Spooky Town Episode 1: Introductions & Holiday Horror
Hello, world! In our first-ever episode of the Spooky Town podcast, we introduce ourselves, talking about where our love of horror comes from, our favorite horror movies, and what iconic horror movies we actually hate. Then, we launch right into our recommendations for the best holiday horror out there. Full transcripts of this podcast can be found below. Thanks for listening!
Full transcript of The Spooky Town Podcast: Episode 1
Ashley:
Hello everyone. And welcome to Spooky Town. We are an online horror publication and podcast, reviewing movies, books, video games, and all things horror. And we're brand spanking new. So be gentle. I am Ashley Welling. I'm the co-host and co-founder of Spooky Town. And with me is my sister, Stephanie Welling. We're a little nervous. This is our first ever podcast. We have an outline and everything we're, uh, very prepared. Anyways. Thank you for being here with us, Stephanie, how are you doing today? Oh, I'm doing just fine. Ashley, how are you doing? Doing great. Thank you. Wonderful. Let's act like we haven't been talking for the last hour and a half, trying to get ready for our first ever podcast. Um, no, but we're really excited to be here.
Ashley:
We didn't want to start a podcast for a long time. Yeah. So for all you, um, historians that are listening to this 50 years down the line, um, when you're trying to figure out where Ashley and Stephanie got their start all those years ago, uh, this is December 2020, so it's the end of the worst year ever. So it seems like an appropriate time to start a horror podcast, talking about all things awful and amazing, but we've been talking about this since January 2020. And Stephanie and I are about as far away as we can get from each other in the United States. I live on the West Coast and she lives on the East Coast, but our shared love of horror and our Spooky Town adventures have kept us pretty connected and we're having fun with it. So, that said, let's just jump right into the intro because you guys don't know us at all. So let's start talking about it. First question on the list here, is, Stephanie, where did your love of horror come from?
Stephanie:
Well, Ashley, I believe it, I think it more started because we just grew up watching horror because our mom is very into it. Our dad is not into it at all really, but he'll tolerate it. Uh, but it was more just on. And I found it interesting that we were, of course not allowed to watch sex scenes in movies, but we were allowed to watch The Shining and Poltergeist.
Ashley:
I was nine years old when I watched The Exorcist. Sorry, this is your time, but yes, that is very funny.
Stephanie:
I do have a specific memory of watching The Sixth Sense with Ashley, but we were sort of hiding a little bit in the hallway because we weren't allowed to watch it. And our parents were. We were very curious.
Ashley:
Do you remember that actress? What was her name? She was in the OC and she was in that movie. She was like a little girl in that movie. Mischa Barton? Yes. Mischa Barton was in that, that was the scariest scene from the whole movie, like I remember being terrified when she came out.
Stephanie:
Yeah. It's so scary. It's a good movie.
Ashley:
It was a really good movie.
Stephanie:
Anything pre The Happening was pretty good.
Ashley:
The Happening. Yeah. Sorry for all of those M Night Shyamalan fans out there.
Stephanie:
All of his one fan who loves The Happening, a movie about plants.
Ashley:
Look, that guy is going to be listening to this very first podcast episode and he's going to be like, I don't know what he's going to say. I don't know. I can't predict what someone with that taste is going to say, but
Stephanie:
None of us can, it was not good.
Ashley:
Listen, murder trees. That's that's it.
Stephanie:
Murder trees, murder bushes, um, Zooey Deschanel. And uh, the obvious pairing of Mark Wahlberg. I who wouldn't put Mark Wahlberg and Zooey Deschanel together. Really? That's the immediate thing I think of when I up.
Ashley:
Yes.
Stephanie:
Good. Anyway. Yeah. That's, you know, that's where my love came from. It was, I think it was first because it was first and foremost on, but then it also developed from there where whenever we would watch a, a movie that wasn't horror, I would be annoyed. I'm like, what's the point? And then we would watch a movie that was more in the thriller genre or it marketed itself as horror, but then it ended up being just a fun little crime thriller, uh, that made me angry because I wanted it to be horror.
Ashley:
Oh my gosh. Yeah. When you're expecting it to be spooky, but then it turns out to just be yeah, like a …
Stephanie:
Just a person committing crimes. Yeah. No, I'm good. Yep. So Ashley, where did your love of horror come from?
Ashley:
I'm glad you asked Stephanie. Because I definitely prepared an answer for this ahead of time and I'm not winging it at all. But you know, I mean we grew up in the same house, so our, I think my love of horror came from a similar place. Our mom, as Stephanie mentioned, was very into it. So it was on, it was on a lot. And I also, you know, Halloween has always been one of my absolute favorite holidays. Just the concept of getting to get dressed up as something else and transporting yourself in a certain kind of way was always really a lot of fun for me and horror and horror movies do that for me too. I'm very transported when I watch them. They're tense, they're exciting.
Ashley:
There's a lot of interesting imagery in them. They play with creating really interesting and engaging visual effects that are always, you know, fascinating. And I think they take, they take your fears and your emotions and they turn them into something that's like an that's embodied somehow. And that's always really exciting because you can kind of see your, um, you know, the main characters, the protagonist often sees the thing that embodies, you know, their greatest fears like right there in front of them. And I always really liked that about horror movies. So I think for how psychological they are and how much they transport their audiences to a different world. I think that, um, since the time I was little, that was always really exciting for me. And so as I got older, they became less like, honestly the, of course, they, they still do scare me sometimes, but they scare me less. They're more of just like a really engaging, interesting, like artistic experience now, because as cheesy as that sounds like that's kind of what they've become. So I think the fear is gone.
Stephanie:
Agree. When I was younger, well, for one thing, I was more easily scared, but also I thought that that was what made a horror movie good. Does it scare me now? You know, a little later in life? Um, almost no, there are very few horror movies that actually scare me and I've come to realize that's not what I love about it. It's not, does it scare me? It's does it deal with this, this like deep tension within either myself or within society within humanity and does it like rip it out of us and put it out there for the whole world? See, does it tear it apart? Does it examine it? Does it do anything with it? Is there a catharsis because I think that's what horror does best is it takes the deepest, darkest secrets that we have that we would rather not talk about or put a name to, and it makes it into a recognizable shape. It says here, we need to talk about this. There's no hiding from it. So I think as a kid, it was more because it was like I said on, and then also scary. As an adult, it's a cathartic experience that I think we don't always get to have in, you know, civilized life. Um, that's something that's even more needed now during these horrific times where we need catharsis, we need something to let all this tension go. And I think horror is even more important during times like that.
Ashley:
Absolutely. Yeah. I absolutely agree. And I think that horror feels like a safe, safer way to confront past traumas and gives you a little bit more control over how you react to something or maybe it helps you pull it out and deal with it as you're staring it down. Face-to-face, you know, um, in a way that's more controlled, if that makes any sense. It's incredibly emotional, you know, is what I'm saying.
