EPISODE 12: MIDSOMMAR

To celebrate our recent Summer Solstice festivities here in Britain on the 21st June, Kim and Em quite fittingly discuss all things MIDSOMMAR including why fans and critics were so divided about the movie, who the true villains really are (Christian, Dani or the Haga?!) as well as pubic hair pies (yum) and menstrual love potions (very effective clearly) Do we love or loathe the film? Who cares, lets get on with those awkward as arse orgies, viking death penalties and, yes, pubic hair pie......

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:07

You have entered K in L versus Evil.

SPEAKER_02 0:16

Today's episode plummets violently into a movie that director himself describes as the Wizard of Oz for perverts. My kind of movie. He doesn't mince his words. And in honor of that, let's do the same. We are talking about Midsummer. Midsummer! There's no pirates.

SPEAKER_01 0:38

There is no pirates. There's no Scottish people, just Swedish people. But yeah, the pronunciation of Midsummer does come into it. But whether you are a juicy, fresh, wide-eyed Midsummer Virgin awaiting a psychedelic trip into paganism here today, or you might be well versed in this flick and know all about it. But we aim to deliver all the controversies surrounding the film in terms of the hugely divisive uh opinions and reactions out there, um, as well as provide some fresh viewpoints, hopefully, for you to ponder on. What the freak is going on uh with Midsummer? Um, what are the hidden meanings and Midsummer? Um and we've just been discussing this at length of pod. Who really are the uh victims and villains? I love the victim-villain fence, what side they're on in this strange piece of celluloid. Um so and with with the pronunciations, apparently it's not ariasta, it's ari. Ariaster. I can't keep it up.

SPEAKER_02 1:41

Pretender American, Ari. Ari Ari, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:45

I'm learning Ari. So Kim, um uh basically on the film Midsummer, Love or Love?

SPEAKER_02 1:52

Uh Love! My god, I love I love Ariaster as well. I mean, he doesn't miss so far. He's made four films. Uh Hereditary 2018, followed quickly in 2019 with this one, Midsummer, and then uh Bo is Afraid, which I thought was uh astounding, 2023, and then Eddington Eddington 2025, which is kind of a um COVID movie, um uh which which is I'm still actually I only watched that recently and I'm still um getting to grips with Are they horrors? Uh Eddington isn't but uh Bo is a Bo is Afraid uh sits on the edge of horror, but it's not really Bill, is it? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:37

Well, whether you like or loathe the term um elevated horror, um I mean I don't love the term, but actually all it's describing in my mind is um a piece like Midsummer or um Hereditary, which is basically uh more emotionally intelligent, more character-driven. It's like a drama and there's there's horror elements.

SPEAKER_02 2:58

And and the arty element as well.

SPEAKER_01 3:00

I guess the art house element. But that doesn't make things I mean, that makes things good. I'll go, I'll go into this a little bit as to why a lot of people were perhaps a little bit disappointed with Midsummer. And I think, you know, as some people are saying, like the misrepresenting it in their marketing might have come into it, but that's that's a sort of different um aspect to what we're talking about today. Um on our yasda's films, um, I don't know how you feel about this, but looking at people's reactions and silly things like the IMDB score meter and and the things like awards, Hereditary is seen as the better film, you think? I mean I've certainly there, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:43

I agree with that.

SPEAKER_01 3:44

Yeah, it is amazing. And the fact that they, you know, as you said at Hereditary was just one year before Midsummer, so I guess people were expecting something like that. Yeah. I mean, the style is similar, I guess.

SPEAKER_02 3:55

Yeah, and they both um they're both about family things.

SPEAKER_01 3:59

Family drama, um yeah, emotional purging, grieving, you know, like really hardcore grieving as well. I might take this silly thing off. I wear um for those who can't see, I'm wearing um a pagan headdress.

SPEAKER_02 4:12

It's got shells, and is that that supposed to be some kind of sea? This is actually from Hastings Beach.

SPEAKER_01 4:17

Is it? So it's um yeah, Fisherman. I didn't steal it. It's like it was like just yeah, was a bit smelly. I did wash it. Yeah, it's from the Hastings Beach. Hastings and fish. Probably dogs kiss and fish. And chips. Nice mix. Put that down there. Anyway, that's what she's wearing. Yes, so Hereditary, um, for example, got 52 awards, midsummer 27, but that's just uh for your info. Um, and yeah, they definitely both have similar themes. I think they look at female rage quite a lot, yes, and that really comes out in both of them very well.

SPEAKER_02 4:52

Very good actors that he works with, and they both um deal with um matriarchal um I was gonna say societies, but microcosms of a matriarchal society, uh and and it's all gone just as it does in Alien, awry under the rule of a woman. That's not a good message, but anyway. No, but this is this is what this is what's there, both of those films and Alien, which I taught I talked a lot about, I think it's all out there about the the vaginal imagery of the spaceship in Alien. Which is quite overt and obvious, I would say.

SPEAKER_01 5:32

But we'll save that for Alien, because that's gonna be a good one, isn't it? Um, right, so um just to remind you, uh a little bit of story. Should we have should we do a little bit, just a little bit of plot so we know where we are?

SPEAKER_02 5:47

Okay, so if you don't know, or if you just need a little reminder, uh story goes. Right, following an immensely traumatizing tragedy, a grieving Danny joins her somewhat lukewarm boyfriend, Christian, and his friends on a trip to a once-in-a-lifetime midsummer festival in a remote Swedish village. What begins as a carefree summer holiday in a land of eternal sunlight takes a sinister turn when the insular villagers, I used the word insular when I was writing my notes. We're the same. Uh the insular villagers invite their guests to partake in festivities that render the pastoral paradise increasingly unnerving and viscerally disturbing. A cinematic fairy tale where a world of darkness unfolds in broad daylight.

SPEAKER_01 6:40

Beautiful. Um just to just uh FYI, that is from the A24 uh website when they're you know listing all their the films that they distribute, um, of which there are many. Um and I mean that but that's like you don't really get such an in-depth plot line as that with with p the IMDB or Netflix. So that's quite a that's quite a good one. Um I think it's very, very relevant, obviously, that it's in broad, broad daylight, and you get all these juxtapositions of the horror, and I mean, it's not just broad daylight, it's sort of ironically, suffocatingly, claustrophobically bright.

SPEAKER_00 7:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:15

Like it's too intense, like you almost need sunglasses to watch the film. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:19

Do you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01 7:20

It's like it's really, really kind of overtly that is part of the um the intensity of it.

