12- The Sixth Sense by M. Night Shyamalan

Do your friends roll their eyes when you bring up your favorite ghost movie? Do you instantly know the significance of a red balloon? We’re here for you. Welcome back to Drawn to Darkness, where we deep dive into our favourite horror and true crime.

In this episode, though decades have passed, Annie finally makes Caroline sit down for M. Night Shyamalan’s 1999 classic, The Sixth Sense, the movie that made “I see dead people” an instant cultural touchstone. We talk creepy dolls, inattentive parents, and claustrophobic closets. Expect tangents about 1999 as the ultimate movie year, the curse and blessing of the “Shyamalan twist,” and the legacy of Munchausen by proxy in horror. We'll cover everything from the brilliance of Haley Joel Osment’s haunted eyes, to Toni Collette’s overworked single mum realism, to Bruce Willis’ understated acting as a child psychologist.

Spoiler + Trigger Warning
We spoil the twist. Be warned! If you’ve somehow avoided spoilers for 26 years,  watch it before listening.

Discussion of child abuse, Maunchausen by proxy (medical abuse), murder and mistreatment of enslaved people, bullying, claustrophobia, hanging, gore, and lots of creepy ghosts. But don’t worry. The puppy survives.

Palate Cleanser

Need something a little lighter after all those jump scares and tragic child ghosts? 

• Taylor Swift’s full anthology – yes, the entire history. 
• John Mulaney & Friends – stand-up with Mike Birbiglia, Nick Kroll, and Fred Armisen for some much-needed comic relief after all that whispery ghost trauma.

Recommendations

• Always Sunny in Philadelphia - Because Philly!
• Lianne Moriarty's books - great twists!
•  Other great twists: Parasite, Empire Strikes Back, Fight Club, Scream, the Usual Suspects, the Prestige.
  Memento – another brilliant 90s twist that’ll fry your brain.
• Ghost stories including The Others ,Stir of Echoes (1999 twin film energy) – Kevin Bacon also sees dead people, What Lies Beneath and The Haunting of Bly Manor (Mike Flanagan) – ghost stories as memory, grief, and limbo.
• Hereditary – more Toni Collette mom horror. About a Boy and Little Miss Sunshine are also a lot of fun.
• More M. Night Shymalan movies: The Village, Signs, Split, Cabin at the End of the World
• Die Hard for Bruce Willis at his most iconic.
• Muriel’s Wedding – if you want Toni Collette but need more ABBA and fewer ghosts.
• The O.C. - Mischa Barton!
• The English sitcom Ghosts – haunted house vibes, but funny and charming.
• The Reformatory by Tananarive Due – a novel about racism, history, and a little boy who sees ghosts.
• Atonement - the novel and movie are both great)
• What we do in the Shadows - always
• What Went Wrong & Unspooled (podcasts) – deep dives into the making and legacy of The Sixth Sense.
• The podcast Ghosts in the Burbs (see episode 4)
• The Dead Zone and The Shining for Stephen King characters with powers

 Homework

Next week we pivot from ghosts to real monsters: Harvey Weinstein. Since M. Night himself referred to Weinstein as a “monster,” we’re finally covering Catch and Kill. Read Ronan Farrow’s investigation and/or listen to the podcast before our next episode. 

Thanks for joining us on this haunted Philadelphia stroll. Review us, share us with your fellow horror and true crime weirdos, and listen up if your kid starts whispering about ghosties!

Cover art by Nancy Azano @nancyazano
Music by Harry Kidd @harryjkidd
Email us: drawntodarknesspod@gmail.com