Stephanie:
It's a safe space to deal with a very potentially unsafe situation or feeling or memory. Uh it's you're, you're not in danger, you're not in any physical harm. Um, it's, you're not going to hurt. You're not going to be killed. So you, you know, there's that.
Ashley:
Yeah. It's just the best is what we're saying.
Stephanie:
It is in fact the best.
Ashley:
That's why we've decided to dedicate our whole website and podcast to it. Um, we're very excited.
Stephanie:
This isn't drama town, you know.
Ashley:
If that’s what you were looking for, you're going to have to go elsewhere.
Stephanie:
That's for sure. Uh, drama is often the genre that is ascribed to critically acclaimed horror movies, like Get Out. It's a social drama like a horror movie. Horror movies are a social drama. That's what it is. Or it's a social commentary.
Ashley:
We're going to change things on this podcast. People are going to listen, then they're going to get it. And then horror movies will start getting Academy Awards as they deserve.
Stephanie:
Uh, please, please give retroactive Academy Awards to Lin Shaye and Toni Collette. Thank you.
Ashley:
Yeah, we've got some intro questions that Stephanie has written out, which is perfect because I did not do that, but I did make some notes. Um, what we're going to talk about after we get through our little intro section is we're gonna go into some holiday horror movies that we love. That's coming up next. So I'll save my notes about how much I love Toni Collette and Lin Shaye for like 10 minutes from now.
Stephanie:
I will do my best to not talk about how much, uh, how, uh, quickly I would die for Lin Shaye or kill for Lin Shaye. I'll do my best, but I can't promise anything.
Ashley:
So what is, or are, a few of your favorite horror movies? Stephanie?
Stephanie:
Well, Ashley, the one that I am best known for amongst my friends and family is The Shining. I love The Shining so very much. I watch it constantly. I watch it every year on my birthday. Um, and that's usually once in the like five re-watches of that, any given calendar year. Another very recent favorite horror movie is The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the original 1974. I never thought that I would, it, I believed the reviews that I read saying that it was misogynistic, and boy, am I happy that I watched it anyway because that's going to be a later episode, but it's not misogynistic. Anyway, more recent favorites, uh, Relic from 2020. Absolutely love that movie. They Look Like People, which is from 2015, and The Blair Witch Project from 1999, not the remake. Thank you. The Blair Witch Project is another, I listened to people who saw it and said it was not great. Uh, and I laughed along with all of the parodies of it. And then I actually watched it as an adult and I absolutely love it. Yeah. So what are your favorite movies, Ashley?
Ashley:
That's what I need to rewatch. That's like a cornerstone film that I need to rewatch. I haven't seen The Blair Witch in about five years.
Stephanie:
I had watched it before. Like it, it hadn't been all that long since I had last seen it, but I watched it again a couple of years ago and it just I'm like, how did I ever not love this? This is everything that I love. Um, and I also, I absolutely love found footage, so yeah, but we'll also get into that later, but what are some of your favorite movies?
Ashley:
Well, one of my most favorite movies is Hereditary. I love that movie. I think that Toni Collette is so amazing in it. Number one. I'm drawn to movies that explore tension between family members or people that are very close, horror that plays with tension that has like complexity to it. And Hereditary does that in a really, really good way to the point where I kind of felt like I wanted to throw up in the theater when I was watching it for the first time because I felt like it, it never, never really lets up, the tension is just always there and it's thicker and thicker as the movie goes on and it's just like, it never breaks.
It never breaks. And the credits just roll and that's it. Yeah. I just got chills on my head a little bit. Just thinking about how, you know, even the ending, it's just like even the climax of the movie doesn't really give you any kind of relief. So hereditary is one of my absolute favorite horror movies and for another one, I, it's not often that I love body horror movies. They used to really, really bother me, but I think that was because what I was watching was more like Eli Roth, body horror, where it's like torture and things like that that are just a little bit, um, I don't know. It's just not my thing. Don't come for me. It's just not my thing.
Stephanie:
Uh, you can absolutely come for me. I hate Eli Roth. I will not be taking criticism. He is the worst. Thank you.
Ashley:
End of podcast. But I love Hellraiser which has possibly the most body horror movie of all time. It's very intense. It's almost all has something to do with violence against the human body. But I just love it. I love the villains. I think they're amazing. I think the costuming is fantastic. The atmosphere in it is awesome. They've got the creature effects I loved in both Hellraiser one and two. That said I have not seen all 18 of them. There's a lot of Hellraiser movies and I haven't seen all of them. I did hear though that there's a new one coming out in 2021. I'll have to look that up. Don't quote me on that. But, there's a new one in the works and I'm so excited. I hope they do a good job, with the, you know, all the effects that they have now at their disposal. And they don't just kind of go over the top for going over the top sake. But I love Hellraiser. I think it's fantastic, so much so that Stephanie got me a trinket from the film, the trinket, the one that summons them from the world that they live in. I audibly squealed when I opened it and saw what it was. It was so exciting. So, um, I have that now just like sitting on proud display.
Stephanie:
It's the lament configuration.
Ashley:
Thank you. Yeah, it's a puzzle box and I love it. So Hellraiser. Um, it's just, it's just the best. Those are just kind of the first two that come to my mind. I also love the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and the new one is coming out in 2021. A lot of stuff's been pushed back obviously because of COVID, but, um, David Blue Garcia is directing the latest remake of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre and it's supposed to be more of a direct, what's the word I'm looking for? A direct, like reboot or of the original. So we're really excited about that because the original is very good. So Stephanie, what songs, genres or common themes are you most drawn to?
Stephanie:
So as far as sub-genres go, uh, I mean, this is very broad, but I do love some paranormal, supernatural horror, classic. I've always had sort of a complicated relationship with sci-fi horror space horror type thing. Um, because I found the often heavy use of body horror a bit too disturbing, for whatever reason, that's sort of dissipated as an adult. Sometimes it's a little bit much, but I do love sci-fi horror, aliens, everything like that. Alien versus Predator. Once again, you can come for me. That movie is amazing. Paul Anderson, if you are listening. I have so much respect for you.
Ashley:
Oh, I thought you said Wes Anderson for a second. I was like, Alien versus Predator. That would be interesting. It's just the alien staring directly into the camera and then it just like pans over to the predator. Like I'm going to kill you now. Ronan is somehow in it and a French song starts playing in the background suddenly. It was funny. Okay. I'm sorry. I cut you off.
Stephanie:
Um, so outside of that, uh, like I said earlier, found footage. I am very easy for fountain footage. I will watch basically any found footage that you throw at me.
