
Speaker 3: way that has this kind of like undercurrent of violence

446
00:24:46,359 --> 00:24:47,160
Speaker 3: running through it.

447
00:24:47,920 --> 00:24:51,000
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, absolutely all right. So we'll have more to

448
00:24:51,040 --> 00:24:54,120
Speaker 1: say about this performance as we roll on through the episode.

449
00:24:54,119 --> 00:24:56,520
Speaker 1: But you can't have a vampire without a vampire thrall,

450
00:24:56,880 --> 00:24:59,240
Speaker 1: and the Countess's thrall is in the form of Ilona,

451
00:24:59,520 --> 00:25:04,160
Speaker 1: played by Andrea Rau born nineteen forty seven, German actress

452
00:25:04,320 --> 00:25:09,400
Speaker 1: and former ballerina and model. Prior to this, she'd mostly

453
00:25:09,440 --> 00:25:12,560
Speaker 1: acted I believe in comedies and some like sexy comedies

454
00:25:13,160 --> 00:25:15,600
Speaker 1: in Germany, but this was one of a couple of

455
00:25:15,680 --> 00:25:18,120
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy one films that saw her branch out into

456
00:25:18,119 --> 00:25:22,919
Speaker 1: more serious work. Subsequent films included nineteen seventy five's than Net.

457
00:25:23,080 --> 00:25:25,159
Speaker 1: We not the one with Sandra Bull. No, No, this

458
00:25:25,240 --> 00:25:27,720
Speaker 1: is the one that had closedkin skin. It so different Net.

459
00:25:28,800 --> 00:25:32,240
Speaker 1: I think it's metaphorical. I don't think it involves the

460
00:25:32,280 --> 00:25:36,359
Speaker 1: Internet or an actual rope. Net a couple of notes

461
00:25:36,400 --> 00:25:39,400
Speaker 1: from interviews that I watched with her. She points out

462
00:25:39,400 --> 00:25:41,119
Speaker 1: that she ended up really liking her hair so she

463
00:25:41,200 --> 00:25:43,800
Speaker 1: kept his hairstyle pretty you know, has kept it for

464
00:25:43,840 --> 00:25:44,760
Speaker 1: the rest of her life.

465
00:25:44,840 --> 00:25:47,040
Speaker 3: It's kind of a strange haircut, but it looks cool.

466
00:25:47,119 --> 00:25:49,800
Speaker 3: It's like it's like a sloped bob. I don't know

467
00:25:49,800 --> 00:25:50,439
Speaker 3: what you call that.

468
00:25:50,800 --> 00:25:54,720
Speaker 1: Yeah, And her performance here is very physical, and I

469
00:25:54,760 --> 00:25:59,080
Speaker 1: can see where her dance background probably became useful, you know.

470
00:25:59,240 --> 00:26:01,720
Speaker 1: But at the same time, I'm like, she was one

471
00:26:01,720 --> 00:26:04,000
Speaker 1: of the greener performers here, and so there's kind of

472
00:26:04,000 --> 00:26:07,359
Speaker 1: an awkwardness to her performance. But I don't know, I

473
00:26:07,359 --> 00:26:09,639
Speaker 1: feel like it kind of works well because this is

474
00:26:09,760 --> 00:26:13,680
Speaker 1: kind of a I mean, she's a vampire's thrall. She's

475
00:26:13,720 --> 00:26:16,360
Speaker 1: in a very unnatural place in her life, and therefore

476
00:26:16,560 --> 00:26:19,080
Speaker 1: I feel like a certain amount of the unnatural to

477
00:26:19,119 --> 00:26:20,800
Speaker 1: the performance is fitting.

478
00:26:21,040 --> 00:26:25,600
Speaker 3: She's a very sad and pitiable character, especially not just

479
00:26:25,680 --> 00:26:29,560
Speaker 3: in the fact that she is enslaved to a vampire queen,

480
00:26:29,800 --> 00:26:33,320
Speaker 3: but that the vampire queen insists on kind of treating

481
00:26:33,359 --> 00:26:37,119
Speaker 3: her like a little friend. Yeah, the way that that

482
00:26:37,200 --> 00:26:41,359
Speaker 3: makes it so much more cruel and the and so

483
00:26:41,480 --> 00:26:45,120
Speaker 3: in these little moments where she has she has these

484
00:26:45,119 --> 00:26:49,359
Speaker 3: great moments of posture in her performance that like diminish

485
00:26:49,480 --> 00:26:53,520
Speaker 3: her in various ways and render her more pitiable. Like

486
00:26:53,560 --> 00:26:55,880
Speaker 3: there's a way that she kind of hugs up against

487
00:26:55,960 --> 00:26:58,880
Speaker 3: walls and furniture the way like a kid does when

488
00:26:58,880 --> 00:26:59,679
Speaker 3: they're ashamed.

489
00:27:00,440 --> 00:27:03,000
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, I think she mentioned that the director told

490
00:27:03,040 --> 00:27:05,119
Speaker 1: her to be a spider in some of these scenes,

491
00:27:05,160 --> 00:27:07,280
Speaker 1: and so she's trying to be kind of like spidery,

492
00:27:07,359 --> 00:27:09,800
Speaker 1: clinging to the walls and all. Oh yeah, yeah, I

493
00:27:09,800 --> 00:27:10,280
Speaker 1: can see that.

494
00:27:10,320 --> 00:27:12,600
Speaker 3: But also she's quite scary in one moment where she

495
00:27:12,720 --> 00:27:15,440
Speaker 3: like surprises Valerie out on the balcony and just see

496
00:27:15,560 --> 00:27:17,760
Speaker 3: like a flash of her, and she's like she's like

497
00:27:17,880 --> 00:27:21,000
Speaker 3: naked with her arms raised almost like a like vampire

498
00:27:21,280 --> 00:27:24,360
Speaker 3: kind of claw hands, but also like a ballet pose.

499
00:27:24,960 --> 00:27:27,119
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah. And also I don't know, it feels like

500
00:27:27,119 --> 00:27:30,480
Speaker 1: it's something out of like a silent German expressionist film

501
00:27:30,480 --> 00:27:34,560
Speaker 1: as well. It has that kind of you know, severity

502
00:27:34,600 --> 00:27:37,480
Speaker 1: to it. Yeah. All right, so those are that's our

503
00:27:37,560 --> 00:27:40,960
Speaker 1: vampire queen and her vampiric thrall. But we also have

504
00:27:41,040 --> 00:27:45,760
Speaker 1: to have our doomed honeymoon couple, and that's so let's

505
00:27:45,760 --> 00:27:46,720
Speaker 1: get into them a bit here.

506
00:27:46,840 --> 00:27:49,600
Speaker 3: They've got their own issues before the vampire even gets there.

507
00:27:49,960 --> 00:27:52,439
Speaker 1: Yeah, as others have pointed out, like even if the

508
00:27:52,480 --> 00:27:55,000
Speaker 1: vampires never showed up, this was not going to end

509
00:27:55,040 --> 00:27:57,439
Speaker 1: well and it could have easily still been a very

510
00:27:57,520 --> 00:28:00,520
Speaker 1: dramatic horror picture and it's own right.

511
00:28:00,840 --> 00:28:03,400
Speaker 3: Okay, But this couple is Valerie and Stefan.

512
00:28:03,760 --> 00:28:07,280
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's start with Valorie. Valerie is played by Danielle

513
00:28:07,359 --> 00:28:11,520
Speaker 1: we Met born nineteen forty seven, Canadian actress who got

514
00:28:11,520 --> 00:28:14,320
Speaker 1: her start in a pair of notable Canadian erotic films

515
00:28:14,320 --> 00:28:17,320
Speaker 1: from sixty nine and seventy, and then she also did

516
00:28:17,320 --> 00:28:21,399
Speaker 1: some mainstream television work in Quebec before filming this, which

517
00:28:21,840 --> 00:28:24,120
Speaker 1: I believe it turned out to be her most iconic role.

518
00:28:24,880 --> 00:28:27,040
Speaker 1: She continued to work through the nineteen seventies and then

519
00:28:27,119 --> 00:28:30,199
Speaker 1: returned to acting in the early two thousands. Other credits

520
00:28:30,240 --> 00:28:33,520
Speaker 1: of note include nineteen seventy two's The Possession of Virginia.

521
00:28:34,119 --> 00:28:37,560
Speaker 1: Never seen it. This is I think the only thing

522
00:28:37,560 --> 00:28:40,520
Speaker 1: I've seen her in. She's done a lot of interviews

523
00:28:40,520 --> 00:28:42,720
Speaker 1: over the years and has spoken very highly of the

524
00:28:42,720 --> 00:28:46,120
Speaker 1: film itself and certainly of her work with sarreg But

525
00:28:46,520 --> 00:28:50,640
Speaker 1: I believe her onset relationship with the director was not great.

526
00:28:50,840 --> 00:28:53,840
Speaker 1: Her performance here is certainly greener. I mean, I mean

527
00:28:53,880 --> 00:28:56,360
Speaker 1: it's unfair to even compare to someone like Sarreg who

528
00:28:56,560 --> 00:28:59,960
Speaker 1: was a seasoned actress of the stage and the screen.

529
00:29:01,240 --> 00:29:04,000
Speaker 1: But again, I think it ends up largely working here,

530
00:29:04,040 --> 00:29:06,320
Speaker 1: because it ends up we end up with this. There's

531
00:29:06,320 --> 00:29:09,920
Speaker 1: a strong sense of naivety about Valerie. You know, she

532
00:29:10,120 --> 00:29:13,800
Speaker 1: is being controlled and manipulated to varying degrees by two

533
00:29:13,840 --> 00:29:17,520
Speaker 1: different characters in the picture before you know, arguably truly

534
00:29:17,560 --> 00:29:19,520
Speaker 1: coming into her own. Yeah.

535
00:29:19,760 --> 00:29:22,400
Speaker 3: I think I alluded to this earlier in our intro.

536
00:29:22,560 --> 00:29:25,520
Speaker 3: But the movie is to a large extent about sort

537
00:29:25,560 --> 00:29:32,240
Speaker 3: of different pathological ways that anxiety can present in romantic relationships.

538
00:29:32,280 --> 00:29:35,640
Speaker 3: And so the character we're about to talk about in

539
00:29:35,640 --> 00:29:37,880
Speaker 3: a minute stepan like he has a kind of like

540
00:29:38,080 --> 00:29:42,640
Speaker 3: externalizing anxiety, which turns into violence and rage and fascination

541
00:29:42,800 --> 00:29:50,120
Speaker 3: with violence and all that. Meanwhile, Valeries anxiety manifests as

542
00:29:50,240 --> 00:29:55,480
Speaker 3: a kind of passivity and insecurity that like, she's always

543
00:29:55,520 --> 00:29:59,440
Speaker 3: like trying to reconnect with the man that she loves

544
00:29:59,480 --> 00:30:03,600
Speaker 3: and trying to find ways of making the connection stronger,

545
00:30:03,960 --> 00:30:06,440
Speaker 3: even as he gives her just more and more reason

546
00:30:06,520 --> 00:30:08,719
Speaker 3: to doubt that he's really worthy of her.

547
00:30:08,760 --> 00:30:12,240
Speaker 1: At all. Yeah, And I mean I think as viewers are,

548
00:30:12,280 --> 00:30:13,920
Speaker 1: like we're watching this, who we're saying, girl, you need

549
00:30:13,960 --> 00:30:15,640
Speaker 1: to get out of this relationship. You've known this guy

550
00:30:15,640 --> 00:30:18,000
Speaker 1: like two days. I don't think you should have married him.

551
00:30:18,240 --> 00:30:21,959
Speaker 1: But no, you're absolutely correct.

552
00:30:22,560 --> 00:30:25,080
Speaker 3: Yeah, the red flags really stack up with Stefan. But

553
00:30:25,440 --> 00:30:28,320
Speaker 3: the way Valerie comes through, I think is quite real.

554
00:30:28,360 --> 00:30:31,720
Speaker 3: I mean, this is a way sometimes people can deal

555
00:30:31,760 --> 00:30:34,320
Speaker 3: with stress and anxiety and relationships is just to be

556
00:30:34,960 --> 00:30:39,520
Speaker 3: is to be increasingly kind of placating and increasingly trying

557
00:30:39,600 --> 00:30:42,800
Speaker 3: to make amends when it wasn't your fault to begin with.

558
00:30:43,640 --> 00:30:47,920
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, Now playing Stephan, we have John Carlin who

559
00:30:47,920 --> 00:30:51,920
Speaker 1: lived nineteen thirty three through twenty twenty American actor, best

560
00:30:51,960 --> 00:30:56,080
Speaker 1: known for his American TV roles. He played Harvey Lacy

561
00:30:56,120 --> 00:30:58,400
Speaker 1: on Cagney and Lacy in the nineteen eighties. That would

562
00:30:58,400 --> 00:31:02,240
Speaker 1: be the husband of one of the the title characters.

563
00:31:02,840 --> 00:31:06,480
Speaker 1: Not a show I ever watched, but I believe it

564
00:31:06,520 --> 00:31:09,320
Speaker 1: was a big hit during its day. And he also

565
00:31:09,400 --> 00:31:12,560
Speaker 1: played a number of different roles on Dark Shadows. I

566
00:31:12,560 --> 00:31:15,840
Speaker 1: think initially and mainly a character named Willie Loomis, who

567
00:31:15,840 --> 00:31:17,800
Speaker 1: I think is kind of like a con man who

568
00:31:17,880 --> 00:31:22,000
Speaker 1: is involved with accidentally bringing or maybe intentionally bringing Barnabas

569
00:31:22,000 --> 00:31:25,200
Speaker 1: Collins back from the grave, Barnabas Collins being a vampire.

570
00:31:25,560 --> 00:31:27,400
Speaker 1: If anyone out there is not aware, I don't know

571
00:31:27,440 --> 00:31:30,400
Speaker 1: what you're talking about, Barnabas Collins. I mean, I mean,

572
00:31:30,480 --> 00:31:33,160
Speaker 1: I watched maybe one or two episodes of Dark Shadows

573
00:31:33,640 --> 00:31:35,600
Speaker 1: back in the day when it was aired on like

574
00:31:35,600 --> 00:31:39,440
Speaker 1: Sci Fi Channel. But you know, gothic horror as a

575
00:31:39,480 --> 00:31:42,600
Speaker 1: soap opera as a concept, I'm totally on board with that.

576
00:31:42,720 --> 00:31:44,560
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm here for that. I've never seen it though.

577
00:31:44,720 --> 00:31:46,800
Speaker 1: They did a couple of movies and he's in those

578
00:31:46,840 --> 00:31:48,720
Speaker 1: as well, So maybe we can come back to some

579
00:31:48,760 --> 00:31:53,160
Speaker 1: Barnabas Collins in the future, Okay. Carlin also did a

580
00:31:53,320 --> 00:31:56,160
Speaker 1: number of other TV credits going back to the late

581
00:31:56,240 --> 00:31:59,160
Speaker 1: nineteen fifties. He pops up on Night Gallery, He's in

582
00:31:59,280 --> 00:32:03,320
Speaker 1: seventy five Trilogy of Terror, He's in Super Train and

583
00:32:03,360 --> 00:32:06,480
Speaker 1: then later Matt About You Murder, she wrote. He was

584
00:32:06,520 --> 00:32:09,080
Speaker 1: also in the nineteen ninety three movie Surf Ninjas.

585
00:32:11,080 --> 00:32:12,880
Speaker 3: Now it's easy to confuse that with a couple of

586
00:32:12,920 --> 00:32:17,800
Speaker 3: other things. Yeah, Surf Ninjas is neither Surf Nazis must die,

587
00:32:18,240 --> 00:32:21,680
Speaker 3: nor is it the Three Ninjas of the nineties is

588
00:32:21,840 --> 00:32:22,720
Speaker 3: a separate thing.

589
00:32:22,800 --> 00:32:25,960
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I don't think there's a shared universe here, Okay.

590
00:32:27,400 --> 00:32:29,440
Speaker 1: I checked out a couple of interviews with him as

591
00:32:29,440 --> 00:32:32,360
Speaker 1: well part of his commentary track, and like everyone else,

592
00:32:32,440 --> 00:32:35,520
Speaker 1: had nothing but praise for Sarah, had a lot of

593
00:32:35,520 --> 00:32:37,360
Speaker 1: great things to say about the finished product of the

594
00:32:37,400 --> 00:32:40,320
Speaker 1: film and various interesting stories about its production, though he

595
00:32:40,360 --> 00:32:42,640
Speaker 1: does point out that he did have to deal with

596
00:32:42,680 --> 00:32:46,840
Speaker 1: the fact that the director was obviously disappointed that he

597
00:32:47,080 --> 00:32:51,280
Speaker 1: was older than he looked in his head shots. And

598
00:32:51,320 --> 00:32:53,040
Speaker 1: this is something I didn't even think about, but like

599
00:32:53,080 --> 00:32:54,760
Speaker 1: he's I think the character is supposed to be in

600
00:32:54,760 --> 00:32:57,520
Speaker 1: his twenties and the actor was in his late thirties.

601
00:32:57,960 --> 00:33:02,360
Speaker 1: Really yeah, Oh, and so there was some tension there,

602
00:33:02,360 --> 00:33:04,440
Speaker 1: at least initially, where the director's like, they send me

603
00:33:04,480 --> 00:33:07,160
Speaker 1: this older guy, and he's too old for the part.

604
00:33:07,240 --> 00:33:10,840
Speaker 1: But I don't know. I'd always felt it seemed to

605
00:33:10,840 --> 00:33:13,480
Speaker 1: work for me as a viewer, So I don't know

606
00:33:13,520 --> 00:33:16,560
Speaker 1: that there was really an issue here. That's interesting. Yeah,

607
00:33:17,280 --> 00:33:19,600
Speaker 1: I wouldn't. I would not have complained.

608
00:33:19,160 --> 00:33:21,560
Speaker 3: About this about the movie, But now that you say it,

609
00:33:21,640 --> 00:33:24,360
Speaker 3: he does look a bit older than the part seems

610
00:33:24,400 --> 00:33:28,040
Speaker 3: to be written like it is written as like a

611
00:33:28,120 --> 00:33:32,760
Speaker 3: role for a young man I'm imagining like that Stephan

612
00:33:32,840 --> 00:33:35,640
Speaker 3: is supposed to be I don't know, twenty three or so.

613
00:33:35,880 --> 00:33:38,160
Speaker 3: But yeah, he is a good bit older than that.

614
00:33:38,360 --> 00:33:41,400
Speaker 3: But I wouldn't have I don't know if I would

615
00:33:41,400 --> 00:33:43,600
Speaker 3: have called that out without knowing that fact.

616
00:33:43,880 --> 00:33:47,440
Speaker 1: I mean, part of it is that films do tend

617
00:33:47,480 --> 00:33:51,360
Speaker 1: to condition us to not question the male and a

618
00:33:51,600 --> 00:33:56,280
Speaker 1: relate on screen relationship being significantly older than a female counterpart.