Transcript

0:10

Welcome back to Drawn to Darkness, a biweekly podcast where we discuss our favorite horror and true crime. If you think the veil is thin for children, we're here for you. My name is Annie, and I'll be introducing Caroline to my favorite horror movies, podcast, TV shows and books. And my name is Caroline, and I'll be doing the same for Annie from the true crime side of things. I wanna start by asking you, what was 1999 like for you? Like where were you? You weren't in a cults without access to the outside world or anything like that. No, I was working at Sam Goody with my now husband. Okay. And yeah, I was starting my senior year of high school. The reason I asked is because I don't understand how you missed the phenomenon. That is the sixth sense. That's a hard word to say. The sixth sense. Mm-hmm. Back in 1999, because this movie was a sensation like I was in high school, I remember the mania and being absolutely blown away by the twist. How did you not see it? Okay, so I know that I've mentioned what a Ws I was growing up, I think in our Jaws episode, but also when I did go see like Blair Witch Project, which I think we should put on our list, that was also 1999, same year. Yeah, my now husband then boyfriend did like totally freak me out by taking me out to Woods after and stuff like that. I think I was just like, I'm not doing this. After a few years, maybe even not a year, the the twist was revealed to me, so I was sort of like, what's the point? My husband too, he missed it and he knew the twist. So he had the same, what's the point? No, I made him watch it this weekend and he kept being like, this is so obvious. This is so obvious. How did no one know? No one knew. Like people really didn't know. Well, let's get into it then. We are discussing the sixth sense. Before we start talking about, I wanna just give a spoiler and trigger warning, there's an adorable puppy in it and it does not die. It's perfectly safe by the end. However, there is medical abuse of a child, a child death, actually, I think more than one child, death, at least more than one child. Ghosts. There's the implication of the abuse and murder of a slave. There's bullying, there's horrific claustrophobia, there's hanging, there's some blood and gore, and obviously creepy ghost. We also will be spoiling this. So Caroline has already mentioned the twist. If 26 years have passed and you somehow missed that, go back and watch it. Okay, here we go. So with six Oscar nominations, but not a winner, probably because it's horror. M Knight. Sha Milan's, 1999 breakout film. The sixth sense tells the story of Cole Seer Kid's last name is pretty on the nose as he can see dead people who are always around him and pretty much torment him constantly. Cole's mother Lynn, played by Tony Collette, is desperate for solution. Dr. Malcolm Crow, played by Bruce Willis shows up. He's a celebrated child psychologist, recovering from being shot by a former patient, a man he failed to help when he was a child. Some time passes. Malcolm recovers or does he? His marriage is on the rocks. His wife isn't speaking to him, and he doesn't appear to have any other clients. So he's determined not to give up on little coal. Dr. Crow counsels crow to try to confront his fears by helping the ghosts rather than running away. Little does he know he himself is dun, dun, dun. Here it is actually dead and one of the many ghosts in need of help from Cole. By the end of the film, he's finally able to accept his death and move on. Cole meanwhile tells his mom his secret and appears by the end of the movie that together they'll be okay. So what adjective would you use to describe this? Hence, I felt really just like, I mean, and I'm sure that's gonna, this is gonna happen to me more often as I continue to be brought into your world of horror. Mm-hmm. But in true crime, there's not really this like lingering suspense all the time where you're just never sure when a big scare is gonna occur or anything like that. And there's a lot of moments of just like, why did I see that and why did I see that? One of the things I'm thinking about when you mentioned your husband being like, this is obvious. I was trying to think as I watched it, if I didn't know the twist, what would make me be like, what's going on here? Like the doorknob, that was one of those things where it's like, why are you seeing this shot of him trying to open that red doorknob and not being able to, yeah, so why was that included? Right? Yeah.'cause it feels very, like, this is clearly intentional, but why? Right. That's one of those big clues, but it's not so obvious that you would automatically, you just think, oh, it's an old house or something. And maybe he's trying not to wake up his wife, I don't know.'cause she's always sleeping around him. Yeah. I would use solemn, very understated and quiet and obviously shocking. This viewing wasn't shocking because I'd seen it. I definitely saw it when it first came out. I was surprised by the twist. I saw it again so I could figure out what I had missed. And now I think this is probably my third or fourth time watching it. We should talk a little bit about the film history, 1999. What. A year Fight Club, the Matrix, American Beauty, the Green Mile, talented Mr. Ripley Girl Interrupted the Phantom Menace. The Mummy Toy Story two, one of your favorites. Big year. I mean, I got chills three times while you read that list. Yeah. Just so you know, a great list. Also the same, I think it was almost the same month as Blair Witch Project Stigmata came out that year too, which kind of connects back. That's a Patricia Arquette to our last episode on the Act Stir of Echoes with Kevin Bacon. Also has a similar ghost trying to get through to get help vibe. I re-watched it, I don't know, maybe in the last year, and it's one of those movies that kind of got forgotten, but I think it's got a lot to offer anyway, like we talked about in Jaws, Shalan felt like his career was over before it was even started. He was stuck in a contract with Miramax. Did you know about this? No tell. So one of the true bad guys of Hollywood, Harvey Weinstein, whom Shaalan refers to as a monster, so to some extent, he was another Harvey Weinstein victim because he was stuck in this contract with him, and Weinstein didn't like him, but he wasn't gonna let him go. Had this film called Wide Awake that was Miramax production and didn't go well. And so he was really trying to get out from under Weinstein's thumb, which was probably a tad easier for him as a man. Weinstein wasn't trying to rape him, but it really speaks to Harvey Weinstein's toxicity if you got on his bad side, whether it was because you. Didn't want to sleep with him or for some other reason, he could make your life a hell. Really reminds me of certain world leaders at this time. Absolutely, yes. Very, uh, vindictive. So anyway, Miramax owned him as a director, but not as a writer. So he just took it upon himself to write the best screenplay ever. Arguably, he, he maybe did, he was inspired by movies he loved, like he reminds me of RI from Midnight Mass because he had posters of Jaws, Poltergeist, the Exorcist Silence and the Lambs Alien, all these movies that he just loved. So he decided to make this move into genre and boy was he successful at it. So this guy, David Vogel at Disney bought the script for like somewhere between two and$3 million, which was pretty unheard of. And Disney was so mad, ended up like letting him go and selling off the sixth Sense, like while it was being made big mistake on their part, I think, you know, they still got part of the money, but not as much as it did gross. And it was one of the highest grossing films of all time. It doesn't look very expensive to make. No, I think they had a$40 million budget. About 10 of that went to Bruce Willis. Yeah. Yeah. So for a movie that cost 3 million just to buy the scripts, they wouldn't have spent a lot on special effects. No. They did have cold rooms. Like people think that, oh, the breath coming out, that must be a special effect. But they actually had poor little Hailey Joel Almond in like a freezing cold room so that you could actually see his breath un spooled episode on this. Did you listen to that? They have one. No. You know, I tried to find it today and it didn't come up for some reason. It's there. They go into a lot more of the history, and I also found this episode of a show called What Went Wrong, another podcast, and they go much more deeply into the history of how this got made, if you're interested. But I think it does kind of go back to one of our earlier discussions about. Whether or not horror is unfairly denigrated by the, the elite, I guess, of Hollywood. It's one of a very small group of horror movies to be nominated for best picture, although it didn't win. Movies like Jaws, the Exorcists, the Lambs Get Out, but a lot of horror movies do not get the credit they deserve. Let's talk about the twist. This is a very self-aware movie. Like Cole tells Dr. Malcolm, you have to add some twists and stuff. Remember when he is telling him the story? Mm-hmm. And they've got that mm-hmm. Sleigh of hand scene with a penny, which is not really even sleigh of hand, like it's pretty obvious. But the reference to child actors and improv, you know, it is a movie that's about making movies and acting too, and a movie that is about story. Yeah. And people's stories. So I think one of the reasons the twist works is because it's so efficient at cutting out excess, it's 106 minutes long. It's really tight. So we make assumptions, you know, we see that scene that looks so obvious in retrospect where Lynn and Malcolm are sitting in a room apparently waiting for Cole to show up. You know, we don't need to see them on the phone planning that session or discussing what she wants from that session with him. You know, we can just assume that it's already happened and they're in that just little moment of an awkward silence and waiting. We don't need to see Malcolm walk down the stairs to go to his basement office and look at his notes. I always tell my students when we're doing creative writing, like don't start story with someone waking up and like brushing their teeth and taking a shower, unless that is actually relevant to character development. I know everybody wakes up. Everybody takes a shower, everybody brushes their teeth. I hope that's boring, right? The number of stories I still get with a character waking up drives me crazy, but I'm always telling them, start as close to the action as possible. So arguably that's what Shalon is doing, right? Which is why I think we don't question it as the audience. We're like, okay, well that must have already happened. We don't need to see it. It's sort of hard to talk about it, having seen it, knowing the twist, because of course, while watching it, I'm like, they didn't discuss payments. You know, like I'm sort of curious. How he thinks he wound up there. But certainly as a first time viewer who doesn't