High Low Brow
We’re carving out space in the airwaves for deep dives and thoughtful convos about our beloved pop culture that is often overlooked, laughed at, trashed, and brushed aside. Join us (and some of our internet pals!) for hot, juicy, maybe controversh opinions and a few rounds of games inspired by the stuff you watched when you were home sick with an anxiety-induced stomachache in your formative years.
High Low Brow
Our Review of Found Footage Horror Film: Milk & Serial
We're back after a two-week hiatus (we went on vacation—sorry, not sorry!) and reviewing this incredible found-footage horror film by Curry Barker, Milk & Serial.
This movie has already racked up over 400,000 views on YouTube (where it's being streamed for free) and has garnered rave reviews from Reddit and TikTok alike. The film (which was shot for $800) follows a group of YouTube pranksters and a surprise birthday prank goes terribly wrong. We give our thoughts on why we think you need to watch this, how it's better than Longlegs (by a mile) and our prediction on how Barker will have a deal with Blumhouse in the next year.
Stay tuned for our next episode and keep it gapey!
Welcome to High Low Brow. The show with high brow takes on low brow culture. I'm your one host, amanda Scriver.
Speaker 2:And I'm keeping it gapey River Gilbert.
Speaker 1:We'll never get over that. It's so good. I feel like it was such an underrated part of this season of Drag Race All-Stars.
Speaker 2:I feel like, was it All-Stars?
Speaker 1:Oh it was, yeah, that terrible season of drag race.
Speaker 2:all-stars yeah well, because all-stars happened and then it was canada versus the world which is functionally an all-stars yeah, and now it's global all-stars, yeah, which is also very mid well. We don't keep up with the other franchises, so we have less emotional investment into it. It's like we like the Thea.
Speaker 1:I mean I have been. I haven't deleted my Twitter account but, I, still go on Twitter every so often to just read what other people are saying about television, reality television shows.
Speaker 2:It's where you get that pure uncut shit.
Speaker 1:It does not translate the same on places like threads it doesn't anyway. Anyways, someone was like they should just rename global all-stars to colonizers versus oh my god, and I was like colonizers versus the world is incredible literally incredible I died RIP oh, yeah, no um, but yes, keep it. Gapey was like when that moment happened. I was like is anyone else dying about this or is it just?
Speaker 2:is it just us? I, I feel like she probably was designing merch for it and didn't drop it during the season, or it kept getting cut.
Speaker 1:I have no idea, I don't know, but it was out of left field, and it was the funniest fucking thing. Literally no one else was talking about it online and I'm like it is hilarious, it has permanently entered our lexicon. Like when Ocean is looking for a place to poop it's.
Speaker 2:She's keeping it gapey.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, keep it gapey yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, keep it gapey, keep it gapey. Ah hey, Emma, what's making your brain go burr this week?
Speaker 1:Huh, I mean, I'm going to be honest with you, I don't know.
Speaker 2:It's been a mid couple of weeks for like content and like TikTok moments. You know what? And like TikTok moments.
Speaker 1:You know what? There is this, just like. This just like came into my mind because it's probably the last thing that I saw. But and I don't know if they've ever come across your TikTok for you page but there is this kid I think his name is Be Good or Be Something OK, and he's this kid from Canada. He starts all of his videos with like I was the youngest to graduate with a degree in, like marketing, which, like sir, that's not a flex, but anyways and he always does a breakdown of like why certain campaigns are performing in the way that they're performing, or yada, yada, yada.
Speaker 2:So it's like that PR person that you follow, but not as good.
Speaker 1:I mean, some of the videos he has done has been like totally fine, I don't know dude, the flex of being like I'm the youngest marketer, Sure, just anyways.
Speaker 2:Okay, continue.
Speaker 1:But I don't like actively follow him. I've just seen some of his videos and I was like, yeah, okay sure. Yeah, he okay. I've just seen some of his videos and I was like, yeah, okay, sure, yeah, yeah, he can keep it gaping. Anyways, I guess he made a video about how kamala's marketing campaign, why it wasn't good, and he got called out very hard. Being like this is rooted in, like racism racism.
Speaker 1:Racist, yeah, and misogyny and like who the fuck are you? You're some like 20-year-old kid from Canada. Like you have no idea about politics in the US. Like shut the fuck up. And now all these other people are making videos, being like I've always hated this kid's videos, like I'm so glad he's finally being taken down. I'm like you know I never like I he would. These videos of his were always so fucking long.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And I was just like, sure there's some interesting points, but I never really. I was like, who is this content for?
