The Uncanny Valley
Regular discussion of horror media. Movies, shows, books - we'll cover it all. Pack a bag, put on some shoes you don't mind getting messy, and join us in The Uncanny Valley.
The Uncanny Valley
UV26 - BROTHERHOOD OF THE WOLF (2001)
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Join charlie and chris as they join the pact of the wolf in a genre fusion unlike any other. Between Bellucci, brothels and bitemarks, just what is truly going on in this southern town and can they solve the mystery before the Beast of Gévaudan kills again?
Yes. As I walk through the uncanny valley of death, you shall fear no evil. For I am not evil.
SPEAKER_03This week we're we're talking about Brotherhood of the Wolf, Le Pacte de Loup, from 2001, directed by Christoph Guns. Who we got in this? Who we got in this? We got Mark DeCascos, we got Vincent Cassell, Monica Bellucci. We got a guy whose name is close to Jeremy Renner. Jeremy Renier.
SPEAKER_05I looked at it, I was like, the fuck Jeremy Renner's in this and we've benched him.
SPEAKER_00French Jeremy Renner, yeah.
SPEAKER_04We have um Amelie. God, how the fuck do you say that? The Queen? It's definitely not the Queen. De Quane?
SPEAKER_03One of those will be correct. And then Samuel LeBihan.
SPEAKER_04Like, why can't okay, like, I get French people, they need their like their fancy names. Vincent Castell. It's easy enough. What's Wolves little You don't need all this fancy stuff? Oh wait, I just spilt my rum. Oh no. This is a bad start.
SPEAKER_03No, that's an amazing start. This is perfect. I was trying to Google Brotherhood of the Wolf. I Googled broth.
SPEAKER_04Broth of the wolf. Famous hind soup. I've got to imagine. Probably tastes pretty good. It's just like a ham and pork. I'd imagine pork. It's gotta be stringy.
SPEAKER_03That's gotta be a really stringy, like um tough, muscly meat.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, but that's why you boil it in the broth. So you get like a big bigger.
SPEAKER_03That's true, it'll come apart really easily.
SPEAKER_05So you can boil bones to make a good broth. So I doubt the viscosity of the meat matters too much.
SPEAKER_00Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_05That would be metal as fuck. Well, see if someone went, hey yo, I made some soup. Do you want to check on it for me? And it was like a wolf skull on the inside.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. It also would be too much. It'd be kind of scary as well. But I'd try it.
SPEAKER_04See if he said, like, without warning, can you check a soup? I opened it to just look like a family pet's decapitated skull.
SPEAKER_03Oh no, I would scream, actually, uh, if you put it like that. Yeah, definitely. Because I wouldn't be thinking it's just a wolf. Some sort of wild animal.
SPEAKER_04Would you ever try dog meat, Chris? Say you went to China.
SPEAKER_02I don't know. I honestly don't know.
SPEAKER_04See, I'm interested in trying it. And I would like to go to the dog eating festival, but I don't like the fact that they like they cook some of them alive there. I don't think I could take Oh.
SPEAKER_03No, never mind then. I'm curious about it, but no, that's horrible. I don't want that.
SPEAKER_04Like you serve it up in like a a s a sandwich sub. I'm giving it a go. That's sounds pretty much sandwich sub. I'm trying to think who who would okay, if you're gonna eat a dog, what's the best dog to eat? Because I feel like they're all either skin or muscle. There's no like kind of meaty, meaty boys. Even like a pug is just kind of fat.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So too wobbly.
SPEAKER_02I was thinking of safe Bernards.
SPEAKER_04There's so much skin.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that seems disgusting. It seems like they would have some good meat on there, but no, they are just really wobbly. They're kinda like old men.
SPEAKER_04If you fried it up, it would be like a gram cracker tune into it.
SPEAKER_00Stop disgusting.
SPEAKER_05I like how this TV so fast from the movie. Anyway, Christoph Gans. First things first, would you even consider this a horror movie?
SPEAKER_00Only technically.
SPEAKER_03Not really. I wouldn't recommend this to somebody looking for a horror movie.
SPEAKER_05No, it's weird, but it's like it's in a weird position where if someone said to you this wasn't a horror movie, you would tell them they're wrong. But if someone said to you this was a horror movie, you also would not agree. Yeah, kind of strange genre fusion. Because like what would you because you can't call this a period piece because it's not at all accurate. You can call it horror because there's like just as much romance and political drama. But you can call it political drama, because I would say none of that's fleshed out well enough for it to be taken.
SPEAKER_01I think is the best way to put it.
SPEAKER_04It's like almost like a fantasy. No, that's the thing.
SPEAKER_01It's trying to be like an epic story told, especially the way it ends, you know, sort of told over a span of time with a certain framing.
SPEAKER_00I think some sort of epic or you know, like narrative structure being applied to the genre makes sense.
SPEAKER_05But okay. Now that we said this, Chris, I you've already let me know. You like this movie, yes.
SPEAKER_03I do, yeah. I let you know that about halfway through. So I have more complex thoughts at this point, I would say. But I still liked it.
SPEAKER_05Oh, so you think the first half is stronger than the second half?
SPEAKER_03Not entirely, but in parts. Yeah. And then there's parts I really liked about the second half, but then one or two elements I was annoyed by that really sunk it for me. Not sunk it, but I wish they had followed through a little bit more on.
SPEAKER_05Oh, that's because Christoph himself on the director's commentary goes, yeah, I really like the first half. I think the first half is a lot better. I think I kind of lost control in the second half.
SPEAKER_01Interesting.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, the first half feels more consistent to me. Definitely.
SPEAKER_04Definitely more tonally consistent, I would say, but I feel like But I feel like in the first half when you're getting lit little little sprinkles throughout of um the like the weird horror elements of the mixed martial arts or the strange secret brothel cult, I feel like it's like it's it's supposed to be like leading. Is it because this isn't Christoph's um script, but in what way would you read the second half of this movie and not go, How the fuck am I meant to follow up in the first half of this?
SPEAKER_00True.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. I think he does a good job, and I think it's clear he was still building up to something crazy happening in the third act, because it it's not so tonally inconsistent that it doesn't work. It does build into what happens in the third act or you know, the end of the second half of the movie. But I do feel like the the buildup is more tonally consistent and it's a little more you get little glimpses of the martial arts. And then in the second half it is just big, big fights. Which is fun, but it's also less less built-in character and storytelling, and it's just to showcase the fighting.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_04Well, that being said, we need to remember this is a Christoph Ganz film. And when I first watched this a week ago, you did get a message on me going, I cannot believe that Christoph Gans made this movie.
SPEAKER_03Chris, how are you? What did you mean by that? I wanted to ask you.
SPEAKER_04Because this is like like the the period pieces were like specifically like say we take like the the dinner table scene, where it's just them like musing on like the differences between these aristocrats and these hunters that have came off from foreign lands and this they're this is like this is so beautifully like shot and naturally acted with like phenomenal writing and set designs and but it just it feels like almost like like Titanic in like a way.
SPEAKER_00It's like it's great.
SPEAKER_04This is not the Christoph Gans I know that made Silent Hill one on three.
SPEAKER_03Well, that's the thing, is there are things we praised about that. You know, there are things in this that I can see translated into that in very, very tiny ways. Yeah, this is fantastic, and I still I sell it to people who don't watch movies. Or, you know, the couple people I've talked to about it, uh I've sold it as a period piece because they're not gonna be clocking all the period accurate stuff, and it's close enough because it's all set in and it has costumes and set design.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, but I mean like you take a movie like this, and then you take a granted he made Beauty and the Beast, which I think was after this, and you see in all the director's commentary, he talks so much about his love for like a 1940s version of Beauty and the Beast. So it was kind of like a natural evolution for him. But I mean when you take if you look at a movie like Return to Silent Hill, that is just a failure in every sense of the word, nothing is good about that film in any sense, there's no redeeming element, and then he pulls off shit like this, and it's like whe how what's happened to him in the last 25 years? Like I get there's you get things like stereo interference, I understand that. But come on, the the vast quality difference between some of the scenes in this and the the stilted acting, bad wigs, bad set design, terrible shots, non to be fair, I will say the plot in this at the halfway point, I I I've seen this twice, I have no idea what the fuck is going on in the second half.