know the twist, it doesn't seem bizarre that they're not talking to each other or in some of the o other moments where his wife is not acknowledging him. Having thrown him such considerable shade in the, in the beginning of the first scene about her being second, that stage was set for you to not question that aspect. I think we can probably assume, and this is kind of an archetype of wives in. You know, say the wife of a detective or something on SVU, right? The detective or the teacher or the social worker or the doctor is spending too much time with their patients and clients and victims and not paying attention to their family. And then maybe something happens like they actually get hurt, like he was shot because of his job and she probably doesn't want him to go back to work. So we can make that assumption that like, you've already suffered enough from this job to take a step back and he's not taking that step back. So she's pissed. I think that's the assumption I make. One of the things you just brought up, how did Dr. Crow, how did Malcolm find Cole, right? Mm-hmm. Why does he have these notes on him? Like how does this hold together? Yeah, but I have a theory. If you wanna see a renowned psychologist, especially if you're not rich, as is implied by Len working two jobs, there's a wait list. So my theory is that Cole was on a wait list and maybe he even had an appointment before Malcolm was shot. He maybe had those documents ready and waiting and he actually says, I'm sorry I missed our appointment. Yes. So I'm thinking that when Malcolm comes to after dying, he was like, well, this kid's next on my list. And he just shows up and it's that combination of him showing up because he's next on the list, but also showing up because he's drawn to him because he can see ghosts and he can see the relationship maybe subconsciously at that time. But he's looking at the file of the person who shot him. Yes. While he's waiting first. Yeah. He notices. Oh my God. They both have divorced parents. They must see ghost. Yeah. What are some of the other clues? We've got the awkward silence between Lynn and Bruce. We've got that scene at the doctors where Sha Milan's doing his Hitchcock cameo and he's just there and he looks like an advocate, right? Like he's sitting with her at the doctors. He's shaking his head when it's implied that she might be the one abusing Cole, but he never speaks up. And also you mentioned their first meeting. I think it's at that moment, it might be when he is late for dinner. He does mention I've been having a hard time with time. Yes. Lately. Like he says, I'm, I'm having a hard time keeping track of time or something like that, which was, I thought a clue. Yeah, that's definitely a clue. And I think with the time, why doesn't Malcolm figure out he's dead? I'm picturing him in some sort of limbo. Right? And then he comes to the movie Lores, that ghosts are stuck in a moment of importance. It might be the traumatic moment of death. It might be because there's unfinished business. It might be because you have to atone for something like he dies, feeling guilty. He dies knowing he failed. So when he comes to, he moves back into that, well, I need to atone for this. I need to make up for this. But then I think like every time he encounters something that challenges him, that pushes him towards the realization he's dead, like the door not opening, then he drifts away and he wakens. Mm-hmm. Somewhere else. And that's why he can't keep track of time. Cole says they see what they wanna see. Right in the, I see dead people scene. Mm-hmm. And I think the editing very cleverly supports this. Did you notice how like from scene to scene it kind of fades to black? Mm, no. It's like a TV show like that, right? Like yeah. Where you think, okay, well this is where they'd put a commercial break in. It's like a normal thing you see in some movies and TV shows. But I'm thinking this is like Malcolm's existence, that there are times when it just fades to black and then he comes too, even though it feels like like a few weeks, right? Like maybe this took place over a few weeks. It could be a year, it could be months between when he's showing up to see Cole and he is popping up in his life intermittently. They have two school plays in this. Right. How often does schools have school plays? My middle school had won a year. Right? No. So how do we know a year hasn't passed? Yeah. Between, that's when he first shows up and sees Cole and the first play. And then the second play. It could be a full year because I don't think schools are having plays every month. Right. Certainly not my kids. No. But I will say the elementary school here has a fall play and then a spring talent show. Okay. So it could be fall semester, spring semester.'cause Yes, it could be. Isn't the first play like Thanksgiving related? Is it not fall? They do say it's fall. I just feeling that because of the fall. I mean, it's clearly fall. It's beautifully fall. Yeah. I don't remember. I don't remember the play. I just remember the Arthur play later. The second one has a village idiot because I know Tommy Thomasino Iss the Village idiot. Yes. Right. That's That's my note. Village idiot. Good. Yeah. Tommy Toto. What a self-important thinks. He's God's gift to acting. Little jerk. Hey, hate that kid. What year did 10 things I hate about You? Come out? Because I'm pretty sure that's 1999 too. I don't think so because she's like dancing to Biggie on the table. But Joey, the douche bag that Alex Mack, what's her character's name? Uh, she doesn't deserve Joseph Gordon Levitt anyway, but she's like in with Joey, who's. An underwear model or something like that. And he's posing in the hallway and he, he's like, what do you think of this? And she was like, pensive. And he's like, damn, I was going for thoughtful.'cause he's such an idiot. But it really reminded me of like, you're in one commercial and suddenly you're the school bully and the village idiot, essentially. I'm glad that. Tommy Thomasino got his comeuppance by being the village idiot. Mm-hmm. Me too. In that that play, do you think that teacher did it was like, I've gotta take this kid down a notch. Well, I'm surprised that he wasn't angrier at Cole for bringing up his stutter. I know that is really tough, that stuttering Stanley moment. I actually do think this is one of the deeper horrors of being a teacher. Like, you know, that teachers have to face kids who've traumatized them. Like you see him at the end and he's being really nice to Cole. And you know, I talk about this a lot with my colleagues because there are probably pretty few other jobs where you have to face your bully and there's, there's no like HR department you can go to. Mm-hmm. Right? And so I think about this poor teacher being really dramatically shamed by Cole and, you know, having the most, probably the most difficult period of his life when he was bullied publicly, brought up in front of people he's supposed to have authority over and then he just has to get over it. Right? He has to be the adult, he has to be the teacher. That's tough and that's real. That's something a lot of teachers have to face. Yeah. But I guess, I'm sure he must have heard about what happens at that birthday party and having seen Cole being bullied and excluded in many other ways, I'm sure wanted to give him the opportunity. Like, you can't get any better than, better than King Arthur. You know, like, oh, right. It was King Arthur. Yeah. There was no more like regal, good guy. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I wonder why they chose that, the sword and the stone. Right. That's what he did. He pulled the sword out. Yeah. Do you find King Arthur sexy, by the way? Which depiction? I don't really, I'm agnostic. I, there's the one with, uh, Kira Knightley who plays him. I didn't see that. Clive Owen. He's a sexy king. Arthur, like a, is he blonde, Roman King Arthur? No. Okay. He's got dark hair. Cl I know. I, I, I can't picture him. I'm gonna need to Google him. He's brawny with dark hair. Well, okay. That works. I always love the Sean Connery. One bit old. Bit old. Even Then, just a few more things I wanted to say about the twist. The twist is so good because it doesn't cheat, like it's all there. A lot of times movies have a twist and it's cool, but it's come outta nowhere. The clues aren't there. And so it's so skilled because the twist is both simultaneously so shocking, but so signposted. Mm. There's the bus scene to Kira's funeral. That's a big tell. Why is the psychologist on a bus with this kid without the mom? Like, that doesn't make any sense. And you know, we see that it's always cold in Malcolm and Anna's house. We see Anna constantly like shivering and pulling blankets over herself. So the clues are just. All there, but yet the vast, vast, vast majority of people did not pick it. And it's so cool. Yeah, agree. Apparently Shaalan went through 10 versions of script writing before he actually had that epiphany and was like, oh my God, Malcolm's dead. Right? Like he didn't start with that idea. He was just gonna be a child psychologist or a crime scene photographer, like he had all these other roles. And I just love that about writing because I've had that experience myself when I'm writing and I don't know how it's gonna end, and I've got a premise, but I haven't figured it out yet. And suddenly you're like, oh, this could happen. And it's such a cool feeling. There's this quote I found from Stephen King. He says that stories are found, things like fossils in the ground. Stories are relics, part of an undiscovered, preexisting world. And the writer's job is to use the tools in his or her toolbox to get as much of each fossil outta the ground intact as possible. So there's this idea that writers are not necessarily creating the story, they are uncovering it. And I just thought that was. Oh, that's so interesting because I'm not a writer. You're the true creator here. But I have always found it very interesting as a person who loves stories and loves consuming stories, the difference between the people who kind of know where their story is headed and the people who don't. So oftentimes in series or in multiple, multiple books, I know there is an author who I never wanna promote. She who must not be mentioned, who had an idea, the reveal, her shaalan twist, if you will. But then there's series like Lost. I actually never watched it, but I think everyone I knew who watched it, including my now husband at the time, boyfriend, had this sense that people knew where it was going and then it just seemed to like fall apart. Along the way. So I always feel like that's very interesting, especially as you think about a series in different countries where in England, for example, like for BBC series, it's like a three season or a five season. Like they know it's gonna be bookended and here it's much more responsive to like viewings and I guess the capitalist situation we have going on here. Well, yeah, I think the