Ashley:
And you can come for us too, but Grave Encounters is fantastic.
Stephanie:
Grave Encounters one and two are modern classics.
Ashley:
So good. And they don't get enough credit at all.
Stephanie:
They do not. I absolutely love those movies.
Stephanie:
They are extraordinary pieces of art. But outside of that, anything having to do with familial tension like Hereditary, uh, is just right up there up in my alley and also anything having to do with impossible spaces. And do you know, what's a great recap of both of these themes is Relic. Relic is a fantastic representation. Also The Shining, The Shining is chock full of impossible spaces. And Relic, I mean, I'm going to keep it spoiler-free, but there are some impossible spaces in that movie.
Ashley:
I mean, we're gonna probably spoil movies on this. If you hear us talking about a movie, we might spoil something, but I'll try not to spoil Relic because it's so new. But, um, there that scene in that movie with the impossible space that you're talking about is top-notch.
Stephanie:
I mean, I was on the edge of my seat and I'm like, this is my shit. I love this movie. That had Stephanie written all over it. What about you?
Ashley:
You know, it's, it's interesting. I definitely am very into the paranormal type stuff. I share Stephanie's love of familial tension, you know. I love horror movies that take a look at human relationships and interpersonal relationships and tear them apart in that way.
Ashley:
But to be honest, I kind of, I don't know if I've got any big favorite sub-genres other than kind of what we've been talking about. I'm not into violence just like for the sake of shock. Like I'm not into the more shock type horror, you know, like stuff that's just shocking to me, shocking. Um, sometimes it can be fun if it's done the right way, but I'm not always really into it. It's not as exciting or, um, there's not as much to kind of pick apart and figure out.
Stephanie:
When it's shocking for the sake of being shocking, and there's no accompanying comedy to it, or when it takes itself too seriously — that's when it's not fun. When it's fun, it's great. I love it. Like The Evil Dead is full of it. Especially the new one is full of shocking amounts of blood at the end, but it's hilarious. And that's when it's fun.
Ashley:
It's funny. Yeah. And I like very like psychological films that deal with a lot of like psychological subject matter without being super exploitative, you know, like stuff that's more, um, exploring why someone, you know, feels the way they do about something or why they have this fear or why they're feeling this tension or why they're scared. I love stuff like that. I thought I wanted to be a psychologist for the longest time and I love how horror movies that are well done deal with things like that. And I don't know if this is a sub-genre and I thought I was really into it until, um, I'll just say what the sub-genre is. I like things that feel kind of druggy, I don't know if that's a sub-genre, but I like things that feel like, you kind of almost feel really foggy when you're watching them.
Like Mandy, I really liked Mandy, it's so good. A really, really good movie. But I did watch Gaspar Noé, he's an Argentine filmmaker. I guess he's known for this style. I wasn't really familiar with him before I watched this movie, but the movie Climax has made it onto some horror movie lists. So I'd seen it around and I was like, I'm gonna watch it. You want to talk about druggie. The whole cast is supposed to be on drugs, but to the point where all of them feel so outrageously out of control and there's every trigger that you could possibly imagine existing in the world is triggered in this movie.
I won't go all into it, but there's just like, it's very violent, very anxiety-inducing, just high octane stress from start to finish. And he does a good job at it. It's not my thing though. And I, so when I say I really like kind of that druggy, foggy feeling, I think it's a certain, it's a certain type. It might not be, I'm an anxious person. So watching an incredibly overstimulating, like very, very anxious anxiety-inducing, screaming, violent movie just isn't enjoyable for me. So I think, um, there's a certain type that I like if that makes sense.
Stephanie:
See, I'm sort of, I think our shared our common ground here is Mandy, but see, I, I normally I stay away from very druggy feeling movies, uh, anything that feels like that kind of fogginess is not usually my thing. Um, but Mandy is definitely a lone wolf in that. If Nicholas Cage hadn't been in it, I'm not sure if I would have liked it, but Nicholas, true Nic Cage, really like he will make a movie instantly. I talked about this in our article about holiday horrors, but, uh, you could either look at it as Lin Shaye is the Nicholas Cage of horror or Nicholas Cage is the Lin Shaye of including horror.
Ashley:
You know, we all have a laugh about Nic Cage.
Stephanie:
He's pretty Cage.
Ashley:
Yeah, he is something else. But the reason that he worked so well in Mandy was because that movie capitalized on the strengths that Nic Cage has, which is like, he is losing his mind in that movie. And he's so good at it, but it needs to be put in the right context or else it's, it seems like ridiculous, you know? But that movie was perfect.
Stephanie:
For that. It was a perfect vehicle for that energy. It needed that energy. And I think only Nicholas cage can really provide that.
Ashley:
I still need to watch Beyond the Black Rainbow by that same director.
Stephanie:
That's one where it feels, it looks kind of druggy and there's no Nicholas Cage to, uh, to let off steam for me. So I'm not sure if I'm going to watch it, but I can appreciate it from afar. I'm sure it's good, but yeah.
Ashley:
Yeah. So, quick fun story about when I watched Mandy. So for all you, all you listener out there, I have two cats and you'll probably hear about them a lot. Ralph and Penny are their names and Stephanie as a cat …
Stephanie:
I do have a cat. Her name is Gumdrop and she is sleeping on my coat on my bed, which is behind me.
Ashley:
Perfect angel babies. So, Ralph had just gone in for dental surgery. He had to have some teeth taken out literally that day and they gave him some antibiotics and a pain killer that she said would make him really druggy. She said that he's going to be like your drunk friend. He's going to think that he can do things, but he can't, he can't jump from that place to that place. So you're going to have to watch him. So watching that movie while like my drunk cat was walking around the house, like fumbling around and being really lovey and drugged out, it was another level of …
Stephanie:
Druggy Ralph.
Ashley:
It's really weird. It was like, I just feel like I was sober as heck, you know, but I was like, I just, I feel high. Like I feel really high right now. My cat is fucked up. This movie is fucked up. And I'm just sitting here trying to not freak out.
Ashley:
That's the power of Nic Cage. So yeah, that was my very long answer for what sub-genres am I into.
Stephanie:
The answer is Nicholas Cage.
Ashley:
Okay, so our last intro question here. I think it's a really good one. And it's a spicy one guys. So buckle up for the spice. What is an iconic horror movie beloved by many that you actually hate, Stephanie?
Stephanie:
Halloween by John Carpenter. I had no interest in it ever in my life. Uh, so naturally I watched it like earlier this year or maybe last year, somewhat recently. And boy is that movie boring. That is what I call a boring movie. As far as the sub-genres that it could fall under, I'd say it falls best under boring. Listen, I love John Carpenter. I love The Thing, okay. I hate Halloween. I hate that movie so much. And if it wasn't so widely thought of as like this iconic, amazing movie, that would be one thing, but the fact that it is considered iconic, it's deeply frustrating. But you know, that's, that's just me. That's just my opinion. But I'm right. I mean, I am literally correct about everything, so yes. You heard it here first. I have strong opinions. I don't mince my words.