619
00:33:57,040 --> 00:33:59,920
Speaker 1: But also we'll get into some of the details we

620
00:34:00,120 --> 00:34:02,680
Speaker 1: learn about Stephan, and I don't know, it felt kind

621
00:34:02,680 --> 00:34:06,120
Speaker 1: of in keeping that maybe he was a little older,

622
00:34:06,680 --> 00:34:09,680
Speaker 1: you know, while sort of being locked into this younger

623
00:34:09,719 --> 00:34:13,799
Speaker 1: phase of life, you know, like he's he's older than

624
00:34:13,840 --> 00:34:16,440
Speaker 1: someone should be to suddenly go off and marry somebody

625
00:34:16,480 --> 00:34:18,040
Speaker 1: on the fly that's sort of on vacation.

626
00:34:18,280 --> 00:34:22,200
Speaker 3: Yeah, but now that you mentioned that it was written younger, Yeah,

627
00:34:22,440 --> 00:34:24,680
Speaker 3: would make sense if Stephan was supposed to be like

628
00:34:24,719 --> 00:34:27,840
Speaker 3: a guy in his early twenties who's traveling continental Europe.

629
00:34:27,840 --> 00:34:30,320
Speaker 3: He's a young, rich guy who's just out on holiday.

630
00:34:30,600 --> 00:34:34,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, so yeah, we'll get into more about this character,

631
00:34:34,200 --> 00:34:36,440
Speaker 1: but on the whole, I really liked his performance. I

632
00:34:36,440 --> 00:34:39,680
Speaker 1: thought it's pretty strong here. There could because again, this

633
00:34:39,760 --> 00:34:43,319
Speaker 1: is not just your typical, oh, honeymooning couple, but they're

634
00:34:43,320 --> 00:34:46,720
Speaker 1: doomed because of some external force. They're like double doomed

635
00:34:47,880 --> 00:34:50,640
Speaker 1: the external force, but also a lot of a lot

636
00:34:50,640 --> 00:34:53,600
Speaker 1: of red flags in the relationship and some you know,

637
00:34:53,960 --> 00:34:58,160
Speaker 1: some some deep trauma and an anxiety that's going on

638
00:34:58,239 --> 00:35:00,720
Speaker 1: in both of them. So those are all the beautiful

639
00:35:00,760 --> 00:35:03,040
Speaker 1: people in the picture. Do you want to mention? Just

640
00:35:03,200 --> 00:35:06,239
Speaker 1: there aren't very many humans in this, not counting some

641
00:35:06,280 --> 00:35:09,000
Speaker 1: of the like extras in the background. But there's a

642
00:35:09,000 --> 00:35:12,560
Speaker 1: hotel clerk at the hotel the po Yeah, and he

643
00:35:12,640 --> 00:35:16,160
Speaker 1: is played by Paul Esser, who lived nineteen thirteen through

644
00:35:16,239 --> 00:35:19,399
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty eight, German actor of stage and screen, who

645
00:35:19,440 --> 00:35:22,600
Speaker 1: also acted in the original Swedish West German Pippy long

646
00:35:22,600 --> 00:35:26,040
Speaker 1: Stocking TV series. I have not seen it. I feel

647
00:35:26,040 --> 00:35:30,200
Speaker 1: like the Pippy long Stocking I consumed was maybe like

648
00:35:30,400 --> 00:35:34,520
Speaker 1: later work, like the US or British production. But it's

649
00:35:34,520 --> 00:35:37,520
Speaker 1: been a long time since I've watched any Pippy long Stocking.

650
00:35:37,920 --> 00:35:40,520
Speaker 1: Same here, I don't know the provenance of My Pippy.

651
00:35:41,400 --> 00:35:45,160
Speaker 1: According to the director on this picture, he's supposed to

652
00:35:45,200 --> 00:35:47,719
Speaker 1: play an old man who's been at the hotel for

653
00:35:47,760 --> 00:35:51,120
Speaker 1: a long time, and Harry asked him to if he

654
00:35:51,160 --> 00:35:54,240
Speaker 1: would wear gray hair for it, and he like flatly refused,

655
00:35:55,239 --> 00:35:58,200
Speaker 1: perhaps out of vanity, I don't know, but he insisted, no,

656
00:35:58,560 --> 00:36:02,759
Speaker 1: I will play gray, and he does. He plays old

657
00:36:02,800 --> 00:36:05,920
Speaker 1: and tired very well. Yeah. There's also a retired policeman

658
00:36:05,960 --> 00:36:10,640
Speaker 1: who shows up, and this is a Belgian actor by

659
00:36:10,640 --> 00:36:13,719
Speaker 1: the name of George Gemmen who lived nineteen oh six

660
00:36:13,760 --> 00:36:17,120
Speaker 1: through nineteen seventy one. It's a minor part, but nice,

661
00:36:17,360 --> 00:36:21,279
Speaker 1: very sweaty monologue. As I recall, he's supposed to be

662
00:36:21,280 --> 00:36:23,359
Speaker 1: soaked with rain. Oh yeah, it's supposed to be rain,

663
00:36:23,400 --> 00:36:24,440
Speaker 1: but he looks sweaty.

664
00:36:24,920 --> 00:36:29,800
Speaker 3: He's leaning over say rig with just like wetness pouring

665
00:36:29,840 --> 00:36:31,560
Speaker 3: down his face and it looks gross.

666
00:36:31,640 --> 00:36:33,839
Speaker 1: But he is supposed to have come out of the rain. Yeah,

667
00:36:33,840 --> 00:36:38,239
Speaker 1: a retired policeman who's still working cases in a kind

668
00:36:38,239 --> 00:36:39,239
Speaker 1: of unsavory way.

669
00:36:39,560 --> 00:36:42,480
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then he has a really ignominious end in

670
00:36:42,520 --> 00:36:43,680
Speaker 3: the film.

671
00:36:44,120 --> 00:36:47,120
Speaker 1: But we'll explain that later, all right. The director of

672
00:36:47,120 --> 00:36:49,200
Speaker 1: photography on this because I mean, the look at the

673
00:36:49,200 --> 00:36:51,120
Speaker 1: picture is so great we have to call him out.

674
00:36:51,400 --> 00:36:54,200
Speaker 1: Edward van der Enden, who lived nineteen twenty eight through

675
00:36:54,280 --> 00:36:58,320
Speaker 1: twenty eleven, Dutch cinematographer whose other other credits include Lifespan

676
00:36:58,840 --> 00:37:02,600
Speaker 1: and nineteen eighty two's Face Takeout. He also worked in

677
00:37:02,640 --> 00:37:06,480
Speaker 1: some capacity on nineteen ninety three's Gettysburg I believe, credited

678
00:37:06,480 --> 00:37:11,200
Speaker 1: with additional photography. Oh and we don't always mention costuming,

679
00:37:11,320 --> 00:37:15,480
Speaker 1: but Bernard Paris is called out, who lived nineteen thirty

680
00:37:15,520 --> 00:37:22,040
Speaker 1: six through twenty ten. His credit is costumer Miss Syrih's gowns. Again,

681
00:37:22,080 --> 00:37:25,600
Speaker 1: the gowns in this picture are amazing, each more stylish

682
00:37:25,600 --> 00:37:28,000
Speaker 1: and eye catching than the last, until you were almost

683
00:37:28,040 --> 00:37:32,279
Speaker 1: literally blinded by them. Paris was apparently a notable name

684
00:37:32,320 --> 00:37:35,600
Speaker 1: in French fashion back in the day. And then finally,

685
00:37:35,640 --> 00:37:39,840
Speaker 1: the music. The music here was by composer of Francois

686
00:37:39,880 --> 00:37:44,080
Speaker 1: de Robai, who lived nineteen thirty nine through nineteen seventy five,

687
00:37:44,800 --> 00:37:47,759
Speaker 1: French musician and composer. Really splendid score on this one

688
00:37:47,800 --> 00:37:51,279
Speaker 1: that is fortunately widely available on digital and physical formats,

689
00:37:51,760 --> 00:37:56,520
Speaker 1: including I learned a vinyl edition that came out via

690
00:37:56,760 --> 00:37:59,480
Speaker 1: music on vinyl. They put out only six hundred and

691
00:37:59,520 --> 00:38:05,120
Speaker 1: sixty six copies, so you know that's that's fun. But anyway,

692
00:38:05,120 --> 00:38:09,799
Speaker 1: it's a bleak, eerie score that resonates with like antique

693
00:38:09,880 --> 00:38:15,239
Speaker 1: European flare, like a little bit of folk music, seventies weirdness,

694
00:38:15,280 --> 00:38:19,719
Speaker 1: elements of jazz and synthesizer, just amazing stuff. I was

695
00:38:19,760 --> 00:38:21,759
Speaker 1: listening to this one on its own a bit while

696
00:38:21,800 --> 00:38:22,640
Speaker 1: working on notes.

697
00:38:23,360 --> 00:38:27,600
Speaker 3: Yeah, a good score, and it does the music incorporates

698
00:38:27,640 --> 00:38:33,360
Speaker 3: the themes like it sounds like luxury, it sounds like

699
00:38:33,440 --> 00:38:35,880
Speaker 3: the idle rich, and it sounds like danger.

700
00:38:36,440 --> 00:38:40,000
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, but it's like it's like the it's like

701
00:38:40,040 --> 00:38:44,080
Speaker 1: the decadence on top, but turning the sludge underneath, turning

702
00:38:44,120 --> 00:38:49,640
Speaker 1: into like melting into unsavory sludge at like the base level. Yeah, yeah,

703
00:38:49,680 --> 00:38:52,520
Speaker 1: so great work. This guy died way too young, but

704
00:38:53,920 --> 00:38:56,760
Speaker 1: his work is notable for its synthesis of jazz, synth

705
00:38:56,800 --> 00:38:59,200
Speaker 1: and folk elements. And I was reading that he's sometimes

706
00:38:59,200 --> 00:39:01,880
Speaker 1: held up as a four runner of French electronic music.

707
00:39:03,239 --> 00:39:06,879
Speaker 1: And the score was apparently sampled by Lil Wayne on

708
00:39:07,600 --> 00:39:10,919
Speaker 1: a track called President Carter. I haven't listened to any

709
00:39:10,920 --> 00:39:14,120
Speaker 1: of Lil Wayne's music. That I know of, but you

710
00:39:14,120 --> 00:39:25,880
Speaker 1: know I always appreciate a good sample. All right, You

711
00:39:25,920 --> 00:39:28,279
Speaker 1: ready to talk about the plot? Yeah, let's get into it.

712
00:39:28,719 --> 00:39:32,520
Speaker 3: So the action opens on a landscape after sunset, with

713
00:39:32,760 --> 00:39:36,279
Speaker 3: a deep blue twilight sky and a black tree limb

714
00:39:36,360 --> 00:39:39,080
Speaker 3: hanging in the foreground. And we can hear dogs barking

715
00:39:39,440 --> 00:39:42,200
Speaker 3: and a train approaching in the distance. And then the

716
00:39:42,239 --> 00:39:45,359
Speaker 3: train overtakes the camera and it becomes very loud as

717
00:39:45,360 --> 00:39:48,680
Speaker 3: it passes by. We cut inside the train to a

718
00:39:48,719 --> 00:39:52,879
Speaker 3: private passenger compartment, where we see close ups of objects

719
00:39:52,920 --> 00:39:56,640
Speaker 3: that set the scene. You've got white flowers with drooping petals,

720
00:39:57,360 --> 00:40:01,600
Speaker 3: cream colored silk sheets, champagne flutes half full and no

721
00:40:01,680 --> 00:40:05,440
Speaker 3: longer bubbling. You got the champagne bottle dunked in a

722
00:40:05,480 --> 00:40:08,799
Speaker 3: silver ice bucket, a white leather purse spathed in red

723
00:40:08,880 --> 00:40:11,520
Speaker 3: light from the window, and then kind of some lace

724
00:40:11,600 --> 00:40:14,800
Speaker 3: garments heaped on the floor, so you get an idea

725
00:40:14,800 --> 00:40:17,319
Speaker 3: of the room. We can hear the train rattling on

726
00:40:17,360 --> 00:40:20,480
Speaker 3: the tracks and the wine glasses clinking against one another

727
00:40:20,960 --> 00:40:24,080
Speaker 3: on a table beside the bed. We hear a woman's

728
00:40:24,160 --> 00:40:27,600
Speaker 3: voice say Stephan and a man's.

729
00:40:27,320 --> 00:40:29,680
Speaker 1: Voice say Valerie.

730
00:40:29,800 --> 00:40:33,520
Speaker 3: So here are our main characters, Stephan and Valerie. They

731
00:40:33,520 --> 00:40:36,400
Speaker 3: are newlyweds. They're here on their honeymoon. I think about

732
00:40:36,400 --> 00:40:39,640
Speaker 3: three hours after they got married, they say, and they're

733
00:40:39,680 --> 00:40:43,279
Speaker 3: having sex in the dark in their train compartment. And

734
00:40:43,400 --> 00:40:45,800
Speaker 3: I would say a combination of kind of the sharp

735
00:40:45,920 --> 00:40:50,920
Speaker 3: and ominous music and some staging in the sex scene

736
00:40:51,120 --> 00:40:54,000
Speaker 3: immediately makes Stephan maybe come off as a little bit

737
00:40:54,040 --> 00:40:56,320
Speaker 3: aggressive and perhaps dangerous.

738
00:40:56,840 --> 00:41:00,479
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's kind of a fairal almost loopine quality too here.

739
00:41:00,800 --> 00:41:04,640
Speaker 3: Yeah, Now, there's some interesting things about the colors in

740
00:41:04,719 --> 00:41:08,080
Speaker 3: the scene. Rob, I don't know if you know what

741
00:41:08,120 --> 00:41:09,840
Speaker 3: I'm talking about. A few times in the movie, I

742
00:41:09,840 --> 00:41:12,840
Speaker 3: would say, especially here in the train car, the air

743
00:41:13,080 --> 00:41:17,960
Speaker 3: somehow feels purple, not smoky. Sometimes air looks purple if

744
00:41:18,000 --> 00:41:20,280
Speaker 3: there's smoke in it doesn't look like there's any smoke.

745
00:41:20,680 --> 00:41:24,960
Speaker 3: It's like the air is thick with purpleness itself, and

746
00:41:25,080 --> 00:41:28,520
Speaker 3: the purpleness kind of envelops the naked bodies of Stefan

747
00:41:28,600 --> 00:41:29,160
Speaker 3: and Valerie.

748
00:41:29,200 --> 00:41:31,480
Speaker 1: Here. Yeah, it almost gives it a kind of I

749
00:41:31,480 --> 00:41:33,719
Speaker 1: don't know, it feels more voyeuristic in a way, like

750
00:41:33,800 --> 00:41:36,480
Speaker 1: I'm somehow like seeing things through some sort of a

751
00:41:36,520 --> 00:41:41,320
Speaker 1: purple limbs. You know, I don't know, like, yeah, it's

752
00:41:40,800 --> 00:41:44,040
Speaker 1: it's it's an interesting color choice for this sequence.

753
00:41:44,320 --> 00:41:46,000
Speaker 3: But at the same time, a lot of the little

754
00:41:46,080 --> 00:41:48,879
Speaker 3: items we see, like on the table beside the bed here,

755
00:41:49,080 --> 00:41:52,600
Speaker 3: have these color themes of white, gold, and pink that

756
00:41:52,640 --> 00:41:55,200
Speaker 3: are kind of associated with Valerie throughout the movie.

757
00:41:55,640 --> 00:41:57,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and I think some of these are like

758
00:41:57,600 --> 00:41:59,880
Speaker 1: they're flowers and so forth here. Yeah.

759
00:42:00,400 --> 00:42:03,480
Speaker 3: Now, later we see Stephan and Valerie lying in bed,

760
00:42:03,600 --> 00:42:07,160
Speaker 3: half asleep, and their first dialogue exchange, apart from saying

761
00:42:07,200 --> 00:42:10,839
Speaker 3: each other's names, goes like this. Valerie says, Stephan, tell

762
00:42:10,880 --> 00:42:15,280
Speaker 3: me do you love me? And he kind of lazily mumbles,

763
00:42:15,320 --> 00:42:18,080
Speaker 3: don't you know? But she pleads with him to say it,

764
00:42:18,239 --> 00:42:20,600
Speaker 3: and he takes a moment, and then he says no.

765
00:42:21,800 --> 00:42:23,520
Speaker 1: Then he asks her do you love me?

766
00:42:24,440 --> 00:42:27,440
Speaker 3: And she says, in a more playful tone, what me.

767
00:42:27,920 --> 00:42:31,160
Speaker 3: Of course I don't. And then Stephan says, that's good,

768
00:42:31,239 --> 00:42:33,480
Speaker 3: you don't love me. I don't love you. We were

769
00:42:33,480 --> 00:42:36,839
Speaker 3: made for each other. And I think this is such

770
00:42:36,840 --> 00:42:42,040
Speaker 3: an interesting, complex little moment, especially given what we learn

771
00:42:42,080 --> 00:42:45,600
Speaker 3: about the characters as the story progresses. We get a

772
00:42:45,600 --> 00:42:49,960
Speaker 3: little glimpse here of this subsurface drama about power and

773
00:42:50,040 --> 00:42:53,920
Speaker 3: dominance between them. And what I mean by that is

774
00:42:54,239 --> 00:42:57,719
Speaker 3: when she says she doesn't love him, it's clear in

775
00:42:57,800 --> 00:43:00,279
Speaker 3: her voice that she's just joking, like she said it

776
00:43:00,320 --> 00:43:03,360
Speaker 3: in a kind of singsongy voice, like she's playing around.

777
00:43:04,000 --> 00:43:06,760
Speaker 3: But is he only joking when he says he doesn't

778
00:43:06,800 --> 00:43:07,239
Speaker 3: love her?

779
00:43:08,200 --> 00:43:08,920
Speaker 1: I'm not sure.

780
00:43:09,160 --> 00:43:12,239
Speaker 3: And Valerie does not laugh or even smile when he

781
00:43:12,280 --> 00:43:15,960
Speaker 3: says no, he doesn't love her. Her expression is totally blank.

782
00:43:16,600 --> 00:43:19,359
Speaker 3: It feels to me, especially watching it the second time,

783
00:43:20,200 --> 00:43:24,279
Speaker 3: like he might be denying he loves her. Maybe not

784
00:43:24,560 --> 00:43:27,440
Speaker 3: because he doesn't love her. I'm not sure what it

785
00:43:27,520 --> 00:43:30,359
Speaker 3: means for him to love her, but denying he loves

786
00:43:30,440 --> 00:43:35,520
Speaker 3: her as an expression of subtle sadism hidden behind a

787
00:43:35,600 --> 00:43:38,400
Speaker 3: mask of irony, like he says it in part to

788
00:43:38,640 --> 00:43:43,759
Speaker 3: undermine her confidence and to make himself feel powerful. But

789
00:43:43,840 --> 00:43:46,600
Speaker 3: of course it's plausible that he's just kidding. She says

790
00:43:46,600 --> 00:43:49,720
Speaker 3: it back, and she's obviously kidding, and he could retreat

791
00:43:49,760 --> 00:43:53,160
Speaker 3: to that explanation if pressed on it. And then this

792
00:43:53,320 --> 00:43:56,560
Speaker 3: even greater feeling of dominance seems to accrue to him

793
00:43:57,040 --> 00:44:00,840
Speaker 3: because Valerie's anxiety forces her to interpret it as a

794
00:44:00,920 --> 00:44:04,000
Speaker 3: joke and respond in kind like she doesn't have the

795
00:44:04,040 --> 00:44:06,480
Speaker 3: confidence to kind of get serious and press him on

796
00:44:06,520 --> 00:44:09,520
Speaker 3: what he means. And yet this is all while they're

797
00:44:09,520 --> 00:44:13,960
Speaker 3: in this dreamy, half awake, blissful state, very weird mood.