problem with lost is that they released it before they knew like I think it's okay to start the series lost as a writer and not exactly know where it's going, but they shouldn't have started it until they figured that out. Yeah, right. Because it was a very unsatisfying ending. So I've heard there's the plotters versus pantsers kind of debate amongst writers. Have you heard of that? A plotter is someone who's like, I know exactly what's going to happen and I have these beats worked out. And a pants is someone who flies by the seat of their pants. And just kind of figures it out as they go. And the problem with plotting is that you might be forcing characters to do things that don't make sense for their character, for the sake of the plot. Mm-hmm. But a answer writes themselves into corners because they're like, how do I resolve this? Because I just made these things happen. Because that's what came into my head. I read about this in relation to Game of Thrones because George R. Martin is a panther. Right. He's just going with it. But then you've got these TV writers coming in and being like, we've got to finish this. This is the plot, this is how it ends. We need to make it happen. And that's what they did in a very, very unsatisfying way. Mm-hmm. Yeah. George R. Martin is definitely someone I've thought about in this context, because I did read all of those books and it felt like work and I felt like I was getting to something. And the reason I haven't watched House of Dragons or anything after is that I'm so angry that I lent all that time to somebody who hasn't even bothered Bookending, his own creation. I'm like, I'm not giving him any more of my time or energy. He didn't bother finishing that series. I'm not giving him, you know, residuals or whatever it is. I know he should finish. He is the biggest procrastinator. Right. Ever. Like, just finish it. You know where it's going. Fix the TV show. Even if he pulled like a James Patterson or just outsourced, like, here's the formula. Somebody else fix it and make sure you include 20 pages for every feast and 10 pages for every lineage. Yeah. Or whatever. Like it could get done. Ai. AI could do it. Just copy my style. Yeah. Not that we're promoting AI to do that. We, we like creators. Yeah. No, I am so anti ai. I am joking. Besides the obvious implications that it could destroy humanity, it's destroying teaching. Oh yeah. English. Oh my God. It's really hard to be an English teacher and just be a constant AI detective because I'm like, you can't write like. This, and this is really technically proficient in a way that high school kids aren't, but also really bad and vague. Oh my God. Yeah. Like literally the day my oldest finished elementary school, we were having lunch at the diner in town, and a friend of his came up who has a brother in middle school who was like, I'm so glad we're going into middle school where we can have chat, GBT, do our homework. Kids aren't thinking anymore. Which is why I, I almost have a no laptop policy in my class. I'm constantly like, close your laptop, you don't need it. I printed out a paper, there's the poem. Good talk about it. And it's great because for example, this poem we read the other day, you know, students were coming up with stuff that I hadn't thought of. They were like, oh, well what about this thing and like this? And I was like, oh my God, you're so smart. That is amazing. I love that. But if you just outsource the thinking to ai, it's not gonna come up with anything new. It's gonna come up with things people have already said. Right. One issue with this movie. Is its legacy of demanding a twist. And I imagine this has been personally challenging for M Knight Shaalan as he's like the twist guy. So probably a poison chalice for him. And I don't think he's ever surpassed what he did in this movie. But now I think there's that expectation that that a thriller has to have a twist to be good. And I think that is, besides the plotter pants clash, what caused the failure of Game of Thrones? Because it was building up to this ending. And I feel like the writers were like, well, we can't do that because it's too predictable. But then when you avoid the predictable, it's unsatisfying. I think the desire for an a non unpredictable ending is what killed Game of Thrones. But this is not a Game of Thrones podcast, so. Not at the moment, no. Okay. Oh, I just wanted to point out a few literary devices and perhaps nods to other horror, like the red balloon. Did you notice the red balloon? Did I notice the red balloon? Are you kidding me? I have red balloon in all calves. Three exclamation points. Annie. You got it. It's another Stephen King reference. We had room 2, 3, 7 last week in the act, a shining reference, and now we've got the red balloon from it. So I was like, he knows what he's doing there. Yeah, and there's a lot of red Cole wears a red sweater in that scene that gets ripped. The door handle's red. The munch hasen mom wears a red dress at the funeral in the first scene with the wine bottles when Anna's in the basement trying to pick out a bottle, like there's a red glint, and that she has that creepy moment where she's like, is she seeing, feeling something? I heard the glass break. Did you hear that? No, when she was in the basement, I heard the kid break in or whatever. Oh, I always assumed he that he was like, he'd been there like a while. I mean, he had been there a while.'cause then that's like the first is her in the basement looking for the wines. Yeah. So I think he had been there since she went down to the basement. Okay. There's also, I mean, the score is really unsettling. Definitely helps create that atmosphere of fear and tension. And another thing I noticed. Was all the sculpture shots, did you notice a lot of times it's like a sculpture of an angel or something in Philadelphia, and I was wondering, is that just an homage to its setting? Um, Knight Shalan is from Philadelphia, so maybe he wants some Philadelphia scenes. I didn't realize that. He is. Yeah. Oh, okay. Yeah, I mean, I actually, I thought I saw the NBC like at one point on the church. I was like, that can't be, I noticed a lot of Catholic symbolism, and I know we're over our summer of Catholicism criticizing, but I was like, wow, there's, there's certainly a lot of that happening here. Cole, when he first meets. Malcolm runs to the church, right? So he views that as a safe place, a place of sanctuary. Obviously Malcolm is able to follow him in there, but maybe that's because he doesn't have bad intentions, I don't know. And then we see in Cole's Safe space tent, he has all these figurines and we see him steal something from the church. So he's obviously picking up things that he thinks can protect him. So my mother was raised Catholic. She had a habit of stealing holy water. So she, when she would like visit other countries or or whatever else, she would bring a little, like a shampoo bottle or some other small thing and she would steal some holy water and bring it home from me. Oh. As an adult, I was picturing this as like a kid, like when your mom was a kid, she was still the whole, no, she was too afraid to do it then, but as an adult she would do it. I had in my bedroom, I would just restock my stolen holy water. You guys were really ready for an exorcist situation then. I guess that's, I mean, I guess that's what she would, I just was like, my mom brought me something, you know, because I wasn't Catholic, so I was like, whatever this is. That's so interesting. Your mother, she contains altitudes. Yeah, definitely. Well, let's talk about character. Since we are on your mom. Why don't we talk about. Lynn, Tony Colette. She's so good in this. She's so good at this. But mark this for criticisms or whatever, but like there is no way a single mom who has two jobs has a puppy. I thought that too. No way. Yeah, no way. I only had cats and begrudgingly had those cats. Yeah, I was thinking that dog must be poop everywhere. Because nobody's there to take it out. Right. And that's not one of those like PMA sized dogs. I mean, that's like, no, it's gonna be a big dog. It looked like a bluey, it's like a Husky, right? Or yeah, maybe a husky. I thought it was like a husky, you know, that size. Yeah. I had the exact same thought, but I guess I thought maybe, you know, she knows the child is suffering and so she's like, what can I do to make this better? Kids like puppies. So I'm imagining that was her thought process. Right. And Philly is the city of Brotherly love, so maybe she had a neighbor who was happy to walk the dog for her or something. Yes. There's lots of things left out of this movie, so maybe we can assume she had someone walking the dog. But yeah, I mean, you bring up like the single mom working two jobs and that scene where she's just like, I am tired. Right. Is very real. Is is that the scene where she's mad at him for. Stealing the Bumblebee pendant. Mm-hmm. Well, there's so many scenes where she's just like, what is wrong? Like, can't you just tell me what is happening here? You know, she's so desperate to know what's wrong and try to fix it. There's that scene. I think it's just after he gets locked up in the closet, dungeon attic thing where she's like, tell me. Mm-hmm. And like the way she says it is, so, yeah. Desperate, as you said, and so well-acted. You really feel how much she wants to help and how upset she is that she can't. But then you've got those moments of desperation kind of offset by sweetness. Like when she is going through the grocery store parking lot and she kind speeds up the shopping cart. Mm-hmm. And he has that little, um, the king of the world moment, and then he looks up and smiles at her and it's so sweet. Yeah. It reminds me of the jaws, like the imitation scene and jaws between Brody and Sean. Yeah. And she does that. You know, today, first I won the lottery and then this, and you know, it was very cute. And they have dinner together, which I had a single mom working one job. We didn't have dinner together almost ever. That is a hard thing to achieve. That is a thing that every night when my family achieves it, I am like, I can't believe I live in a world where we sit down to dinner. That's a lot. We're bad at that finding time to sit down to dinner. I mean, we eat, but you know, who knows what's happening. It's kind of all over the place. And then that final scene when he's like, what did you ask her? And you know, she's crying and they've got that vulnerability between them. They're finally willing to open up and talk to each other. It's actually really beautiful. Mm-hmm. You know, this movie I think would work without the twist. And that's what makes it so good, right. We've got, every character has this really beautifully resolved character arc. We've got this boy suffering with a secret and a mom who can't get through to him. And by the end. They figure out a way to communicate. We've got this psychologist who failed to help a child figuring out a way to help a different child. We've