SPEAKER_02 7:27

Yeah, and I think that marks it out maybe from other um folk horror which traditionally do uh have a lot of daylight sequences, but it's not always like when I think about Witch Finder general, it's kind of a grey British light, isn't it? Yeah, exactly, exactly. Um but I suppose but but and Wicker Man is daylight um yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:51

Well, yeah, Jack in the Green and May Day, yeah. When when we think of pagan societies, blah blah blah, we we think of celebrations like May Day, the celebration of fertility in spring. Yeah, and colour and brightness and of all that. And this particular festival isn't May Day, obviously, it's midsummer. Um we don't really have that so much here in Britain, do we? I mean, I know we have summer solstice. Is that what is that our version of Midsummer?

SPEAKER_02 8:15

I suppose so just coming up. I suppose so. I don't I'm not sure what time of year midsummer takes place.

SPEAKER_01 8:22

Was that addressed to because even Shakespeare had a freaky weird midsummer play? So maybe everyone just goes bonkers when it's too hot. Maybe that's what it's all about. Too hot and you you lose it.

SPEAKER_02 8:32

And then in some parts of the world, as we know, in Sweden, it's sunny all day round the 24 hours.

SPEAKER_01 8:40

All right, very quickly, the players. Sorry, and then you can jump in. Um, so there's lots of people in it, but the main people we're going to talk about, um Florence Pugh, brilliant English actress, plays Danny, the um broken, grieving, uh traumatised girlfriend. We've got Jack Rayner playing Christian, uh, William Jackson Harper plays Josh, who's one of the friends. Um there are some more, actually, I should put them in. And then the um Pele, I can't pronounce this, is Wilhelm Blombren. That was Wilhelmlin Brombren. Oh shit, sorry. It should have just stopped. It shouldn't have kept going with insulting him.

SPEAKER_02 9:22

And then, of course, we've got Will Poulter uh as Mark because he became a massive star. Uh and um the and the other notable actor in it is Archie Medeque, who plays Simon, who some of you might know.

SPEAKER_01 9:38

Okay. Oh yeah, um, isn't he in Saltburn? Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, yes. English guy. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 9:45

Uh Ben Wheatley uh came to town a couple of weeks ago. We're in Hastings uh with his film Um God, what was the film called? I've just watched it. Bulk. With his film Bulk, um, and did a Q ⁇ A at the at the Electric Palace Cinema where me and M do Fright Night uh and show some of these films that we talk about on the podcast. Um and I asked him about knowing this was coming up and and wanting personally to do an episode on Kill List, which fits into the folk horror genre. I asked uh Ben about folk horror and where he thinks why he thinks the evil in uh as presented or or the villainy as presented in folk horror is more chilling in that setting. And he good question. Well, he sighed and told me off for asking an essay question. But what he did say was quite interesting. So can I share it now before we please do? You can share your mini dissertation. On um yes, right, okay, so he said folk horror is odd because it means different things in different places, I think. And I think in the UK it's very specific, and I felt it myself when I made Kill List, and making it in that realm was the definite feeling of history being very present and and being dot dot. You're a modern person, but you're in the past, and you can see, especially in Hastings or in Sussex, and where I used to live outside of Brighton, we were like a two-minute walk to a golf course, to go to a golf course, but it was on an Iron Age hill fort. So you feel the people, the bodies there, but you don't know what it is, it's a mystery, and so within that, the gap between the past and the mystery is something that's there. Whether there is horror itself and you're terrified of it, or that they're evil, that's not a thing. I don't agree with the idea of evil necessarily, but I think the unknown is a place that you fill with your own neuroses, maybe. And the fact that you don't, this is before history, this stuff, or written history at least, you know, hazy. And folk horror itself was kind of created in the 70s anyway, so there's a lot of bullshit flopping around inside it. I know that going to America where the Wicker Man is like uh historical documentary, there was a big laugh then when he said that at this moment. And that this this reminded me of Midsummer where in Sweden they um did not take that well to the film because of it feeling we're gonna talk about this. We can talk about that cultural appropriation, yeah. A black a black comedy almost because it really kind of um exaggerated the customs and stuff. Um so he said, um uh it's not really like that, you know. Um and then I get asked stuff like why are you making stuff like the Wicker Man? Yeah, it's not about that, it's about history, he said, not about films, not everything is about the continuity. So I think what he was was saying essentially is that there's this this weirdness about these historical places that that is unsettling uh innately, but he's not sure if that's a presence of evil, or he doesn't believe that's a presence of evil.

SPEAKER_01 13:13

Yeah, yeah, I think I know what he's getting at. Um and I I think we do feel it quite um acutely here in Hastings, this sense that we are at the same time connected and completely disconnected from our own ancestry and from our past and history because we're evolving at such a fast rate. I mean, this is a different topic for discussion, but why folk horror seems to be um on everyone's lips, it really is on the increase, even in our real, real pop culture. I've just joined a Morris dancing side, for example, everything's getting more popular. I'm seeing articles everywhere looking at how um folk culture is almost seen as a sense of rebellion because it's more about community and the small, as you were discussing a little bit as well, versus big governments, pharma, corporations, all of that. It's seen more as a rebellion and um let's look after ourselves now. So that's another reason why I think it's becoming it's coming into our um just sort of coming into our world a lot more. So there is like I I started typing a question and realised lots of people had been typing in this question. Is Midsummer offensive to Swedish people? Um so I at first I thought, oh, surely not, this is ridiculous because Midsummer is not representing all Swedish people. Of course it's not. Um, but relevant for different reasons, and it's a co-production between America and Sweden. Yet um there are reasons for this. It wasn't even filmed in Sweden. I presume they had Swedish crew. I mean, I can't tell. I can't help just looking at the names whether they're just uh you know, Nordic. They've got Swedish cast members, yeah. But you know, they certainly filmed it in uh Hungary. Yeah, yeah. And there was a reason for that, wasn't there? It might be probably because it was cheaper and they got to have this huge, huge area of land where they could build an entire life-size village, which in itself is phenomenal and cool. And it gave them a lot of freedom in terms of um creating amazing huge wide shots and sweeping shots and dolly shots, and you know, grandmaster kind of establishing moments where you see this like I suppose small village, but seeing it wide, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_02 15:30

Yeah, and I mean they've got total control over what the buildings and structures looked like as well, didn't they? There was there were angles and and there was a there was a kind of a s uh a uh symmetry that that was present in the film. But not in a Wes Anderson way where it's all completely symmetrical, but in a kind of a loose way.