SPEAKER_02The plot does come needs to be stabbed.
SPEAKER_04The funny thing is, the halfway point is where there's like this this movie's based on like a legend called The Beast of some French word, and he says from here on out, this is where it's like my take, and it's like okay, so this is this is where it falls apart.
SPEAKER_03Or it stops making sense, that's funny.
SPEAKER_04But Chris, did you know this was an inspiration for Bloodhorn?
SPEAKER_00No.
SPEAKER_04But now that you know that you can see it, you can see it from the s the costume design, can't you?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and the use of like guns every so often. The way that Vincent Catzel uses his one-handed gun feels kind of bloodborne.
SPEAKER_04Okay, so we get I I we're not gonna go scene by scene in this, but Chris, the opening scene, both incredible and comically stupid. Because we get, he said, okay, this was his version of Jaws. He was like, We're gonna do the Jaws opening, but it's gonna be a big, beautiful hill vista, and it's gonna be during the day. And then there's what can only be described as crackhead editing throughout the entire sequence.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, because it's during the day, they they think they have to cut it up, cut it to ribbons to make you feel claustrophobic.
SPEAKER_04But I feel would you not say that's like an issue throughout this entire movie? Like almost every scene has an editing choice that is just like baffling that someone would come up with it.
SPEAKER_03I think through the drama scenes, no. I didn't really notice it, but it affects the horror element of this movie uh you know, incalculably.
SPEAKER_00That's the horror scenes.
SPEAKER_04I can Chris there is possibly the wildest crossfade shot ever put to cinema history in this movie, and you're like, oh, the drama scenes editing doesn't have what about okay, well we'll go we'll go from the beginning before moving onward. The hunters we'll we'll talk about the martial arts in a sec. When they get to the castle, okay, and our main boy goes to sleep on the chair, and then it does like this little wiggly whim zoom out to Manny's face as he's alerted by something at the window. And it's like what it feels like like a a TV movie. Like this is someone's first editing job and they're having fun with the tools.
SPEAKER_03Uh I guess so. I don't know. It doesn't strike me as particularly egregious. It feels like it fits in the tone of it. You know, there's a a shot right at the end where the the camera a character opens a window, the camera flies out the window and then flies back in, and time has shifted. You know, th there's a lot of somewhat hokey stuff that I feel like fits with the tone of the movie.
SPEAKER_04But I feel like, were you not distracted at any point during this film? Where like something happened and you're just like, what the f Only during the horror scenes.
SPEAKER_03Especially one in the middle that I'll talk about.
SPEAKER_04See, that's fun for me because I feel like the the horror scenes in this were like my my favourite part. It's almost similar to like do you remember how insanely edited Dog Soldiers is during any of the like action scenes? It feels so similar. And I think these came out the same year.
SPEAKER_00Interesting.
SPEAKER_04Dog Soldiers is better. Dog Soldiers is.
SPEAKER_03This isn't even a werewolf movie, is it? Really? Spoilers.
SPEAKER_04It's not really, but I feel like it's it's see, this is where I think it's in the canon.
SPEAKER_03You can recommend it as a werewolf movie, but it's not really a werewolf movie.
SPEAKER_04But I think it's fun because it flips it in a way, okay, you get your typical werewolf, and that is a man that becomes a wolf. But in this, it's a beast wolf that is under the control of a man. And I feel like that's that it was I feel like it's still supposed to be a werewolf in a sense. That the the the wolf beasts' actions are controlled by a man.
SPEAKER_03It is, yeah, because they very clearly show early in the movie that there is a wolf and a man element to whatever is haunting this area. Which is supposed to infer the idea of a werewolf. At the very least. I I wasn't even sure at first if it was a metaphorical man or an actual guy. But then I figured it was Vincent Cassell pretty quickly.
SPEAKER_04Oh, you you figured it out? I had no likely. I was so lost.
SPEAKER_03At the very least, by the time that Mark DeCascos got shot, I was like absolutely sure, but I was pretty suspicious.
SPEAKER_04See, for me, I just thought because the the the plot was so large and there were so many characters, and we started to get introduced to like the weird, like almost pagan people. I was like, okay, so it's just gonna be it's just gonna be like a uh weird like underground cave group that's doing this. If I took Vincent Castell started being really incest and aggressive to people, I was just like, What what is what is going on?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, he was trying to turn it into a cure for wellness.
SPEAKER_04Do you Chris? You need to help me. What is what was Vincent Castell's relation to these pagan people?
SPEAKER_00I think he just was part of the wolf cult.
SPEAKER_02He wanted I don't know. I don't I I wasn't really following what their goal was, to be honest.
SPEAKER_04I didn't get it either, because like okay, Monaba Monica Bellushi, okay, she comes in and she's like, I don't know what's going on with Monica Bellucci. Me either, but we'll we'll piece it together. Okay, she comes in to the prison cell and she's like, okay, there's a secret, there's a secret society, and I think she's like, okay, they branched off from like the Vatican City, maybe, and she's like, Oh, they can they can control everything and they have some goal, but it seems to only be maybe the people that were looking for the wolf in the first place, Vincent Kissell, even though he's from like a different area, and these weird pagan people who try to kill the own woman for being a witch at one point, even though she just has epilepsy. That was hilarious.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and then this guy's to step in and save her, even though they were about to burn her.
SPEAKER_04I think Chris, it's so it's such a strange, strange movie. And the thing is, Chris, you'll have fucked me up. Looking at this movie, how much did you think this movie cost?
SPEAKER_00Uh I'm not like 18 million?
SPEAKER_04Well, that's that's low. It was uh 29 million.
SPEAKER_00Okay. What would your guess have been?
SPEAKER_04I would have guessed like a hundredth with like the amount of costumes and extras and big actors, and they've hired Wolfs and Jim Henson was a big thing.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, there's a lot of fucking stuff going on in this movie. You're not wrong.
SPEAKER_04Uh and they were filming in cash.
SPEAKER_03Estimating budgets, but also I figured it would be lower than expected, because otherwise it wouldn't have gotten me.
SPEAKER_04But see, if that was what fucking me up, because I might I feel like see if you made this film out of France, this would have been so expensive. I don't know how Gans pulled this out of his ass. Even with being 2001, the CGI budget should have been like a couple of million at least. Because the only man's the CGI is bad, but it's 2001 CGI.
SPEAKER_03It does not hold up whatsoever. It looks terrible.
SPEAKER_04It looks absolutely thing was there's so much going on. Like as I said, Jim Henson made a puppet version, and there was an animatronic, and then there's just the CG, like you can't even tell what you're looking at.
SPEAKER_03It looks like it looks kinda messy sometimes, it does.
SPEAKER_04Like it cuts from being fucking Le Miserabla to like a Torchwood Fringe period history episode.
SPEAKER_03It is very Torchwood or uh yeah, Russell T. Davies Doctor Who era.
SPEAKER_04But even Russell T. Davis Doctor, I feel like the CGI at least looks like it fits the environment. You know what I'm saying?
SPEAKER_01It seems like um equivalent to what, Lazarus? That monster?
SPEAKER_04The la Yeah, but the Lazarus is particularly bad. I feel that's an unfair it's pro it's on par. It's on par with the werewolf from that Doctor Who episode.
SPEAKER_00That's true. That's a low bar.
SPEAKER_04Did you it's a low bar, I think it was maybe the same year.
SPEAKER_03Also to compete with the BBC with your movie.
SPEAKER_04The BBC in the early 2000s, I'm sure had a lot more money than a historical French drama. Oh, surely. At least had better resources.
SPEAKER_00I guess so. To make a werewolf.
SPEAKER_04To make a werewolf, but you need to remember Doctor Who also was a full season, and this was just a movie that Christoph Gans was allowed to make.
SPEAKER_00That's true. Barely, it sounds like.
SPEAKER_04Well, what about the Wolf Beast design? Do you at least like the design of it when it does not look like ass?
SPEAKER_02Not really.
SPEAKER_04You don't like the design! No, uh the metal and no yeah, he comes from the metal people, so he's got big metal armor on it. It's so cool, Chris. What the fuck? How do you not like him? He's a big boy, he's a very, very, very big boy.
SPEAKER_00Uh yeah, it just doesn't matter.