got a marriage on the rocks and it could have ended with Malcolm going back and like having some indication that he's going to make up with his wife at the end of Spider-Man and the spider verse, when we see Peter Parker just like show up at Mary Jane's door with flowers, and we're like. They're gonna be okay. Mm-hmm. Right. So we've got this kind of redemption arc. Everybody's okay. It could have ended there and just been a movie about a psychologist, but instead it's like, oh shit. Right? The twist comes and it's so good. It's like midnight mass. It's a satisfying human drama, but it's also got that frosting of heart. Mm-hmm. When you said that he did all those script rewrites, before he got to that twist, I was like, what was the twist gonna be? But maybe there wasn't gonna be a twist. Yeah. That had to be revealed to him through the process of writing, which is so crazy. Which is why letting AI do your writing is not good. Yeah. But it's so crazy because I can't think of M Knight Shaalan without a twist. They call it the Shalon twist. It's that poison chalice for him. He needs to have a twist. Right. Because he is made enough movies with a twist. It's expected of him, and that's gotta be a lot of pressure. Mm-hmm. Should we talk about Cole Little Hailey Joel Osmond, who didn't win an Oscar? Michael Kain did. Mike Cocaine. Sorry. Michael Cain. I know, but I can't think of the comedian who does it, but there's some comedian who is like, if you wanna say Michael Kain in his accent, you just have to say Mike Cocaine. Like Mike Cocaine. Mike Cocaine. Okay. Yeah. See it. Mike Cocaine beat out Hailey. Joel Osmond. Do you think that was fair? What was the movie Cider House Rules for Best Supporting Actor? I didn't see it. It's a good movie. I liked it, but. I dunno. It was just a stereotypical Michael Kane performance, whereas this was the performance of a lifetime for a child. I mean, I think it's probably one of the best child acting performances of all time. Like he's so endearing and so vulnerable and you see that he is tormented. He's amazing. I mean, I think it's almost hard to take that I see dead people scene seriously because it has been so parody. Mm-hmm. But the look on his face and then his furrowed brow when he like turns over to fall asleep, like his fear is just so palpable. Yeah. I have written haunting eyes. His eyes really look pained. He really looks like someone in pain, which, you know, I wrote down the day, profundus. Whatever. Yeah. The Latin, which obviously Bruce Willis then looks up, so I didn't need to, but, but it just talks about his desperation and, and pain and suffering, and you can really feel that in his eyes more so than the adult former patient of Bruce Willis' who shoots himself. He's not as convincing. Okay. I thought he was great too, but let's talk about him in a little bit. In addition to Haley Joel Osmond's playing the vulnerability and fear and tortured aspect of this character, he's not a one trick pony either. He's also sweet and endearing, and that scene with the shopping cart and when he is in the church and he asks Malcolm if he wants to play with one of the figures, like he's. Kind of a normal kid at times too. Like I like that cute kid real moment when Malcolm does that penny trick and he sees right through it and he thinks it's dumb. But then like the next scene we see him trying it out on another kid, which I think is very realistic and very cute that kids would do that. Totally, totally. I thought it was very realistic as well. When we think about this whole movie from Cole's perspective, we're going into it from Malcolm's perspective, but there's times where I feel like he just looks annoyed with Bruce Willis, you know, that he, oh God, this ghost is showing up again. And I know I don't have to be afraid of him, but I really don't need this right now. Like, you know, and um, you know the scene where he, where he shows up after the stuttering Stanley and he does the magic trick, like, he looks irritated with me. I really felt for him in that scene I wrote down, feels so bad for this kid after he gets in trouble when he closes his eyes, when Bruce Willis is trying to talk to him.'cause he's like, the reason I'm in this situation is people like you and now I'm trying to recover from this and you are here. You know, and you're making it impossible for me to calm down and feel comfortable because you're part of the problem. But I can't say that to you. It's like he's the grownup. Yeah. He's like holding back, like, leave me alone. But he's actually a ghost and Cole knows he's a ghost. Right. So there's this other element to it that, you know, we see as just a normal kid being irritated with a grownup intervening, but there's more to it. Right. Do you know that Michael, Sarah went up for this role? Oh yeah. From Arrested Development? That would've been very different. Very different. I think he's on some late night show where he talks about how nobody told him it was a horror movie. So when he did like the lines, he was just like, upy and so pretty funny. Can you think of any other kid performances that rival that? Oh my gosh. I mean, was it Elijah Wood in The Bad Son? Yeah, he's the good one. In The Good Son. Yeah. The good. No, he's the bad one in The Good Son. Elijah Wood. Oh, you're right. He's the good one. Yeah. Macaulay. Yeah. Macaulay Can is the bad one. You're right. Ston Dunt. An interview with the Vampire comes to mind. Yeah. She was so young. Well, you were about to talk about Donnie Wahlberg as Vincent Gray. What did you think of his acting? Wait, what? That's Donnie Wahlberg. Who's Vincent Gray? He's the guy who shoots him at the beginning. That's Donnie Walberg. Yes. He's blonde. He lost 43 pounds to play that tortured character. My mind is blown. Yeah, it's Johnny Wahlberg. I didn't think it was that good. Oh, I liked it. I thought he did a great job. And I do wanna give a shout out to little me in my new kids on the block stage in grade three wearing my most prized possession, which was a jean jacket that had a new kids on the block pin. I used to wear, and it was like the coolest thing I ever owned at that point in my life. No, I really didn't recognize him. I guess the blonde hair threw me off. I don't know. It felt it, it felt a little textbook to me. Okay. I like it. I like how he asked the question, which is really the question that Cole is dealing with, and Malcolm is dealing it. Do you know why you're afraid when you're alone? I think the way he answers it is so chilling. He goes, I do, I do. Like, he repeats it and that was really effective for me. And yeah, even if you are not wild about the acting, it's, it's such an important scene because obviously it sets up the twist. Like we should know he died right there. Mm-hmm. But it's this inciting incident from Malcolm's journey of atonement. And he's also the warning, if Malcolm fails with Cole, this is how he will end up. I did think there was a bit of a weird plot hole later on where like, Malcolm's listening to the recording of his sessions with Vincent. And like he turns it really up and then he can hear the ghost. Mm-hmm. I was like, really? I thought it was interesting too when the mom is looking at the photos and sees the light reflection similarly. I was like, really? You've never, before you decided you were gonna hang frame and hang these photos, which is not an easy task. Like I've often thought about when I'm hanging photos in my house, your whole staging and planning of your beautiful photo wall that you, I remember you doing that and being like, I don't have the patience for that and my wall will never look that good, but I do make sure that photos I print don't have glossy, weird arches of light. Yeah. Aus. As a single mom, she was cutting some corners when she made that. I mean, as a single mom, leave your wall up, put a tapestry up. You know, like I don't, I barely, it was years and years and years living in this house as not a single parent before we had anything upstairs on the wall. Yeah. I mean, maybe she's kind of overcompensating with the puppy and the photos on the wall and trying to make it a home. Yeah. Fair. Yeah. Let's talk about Bruce Willis as Dr. Malcolm. Can I just say, what a nightmare. To die and still have to go to work and not be paid. God forbid I become a ghost and not be paid and end up marking papers and like calling him to parents in the afterlife. No thank you. No, I did write down what a trip it was to think of him as a doctor. I see him as a more blue collar hero. Mm-hmm. John McLean. Yeah, John McLean, who I, you know, I love, I love him. And these more classically, Bruce Willis rolls, you know, what's it from? Fifth Element. He's a cab driver or something like that. Like I love, yeah. I don't remember his character's name. Corbin Dallas, cor Corbin Dallas. Oh, look at you. I love him. In friends. Yes. Rachel's boyfriend a little bit. He's really funny in that. Yeah. He can be funny, right? He's very funny. There's some accusations that he was a bit wooden in this, or Underact. What do you think? No, I disagree because I really felt like when I'm watching him in a lot of the moments where he's being very vulnerable, trying to win the affection of this child and win the trust of this child, that I'm like, these are activities and interactions that I don't have the bravery to do or be. I was sort of in awe and admiration of his vulnerability around the child in a way that I can't even be like around my own kids. Yeah. I mean, I think the understated but vulnerable way he played it worked for me as someone who is playing a child psychologist. Mm-hmm. You know, you're not gonna be over emoting. You're supposed to be the calming presence in that scene where he's playing the step closers. Step away game. Like if I'm right step closer. I think that's a great physical representation of that push and pause as you try to get through to a child that he's so excited as Cole steps closer and he is right and he's starting to gain his trust. And then that contrast with that subtle dismay you see on his face as Cole starts stepping backwards and he can tell he's losing him. And I thought that was a really good scene. Well, and the vulnerability and confidence that it takes to be willing to even play, let alone propose a game like that, that is quite impressive. So, yeah, no, I disagree with those criticisms. I think he did a great job. And also, you know, his understated, not wooden, but his understated acting, I think really allowed the true star, Haley, Joel Osmond, to shine a comparison I wanted to make in relation to the idea of atonement. You know, he's fallen from such a great height, like he's received that award, he's getting accolades, and then he is now Malcolm is to Vincent as Brody is to Alex Kitner. Mm-hmm. The one that died, the mistake he made, and now he has to. Mm-hmm. Anything else you wanna say about Dr. Ian Malcolm? Just kidding. Dr. Malcolm Crow? No. What about Anna Malcolm's wife? I kept thinking I recognized her