Ashley:
I get it though. I see it as a classic. I recognize it as a classic, but I don't really care about it that much. You know what I mean?
Stephanie:
We recognize that it is important and that it had important an important legacy. Yeah. But I think it's a bad movie.
Ashley:
That's a really iconic one. Mine, I don't think is as iconic, but I truly don't like, and everyone likes this movie and I do not like it, The Conjuring.
Stephanie:
The Conjuring is also dog shit. Thank you. James Wan is my nemesis.
Ashley:
I saw it in theaters when it came out. I saw it in theaters and I remember everyone having this like universal, positive feeling about it. And they were like, that was the scariest movie I've ever seen. Oh my God. You know, everybody was freaking out and I was like, I don't like it. Like it wasn't good. It was cheesy. Like the cheesy relationship between the two psychics is bad. Like they're cheesy in love, but it's like over cheese, you know what I mean? Like the writing, I didn't think was all that good. The dialogue was kind of, I don't know. And it wasn't that scary.
Stephanie:
Are you talking about the Warrens? Was this the introduction?
Ashley:
The Warrens. Yes. Thank you. And it was just kind of like the same old stuff, like the same thing.
Stephanie:
Nothing original about it. And I think that was one of it it's supposedly, um, strong suits was how original it was or how it felt like a return to the classic horror movie of old.
Ashley:
Just not into it. Yeah, not interested. Not interested in it. It was, it was just kind of boring. I wasn't interested. And then, um, the conjuring two came out and that was even worse that was set in the UK. And, um, none of that matters, but it went from America to the UK, and um, the Warrens went over there to help exorcise a ghost. And the best part of that movie was when the guy, the husband, Mr. Warren. I can't remember his name. It seems like that that actor's name is Patrick. Ed is his name in the movie.
Stephanie:
Okay. That's okay. He's the guy. I always want to call Patrick Stewart, but it's obviously not Patrick Stewart. I always say, Hey, you know, Patrick Stewart.
Ashley:
I almost called him Patrick Bateman, but that's the bad guy from American Psycho. Um, there's a, there's a scene in it where he walks into the haunted house and he's in this little girl's room. And he walks into the haunted house for like the first time and he walks over to the guitar or I'm sorry, just ruined it. He walks into the room. There's a guitar sitting perched up in the corner and this house has been abandoned for a long time and none of the furniture has been touched. There are cobwebs everywhere. You know, it's clear. No one's been in here. So this guitar has been sitting there for a while and he's like, he walks right over to it and it's so unnatural and awkward. And it's like those scenes from cowboy movies where they're like, all right, everybody, like let's sit down and like sing a little song. He walks over to it and he's like, Oh, is this a guitar? And he just puts it on his lap and he starts singing. And I'm like, it's perfectly tuned. It's been sitting in this fricking house for like 15 years and it's just tuned and ready to go.
Stephanie:
It's perfectly tuned when Patrick Wilson is there.
Ashley:
God, dude. I was like, I don't get it. I don't, I don't get the appeal. So The Conjuring gets a big thumbs down from me. Halloween gets a big poop from Stephanie. And that's what we have to say about that.
Stephanie:
I have to bring in my friends to give, to have them do a thumbs down because that's how many thumbs down I give Halloween, kids.
Ashley:
All right. So that is the end of our introductions. Now we're gonna move into the feature of our show today. What we're talking about is holiday horror. So Christmas themed, holiday-themed just general end-of-the-year themed, horror movies. So what we did was we actually wrote an article about holiday horror up on our website, which is www.thespookytown.com. Just getting that plug in there. But if you go there, you can read the whole article. We've got a lot more movies up there for you to check out. We're just going to talk about a few of them here. Just to give you a taste. We've got four of them here to go into, I can go into the first one. I can go into Black Christmas.
Stephanie:
Okay. You've seen the original and I've seen the newest one made in 2019. We both saw the 2006 one very briefly in theaters. And it was apparently too violent for our mother who took us out of the theater, even though I was what, 15.
Ashley:
The curtains came up, the credits started rolling. And then there was a violent murder during the credits and our mom took us out of the theater and we left.
Stephanie:
That was too much. A standard that to this day, I cannot figure out where the bar is on what is too much considering I watched Poltergeist in full when I was seven years old.
Ashley:
Oh yeah. I had a few nightmares after that one. The original is the one that I recommend in our article. It's credited as being kind of one of the first slasher movies. So it was pretty original for its time. There hadn't been too much in the way of similar horror movies up until that point. It was made in 1974 just for reference. It was inspired by some murders that had taken place. A 14-year-old had committed a bunch of heinous murders and it was inspired by that. And it was originally written as a pretty strict slasher movie.
It was directed by Bob Clark and it was written by A. Roy Moore and when they saw the script, um, they really, they liked it, but they had it basically rewritten. They said it wasn't very realistic and they wanted the characters in the movie to be college students who acted like actual people. They didn't think that college students were being shown very accurately in movies and the media, like they were always, um, there's a quote here from Clark, he said, "College students, even in 1974 are astute people. They're not fools. It's not all bikinis, beach blankets, and bingo."
Stephanie:
I can confirm having been to college. It is not in fact, all bikinis, beach blankets, and bingo. There is a lot of bingo though. I will say there is actually, yeah, I'll take that back. There's a lot of bingo in college.
Ashley:
And a fair amount of bikini bingo at that.
Stephanie:
Well, you went to college in Southern California. I went to college on the East Coast, so.
Ashley:
That's true. And this movie is set in Canada. The University of Toronto is where they filmed it. So not a lot of bikini's there during the holiday season, but, um, basically they wanted to make the movie into something that feels like it was set in the real world. They wanted the characters to be actual, real, you know, to seem very real with complex emotions and things like that. So the film is set in a sorority house and the girls at the sorority house start getting these obscene phone calls that they just kind of brush off as sexual harassment until they notice people start going missing and they're not able to locate their friends. And it just kind of snowballs from there. I did not have that written down. That joke was impromptu. But it's a really good movie because it deals with a lot of the women's liberation movement issues of the time. For instance, the main characters will go to the police and tell them that their friends are missing and the police brush them off and say, "oh your friends are probably just with their boyfriends." And of course, there's the acceptance of sexual harassment that is just kind of standard for women to experience. That causes the girls stress, but they're just like, well it's the way of things. It's not that big of a deal. So they brush it off. Then there's the main character Jess, played by Olivia Hussey.