SPEAKER_04He's also kind of a sad boy. Do you crush the pet? Jim Henson designed it, Chris, and you're like, nah, it's fucking ass. He's a Muppet. It's like the single handedly coolest Muppet known to man.
SPEAKER_03The puppet looks great. I just don't the wolf design didn't wow me.
SPEAKER_04Okay, we're we're gravely, gravely disagreeing here. That's like my my favorite part of this.
SPEAKER_00Oh no. Unfortunately. I wanted to.
SPEAKER_04Okay, so we'll we'll go we'll go roughly we'll go a rough plot summary. Okay, so the two hunters. Well we should probably talk about the martial arts if we're talking about the two hunters. Which I don't okay, I still don't understand what the hunters really are.
SPEAKER_03Like it seems like they're it seems like they're commissioned by the Queen or something, but it's sort of it's a weak connection.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, but it's like okay, he's I mean guy, he's a colonizer, right? Like he makes reference to attacking Native American towns with sucks. And then he's like, I got kidnapped by them, and then Manny helped me break free, and now we're best friends, we're best buddies.
SPEAKER_03Even though he killed, he admits later to killing Manny's whole village.
SPEAKER_04Like we slaughtered them all by like used like dead bodies with a disease or something to throw them back.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I mean he says, Oh no, we didn't kill them all, like smallpox killed them, but come on. Come on.
SPEAKER_04It's a war crime he committed against Manny's village.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_04But see if he was kidnapped, that means Manny himself kidnapped him and then he broke free from Manny using Manny's help.
SPEAKER_02Crazy. What a life.
SPEAKER_04But now they're best buddies and they want to elope to Africa together. Where Vincent Cassell once was and got the big wolf. This is what I mean by there's there's so much in the second half that I just have no clue what's going on. Because I feel like they're supposed is Vincent Cassell was he a colonizer, maybe, and like he's because we see he's racist towards Manny at the dinner table season.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, slash big game hunter, I guess.
SPEAKER_04So I like I I assume it's supposed to be Cassell's like the bad version of our main character where he does not feel remorse for what he did, and he keeps after but I think he means America. Like there's a few times in this where we said Africa, and I'm like, is this are you meaning America? Is that what you mean?
SPEAKER_03They do say America once or twice, I feel like. But yeah, then they're talking about Africa most of the time.
SPEAKER_04To go back to where Manny's from. Because we're friends now.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And he's not even he's Native American, right?
SPEAKER_03Is what they say. He's an an Indian, is what they say.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, they keep they keep calling him an Indian. Even Christoph Gans calls him an Indian, which is very funny because it's clear in the director's commentary that he he keeps calling Manny as like he calls him the only good character in the movie, and he's the one that all his mobs buy on. So he's like, Yeah, I love Manny. Go go Native Americans, but he keeps calling him an Indian.
SPEAKER_03Which is crazy, yeah, which is a misconception for anyone who's not aware that's not Native Americans.
SPEAKER_04Americans are not Indians, fun fact. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03No. Okay, I'm I'm it also is frustrating. I had the notion beforehand looking at the cast. I looked at the cast of all like French people, and then Monica Bellucci and Mark DeCascos, an Asian American man, and I had the worry that he in this period piece would be playing a Native American. And guess what? He was because he's just not white, he's a not white guy.
SPEAKER_04But see, think this is the thing I've I Christoph Gansko.
SPEAKER_03I love him.
SPEAKER_04He's incredible, he's the best part of it, actually. Fuck the Wolf Manny is insane in this film.
SPEAKER_00Love him.
SPEAKER_04The the the editing does not do him justice, but his fight scenes are fucking they're on another level.
SPEAKER_03Totally rule. I love Mark DiCasco. If you watch the show Warrior, the TV show based on the Bruce Lee stuff, he's in the third season, he's great in that.
SPEAKER_04You go back to Silent Hill, and so much of the the action is really, really difficult to keep track of. And then Christoph Gans is like, oh yeah, we filmed these Hong Kong-inspired martial arts scenes where Manny's fighting five people with metal claws and it looks great. And you're like, Gans, how did you manage this? What came over you?
SPEAKER_03That fight scene with Manny, we're talking about the one right before he dies, right?
SPEAKER_04Well, I was referring to him at the camp, but we can see that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03There is the the other one with claws also, the one where they're all testing him. Yeah, there's a lot of good shows.
SPEAKER_00Go ahead.
SPEAKER_04No, it's more like we're being. I think we're just actually attacking him. Unfortunately, he's too good to be racist against he will just kick your ass.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, pretty much. He shows that as he's not gonna suffer fools. They just kind of ingratiate themselves with the area, right? They ride into town, they beat up a few people. They say we're here to hunt the wolf. Or no, they say we know there's um like murders happening. We're here to solve the murders, basically.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, but like like Mary's Manny's took our boy and he's turned him into a better person, it seems. Because it's like we don't really seem to care about the money. I think they more just like this is just a goal they've set for themselves that we will kill this. We don't even know if it's a wolf at the start, we just assume it's a wolf.
SPEAKER_03They're just living for the fucking thrill of it, man.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, they're having a great time. Speaking of a great time, Chris, this brothel scene, how did this how did this film not get Is it R-rated in America? Because it's only 15 in the UK.
SPEAKER_03It's definitely R-rated here.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, you would think that being a like I've never seen I've never seen a pussy in a 15-rated movie. Do you know the shock I got during that scene? I was like, what the fuck is going on? I had to double check my blue. It wasn't oh my Gans. Gans is a gunner man, oh my god, see the amount. Like every every scene in the director's commentary, he's talking about what cameras he used, what type of shots he used, why that's supposed to convey certain emotions, what films he took inspiration from during these scenes. During the brothel scene, oh my god, he's he's just talking about how fun it was, how much he enjoyed filming everything. I I've got quotes from him. Let me pull up my notes because there is there is insane quotes from this man during it.
SPEAKER_00Uh oh.
SPEAKER_03Please, please ingratiate us.
SPEAKER_02Grace us with these.
SPEAKER_04Well, when we first we first cut to the brothel scene, and he goes, Ah, the brothel scene. My favorite scene, it's very voluptuous. Later on, he says, No. I asked myself, after filming this, should I make an erotic film? These scenes were moments of pure happiness for me.
SPEAKER_02No, he would make a bad erotic film. I would not watch that.
SPEAKER_04You wouldn't you you wouldn't work Christoph Gans Gunnar movie?
SPEAKER_03No, he he could not do like a Cronenberg or a fucking, I don't know, Jane Campion movie.
SPEAKER_04I think he's got the balls to pull a crash. I think see if see if Cronenberg never moved crash and gave the script to Gans, I think he might, I think he might pull through.
SPEAKER_03You think he sounds too giddy about the sexuality.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, but he's also French, remember. So he would have put scenes on.
SPEAKER_03He he's a lot more well adjusted about it.
SPEAKER_04He even Okay, this is why I mean the the insane editing, because you say, oh, the the drama scenes are fine. The milish boob mountain crosshead is one of the most insane editing choices I've ever seen put to film.
SPEAKER_03I was probably distracted during that scene.
SPEAKER_04Well you would you you weren't you weren't perturbed that her boobs certainly were certainly like Mount Everest for a moment.
SPEAKER_00No. Probably think of one of the times.
SPEAKER_02It's cold to do.
SPEAKER_04Even Gan said, you can deduce from this crossfed who the director is and what kind of personality he has.
SPEAKER_02Oh my god. That's funny.
SPEAKER_04But none of the films have that vibe. Like Silent Howl, yeah, the weird the weird wrapping the clothes off scene, but it's not sexual at all, and uh nothing in the like remaking of was he ever like haha boys check this one out. He was just like, Look, isn't this horrific?
SPEAKER_00And then we get to this anything.
SPEAKER_04There's it even like any time we cut back to Monica Belushi's, I was like, I chose this outfit because it accentuates her curb her curves, and it's like Chris man, talk about talk about the cameras again, please. Anything at all the thing is he's kind of feminist though. See, whenever you watch his like makings of, he's always talking about how he wants the characters to appear just as strong as the men, and why he picks female characters and proficiency. It's like remember we were talking about Silent Hill, and he was talking about why he changed the main character into a woman because he thought it better worked with the mother themes, and then everyone online was just calling him sexist.
SPEAKER_02Which is crazy. I hate that.