SPEAKER_01 15:51

But I mean, yes, uh okay, so some of the customs that are in Midsummer are real, we all, and then they're not just Swedish though. So that's why I'm like I don't see it it's not just a Swedish thing. We have Maypole dancing here. Yes, the Wickerman has an element of a huge element of human sacrifice. It we're not saying, oh, that's what English people do is sacrifice people because we're not actually Christian. And burning in particular, and you know, so um some of the traditions are based on real Swedish um stories, folk stories. Some of them are true, some of them aren't. Um, however, it is relevant. There were there was some backlash. Um, there were some Swedish journals who did critique this sort of cultural appropriation element of the um specifically the Hager commune, that's what they're called, the small commune. So um renowned Swedish cultural journalist Kritique uh Po Tidom, probably can't say it properly, highlighted that the film completely relied on an outsider's fantasy of Sweden, and she noted the irony that a uh quote Swedish and American horror film was heavily filmed in Hungary but catered to an American audience's appetite for the exotic, which I guess you know she has a point.

SPEAKER_02 17:06

Yeah, she does, but you know, there's an argument to be made for presenting a fantasy uh ideal of what a if ideal is the right word, because they're certainly not ideal, but uh or idea of what a Swedish commune might look like.

SPEAKER_01 17:22

Yeah, and it's not representative of all of Sweden either.

SPEAKER_02 17:26

So No, but if it's looking at our attitudes in some way, one of the themes of the film is looking at um our our attitudes as uh what we were saying, arrogant outsiders um uh on a on a what seems to be a more primitive um community uh and how we exploit that um or feel about that. Certainly the people that that visit there from America in the film seem to have a degree of arrogance.

SPEAKER_01 17:58

Definitely and that's and then and when we're looking at um I've got it later on in the notes, I don't know if we should do it now. Well, what I was gonna do is say sort of say that say what the um issues or niggles that people had with Midsummer and kind of get your opinion on it. Misleading marketing. So people come people so one of the reasons it had a negative um reaction possibly was that it was sort of marketed as this crazy fun film and it's gonna be like hereditary, although I would argue that hereditary is still a slowish drama. And then they were presented with this slowburn um film, and in midsummer there was a lot of setup before things kick off, I guess.

SPEAKER_02 18:39

Yeah, and so I don't know if you might have made this clear, but we're not talking about just the Swedish audience here uh turning against the film, but but um critics, uh uh audience members that that just generally didn't like it around the world, so or didn't warm to it as much as we did, maybe.

SPEAKER_01 18:57

But well, I think you know uh American audiences, British. Okay, marketing yeah, possibly was marketed wrong, but that's just uh a money-making thing. Yeah, people complained um about the pacing and its art house style. It's seen as style over substance. Agree or disagree, Kim? Totally disagree. Oh my god. Get over it. It's like what's wrong with a bit of style anyway?

SPEAKER_02 19:20

Both of those things. Anyway, I don't think this film is particularly art house at all. I mean, I I um because it's well shot.

SPEAKER_01 19:28

And it's got a really imagined he he's taken, he's gone to lengths to oh, I don't know, figure out the art design and the shapes and the colour and the palette and the mood. I mean, that's all those are all good things, aren't they?

SPEAKER_02 19:41

Yeah, well, they are. But we we and with regard to pacing, it's it is a long film, but we watched it again recently when we presented it at Fright Night, and um I I was gripped throughout, and um I didn't once feel like geez, this is dragging, or it felt perfectly paced to me.

SPEAKER_01 20:03

You don't watch it if you want um American Werewolf in London or um I want that as well. Exactly, or Nightmare and L Sheet. They're different films. Um, but yeah, some people thought it was just um loads of symbolism and and uh some with mixed mixing in some real shock value moments.

SPEAKER_02 20:20

All those moments where you saw those that that extreme gore, which is what it was.

SPEAKER_01 20:26

I love those moments.

SPEAKER_02 20:27

But they're sudden, they're quite fleeting, but they're really they are powerful and impactful, but they're not necessarily what audiences for horror or mainstream horror at least at that time had been expecting. I think you know, um uh around the time this came out, audiences had been enjoying a resurgence.

SPEAKER_01 20:45

With the the sort of brutal moments where you see, I guess, gore for want of a better word, um, when they there's two old people, they reach 72. This is well, it's really hard to explain everything. There's so much going on here. Um when in this in the Hager commune, um, it is normal and it is a ritual, and everyone has to do it. When you get to the age of 72, you jump off this um very tall cliff to your one hopes instant death. Um the the the what the female character does it quite successfully and dies. The male character um he jumps and he lands on his feet and he doesn't die, just breaks all his legs, and it's really gruesome, but quite realistic. That's that is what would happen. And then um and then I like well, if if you don't die, the the rule is someone is like on standby with a giant sort of sledgehammer thing, and they just bash your brains in and they show this very brutally. And I because I'm a bit sick and gross, I quite liked it. When you're in an audience as we were, that is when people start laughing, and it's a nervous laughter. And and some people are complained saying those are there's too many tokens. Shifts going on. Is it horrible? Is it tragic? Is it funny? And I'm like, well, it's all of them. Yeah. And it's not an accident. Ariasta. Ariasta. I've got a really good quote of his.

SPEAKER_02 22:14

It doesn't matter if it's deliberate or not. The fact that all of these feelings are there when you're watching the film is really interesting, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 22:24

Well, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:25

I mean, I I why do we laugh at something? I love that they teed that bit up with the mallet. I'll call it a mallet. You called it a what did you call it? I don't know. The big wooden hammer. Yeah, and big wound. They teed it at the they the camera pans quite slowly past him at the beginning while he's just standing there holding it. And of course, if you've never seen it, you don't know what's coming. And then, oh, that's what that's for.

SPEAKER_01 22:50

I mean, I I would say it isn't that funny as a film. I there might I mean it might be peppered with the odd funny moment, but I would argue maybe if you are the sort of person who finds these things funny, again, it's like a sort of an a nervous, weird knee-jerk reaction. But anyway, quickly I found it. And so Arias said when P he was asked, um, how do you want people to feel watching this film? It's quite a simple response. He said, quote, I hope this film leaves people feeling a little bit confused as to how to feel about the film. And I would say tick, big tick. So hit that I it's intentional. Yeah. Yeah. Well, there you go. So don't worry about not knowing exactly how to feel when you watch a film. You don't have to be spooned out. That's what's interesting.

SPEAKER_02 23:37

That is what's interesting. And I don't like it, you know, with a lot of what they call elevated horror, that it feels so manipulative. I like a pure kind of um I like all sorts of films. I like all sorts of horror films. Yeah, but but I'm really like digging into the stuff that they haven't thought that much about and why they've done it. And I it's not always cleverer because there's intention, I don't think.