Ashley:
She's great. And she was the star of Romeo and Juliet from the 1970s. If you had to watch that movie in high school. She's the star. There was a great moment where she's having a conversation with her boyfriend. He's a musician going to the university and she finds out that she's pregnant and he's very excited about it. And he's like, great. You can drop out and start a family with me. And she says no, that's not what I want. I have a life that I want to live that doesn't involve a child right now, and I don't want to get married to you. And that's a very spicy topic, you know, and it still is, but it was particularly spicy in the seventies, a woman saying, "I'm going to abort this child." And I don't want to get married for a while. It was a pretty big deal. So it's an amazing movie it's got a lot of new stuff that, like I said, that hadn't been seen yet at the time. It deals with a lot of issues that are still relevant today.
Stephanie:
Maybe among the first of its kind. Like you said, abortion, especially in the seventies, was an obscene topic, instead of now where you mention it, maybe it'll be divisive for some people. But it's nothing like it was then, you know? So for that to be directly discussed in a movie at the time, I mean, that was probably horrifying to some, some very uptight people or some people just very traditional religious set in their ways. And it, it was almost like blasphemy. Well, it is like blasphemy, I guess, to some people still, but at the time, I'm sure it was more akin to like a swear word, really abortion is the big, bad word and now a lot less. Black Christmas we have partially to thank for introducing it into movies.
Ashley:
Right. I think it was really one of the first horror movies that was incredibly political and dealing with hard to talk about subjects in a way that was really interesting and terrifying. The horror, the scary thing that's in the attic, that's killing all of them. The whole outside world is kind of pinned against them too. So they can't really find help anywhere they go, right. They're not even safe in their own home where they live. They try to get help from other people and they don't get it. And even in their interpersonal relationships, people are trying to harm them and they don't understand them.
Ashley:
So it has a lot more to say than just someone's going around killing all of these women. Right. It deals with femicide and all that stuff. So I absolutely recommend the original Black Christmas. Love that one. Really good. And speaking of Stephanie's favorite movie, John Carpenter actually said that this movie influenced Halloween. Um, he, yeah, but he, he said it actually, uh, it influenced him to make Halloween. I actually went to, I don't know what you would call it like a lecture class called, What the Femme: Feminism in Holiday Horror that was hosted by SIFF and Adrienne Clark. She's a writer and you should absolutely look her up.
Ashley:
She talks a lot about horror related topics. She's got a podcast as well. She hosted it. And she really took a really interesting deep dive into Black Christmas and the women's liberation movement of the time. So definitely check her out. But that's enough about Black Christmas. Go watch it. It's actually on YouTube for free, but it's also on Amazon. Maybe YouTube will have taken it down by the time you listen to this. With that, I'll hand it off to Steph to talk about one of her picks.
Stephanie:
All right. So one of my favorites and that I recently rewatched was I Trapped the Devil. Director and writer, Josh Lobo was at the helm of this, I think this was one of his first movies and I'm very excited about what he does next because I love this movie. This is a nice little indie production. The three stars are Scott Poythress, AJ Bowen, and Susan Burke, who I love. And you can also see her in Southbound. She is in one of the segments of that. It's a horror anthology. She's amazing. Love you, Susan. A lot of them are producers of I Trapped the Devil and that's something already. That's a good sign for me because I know, you know, not, not every actor has the means to be a producer in an indie horror because a lot of the time in indie horror, sometimes that's their first movie that they're doing.
Stephanie:
They don't really have the means to do that, but for all three of these actors, they're fairly well seasoned. I've seen a lot more of AJ Bowen. He's big on the indie horror scene on smaller productions. So when the three stars are producing it, that that makes me think they're, I mean, they're literally invested in it, but also they really believe in the story and they are, they, they know they will succeed and I, that's just, that's a good sign for me. So, you know, starting from the credits, I knew that I was going to like I Trapped the Devil. And we also have Ben Lovett it at the helm of the music. The score is amazing and I just, everything is good. So if you haven't seen it, um, basically what it's about is Susan Burke and AJ Bowen play Matt and Karen. They're a married couple.
Stephanie:
Steve is Matt's brother who has somewhat recently, I think probably it was like about two years ago in the movie, he, he lost his wife and daughter in a car accident. It was purely accidental. It wasn't drunk driving. It wasn't anything like that. It was just a random accident. But it happened around Christmas and ever since then, he has not put away the Christmas decorations around his house, which is also the brother's childhood home. And so all of the Christmas decorations, the entire house is covered in the thick layer of dust. There are cobwebs all over the tree, the tree looks, you know, pretty at first, but then you get a closer look at it and it's actually covered in cobwebs. Yeah. I think that's a really, actually kind of a great example of what the movie, the big mood of the movie, I'd say, like, something looks pretty on the outside, but you get closer and it's covered in filth. A lot of grief. It's overwhelming.
Ashley:
Yeah. It's like someone being stuck in a particular time.
Stephanie:
I mean, Steve has really gone down the rabbit hole. He's gotten into some conspiracy theories, which is pretty much leading us into the main plot of the movie where he believes that, uh, well, one, the devil exists and is responsible for the evils of the world either directly or indirectly. And he has, as the title might suggest, he's trapped the devil in his basement.
Ashley:
And that's why I don't do laundry. I don't do laundry because, um, I'm convinced there's something spooky, scary in my basement, um, where my laundry is. That's going to be my excuse from now on. Oh, sorry. Satan's in there. I can't do it. You're going to have to do it.
Stephanie:
So, when they arrive, things are extremely tense. It's obvious that Steve is distracted and he was not expecting them. And he's like, you know, you guys can't stay here. And they are worried about him because Matt has not really checked in on Steve over the past couple of years because they have already, I think, sort of a strained relationship. And then this guilt of not helping him through this grieving process really put an even bigger strain. So he just shows up out of the blue and it just so happens to be when Steve has trapped the devil or something like it potentially in his basement. And they sort of have to deal with that as it unfolds. And, you know, I think another common theme that I'm really big on besides familial tension is just dread, just dread, absolutely making the air thick, but then also cutting through at the same time it's filled with grief. I love that. It's so rich for exploration and atmosphere.
Ashley:
The atmosphere is not an easy thing to establish. It's a sense. It's a feeling and I Trapped the Devil does an amazing job at building an atmosphere inside this house that is so incredibly tense. And just like Stephanie said, the dread is everywhere. Everything is uncomfortable. Everywhere you look, it's obvious that's that this, this house looks like how he feels. Just awful. The basement is of course terrifying too. And the door and the light in there, it makes it even heavier.