798
00:44:14,320 --> 00:44:16,719
Speaker 3: And I think this is illustrative of the kind of

799
00:44:16,719 --> 00:44:20,880
Speaker 3: psychological drama that continues throughout the movie, that you can

800
00:44:20,960 --> 00:44:24,759
Speaker 3: kind of zero in on these little exchanges like this

801
00:44:24,880 --> 00:44:26,919
Speaker 3: and then end up reading a lot into them.

802
00:44:27,480 --> 00:44:30,360
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, especially on second viewing. This is also I

803
00:44:30,400 --> 00:44:33,480
Speaker 1: went back and rewatched this part of the film as well,

804
00:44:33,920 --> 00:44:36,680
Speaker 1: and yeah, I think at the first time through, I

805
00:44:36,760 --> 00:44:38,680
Speaker 1: was more sort of like, I wasn't sure that this

806
00:44:38,800 --> 00:44:40,880
Speaker 1: was going to be a film where this stuff mattered,

807
00:44:41,320 --> 00:44:45,560
Speaker 1: because the doomed couple on a honeymoon is so much

808
00:44:45,680 --> 00:44:50,680
Speaker 1: a cliche in the horror genre. I wasn't really sure

809
00:44:50,680 --> 00:44:53,960
Speaker 1: that their relationship mattered in a meaningful sense. But it is,

810
00:44:54,920 --> 00:44:56,799
Speaker 1: you know, it is very central to the plot of

811
00:44:56,800 --> 00:45:00,600
Speaker 1: the film, Like it's not just window dress for the

812
00:45:00,960 --> 00:45:03,759
Speaker 1: hors to come, it is it is interwoven with the

813
00:45:03,760 --> 00:45:06,200
Speaker 1: cars to come. Yeah. Yeah.

814
00:45:06,239 --> 00:45:10,600
Speaker 3: Anyway, the train stops unexpectedly while they're here in the compartment,

815
00:45:11,280 --> 00:45:13,759
Speaker 3: and they haven't gone far. They say they are only

816
00:45:13,760 --> 00:45:16,920
Speaker 3: a few hours from their departure in Switzerland, and Stefan

817
00:45:17,000 --> 00:45:19,200
Speaker 3: gets up to go find out what's happening now. When

818
00:45:19,239 --> 00:45:22,760
Speaker 3: he flips on the light, we suddenly exit the purple

819
00:45:22,840 --> 00:45:25,640
Speaker 3: twilight world and we come into the world of harsh

820
00:45:25,719 --> 00:45:28,920
Speaker 3: electric light. And when the light comes on, we see

821
00:45:29,000 --> 00:45:32,680
Speaker 3: Valerie physically recoil like when it falls over her, which

822
00:45:32,680 --> 00:45:36,279
Speaker 3: I thought was nice because nobody's a vampire yet.

823
00:45:37,320 --> 00:45:39,120
Speaker 1: But she does. She almost kind of hisses, you know,

824
00:45:39,200 --> 00:45:43,080
Speaker 1: she like puts her hand up to shield herself, like ah.

825
00:45:43,120 --> 00:45:43,800
Speaker 1: But Stepan.

826
00:45:44,480 --> 00:45:47,520
Speaker 3: Stephan takes a look outside the train window and he

827
00:45:47,600 --> 00:45:52,239
Speaker 3: sees a flat, muddy field lined with skeletal trees and

828
00:45:52,400 --> 00:45:57,239
Speaker 3: half melted drifts of snow. And this might be another

829
00:45:57,280 --> 00:46:00,040
Speaker 3: good place. We alluded to this earlier, but I I

830
00:46:00,080 --> 00:46:04,200
Speaker 3: just want to emphasize again that the exterior landscape shots

831
00:46:04,239 --> 00:46:11,600
Speaker 3: in this movie are generally not beautiful. They are bleak, cold, dark, unlovely,

832
00:46:11,960 --> 00:46:17,280
Speaker 3: drained of color. And that's interesting because Daughters of Darkness

833
00:46:17,440 --> 00:46:20,640
Speaker 3: is not a movie unconcerned with beauty. It is highly

834
00:46:20,719 --> 00:46:24,839
Speaker 3: concerned with beauty, but not much with natural beauty. It's

835
00:46:24,840 --> 00:46:28,280
Speaker 3: like beauty that doesn't feel good the way that outdoor

836
00:46:28,320 --> 00:46:31,640
Speaker 3: settings and landscapes do. The beauty in this movie is

837
00:46:31,680 --> 00:46:35,080
Speaker 3: all things that like die and decay. It's all like

838
00:46:35,600 --> 00:46:38,520
Speaker 3: human bodies, of course, you know, they're beautiful people in

839
00:46:38,560 --> 00:46:45,160
Speaker 3: the movie, but also like decadent old world luxury items

840
00:46:45,200 --> 00:46:49,239
Speaker 3: made by humans, you know, fancy clothes and jewelry and

841
00:46:49,360 --> 00:46:54,320
Speaker 3: furniture and cocktails and expensive hotel rooms and lobbies and

842
00:46:54,840 --> 00:46:58,000
Speaker 3: the outside world or the natural world. Here is just

843
00:46:58,040 --> 00:47:02,280
Speaker 3: a place of darkness and cold wind where dead bodies

844
00:47:02,320 --> 00:47:02,920
Speaker 3: are dumped.

845
00:47:03,360 --> 00:47:04,920
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

846
00:47:05,719 --> 00:47:08,840
Speaker 3: Anyway, so Stephan he leaves the train, uh, the compartment,

847
00:47:08,880 --> 00:47:10,880
Speaker 3: and he gets the scoop. He finds out that a

848
00:47:10,920 --> 00:47:12,960
Speaker 3: train has gone off the tracks up ahead and they

849
00:47:12,960 --> 00:47:15,279
Speaker 3: are stuck behind it, and this means they are going

850
00:47:15,320 --> 00:47:17,040
Speaker 3: to miss the boat that they were going to take

851
00:47:17,040 --> 00:47:21,359
Speaker 3: to England, where Stephan's family lives. And the backstory, as

852
00:47:21,360 --> 00:47:25,400
Speaker 3: we gather is that Stephan is the son of a wealthy,

853
00:47:25,400 --> 00:47:28,600
Speaker 3: aristocratic family. I think they're supposed to be Americans, but

854
00:47:28,680 --> 00:47:33,200
Speaker 3: living in England there the Chiltern's of Chilton manor uh

855
00:47:33,200 --> 00:47:35,960
Speaker 3: and that I rob did you interpret it the same

856
00:47:36,000 --> 00:47:39,520
Speaker 3: way that Stephan met Valerie while traveling, and they had

857
00:47:39,560 --> 00:47:42,520
Speaker 3: a very brief romance and then got married in Switzerland,

858
00:47:42,640 --> 00:47:43,919
Speaker 3: basically right after they met.

859
00:47:44,520 --> 00:47:46,279
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's that's what I got here. In a way,

860
00:47:46,320 --> 00:47:47,920
Speaker 1: this is kind of like a sequel to a non

861
00:47:47,960 --> 00:47:50,080
Speaker 1: existent rom com. Yes, that's good.

862
00:47:50,080 --> 00:47:52,120
Speaker 3: Oh, you often don't get to see what happens after

863
00:47:52,160 --> 00:47:54,600
Speaker 3: the wrong after the meat cute wears off, and then

864
00:47:54,640 --> 00:47:56,239
Speaker 3: you know, you really got to actually get to know

865
00:47:56,280 --> 00:47:56,680
Speaker 3: each other.

866
00:47:56,880 --> 00:47:59,480
Speaker 1: Yeah, when you really start figuring out what each other's

867
00:47:59,520 --> 00:48:02,120
Speaker 1: sense of hum is or isn't, and then the red

868
00:48:02,160 --> 00:48:03,480
Speaker 1: flags become more apparent.

869
00:48:04,080 --> 00:48:07,240
Speaker 3: Now Stephan has promised to take Valerie back to England

870
00:48:07,360 --> 00:48:11,040
Speaker 3: to meet his family, primarily his mother, whom is repeatedly

871
00:48:11,080 --> 00:48:13,840
Speaker 3: mentioned in a kind of ominous tone. But they have

872
00:48:13,960 --> 00:48:16,399
Speaker 3: missed the boat because of the delay on the rail,

873
00:48:16,560 --> 00:48:19,680
Speaker 3: and so Stephan suggests that they stay in a hotel

874
00:48:20,000 --> 00:48:23,520
Speaker 3: in Ostan, which is a coastal city in Belgium, until

875
00:48:23,520 --> 00:48:24,680
Speaker 3: they can catch another boat.

876
00:48:25,080 --> 00:48:28,840
Speaker 1: And indeed, the exterior locations that we see in certainly

877
00:48:28,920 --> 00:48:32,560
Speaker 1: concerning the hotel itself, is in fact in Austin, and

878
00:48:32,600 --> 00:48:36,319
Speaker 1: this place is a legit cy side vacation destination during

879
00:48:36,320 --> 00:48:39,799
Speaker 1: summer months. The interiors of the hotel that we see though,

880
00:48:39,880 --> 00:48:42,760
Speaker 1: are the Hotel Astoria in Brussels.

881
00:48:43,400 --> 00:48:47,640
Speaker 3: Now Here on the train, Stephan and Valerie have a conversation.

882
00:48:48,520 --> 00:48:52,520
Speaker 3: It's clear that Stephan has not yet broken the news

883
00:48:52,840 --> 00:48:57,600
Speaker 3: about Valerie to his mother, and there is an understanding

884
00:48:57,760 --> 00:49:01,000
Speaker 3: that his mother would not approve either of the speed

885
00:49:01,040 --> 00:49:06,799
Speaker 3: of their courtship or implicitly of who Valerie is. On

886
00:49:07,000 --> 00:49:09,319
Speaker 3: first watch, I was wondering. It was like, is there

887
00:49:09,360 --> 00:49:13,400
Speaker 3: something unsavory about Valerie? But I don't think so. I

888
00:49:13,440 --> 00:49:16,839
Speaker 3: think the understanding is that Stephan is rich and he's

889
00:49:16,840 --> 00:49:19,719
Speaker 3: supposed to marry some wealthy heiress or something, keep to

890
00:49:19,760 --> 00:49:22,200
Speaker 3: his class, and Valerie's just a regular person.

891
00:49:22,480 --> 00:49:24,960
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you get the impression like that he's marrying

892
00:49:25,000 --> 00:49:28,120
Speaker 1: for fun here, and he shouldn't just be marrying based

893
00:49:28,160 --> 00:49:30,839
Speaker 1: on fun or love or something like that. It should

894
00:49:30,880 --> 00:49:33,240
Speaker 1: be some sort of, yeah, some sort of proper connection.

895
00:49:34,040 --> 00:49:38,000
Speaker 3: Valerie is uncomfortable that Stefan's mother doesn't know about her.

896
00:49:38,200 --> 00:49:41,120
Speaker 3: She sort of gently presses him to break the news

897
00:49:41,160 --> 00:49:44,080
Speaker 3: to his mother, but Stephan keeps making excuses. You know,

898
00:49:44,120 --> 00:49:46,040
Speaker 3: it's not the right time to call. She has a

899
00:49:46,040 --> 00:49:49,200
Speaker 3: heart condition. The surprise could kill her and it seems

900
00:49:49,239 --> 00:49:51,800
Speaker 3: like missing the boat to England was a great relief

901
00:49:51,880 --> 00:49:55,640
Speaker 3: to Stefan. Yeah, Valerie says to him, You'll have to

902
00:49:55,680 --> 00:49:58,919
Speaker 3: tell her eventually, and he says in reply, quote every

903
00:49:58,960 --> 00:50:02,600
Speaker 3: year she's been telling me, Stephan, we are different. That

904
00:50:02,800 --> 00:50:05,759
Speaker 3: is God's gift to us. We must never debase it.

905
00:50:06,480 --> 00:50:09,720
Speaker 3: The implication being that Valerie is not worthy of Stefan,

906
00:50:09,800 --> 00:50:13,840
Speaker 3: and she will reduce the precious metal within him, clipping

907
00:50:13,880 --> 00:50:17,120
Speaker 3: the silver, so to speak. So at the end of

908
00:50:17,160 --> 00:50:20,880
Speaker 3: the conversation, she asks Stephan if he is truly afraid

909
00:50:20,920 --> 00:50:24,200
Speaker 3: of his mother, and he seems to be genuinely a

910
00:50:24,200 --> 00:50:27,160
Speaker 3: little threatened by the accusation that he is afraid, so

911
00:50:27,480 --> 00:50:29,959
Speaker 3: he promises to call his mother on the telephone. When

912
00:50:30,000 --> 00:50:33,560
Speaker 3: they reach Ostan. The arrival here in the city is

913
00:50:33,600 --> 00:50:36,439
Speaker 3: marked by an establishing shot of the shore. I talked

914
00:50:36,440 --> 00:50:39,760
Speaker 3: about this earlier, but it's horrifyingly bleak. It's off season.

915
00:50:40,080 --> 00:50:42,719
Speaker 3: The beach is empty and the water washing up on

916
00:50:42,760 --> 00:50:46,920
Speaker 3: the sand is just gray on gray shadows and beige

917
00:50:47,000 --> 00:50:49,880
Speaker 3: building facades and dark window glass.

918
00:50:51,280 --> 00:50:53,920
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, frequent shots that really drive home this kind

919
00:50:53,960 --> 00:50:57,680
Speaker 1: of like low tide, off season vibe. And yeah, it

920
00:50:57,760 --> 00:50:59,560
Speaker 1: leads us to They show us enough of it, and

921
00:50:59,560 --> 00:51:01,759
Speaker 1: they show it to us frequently enough that we are

922
00:51:01,840 --> 00:51:05,080
Speaker 1: left to ruminate on the meaning of these beautiful, dreary shots,

923
00:51:05,120 --> 00:51:10,279
Speaker 1: you know, like seasonal isolation, seasonal withdrawal of life from

924
00:51:10,440 --> 00:51:11,880
Speaker 1: a region, that sort of thing.

925
00:51:13,120 --> 00:51:16,400
Speaker 3: So they arrive at their seaside luxury hotel, and so

926
00:51:16,480 --> 00:51:19,160
Speaker 3: the hotel is completely empty apart from them, and they

927
00:51:19,320 --> 00:51:21,799
Speaker 3: enter in style. They're kind of dressed like celebrities. He's

928
00:51:21,840 --> 00:51:24,880
Speaker 3: wearing this cool leather trench coat and he has the

929
00:51:24,960 --> 00:51:29,640
Speaker 3: fashionably shaggy hairs nineteen seventy one and valeries. All dressed

930
00:51:29,680 --> 00:51:32,680
Speaker 3: in white with a long coat lined with pale fur,

931
00:51:33,239 --> 00:51:35,320
Speaker 3: and her face is kind of hidden behind big movie

932
00:51:35,320 --> 00:51:38,680
Speaker 3: star sunglasses, and Stefan even picks her up to carry

933
00:51:38,680 --> 00:51:41,799
Speaker 3: her across the threshold into the lobby. This is one

934
00:51:41,840 --> 00:51:43,680
Speaker 3: of those scenes where like the last time we saw

935
00:51:43,719 --> 00:51:45,960
Speaker 3: them there was like there was some strain now and

936
00:51:46,000 --> 00:51:48,320
Speaker 3: now they're just like happily coming over the threshold.

937
00:51:48,400 --> 00:51:51,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, they pushed through it somehow, but yeah, they look

938
00:51:51,080 --> 00:51:53,640
Speaker 1: quite fetching here. They're very mad, very fashionable.

939
00:51:54,000 --> 00:51:56,960
Speaker 3: At check in, we meet an interesting character, the hotel

940
00:51:57,000 --> 00:52:01,560
Speaker 3: Concierge Pierre. He is a large spoken man in late

941
00:52:01,600 --> 00:52:04,680
Speaker 3: middle age. I think this is the character the director

942
00:52:04,719 --> 00:52:07,440
Speaker 3: was expecting to be somebody even older. But he's like,

943
00:52:07,480 --> 00:52:10,360
Speaker 3: I will play Gray, and so he does play Gray.

944
00:52:10,600 --> 00:52:14,919
Speaker 3: I would say Pierre has an interesting sadness about him,

945
00:52:15,120 --> 00:52:17,799
Speaker 3: almost as if it's kind of connected to his role

946
00:52:17,840 --> 00:52:21,040
Speaker 3: here at the hotel. He sees the careless rich come

947
00:52:21,080 --> 00:52:24,360
Speaker 3: and go every season, year after year, but he's always here,

948
00:52:25,000 --> 00:52:27,120
Speaker 3: and in fact, we learn that he has worked at

949
00:52:27,120 --> 00:52:28,719
Speaker 3: the same hotel since he was a boy.

950
00:52:29,160 --> 00:52:31,759
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, there is an inherent sadness to him. You know,

951
00:52:31,800 --> 00:52:35,560
Speaker 1: it's like he almost he haunts this place totally. Yeah.

952
00:52:35,640 --> 00:52:39,040
Speaker 3: So, while they're checking in, Pierre mentions that the hotel

953
00:52:39,280 --> 00:52:43,120
Speaker 3: is mostly empty. Actually, he says, the quote is it

954
00:52:43,200 --> 00:52:47,600
Speaker 3: is dead due to the season. But Valerie smiles and she,

955
00:52:47,960 --> 00:52:51,480
Speaker 3: in her kind of agreeable way, she says, actually, she

956
00:52:51,600 --> 00:52:54,759
Speaker 3: loves the seaside in winter, and Pierre says, Madame is

957
00:52:54,800 --> 00:52:59,160
Speaker 3: quite right. It is much quieter, with probably some amount

958
00:52:59,200 --> 00:53:02,280
Speaker 3: of back pain. Pierre lifts their luggage up and begins

959
00:53:02,320 --> 00:53:04,600
Speaker 3: to carry it up to the room. No so, no bell, hop,

960
00:53:04,719 --> 00:53:07,680
Speaker 3: no cart. It is all raw Pierre muscle at this hotel.

961
00:53:07,719 --> 00:53:09,280
Speaker 3: He's got like five suitcases.