from something and then I went through her IMDB and she has been on friends. Oh, okay. But she was like a bridesmaid for Emily. So, okay. It's a very small role. I have a picture in my mind of this clearly different actress in something else that I can't associate, but I thought she was very good. I really loved the Y necklace trend in the 90. Yeah. I love the Y necklace trend. Oh, is she wearing that in? She's got a Y necklace on it. I had a white necklace. I had several. I was a, I really loved that, that trend, and I would love for it to come back. Whoever's in charge of fashion. Well, a lot of nineties is coming back. I teach high school. I see Doc Martins, I see friends t-shirts. I see slouchy. Kind of like Skatey pants. Yeah. Skater jeans. Right. Like it's, it's back. And I'm down with all of that. I have seen a lot of the grunge side come back. Not as much the, yeah, there's a lot of grunge. Yeah. Not as much why necklace and ribs, but maybe it's just. Where I shop. I don't know. Not so much the Delia's look. Yeah. Anyway, loved that. Really appreciated. She was adorable and sweet. Her falling asleep to those wedding videos constantly was so, mm, heartbreaking. It made me feel like, I wish I had a wedding video. I don't have one. I do, and I don't know where it is. Shit. Am I in it? Probably. Ugh, it's on a CD somewhere. I, I don't know where, so I dunno. I gotta look for it. I like that scene where she's kind of creeped out in the basement and she runs up the basement stairs. Yeah. When I had a basement, I always ran up the stairs too. I mean, we think of her as like, oh my God, she's still married to Malcolm and she's having this flirtation. Well, I didn't because I knew the reveal, so, yeah. Yeah. That's true. But at the time, you know, we didn't know. So we're kind of thinking what a jerk talk to him like and yeah, I think she acts it so well. Like that scene where they're having their anniversary dinner, it just looks like she's giving'em the silent treatment. Right? Yeah. She's laying it on a bit thick with that vintage diamond upsell. That poor guy. Oh my God. Because he thought that too, I felt so bad for He's like, um, um, well, let's talk about the scariest and most disturbing parts. Obviously there's the, I see dead people moment. I love when he says, you ever feel the prickly things on the back of your neck? That's them. Mm-hmm. A lot of those moments were challenging for me because I have seen them without having seen the movie. Yeah. I've seen that part. I've seen the lady up ahead is dead because she's standing next to my window. So those moments weren't that scary for me. There were moments like the people hanging in the hallway, like these jump scare moments that I was not prepared for. The psychological thriller moments I was more prepared for because you know, yeah, we've discussed. But yeah, the jump scares definitely the whole thing at the top of the stairs with the closet he gets locked in. That was really terrifying. I'm sorry I keep making Jaws references. It was just the last one we recorded, but the screams in the cupboard rival Chrissy Watkins screams in jaws. They're so anguished and you know, and I think another Jaws comparison is so much of what is effective about this, again, is what is not seen, what is not shown. Like we never see what's in the closet. We know it's horrifying. We know it's angry. The way Lynn is helplessly banging on that closet door and cannot get the door open. I think that's seen as a metaphor for her struggle to get through to him. Like she's like, please tell me. Please tell me. Please tell me. Please let me in. And he can't until the end. I was so mad at those other parents. I just couldn't imagine. I take my dogs to the dog park every day. They're big dogs. They're big but friendly. I am. So paranoid a hundred percent of the time about the level that my dogs might bark inappropriately at another dog and upset that owner. I can't imagine being a parent at a party where there's a child locked in a place, let alone it being my own house. Even if I was just like a guest and my child was a parti, I would be like, how can I, you know, like I would be so panicked to try to resolve this. Yeah. I was so mad at all the other parents. I was infuriated. Yeah. And you see her call them later. Yeah. Call one of those parents later when she finds the mark on his back, which was obviously done by whatever was in there. Whatever is in there too is scary. Right? I think we can assume this person was a slave. He talks about like the master's horse. Mm-hmm. Just the idea that he must have died in there and what was done to him. It only alludes to this deeper horror of, you know, the atrocities of slavery. And it made me think of, have you ever heard of Delphine la Lore, the monster of a woman in New Orleans who tortured slaves? Oh, was there an American horror story about it? There'd there'd be true crime. Yeah. Maybe there was one. I think so. You probably would've come across it in my, my favorite murder or something like that. But she was an absolute monster and it just made me think of, of her and just that legacy of horror that is underlying so many places we are. If you're in a place with a lot of history, another scary scene is the kitchen cupboard scene. Right. Which is kind of my kitchen all the time. I feel like I'm constantly walking into a kitchen with cupboards and drawers open. Like that's what my kitchen looks like.'cause my kids are not capable of closing a drawer. But I think it, it's. Very effective. Yes. However, that's one of those things that I was like, you're a ghost and this is like all you have to do with your time is like open cover. Like that's gotta be something better you can do with your powers. That is the question. It's a disconcerting, creepy scene, but it's like, what's the point? Right? What's the point? Why would the ghost do this? Right. Is it just like I'm mad and I need somebody to know which. He already knows.'cause they know, he can see them. Mishka Barton traveled from wherever to go get to him. So they know that he can see them. So like why would they bother fucking with his mom? I dunno. Yeah. Well I think the scariest scene, of course, is the reason I chose this movie because we covered the acts on our last episode. Go back and listen to that and watch the act and or Mommy Dead and dearest the documentary about the murder of Deedee Blanchard. I chose this movie because of Munchausen's my proxy, and I think that scene really holds up. Yeah. You know, I knew that a young Mishka Barton was in this movie. I had no idea how or why that is not a scene that is normally recycled and used for other things. I was like, why is she wearing bright red at her child's funeral? That seemed very odd to me, which you've already mentioned the red because she's an intention seeking monster. Yeah, clearly. I mean, that scene in the tent, I think there's this element of like the ghost breaking the rules if you stay on a beach. You can't get eaten by the shark. If you're totally under the covers, you should be safe from the ghost. And he's obviously made this tent as a safe space. It's all pegged up and he's got his kind of sculptures to keep him safe. And then you see the pegs coming undone, and then it just curves around to her with the vomit. Oozing out of her mouth and it is so creepy. I actually had also a note about the dolls in her bedroom. How did you feel about those dolls? Gypsy had dolls too, right? She did, but she had more like stuffies, like she didn't have creepy antique dolls like this one. Are you making a reference to? My family's creepy. Do you wanna share with our listeners your family's ritual? Sure. We have a creepy antique doll that my mom picked up at a yard sale at some point, and for years now, we have been hiding that doll on each other every time we're together. I think it kind of met its demise when I hid it at the foot of your bed when you were visiting, right? I don't remember this, but you mentioned this. When we saw each other, you threw it down the stairs because I hid it in your bed and then you like put your feet on it and it got you. I mean, we've hid it in so many places. Like I, you know, we've hung it from the shower. We've put it in the freezer. So when you open the freezer to get ice cream, it's like there in your face. You had that Cheerios habit when you were pregnant, so it was in the fridge. I remember it was in the fridge when you went to get your midnight Cheerios milk. Yes. Yes. I put it in the laundry. So like when my mom was getting the laundry out, she would put her hand on it. We've had a wonderful time with that creepy doll. I ruined it. So I'm gonna have to get you guys a new creepy doll. I mean, it's still there, but its face is broken. S. Misha Bar and Misha Mika. Okay, I'll just call her Kira. I think the vomit in that scene, ugh, really emphasizes the horror that is munchhouse by proxy. Like her mom is regularly making her that sick. To make your kid have to vomit, it's so awful. It sucks to be nauseous. Why would you do that to somebody? Oh God. I mean, gypsy Rose lost her teeth. They put like feces in their picu. Ugh. Ugh. That's so awful. You talk about background conversations and jaws and there's background conversations. At this funeral, you overhear people being like, oh, she went to six doctors, doctor shopping. She's been in bed for two years, and oh no. Now the little one's falling ill. I wrote all of that down. Sorry to interrupt you continue. Well, if you hadn't seen this before, right? Like if you didn't know the twist, that additional twist that the mom is making her sick, you would be like, oh, this poor family. Right? Like what happened to her? Yeah. Then you find out that the mom is the monster. Yeah. If you didn't see this movie before and or if you weren't already fascinated with aches. As a disease because I immediately, I was like six doctors, uh, you know, like, yeah, red flag. Um, and then now the little one is sick. I was like, this is the textbook for Munchausen's by proxy. Yeah. Yeah. So her ghost died with unfinished business. It's another case like we, you know, people ask, why didn't Gypsy rose do this, that and the other? Like, why didn't this child just tell dad like she secretly taped her mom? She knew, so maybe she was planning on getting that to her father, but the mom poisoned her before she could tell someone. It speaks to that idea that often probably people who are the victims of much houses by proxy die. Mm-hmm. I know we mentioned this in the Act episode, but that the podcast, nobody should believe me, often the fathers or husbands because they don't have actual live video proof of directly in front of the camera. People poisoning their child. They tend to side with the mother, so I think oftentimes the children feel like there is nowhere for them to turn because it's so unimaginable that a mother would do that. Right. Children lie all the time. Right. I think it's also interesting, like the reality of that situation, like