Stephanie:
Yeah. And I think not to spoil the ending, but you can make of it what you will, whether or not you're disappointed or it's what you wanted. But, uh, I think an interesting scene in the movie, not to give too much away. But, Steve has this giant makeshift cross that he just he's just sort of nailed two pieces of wood together and hung it over the door as a sort of protection against it. I think it sort of deafens it, makes it so the devil can't really communicate with the outside. Like it's keeping him in. So when he takes it off, that's when, you know, the devil or the person, uh, behind the door actually talks. But there is a scene closer to the end where Steve goes down by himself and he takes the cross off and he talks to the devil and he says, "How does it feel being hopeless?"
Stephanie:
But the devil never answers. Or, you know, I'm saying the devil is sort of a stand-in, just the person on the other side that whoever's on the other side, never answers him. And I think it's interesting that the person on the other side talks to AJ Bowen, it talks to Susan Burke. It never addresses Scott Poythress ever. So it's sort of, it throws you into this, kind of never-ending question of, is it real? Who is it? What is it? Why doesn't it talk to Steve? He's the one who caught him, who trapped him there, potentially kidnapped him. It's an interesting choice that Josh Lobo made where he doesn't address Steve, but that is really interesting. So I think it really makes you question what's going on. I'm very into some unreality there.
Ashley:
The movies that make you kind of wonder if what they're presenting is real.
Stephanie:
Yeah. Who's the reliable narrator here. Unreliable narrators. Love it. Yes. Very into it.
Ashley:
I loved that movie and like I said, we won't go into how it ends or trying to give away too many spoilers. But, um, I, what I really liked about it was what Stephanie was saying was how it takes this idea of grief and this guilt that the other brother carries around with him for not helping his brother who had a big loss in his time of need. It kind of takes that idea and wraps it up and puts it in the basement.
Stephanie:
Absolutely. As something that is physically in the basement.
Ashley:
Steve suffered this major life event that has left him kind of stuck in time. And now he's taking it and putting it behind a door. And he can control when he talks to it and when he doesn't. He can deal with it on his own terms. So I loved that metaphor and I thought it was actually really new the way that they did it. I hadn't seen a movie like that before.
Stephanie:
Yeah. Or is it just the devil? You decide. Or is it a complex metaphor? That's the magic of Josh Lobo.
Ashley:
Exactly. Love that movie. Really, really good.
Stephanie:
It was a fantastic movie, highly recommend it.
Ashley:
We recommend. Should we move on to the next one? We've got a couple more movies here. So my last movie that I have on here from our list of recommended holiday horror movies is Krampus from 2015. And if you haven't seen it, I'll give a little bit of an overview. Krampus is a demon that is from Central European folklore. He's a creature who is half goat, half demon.
Stephanie:
Sort of half goat, half man, depending on the depiction because he has pretty old roots. But as is the way as with everything that happened, when Christianity arrived in town, it sort of changed it to fit the narrative and it aligns now more with Christmas. But he's generally depicted in some form as a goat.
Ashley:
So he's kind of a hybrid of things, but he's a demon who comes to punish and take things away before St. Nicholas arrives. That's how they translated it in this movie. He kind of is translated into a character that arrives when the spirit of Christmas is gone. The movie follows a family. Toni Collette, who is our queen, stars as the mother. And you'll hear about a lot on the podcast. We absolutely love Toni Collette. She is the mother of Max who is, I think he's supposed to be about eight years old or so in the movie.
Stephanie:
Kids all look the same age. I don't know, he could be 15, he could be five, but I have no idea.
Ashley:
Max is coming to the age where he's starting to really understand the cynicism and the tension between his family and it's really starting to make him cynical. So he has a snapping point when they have some extended family come to visit at Christmas where he's just like, that's it I'm done. I don't believe in this anymore. I'm over it. And it's at that point that Krampus, this ancient holiday spirit is summoned. The character guides you through what the folklore actually is, is, Max's grandma, Adam Scott is the dad, and it's supposed to be his mother from, um, she's an Austrian actress. I don't know where the character is actually supposed to be from, but she's Austrian herself.
Ashley:
So she tells the story of Krampus. She had an encounter with him when she was a little girl and now she can sense him coming. And so there's some dread in her face that really amps up the fear. So the movie just follows this family basically dealing with this outside demonic force that's now weighing on them. That's a very broad overview of the movie. We both loved the movie. It got some kind of mixed reviews which I don't understand. Those people are stupid. I'm just kidding. No, you're all very smart. But the critics are not, so it's got a 66% on Rotten Tomatoes and I don't quite agree.
Stephanie:
That's about where I want my horror movies though. That tells me that it has enough love to boost it. But then it also tells me that it has just the right amount of hate. To try to bring it down, but it won't let it, I love that because that tells me someone who doesn't love horror got mad.
Ashley:
There are very few horror movies that do well critically. They'll come out and they'll get mixed reviews, but then they gain an audience because there's actually a huge base of horror fans that love the movie, and then they call it a cult classic. So then it becomes kind of untouchable, but when they first come out, I feel like they're always, it's always a very mixed bag. And Krampus was one of them, but I love it. I love the practical effects. They were done by the same company that did the practical effects for Lord of the Rings. Weta Workshop did the creature effects and there are some outstanding creature effects. We're huge fans of practical effects and Krampus's evil toys are just amazing. I would love to see them in person someday. Sometimes I think they show up at conferences and I would love to see them.
Stephanie:
The jack in the box shows up at conferences?
Ashley:
I've seen pictures of it at conferences. They could be just someone that dresses up like it I guess.
Stephanie:
I would love to have that job. How do I apply to be the monster version of the jack in the box from Krampus?
Ashley:
I don't know. I could just be speaking out of my ass. I don't know if it's the real jack in the box. Maybe someone created one that looked exactly like it. Still, I would love to see that in person.
Stephanie:
I'll cosplay. That's fine. I don't need the original. I'll just go. How about I just go around to like normal places like the store and I'm just, that's really all I want to do, but that's another conversation.
Ashley:
It looks like a two-man job, I'm sorry, a two-woman job. A two-person costume. So Steph, do you want to be the butt or the head?
Stephanie:
I would prefer to be the butt. No, I'm kidding.
Ashley:
It's settled. You'll be the butt. I'll just edit that to make it sound like you agreed a hundred percent to be the butt. But they did amazing work. Also, look into the folklore around Krampus. You'll appreciate the movie all the more. The actual story around it is fascinating. So I think Steph stuff wrote down some factoids here. Do you want to talk through some of them?
Stephanie:
I got some fast fun facts. Yeah. My boyfriend absolutely loves the Krampus and that's pretty much how I learned that the Krampus was a thing. And when the movie came out in 2015, we saw it in theaters and he wore his Krampus sweater and he was very excited, very nervous that they weren't going to do it very well, that the Krampus was, you know, not going to look very good. It wasn't going to be true to the vision.