962
00:53:09,640 --> 00:53:13,279
Speaker 1: Yeah, and we see the stairs right there. I mean, yeah,

963
00:53:13,920 --> 00:53:17,080
Speaker 1: this location is tremendous and the stairway is very dramatic,

964
00:53:17,640 --> 00:53:20,640
Speaker 1: at least if you're fashionably walking down those stairs and

965
00:53:20,680 --> 00:53:23,480
Speaker 1: not lugging all of this luggage up those stairs. I

966
00:53:23,480 --> 00:53:26,080
Speaker 1: don't think there's an elevator in this hotel, or is there.

967
00:53:26,320 --> 00:53:26,640
Speaker 1: I don't know.

968
00:53:26,680 --> 00:53:30,040
Speaker 3: We don't see it do Anyway, While Pierre has taking

969
00:53:30,040 --> 00:53:33,120
Speaker 3: the bags up, a Valerie reminds Stephan that he promised

970
00:53:33,239 --> 00:53:36,920
Speaker 3: to phone his mother when they arrived. Stephan first tries

971
00:53:36,960 --> 00:53:39,839
Speaker 3: to make an excuse, but then he reluctantly agrees. So

972
00:53:39,880 --> 00:53:42,359
Speaker 3: he chases down Pierre, who's in the middle of going

973
00:53:42,440 --> 00:53:44,960
Speaker 3: up the staircase with the bags, and he interrupts him

974
00:53:45,000 --> 00:53:47,840
Speaker 3: while he's holding all of this weight. And here's Stefan

975
00:53:47,920 --> 00:53:51,000
Speaker 3: pulls a trick. He writes, he writes on a piece

976
00:53:51,000 --> 00:53:53,440
Speaker 3: of paper and hands it to Pierre, and he asks

977
00:53:53,480 --> 00:53:55,360
Speaker 3: him to call this number and put him through at

978
00:53:55,400 --> 00:53:58,080
Speaker 3: the room. But the slip of paper we can see

979
00:53:58,080 --> 00:54:00,760
Speaker 3: it and it actually says say there is no reply,

980
00:54:01,400 --> 00:54:03,920
Speaker 3: and he hands Pierre some money with it. So there

981
00:54:03,960 --> 00:54:06,319
Speaker 3: are kind of two levels of drama here, Like the

982
00:54:06,360 --> 00:54:10,399
Speaker 3: main one is between Stefan, Stephan, and Valerie. We're seeing

983
00:54:10,440 --> 00:54:13,560
Speaker 3: Stefan pull a trick to deceive the woman he just

984
00:54:13,600 --> 00:54:16,440
Speaker 3: got married to, and wonder We're wondering, why is he lying?

985
00:54:16,520 --> 00:54:19,280
Speaker 3: What's gonna happen if Valerie finds out? But the second

986
00:54:19,320 --> 00:54:21,920
Speaker 3: level of drama is more subtle. It's that you've got

987
00:54:21,960 --> 00:54:25,879
Speaker 3: this creaky old concierge carrying like five suitcases at once.

988
00:54:25,960 --> 00:54:28,239
Speaker 3: He's going up the stairs for the millionth time in

989
00:54:28,239 --> 00:54:32,080
Speaker 3: his life, and the young, strong Stephan is just carelessly

990
00:54:32,239 --> 00:54:35,320
Speaker 3: making him stop in the middle of this climb holding

991
00:54:35,600 --> 00:54:39,279
Speaker 3: his bags to enlist him against his will in a

992
00:54:39,280 --> 00:54:40,680
Speaker 3: plot to deceive his wife.

993
00:54:41,080 --> 00:54:41,600
Speaker 1: Yeah.

994
00:54:41,680 --> 00:54:44,400
Speaker 3: There, this was many years before The White Lotus. But

995
00:54:44,440 --> 00:54:46,600
Speaker 3: I feel some thematic kinship here.

996
00:54:46,920 --> 00:54:48,480
Speaker 1: Yeah, that that sort of.

997
00:54:48,440 --> 00:54:51,960
Speaker 3: Theme, I guess is more certain top level or primary

998
00:54:52,000 --> 00:54:54,640
Speaker 3: in White Lotus. Kind of a subtext here, But I

999
00:54:54,640 --> 00:54:56,520
Speaker 3: don't know. I was getting some overlap.

1000
00:54:56,680 --> 00:54:57,680
Speaker 1: No, no, that's a good call.

1001
00:54:58,280 --> 00:55:01,480
Speaker 3: In their room, Stephan gets the call An, He feigned surprised.

1002
00:55:01,480 --> 00:55:04,080
Speaker 3: What do you mean you can't connect? Well, keep trying.

1003
00:55:04,160 --> 00:55:06,959
Speaker 3: He orders Pierre to keep it up, and then later

1004
00:55:07,080 --> 00:55:11,000
Speaker 3: we see Valerie and Stefan having supper in an otherwise deserted,

1005
00:55:11,080 --> 00:55:14,600
Speaker 3: white tablecloth dining room. And despite the luxury, I'm sure

1006
00:55:14,640 --> 00:55:17,320
Speaker 3: this is supposed to be like a Michelin star kitchen.

1007
00:55:17,680 --> 00:55:20,839
Speaker 3: Something is just rather cursed in this room. I would

1008
00:55:20,920 --> 00:55:22,520
Speaker 3: hate to be in this room. It's awful.

1009
00:55:23,120 --> 00:55:26,839
Speaker 1: Now. This dining room I believe is one of, if

1010
00:55:26,840 --> 00:55:30,080
Speaker 1: not the only interior location that is at the hotel

1011
00:55:30,120 --> 00:55:33,520
Speaker 1: in Austend. Oh okay, so but it I mean it

1012
00:55:33,520 --> 00:55:37,800
Speaker 1: has a beautiful windows. But yeah, it is very depopulated,

1013
00:55:37,920 --> 00:55:40,719
Speaker 1: and so there is an inherent kind of sadness to it.

1014
00:55:41,000 --> 00:55:43,680
Speaker 3: Maybe that's it's just that it's empty, and I don't know,

1015
00:55:43,760 --> 00:55:47,280
Speaker 3: something about the the emptiness and the combination of colors

1016
00:55:47,320 --> 00:55:48,320
Speaker 3: and the lighting.

1017
00:55:48,840 --> 00:55:51,279
Speaker 1: I don't know, it's like they've come to stay at

1018
00:55:51,280 --> 00:55:55,600
Speaker 1: the Overlook Hotel during the office. Yes, yeah, yeah, you know.

1019
00:55:55,880 --> 00:55:59,960
Speaker 3: Food somehow never looks good in European movies from the seventies.

1020
00:56:00,200 --> 00:56:02,560
Speaker 3: I don't know exactly why this is, no matter how

1021
00:56:02,560 --> 00:56:05,000
Speaker 3: good it must have looked.

1022
00:56:04,760 --> 00:56:05,680
Speaker 1: In real life.

1023
00:56:05,800 --> 00:56:08,400
Speaker 3: This film, grain or something just makes it look like

1024
00:56:08,560 --> 00:56:12,120
Speaker 3: wretched mush. And there is a scene later where Valerie

1025
00:56:12,160 --> 00:56:14,600
Speaker 3: is she's cutting up a roll or a bun of

1026
00:56:14,640 --> 00:56:18,040
Speaker 3: some kind in bed, and I despise this bun. It

1027
00:56:18,080 --> 00:56:21,080
Speaker 3: looks hard and dense and awful, just some kind of

1028
00:56:21,120 --> 00:56:24,080
Speaker 3: disgusting like pretzel brick as big as a fist.

1029
00:56:24,280 --> 00:56:26,120
Speaker 1: Yeah. I could never really make out what they're eating.

1030
00:56:26,120 --> 00:56:28,640
Speaker 1: Even in this scene. It's like they're in tearing into

1031
00:56:28,640 --> 00:56:32,080
Speaker 1: a fish and I'm not sure if it's breakfast or dinner.

1032
00:56:32,120 --> 00:56:34,520
Speaker 1: And then the scene in bed, I feel like a

1033
00:56:34,560 --> 00:56:36,359
Speaker 1: bowl of shrimp and I was like, are they having

1034
00:56:36,400 --> 00:56:38,879
Speaker 1: shrimp for breakfast? I don't know what's going on here.

1035
00:56:38,960 --> 00:56:43,880
Speaker 1: We definitely see some gray lobsters later. It's just doesn't

1036
00:56:43,920 --> 00:56:44,319
Speaker 1: look good.

1037
00:56:44,960 --> 00:56:47,759
Speaker 3: But yeah, the foods, the foods on the platters are

1038
00:56:47,840 --> 00:56:50,840
Speaker 3: nicely covered by these crystal domes. Oh, I'm sure that

1039
00:56:50,920 --> 00:56:52,080
Speaker 3: keeps it real nice and warm.

1040
00:56:52,280 --> 00:56:53,960
Speaker 1: Remember that. Oh.

1041
00:56:54,000 --> 00:56:57,040
Speaker 3: Also at the dinner scene, more questions about Chilton man

1042
00:56:57,160 --> 00:56:59,480
Speaker 3: or Valeries, like don't you think it's odd that no

1043
00:56:59,480 --> 00:57:02,520
Speaker 3: one's answered the phone at your house? And he's like,

1044
00:57:02,640 --> 00:57:05,239
Speaker 3: taste my gray fish. You know, he holds the fish

1045
00:57:05,360 --> 00:57:05,840
Speaker 3: up and.

1046
00:57:06,280 --> 00:57:08,960
Speaker 1: He's living in the moment in like the least healthy

1047
00:57:08,960 --> 00:57:10,640
Speaker 1: way possible all time.

1048
00:57:11,000 --> 00:57:14,040
Speaker 3: Yeah, so Stephan says, I don't see why you make

1049
00:57:14,080 --> 00:57:15,800
Speaker 3: such a fuss about my mother's opinion.

1050
00:57:16,160 --> 00:57:18,440
Speaker 1: The fact is she already.

1051
00:57:18,040 --> 00:57:22,160
Speaker 3: Hates you without knowing you exist. And eventually Valerie gets

1052
00:57:22,200 --> 00:57:24,120
Speaker 3: him to promise that he's going to go ahead of

1053
00:57:24,160 --> 00:57:26,960
Speaker 3: her to England to prepare his mother to meet her.

1054
00:57:26,960 --> 00:57:29,040
Speaker 3: And he's going to leave tomorrow.

1055
00:57:29,200 --> 00:57:32,120
Speaker 1: Or maybe the day after or maybe the day after that.

1056
00:57:32,640 --> 00:57:36,000
Speaker 1: But soon also sounds problematic, sounds a little bit like

1057
00:57:36,120 --> 00:57:39,240
Speaker 1: I'm going to leave you. Yeah.

1058
00:57:39,280 --> 00:57:41,520
Speaker 3: But of course into their life a storm is about

1059
00:57:41,520 --> 00:57:44,200
Speaker 3: to blow, because here we get to the arrival of

1060
00:57:44,520 --> 00:57:49,479
Speaker 3: Countess Bathory. She arrives at speed, driven in this old

1061
00:57:49,520 --> 00:57:52,480
Speaker 3: fashioned European luxury sedan. Rob I don't know if you

1062
00:57:52,480 --> 00:57:54,520
Speaker 3: know anything about cars or what kind of car this is,

1063
00:57:54,520 --> 00:57:57,160
Speaker 3: but it seems like a kind of fancy, old old

1064
00:57:57,280 --> 00:57:58,320
Speaker 3: style car.

1065
00:57:58,080 --> 00:57:59,720
Speaker 1: Like it's from a different age. Yeah.

1066
00:57:59,760 --> 00:58:03,480
Speaker 3: Look, it's being driven by a young woman named Ilona,

1067
00:58:03,960 --> 00:58:08,760
Speaker 3: whom the Countess calls her assistant or secretary. We first

1068
00:58:08,880 --> 00:58:11,320
Speaker 3: see the Countess as a dark silhouette in the car,

1069
00:58:11,360 --> 00:58:14,640
Speaker 3: and then as she's getting out, we see just these

1070
00:58:14,720 --> 00:58:18,840
Speaker 3: gleaming strips of polished black leather. That's her tall boots,

1071
00:58:19,200 --> 00:58:21,120
Speaker 3: and she's climbing out of the car one leg at

1072
00:58:21,160 --> 00:58:24,280
Speaker 3: a time we pan up across her body, she's dressed

1073
00:58:24,320 --> 00:58:28,040
Speaker 3: mostly in black with furs, leather, I think some feathers

1074
00:58:28,080 --> 00:58:30,960
Speaker 3: in there too, And then when we get to her face,

1075
00:58:31,120 --> 00:58:34,800
Speaker 3: we don't see her eyes at all. It's just pale

1076
00:58:34,840 --> 00:58:39,040
Speaker 3: skin and cherry red lips behind a black mesh veil,

1077
00:58:39,400 --> 00:58:41,760
Speaker 3: and it's just a mouth. The top half of her

1078
00:58:41,800 --> 00:58:45,080
Speaker 3: face is hidden in shadow. There's just the red mouth.

1079
00:58:45,880 --> 00:58:48,440
Speaker 1: Yeah, what a presentation. I think. Towards the end of

1080
00:58:48,440 --> 00:58:50,640
Speaker 1: this shot we see like the glistening of her eyes

1081
00:58:50,680 --> 00:58:56,600
Speaker 1: and they almost look black. Yeah. Both the filmmakers and

1082
00:58:56,800 --> 00:59:01,360
Speaker 1: sarag here apparently took inspiration like direct homage to German

1083
00:59:01,360 --> 00:59:05,720
Speaker 1: and American actress an icon, Marlene Dietrich. So that's, you know,

1084
00:59:06,120 --> 00:59:10,720
Speaker 1: interwoven throughout the picture, you know, very overt shades of

1085
00:59:10,760 --> 00:59:11,760
Speaker 1: Marlene Dietrich. Here.

1086
00:59:12,760 --> 00:59:15,880
Speaker 3: Elona is also, by the way, pale and dressed in black,

1087
00:59:16,160 --> 00:59:19,160
Speaker 3: but with an energy of perpetual anxiety. She's got a

1088
00:59:19,280 --> 00:59:23,520
Speaker 3: kind of learned helplessness. And the first thing she says

1089
00:59:23,560 --> 00:59:26,560
Speaker 3: is something kind of desperate about how she hopes this

1090
00:59:26,640 --> 00:59:30,080
Speaker 3: place will prove acceptable so they can stop traveling, And

1091
00:59:30,120 --> 00:59:34,400
Speaker 3: the Countess is exactly the opposite. She just oozes confidence

1092
00:59:34,480 --> 00:59:38,320
Speaker 3: and domination. She tells Ilona to unpack their luggage and

1093
00:59:38,360 --> 00:59:41,960
Speaker 3: she goes inside. And then once she's inside the hotel,

1094
00:59:42,000 --> 00:59:44,000
Speaker 3: we really get a good look at her where she's

1095
00:59:44,000 --> 00:59:49,000
Speaker 3: like hidden behind this meshure veil, and she looks at

1096
00:59:49,080 --> 00:59:52,960
Speaker 3: people with this little smile like she could just like

1097
00:59:53,080 --> 00:59:57,080
Speaker 3: disassemble them and like make furniture out of their organs.

1098
00:59:59,000 --> 01:00:02,280
Speaker 1: It is just such a like a pitch perfect you know,

1099
01:00:02,640 --> 01:00:06,040
Speaker 1: iconic fem fatale presentation here, I mean the look, but

1100
01:00:06,120 --> 01:00:11,840
Speaker 1: also her performance of this character is just so pitch perfect. Yeah.

1101
01:00:11,880 --> 01:00:14,720
Speaker 3: So she meets Pierre, the concierge, and asks him for

1102
01:00:14,800 --> 01:00:17,440
Speaker 3: the Royal suite. It's the best, the best suite in

1103
01:00:17,480 --> 01:00:21,080
Speaker 3: the place. Unfortunately he has already rented it out to

1104
01:00:21,120 --> 01:00:23,439
Speaker 3: the only other couple in the hotel, pointing them out

1105
01:00:23,480 --> 01:00:26,560
Speaker 3: in the dining room. And when the Countess looks in

1106
01:00:26,680 --> 01:00:30,480
Speaker 3: through the glass at Stefan and Valerie, uh, they're while

1107
01:00:30,480 --> 01:00:31,840
Speaker 3: they're I think they're biting.

1108
01:00:31,520 --> 01:00:35,560
Speaker 1: Pieces of fruit. If that's some Garden of Eden imagery

1109
01:00:35,640 --> 01:00:38,240
Speaker 1: or not. Oh he has green apple, yes.

1110
01:00:38,320 --> 01:00:42,400
Speaker 3: Yes, But the Countess's eyes like turn into laser beams,

1111
01:00:42,440 --> 01:00:45,680
Speaker 3: like she sees what she wants but is it Valerie

1112
01:00:45,800 --> 01:00:48,040
Speaker 3: or is it Stefan. Well we'll have to learn later.

1113
01:00:49,080 --> 01:00:52,240
Speaker 3: But the Countess says to Pierre like, oh, no matter

1114
01:00:52,320 --> 01:00:53,920
Speaker 3: that I can't have the royal suite, I just want

1115
01:00:53,960 --> 01:00:56,800
Speaker 3: the suite adjoining theirs. And I have to say that

1116
01:00:56,960 --> 01:00:58,040
Speaker 3: is bad manners.

1117
01:01:00,080 --> 01:01:01,880
Speaker 1: But as we're about to learn, she gets what she

1118
01:01:01,960 --> 01:01:03,720
Speaker 1: wants here. That is true.

1119
01:01:03,760 --> 01:01:06,280
Speaker 3: I think there's similar rules about like bathroom stalls and

1120
01:01:06,400 --> 01:01:09,200
Speaker 3: urinals and stuff like, you don't if there are a

1121
01:01:09,200 --> 01:01:11,000
Speaker 3: bunch of empty ones, you don't go to the one

1122
01:01:11,080 --> 01:01:12,440
Speaker 3: right next to the occupied one.

1123
01:01:12,520 --> 01:01:14,520
Speaker 1: Yeah, we can space things out a little bit sweet

1124
01:01:14,520 --> 01:01:16,360
Speaker 1: wise in this place. Yeah.

1125
01:01:16,520 --> 01:01:21,040
Speaker 3: Also, Pierre is shaken in this scene because he says

1126
01:01:21,360 --> 01:01:24,160
Speaker 3: he remembers the Countess. He says he's seen her before.

1127
01:01:25,200 --> 01:01:28,200
Speaker 3: She stayed at the hotel once many years ago, when

1128
01:01:28,240 --> 01:01:30,720
Speaker 3: he was a boy. But that doesn't make any sense

1129
01:01:30,800 --> 01:01:33,240
Speaker 3: because he was a boy then and now he is

1130
01:01:33,280 --> 01:01:35,760
Speaker 3: old and she looks the same as she did when

1131
01:01:35,880 --> 01:01:39,120
Speaker 3: he first saw her. But she is unmoved. She says,

1132
01:01:39,160 --> 01:01:42,240
Speaker 3: my mother. Perhaps Pierre is freaked out.