SPEAKER_04Because I I wanted the woman to appear strong, because any women would have also had to fight about someone like you. And it's like this, he's he's like a progressive individual, he's just a bit horny. Like, I don't I don't get what the deal is.
SPEAKER_02Can't be faulted for that.
SPEAKER_04And he's like, he's French. I think the fact that people behaved in the brothel scene as much as we did. Like, did you there's a scene in this where you you get many naked, okay? Man's man's a fucking tank, holy shit. Such a scary-looking guy when shirtless. But like he would cut to the bottle, and there's a penis-shaped bottle in the scene, and it's like, but he's just he's just a French man. That's just what French people do.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03I I was a little disappointed that the movie didn't I mean this is I guess for later, but the movie didn't turn towards Marianne to make her the main character.
SPEAKER_04But do you feel Marianne's plot is anywhere near as interesting as the wolf plot?
SPEAKER_03I thought she would become part of the wolf plot because there is that moment where our two main guys are dead. Right before our our dude gets exhumed and comes back to life like Jon Snow.
SPEAKER_04Marianne's our ginger girl, isn't it? The one that our main boy whizzes up.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_04I have there is insane, insane background stuff on her. Did you know she was in a film that premiered in Cannes before this, and people called her ugly and lazy?
SPEAKER_00What?
SPEAKER_04I know Gans is talking about I always thought she was beautiful. I I can't believe the way they treated her at the Cannes Film Festival. Luckily, people in this film. Why would like A, why would you be so horrible?
SPEAKER_02B ugly?
SPEAKER_04What do you mean? And then C, it's it's it's like it's cans. Like they'll they'll you could shit on a chair and people's cans would clap for you.
SPEAKER_00They'd clap for at least eight minutes.
SPEAKER_04They'd clap for eight minutes, and there would be a three-minute standing ovation, and then you would get a little news article written about how someone passed out of your showing because of the pure cynic. Um yeah, exactly. Are you okay there if you went on a perilous journey?
SPEAKER_03I had to go the Bonnie was trying to escape.
SPEAKER_04This is why I don't treat Cannes as well.
SPEAKER_03I just had to get it away from the gate so it didn't hurt its teeth.
SPEAKER_04Because it's like, as we talked about, I think it was the other week, the only film that Cannes seemed to have a visceral bad reaction against was irreversible. Gasp, possibly the most famous French director right now for how good his movies are. And it was because they didn't like a rape scene. And it's like, why do people still take the Cannes Film Festival as serious? When you get a supermodel looking woman and they go, She's ugly and lazy and should not be in cinema. You get a movie that's about how rape is bad, and they go, I didn't like that rape was bad in this movie. And then they'll they'll shit in their hands and clap if you played the fucking minion movie for them. I don't get it. I don't get why it's seen as such a prestige thing to get the Cannes award.
SPEAKER_03It just is because it is, really.
SPEAKER_04But it's not like it's not like the big thing. I understand why, even if you don't agree with the Oscars, getting an Oscar is like a big deal because that's the award. Why would you even bring your movie to Cannes?
SPEAKER_03I think at this point it just perpetuates because it's also a place. Film festivals are a place to get distribution, so they're still going to perpetuate. People are gonna have to bring their movies there to get vision on them. To get distribution.
SPEAKER_04But it's not the 90s anymore. You can self-distribute if you want to. Like you get companies like Neon and that that are intentionally looking for smaller movies to distribute.
SPEAKER_03You can, I just feel like that's always gonna be At least, you know, it it's going to exist as long as it does. So as long as these film festivals exist, we're still gonna have uh I don't know, this whole circuit.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, but don't you feel it's counterintuitive? Because as we've seen, Cans can boo your movie if it's good, and then you've just hurt any chance of getting like outward reach from the entire French film community.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I don't disagree.
SPEAKER_04Or you'll get like a movie like from the like the the cool French body horror that I talked about like last year or two, where it's just no one's picked it up, and it's a good movie, and it's been in the fucking circuit for like three years now because they refuse to not get picked up at a film circuit, and it's just not happening, and now it's leaked online, and anyone that gives a shit has already seen it.
SPEAKER_00That sucks.
SPEAKER_04Fuck Cans. It's like the this is like the third strike for me. It was from not getting anything, then gaspering away, and now just cut just being mean for no reason to a good actor.
SPEAKER_02Being really mean to a young talented actor. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Plus, we called her a couch potato. How is she a couch potato? She was in a mood. She was in a mood, she's good.
SPEAKER_02It's not the whale, she's the machine the whale.
SPEAKER_04She was the the body. I just feel like I've got more fat now. She's not behind the sleeves.
SPEAKER_02No.
SPEAKER_04But like, even if someone's film role is to be lazy, and then they be lazy, that is for work. Like how you can't you cannot be lazy on a film set, it's not about There's not really a shortcut.
SPEAKER_02You would get fired if you weren't doing what you were being asked to do.
SPEAKER_04Oh. But anyway, I do I like her character. I feel like it is. Do you not think it's a bit quick that she's just like, oh yes, you've cheated on me, but I don't care. I'm in love with you. I feel like that's a bit like you're pushing like at that point, aren't you?
SPEAKER_03The building of a love triangle in the middle of a werewolf period piece is a little underbaked, I'll admit.
SPEAKER_04And like, it's not really a triangle because he he professes well, he steals the the ginger oil from someone else.
SPEAKER_05And then he's like, Oh no, don't worry, I do like you. And then he goes to a brothel and sleeps with the the a like a cult leader he finds there that stabs him, and then he still sticks with her. And then she goes, Oh yes, you cheated on me. It's like this isn't a love triang, there's no triangle to be had here.
SPEAKER_03They're setting up at least like a romance plot between the three of them.
SPEAKER_04Kind of but it's like it's also like the political drama where it's like it's the movie's almost three hours long, and but there's so much stuff trying to go on that somehow none of it really gets the time needed for it to be completed.
SPEAKER_00No, that's what's weird.
SPEAKER_04We get two cults. I don't know what any of them are doing. We get I love triangle, but it doesn't work as a triangle. We get the wolf thing, that I still don't understand why it's a thing. And then we get the hunters, and I'm not sure what we're supposed to be doing.
SPEAKER_03We could get more in the time we have, or we could get what we got in less time, I think. This could have been a two-hour fifteen, two hour nineteen movie, at least.
SPEAKER_01I mean, I you know, I guess it was when they cut it down the theatrical, but it it's still I don't know.
SPEAKER_00It feels like they could have filled out this time a little bit more.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, but they could have, but also like, but then all the shots were like you're just sitting in the atmosphere gets taken out. It's like that's true, but would you want to cut out the city?
SPEAKER_03That's the problem with the theatrical cut, is I know that that's what they would cut out. They wouldn't cut out you know, action or anything.
SPEAKER_04Not that I want them to cut action, but but it's the fucked up thing is what I I say all this and I'm silly, but this is really good at the same time. Like there's so many things that stopped it can be a great like a phenomenal movie. But it's so similar.
SPEAKER_03Maybe a couple, but there's very few. Maybe Interview with the Vampire is a little like this, like sort of unique takes on period monster stories that have large, you know, uh overarching narratives rather than contained stories.
SPEAKER_04Even in something like Interview with a Vampire is like a political period piece that you get like this is a wholly unique movie and almost ever even the editing being batshit, I think, adds to it. Because editing it, like it's like I don't know if it's like a made-for-TV action movie, but nothing nothing lines up with that in any way, shape, or form.
SPEAKER_00I've never seen anything like this.
SPEAKER_04Like even when he's talking about who you watch the director's commentary, the amount of shit he He says that he was inspired from our side. He's talking about first bits from Italian, there's bits from Russian, there's bits from German, bits from England. And it's like it must have been he must have been off his head on coke or something was making this film. Because how do you probably grab all these pieces and go I'm gonna I'm gonna do it all? Maybe he got a budget and he's like, fuck it, this is my chance. I'm doing everything right now, and I can't be stopped.
SPEAKER_03Maybe that was his problem. He just put all of his creative juice into one movie and he had nothing left.
SPEAKER_06He's just being used like a fucking driver. He's just got like a little bit of moisture left in him.
SPEAKER_03He's what uh he's what people accused the Wachowskis of, but wasn't true.