SPEAKER_01 24:02

Anyway, true, it's almost like what you what you can take away from it. And a lot of directors sometimes say, oh, that wasn't intentional at all. Um, in this case, I think it might have been. But going back to another point we were sort of touched upon, um, many people did not like the characters at all. So they cited unlikable characters as a major bone of contention. That's bloody normal in horror films, isn't it? Well, I think you have to um either love to hate them, like loving a good villain and loving their demise, or you have to be um rooted for someone. Um, however, maybe again this was intentional. So viewers found, maybe American viewers, I don't know, that the American characters, not the Swedish ones, were shallow, unsympathetic, um, and annoying and disrespectful, um, to the point where people were rooting for the cult, the Hager cult, and the Swedish murderers, rather than the protagonists. But again, maybe, you know, he's probably making a specific point with that going into the idea of um, well, they're anthropology students. That's that's obviously no um, you know, that's no mistake or accident. He's he's commenting on the fact that they are these two clashing cultures coming together. It's a bit like a real folk horror tropes.

SPEAKER_02 25:24

Yeah, and it's a bit like Cannibal Holocaust, where that team of filmmakers go in completely arrogantly, supercilious, thinking trying to capture the footage of these tribes, and they come a cropper because they've totally underestimated and they've transgressed various um uh well, I mean, you as a viewer, as a Western viewer ourselves, um you can see that what they're doing is is is not the best way to go about things anyway. It's not just that they are transgressing from the tribe's perspective, you can see that they're completely arrogant. And and this is both this applies to both of these films. Yeah. But yeah, I think one we talked a little bit before about this um this why they why they present the Americans in this way versus um presenting the Swedish cult members in the way they do. Um in the Hager commune, they are happy, they all work together, they're they all seem to be um pretty content really, but there's a big element of teamwork. Everyone has a role, everyone knows what they're doing, everyone knows the plan, and this is a plan, and uh make no mistake about that, and this is where the whole idea of villainy gets really clouded in the film uh and and blame and all of that, and but the Americans are presented as this has these kind of well it they representative of US individualism, and I think uh you can read the film as saying, well, look, if you work together as a community and as a team, you can get shit done. It all falls apart when you're so individualistic. I mean, in that culture, um Danny's sister has found that there's a a blackness that means she's wanted to end her life and take her parents with her. Um and they're all kind of troubled. Mark is particularly selfish. We see him pissing on a sacred tree, and when he's told that it's a sacred tree, it's like it's dead, he's got no respect. Exactly. Um, and then Christian and Danny and their relationship, and we'll we're gonna talk about Christian.

SPEAKER_01 27:44

Yeah, I mean, and they're the main, obviously the main players, and the the dynamic, the shifting dynamic is obviously um Danny and Christian. Um, a couple of things on the the fact that they are anthropology students, um, and yeah, um Mark, played by Will Porter, we said um he he also does provide a bit of comic comedic relief. Yes, um, like even when they're taking drugs at the very beginning, and um why does what does he say? Like, why is it nine o'clock or something like that? I mean, it's not very funny when I say it out of context, and he tells them all to lie down, doesn't he? Everybody lie down, so but yeah, they they they do the trippy scenes really well. Um but yeah, there's just little scatterings of of humour. But basically, he's pretty yeah, he's pretty arrogant throughout the whole thing, and so he's kind of likable, but but arrogant, disrespectfully as you say, pisses on a on a tree, um, and they're all really shocked by this. Suffice to say, things don't end well for Mark. And then Josh as well, who goes back to photograph the sacred text.

SPEAKER_02 28:48

Yeah, sorry.

SPEAKER_01 28:49

No, yeah, well, there's Christian and Josh are writing, I I don't know what they call it in America, but dissertations thesis, there you go, on their final um anthropology project. And they happen to be getting invited to this very strange nine-day festival. We'll go into the number nine, um, which only happens once every 90 years. So it literally is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for everyone involved, including the Hager. Um, and because while they're there, they realise how how odd and strange and quirky this this community really is. But unlike the Wickerman, they are very welcoming. They're really nice to the outsiders. So, yes, they're insular, but um, I mean, of course they're welcoming because we know now they want their sacrifices.

SPEAKER_02 29:38

Yes, um and this is partly where the where the argument that they are evil or villainous comes from because this is really calculated. They've sent Pele out into the world and his brother Ingamar to collect um people to bring back for their sacrificial um uh rituals.

SPEAKER_01 29:59

Uh and yes, and also uh getting into the the sex ritual because um it's it because they are so insular, if they keep breeding, and we see results of this, which provides another element of like shock horror, a bit of freak show. Oh god, look at that. Um deliverance style horror. Um they invite, they want a very virile uh they want the men because they will help spread some seed from the outside world um to try and get over the whole inbreeding problem and eugenics programme, basically. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They they've they've thought it through, they have fixed it all through. So they're not just there for the sacrifice, they are there also to provide um the the pregnancy and fertility element is there, and they they don't want to just inbreed.

SPEAKER_02 30:50

Yeah, although they do want to do that as well because they produce their primary oracle. Is that why he's called Reuben in the film is their current primary oracle, who's kind of quite alarming to see because he's quite deformed, but he's the one that do they just spend ages drawing in. He draws and then they interpret his drawings as um directives.

SPEAKER_01 31:12

Yeah, it's really interesting. But um, yeah, so we've got Josh. Um he thinks what a rare and incredible opportunity this is. First hand experience of the Hager, uh not tribe, but uh commune. Um, and he does get permission. He does get permission, he does ask, he is respectful at first. Um, this is why the characterisation in the writing is really good. It's not just he's evil and wrong, he he is good, he is pretty he's respectful at first and he works within their boundaries. They say, Okay, you can document us. Um, and you see him talking to the elders. Um, but the big no-no is um he he asks to take a photograph of this beautiful old book which lists the drawings and the rituals and the history of the haga, and Josh wants to take photos, and they're like, No, like big no, this is this is disrespectful, and it's probably um what's the word? Not bad luck, but in some cultures, yeah, it's actually it's almost like it's it can take someone's soul. They have that in cultures. If you take a photo of this with your modern camera, it's it's taking away a bit of the soul, a bit of the magic. Um, but then he goes back in the night secretly to take photos of this sacred text before he's met by one of the Haga tribe wearing the skin of Mark. Mark, the face of Mark. Very leather face, but yeah. Um so that doesn't end well. I mean, obviously they don't know they're gonna do all of that, but they uh they they are still sort of they want them as victims. Yeah and they are I guess they're punished for their um disrespectful behaviour, but they would have probably died anyway.