The character and folklore do, you know, like I said, change in appearance, depending on which country, which culture is talking about it, because it does span a lot of Central Europe, even Northwestern Europe. But he was, he was worried that, you know, it was going to do one of those versions not very well, or at least the version he wanted to be. And then there's the moment in the movie where Max's sister is trying to walk to her boyfriend's house in a snow storm and the Krampus arrives, and he slams down on this rooftop and chases her, he jumps across the rooftops and it's just, that was, it was such a great moment in theaters.
Ashley:
That was an epic big bad reveal. And it happens pretty quickly. Like maybe 30 minutes into the movie, you see him, they don't show all of him, you know, they keep it still a bit mysterious. I made an audible sound when that happened. I saw it with a friend who was wearing a Krampus sweater too. But, I remember that moment we both grabbed each other's hands and were like, this is amazing.
Stephanie:
We did too. And it was just a lot of fun. It feels like it's being made by someone who also loves The Krampus. And who did their research on, like, you know, the arrival of Krampus. What does it sound like? It sounds like he often is depicted as having rattling chains or bells. There's a big theme with the bells in the movie. You know, he has these absolutely enormous horns. He's in the movie and he's wearing a mask of Saint Nicholas. You can't really see his face, which I think is actually kind of a great, a pretty smart decision, because I think maybe it would have been a little bit goofy if you had just seen the goat's face.
Ashley:
So I'm stupid. And I didn't realize that that was supposed to be a mask of Saint Nicholas and that's awesome. Not until this moment did I realize that.
Stephanie:
Yeah. There is a part where they zoom in on his eyes, uh, towards the end. And you can see it's like goat eyes. You can tell it's this mask because the face never changes. It never moves. It just looks like this twisted mask of Saint Nicholas. And so it's a really cool choice.
Ashley:
That's pretty smart and I feel pretty stupid for not knowing that. And it's funny because that was one of the one things I didn’t like. I thought to myself, “his face is really stiff.” Like he doesn't move ever. It's like we said, it's a super fascinating evil demon with a whole complex story around it.
Stephanie:
A very dark figure. Sometimes attached, but not necessarily attached to St. Nicholas and not necessarily attached to Christmas either. He also appears on Krampusnacht, which is December 5th of every year. And the feast of Saint Nicholas is on December 6th. And by the time the feast rolls around the naughty children have either been beaten, potentially scolded, and in some cases dragged to hell depending on the severity of their mistakes.
Ashley:
The stories that they used to tell kids is just, it's …
Stephanie:
It's beautiful.
Ashley:
Just sheer horror. Like, no, if you don't eat your peas, now your hand is like going to get chopped off. It's just so violent.
Stephanie:
I do love the unrelenting violent stories they would tell children in order to be safe.
Ashley:
It just makes you realize that like throughout history kids have just been awful.
Stephanie:
The real story of Krampus is that children are awful.
Ashley:
That some person just invented a demon goat to get kids to not fuck around for the other 11 months of the year, is so amazing to me. It just shows how frustrating kids have been forever.
Stephanie:
That's potentially how he was created. Yeah.
Ashley:
Anyways, that's Krampus. We highly recommend it. It's one of our favorite movies. It's super fun. Genuinely scary and very interesting. So absolutely recommend Krampus for the holiday season.
Stephanie:
Just kind of Google image, Krampus 2015 Jack-in-the-box and you'll see how much fun Ashley and I crawling around a convention hall.
Ashley:
It would, it would. We've got one more movie and it's appropriately called ...
Stephanie:
Dead End. Yes.
Ashley:
And it is the last movie on our list. Stephanie, take it away.
Stephanie:
So Dead End came out in the beautiful year of 2003, a really great time for everyone. It was a golden year of culture and art in my personal life. I was 12, so it was a good year. Directed by Jean-Baptiste Andrea, it's really the only French director you're going to see me talk about. I'm not gonna mince my words about France. I have some opinions on France, just like I have opinions on James Wan, but anyway, that's neither here nor there. It is starring my absolute favorite Lin Shaye, who again, would kill or die for Lin Shaye. And then also we have just the wonderful gift of her being accompanied by Ray Wise, who is also a gift to us. They are just a perfect duo if you don't know.
Ashley:
If you don't know Ray Wise then you haven't seen Twin Peaks and you're probably not a good person. No, I'm kidding.
Stephanie:
Okay. I know Ray Wise, but I haven't seen Twin Peaks. How am I doing?
Ashley:
You're fine. You're fine. Also, I know you're in the middle of introducing this movie, but I just watched it today for the first time in a few years, and I forgot how good this movie is. I remember seeing it a while ago and thinking that was good, but I have so much more appreciation for it now, but I'll let you talk about what it is.
Stephanie:
So it's starring Ray Wise and Lin Shaye, they're a married couple named Frank Harrington and Laura Harrington. I think it's supposed to be Christmas Eve or potentially Christmas. They're driving to some family's house. I believe it's Ray Wise's, in-laws, with their daughter, Marion, their son, Richard, and then Marion's boyfriend, who's Brad. They're all driving to the family's and they've been making this drive every year for 20 some odd years. They always go the same way, just the same old thing. However, to open this movie, Ray Wise just suddenly decides to take a back road and a shortcut supposedly, and, you know, surprise, surprise. It ends up not being a shortcut or else we wouldn't have this movie. Things sort of just go immediately off the rails in Dead End. And I, boy, do I love a movie that goes off the rails basically immediately. And basically, almost the entirety of this movie takes place in the car and you know you have something good when you can make something like that, a setting like that, so interesting and full of so much tension.
Ashley:
Yeah. There's not a ton of like effects or outside moments. Like Stephanie said, there's really just the car and the road.
Stephanie:
And it's the kind of movie that has to rely on its writing. It has to rely on its actors. And there's some touch and go moments with some of the kids in the back, but I mean, if you have Ray Wise and Lin Shaye, not much can go wrong. If the kids go the wrong way, they get us right back on course. I mean, they're amazing. Uh, so basically, yeah, they ended up going on this supposed shortcut and things are already extraordinarily tense with this family. The Harrington's are not doing particularly well.
Stephanie:
A lot of their family baggage comes up through the tension that is already rising because everyone is very stressed out. Ray Wise accidentally falls asleep a little bit in the beginning and almost kills them. And that sort of sets off this snowball effect of more tension and more tension. And it's just, it's fantastic. Things never stop getting more and more tense, but it is interrupted by a strange woman in the woods that Ray Wise sees and they stop for her because she seems like she's not okay. And things are not okay. Every once in a while this harbinger of death, this unknown person driving a hearse will drive by. And it takes a member of the family and you can see them in the back, the window pleading for help to help get them out. And sometimes will go by and then they'll come across the body of that person. And, uh, they're very much not alive. Very much body soup. It's driving all of them more and more crazy. And it's just fantastic. It's a never-ending boiling pot of tension and skeletons being dragged out of the closet.