1133
01:01:42,720 --> 01:01:45,400
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I thought it was a very convincing free cap,

1134
01:01:45,480 --> 01:01:49,560
Speaker 1: like there's a he seems to be not only confronting

1135
01:01:49,600 --> 01:01:52,360
Speaker 1: the supernatural in this, but confronting his own mortality, you know,

1136
01:01:52,480 --> 01:01:55,920
Speaker 1: like it's really I mean, he's really shaken here. Yeah.

1137
01:01:56,000 --> 01:01:58,640
Speaker 3: Now, later, Ilona comes in with their bags and the

1138
01:01:58,680 --> 01:02:01,200
Speaker 3: Countess points out the couples to hers. She says, look,

1139
01:02:01,240 --> 01:02:04,720
Speaker 3: how perfect they are, and then Valerie looks up and

1140
01:02:04,760 --> 01:02:08,480
Speaker 3: catches the two creeps just staring straight at her. But

1141
01:02:08,720 --> 01:02:11,240
Speaker 3: later that night, Valerie and Stephan talked to Pierre. They

1142
01:02:11,320 --> 01:02:15,120
Speaker 3: learned the Countess's name. Why is the Countess Elizabeth Battori?

1143
01:02:15,640 --> 01:02:19,520
Speaker 3: And Stefan seems to make something of this. Now we

1144
01:02:19,600 --> 01:02:22,360
Speaker 3: do get a scene of the Countess and Elona together

1145
01:02:22,480 --> 01:02:25,280
Speaker 3: in their room. Elona is staring at the window at

1146
01:02:25,280 --> 01:02:28,920
Speaker 3: Stefan and Valerie is. They're actually outside walking on the

1147
01:02:28,960 --> 01:02:32,280
Speaker 3: beach in the dark down below, and Elona says she

1148
01:02:32,400 --> 01:02:35,680
Speaker 3: can't wait another day. She is in need right now,

1149
01:02:35,760 --> 01:02:39,080
Speaker 3: in need for what. I think we're going to assume blood,

1150
01:02:39,640 --> 01:02:42,680
Speaker 3: But the Countess says, no, they will wait, and then

1151
01:02:42,720 --> 01:02:45,800
Speaker 3: she keeps talking about how perfect Valerie is. She's maybe

1152
01:02:45,880 --> 01:02:49,320
Speaker 3: not interested in Stefan quite as much as Valerie, and

1153
01:02:49,520 --> 01:02:54,960
Speaker 3: Elona is jealous and again mirroring the kind of the

1154
01:02:55,040 --> 01:02:58,480
Speaker 3: flashes of sadism we saw in Stephan earlier, with like

1155
01:02:58,680 --> 01:03:04,440
Speaker 3: enjoying the situations of power he could create over Valerie.

1156
01:03:05,000 --> 01:03:06,920
Speaker 3: There seems to be something similar going on with the

1157
01:03:06,960 --> 01:03:09,920
Speaker 3: Countess here. I detect that the Countess is taking pleasure

1158
01:03:10,200 --> 01:03:14,320
Speaker 3: in Elona's jealousy, that's like making her happy. And then

1159
01:03:14,440 --> 01:03:17,560
Speaker 3: Elona says, I wish I could die, and the Countess

1160
01:03:17,640 --> 01:03:20,520
Speaker 3: just replied, does not address this and just says the light.

1161
01:03:20,840 --> 01:03:24,360
Speaker 3: The light hurts my eyes. So Elona takes her off

1162
01:03:24,360 --> 01:03:27,080
Speaker 3: her red scarf from her neck and droops it over

1163
01:03:27,120 --> 01:03:28,800
Speaker 3: the lamp, tinting the room red.

1164
01:03:29,640 --> 01:03:30,160
Speaker 1: Beautiful.

1165
01:03:30,800 --> 01:03:35,080
Speaker 3: So there are curious emerging symmetries in these two relationships.

1166
01:03:35,600 --> 01:03:39,960
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely neat, but both are very unhealthy relationships and

1167
01:03:40,560 --> 01:03:52,480
Speaker 1: in very similar mirroring ways. Absolutely so.

1168
01:03:52,680 --> 01:03:54,680
Speaker 3: I was thinking, maybe this is a good place. This

1169
01:03:54,720 --> 01:03:57,400
Speaker 3: is sort of the end of act one here, Maybe

1170
01:03:57,400 --> 01:03:59,960
Speaker 3: this is a good place to break and now recount

1171
01:04:00,080 --> 01:04:03,120
Speaker 3: things in a little bit less chronological scene by seeing

1172
01:04:03,160 --> 01:04:06,400
Speaker 3: detail and instead give a broader summary of the rest

1173
01:04:06,440 --> 01:04:08,960
Speaker 3: of the plot, and then maybe we can come back

1174
01:04:09,000 --> 01:04:11,520
Speaker 3: and talk about individual scenes that stand out.

1175
01:04:11,880 --> 01:04:13,400
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely so.

1176
01:04:13,600 --> 01:04:16,960
Speaker 3: From here, while Valerie and Stephan continue their stay at

1177
01:04:16,960 --> 01:04:22,080
Speaker 3: the hotel, the Countess and Ilona insinuate themselves into Valerie.

1178
01:04:22,120 --> 01:04:25,280
Speaker 3: In Stephan's Lives, there's a scene where they have a

1179
01:04:25,320 --> 01:04:28,040
Speaker 3: long conversation in the hotel lobby that we can come

1180
01:04:28,080 --> 01:04:31,440
Speaker 3: back and revisit. But they talk while enjoying some bizarre

1181
01:04:31,440 --> 01:04:35,240
Speaker 3: looking cocktails, some green stuff, and I don't know what

1182
01:04:35,280 --> 01:04:38,400
Speaker 3: all this is, but the Countess explains that she is

1183
01:04:38,480 --> 01:04:42,360
Speaker 3: the descendant of the blood Countess Ershabette Battori of the

1184
01:04:42,440 --> 01:04:45,680
Speaker 3: sixteenth century. I think I was saying that, right, Erzhabet,

1185
01:04:45,760 --> 01:04:48,520
Speaker 3: meaning the same as Elizabeth, just happens to have the

1186
01:04:48,560 --> 01:04:51,840
Speaker 3: exact same name as her descendant here, who is famous

1187
01:04:51,880 --> 01:04:55,400
Speaker 3: for kidnapping and murdering young girls in a bizarre ritual

1188
01:04:55,480 --> 01:04:59,680
Speaker 3: that involved torture, mutilation, and bathing in her victim's blood.

1189
01:05:00,160 --> 01:05:05,400
Speaker 3: Valerie is more than a little distressed that Stephan is

1190
01:05:05,560 --> 01:05:09,840
Speaker 3: visibly sexually excited by this conversation about murder and mutilation,

1191
01:05:10,480 --> 01:05:13,200
Speaker 3: and then also that he and the Countess start, I

1192
01:05:13,240 --> 01:05:15,360
Speaker 3: don't know what they're doing, some kind of like murder

1193
01:05:15,440 --> 01:05:18,120
Speaker 3: lore foreplay right in front of everybody in the middle

1194
01:05:18,120 --> 01:05:19,240
Speaker 3: of the lobby.

1195
01:05:19,080 --> 01:05:23,600
Speaker 1: In a very like physically believable and yet outrageous way.

1196
01:05:24,320 --> 01:05:27,600
Speaker 1: The Countess is basically like, let me touch your nipples

1197
01:05:27,680 --> 01:05:30,720
Speaker 1: whilst I tell you about the many crimes of my

1198
01:05:30,840 --> 01:05:32,680
Speaker 1: ancestor aka myself.

1199
01:05:32,920 --> 01:05:36,600
Speaker 3: Yes, and Stephan is like he is having an out

1200
01:05:36,600 --> 01:05:37,760
Speaker 3: of body experience.

1201
01:05:37,960 --> 01:05:42,720
Speaker 1: Yeah, and Valerie is understandably creeped out by Yeah.

1202
01:05:42,720 --> 01:05:46,439
Speaker 3: So after this, Valerie convinces Stephan to call his mother

1203
01:05:46,480 --> 01:05:48,680
Speaker 3: on the phone for real. But the call does not

1204
01:05:48,920 --> 01:05:51,480
Speaker 3: go very well. And there is a big twist, a

1205
01:05:51,520 --> 01:05:55,680
Speaker 3: big revelation here. The person that Stepan calls is in

1206
01:05:55,720 --> 01:06:00,840
Speaker 3: fact an older man lounging in this lavish conservatory Chilton manner.

1207
01:06:00,960 --> 01:06:03,880
Speaker 3: Is this place filled with plants who kind of reacts

1208
01:06:03,880 --> 01:06:06,520
Speaker 3: with a raised eyebrow at the news that Stephan is

1209
01:06:06,600 --> 01:06:08,840
Speaker 3: married and sort of mocks him for it.

1210
01:06:09,480 --> 01:06:10,760
Speaker 1: I believe a lot has.

1211
01:06:10,640 --> 01:06:12,840
Speaker 3: Been made of this scene with the phone call, and

1212
01:06:12,880 --> 01:06:16,080
Speaker 3: there are questions about how to interpret it. Robert, I

1213
01:06:16,160 --> 01:06:17,800
Speaker 3: wonder if you read it the same way I did.

1214
01:06:17,840 --> 01:06:21,120
Speaker 3: Did you take it that this character is actually not

1215
01:06:21,360 --> 01:06:24,640
Speaker 3: supposed to be Stephan's parent in any way, but is

1216
01:06:24,960 --> 01:06:28,720
Speaker 3: being called mother but is actually Stefan's former lover and

1217
01:06:28,840 --> 01:06:30,160
Speaker 3: financial benefactor.

1218
01:06:30,800 --> 01:06:34,240
Speaker 1: Yes, I believe that's the interpretation that most have made.

1219
01:06:34,280 --> 01:06:37,680
Speaker 1: And that's that's what I read to hear. It's just

1220
01:06:37,840 --> 01:06:41,000
Speaker 1: one scene and the character that we don't even know

1221
01:06:41,000 --> 01:06:43,840
Speaker 1: what this character's actual name is. That this code named

1222
01:06:43,920 --> 01:06:49,120
Speaker 1: mother is played by the male actor Fonz Rademachers who

1223
01:06:49,120 --> 01:06:51,880
Speaker 1: lived nineteen twenty through two thousand and seven, notable Dutch

1224
01:06:51,880 --> 01:06:55,240
Speaker 1: actor and director. As an actor, his other credits include

1225
01:06:55,280 --> 01:06:58,360
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy five Lifespan with Kloskinsky, which I think I

1226
01:06:58,400 --> 01:07:02,200
Speaker 1: referenced earlier, and a director. His most notable achievement was

1227
01:07:02,280 --> 01:07:05,080
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty six Is the Assault, which won an Oscar

1228
01:07:05,120 --> 01:07:06,560
Speaker 1: for Best Foreign Language Film.

1229
01:07:07,040 --> 01:07:10,720
Speaker 3: His performance is quite interesting, not only because of this twist,

1230
01:07:10,800 --> 01:07:13,000
Speaker 3: but because even though I think there's supposed to be

1231
01:07:13,040 --> 01:07:16,000
Speaker 3: nothing at all supernatural about this character, he also kind

1232
01:07:16,000 --> 01:07:17,280
Speaker 3: of has vampire energy.

1233
01:07:18,160 --> 01:07:22,560
Speaker 1: Yes, absolutely, I believe it was. Yeah. I was reading

1234
01:07:22,600 --> 01:07:26,640
Speaker 1: about this in the book V for Vampire by David J. Skall,

1235
01:07:27,160 --> 01:07:30,960
Speaker 1: and he describes this character as an androgynist amalgam of

1236
01:07:31,000 --> 01:07:35,000
Speaker 1: Oscar Wilde and Bella Lagosi. Yeah, I'd say that's about right. Though,

1237
01:07:35,040 --> 01:07:37,400
Speaker 1: to be clear, this character is not and is not

1238
01:07:37,480 --> 01:07:41,600
Speaker 1: implied to be a vampire, right right. Interestingly, this whole

1239
01:07:41,640 --> 01:07:46,520
Speaker 1: scene with the reveal of who Mother is is you know,

1240
01:07:46,600 --> 01:07:49,480
Speaker 1: it's just a phone call. This character shares no actual

1241
01:07:49,520 --> 01:07:53,000
Speaker 1: physical scenes with any other actor in the film, and

1242
01:07:53,080 --> 01:07:58,760
Speaker 1: John Carlin has pointed out that the director intentionally didn't

1243
01:07:58,800 --> 01:08:03,480
Speaker 1: want him to know the identity of Mother and kept

1244
01:08:03,480 --> 01:08:07,240
Speaker 1: it from him, but one of the producers got in

1245
01:08:07,280 --> 01:08:09,880
Speaker 1: touch with Carlin and told him because he's like, you know,

1246
01:08:09,960 --> 01:08:11,800
Speaker 1: because like, hey, you're an actor, you need to know

1247
01:08:12,000 --> 01:08:15,200
Speaker 1: like your actual role. But also he's like he didn't

1248
01:08:15,240 --> 01:08:17,599
Speaker 1: want it there to be any like any like weird feelings,

1249
01:08:17,640 --> 01:08:19,559
Speaker 1: like after the fact that the movie comes out, and

1250
01:08:19,600 --> 01:08:22,519
Speaker 1: then and then he finds out the twist. So he

1251
01:08:22,600 --> 01:08:25,720
Speaker 1: actually played this scene knowing what the twist was.

1252
01:08:26,080 --> 01:08:31,000
Speaker 3: Oh okay, Well, so I think this scene is very

1253
01:08:31,040 --> 01:08:33,720
Speaker 3: open to interpretation and there are a lot of unanswered

1254
01:08:33,800 --> 01:08:35,840
Speaker 3: questions about it. Maybe we can address that a little

1255
01:08:35,840 --> 01:08:39,559
Speaker 3: bit more in a few minutes, but it's clear that

1256
01:08:39,760 --> 01:08:43,920
Speaker 3: it does. It's a source of kind of like unresolved

1257
01:08:44,000 --> 01:08:48,040
Speaker 3: anxiety and pain for the character of Stefan, like that

1258
01:08:48,080 --> 01:08:51,160
Speaker 3: he is he is not happy with this conversation.

1259
01:08:51,840 --> 01:08:55,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, you'd definitely get the feeling that everything that he

1260
01:08:55,200 --> 01:08:59,880
Speaker 1: is doing right now is is in response to problems

1261
01:09:00,160 --> 01:09:04,360
Speaker 1: his relationship with this individual, with the person we're referring

1262
01:09:04,360 --> 01:09:05,200
Speaker 1: to his mother.

1263
01:09:06,280 --> 01:09:09,879
Speaker 3: But Stepan, he does not deal with this pain well. Instead,

1264
01:09:09,960 --> 01:09:13,080
Speaker 3: he has some kind of emotional episode which turns into

1265
01:09:13,240 --> 01:09:16,920
Speaker 3: rage and then violence directed toward Valerie, and he beats

1266
01:09:17,000 --> 01:09:20,479
Speaker 3: and rapes her. The rape happens off screen, but he

1267
01:09:20,560 --> 01:09:24,800
Speaker 3: turns violent toward her after the scene. Valerie wakes up

1268
01:09:24,880 --> 01:09:28,360
Speaker 3: while Stephan is still sleeping and tries to leave town

1269
01:09:28,400 --> 01:09:33,400
Speaker 3: by herself to escape the situation, but the Countess then intervenes,

1270
01:09:34,120 --> 01:09:36,960
Speaker 3: meets her at the train station and prevents her from leaving.

1271
01:09:37,000 --> 01:09:40,120
Speaker 3: She's trying to talk her into staying, not into staying

1272
01:09:40,160 --> 01:09:44,720
Speaker 3: with Stephan, but into staying maybe with her Yeah, and

1273
01:09:44,760 --> 01:09:47,559
Speaker 3: they spend time together at some kind of spa or

1274
01:09:47,640 --> 01:09:51,960
Speaker 3: mineral spring, where they discuss Valerie's relationship with Stephan and

1275
01:09:52,000 --> 01:09:56,519
Speaker 3: the many dangers he presents, but it's increasingly clear over

1276
01:09:56,560 --> 01:10:00,880
Speaker 3: time that the Countess wants Valerie for herself. Meanwhile, at

1277
01:10:00,920 --> 01:10:05,639
Speaker 3: the Hotel Ilona, on the Countess's instruction she's been told

1278
01:10:05,680 --> 01:10:09,640
Speaker 3: to do this, goes to Stefan and seduces him, and

1279
01:10:09,760 --> 01:10:13,080
Speaker 3: after this they're they're in the bathroom and they're sort

1280
01:10:13,120 --> 01:10:16,800
Speaker 3: of messing around, and Stephan sort of he's he thinks

1281
01:10:16,840 --> 01:10:19,360
Speaker 3: he's being playful, but once again there's this blurred line

1282
01:10:19,400 --> 01:10:22,080
Speaker 3: between kind of flirtation and aggression with him, where he's

1283
01:10:22,120 --> 01:10:25,280
Speaker 3: like being playful but he's actually being violent. And he's

1284
01:10:25,280 --> 01:10:28,360
Speaker 3: trying to put Ilona in the shower and he's laughing

1285
01:10:28,360 --> 01:10:31,760
Speaker 3: while he's doing it, and she's screaming no, seemingly in

1286
01:10:31,800 --> 01:10:36,080
Speaker 3: this case because the shower water actually might harm her.

1287
01:10:36,120 --> 01:10:39,200
Speaker 3: They mentioned earlier that vampires shrink from clear running water.

1288
01:10:39,600 --> 01:10:43,240
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, running moving water is sometimes like the deeper

1289
01:10:43,280 --> 01:10:46,719
Speaker 1: cut of a vampire weakness that isn't always employed because

1290
01:10:46,720 --> 01:10:49,600
Speaker 1: I don't think storytellers often know what to do with it,

1291
01:10:49,760 --> 01:10:53,000
Speaker 1: or it seems like too potent of a weakness. But

1292
01:10:53,040 --> 01:10:54,479
Speaker 1: it's nicely used here.

1293
01:10:54,920 --> 01:10:59,759
Speaker 3: But in the struggle, Ilona falls on his shaving razor

1294
01:11:00,000 --> 01:11:03,479
Speaker 3: and she is killed. The Countess and Valerie arrive back

1295
01:11:03,520 --> 01:11:05,960
Speaker 3: at the hotel room just in time to see this,

1296
01:11:06,520 --> 01:11:08,920
Speaker 3: to see the body. This seems to be going almost

1297
01:11:08,960 --> 01:11:10,559
Speaker 3: exactly as the count has planned.

1298
01:11:10,880 --> 01:11:12,680
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I kind of I was thinking about this.