SPEAKER_04See, I'm not seeing anything Wachowski aside from Matrix. I can't I can't say either or on that.
SPEAKER_03Speed Racer, really cool. Cloud Atlas is very interesting.
SPEAKER_04Is Speed Racer the one that has fucking insane looking colours?
SPEAKER_03Absolutely nuts visuals.
SPEAKER_04I can't see fucking film Twitter's been going off in a serious amount of people on film Twitter, but like you have to watch Speed Racer. And I've seen clips where I'm like, how how are vibrant colours? Like, how are colours that vibrant possible?
SPEAKER_00It looks so incredible.
SPEAKER_04But the thing is, all the clips I've seen also look really is like it's just like a visual overload because it looks really amateur and then it'll just like glowing color in your face, and you're like, what the fuck is it?
SPEAKER_03It doesn't look amateur, but it is a visual overload. The point of it isn't that you are um it's not about focusing on it and like picking out the fine details, it's about like imagine you're in the car and you're being fucking blasted back by G-forces. That's how you want to feel watching it. So you can barely focus on the car in the middle of the screen, and then you're just sort of taking in everything else.
SPEAKER_04So would you liken it to a Tron of a void?
SPEAKER_03A little bit, and then it's very anime because there's they'll have announcers like sliding across the screen, just a talking head.
SPEAKER_00Oh interesting. Yeah, it's very anime inspired.
SPEAKER_04But the thing I feel like the thing is that we can tell Gans has like he has the energy. I don't know, maybe he just struggles with funding.
SPEAKER_06Being that weird French guy that made a mediocre Silent Hill movie and then a really, really, really, really bad Silent Hill movie.
SPEAKER_03Well at this point, yeah, he's fucked now. But it it's weird that he wasn't able to get anything made between then and now. Anything else, I was right.
SPEAKER_06He just seems like a ghost.
SPEAKER_00Good god. When he's not you okay? Yeah. Go ahead.
SPEAKER_04But he just he seems like a ghost when he's not making fit. I'm like, what is I don't know, maybe he's got good royalties from Brotherhood of the Wolf and he's just living off his part in the prophecy and his juicy squeezed into the like what is what's this man doing? I want to see more I want him to make like a bunch of really low budget weird shit.
SPEAKER_03Maybe he could make like a a horny Bride of Frankenstein movie.
SPEAKER_05Are you in this day of age saying you want another take on Frankenstein?
SPEAKER_03No, not really. Especially Bride of Frankenstein has been done already recently a few times. Lisa Frankenstein with Catherine Newton.
SPEAKER_04We had Lisa Frankenstein, we had Poor Things, which clearly takes from Frankenstein. And is also haunted Frankenstein. I feel like Christoph Gans fucks with poor things. I feel like that's on the top of this man's vest.
SPEAKER_03Imagine Yargos Lanthamus gets Christoph Gans to work with him on something, that'd be kind of cool.
SPEAKER_04Yes, that's kind of see the thing is I feel like it would do nothing but hinder Jorgos. That's the issue. I feel like it would do nothing but drag him down. I would like think of the genre combinations he would pull out.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, they could do some weird shit.
SPEAKER_04I feel like I would have more fun with if he worked with Gaspar Noe. But the thing is I know Hideo Kojima's working with him right now, and I would never I would ever any day of God Green Earth ever want to hinder a Gaspar Noe Hideo Kijima product uh product.
SPEAKER_00That would be amazing. Would we want that to be a movie or a game?
SPEAKER_04I think you would want to go a game. You would have to go a game. Because I feel like Hiro Kijima would just make a boring movie and say that that's the point. That's you would just make a real He would make a really, really long film and go, you're supposed to be bored at these points.
SPEAKER_03He would cop out, he would make bad stalker.
SPEAKER_04Or he would make like see you get this strange like art piece cinema that aren't made by directors but like experimental artists where it's just like some guy in a room hitting a string for two hours.
SPEAKER_00God damn it. It would just be time-lapse footage.
SPEAKER_04You mentioned the special effects are bad in this. But I I have to draw your attention. Some of it is crazy good. Like the there's a scene where they're standing on a snow-covered rooftop talking with each other. And the snow's CGI. And you see the characters walking through it, and you're like, but how like you couldn't do that nowadays. How did you do that?
SPEAKER_02That's incredible. Okay.
SPEAKER_04You get the scene where you see after the hunting scene where you see the huge body, like body pills of wolves all across the land. That's three sleeping wolves where they just edited the CGI and copy and pasted.
SPEAKER_00Damn.
SPEAKER_04That looks like it looks like real. It looks real. I had to look up if they killed wolves making this film.
SPEAKER_03It made me sad, yeah. They say, God help you, if this wasn't one of them.
SPEAKER_04They fucked up, they did kill a horse, but by accident during that scene. Uh he Gans doesn't say what it was, he just says there was an accident on set that killed a horse. And he said the shot was so good that he wanted to keep it in, but he he couldn't bring himself to keep uh the horse lying in this movie.
SPEAKER_00Hmm.
SPEAKER_04There is uh uh a real animal corpse in the movie. I want to know if you can if you could tell me where it is. If you're looking at the film at the same scene I am. Chris, tell me what you're looking at.
SPEAKER_03Right now I'm at about an hour ten minutes in, so uh what's w a courtesan has just walked in on I think Vincent Cassell sneaking around in the brothel.
SPEAKER_04Oh, you weren't paying attention, Chris. The taxidermy scene? That was real taxidermy scene. That makes sense, okay. And it was fucked up. See when I was watching this movie, I was like, Well, I just looked up two other animal scenes, and they're just good special effects. And when I was watching the taxidermy scene where he cuts open the throat and there's blood spilling out, and he's like breaking the jaw to stuff it, I was like, that must that must have been Jim Henson on this one. That's a good ass prop. That looks so real. Oh fucking no, that is so real. That was some real shit going on. But again, how is this a 15? I just watched a wolf.
SPEAKER_03It's definitely an arc here.
SPEAKER_04There's pussy. What what else do they what cunts are swearing? There's a bit of racism. What else do you there's incest? I can't think of it.
SPEAKER_02I would say there's a decent amount of casual racism.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, but there's also a decent amount of um unintentional racism from Gann's part as well.
SPEAKER_00True.
SPEAKER_03Well, is there anything going on in the in the commentary?
SPEAKER_04No, it's um it's Gans being very horny over Monica Bolichi again.
SPEAKER_02Alright, alright, go.
SPEAKER_04Like even oh, see the scene where she's lying naked in the bed. I've not got it wrote down, but I know he was talking about he was like, oh, these are some of my favourite shots in the film. This is this is why it's great to be a filmmaker, and it's like, Chris, you know not Chris, you, but Chris Christoph, you know this woman. You know this woman in the movie. Did you Joe's fucked up this year? This is what I mean by when I message you going, there's insane shit in this movie, but it's like, oh, that's how we did it. Do you Monica Belushi, she struggled with an accent that she ADR her voice lines on?
SPEAKER_03No. Really? Yeah, she was. Oh yeah, you asked me to keep track of that. I didn't even clock it at all.
SPEAKER_04No, that was a different scene.
SPEAKER_03No, I was not aware of that.
SPEAKER_04I love that your house. I don't know who's moving in your house, but you have such like a hammer horror, like gothic film creaky door.
SPEAKER_03I know. I know, it's like uh it's like a musical stem.
SPEAKER_04See if you were working on like a horror film, that would be such amazing sound design just to record your own fucking door in your house.
SPEAKER_03Should I record foley sounds before I oil the doors?
SPEAKER_04Oh, I think you should. I think see if you sent it to like one of those sound design companies that accrue like sound effects, they would take that shit. That sounds like Vincent House opening like a graveyard door at like midnight.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. That's a vacuum.
SPEAKER_04Uh-huh. Uh Chris, we're we're starting to approach the second half of the movie. What about the second half that you think didn't work as well? Did you like, oh, I found it like a little off the reins?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it feels like I feel like it loses focus a little bit. I like the mystery.