Speaker 2:It's for his portfolio, because he's 20 and being the young, okay, a couple of things. Yeah, First of all, being the youngest person to graduate with a marketing degree not impressive at all.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's so funny because now, because your phone.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You're going to get all this, I'm going to get it now All the time, but all the time.
Speaker 1:But he always like holds up his degree so quickly and it's like it. I'm like I'm pretty sure, because one time I think I tried to like pause it yeah, to be like where's this? I'm pretty sure he graduated from like york university or somewhere well, it doesn't like, okay.
Speaker 2:So there's young people who graduate with degrees and usually when they're impressive, it's like oh, you're in stem, like that kid who was like 12 and had like a physics degree it's like that's that's impressive. Totally. Marketing is nothing. It is professionally lying to people, speaking as somebody who works in marketing I went to school for public relations, yeah so like lying to people again why I'm like, sir, this is not the flex that you think it is.
Speaker 1:It just means that you understand advertising like, or you can regurgitate.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's like no, that the kudos for spilling mama but also my initial thought was that he was just being contrarian, to be like I'm rage baiting, but the I mean probably that too.
Speaker 1:He's just talking about shit that's happening in the news, them being like here's my take and it's like great, we all can do a take.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's what our entire podcast is exactly having a take the issue is maybe not considering the other uh things at play here. As white guy, of course, yeah, of, it's always a white guy Always.
Speaker 1:Anyways, what's making your break over?
Speaker 2:I'm back on Dog of Wisdom Talk, and there was a chihuahua this time around.
Speaker 1:Oh.
Speaker 2:Because four months ago, apparently, dog of Wisdom 3 dropped and I missed it entirely. Okay so yeah, there's like I and I missed it entirely. Okay, so yeah, there's like I think I sent it to you, but there's like the chihuahua and he just goes. Chihuahua, I don't remember. Oh my god, it's so good to be fair, you do send me, I do send you a lot of tiktoks, but like my brain can, only it's.
Speaker 1:It's rotted so much and only can retain so much.
Speaker 2:None so culturally slash rottily significant as Dog Wisdom though. Yeah, that's fair.
Speaker 1:I do find myself, yeah, just randomly, throughout the day.
Speaker 2:It's honestly, the best vocal stim ever of all time. Yes, and all of the remixes are always fantastic. They are also that one, the wiggles a video that I sent you, where they were just inserting the wiggles into every song they could and it was like percussive, molly, percussive yes, that was brilliant it was so good whoever edited, edited that.
Speaker 1:thank you, it's yeah no.
Speaker 2:So some things are brain go brr yeah, but I think we're firmly in like brain rot season. Yeah, we're progressing from Brat Girl Summer to brain rot fall Something, brain rot autumn.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Who knows, who knows.
Speaker 1:We're just like, we're not thriving, we're surviving we are surviving yeah, kind of kind of we also, which, like I, feel like we should have kind of said this at the beginning of the episode we were oops, we were gone yeah, for two weeks we we took a vacation we took a vacation we really meant to record while we were up there and then forgot all of our equipment which, like oops we meant to record before we left and then we're like it's okay, we'll just bring it all.
Speaker 2:Didn't do that. We're like oh, it's okay, we'll do it when we get back. Then we were just both so burnt out after vacation that we were like oh shit, okay, let's do it this weekend.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's our bad.
Speaker 2:I mean shit happens, that's. Did you miss us?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, hopefully you did, we're here. But when we were away on said vacation, kind of going back to TikTok, you got served a TikTok about a movie and we were like at the cottage where we were staying.
Speaker 2:it was like the most struggle for content it was struggle because it was like oh, we have the internet, but it's like you're watching it on a potato they were like okay, so you've got Netflix and you've got Disney Plus, and you've got disney plus and you've got crime, and it's like great cool, how do we get those? They're like, oh, it's only on the tv in the bedroom and it wouldn't let us log into netflix wouldn't let us log into basically everything. So we're like okay, I guess it's youtube summer and I'm on like horror short talk yes um, but I got served something from a creator that I like.
Speaker 2:Who's like hey, there's this hour-long found footage really well produced horror film film on youtube. Yeah, I'm like film listen. I can edit the gaps out. Okay, I can keep it gappy I can keep it gappy and it was like it's an hour long and I was, hey, do you want to watch this? And I was like, fuck, yeah, I want to watch this.
Speaker 1:We literally have nothing else to watch yet.