1299
01:11:13,160 --> 01:11:16,479
Speaker 1: You can easily imagine that they were supposed to walk

1300
01:11:16,479 --> 01:11:19,720
Speaker 1: in on the two of them in bed together or

1301
01:11:19,760 --> 01:11:24,680
Speaker 1: showering together or something. But ope, surprise, she's managed to

1302
01:11:24,680 --> 01:11:27,920
Speaker 1: get herself killed by him, and the Countess is probably like, well,

1303
01:11:27,960 --> 01:11:30,080
Speaker 1: this is even better. This has worked out even better

1304
01:11:30,120 --> 01:11:30,799
Speaker 1: than I planned.

1305
01:11:31,479 --> 01:11:34,880
Speaker 3: So now the Countess takes control. She takes control of

1306
01:11:34,920 --> 01:11:37,439
Speaker 3: the situation. We get the sense that she's probably disposed

1307
01:11:37,479 --> 01:11:40,000
Speaker 3: of a body or two before I think so, And

1308
01:11:40,080 --> 01:11:43,040
Speaker 3: she instructs Valerie and Stephan in how to clean up

1309
01:11:43,040 --> 01:11:45,479
Speaker 3: the crime scene and how to get Alone's body into

1310
01:11:45,560 --> 01:11:49,400
Speaker 3: her car, and then they drive out to this desolate beach.

1311
01:11:49,200 --> 01:11:50,040
Speaker 1: Far from town.

1312
01:11:50,760 --> 01:11:54,680
Speaker 3: Again, all the the locations that should be beautiful are

1313
01:11:54,720 --> 01:11:56,320
Speaker 3: actually just horrible and bleak.

1314
01:11:56,640 --> 01:11:57,479
Speaker 1: This is one of them.

1315
01:11:57,760 --> 01:11:59,920
Speaker 3: They go out to this horrible beach and they bury

1316
01:11:59,880 --> 01:12:02,680
Speaker 3: her body and the sand. By the way here, they're

1317
01:12:02,720 --> 01:12:06,920
Speaker 3: being watched by this older detective character we mentioned earlier.

1318
01:12:06,960 --> 01:12:09,320
Speaker 3: Who is He shows up in the scene where they're

1319
01:12:09,320 --> 01:12:12,120
Speaker 3: having the conversation and the lobby also maybe we can

1320
01:12:12,160 --> 01:12:15,280
Speaker 3: talk about that, but he's sort of been on the

1321
01:12:15,320 --> 01:12:17,000
Speaker 3: case of the Countess.

1322
01:12:16,520 --> 01:12:17,479
Speaker 1: We are led to believe.

1323
01:12:18,400 --> 01:12:21,040
Speaker 3: And then on the way back from this, the Countess

1324
01:12:21,080 --> 01:12:23,439
Speaker 3: just like runs him down with her car while he's

1325
01:12:23,439 --> 01:12:24,240
Speaker 3: on a bicycle.

1326
01:12:25,920 --> 01:12:31,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, there's no nobody's coming to save them. The

1327
01:12:31,080 --> 01:12:34,439
Speaker 1: beach you mentioned, like the desolate beach sequence here, I

1328
01:12:34,479 --> 01:12:38,519
Speaker 1: mean tremendous in many ways. I love, like you see

1329
01:12:38,520 --> 01:12:41,599
Speaker 1: the big concrete reinforcements of the beach. So even the

1330
01:12:41,640 --> 01:12:46,280
Speaker 1: beach here is like reinforced by domination and man made violence. Yeah.

1331
01:12:46,920 --> 01:12:49,920
Speaker 1: And then and then the bearing of the body is

1332
01:12:50,000 --> 01:12:55,639
Speaker 1: just really perfectly executed, like the harshness of her body

1333
01:12:55,680 --> 01:12:58,400
Speaker 1: being thrown in on top of stuff, And it almost

1334
01:12:58,400 --> 01:13:00,280
Speaker 1: seems that for a moment there that they're intent to

1335
01:13:00,320 --> 01:13:03,400
Speaker 1: bury him alive with her. I think they're considering it,

1336
01:13:03,479 --> 01:13:06,640
Speaker 1: and then they kind of back away, but I don't know.

1337
01:13:06,680 --> 01:13:09,960
Speaker 3: I think they'll get there eventually. So the three of

1338
01:13:10,000 --> 01:13:13,160
Speaker 3: them go back to the Countess's room after this. Actually

1339
01:13:13,200 --> 01:13:15,800
Speaker 3: first I think Stefan and Valerie go back to their room.

1340
01:13:15,840 --> 01:13:20,200
Speaker 3: But Valerie is beginning to fall under the sway of

1341
01:13:20,240 --> 01:13:23,559
Speaker 3: the Countess, and I think there are interesting questions, Rob,

1342
01:13:23,840 --> 01:13:25,880
Speaker 3: I don't know if this is a good place to

1343
01:13:25,920 --> 01:13:29,760
Speaker 3: talk about it might as well. To what extent do

1344
01:13:29,840 --> 01:13:35,320
Speaker 3: you think Valerie's submission to the Countess is supposed to

1345
01:13:35,320 --> 01:13:38,880
Speaker 3: be like magical vampire hypnotism in nature or what part

1346
01:13:38,880 --> 01:13:41,400
Speaker 3: of it is just a kind of like a kind

1347
01:13:41,439 --> 01:13:45,599
Speaker 3: of helplessness and expression further expression of what she's already shown,

1348
01:13:46,040 --> 01:13:49,000
Speaker 3: but from her personality, but taken to the extreme.

1349
01:13:49,720 --> 01:13:52,479
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a lot of ambiguity to this, Like is

1350
01:13:52,560 --> 01:13:56,640
Speaker 1: this just further domination? Is it to some degree liberation

1351
01:13:58,439 --> 01:13:59,080
Speaker 1: in a way?

1352
01:13:59,240 --> 01:14:04,120
Speaker 3: I mean liberation, yes, from Stephan, who is she needs

1353
01:14:04,200 --> 01:14:07,280
Speaker 3: liberating from? But also it seems to be putting her

1354
01:14:07,360 --> 01:14:09,960
Speaker 3: under the control of a new oppressor.

1355
01:14:09,720 --> 01:14:13,040
Speaker 1: Right, and we've already seen the end result of the

1356
01:14:13,200 --> 01:14:16,200
Speaker 1: of oppression by the Countess, you know, like she has

1357
01:14:16,360 --> 01:14:19,679
Speaker 1: she is clearly disposed of many thralls over the years,

1358
01:14:19,720 --> 01:14:22,599
Speaker 1: and they eventually just become tools and not darlings to her.

1359
01:14:23,040 --> 01:14:25,439
Speaker 3: But anyway, well, so Valerie is in this state well

1360
01:14:25,560 --> 01:14:30,240
Speaker 3: where she's becoming increasingly enthrall to the Countess, and you know,

1361
01:14:30,520 --> 01:14:33,799
Speaker 3: she and Stephan in some way also they're both seemingly

1362
01:14:33,840 --> 01:14:37,680
Speaker 3: having their wills kind of reduced, and Stephan wants to

1363
01:14:37,720 --> 01:14:40,880
Speaker 3: reassert control over Valerie and commands her to leave with him,

1364
01:14:40,880 --> 01:14:43,439
Speaker 3: but she won't go, So they end up in the

1365
01:14:43,439 --> 01:14:48,439
Speaker 3: Countess's room, having another horrible hotel room service dinner and

1366
01:14:49,400 --> 01:14:53,160
Speaker 3: a fight erupts and Stephan is killed after the two

1367
01:14:53,200 --> 01:14:57,080
Speaker 3: women smash a crystal bowl on his face and cut

1368
01:14:57,160 --> 01:14:59,800
Speaker 3: him up with the shards, and then they just both

1369
01:15:00,400 --> 01:15:01,959
Speaker 3: drink the blood from his wounds.

1370
01:15:02,240 --> 01:15:08,360
Speaker 1: This sequence here, the killing slash sacrificing of Stefan, it's

1371
01:15:08,720 --> 01:15:10,639
Speaker 1: it's a scene that is both ridiculed, like it's when

1372
01:15:10,680 --> 01:15:13,639
Speaker 1: it happened. I think my jaw dropped and I kind

1373
01:15:13,640 --> 01:15:16,040
Speaker 1: of laughed a little because, yeah, they push it down

1374
01:15:16,040 --> 01:15:20,240
Speaker 1: on his face. It even the crystal plate cover like

1375
01:15:20,400 --> 01:15:24,400
Speaker 1: cleanly snaps in two. The two snapped sides flip around

1376
01:15:24,479 --> 01:15:27,479
Speaker 1: and land on his wrists, slicing them open, and then

1377
01:15:27,520 --> 01:15:30,720
Speaker 1: they both begin to feed. But it's so perfect in

1378
01:15:30,760 --> 01:15:34,760
Speaker 1: its execution too. It feels like it feels like a

1379
01:15:34,800 --> 01:15:38,040
Speaker 1: sacred symbol. It feels like there's a there's a there's

1380
01:15:38,040 --> 01:15:40,439
Speaker 1: a structural completeness to it that I really liked.

1381
01:15:40,560 --> 01:15:44,200
Speaker 3: A very similar thing happened when when Ilona fell on

1382
01:15:44,280 --> 01:15:46,439
Speaker 3: the razor in the earlier scene. There was a kind

1383
01:15:46,520 --> 01:15:49,400
Speaker 3: of almost a magical hand guiding it through the scene.

1384
01:15:49,439 --> 01:15:53,120
Speaker 3: It just like perfectly happens that it slices her wrists

1385
01:15:53,439 --> 01:15:54,720
Speaker 3: and then she falls on it.

1386
01:15:54,800 --> 01:15:57,320
Speaker 1: In this kind of implausible way, but it's all kind

1387
01:15:57,320 --> 01:15:59,520
Speaker 1: of done in a slow motion with these.

1388
01:15:59,640 --> 01:16:03,360
Speaker 3: Short close up shots. Uh yeah, similar thing going on.

1389
01:16:04,040 --> 01:16:07,920
Speaker 1: Yeah, the and these and these implausible possibly implausible deaths

1390
01:16:08,000 --> 01:16:10,960
Speaker 1: or not not through and when they do it, they

1391
01:16:11,000 --> 01:16:12,080
Speaker 1: do feel like destiny.

1392
01:16:12,640 --> 01:16:16,360
Speaker 3: I thought it was interesting the absolutely unceremonious dumping of

1393
01:16:16,400 --> 01:16:18,920
Speaker 3: Stephan's corpse where they just like throw them over a

1394
01:16:19,000 --> 01:16:20,120
Speaker 3: wall under the road.

1395
01:16:20,640 --> 01:16:22,920
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, they're just done with him. Yeah.

1396
01:16:23,040 --> 01:16:25,679
Speaker 3: So after this, Valerie and the Countess escape the scene

1397
01:16:25,680 --> 01:16:28,439
Speaker 3: of the crime in the Countess's car, with Valerie driving,

1398
01:16:29,000 --> 01:16:31,840
Speaker 3: and the Countess is becoming desperate that they've they've got

1399
01:16:31,840 --> 01:16:34,960
Speaker 3: to get to safety before daylight. But they don't make it.

1400
01:16:35,040 --> 01:16:38,000
Speaker 3: And so here we get to the ending where where

1401
01:16:38,040 --> 01:16:40,080
Speaker 3: I think is the sun is rising and coming through

1402
01:16:40,080 --> 01:16:42,519
Speaker 3: the trees. They're like driving along a road that's lined

1403
01:16:42,560 --> 01:16:45,760
Speaker 3: by trees, and as the sun comes in, Valerie is

1404
01:16:45,760 --> 01:16:50,439
Speaker 3: blinded and wrecks the car. Questionable whether she meant to

1405
01:16:50,479 --> 01:16:52,519
Speaker 3: wreck the car or not, I couldn't quite tell. I

1406
01:16:52,520 --> 01:16:53,800
Speaker 3: don't know if you have thoughts about that.

1407
01:16:54,120 --> 01:16:58,040
Speaker 1: I interpreted it as as accidental, but I think this

1408
01:16:58,120 --> 01:17:01,559
Speaker 1: is an unacceptable read as well. Yeah, either way.

1409
01:17:02,000 --> 01:17:04,519
Speaker 3: Valerie is I think she was wearing her seat belt,

1410
01:17:04,640 --> 01:17:08,000
Speaker 3: and she is, She is okay. But the Countess is

1411
01:17:08,080 --> 01:17:11,439
Speaker 3: thrown through the windshield and impaled through the heart on

1412
01:17:11,520 --> 01:17:14,559
Speaker 3: a branch from a fallen tree, and then she catches

1413
01:17:14,560 --> 01:17:15,640
Speaker 3: fire and explodes.

1414
01:17:16,280 --> 01:17:19,759
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's pretty stunning and again improbable in one sense,

1415
01:17:19,760 --> 01:17:23,200
Speaker 1: but also it feels like destiny, like and there are

1416
01:17:23,200 --> 01:17:25,720
Speaker 1: some dialogue lines from the Countess earlier that kind of

1417
01:17:25,720 --> 01:17:29,719
Speaker 1: alluded this. She talks about about like death following her,

1418
01:17:29,800 --> 01:17:32,320
Speaker 1: like death is always coming for her, and like this

1419
01:17:32,360 --> 01:17:35,080
Speaker 1: is a scene where death catches up and claims her,

1420
01:17:35,080 --> 01:17:37,840
Speaker 1: and so she seems like a little shocked, but also

1421
01:17:38,960 --> 01:17:42,080
Speaker 1: you know, realizing as well that like this, this was

1422
01:17:42,120 --> 01:17:43,720
Speaker 1: always going to happen, and here it is.

1423
01:17:44,040 --> 01:17:46,679
Speaker 3: She's been living on credit from the balance of death

1424
01:17:46,720 --> 01:17:50,639
Speaker 3: for centuries now, and it's it's been coming. It's finally

1425
01:17:50,640 --> 01:17:51,400
Speaker 3: come to collect.

1426
01:17:52,040 --> 01:17:54,320
Speaker 1: But for Valerie though. That's right, son.

1427
01:17:54,720 --> 01:17:58,200
Speaker 3: Yes, there is also a coda where Valerie has now

1428
01:17:58,240 --> 01:18:02,519
Speaker 3: become a vampire queen. We see her essentially repeating the

1429
01:18:02,920 --> 01:18:06,080
Speaker 3: repeating what the Countess did to them. We see her

1430
01:18:06,400 --> 01:18:08,880
Speaker 3: making friends with a young man and a young woman

1431
01:18:08,960 --> 01:18:11,880
Speaker 3: at a luxury resort. These you know, nice hot people

1432
01:18:11,960 --> 01:18:15,559
Speaker 3: dressed up in like tennis clothes, the tennis rackets, and

1433
01:18:16,160 --> 01:18:18,880
Speaker 3: she she is recruiting them. It seems like she's the

1434
01:18:18,920 --> 01:18:19,559
Speaker 3: new Bathory.

1435
01:18:20,240 --> 01:18:22,960
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. And it leaves us and this is the

1436
01:18:23,320 --> 01:18:26,000
Speaker 1: end of the picture, and it leaves us to contemplate,

1437
01:18:26,120 --> 01:18:29,000
Speaker 1: like so many things. But one thing I kept wondering

1438
01:18:29,000 --> 01:18:31,800
Speaker 1: about is like what is the like what did the

1439
01:18:31,880 --> 01:18:34,599
Speaker 1: countess see as her mission? And what is Valerie seeing

1440
01:18:34,600 --> 01:18:37,400
Speaker 1: as her mission here when she sees two young people,

1441
01:18:37,479 --> 01:18:41,479
Speaker 1: Like is is she identifying like a woman that she

1442
01:18:41,600 --> 01:18:47,559
Speaker 1: wants to free from from a dominating relationship? Is it, like,

1443
01:18:48,120 --> 01:18:52,600
Speaker 1: you know, an unending war against patriarchy? Is it? But

1444
01:18:52,720 --> 01:18:54,240
Speaker 1: is it? Or is it something else? It's just like

1445
01:18:54,280 --> 01:18:56,920
Speaker 1: here is just there's here's an attractive person that I

1446
01:18:57,080 --> 01:19:00,519
Speaker 1: want to dominate with my will, Like, you know, where

1447
01:19:00,560 --> 01:19:03,280
Speaker 1: is the domination? Where's the liberation? How does it all

1448
01:19:03,280 --> 01:19:04,759
Speaker 1: come together in this picture?

1449
01:19:04,920 --> 01:19:17,080
Speaker 3: Good question? I think that is somewhat left open to

1450
01:19:17,120 --> 01:19:19,360
Speaker 3: talk about a few individual scenes. I wanted to dwell

1451
01:19:19,400 --> 01:19:22,799
Speaker 3: for just a moment on the trip to Bruges. Yeah,

1452
01:19:22,840 --> 01:19:26,320
Speaker 3: so there's this time when they like read some articles

1453
01:19:26,320 --> 01:19:29,160
Speaker 3: in the newspaper about ooh, there have been horrible murders

1454
01:19:29,160 --> 01:19:33,240
Speaker 3: in Bruges, your girls getting their throats slashed, and then

1455
01:19:33,560 --> 01:19:35,000
Speaker 3: what do you know, It's time to do a little

1456
01:19:35,040 --> 01:19:37,200
Speaker 3: day trip. Let's go to Bruges. So they go there,

1457
01:19:38,240 --> 01:19:40,400
Speaker 3: they do a boat ride on the canals, and then

1458
01:19:40,439 --> 01:19:42,519
Speaker 3: they just stop to look at a murder scene. Like

1459
01:19:42,640 --> 01:19:44,960
Speaker 3: the police are around a house and a body is

1460
01:19:45,000 --> 01:19:48,800
Speaker 3: being brought out, and Stephan is just obsessed. He's like

1461
01:19:48,960 --> 01:19:52,360
Speaker 3: insatiably curious to get up close and see the flesh

1462
01:19:52,400 --> 01:19:55,479
Speaker 3: of the corpse. There's this older man there who's telling

1463
01:19:55,520 --> 01:19:57,479
Speaker 3: him the details of the crimes, and it turns out

1464
01:19:57,520 --> 01:19:59,800
Speaker 3: this is the inspector guy who's been on the trail of.

1465
01:19:59,720 --> 01:20:02,320
Speaker 1: The cam Are we to understand?

1466
01:20:02,320 --> 01:20:05,040
Speaker 3: I think that the countess is responsible for these murders.

1467
01:20:05,120 --> 01:20:07,280
Speaker 1: I believe so you there's some allusion later on to

1468
01:20:07,360 --> 01:20:09,760
Speaker 1: the fact that she has been in Bruges recently and

1469
01:20:10,080 --> 01:20:12,639
Speaker 1: was clearly feasting.