SPEAKER_02 32:48

I mean there there might be a yeah, there might be a weeding out of um who's going to breed with the redheaded girl. Marja, is that her name?

SPEAKER_01 32:58

There might be a kind of a who's the most um virile and sexy and uh but also it might have been to it may have been to manipulate Danny into hating Christian into ultimately choosing him to be the final sacrifice. Yeah. I don't know. That's quite a lot of thinking ahead.

SPEAKER_02 33:18

Well, I think I d I don't know, because part of me was wondering how far their manipulation goes, right? So they s they send Pelle and Ingama out to bring back people and that they have a very um a very tight plan. Uh otherwise I think there are variables within it as such as, yeah, they didn't know that Josh was gonna go and do that and blah blah blah. But um I was thinking, did they go so far as to um uh facilitate her sister's apparent suicide, murder, murder, suicide, or Pele may have done in order to pull strings and get Danny? I think the play where she couldn't go back to get her in a place of the city.

SPEAKER_01 34:07

She was already bipolar and very disturbed, and we there's no evidence shown that Pele has anything to do with um there is sort of suicide or sister. However, I would say that um towards the end where it's really you know that it's it's kind of getting to its its climax emotionally, and the climax of the film all folk horror ends in some disgusting weird ritual and sacrifice. Um I think they do manipulate Danny to start seeing him and her boyfriend as someone to basically purge herself of to get rid of. Um so that she chooses, she basically at the very end, uh we should say at the beginning, loads of spoilers here. Um they give her the choice. So she's uh we'll have to rewind um talk about their relationship dynamic. But she ultimately chooses her boyfriend as opposed to a member of the Haga, they're literally standing in front of her, and she chooses Christian to be sacrificed at the very end. But I'm probably jumping ahead a little bit there. Um I just want to touch on something that I found that's quite interesting. Um, I didn't realise this, but the the apparently um Ariaster was very um specific in his looking at sort of the uh the anthropology side of things. Um there's a presence of specific Norse runes in the film. You see a lot of the runes, and some of them have a history of Nazi appropriation, apparently. Um and it's used by Astor to highlight violent ideologies, because they are violent essentially. Yeah. Um they just don't find it violent, they find it normal, but hidden within a beautiful folk aesthetic. Wow. Um, he confirmed in interviews that the Haga are intended to represent a white supremacist community warning about how vulnerable, uh, grieving Danny, outsiders like Danny can be swallowed up by extreme, extreme exclusionary ideologies when offered a false sense of community. So I don't know whether it's again, you yeah, people who are when you see people who are sucked into any kind of bizarre cult or commune, they're often, you know, they're at their lowest. Yeah. And then they're like, ooh, and there's a here's an alternative lovely life for you. All of the talk of brainwashing. But then some people argue that Danny has found her true family at last. I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 36:34

Well, I mean, there's definitely a degree of manipulation with her, and she is uh very vulnerable. But at the end, um it's interesting. Uh the smile that she gives. But let's go back, let's rewind. Let's talk about Christian and Danny's relationships relationship, and and let's start with Christian because I think you were finding online that um a lot of people uh really dislike Christian and think he's a shitty boy. Well, he is a he's not a great boy. I know I wouldn't call him shitty. I think he's in a place where he's not sure about their relationship. Um he's talked it over with his friends, his friends are like, Ditcher. Um he's well, I he says, Well, I'm not sure. What if I want to get back together with her? And um and while he's thinking about these things, and it's been a year we're told, that he's been having doubts, and they've been together four years, we learn. Um the tragic incident with her sister's murder suicide happens, and she loses her whole family in one fell swoop in uh horrific circumstances, and she's de obviously devastated, grieving. And he feels probably rightly that he can't break up with her at this point, so invites her to Sweden. He's planned a trip to Sweden, which Pele has facilitated, and um she's found out about by chance, and it's two weeks away, and she's a bit upset that um he hasn't talked to her about it, but but I think um, you know, they talk about that. And I was looking for evidence of narcissism or abuse or toxicity in him, and very closely, and I couldn't see it. I mean, he's he's just a bit he's not very good at communicating um with her. Um he's a bit lost, I think. Um, but he's not a horrible person, but he is set up that way at the start, and I can and we are encouraged to identify with and feel sympathy for Danny, and therefore it can be I can understand why people would see him through her eyes.

SPEAKER_01 38:43

Absolutely. I think the the the film and the journey that we go on is Danny's journey. Um but but it's you know it's really clever. But talking about um Christian, and and it's a it's a term that's thrown around a bit too much generally, but especially with this film as well, they're like, oh, he's a he's a crap boyfriend. Yes, he is a crap boyfriend. I would say that he's immature, he's he's a little bit, he shuts down quite a lot, he's not intelligent, he's not emotionally intelligent. Um, but I would not call that toxic masculinity. It's not toxic. No, I think he's almost sort of doing his best. Yeah, it just happens to be that his best is a bit shit.

SPEAKER_00 39:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:25

Um, and there are specific moments in the film where again they show that Ariasta has put this in the script where Pele, this perfect Pele, who's actually got lots of plans here, um, gives um, because it's Danny's birthday, and again, I think it's is she 27, which again goes into the whole number nine rule. Pathologists will love this film. Um so Pele, like, ah, I've done you this beautiful, like handwritten, not handwritten, um, this handmade drawing and card, and he draws pictures of her, and um he he recognises her birthday before her own boyfriend does, and then and like a few seconds later her boyfriend's like and he's got a really crap cake with one candle in it, and she's like, Thanks. Um, so obviously Pelle is probably being positioned as the the better, um, the better boyfriend, but yeah, he's just a bit rubbish, um, and it's hinting that he is not the kind of man that she needs or wants, but I would argue that they have a codependency and they're a little bit toxic with each other. Um, it's done really realistically. Um, there are scenes where like she's like, No, don't go, don't go, please stay, stay, stay, talk to me. Let's talk this through. This is before um they end up in Sweden before the trip. Um, and you know, she does feel a bit punished for not being able to express herself, and of course she's going through a lot, but you know, he stays with her all night when she's grieving. He invites her to Sweden to the Hager Cole, even though all her all his friends advise him not to. He goes against what his friends want to do and decides not to dump her, as you said.

SPEAKER_02 41:03

Um also when when she's um hesitating about uh taking their first trip together, as in um hallucinogenic trip. Oh yeah, um, and she says, Oh, I'm not, I don't, I I don't I want to wait or something, and then he decides he says, Oh, I'll wait with Danny. That's true, yeah, and um to to come up, let's come up together. Yeah, and then Mark's like, Oh, it's no, we gotta do it, we've got to do it together because what that's no good if we're doing different trips. And um, and then she relents then, and because she sees that the position that Christian's in, and she sees that she's letting everybody else down. But that's an example of you know Mark's individualism uh versus her, he's not a team player versus her need for um a team or community connection.