Malcolm isn't there. This child is actually alone taking a bus by himself, sneaking upstairs at a stranger's funeral. It's just interesting to think about his actual experience and what people would've thought about this kid wandering around. Right. I guess I just would've assumed. I thought that, I was like, this child is very young to be riding the bus by themselves into other parts of Philadelphia. I don't know. I guess that brings us to criticism. Did you have any criticism that we haven't already discussed? So my main criticism as a person whose father was from South Philadelphia and entire father's family lives in Philadelphia, not one person had a Philly accent in the entire movie. That was a pretty big miss, I'd say. Yeah. You never let a Boston movie go by without Boston accent, so why not a Philly movie? I didn't know if they were trying to have Tony Collette. If she was trying to do Phil. It was nowhere near what a Philly accent sounds like. So I was sort of confused by that. I mean, she's Australian, who knows what she was saying. Right. Especially the teacher who grew up going to that schoolhouse. Anyway, I was really looking forward to hearing somebody be on the phone or need some water. Or something like that. Is, is bag. Bag. I feel like I need someone from Philly who'd say bag? I don't. It's bagel. Don't I've ever heard someone from Philly say the word bagel? They're usually talking about hoggies. Okay. Yes, yes. Um, one criticism I had was look at my face. I don't know. I, I got annoyed every time they said that. It reminded me too much of face off how they would always like Pat to face, she was, look at my face. No, I didn't like Tony Colette's dream scene when she's kind of like thrashing about and saying out loud exactly how she's feeling. Right. It struck me as kind of lazy writing and something that is otherwise really well crafted. Similarly for the wife while she's asleep, my husband sleep talks. I have two children that sleep talk. It's not that clear. Yeah. Not sure what they're saying. Most of the time it was a bit slower than I remember, but I think that's just because I knew the twist so it didn't feel as tense. Perhaps my attention span has changed over the past 20 something years as well, but I still liked it. I,'cause I love a slow burn and I still, I do think it holds up in a different way. If you do know the twist. I didn't find it slow as the first time. Watch for me. Yeah. Some things don't make sense, which I'd like to discuss. This film requires a lot of suspension of disbelief. I think we've talked about so many school plays for Malcolm to silently stage dad. Um, but maybe that's deliberate that, uh, he's been fading in and out of existence and actually more time has passed than we feel. Do you think Anna actually hears him when he speaks to her in his sleep? Like she responds in a way as if she is right, like, I miss you. And I would kind of rather pretend that scene didn't happen. It just felt so much more fantastical than the rest of it. Even for somebody who's like a, not at all believer of any of this stuff, that scene was just way too far into the unbelievable for me. Another question I have is, how does Cole know about stuttering? Stanley did a ghost tell him, Hey, that guy used to stutter. Yeah, and I also like, what is, what do the people who are hanging in the building want from him? How's he gonna fix that? Maybe he can just be like, you can go now, right? Like you're, you're dead. Yeah. You don't have to hang here. Yeah. Some of the people who are dead, I don't know how he was expected to resolve their concerns. Yeah. I mean, there's the question, why doesn't Cole just tell Malcolm you are a ghost? For me, that felt more understandable. First of all, the first moment that he sees him, he's running away from him into a church. He clearly knows this person is dead and he is trying to get away. And then the person comes up to him and seems very nice and wanting to help. So it seems like Cole is a very empathetic and this person isn't scary and doesn't have these graphic awful features right in front of his face that are gonna scare him. So why doesn't he engage? That's it. Good opportunity for him to engage with someone who's dead in a way that isn't scary for him because they're not hanging and they don't have like half of their faces in blood and whatever, burned or bullet holes in the back of their heads, things like that. Right? But I do wonder like why weren't there flies all over his dinner, right? That's. That's his dinner at the table still, when he comes home and there's no, I think it's her dinner. I feel like it's, it's a table for one. Oh, it's a table. But like she set, she set the table for one, but maybe she didn't bother eating because she's depressed. Okay. Because I was thinking like when he comes home and the dinner is there for him like twice, and then he looks at it again the second time. Oh, maybe there were two plates before and then there was only one plate the second time. I don't know. I interpreted that as she's not setting a table for him maybe. Right. Like she's just eating by herself and that's another sign of their growing distance. Or the way the audience interprets it as they're growing distance. Like the fact that he pulls out her Xanax and is so shocked by it, I don't think, because he's shocked that someone would have Xanax, he's a psychologist, but that he didn't know. Mm-hmm. Should we talk about some of the deeper true horror? We've talked about teachers who have to face children who have bullied them. I guess just dealing with trauma in general, the idea of being in a caretaking position and missing something. Mm-hmm. Whether it's a doctor for someone with munch husband proxy, or a child psychologist or a teacher. Like there's gonna be people who slip through the cracks, and then the guilt that comes from that. Yeah. I mean, I think as a parent, one of the things that people who our parents can do, or grandparents is to be sort of reinforcing this sense of, you know, hurt people, hurt people. And if you can be a person that is supportive, I mean, I always try to tell my children, I don't want you to like, let yourself just be clobbered emotionally by someone, but if there's a person who's clearly hurting, you should be a helper. If you can. If there's a person who's clearly alone, like try to be there. I try to be a person who's inviting. One of the things that I love about my husband is I find that he often seeks out the person who's quiet in a social setting and will engage them. And I really admire that about him because I think I'm, I'm more selfish. I wanna be in like the middle mm-hmm. Of the fun conversation, and I will kind of seek that out. And so I admire people who seek out the people who don't feel like they're being included. Yeah. And I am very, very social and talkative when someone has engaged me, but I am really not gonna be the person who makes the first move. I'm very nervous, socially anxious. I'm, I'm really gonna kind of be just standing in a corner until, until someone has engaged me. So it's totally appreciated. I, I remember being made aware of the perception of me being stuck up or snobby about a thing because I wasn't engaging other people, and it was really like, what? I am scared, you know, like I'm, that's, yeah. It has nothing to do with hes, it has to do with insecurity actually. You're nervous, you know? Yeah. Another true horror I think is the glossing over or denial of dark and uncomfortable history with the teacher scene. He is like, no, this is where laws were passed. Like nobody was hanged here. Like, this building is a symbol of civic order. I, I know that's not exactly what he said, but something like that. I think there's a lot of denying of the true horror of our past, particularly as a nation. Yes, we as a nation tend to black or white, right or wrong things, and in actuality, everything is on a scale where many good things have occurred. Many bad things have also occurred that are stare to recognize and acknowledge and should be. Another Horror is creepy. Kids who say they see things right? I've told the story about my son waking up and telling me, kick it, kick it, kick it at the end of his bed. So either there was an entity or he was dreaming about me letting him watch Jaws too early. My daughter said creepy things. I have a niece who used to walk into my mother-in-law, in-law's house when she was like three years old, walk into the living room, point at the corner and say those teeth. And she was really too young to be messing with anyone and she did it consistently. What was she seeing? I love this little girl. She's so like me. I am that weird aunt because I play this game with my nieces and nephews where they stand at the end of a long hall at my in-law's house. We have dinner there every Tuesday night and they stand at the end of the hall. And this is one of those houses where there's multiple entrances to the bedrooms. So I can sneak up on them from one bedroom or the other, or I can come around outside or I can go straight down the hall and they don't know where I'm coming from. And I'll do my hair like tomorrow with like my hair on my face, and then I'll just like run at them or I'll crawl down the hall like a creepy ghost and they love it. And she's always the one that is like, can we play the hall game? She's like eight years old and she wants me to scare the crap out of her. It's so funny. But back to the veil being thin, if you don't believe in ghosts, then what's going on there? What are they seeing? You mean in the examples you just gave? What are they saying? Yeah, like my daughter saying stuff, my son, I mean, my son obviously could have just been dreaming, but like kids who are awake, they're conscious. There's so many stories of kids, you know, saying something that could have been from a past life or not, or knowing something that they shouldn't have known or saying they see something. Is it just their imagination or are they seeing something? Yeah, but they're also like, I'm a pineapple. Well, I don't believe that they're, there's a lot, but you know, like, I think it's their imagination. They don't have a huge sense between reality and fantasy because they haven't been exposed to enough of reality. Or just as we age and we become more supposedly rational, we lose the ability that we had to see the ghosts that are actually always there, or the delusion ha. Well, survival. I think talk to someone when life gets hard. Don't be afraid of therapy. Tell your mom what's up. Or your dad a trusted adult. Mm-hmm. Any other things we learned from this movie? Yes, please. The strongest feeling I had was for that mom when she was like, please just tell me. I also felt for him being like, I don't want her to look at me the way other people look at me, and I get it, but things never get better when they're swept under the rug. That is not the way to solve any problem ever. It doesn't help you. It doesn't help other victims along the way. So. Finding