Ashley:
And it's just like, you thought that it had reached a boiling point but it just keeps going. It just keeps going. It never stops. All these like secrets that are decades old keep coming to light.
Stephanie:
Yeah. It's uh, I think I quote in the article when Lin Shaye goes a little nuts towards the end. Pretty understandably. But there's a point where they're just trying to keep her calm because she's sort of not super lucid anymore. And she finds some food or she's eating pie with her hands. She just sort of stuffing it in her face. And then she says, “Look, we've got potato chips,” and she just whips out a bag of potato chips.
Ashley:
It's funny. They cut the tension with some humor, for sure.
Stephanie:
It's so full of manic humor and this palpable tension. Like I've said, and Lin Shaye and Ray Wise are the primary actors who are bringing this energy. Cause Ray Wise, he just looks annoyed. I look at Ray Wise and I'm like, man, are you okay? Are you, it feels like you're about to yell at me. That's sort of the Ray Wise space. Lin Shaye looks like the sweetest woman, but also like she could rip your face off with her hands. Yeah. She's tiny but ferocious.
Ashley:
Both of those actors are so, I don't know how to describe them. Like, they're just, they always seem like they're about to tip over the edge into something that's really big, you know? And they just have this ability to be funny. Like it's funny, but also you're very tense and stressed but in the best way possible. So they're perfect for a movie like this because there is humor and the whole movie is about the tension going on in the car and then them trying to deal with what's happening outside of the car, which is everything they can't control. And it's so good. It's just a testament to how you don't need much to make something really scary. In fact, sometimes you don't need much at all. And sometimes less is more with horror because it leaves more of the imagination. Not always the case, like I said, it's not a hard and fast rule, but, this movie is definitely one of those that you're like, they didn't have very much, but it's a really scary movie. And it's for being almost 20 years old, it has like really stood up.
Stephanie:
Why did you have to say it's almost 20 years old? Now I just feel, I didn't think about it that way. I am old. I don't like that.
Ashley:
Well, now everyone knows how old you are.
Stephanie:
Um, don't try to figure out the math.
Ashley:
Anyway, it's like Steph said, it's supposed to be them driving somewhere on Christmas Eve, but it has almost absolutely nothing to do with Christmas.
Stephanie:
It has basically nothing to do with Christmas. And it's very representative, I think, of what a lot of people, a lot of families feel on Christmas or around the holidays. All the common feelings of being forced together, of being forced to be polite with people you don't even like. They're going to Ray Wise's in-laws. He hates his in-laws and he tells that to Lin Shaye. He absolutely hates her mother. He hates everything and that all just comes spilling out. And like Ashley said, there are the effects in the movie. Admittedly the effects are a little bit cheesy. Like there aren't a lot of them, but when they happen, I think sometimes they can be just a little on the cheese side. It feels very 2003, I'd say 2003 with very little money. That's what it feels like. Yeah. It's at its strongest when it's just the actors playing off of each other.
Ashley:
Yeah. It gets away with the lack of effects, and even the really spooky woman only has a little cut on her forehead. Like it's, it's very minimal.
Stephanie:
She's not really that scary. No. And just sort of something to break, you know, to give it another element.
Ashley:
Yeah. She introduces that there's something not quite right going on. And the movie gets away with it because it doesn't take itself super seriously. The actors and the writing and the way they play off of the resources they have are really solid. So it makes it a really good movie because they're able to build a world just by the way that they're talking to each other.
Stephanie:
I have to say, I, I would hope that it would be good even without Lin Shaye and Ray Wise. But if it wasn't them, I honestly don't know if I would like it nearly as much, but that's again, that's just the magic of those two. Those two together are iconic. Anything with Lin Shaye. Yeah, absolutely love it. She is the best part of every movie. Yes. I just recently watched a movie. She was in it's called The Call. It also has Tobin Bell who, as you may know, played Jigsaw in the Jigsaw enterprise. Boy was that movie bad. It was bad. It wasn't good, but she's in it. She's pretty much the main point of the whole story. She's not in it very much, but when she is in it, it makes that that's six or $7 that I spent on Amazon renting it almost worth it.
Ashley:
Ooh. Did you do the theatrical release rental where it's like seven bucks?
Stephanie:
I did not. It was just six or $7 because it's new. It's still it's new enough to still be that expensive, but it's not like theatrical. Cause I don't, I don't know if it got a theatrical release.
Ashley:
This is why we call Lin Shaye the Nic Cage of horror to bring it back to the beginning of the podcast. Because she's been in a lot and she's, she always gives a really powerful performance, but it has to be like the right movie for her. Do you know what I mean? Like the movie itself might be garbo, garbage, sorry I just said garbo. But she's great. And she's great at what she does and she's incredibly talented. But she's been in like a hundred movies.
Stephanie:
She's been in well over a hundred movies. Even if the movie itself is terrible, like The Call or, my personal favorite, The Midnight Man.
Ashley:
Oh yeah. We might have to do an episode about the worst horror movies we've ever seen. The Midnight Man included.
Stephanie:
Terrible scenes and terrible acting. But when she's in it, you forget you're watching this awful movie and it's just this elation, that this wonderful actress is on screen and she's giving us her absolute all. And that's what Nicholas Cage does as well. You get Nicholas Cage, you get all of Nicholas Cage, you get Lin Shaye, she will throw all of herself into it. And there's nothing I love more than a movie throwing itself all the way into itself. That can make something go from kind of average to great. I might not even need to like really the story, but when it feels like it loves what it's doing like Lin Shaye obviously loves what she's doing. It elevates it. And if it has that, even if I don't love the movie I have at the very least respect for it.
Ashley:
Yes. Agreed, agreed with you on that one. I don't think it would have been the same at all without those two at the top of the ticket, I think it would have been a much different experience. Much different. Definitely go check out Dead End. And then go check out our website for the full list. We've got a lot of other really good ones on there. There's one really awful one, but I'll let you find out what that one is. It's at the very end of the article. No cheating. You have to read the whole thing before you get to it just don't scroll all the way down to the bottom, but there's a pretty bad Christmas movie on there that I don't, I don't know if it's worth it. You might just want to have it on in the back while you do other things. Right now I think that's it for us. We've recorded our first episode of Spooky Town and thanks for listening. Stephanie, you want to say anything to the people?
Stephanie:
Thanks, horror fans. Merry Christmas. Happy holidays. Happy December. Happy New Year. Be safe. Stay in, watch horror movies.
Ashley:
And that's it.