SPEAKER_01 41:52

Yeah, and I guess she's a lot more she's he's quite self-serving, really, ultimately, isn't he? He's he's he's there for his own gain, especially with to have sex with Swedish girls. Yeah, I guess, and his friends are, um, and she's quite willing to beg. When were you talking about Christian? I was talking about Christian then. But Christian is quite self-serving as well, especially when he uh different subject, but he decides to do his um thesis. Thesis uh on the Hager um commune, which pisses Josh off because Josh is like, what? This is mine, but then now it's not gonna be original, and he's like, you know, suck it up, dude.

SPEAKER_02 42:27

You know, but that's a there's another example of them kind of clashing instead of working, he mentions working together. I want to open this. I'm really sorry.

SPEAKER_01 42:35

I don't want to disrupt your flow, your menstrual virginal flow. Oh, sorry.

SPEAKER_02 42:41

He talks about collaborating with Josh. All right, Josh is like sorry, all right. Day drinking, uh day drinking. Josh is like um uh resistant to it, and it was his idea first. Um and so it makes sense that Christian's going, well, no, we can work together on this. But it totally, if this was something that the Haga were doing, anyone in the Haga, they would be really chill about it. Yeah, man, let's just work together on this shit, you know. So it's just another example of of the dissent, the the the um divide within the Americans and that whole, you know, their attitude.

SPEAKER_01 43:25

It's the individualism. Yeah, and it gets punished in the film ultimately by um looking at the actual villainy and you know what is actually done crime-wise, they do all get drugged, sometimes willingly, sometimes unwillingly. But Christian is specifically drugged, manipulated, sexually abused. That's another issue I think that maybe the male audience would pick up on, possibly more than us. I'm just putting that out there. Um, there is a really um bizarre sexual ritual in the Film towards the end that is both funny and wrong and slightly sexy. If you like robattock thrusts, um, and but it kind of is it's almost like a fantasy, isn't it? Like some weird and very rosy baby.

SPEAKER_02 44:20

Come on. But the reality versus the fantasy, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 44:23

Yeah, there's there's a tribe of really like different ages. Well, lots of old women naked in a ceremonial hut, and then this beautiful virginal looking, we don't know if she's a virgin, girl lying down, giving herself um to Christian willingly, this is what she wants, to be impregnated, um, to, as we say, spread the seed and not get too inbred.

SPEAKER_02 44:47

I mean, I presume that she got pregnant after that first encounter because he's dead now, because they can't use his seed unless they unless they save some.

SPEAKER_01 44:57

Well, this is it, that's not very well thought out, is it? Because, you know, if this is a festival that only happens every 90 years, they need some more outsiders if they're not successful with the pregnancy. But I mean, let's face it, yes, he's uh has to have an erection to have sex, but as you said, he's been given some kind of drug and he's sort of forced into it. He doesn't look particularly happy about it, and there's a woman pushing his buttocks into you know when he was having sex, yeah, yeah. And she comes around and pushes his buttocks in this slightly fumbly, awkward, hilarious oh my god, is that funny, sexy, or disgusting kind of way? So, yeah, that is a form of um sexual abuse, it's just in reverse.

SPEAKER_02 45:38

Yeah, yeah, it's it's interesting. So that he's a victim, surely he's a victim. Yeah, he's a victim. Clearly, after that whole ritual is over, he is horrified and he runs out naked. Originally, apparently, he was supposed to grab a robe and then run out, but um the actor Jack Raynor said um no, I don't think he should. I think when he goes out there, he should be vulnerable. That's really bold decision. Yeah, and I think it's good it it makes total sense. If he had had the the character, if he had had the the thought to grab a robe, it changes things.

SPEAKER_01 46:14

It does, and it also makes it look like very dishonest filmmaking and not authentic because it's like no, you would be freaked out, he's not quite with it anyway. He's on drugs, you wouldn't go, hang on a minute, where's my slippers? Or let's start putting my trainers on very slowly. Yeah, you would just want to, and again, there's another people laughing at that moment, and that's when he discovers a really badly buried friend of his. I don't know which one it is. Simon, was that Simon that's buried? Yes, the English one. No, no, because he's oh yeah, one of them has the which one of them is sort of flayed and his back is turned into the spread eagle or something. Oh, is that Simon? That's the golden eagle. That's Simon.

SPEAKER_02 46:53

Yeah, that's the tall English guy. Yeah. Um it's Josh that was in the earth, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_01 47:00

So you see his legs sticking out of like a rose bed or something, and I'm like, that is that's lazy burying, or maybe it's meant to be like a wheelchair.

SPEAKER_02 47:09

What's the foot flower? The elements uh foot flower, it's pretty. Earth, air, fire, water. So um Connie, apparently, you don't see it in the film. The director's cut makes it a bit more clear as to what happened to her, but she was drowned. Oh, okay. And um uh so Simon has the wings, the blood eagle, the the lungs pulled out of his mouth. Which is a real Viking um kind of punishment. Yeah, which is air, fire, Christian gets burned in the bear suit, and then yeah, what did I not say? Earth. Earth is Josh because he was buried in the Oh, so we've got the the four elements as well.

SPEAKER_01 47:48

I like that. I didn't see that, and yes, I we didn't see the and apparently the director's cut also makes you not like Christian so much. It it delves into their relationship a bit more. Right.

SPEAKER_02 48:02

But yeah, anyway, we don't he ultimately she chooses to uh Danny chooses to sacrifice him and not the Hager member. Who would have been totally happy, by the way, to have been chosen for sacrifice because they're all okay with this.

SPEAKER_01 48:21

I've got a point on this one. Yeah. Just a little one. Um so at the very end, when they're in the ceremonial triangular sort of killing hut and kill hut. Kill hut. Uh so again, it all looks a bit almost comic. I mean, it's not comical, but um Christian is shoved into the sort of outside corpse of a bear, like the insides have been taken out. And then he's sort of sitting there with this bear head on, and well, whole, he's inside a bear, must be really hot. And then there's um various other members, people that are already dead, and they're stuffed into scarecrows, and they're placed in ceremony. And then there's someone who's a volunteered two volunteers, aren't they? And they are Haga. Yeah, yes, right? So this I thought was key, but I guess it's just how you would react. I think it's almost saying, Oh, everything seems fine. Everything's fine until it's happening to you. Because there's they're sort of sitting there and they're at first they're okay, and it's quite horrific, it really freaks me out. Burning, by the way, I I can barely watch it, like whether it's a film or in real life. I just oh it really freaks me out. I think I was burnt as a witch at some point. Um, have you seen someone burnt in real life?