Speaker 2:I'll watch it. It's like we can only watch so much Game Changer.
Speaker 1:Yeah, which was wonderful.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so yeah it's called Milk and Cereal.
Speaker 1:Milk and Cereal.
Speaker 2:Not cereal like mmm bowl of of serial, but serial as in killer, yeah so, and the director.
Speaker 1:But also producer, starred in the film, director, writer, producer, curry barker yeah, and from our investigation into curry, he's done like a bunch of these films a lot of short films.
Speaker 2:He has like occasional bit parts on like he was on an episode of always sunny, but mainly does like these little independent stuffs for youtube like he's got.
Speaker 1:Oh my god, he has 10 of these yeah, so this is kind of like his thing. Yeah, this is the first of his films that we have watched. Yes, anyways, going into it, the premise of the film when you were describing it to me when you showed me the TikTok, is basically it's about this group. They're like in their 20s. Prank bros, they're called yeah, prank bros and it kind of like shows a prank gone wrong.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a prank gone wrong, followed by a series of escalating pranks. Yeah, it's a prank gone wrong, followed by a series of escalating pranks.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and immediately, as you were like, as you were describing it to me, as the video was sort of like describing this video, I kind of I don't know why I thought about this, but I thought about Logan Paul.
Speaker 2:Oh for sure, Big Logan, like the vibe, was even big Logan Paul, because Was it Logan Paul or was it his brother that had the Japanese forest video? I?
Speaker 1:thought it was Logan Paul.
Speaker 2:Like.
Speaker 1:It was one of the Paul brothers.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But yeah, I was just like oh, this like reminds me of early YouTube energy. We're like those YouTube houses. Hey, YouTube, Welcome to my channel.
Speaker 2:Once YouTube started being moving from theoretical dollars to actual dollars.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah so essentially like, even though it's an independent film, even though it was sort of like it felt like it was in like found footage kind, of like shot big, big found footage vibes.
Speaker 2:They shot it on a budget of eight hundred dollars which is wild, wild.
Speaker 1:It didn't feel like. It didn't feel like it was only made with eight hundred dollars.
Speaker 2:No, do you know what the vibe kind of gave me was the original paranormal activity where it's like they shot that for like I think the budget was five thousand dollars, yeah, and like it had practical and it had like really unsettling shit and well, that's what I was gonna say is that throughout the film we're taken into, you know, it's this group of friends.
Speaker 1:Like I mentioned, one of the who, it's curry barker, I think it's his birthday, so the friend group they're like we're gonna plan, you know, the prank to end all pranks. Yeah, and what we don't realize immediately is that he is actually planning his own prank to sort of prank them. But there's like, like you said, there's like this unsettling sort of like creepiness to some of these scenes and situations.
Speaker 2:You know that it's a prank gone wrong because it says it right there. So you're all, you're kind of being like OK, what part of the prank goes wrong? Because every part of it goes wrong and every part of it feels really gross, really gross and really like that kind of like you said, like the early youtube reaction content where people were like assaulting people for content.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and like there's always this underlying tension yeah within every scene between all of the characters in it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, I shot wise. It's found footage. It's not as shaky as a lot of found footage films.
Speaker 1:Yeah well, I was gonna say they, even like they're very much taking into, like they're showing what they're using yeah, to shoot it, yeah. So I think they were like oh look, we're using I forget what it's called, but the handheld.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:When you're using to shoot YouTube videos, like they're telling you exactly what they're using to shoot it.
Speaker 2:Well, it's a fantastic, like it's such an obvious way to do a found footage film in, like the best possible way. Did you watch the Wreck films? No, is it Wreck or VHS, excuse me? Okay, and those are a series of found footage short stories and they do something similar kind of, but this would felt more cohesive. Yeah, we should get into that before we get into spoilers. Yeah, uh, what would you give it out of 10?
Speaker 1:I think we talked about this. I was like I give it like an eight, agree, and I think, when the film would say eight and a half, honestly like yeah, and I think when the film ended I was like that didn't feel like an hour, like it went by very so quick but it also didn't feel, make you feel like you were wanting anything more.
Speaker 1:It was like oh, this is the story and it's tied off and it's perfect yeah, like it felt like everything came to its natural progression, but also it felt like it went by so quickly. Yeah, and you, I was gonna say you left feeling satisfied, but there was nowhere to go to. You were watching YouTube.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, it didn't leave. It left enough to the imagination that it was like okay, cool, yeah, you don't need to like spell everything out for me, but it also didn't leave anything like gaping plot.