a way to get it out there, please just get it out there. Mm-hmm. Do you have a palate cleanser? Press? Okay. I have a couple, I know this is coming out quite a bit later, but today Taylor Swift has announced TS 12, her 12th album. Oh, fun. I, I am a person who is very late to the Taylor Swift party. I didn't have a problem with her. I just didn't get it until I saw eras in the theater and then my daughter became obsessed with watching eras. And then now I am gonna spend the rest of my life regretting that I didn't go to an ERAS concert. If I had known you guys were so into Taylor Swift, I would've taken you to watch Hill. It's not far from era dance. It, I mean, you can't like go in her house, but you can kind of see it from the beach. Yeah, that's fine. I don't care about that much, about that. I appreciate her music. And your daughter would've though. I've got a picture of mine standing in front of the house with the no trespassing sign, and it is a point of pride with her friends that she stood in front of that house. Yes. The next time you're around. In summer, we we're gonna have to do that with my daughter. Don't worry, Taylor. We won't scale the walls or anything. Yeah. And then additionally, I went to see a few nights ago, the beginning of a leg of a tour, John Malan and friends, it's Mike Bibi, Leah, Fred Armisen, Nick Kroll, and John Mullany. Uh, I have seen Mike Birbiglia and John Mullany multiple times live. Highly recommend. I've never seen Nick Kroll or Fred Armon in person before. Fred Armisen was very funny. It just reminded me how much I appreciate Maley and Birbiglia in particular. And it gave me a new appreciation for Nick Kroll as a standup comic. So I wanted to recommend Taylor Swift's entire history, bibliography, whatever, what do you call it? Anthology, and then John Malini and, and Mike Bigley as well. That sounds very funny. I love all those people. Do you have any recommendations to go along with the sixth sense? I keep saying the sixth sense, the sixth the sense it's like the rural juror. I cannot say it. It's hard sense. So since you said rural juror, it's never a bad day to watch 30 Rock, but also never, um, Mishka Barton, the oc I have been re recently yes, rewatching the oc. It's been giving me so much joy. It's a great show. Don't watch it with your kids. Some of my high school girls have discovered it and they've looked it, yeah. Yeah. If your kids are in high school, maybe, but like not. Not younger, I would say if you're thinking about things with great twists. I was thinking of Memento, which was the first movie I saw that's Twist really was like, whoa. And I really appreciated it. In terms of books, anything by Leanne Moriarty, which I'm sure you could talk on and on about is she's Australian. Yeah. Every book of hers I've really appreciated in terms of twists Philadelphia stuff, always sunny. Trading Places also takes place in Philly, the movie Philadelphia, which also made me cry. But by the way, when this movie ended, I was crying and I came downstairs and told my husband, he's not allowed to die. So wait. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. So you cried even though there's a ghost.'cause you didn't cry in Midnight house. No. But her husband died. You know, like I, I was very like, I came downstairs and I was like, you're not allowed to die. And he was like, I won't. And you could quote Team America, I promise you I will never die. Yeah. And we always say to our kids like, don't make a promise you can't keep. But then I'm constantly making him promise me he won't die. And then obviously die hard for the best of Bruce Willis. Moonlighting is also a great, scary movie, which has the, I see dead people in a parody. Oh yeah. Awesome. But yeah, that's everything I have. Awesome. Well, I'm gonna first of all recommend that if you have a teenager, get them to watch this because. I was teaching Macbeth the other day, and there's a twist in Macbeth. I don't know how well you know Macbeth, but there's this idea that the witches tell Macbeth that none of women born shall harm Macbeth. And Macbeth is like, I'm invincible because everyone's born of a woman. And then like Twist, it's like, oh, McDo was born by cesarean section, so he's capable of killing Macbeth. Sorry to spoil Macbeth, it's been 400 years. But I was saying to these my students, like, that's a twist. Like what are some good things with a twist? And because we were preparing to do this, I like brought up a picture of the sixth cents and I was like, have any of you seen this? And nobody had seen it. Nobody had heard of it. Mm-hmm. So I was like, oh, you could watch this and live. Like it's 1999 and actually be shocked by that twist. So yeah, show your teenagers if they haven't, uh, maybe revisit those 1999 movies. We mentioned Fight Club, the Matrix. I don't know about American Beauty. I don't think that's held up as well. The Green Mile Toy Story two. Talented Mr. Ripley girl interrupted the Mommy Blair Witch Project and stick 10 things I Hate About You also and for ghosts and 10 things I hate about You. Yes. Oh, so good. I cannot believe I missed that for ghosts trying to finish their business. Watch Stir of Echoes with Kevin Bacon and What Lies Beneath with Harrison Ford and Michelle Pfeiffer. Really good. You mentioned Memento. Awesome twist. Other great twist parasite. Empire Strikes Back, fight Club, scream, usual Suspects, the others, the Prestige. Those are some of my favorite twist movies For kids with Powers, there's The Shining. Another Stephen King book that is sort of thematically connected is the Dead Zone about a man who gets into this fatal car, ex nearly fatal car accident, spends years in a coma, and then wakes up with the ability to see the future. It is super relevant because Greg Stillen, the Batty has a lot in common with our current president, so that's worth watching. The Babadook. It's another horror movie about a mother struggling to understand her very troubled child. You could go back to our episode four. Ghosts in the burbs and listen to Liz Sauer podcast. It's a similar kind of slow burn, supernatural creepy horror that's not gory or over the top. And there are characters who can see and hear ghosts if you keep listening for what life might be like as a ghost. You know, we talk about Malcolm kind of perhaps coming in and out of consciousness. Mike Flanagan's, the haunting of Bly manner, particularly Katie Siegel's character, explores what it's like to be a ghost and not really potentially understand you're a ghost. If you want to know more about the making of this movie, there's what went wrong and Unspool two podcasts, M Night Shalon has a lot of other movies. I might be in the Mor minority here, but I like the village. I like signs. I like knock at the cabin split. I don't know if I've seen any of the others. I recently saw Trep. Have you seen that? No. At the concert it started out good, but I, I dunno, I got, I didn't like it by the end. He also made an avatar the last Airbender movie, which is notoriously bad. Don't watch that. But watch the original animated series. It's fantastic. I'm gonna recommend the book Atonement. Mm-hmm. You know, it's a movie too, but I think that theme is something we've covered a lot here. Whether it's Spotlight Midnight, mass Jaws, this. A character who is messed up and is trying to make it right is one of my favorite themes. If you want something a bit lighter, the English sitcom ghosts, it's about a bunch of ghosts in a haunted manner who can finally communicate with their new owner. It's not scary at all, and it's got one of my favorite English comedic actors in it. Simon Farby from Paddington, he's also in the Detectorist, and he's hilarious. I love the Detectorists. It's so good. Yeah. Another book is The Reformatory by Du, about a boy who is sentenced to this school in Florida in like Jim Crow era, and it's more like a prison and it's racist and horrible, but he sees the ghosts of the many boys who have died horribly over the years there. And it's a really good book, what we do in The Shadows, because Hailey Joel Osmond turns up there. I've already mentioned Die Hard, but what about Muriel's Wedding, which is one of Tony Colette's Early Works. So I was so happy that she got introduced to the world of Horror because now we have, like, we have Hereditary and then all the other movies like that. She does like Little Miss Sunshine and About a Boy. She plays moms a lot. I think that's it for me. Anything else? No. I mean, I wanted to mention when I was looking up facts about this movie, I saw that Steven Spielberg did so much that he decided to executive produce it. And I was listening to our Jaws episode, which came out today, the day we're recording this. And I wanted to say how utterly disgraced I feel that when talking about Spielberg and all of the wonderful things he has brought to us, I didn't mention inspiring Dawson Leary. So just wanted to Oh, yes. Put that out there. Yes. He's another boy with posters on the wall. Mm-hmm. Sure is. Yep. Like I'm Knight Shaalan and Ri. Well, that brings us to our homework. We've been wanting to cover, catch and Kill for a while. Mm-hmm. And given that M Knight, Shalon refers to Harvey Weinstein as a monster, I think it's finally time and this is the summer of Epstein, so why not revisit. That whole situation. Yes. And we are recording things about a month before things. Yeah. You've all listened to podcasts before, right? You know how it works. Yeah. So I hope by the time we record and release our catch and kill episode, we've got some takedowns. I wouldn't bet on it, but I know, I know. Well, there's just one other thing we wanted to say. We let our 10th episode pass carry without a celebration. So here's to us for making a thing. But more importantly, here's to you listeners, as of this recording, we've only, as we said, just released Jaws. So this info's probably outdated, but we've had listeners, of course in North America, Australia, and the UK and Ireland, but also like we've had listeners from Bulgaria, Sweden, Norway, Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Germany, Ecuador, Mexico, places that we don't really have personal connections to. So we can't be like, oh, well that's my mom listening. So I don't know how you are finding us, but whoever you are, wherever you are, we're glad you're listening and thank you and reach out. We'd love to hear from you about what you think of drawn to Darkness. Yes, thank you so much. So thanks for listening. Please do all the things podcasters ask you to do, like and subscribe, follow us on Instagram or Facebook. Tell a friend write a review on iTunes. You can email us at John to Darkness pod@gmail.com, and if like Shirley Jackson, you delight in what you fear, join us in two weeks here at John to Darkness. Special shout out to Nancy Ano who painted our cover art. You can find her on Instagram at Nancy ano and to Harry Kid for our intro and outro music. You can find him on Instagram at Harry J. Kidd and on Spotify.