SPEAKER_02 49:43

You said burning it, whether I see it on a film or in real life.

SPEAKER_01 49:46

Um, no, no, no, just the sort of concept of it. Because I know you know, if you hear about it in a in a in a car accident or something, or something blows up, I'm like, it just freaks me out. I can honestly, I can handle almost anything else. Fire, I can't handle it, it makes me feel sick. Anyway, so they're in this hut and they're about to die, and they seem okay at first, they're quite calm, and then as the flames get closer, so the people go in, here we are, we're not dying, la la la, here's a torch. They set fire and they walk away. And as soon as the flames get closer, they are screaming. They're not just going, Oh, this is fine. No, they are, they are like shit. This is this, oh my god, it's happening, it's really happening. I can't believe it.

SPEAKER_02 50:27

And um poor Christian can't let that out because he's so drugged up, he must be feeling it all inside.

SPEAKER_01 50:34

Well, that's another thing that I think is very cruel. So the other element of the drugging, because he gets drugged quite a few times, actually. One of them is the to make him sexually high, and then he's paralyzed, and then he's paralyzed, so he can't move. So he's sitting there in this chair, he's being wheeled around, and that's another element of cruelty. Yeah, it really is. Yeah, because why why as well? Why have they made him he can't even fight back or run away? No. Well, so that's a I think that's a real added bit of villainy.

SPEAKER_02 51:04

But so to go back to talking about Danny, then, who we've seen presented as we, you know, we see the film through her eyes, we see her presented as the victim, um, and we see her as the only one amongst the uh outsiders who seems to value community and teamwork. By the end, she is fully seemingly indoctrinated into the cult. She she she has just witnessed um the sex ritual, uh, not knowing exactly what it is. All she saw when she looked through the keyhole of the door was her boyfriend having sex with the redheaded uh villager. And everyone watching. And everyone watching, and she's she's she's like devastated by what she's just seen.

SPEAKER_01 51:52

There's that good emotional purging moment where with all the other women say because they believe that emotions should be shared, which I quite like. So when she's it's quite an odd scene, she's like going, I'm like really, I can't do it. She's like literally screaming, and then all the other women are holding her and can holding her space and experiencing it with her, which might actually just make you worse. Well, probably were.

SPEAKER_02 52:17

Well, they were doing that in the sex scene as well, weren't they? The women were making the noises that the other uh that the that uh certainly the girl was making, perhaps I can't remember. I don't think Christian was making any noises because it's so drugged up. Um, and then at the end, when the burning is happening and they're screaming inside, the people outside are doing.

SPEAKER_01 52:37

They're just flaying around as well and doing so they they they try and I guess it's emotional empathy to share emotion and things like that, and to um to respect what someone's going through. Um, but yeah, again, some people online have been like, oh, the cheating scene, he wasn't cheating. Let's just I wouldn't call it cheating.

SPEAKER_02 52:54

But she could have taken it that way because she doesn't know anything about what's the match, yeah. And she she's really she's already at her lowest ebb, uh still grieving.

SPEAKER_01 53:06

She's not sure if you're not just to um put him to death virus. Absolutely not.

SPEAKER_02 53:09

She, I mean, any any she's not right-minded, is she? No, I think she's got PTSD. I mean, she's probably got drugs in her system. Certainly, the pulsing flowers in her headdress suggest that. Um, but when given the choice of sacrificing the presumably willing Hager member versus Christian, who is paralyzed in a wheelchair uh through drugs, not permanently paralyzed, she chooses to burn Christian, which is which is evil. However way you look at it, that is not a nice thing to do. Even if your relationship is is on the floor, you know. He's not been, as we as we've discussed, he hasn't been abusive, he hasn't, he's just they're just not right together. Exactly. Um and and then as she's frowned, she's had this frown on her face the entire film. Her the corners of her mouth have been downturned in the way, the only way Florence Pew can do. Uh, and then we see it slowly turn into a smile, and it's soft and gentle at first, and then turns into this quite kind of maniacal grin almost. Yeah, yeah, quite reaching around.

SPEAKER_01 54:28

You're not smiling with your eyes, basically. Yeah, it's an evil smile. Um, but it no, it's good and it's subtle, and I think it had to happen. I like the ending. Um, I'm just not agreeing with people out there who think that he had it, he had it coming. I don't think he was toxic. Um I don't think other than being an American uh individual. American individual idiot. But um but ultimately, I mean, and I don't want to be too black and white, but if we're looking at villain, talking about villainy, I'd say the haga, you know, for better or worse, are the villain, you know, in terms of committing official crimes of murder, um, it would be the haga, and she and then she becomes part of that. But then again, I like the way that she is literally elevated, like you know, when she wins the dance, obviously I think the girls have been told to drop out of this dance. I did have something about that, and I can't find it. I can't find it. No, I think it might be in the um the research that we did for the actual screening that we had the other day. Um uh yeah, I've I have got some other facts for you, but that apparently is a real dance. It's called um yeah, it's like um uh it's it's well it's a folk story in Sweden. I can't remember what it's called. Um, and it was about um these people who danced till their till death. You dance till you die, and it's like a dance led by the devil. So that's that's based on a folk story, like a folk tale, like a fairy tale in in um Sweden. Um, and obviously they have been dropping like flies, I think, you know, to make her win. And then she's literally elevated, isn't she, on a platform, and she's crowned the queen, the Mayque, not the May Queen, sorry. Yeah, it is the Mayor. They call it May Queen. This is why I'm confused with Midsummer May Day, May Queen. Okay, um, she's the May Queen, she's put they give her a ridiculous amount of flowers, don't they? I mean, it's like the biggest floral hole dress.

SPEAKER_00 56:32

So that's high fashion.

SPEAKER_01 56:33

It's quite shapeless.

SPEAKER_02 56:35

It's it I mean, it's triangular, like the kill hut.

SPEAKER_01 56:39

Yeah, it's a bit over the top. Um, and she's sort of stuck in the middle of all these, like it's almost grotesque though. It's so over the top. Yeah, like how colourful can you be? And it she's almost being suffocated by these colours and these flowers and this this symbolism. Um, and yeah, I suppose at the end she literally figuratively um rises above everything and makes the decision to purge her entire life uh and you know, her American life, her American boyfriend, and possibly, yeah, stay with this new family.