1470
01:20:13,400 --> 01:20:17,240
Speaker 3: So Stephan is he gets really absorbed as the girl's

1471
01:20:17,280 --> 01:20:19,479
Speaker 3: body is taken by under a sheet, though her hand

1472
01:20:19,600 --> 01:20:22,080
Speaker 3: keeps falling out and then they keep stuffing it back

1473
01:20:22,120 --> 01:20:24,559
Speaker 3: under the sheet. But he's so wrapped up that he

1474
01:20:24,720 --> 01:20:27,800
Speaker 3: like freaks out and he hits Valerie when she interferes

1475
01:20:27,840 --> 01:20:32,360
Speaker 3: with him, and so when they're on the bus on

1476
01:20:32,439 --> 01:20:35,680
Speaker 3: the way back, Valerie says to him, Stephan, I'm frightened,

1477
01:20:35,720 --> 01:20:38,640
Speaker 3: and he says, of what she says of you, and

1478
01:20:38,680 --> 01:20:41,479
Speaker 3: he's dismissive. He says, don't be ridiculous. I was just

1479
01:20:41,520 --> 01:20:45,479
Speaker 3: looking like everyone else. And Valerie says, don't lie to yourself.

1480
01:20:45,560 --> 01:20:49,040
Speaker 3: You were pleased. It gave you pleasure. You actually enjoyed

1481
01:20:49,080 --> 01:20:52,639
Speaker 3: to see that dead girl's body, and Stephan says, and

1482
01:20:52,760 --> 01:20:56,120
Speaker 3: you enjoyed telling me. We're getting to know each other,

1483
01:20:57,720 --> 01:21:01,840
Speaker 3: which is interesting because it's this dark dynamic where I

1484
01:21:01,840 --> 01:21:05,240
Speaker 3: think he's sort of right there. There's something that's she's

1485
01:21:05,280 --> 01:21:08,880
Speaker 3: getting fulfillment out of, like recognizing this about him in

1486
01:21:09,000 --> 01:21:13,200
Speaker 3: some way. And then after this conversation she kind of

1487
01:21:13,320 --> 01:21:16,439
Speaker 3: leans into him and then starts trying to get frisky

1488
01:21:16,479 --> 01:21:18,960
Speaker 3: on the bus, I think, but Stuffan like pushes her

1489
01:21:19,000 --> 01:21:21,880
Speaker 3: hand away, And this is one of those scenes where

1490
01:21:21,880 --> 01:21:24,200
Speaker 3: there's like it cuts there, and then the next time

1491
01:21:24,240 --> 01:21:25,800
Speaker 3: we see them, they're like coming in out of the

1492
01:21:25,880 --> 01:21:29,479
Speaker 3: rain and they're like laughing and everything's good again. But

1493
01:21:30,320 --> 01:21:32,040
Speaker 3: the next scene, by the way, we should also mention

1494
01:21:32,160 --> 01:21:35,400
Speaker 3: because this is the meeting in the lobby where where

1495
01:21:35,800 --> 01:21:38,240
Speaker 3: the Countess and our young couple first get to know

1496
01:21:38,320 --> 01:21:40,479
Speaker 3: each other. And the Countess when we first meet her

1497
01:21:40,520 --> 01:21:43,120
Speaker 3: here she's sitting in a red velvet chair and she's knitting.

1498
01:21:43,280 --> 01:21:46,280
Speaker 3: She has two arn balls with knitting needles, and she's

1499
01:21:46,320 --> 01:21:47,000
Speaker 3: going to town.

1500
01:21:47,600 --> 01:21:49,599
Speaker 1: Yeah. I love the implied I mean in a way,

1501
01:21:49,640 --> 01:21:53,840
Speaker 1: they're like two vampire fangs. I guess right. Oh I

1502
01:21:53,880 --> 01:21:56,960
Speaker 1: didn't think about that. Yeah, now is this also refreshed

1503
01:21:56,960 --> 01:21:59,679
Speaker 1: my memories? This is also the scene with the bright

1504
01:21:59,720 --> 01:22:03,920
Speaker 1: green drink. Yes, okay, yes, we're not there yet. So

1505
01:22:04,040 --> 01:22:06,479
Speaker 1: like at first first she has a little exchange with

1506
01:22:06,479 --> 01:22:06,880
Speaker 1: the loona.

1507
01:22:06,960 --> 01:22:09,479
Speaker 3: Alna comes out and she's like, you know, I'm trying

1508
01:22:09,479 --> 01:22:11,760
Speaker 3: to leave you, Countess, I'm going to leave you and

1509
01:22:11,760 --> 01:22:14,040
Speaker 3: I'm gonna go away. She says, let me go away,

1510
01:22:14,080 --> 01:22:16,759
Speaker 3: and the Countess says, I never would and you never could.

1511
01:22:17,479 --> 01:22:20,000
Speaker 3: And Alona's like, but you can have them, the new ones,

1512
01:22:20,040 --> 01:22:22,479
Speaker 3: the beautiful ones. With them, you don't need me anymore.

1513
01:22:22,640 --> 01:22:25,360
Speaker 3: And the Countess says, without me, you'd have no life,

1514
01:22:25,720 --> 01:22:28,960
Speaker 3: and Alona says, you call this a life. But the

1515
01:22:28,960 --> 01:22:31,360
Speaker 3: Countess again is just kind of cold to her unfeeling

1516
01:22:31,439 --> 01:22:36,160
Speaker 3: to her needs. And the Countess meets Stefan and Valerie

1517
01:22:36,240 --> 01:22:38,960
Speaker 3: as they come in from Bruges and invites them for

1518
01:22:39,040 --> 01:22:41,640
Speaker 3: drinks in the lounge. I like the part where she

1519
01:22:41,720 --> 01:22:43,960
Speaker 3: kind of fusses over them being wet from the rain.

1520
01:22:44,080 --> 01:22:45,840
Speaker 3: She's like, oh, no, no, you must go up and

1521
01:22:45,880 --> 01:22:48,080
Speaker 3: get yourselves dry clothes. If you came down with the

1522
01:22:48,120 --> 01:22:50,160
Speaker 3: slightest bit of a cold, I'd never be able to

1523
01:22:50,160 --> 01:22:54,519
Speaker 3: forgive myself. She also demands that Pierre bring them hot rum.

1524
01:22:55,000 --> 01:22:57,840
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, so they get hot hot rum, and yeah.

1525
01:22:57,880 --> 01:23:00,960
Speaker 1: She gets this bright green drink that I think a

1526
01:23:01,000 --> 01:23:06,200
Speaker 1: lot of you would recognize as a grasshopper. But in

1527
01:23:06,439 --> 01:23:08,360
Speaker 1: one of the extras where they were talking about this,

1528
01:23:08,400 --> 01:23:10,800
Speaker 1: they referred to it as an Alexander and I was

1529
01:23:10,800 --> 01:23:13,320
Speaker 1: looking it up, and they're different, like Alexander drinks, not

1530
01:23:13,400 --> 01:23:17,519
Speaker 1: all of which are green summer green, and I get

1531
01:23:17,520 --> 01:23:20,160
Speaker 1: the impression it's essentially the same as a grasshopper. I

1532
01:23:20,200 --> 01:23:22,920
Speaker 1: don't know. Once that much cream dement is in something,

1533
01:23:24,040 --> 01:23:26,839
Speaker 1: I think we're that all these drinks are the same,

1534
01:23:27,960 --> 01:23:30,440
Speaker 1: equally undrinkable by humans or vampires.

1535
01:23:30,640 --> 01:23:33,479
Speaker 3: I considered trying to make myself one of these this week,

1536
01:23:34,000 --> 01:23:35,840
Speaker 3: but I was not it. I didn't have time to

1537
01:23:35,840 --> 01:23:37,799
Speaker 3: go out to the store and get the ingredients needed.

1538
01:23:38,520 --> 01:23:41,400
Speaker 1: No shame on anyone who enjoys a good grasshopper, but

1539
01:23:41,439 --> 01:23:43,479
Speaker 1: it's never been my beverage of choice.

1540
01:23:43,840 --> 01:23:45,559
Speaker 3: I don't know what I would do with the rest

1541
01:23:45,560 --> 01:23:46,719
Speaker 3: of the bottle of a crime Dement.

1542
01:23:47,200 --> 01:23:50,240
Speaker 1: It would it would outlive you. That's the tragedy of

1543
01:23:50,280 --> 01:23:52,360
Speaker 1: getting a bottle of crim dementth is like, you know

1544
01:23:52,479 --> 01:23:55,479
Speaker 1: that this will have to be passed on to another generation,

1545
01:23:55,600 --> 01:23:58,320
Speaker 1: and there's you know, it's it's like seeing an ancient

1546
01:23:58,400 --> 01:24:01,840
Speaker 1: vampire queen walk into your It's like having a vampire lover.

1547
01:24:01,960 --> 01:24:05,840
Speaker 1: They'll be around when you're gone. Yeah. But I also

1548
01:24:05,920 --> 01:24:09,439
Speaker 1: love how she never drinks this beverage and then eventually

1549
01:24:09,600 --> 01:24:11,840
Speaker 1: just hands it to Alona, who just dumps it into

1550
01:24:11,880 --> 01:24:16,120
Speaker 1: a potted plant, which seemed even worse right because like

1551
01:24:16,240 --> 01:24:18,280
Speaker 1: other drinks, you can dump dump into a plant and

1552
01:24:18,280 --> 01:24:21,720
Speaker 1: it's like, Okay, that plant probably doesn't need a gin

1553
01:24:21,800 --> 01:24:23,720
Speaker 1: and tonic, but very well, but this is like a

1554
01:24:23,760 --> 01:24:32,320
Speaker 1: bright green, clumpy beverage. It's made with heavy cream. Yeah,

1555
01:24:32,400 --> 01:24:34,760
Speaker 1: but oh yeah, yeah, So they have this whole conversation

1556
01:24:34,840 --> 01:24:37,040
Speaker 1: and it goes to a bunch of different places. She's

1557
01:24:37,080 --> 01:24:38,040
Speaker 1: she's so kind of.

1558
01:24:40,080 --> 01:24:43,599
Speaker 3: Coy and coquettish in a way, like she she's talking

1559
01:24:43,600 --> 01:24:46,639
Speaker 3: about how, you know, oh, I have to say whatever

1560
01:24:46,680 --> 01:24:47,160
Speaker 3: I'm thinking.

1561
01:24:47,200 --> 01:24:48,840
Speaker 1: I just can't keep it to myself. You know.

1562
01:24:49,040 --> 01:24:53,000
Speaker 3: The Archduke said to me, Elizabeth, you are an innocent.

1563
01:24:54,080 --> 01:24:54,920
Speaker 1: And yeah.

1564
01:24:55,240 --> 01:24:57,120
Speaker 3: She also talks about how she hates it when there's

1565
01:24:57,120 --> 01:24:58,559
Speaker 3: no one around, it's so lonely.

1566
01:24:58,680 --> 01:24:59,920
Speaker 1: She's the opposite of Pierre.

1567
01:25:01,040 --> 01:25:04,960
Speaker 3: But let's see, Oh, this scene eventually works it up

1568
01:25:05,000 --> 01:25:08,960
Speaker 3: to the spot where Valerie storms out will like the

1569
01:25:08,960 --> 01:25:12,720
Speaker 3: Countess and Stefan are going wild about the mutilation stories.

1570
01:25:14,000 --> 01:25:16,799
Speaker 3: But this also leads up to that moment I mentioned

1571
01:25:16,800 --> 01:25:20,120
Speaker 3: earlier that is such a good horror moment where Valerie

1572
01:25:20,160 --> 01:25:22,640
Speaker 3: goes back to her room alone because you know, her

1573
01:25:22,720 --> 01:25:25,599
Speaker 3: husband's like getting busy with the Countess about talking about

1574
01:25:25,640 --> 01:25:29,160
Speaker 3: getting cutting people's fingers off, and she goes up to

1575
01:25:29,160 --> 01:25:32,479
Speaker 3: her room alone, and suddenly Alona comes in at the balcony,

1576
01:25:32,520 --> 01:25:35,280
Speaker 3: I think, wanting to drink her blood, but she's like

1577
01:25:35,680 --> 01:25:40,760
Speaker 3: naked and doing this weird ballerina pose and we hear

1578
01:25:40,920 --> 01:25:44,040
Speaker 3: Valerie scream. But then when we come to her later,

1579
01:25:44,160 --> 01:25:47,240
Speaker 3: she's like in bed and you don't know what happened

1580
01:25:47,240 --> 01:25:49,680
Speaker 3: in between. Also, when we see Alona later, she's like

1581
01:25:49,800 --> 01:25:53,680
Speaker 3: leaning naked over a toilet and vomiting. I think, so

1582
01:25:53,760 --> 01:25:57,120
Speaker 3: it's like, what is what happened while while they were

1583
01:25:57,160 --> 01:26:00,519
Speaker 3: off screen? It's not quite clear. It seems like something happened.

1584
01:26:01,000 --> 01:26:03,519
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know. I mean, maybe alone is just

1585
01:26:04,240 --> 01:26:08,840
Speaker 1: stick from not feeding something to that. Maybe, But then yeah,

1586
01:26:08,880 --> 01:26:11,400
Speaker 1: the Countest comes in chastises there and is like total

1587
01:26:11,560 --> 01:26:14,040
Speaker 1: like oh you couldn't wait, could you? And so forth,

1588
01:26:14,720 --> 01:26:15,439
Speaker 1: let's see anything.

1589
01:26:15,520 --> 01:26:17,280
Speaker 3: Oh, we said we were going to say a little

1590
01:26:17,280 --> 01:26:20,920
Speaker 3: bit more about the call with quote mother this character.

1591
01:26:21,160 --> 01:26:23,120
Speaker 3: One thing I had to say about the scene is

1592
01:26:23,360 --> 01:26:25,479
Speaker 3: not at all about the themes. I was curious how

1593
01:26:25,479 --> 01:26:27,960
Speaker 3: the phone call was going to work. Is the butler

1594
01:26:28,040 --> 01:26:31,080
Speaker 3: brings the telephone out to the conservatory on a platter,

1595
01:26:31,160 --> 01:26:31,479
Speaker 3: like it's.

1596
01:26:31,360 --> 01:26:33,920
Speaker 1: Almost not slunged into anything. It's not plugged into anything,

1597
01:26:33,960 --> 01:26:35,400
Speaker 1: and I was like, where's the cord? I was like,

1598
01:26:35,439 --> 01:26:38,920
Speaker 1: this is unrealistic. But then it all came around because

1599
01:26:38,960 --> 01:26:41,960
Speaker 1: the butler kneels down, gives the phone, hands the phone over,

1600
01:26:42,200 --> 01:26:44,799
Speaker 1: and then plugs the phone into a jack in the floor.

1601
01:26:44,840 --> 01:26:46,639
Speaker 1: I was like, Oh, that's how they do it. They're

1602
01:26:46,640 --> 01:26:49,240
Speaker 1: just jacks everywhere. You plug it in, wherever you bring it.

1603
01:26:49,320 --> 01:26:53,160
Speaker 1: That's smart. Yeah, it took so much work to have

1604
01:26:53,160 --> 01:26:55,320
Speaker 1: have a phone call in those days. Yeah.

1605
01:26:55,360 --> 01:26:59,960
Speaker 3: But anyway, seriously, when the conversation begins, we the surprise

1606
01:27:00,240 --> 01:27:03,960
Speaker 3: is it shows this this older, middle aged man who's like,

1607
01:27:04,360 --> 01:27:06,839
Speaker 3: you know, he's in a hammock in the conservatory, surrounded

1608
01:27:06,840 --> 01:27:09,160
Speaker 3: by beautiful plants and flowers, and he's like on a

1609
01:27:09,200 --> 01:27:12,800
Speaker 3: pink and purple pillow, and he's wearing a scarf. And

1610
01:27:12,880 --> 01:27:14,880
Speaker 3: he says on the phone, he's like, Stefan, I hope

1611
01:27:14,920 --> 01:27:19,160
Speaker 3: you didn't do anything foolish in Switzerland. And Stefan breaks

1612
01:27:19,200 --> 01:27:22,960
Speaker 3: the news that he got married, and there is kind

1613
01:27:23,000 --> 01:27:27,240
Speaker 3: of derision and cruel amusement in the response. It's just

1614
01:27:27,320 --> 01:27:29,320
Speaker 3: kind of like, oh, what a nice surprise. What you

1615
01:27:29,360 --> 01:27:32,960
Speaker 3: did wasn't foolish, it was merely unrealistic. What in the

1616
01:27:33,000 --> 01:27:36,519
Speaker 3: world would we do with her? And he, you know,

1617
01:27:36,560 --> 01:27:39,120
Speaker 3: he says, he says like when she hears about us, oh,

1618
01:27:39,200 --> 01:27:42,840
Speaker 3: I hate to think about that, kind of seemingly threatening

1619
01:27:42,920 --> 01:27:46,280
Speaker 3: him or or something. But it's never made fully explicit

1620
01:27:46,360 --> 01:27:48,760
Speaker 3: what he means here you just have to kind of

1621
01:27:49,280 --> 01:27:52,840
Speaker 3: read the scene and make your own interpretation. But he

1622
01:27:53,000 --> 01:27:55,320
Speaker 3: ends saying, be sure to tell that young woman that

1623
01:27:55,600 --> 01:27:59,800
Speaker 3: mother sends regards. And then after the call of course,

1624
01:27:59,840 --> 01:28:03,360
Speaker 3: this is when we see Stephan first turn really violent

1625
01:28:03,479 --> 01:28:08,000
Speaker 3: with Valerie. And it's interesting, like before the violence actually starts,

1626
01:28:08,040 --> 01:28:10,920
Speaker 3: you see these kind of two waves come over him

1627
01:28:11,000 --> 01:28:13,720
Speaker 3: that I think are interesting in the performance, Like you

1628
01:28:13,800 --> 01:28:19,040
Speaker 3: see you see him by turns internalize his feelings and

1629
01:28:19,080 --> 01:28:22,880
Speaker 3: then a change happens and then he externalizes them and

1630
01:28:22,960 --> 01:28:24,559
Speaker 3: then that's when he becomes violent.

1631
01:28:25,320 --> 01:28:28,840
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, I think it's very interesting here that again

1632
01:28:29,040 --> 01:28:33,960
Speaker 1: mother is betrayed as a male character, and yet the

1633
01:28:34,000 --> 01:28:37,400
Speaker 1: actors were originally not told this detail. In fact, we're

1634
01:28:37,640 --> 01:28:41,960
Speaker 1: left to infer that it was a female character, perhaps

1635
01:28:42,040 --> 01:28:44,840
Speaker 1: the character's mother, that he actual mother that he was

1636
01:28:44,840 --> 01:28:49,439
Speaker 1: on the phone with. So, you know, it's an interesting

1637
01:28:49,439 --> 01:28:51,280
Speaker 1: exercise to try and figure out, like why did they

1638
01:28:51,320 --> 01:28:53,920
Speaker 1: make this choice? And my read on this is that

1639
01:28:54,040 --> 01:28:56,880
Speaker 1: part of it might be it might come back again

1640
01:28:56,920 --> 01:29:01,640
Speaker 1: to this theme of victimization in patriarch rule. So you know,

1641
01:29:01,680 --> 01:29:05,560
Speaker 1: we we have our character Stephan here who is seemingly

1642
01:29:05,760 --> 01:29:09,920
Speaker 1: like both a perpetrator and a victim of patriarchal power.