Speaker 1:They didn't keep it gaping. They did not keep it gaping, yeah.
Speaker 2:Let's get into spoilers. Go watch it right now, come back. It's like an hour and it's free.
Speaker 1:Well, I think you were even before we started recording the episode. You were saying that like it's actually picking up, like it's getting really popular on TikTok.
Speaker 2:It's going viral.
Speaker 1:I know that on threads. I've seen a couple threads. I've seen a couple threads on threads about the film as well. So people are starting to talk about it. Yeah, so I think the word is starting to get out about the film and I mean, you don't have to pay for it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's free. He's also already shooting his next stuff, yeah. So I, like I said to you after we watched it, I was like this feels like this is going to be his talk to me yeah, where it's like this is going to introduce him to I. I would be shocked if, like a blumhouse, didn't go to him and be like hey, do you want to shoot? Like?
Speaker 2:or a24 I would love a24 to go pick up this kid and let him do something really cool. I have a feeling it's going to be Blumhouse, because they specialize in low budget, high return films, so that will give them a shit ton of money and be like make five movies for us. Yeah, so we're going to enter spoilers, yeah so. Yeah, spoil away. Yeah, so the first half of the film was just him, his buddy, like walking us through, like buying the the blank, like the gun that shoots blanks yeah, they met some guy off the dark web.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and this guy. Immediately you're like, wow, he is a walking red flag. Yeah, white van white panel van yeah, and he's like I don't want to be, don't, you can't film this?
Speaker 2:yeah, um, they proceed to film it proceed to secretly film it yeah uh, so their idea is they're going to invite a guy that milk, who is the, the guy whose birthday it is to his, to his surprise party, and this guy is going to shoot one of their friends with a blank gun. Yeah, and already we're like well, clearly something's going to go wrong here.
Speaker 1:This has bad idea.
Speaker 2:Written all over it, so that happens.
Speaker 1:Yes, that happens. Yes, but as soon as this random person shows up, milk gets really like agitated and is like why did you? Invite this random, so pissy. Yeah, he's like this, isn't? I hate this yeah, like in my head before we know of the subplot, I was like like this man is giving autism.
Speaker 2:Oh, I didn't think autism. I thought he was giving big red flags Like cause, the reason they call him milk is he just drinks milk and we as a society have decided that unless you're having cookies or chocolate cake with it, you can't just drink a glass of milk, cause it's weird. And when they were playing never have I ever he was they were like they were. Were playing never have I ever he was. They were like they're like never have I ever killed an animal. And people are like, yeah, I killed, like I hit this with.
Speaker 2:And he was like, yeah, I killed a cat when I was younger yeah and that I was like, oh, he's not gonna elaborate, uh-oh, I think he might be the bad guy well, yeah, I mean like there were signs but, I don't think those things happened in full sequence not full sequence, but it happened in the front half of the film yes, it did like. What I'm saying is like I don't think those things happened it wasn't one after the other, it was just like one just peppered in yeah.
Speaker 1:So it was like, once you start adding all those things, you're like, oh, yeah, okay started with the milk, ended with killing a cat yeah so they do the prank.
Speaker 2:This guy comes, shoots his friend and they go oh, we got you. And he milk is like freaking out. He's like that was such a good prank, ah. And then he goes upstairs and they follow him up and they start talking and he's hiding something where, like I was like oh, that's, that's not, that's not promising. Then they hear a knock on the door, they go downstairs and they answer it and this is the old guy. He's like I have kids next door, this is a school night. And then pushes his way in and starts intimidating everybody. Yeah.
Speaker 1:They kind of wrap it up and finish off their night and then they go to a store and I think they just kind of like, continue on with their night. Yes, and then they run into this guy again.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Same guy. Milk walks over to him, knocks his hat off his head and gets in his face Cause he's like oh, this is another part of the prank.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and their friends are like hey, man like it's super, not part of the prank, yeah. They're like leave this guy alone, like something, this is weird. And he's like ha ha ha, it's funny Like you guys can like, let me know about the prank. And they're like dude, just let it go.
Speaker 2:They go back to the apartment, which has two floors, which was interesting. Right, yes, that's right and they just sort of call it a night. Then the next morning, six, who is the guy who played the prank on Milk, wakes him up and says the guy is fucking here. He broke into our house and he's just sitting downstairs.
Speaker 1:And then he's just there.
Speaker 2:He's just there and Six is, and he's like six is like we gotta call the fucking cops and milk's like no, don't call the cops. Like let me go talk to him. He's like are you high?