SPEAKER_02 57:15

Yeah, well, she said from the from the beginning she was all she's lost, she's lost her com she's lost community, she's lost connection. She always wanted connection, she wanted to connect and communicate with Christian, who was resistant or unable to do that, and she's found that in this very effective uh community that seems to muddle along. I say muddle, it's not muddling, is it? They get they they're all very content and they have a plan and they all accept their roles and they accept death and from that perspective it is idyllic, but of course what they're doing is monstrous and it is evil, as I talked about. It's an outsider. Well, no, it is no, it is because it's calculated. As I said, they've they know about the outside world because we know that Pele and Ingamar have been out there gathering people and and and clearly able to fit very easily into the outside world. So they have knowledge of the way the outside world works. Um, certainly that guy in the commune also says we don't break the law. He says he wouldn't have allowed Connie to sit on Simon's lap in the car because that's illegal. And so he they have knowledge of the laws of Sweden, which presumably also include murder as a crime.

SPEAKER_01 58:38

Yeah, well, this is yeah, but they again they're not seeing it as as murder, I guess. I mean, we don't they don't really go into the whys of of why they need these victims, I don't think. But it's it's certainly only every 90 years. That's all right then. That's all right then. That's all right. Um oh yeah, I have got it here. The name of the cult, so the name Haga comes from Hagerlaten.

SPEAKER_02 59:02

Hagerlaten.

SPEAKER_01 59:03

Hagerlaten. It just sounds like um that ice cream. Sorry, Swedish people. It comes from Hagendas, yeah. No, the name Hager comes from Hagerlaten. The Hager song, a Swedish folk legend about a group of people who danced themselves to death, lured by a musician who was actually the devil. Um, the customs of this surface happy commune I've put here are a mix then of real Nordic folk story, tradition, numerology, and runes. Um, but they all have their basis in fact. But of course, there's a lot of um artistic freedom as well in the film. And I just want to say, because I was doing some research, you know that horrible event on the cliff? Yes, the at oh sorry. It's actually called Oh sorry, it's it's called Attestupa. Yeah. Well they call it Attestupa in the film, don't they?

SPEAKER_02 59:51

They do, but I I think that word maybe just refers to cliff, but they've used it in this way.

SPEAKER_01 59:57

Yeah, but there is um if you do like your folklore, there's a folklore, there's an there's an old Nordic folklore. You know they're really into their giants there. We don't really have that in English. Yeah, like the troll. Giants, Norwegian anyway. Norwegian film, yeah. Troll hunter, I mean. No, there's troll as well. They have giants in their Nordic and Swedish folklore, and apparently um the giants couldn't die. Um, and when it when when it came time for them to just sort of uh may maybe they were ill or whatever, or they wanted to not exist anymore, they would then leap off mountains in order to kill themselves. And there's also stories that um they don't know whether they're this is uh based in fact or not in Sweden of um in times of famine uh and poverty in history a long time ago, um, people old people would sacrifice themselves for the benefit of the commune community because there wasn't enough food around.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:01

I mean, you know, I went my first thoughts on this uh procedure ritual when yeah, we need to talk about that. Atisttupa, the 72, I thought, well, you know, they get a longer crack at life than they do in Logan's Run, where they're killed at 25.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:19

What's the one where you're killed at 30? Oh, I thought that was like I thought that was 25.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:23

Is it 30?

SPEAKER_01 1:01:24

I don't know, but that yeah, there's one, oh maybe it's 25. Jesus Christ, that's terrible.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:29

They're both so you know, yeah. Um be thankful you're not in the future, be thankful you're in the Swedish commune in modern day.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:42

Yes, so uh I mean there's there's tons you can um talk about with this film, and there's a lot of clues, riddles, symbols, numerology, there's hidden things that Ariasta has put in the film and literally woven into the fabric of say the tapestry at the very beginning.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:00

Yeah, so um and the love post the love uh spell, or whatever they call it, the that they're with the menstrual blood. Oh that that's depicted in in the film in um a tapestry. So if anything it's like the menstrual blood and the pubes in the pie. Have a pube, whatever they were eating. Pube pie.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:20

Yeah, I mean that's sort of a funny funny-ish moment as well, when he sort of like pulls a he pulls a pube out of his mouth during the ceremonial feast.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:28

But he must have because I think she must have put more than one pube in there. He must have eaten a few, not realised.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:34

Well, he didn't put it, he didn't put the pube back in his mouth. No, he didn't. He didn't go, ooh, nom nom nom. He must have already eaten some. So yeah. Well it it worked. Whatever. It did work, ladies.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:48

Or did the did the drugs work? The drugs always work.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:53

Thank you, Verve.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:54

Well, I was gonna say the verb said that don't work, but they're wrong. They do.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:58

Um so if anything, I think the film is deserving of at least two viewings because you can always find more to see and more opinions and more to think about when you watch the film, which I think is is a real win in itself. Yeah. All Midsummer haters out there.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:15

Midsummer. I've still got loads more to say, but I'm not gonna, because yeah, it's a big one.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:21

Sorry guys. Um, yeah, it is a big one, but we'd love to know what you think. Are we on the right track here? Do you agree? Do you disagree?

SPEAKER_02 1:03:28

Tell us your thoughts. Please be asked on Instagram or YouTube or Patreon or wherever else you find us. Patreon.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:38

Yes, indeed. I was very breathing. Putting my strange um head my ceremonial headpiece on again. I have not prepared a quote about evil. And do you like we've even decorated our set with lovely flowers to lure you into the false sense of security that we're here to be nice to you and we're lovely ladies with our with our plats. Show me your plus headphones. I love that. But no, we're just plain evil.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:04

Plain evil. Well, on that note, um thank you for all your fabulous insights. That's good. And thank you to Ben, thank you to Ben Wheatley. Uh, we will do an episode on Killlist, and I may trot out that quote again then because inevitably there will be different listeners. Sorry if you if uh you'll end up hearing it again, but you know, it's Ben Wheatley. I'll see what the the um quality of the recording is like because I did record him telling me this.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:33

Yeah, it's a good, it's quite a good answer. It's quite an academic answer when you're sort of put on yeah, difficult question. If you asked me that without me being able to research it, I don't know if I'd come up with quite as intellectual response as Ben Wheatley did. Smart, smart man. Thank you. Um yeah, okay, well, that's it from us. Um next time. Have we already oh we've already teased it, I think. Oh, tease it again. Next time, folks, we're delving into Kim's absolute favourite film, at least from her youth.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:05

Yes, extra. Oh my gosh. And I'm hoping that we're gonna have a little giveaway as well. Maybe another little surprise, but uh stay tuned.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:13

Stay tuned until next time. Stay tuned. Stay here, I'm gonna go.