1643
01:29:10,520 --> 01:29:13,920
Speaker 1: Like there is this older man in his life that

1644
01:29:14,000 --> 01:29:18,320
Speaker 1: he is he at least feels control by and is

1645
01:29:18,360 --> 01:29:21,840
Speaker 1: rebelling against and has gone out into the world and

1646
01:29:21,880 --> 01:29:24,600
Speaker 1: sort of like found someone that maybe on some you know,

1647
01:29:24,600 --> 01:29:28,559
Speaker 1: on some level, definitely felt liberating and freeing to be around.

1648
01:29:28,600 --> 01:29:31,200
Speaker 1: But then it comes back around to how can I

1649
01:29:31,240 --> 01:29:34,679
Speaker 1: control this person and in doing so feel free from

1650
01:29:34,720 --> 01:29:39,240
Speaker 1: how I was being control And I guess like, like,

1651
01:29:39,320 --> 01:29:44,439
Speaker 1: clearly the gender divide is was important to this film's vision,

1652
01:29:45,040 --> 01:29:47,840
Speaker 1: with the Countess being kind of like this female force

1653
01:29:47,880 --> 01:29:52,880
Speaker 1: of liberation or another form of domination, and therefore they

1654
01:29:53,120 --> 01:29:56,120
Speaker 1: that they thought it was important to have the figure

1655
01:29:56,120 --> 01:29:59,000
Speaker 1: that it was controlling Stephan to be you know, equally

1656
01:29:59,000 --> 01:30:03,639
Speaker 1: a male force and therefore, you know, beating into this idea.

1657
01:30:03,800 --> 01:30:07,680
Speaker 1: You know that it is patriarchal oppression that is that

1658
01:30:07,800 --> 01:30:10,680
Speaker 1: is you know, weaving its its roots through everything. But

1659
01:30:10,800 --> 01:30:14,000
Speaker 1: at the same time, it's definitely worth noting that there

1660
01:30:14,080 --> 01:30:18,480
Speaker 1: are there definitely do see seem to be some homophobic

1661
01:30:18,520 --> 01:30:23,519
Speaker 1: tropes wound up in this mother Stephan relationship that were

1662
01:30:23,560 --> 01:30:27,160
Speaker 1: presented with and you know, these this could have quite

1663
01:30:27,280 --> 01:30:31,920
Speaker 1: possibly been you know, incorporated indirectly for a number of reasons,

1664
01:30:32,000 --> 01:30:35,880
Speaker 1: but David J. Skall does call it out en VFA vampire.

1665
01:30:36,120 --> 01:30:39,479
Speaker 1: The late David Jay Skull was himself openly gay and

1666
01:30:39,920 --> 01:30:44,040
Speaker 1: often wrote about the intersect of homophobia, gay culture, and

1667
01:30:44,120 --> 01:30:49,200
Speaker 1: vampire media, with observations based on everything from homo eroticism

1668
01:30:49,240 --> 01:30:53,600
Speaker 1: in mainstream Dracula films to its overt treatment in counterculture

1669
01:30:53,840 --> 01:30:57,519
Speaker 1: art house or even pornographic films that had vampire characters

1670
01:30:57,560 --> 01:31:02,400
Speaker 1: in them. And he describes Daughters of Darkness as by

1671
01:31:02,400 --> 01:31:06,360
Speaker 1: saying that quote the politics are ambiguous, if suspiciously homophobic,

1672
01:31:06,840 --> 01:31:09,280
Speaker 1: but the film contains a sufficient number of stylish set

1673
01:31:09,320 --> 01:31:12,679
Speaker 1: pieces to have earned it the reputation of a minor classic.

1674
01:31:13,479 --> 01:31:16,120
Speaker 1: So again, I do tend to agree with scholar. I

1675
01:31:16,160 --> 01:31:18,519
Speaker 1: think there are some homophobic tropes wound up in the

1676
01:31:18,560 --> 01:31:21,040
Speaker 1: portrayal of this character. I don't know how meant much

1677
01:31:21,040 --> 01:31:24,880
Speaker 1: of it was itself directly intentional or kind of a

1678
01:31:24,920 --> 01:31:28,120
Speaker 1: byproduct of other things the film was trying to say,

1679
01:31:28,520 --> 01:31:31,960
Speaker 1: and maybe just incorporating tropes that were just present everywhere

1680
01:31:32,040 --> 01:31:34,439
Speaker 1: anyway in the in the early nineteen seventies, and a

1681
01:31:34,439 --> 01:31:38,160
Speaker 1: lot of films and storytelling. I think it would have been.

1682
01:31:38,400 --> 01:31:41,080
Speaker 1: It's interesting to try to imagine different versions of this

1683
01:31:41,200 --> 01:31:44,719
Speaker 1: film where the reveal here of mother was a little different.

1684
01:31:44,840 --> 01:31:48,280
Speaker 1: Like what if the scene had him talking to an

1685
01:31:48,320 --> 01:31:52,240
Speaker 1: older woman that was that was his actual mother, or

1686
01:31:52,640 --> 01:31:55,320
Speaker 1: an older woman or even a woman his own age

1687
01:31:56,080 --> 01:32:01,000
Speaker 1: that seems to be a past romantic part or who

1688
01:32:01,080 --> 01:32:03,559
Speaker 1: is domineering and he's trying to escape from, Like what

1689
01:32:03,600 --> 01:32:05,600
Speaker 1: would would it have changed that much? Would it have

1690
01:32:05,680 --> 01:32:08,560
Speaker 1: had that much of an impact? Or what if regardless,

1691
01:32:09,040 --> 01:32:12,640
Speaker 1: what if there was like some element of tenderness to

1692
01:32:12,840 --> 01:32:15,240
Speaker 1: the relationship implied as well, because what we see here

1693
01:32:15,320 --> 01:32:16,839
Speaker 1: is just a relationship of domination.

1694
01:32:17,680 --> 01:32:20,960
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, you could imagine a version of the

1695
01:32:21,000 --> 01:32:23,320
Speaker 3: scene where he makes the call and the character is

1696
01:32:23,360 --> 01:32:26,280
Speaker 3: the same, but the character is like angered, you know,

1697
01:32:26,640 --> 01:32:31,000
Speaker 3: is like showing like real like a sense of having

1698
01:32:31,040 --> 01:32:34,479
Speaker 3: been betrayed or something that Stephan went and married somebody else.

1699
01:32:35,280 --> 01:32:37,800
Speaker 3: But you don't get that. There's a just kind of

1700
01:32:37,880 --> 01:32:43,840
Speaker 3: a confident dismissal of him, you know, just like kind

1701
01:32:43,840 --> 01:32:48,440
Speaker 3: of like this this is silly, I'm disappointed in you.

1702
01:32:48,439 --> 01:32:51,320
Speaker 1: You'll be back under my thumb soon. Yeah, things like

1703
01:32:51,320 --> 01:32:56,000
Speaker 1: this have happened before. This may be more severe, but

1704
01:32:56,400 --> 01:32:58,599
Speaker 1: I'm not surprised. Yeah, you'll be back next week.

1705
01:32:58,880 --> 01:33:01,120
Speaker 3: And it's in fact, it's kind of like the exchange

1706
01:33:01,160 --> 01:33:02,439
Speaker 3: with Alona and the Countess.

1707
01:33:02,520 --> 01:33:04,559
Speaker 1: Yes, when Alona, I mean there are.

1708
01:33:04,520 --> 01:33:06,559
Speaker 3: Multiple things like that, like when she threatens to leave

1709
01:33:06,560 --> 01:33:10,040
Speaker 3: and the Countess almost completely ignores her, it's just like, yeah, yeah, no,

1710
01:33:10,200 --> 01:33:12,880
Speaker 3: you need me, you're not going anywhere. Or in the

1711
01:33:12,880 --> 01:33:14,720
Speaker 3: scene where she says I want to die and the

1712
01:33:14,760 --> 01:33:16,799
Speaker 3: Countess just says, the light's hurting my eyes.

1713
01:33:18,000 --> 01:33:20,439
Speaker 1: Yeah. There's so many ways that the relationships that these

1714
01:33:20,479 --> 01:33:23,759
Speaker 1: characters have mirror each other, the living and the undead.

1715
01:33:24,400 --> 01:33:27,760
Speaker 3: Another kind of interesting mirrorring that's worth talking about is

1716
01:33:27,760 --> 01:33:32,559
Speaker 3: how Valerie's romance in a way with the Countess, though

1717
01:33:32,600 --> 01:33:36,320
Speaker 3: it seems to be a kind of maybe magically controlled romance,

1718
01:33:37,200 --> 01:33:41,040
Speaker 3: because when the Countess is first like trying to seduce Valerie,

1719
01:33:41,920 --> 01:33:44,280
Speaker 3: the Countess says what she says many times. She says,

1720
01:33:44,320 --> 01:33:46,320
Speaker 3: you must be nice to me. Soon you will love

1721
01:33:46,360 --> 01:33:48,840
Speaker 3: me as I love you now, and Valerie says, I

1722
01:33:48,920 --> 01:33:50,720
Speaker 3: despise you. You're disgusting.

1723
01:33:51,360 --> 01:33:51,559
Speaker 1: Now.

1724
01:33:51,560 --> 01:33:55,040
Speaker 3: Maybe you could think that Valerie is I don't know,

1725
01:33:55,520 --> 01:33:58,559
Speaker 3: maybe covering up her feelings. Maybe that's not really how

1726
01:33:58,600 --> 01:34:01,720
Speaker 3: she feels, but I don't know. I take it as

1727
01:34:01,800 --> 01:34:04,519
Speaker 3: that there is some amount of magical coercion of some

1728
01:34:04,640 --> 01:34:08,080
Speaker 3: kind going on as she continues. She falls for the

1729
01:34:08,080 --> 01:34:12,200
Speaker 3: countess after this, but there's like a similar arc to

1730
01:34:12,360 --> 01:34:15,200
Speaker 3: how she seems to fall for Stephan in the first place,

1731
01:34:15,720 --> 01:34:19,200
Speaker 3: and then there's a similarity when, like by the end

1732
01:34:19,240 --> 01:34:23,280
Speaker 3: of the movie, Valerie first becomes the countess's new Ilona,

1733
01:34:23,840 --> 01:34:26,160
Speaker 3: and then she kills the countess and becomes the new

1734
01:34:26,200 --> 01:34:31,240
Speaker 3: Countess herself. Yeah, so yeah, it almost it's kind of

1735
01:34:31,240 --> 01:34:33,559
Speaker 3: the sith lord thing right there. There are always two

1736
01:34:33,720 --> 01:34:36,320
Speaker 3: and then one kills the other. Yeah, it makes you

1737
01:34:36,400 --> 01:34:38,519
Speaker 3: wonder how many times this has happened as well. We

1738
01:34:38,840 --> 01:34:42,320
Speaker 3: since that the Countess has killed many Elona's, but was

1739
01:34:42,680 --> 01:34:45,559
Speaker 3: the countess wants some other countesses Ilona.

1740
01:34:46,120 --> 01:34:49,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a great point. That's a great point. And

1741
01:34:49,280 --> 01:34:51,080
Speaker 1: the magical coercion. I do want to come back to

1742
01:34:51,120 --> 01:34:54,800
Speaker 1: that scene where where they end up finally killing and

1743
01:34:54,840 --> 01:34:59,599
Speaker 1: feasting on Stephan again we have the crystal the crystal

1744
01:34:59,600 --> 01:35:02,320
Speaker 1: glass that they press over his face. But also this

1745
01:35:02,400 --> 01:35:04,600
Speaker 1: is the sequence I believe where she's wearing that just

1746
01:35:04,720 --> 01:35:09,599
Speaker 1: magnificent sequin gown. It's like a disco ball. And the light,

1747
01:35:09,880 --> 01:35:12,000
Speaker 1: like the way they lit this scene, like the light

1748
01:35:12,080 --> 01:35:17,240
Speaker 1: is just it's just bouncing off of her, and you

1749
01:35:17,320 --> 01:35:21,479
Speaker 1: really get this sense that she is like this bewildering lamp.

1750
01:35:21,640 --> 01:35:25,760
Speaker 1: She is like a lighthouse that has completely ensorcelled the

1751
01:35:25,800 --> 01:35:29,280
Speaker 1: both of them. But also the movie is packed with mirrors.

1752
01:35:29,360 --> 01:35:33,599
Speaker 3: Almost almost every scene or every other scene has a mirror,

1753
01:35:33,600 --> 01:35:37,320
Speaker 3: and it's constantly characters looking in mirrors or being across

1754
01:35:37,360 --> 01:35:39,960
Speaker 3: from mirrors. And in this final scene here with the

1755
01:35:40,000 --> 01:35:44,280
Speaker 3: three of them, the Countess becomes a mirror. It's like

1756
01:35:44,360 --> 01:35:47,800
Speaker 3: she her body is a disco ball mirror from top

1757
01:35:47,880 --> 01:35:50,000
Speaker 3: to bottom. It's reflecting all of the light, and it's

1758
01:35:50,040 --> 01:35:53,760
Speaker 3: reflecting them, and it's kind of that she shows them

1759
01:35:53,800 --> 01:35:55,000
Speaker 3: what they are in a way.

1760
01:35:55,560 --> 01:35:59,120
Speaker 1: It's fabulous. Yeah, it is a great movie to read

1761
01:35:59,160 --> 01:36:02,240
Speaker 1: and reread. It has so many you know, like I say,

1762
01:36:02,280 --> 01:36:04,120
Speaker 1: it feels like it's speaking to you in some sort

1763
01:36:04,160 --> 01:36:07,360
Speaker 1: of a code and you're left to decipher it in

1764
01:36:07,360 --> 01:36:11,479
Speaker 1: your subsequent viewings and reviewings. Also, just I gotta throw

1765
01:36:11,520 --> 01:36:11,920
Speaker 1: it out there.

1766
01:36:11,960 --> 01:36:15,880
Speaker 3: The shot where they show her after her body gets

1767
01:36:15,880 --> 01:36:17,800
Speaker 3: thrown out of the car in the wreck and she's

1768
01:36:17,840 --> 01:36:19,360
Speaker 3: just hanging on that branch.

1769
01:36:19,400 --> 01:36:23,120
Speaker 1: It looks amazing. Yeah, yeahs as does that shot that

1770
01:36:23,120 --> 01:36:25,880
Speaker 1: we alluded too much earlier in the episode where she

1771
01:36:26,000 --> 01:36:28,920
Speaker 1: finally raises up her cape there on the beach. Oh yes,

1772
01:36:29,000 --> 01:36:32,880
Speaker 1: And it's like she has bat wings, revealing her vampiric nature,

1773
01:36:32,920 --> 01:36:35,400
Speaker 1: at least to us the viewer. And it's just so

1774
01:36:35,439 --> 01:36:39,000
Speaker 1: splendid and yet to be clear. She's one of the

1775
01:36:39,040 --> 01:36:42,080
Speaker 1: villains of the piece, but you can't help but love

1776
01:36:42,080 --> 01:36:44,760
Speaker 1: her style. Is everybody a villain by the end?

1777
01:36:44,880 --> 01:36:47,240
Speaker 3: I think Valerie seems to be up to no good

1778
01:36:47,320 --> 01:36:49,960
Speaker 3: by the end. So the characters that don't start off

1779
01:36:50,040 --> 01:36:51,320
Speaker 3: villains become villains.

1780
01:36:51,600 --> 01:36:55,080
Speaker 1: Everyone. All four of our main characters have killed or

1781
01:36:55,160 --> 01:36:59,799
Speaker 1: tried to kill somebody. So yeah, there's nobody's completely squeaky

1782
01:36:59,840 --> 01:37:02,040
Speaker 1: c here? Are they? Just Pierre?

1783
01:37:02,200 --> 01:37:07,200
Speaker 3: Pierre, poor Pierre? Oh yeah, I like Pierre. Okay, well,

1784
01:37:07,280 --> 01:37:08,799
Speaker 3: I guess that's Daughters of Darkness.

1785
01:37:09,479 --> 01:37:11,200
Speaker 1: All right, we're gonna go and close it out here,

1786
01:37:11,240 --> 01:37:13,920
Speaker 1: but we'd love to hear everyone's thoughts on this picture.

1787
01:37:14,280 --> 01:37:18,880
Speaker 1: If you have the story about your history with Daughters

1788
01:37:18,920 --> 01:37:20,640
Speaker 1: of Darkness, if you have thoughts and some of the

1789
01:37:20,640 --> 01:37:22,479
Speaker 1: themes we've discussed here right in, we would love to

1790
01:37:22,520 --> 01:37:25,639
Speaker 1: hear from you. Let's see. Just a reminder that Stuff

1791
01:37:25,680 --> 01:37:28,040
Speaker 1: to Blow Your Mind is primarily a science, science and

1792
01:37:28,080 --> 01:37:30,800
Speaker 1: culture podcast with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but

1793
01:37:30,840 --> 01:37:33,120
Speaker 1: on Fridays we set aside most serious concerns to just

1794
01:37:33,120 --> 01:37:36,120
Speaker 1: talk about a weird film on Weird House Cinema. As

1795
01:37:36,120 --> 01:37:38,840
Speaker 1: an experiment right now, we are also running Weird House

1796
01:37:38,840 --> 01:37:41,720
Speaker 1: Cinema as its own playlist, which means it will come

1797
01:37:41,800 --> 01:37:44,719
Speaker 1: up as if it's its own podcast on whatever platform

1798
01:37:44,800 --> 01:37:47,840
Speaker 1: you get your podcasts at and wherever that is. That

1799
01:37:47,880 --> 01:37:50,120
Speaker 1: means you can rate, review and subscribe to it there

1800
01:37:50,160 --> 01:37:53,040
Speaker 1: and just get Weird House Cinema. So we're trying that out,

1801
01:37:53,400 --> 01:37:55,439
Speaker 1: So try it out, tell us what you think, what

1802
01:37:55,479 --> 01:37:57,960
Speaker 1: your thoughts are on it. Also, if you want to

1803
01:37:58,080 --> 01:38:02,040
Speaker 1: follow us on Letterboxed, our username is weird House. Follow

1804
01:38:02,120 --> 01:38:03,760
Speaker 1: us there, take a look at all the films we've

1805
01:38:03,800 --> 01:38:05,720
Speaker 1: covered over the years, and sometimes a peek ahead what

1806
01:38:05,800 --> 01:38:06,320
Speaker 1: comes next.

1807
01:38:06,800 --> 01:38:10,439
Speaker 3: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.

1808
01:38:10,800 --> 01:38:12,320
Speaker 3: If you would like to get in touch with us

1809
01:38:12,320 --> 01:38:14,799
Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode, or any other to suggest

1810
01:38:14,800 --> 01:38:16,920
Speaker 3: a topic for the future, or just to say hello.

1811
01:38:17,240 --> 01:38:19,880
Speaker 3: You can email us at contact at stuff to Blow

1812
01:38:19,960 --> 01:38:27,680
Speaker 3: your Mind dot com.

1813
01:38:27,800 --> 01:38:30,760
Speaker 2: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For

1814
01:38:30,840 --> 01:38:33,639
Speaker 2: more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

1815
01:38:33,760 --> 01:38:37,000
Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.