Speaker 1:yeah, milk is like. Let me talk to him. I'm gonna see what I can sort of figure out with this guy and then I think we get a smash cut to the day before.
Speaker 2:Yes, and milk is making his own video saying I know these guys are going to be fucking pranking me, so I'm going to prank them myself yeah, and he sort of alludes to his reason that he's pranking them is because, is it Six? Yeah, Six.
Speaker 1:Has locked him out of the Prank Bros channel and Six has told him that his ideas were not good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, they're unoriginal.
Speaker 1:And so this is sort of his.
Speaker 2:Watch me be original, then, yeah I can come up with original ideas so the guy that breaks into the like the party and intimidates them all turns out is hired by milk yeah, to really intimidate six and is an actor. He's an actor and he's playing a crazy guy yeah, and things just kind of happen very quickly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, everything that you can think of that could go wrong goes wrong. And then some yeah, like just in the off chance that you didn't watch it. We don't want to spoil everything, because there are like two incredible twists.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like I think that's probably the peak and the crux of where things like get to.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And then it just starts.
Speaker 2:Going ham.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so like if you think that we've spoiled the entire film for you at this point. Oh God, we have not. It goes some places. Yeah, so like if you think that we've spoiled the entire film for you at this point.
Speaker 2:Oh god, it goes some places. It's like Cat and Mouse, but both of the cat and the mouse are really stupid. Yeah, it's the. Are they evil or just stupid? The answer is yes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because I think even when we were watching it through, I was like okay, yeah, obviously this is, this, is it?
Speaker 2:This is where it goes wrong.
Speaker 1:And then I was like oh no, oh, oh, and then something else happened. I was like I was not expecting that. Wait what so? There's just a lot of it's like an onion, it's layered.
Speaker 2:It's layered, it escalates very quickly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:I again solid, solid, eight, eight and a half out of 10.
Speaker 1:It's, it's. I think afterwards, after we stopped watching it, you said better than long legs, yeah.
Speaker 2:Cause that's the catchphrase high, low brow better than long legs better than long legs.
Speaker 2:We like to think yeah, I can't wait to see how far this kid goes, because I think he's pretty young. Yeah, and this was incredible it was. I'm really excited that there are more, because this is kind of what happened, like horror renaissance, like paranormal activity started off as like a youtube short. It was a short well, not youtube short, but a short film and like that's how blumhouse sort of got their foot in the door, as like this mega production company, yep. So uh, second wave of horror shorts, which is fantastic, and I'm very excited to see what the future holds, because the world is terrifying and we need some horror movies to bring us down.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I'm very happy this. This was around when we were at the cottage and, you know, had nothing else to watch.
Speaker 2:Oh, my God.
Speaker 1:Because literally all we could watch was potatoes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, while we're talking horror movies, I just found out about hooptober yes, you sent me that tiktok, that tiktok which is you have, until you've got from september 15th till, I think, october 31st, to watch 31 horror films, and they give every year. They give you criteria of like it has to be. You have to span six decades and you've got to get one from four countries, and this year you have to have one that's either filmed in or primarily set in Texas. Two horror films from India, okay, I think you have to watch the entirety of a franchise with a slasher in it. Like all of these things seem very achievable. Well, because you can film all it's. Everybody's got their own, uh, hooptober fest or hooptober list hooptober yeah woo.
Speaker 2:So I think, that we should do that. Yeah, we don't necessarily have to talk about it for the entirety of the time, but we should like make mention of hey, here's our list.
Speaker 1:Watch along with us yeah, so look forward to that yeah, tell the people where they can find us. You can find us on the internet. We are on threads tiktok, the world wide web instagram instagram uh, that's it, that's it, we're at highlowbrowpod.
Speaker 2:That's H-I-G-H-L-O-W browpod.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've been. I've had my you know spelling taken away from me because I did it wrong the last few times.
Speaker 2:It's a habit at this point. It's okay, we still love you.
Speaker 1:I can write and spell. I just can can write and spell. Yeah, I just can't speak and spell. Do you remember? Speak and spell? Yeah, I do, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, check out our website. Leave us a review. We promise we probably won't disappear for two weeks again.
Speaker 1:I mean there's no promises. Let's not say that.
Speaker 2:We promise we will try not to disappear.
Speaker 1:Yeah. We're we will try not to disappear.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're only human, we can only do what we can do, and things are getting busy. Yeah, okay, until next time, next time, bye.