SPEAKER_03I mean, you know, it's a little difficult to say loses focus directly like that, because a mystery inherently is sort of trying to find a focus, or it's focused on something that's undefined, but it never it never really finds its footing after sort of revealing more to the audience about what's going on. And it never fully draws connections between everything emotionally or logically. You're just kind of bouncing from one thing to the other. Which means once you're getting into these places with characters in danger. You care, but you're not invested in a way that you could be if you were given more time to actually emotionally understand what's happening. Like Mark DeCasco's getting trapped in the cave is awful. Great fight scene. I want to talk more about it. But it also just it comes out of nowhere, and that's effective about it. But it also just when he's in the cave, you don't fully understand the stakes of him being in there until he's dead.
SPEAKER_04But do you not think that adds to it, though? Because I did not expect Pac Man to die. In my notes, I wrote, Oh my god, Mario, my goat, and then he was fucking murped. The amount of shock I felt.
SPEAKER_00It was.
SPEAKER_04It just But say we put him in a in a situation where his character arc would go full circle and would feel emotionally resonant if he died here. Would you not then go, Oh, he's going to die in this cave, and then it wouldn't work as well?
SPEAKER_03Oh, I agree. Yeah, no, I don't want them to set the character arc up like that. I I don't mind when a character arc has a surprising conclusion, even when it's you know, when it makes sense, at least. Uh but it's more the He just sort of winds up in this cave. This isn't a cave that we know there's lots of guys in. We don't have a notion of where if he knows that there's this many people here normally, but where he thinks those people are now that he can wander around in the caves. You know, it there's no uh versimilitude to a lot of the things happening in the second half of the movie. They just sort of happen the way they're scripted to happen.
SPEAKER_04But I feel like it worked well because we see the dog fighting scenes earlier, and then they don't do anything with it, and I'm like, okay, I wonder what this weird this weird little cave is. And then you see like I presumably because they've injured the wolf, they tracked him back to this cave. So I'm like, okay, so it connects in that way.
SPEAKER_00I see that, yeah.
SPEAKER_04I don't think he did know how many people were in the cave, because he fucking dies.
SPEAKER_03Definitely didn't. Yeah, no, he gets overwhelmed very quickly.
SPEAKER_04But he does go out like a fucking chatboard. Fucking rules. Because he does, he does not, he gets stabbed to shit and he still fucking fights those cunts.
SPEAKER_03Not until he gets shot in the back, literally.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, what a what a bullshit move. Everyone else in the film fights him with respect, and then there's the one cunt with a gun.
SPEAKER_02You know it's gotta be this guy.
SPEAKER_04And it's fucked up because it makes sense because you're like, oh, Vincent Cassell's character did it earlier, so if he's in connection with him, it would make sense, but then it's like, oh, you dickhead. Why did you do that? But the thing is our main boy, I forget his name, is it not what's our what's our main guy's name?
SPEAKER_03I have it right here. I I keep forgetting that because it's not one that I uh fronsuck.
SPEAKER_04Fronsak. But the thing is he becomes a manny, he goes full fucking Assassin's Creed, and it's like, oh, this cunt can also fight just as good.
SPEAKER_03This rules when he's fucking tearing through people.
SPEAKER_04He's like fucking predator. Holy shit, he's like he's predator crossed with John Wick.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, he's murdering everybody, and then he gets killed right after, which fucking rules. It's grim, he dies screaming in a dirty on the floor of a dirty d jail cell.
SPEAKER_04But him dying, I think is what fucks fucks up at the very end of the movie for me, because I'm like, well, we had two leads, and then the one that kicks ass dies. So we get the other one who is like being mentored by Manny, taking revenge, and then he dies, and then he comes back to take revenge again, and I feel like that's unnecessary.
SPEAKER_00Same.
SPEAKER_04Like, what was the purpose of him dying? And it doesn't make any sense in concept of the movie.
SPEAKER_03That's what knocks it down a bit for me. I really liked him dying. I thought that was cool. I felt like that character probably deserved it for the things he'd done. And it was an interesting way to leave you like. I love that feeling in a movie where you go, oh, that's that's the last like hero. What's who's gonna solve this problem? There's only the bad people left. And there's half an hour left in this movie, you know, what can possibly happen now? And it was very underwhelming. Even if they wanted to revive him, I could have gotten behind it more if they didn't do it literally right after they killed him. It really undermines it.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, because I feel like if you're going the way you would set it up would be that Manny comes back, but Manny can't come back because our main character had to burn him at first sunrise as part of like his tradition.
SPEAKER_03And that's that's what was so cool to me is that Fronsack burns his friend and gives him a proper burial so he can ascend and join his family in the spirits. And then he gets poisoned and dies a dirty death and potentially goes to hell, and then that's the end of his story. I thought that would be a very interesting way to take it.
SPEAKER_04But we but like okay, but Manny's been set up, but he's like he has some form of spiritual power. So surely you could just have him come back as like a vengeful spirit.
SPEAKER_03The crow. Just do the crow.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Just do the crow. He doesn't need to come back.
SPEAKER_00No, he really doesn't.
SPEAKER_04And okay, if you didn't bring him back, Monica Belishi, her character's been set up to be antagonistic towards this cult, and she's been known as like this conniving cunt that just gets what she wants. Just have a poison. I think she's uh she I think she's like uh um like a magic FBI, maybe. Because she's like, oh no one no one needs to know who I am. Which the jail keeper heard this conversation. He's just there.
SPEAKER_03She'll have to kill him and resurrect him too.
SPEAKER_04But surely he's not lost his memory. He's not done.
SPEAKER_01That's what's so stupid, is she kills him because she says I have to keep this secret. And then she just resurrects him. So why?
SPEAKER_03And then she gives him free will. She says, Do you want to run away with me? No, oh that's okay.
SPEAKER_04And it's like, okay, but we get we get the resurrection, okay, so he can fight Vincent Kissell's character. Why does he have a magic sword? Like it's cool. But why does he have a magic sword?
SPEAKER_03It reminded me of uh Is It Jade from Mortal Kombat?
SPEAKER_04But every see, I don't want to say it, but every single action scene in this movie makes me go, huh? This is this feels very Mortal Kombat.
SPEAKER_00That's fascinating.
SPEAKER_04There's like that perfect amount of jeans, but also like effectively pulled off at the same time.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_04But like I don't know.
SPEAKER_03They do show that bone sword earlier in the movie. They don't show that it does that, but it's it's in a room earlier in the room.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, they show a bonesword, but they don't show that it becomes a bone sword whip like fucking poison ivy from Soul Calib.
SPEAKER_03No, they don't.
SPEAKER_00Soul Calibur, right, right. Ivy from Soul Calibur.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. You know what I'm talking about. I don't remember.
SPEAKER_00I don't play a lot of fighter games.
SPEAKER_04She's okay, give you a rundown Ivy from Soul Calibur. She she has a whip sword, and she's supposed to be an old woman, but she is like an eight-foot-tall, curvaceous woman, and like uh I it's supposed to be a purple leadard, but it's more like borderline, just a thong and nipple pasties.
SPEAKER_00Hmm. I don't have any comment on it.
SPEAKER_04He says as he's downloading Soul Caliber 5 on his Steam Deck.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, hold on, hold on. I'm I'm I'm looking at some screen.
SPEAKER_04What was this game Busy? What was this game called? Again, I had to do research. I know what you're talking about. I'm surprised you don't know Soul Calibur. I feel like Soul Calibur's iconic.
SPEAKER_03I've played it before, but not uh not in a while. And I I just mix up all of the fighting games. Street Fighter, I guess I know the characters distinctly, but between Mortal Kombat, Tekken, and Soul Calibur, I mix up all the characters.
SPEAKER_04See, I know Mortal Kombat and Soul Calibur. Tekken and Street Fighters Tekken, the one see if I see A character design, and I'm like, that looks fucking terrible. It's typically Tekken. And then if I'm like, that looks competently made, I thought it's probably some caliber. They have Tekken has a big panda, a man with a panther head, and Goku with some wings.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that sounds right.
SPEAKER_04Would you Tekken is undoubtedly viewed worst by like a long shot at character designs? If you like Mortal Kombat, I don't play Mortal Kombat a lot, but I know Mortal Kombat just from Mortal Kombat media being so prevalent.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Chris, nonsense aside, okay.
SPEAKER_01Why did they resurrect him? That's just what I don't why did they kill him? Doesn't make any sense.
SPEAKER_04I don't know why they killed him. I thought I just like Kans is talking about how some people think he's supposed to be a Christ character, but he's not. And I'm like, okay, so why? So why would you do this? I don't get it, Gans. You could fuse the life like.
SPEAKER_03There was something that just didn't make it into the movie that was supposed to happen.
SPEAKER_04It's almost three hours long, Chris. What else could we put in this film? Is about hunting a wolf. I don't know, man. I don't know. Don't ask me how to make it. Chris, what is your definition of a muppet? Can we this is serious talk of a Muppet?
SPEAKER_01A an anthropomorphized puppet, I guess.
SPEAKER_04But okay, see if we're talking Jim Henson, do you consider Fraggle Rock's Muppets?
SPEAKER_03I'm not too familiar with Fraggle Rock.
SPEAKER_04Do you know what they look like? Would you say they're a Muppet?
SPEAKER_03Let me look 'em up, because I don't really know what they look like.
SPEAKER_00Yes, I would.
SPEAKER_04You would okay. They have big monster people, but they are a little they they live in like a little nook in their house. So the big monster people, if we count Big Bird and like Sesame Street and that, they are also Muppets, correct?
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Jim Henson made dinosaurs. They consider the dinosaurs muppets. So would you consider the beast in this film to be a Muppet?
SPEAKER_00Absolutely.
SPEAKER_04Do you consider the Five Nights at Freddy's animatronics to be Muppets?
SPEAKER_00No. Yeah, but it It just feels like something I should be obstinate about.
SPEAKER_06But why?
SPEAKER_03No reason. Uh because I never thought about it is why. I guess so.
SPEAKER_04Okay, see I thought you were gonna you were gonna fight me on some of this crush and then I thought we were maybe having a bit. It seems like you've got some agreement here.
SPEAKER_03No, yeah. I am open to that. The animatronics one I kind of dislike, but the way that you've asked all these questions, you've led me into a logic trap where I can't really disagree with you without disagreeing with myself.
SPEAKER_04But you could because see the thing is you were supposed to go, well, no, it's an animatronic, and then I'm supposed to say, Oh well, you can climb inside of the animatronic suits from the Five Nights at Freddy's movies and use them as a puppet. And that was going to be my catch, but you fucking ruined it, Chris.
SPEAKER_00Oh.
SPEAKER_04You're too agreeable. You're American, you're supposed to be angry and argue.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, but no, I have unprocessed childhood trauma, which makes me a people pleaser.
SPEAKER_04You're not I watched you argue with an entire Discord of people about sunshine earlier.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, when I'm comfortable with people, I I can get snippy about things.
SPEAKER_04You were arguing with me. I'm me, I'm still here.
SPEAKER_03I know, it comes and goes. It comes and goes. I'm a I'm a complicated person. I I contain multitudes. Stick around. You'll learn a bit.
SPEAKER_04Stick around, we've been here for half a year.
SPEAKER_02Stick around.
SPEAKER_04Well wisp, but it's is it when we get to next month and we had a New York special that you're gonna start?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, then I'm gonna be f fucking shooting shit. Eating tacos off the floor.
SPEAKER_04Is that a New York thing?
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And then I'm also gonna have a video chat on, even though you won't, so I'll just be staring you down the whole time we record.
SPEAKER_04If you fucking if you put on video chat, I'll have on video chat, but I feel like that's just our arguing for the tensions to rise.
SPEAKER_02It kind of is, yeah.
SPEAKER_04Uh, we need to pick some first time we do a video call, we'll choose something that we vehemently disagree on. And it's not sunshine, because I'm already gonna have to watch sunshine for this Sunday, so we can argue about it together. I'm not gonna argue about sunshine twice because frankly, I don't care that much about sunshine.
SPEAKER_03No, we'll bring it up on the podcast at some point. Don't worry, don't worry.
SPEAKER_04I don't even dislike sunshine, I just think it's mediocre.
SPEAKER_03It's a good movie, it's a good movie.
SPEAKER_04Even if it's a good movie, it's not a top four movie. Chris, we'll leave him out of that.
SPEAKER_00Uh agree to disagree.
SPEAKER_04Chris, but have you seen the Elden Ring set of photos? Do you look very, very, very good?
SPEAKER_03No, I haven't.
SPEAKER_04Oh, Chris. Oh my god, look up right now, look up Elden Ring Dung Eater uh set of photos. It is like you will not believe how accurate that film looks.
SPEAKER_00Bellucci.
SPEAKER_04Are you see are you seeing it this volunteous something?
SPEAKER_00I'm no, wait, wait, wait.
SPEAKER_03Let me uh fucking Alex Scarland. I'm getting armor set photos.
SPEAKER_04Wait, armor set photos? What the fuck's armor set?
SPEAKER_03Well, because there's armor sets in Elden Ring. People put post guard guides.
SPEAKER_04Dude, there's fucking there's a photo of young Marica.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that looks really cool.
SPEAKER_04Holy shit, that dummy her armor. Oh my fucking god, Chris, how did he it's like budget's just over a hundred million, they're doing armor sets. One to one.
SPEAKER_00Cool. I'm excited.
SPEAKER_04It's it's still it's still like okay, but you're doing the entire story of the game plus the background, Garland. I'm praying for you, man. Even though you would probably stab me and leave me dead in the street for saying I'm praying for you. But my god, my god, garland, you're gonna need it. Holy shit.
SPEAKER_01How packed is the story of Elden Ring.
SPEAKER_04What do you mean, George R. Martin wrote it?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, but it's a it's like an open world game. I just have no idea how dense it is. Oh, it's like I'm sure a lot of side content, but how about the the main narrative?
SPEAKER_04There's like, okay, Marica is she there's like a Lovecraftian um thing sent from space, and that becomes um the the Elden Ring plus the Elden Beast, and then she uses the Elden Ring to like create immortality, and then there's like her family are fighting for it, but she's like she has children with two different royal families from different like time periods and different cultures, and then all her children have children and people they're related to, and then something about the power happens, and she becomes like a man and a woman at the same time called Radagon, and then Radagon is married to different families and having children with those different families, and they're all unfighting for pieces, and then there's like uh there's groups that are like we don't like this Lovecraft, and then they kill Marica and shatter the Elden Ring using uh like a death blade from like death magic, and then that causes the shattering which causes the events of the game, and then there's like people that still can't die that are fighting over pieces of runes that come from the it's like what how's and like it's it's just I don't see how it's possible.
SPEAKER_03I feel like a lot of that has to be uh world building. You like you have to set it after a lot of that stuff has happened, right?
SPEAKER_04But you said it after it with no plot because everything's dead and everything's already happened, or you do what he's doing, which seems to be the plot with Child Marica, and it's like how how what's weird. It's like you would need a Game of Phones budget and like seven seasons to explain it all fully.
SPEAKER_00Huh.
SPEAKER_04And he's doing it in a movie.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I don't know about that. I'm curious.
SPEAKER_06You know your blood form lore.
SPEAKER_03I have no idea. I have no notion of any from soft games.
SPEAKER_04Oh well you know how fucking ridiculous Dark Souls lore can get, yeah?
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_04Dark Souls lore is like is like um a piss in the ocean of how fucking needlessly complex Elden lore gets. Okay, why when he announced it all was like, why wouldn't you just do Dark Souls? Dark Souls is difficult enough.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, you were saying you don't even know how they'd do Dark Souls, really.
SPEAKER_04Dark Souls I I I could see how you could do it in like a two and a half hour film. I could see how it's possible. I don't Garland again I'm praying for the man. I don't I just and the set photos are in such different times, man, it's like garland.
SPEAKER_03You don't think he's gonna try to split it up?
SPEAKER_04But like how would you split it up and then give everything enough attention and world building and have an actual plot? And it scares me, Chris, because it's like, what am I going to see? Who on egg was he gonna do?
SPEAKER_03He's gonna do something fun. It'll be neat. The donkey or the chilling movie. Where are we talking about Brotherhood of the Wolf?
SPEAKER_04Uh um what were we talking about? We were talking about Cascos.
SPEAKER_03Mark DeCasco's dying, we're at Buddy dying, and then getting resurrected.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, and he shows up like Predator and he kills the eyes wide-shut cult, and then um He does that before he dies. Why does he get No, because he shows up like a little like a little Batman.
SPEAKER_03He does, but that's still before he dies. And then he gets arrested because he kills all of them. And then he gets killed in jail.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03That's why it would have made more sense for him to rise like the crow and then show up with the paint.
SPEAKER_04No, but he does. He does, he does come back, that's when he fights Vincent Castle.
SPEAKER_00That's when he fights Vincent Cassell, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, and Vincent Castle's got like a weird, a weird little finger. I don't know what's happening with that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, he's got a weird little hand going on.
SPEAKER_04He's just I love it because he's so it just there's nothing to even what look why why does he have a little hand?
SPEAKER_03I don't know. He's just like, oh psych, I have a secret little hand you didn't know about. I guess this is what gave them the idea to do Frankenstein.
SPEAKER_04Maybe he'd like the wolf the wolf's mum that I killed did this to me, and that's why I can control its child, maybe.
SPEAKER_00Maybe.
SPEAKER_04But why why's he got a funky little finger?
SPEAKER_00I don't know.
SPEAKER_04What has Castell been doing with his funky little finger?
SPEAKER_00I don't wanna know.
SPEAKER_03Uh he kills Vincent Cassell. Vincent Cassell kind of kills himself, doesn't he? He gets he's launching our main character around. He gets sort of cut in the throat a little bit while he's launching him around, and then he hooks his sword and then tries to disarm our main character and then stabs himself in the chest with it.
SPEAKER_04He uses it like this as my ultimate weapon and then fucking kills himself on it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, pure and confident.
SPEAKER_00Very funny.
SPEAKER_04And I fight that he seemed to be winning.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_04And then and then Marikabalushi shows up and like, you did it. Now he's like, I guess I'm going to Africa to meet the family of my Native American friend that I got killed. And I also killed his family.
SPEAKER_03And then the there's sort of a postamble to this movie. It feels like it could have ended a couple of times.
SPEAKER_04I think the movie just the movie just could have ended with him taking revenge for Manny.
SPEAKER_03It really could have, yeah. And then there's a gorgeous shot on um once he goes to the bedside of Marianne. Uh there's a gorgeous shot where the the camera goes out a window and then just looks at a sunset. I thought that was just gonna be the end of the movie.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, but it pulls you back because it's like how at the beginning we were actually talking about the little twink boy that was hanging out with him that took ayahuasca in the woods. And then his town his town are like revolting against him, even though he's a good guy.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it's very funny. They cut to the end of the French Revolution and he's probably gonna get executed.
SPEAKER_04But like he was the progressive one, he was the good one.
SPEAKER_02He's still one of them.
SPEAKER_04But not really, because like the entire like even Gans talks about he shows all the aristocrats in like big fancy pompous uh like designs to holy shit castles, and he's just in a little white house because he's progressive and nice to his people.
SPEAKER_00Well, I don't know, man.
SPEAKER_04And then they fucking they they s seemingly hang him.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_04And then it's like was See that the main thing at the end of this almost is like what was I enjoyed it, but what was the point? I think there's like a I don't think there was one, really. No, but like the wolf, the wolf is like something to do with pagan stuff, and there's you see things of Jesus, and then it only targets women and children, and then there's there's bad rich people, and then there's an a Native American guy, and I'm like, there's there's something.
SPEAKER_05There's PCs.
SPEAKER_03I don't I don't think any of it coalesces in anything meaningful.
SPEAKER_04See, I would think that if Gans wrote it, but someone else wrote it, and then Gans changed what they wrote. So I there I there's gotta be a plot line in there somewhere that's like okay, everything everything builds around this, and then Gans put some other shit.
SPEAKER_00Maybe Manny.
SPEAKER_04Manny was was Gans edition, and Manny is like the best part of the film.
SPEAKER_02Weird. Yeah, the movie would not be as good without Manny.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, but would this film just be boring as shit without Gan doing doing Gan's stuff? But then it's like well the film is probably on an objective level a worse-made movie, but then it's also a better movie. He's like, it's paradoxical, but it's true.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it's it's why filmmaking is so interesting. Because at least there's a voice to it.
SPEAKER_05And the thing is, Gans isn't an idiot, well, that's what I'm talking about. You go and you go in the director's commentary, and everything he does is for a purpose, and everything's set up in a way, and he's talking about all these fucking westerns from the 60s that he loves and why why certain themes are in it. It's like, okay, he knows he seemingly knows how to make a movie, but why can't he make a movie? I don't he's such an interesting individual. And I think that's a good thing.
SPEAKER_02Someone needs to really challenge him.
SPEAKER_05Gans would never listen to this. But I feel bad for shitting on Gans because I like the man. But also it's like why? I don't I Gans would go on.
SPEAKER_00He definitely could make a banger. I feel like everything lined up.
SPEAKER_05See if he was one of those directors that made a bunch of low budget strange horror movies.
SPEAKER_04Like like a lot like a ah it's getting too late. Who made Prince of Darkness?
SPEAKER_03John Carpenter.
SPEAKER_04Like see see if he did like a John Carpenter type role, but it was like horror action.
SPEAKER_05I feel like he would have killed it in like the eighties.
SPEAKER_04But he waited too long and started making films in the 2000s.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03It was before digital filmmaking.
SPEAKER_05Because he talks a lot about us, like he would have preferred to do certain scenes certain ways or have things conveyed differently. And he's like, Oh, but you just have to work with what you had. And I'm like, well, that that would have worked perfect in low-budget 80s filmmaking where you could make like a film every six months.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I agreed.
SPEAKER_05To just do cool shit and what but it just seems like like he's a a filmmaker that m missed missed his opportunity.
SPEAKER_03A little bit, which is sad. This is good though. This is his best movie, right?
SPEAKER_05I would say it's his best. Well but the thing is I prefer this over Silent Hill. But also, would you say Silent Hill is more like it's more thematically coherent and the narrative makes more sense, and it's tonally more consistent. So probably better.
SPEAKER_01I guess, but I wouldn't say that it's consistently entertaining enough for you know, like a general audience member.
SPEAKER_04I feel like a general audience member would eat up Silent Hill more than a hardcore horror fan.
SPEAKER_00Hmm.
SPEAKER_04Ooh, waste tongue.
SPEAKER_01I feel like someone would get bored.
SPEAKER_04No, I feel like maybe the cult might push too far, but then what was he supposed to do? Not include the cult in Silent Hill.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, true. You gotta include the cult in Silent Hill.
SPEAKER_04He's a big cult guy, isn't he, actually? Now I think about it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, he likes cults. Or maybe he really hates cults. He should do a wicker man.
SPEAKER_05He should enjoy it, that would have been fucking perfect for 80s horror movies. Making like weird culture.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, honestly. What if he made House of the Devil?
SPEAKER_04The Ty West movie?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, what if he made it instead?
SPEAKER_04I think if literally anybody made House of the Devil, we would make a better movie than what Ty West made for House of the Devil. I fucking hate that film.
SPEAKER_00Really? Like hate.
SPEAKER_04Like it's got a good premise. It's set up well, and then it's like these actors that he he hires, it's like the weird cult people are creepy and they do the scenes so well, and then it's just oh, but they are Satanist, and then she dies, and then that is the movie. And it's like, well, you just wasted my fucking time. You showed me nothing. You set up everything and did nothing.
SPEAKER_02Sorry.
SPEAKER_04It was just it felt like he started making a movie and then got fucking bored and went, I'm just I don't want to do this anymore. I'll get the new guy to do it and fucked off.
SPEAKER_00Great. Is there any final thoughts on this? Um you've got me angry at Ty West now.
SPEAKER_02Well, should we do Ty West stuff at some point? Yell about Ty West.
SPEAKER_04What did Ty West make? He made that with housekeepers, which was bad.
SPEAKER_03And then he made I kind of like it, but I I think it's boring as well. He made boring as fuck. Yeah, it is very boring, but I think that helps the scares. There's a couple good really good scares in it that in a weird way, because it's boring, they're super effective.
SPEAKER_04The med scene is like uh that is everyone's had that that creepy moment in like a dream, and it's amazing that no one did it as well in a film as he did in that one scene.
SPEAKER_05But then at the same time, it's the other like hour and 25 minutes of that movie where just nothing fucking happens.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, nothing at all. Uh I mean he obviously did X in that trilogy.
SPEAKER_04He d yeah, he he did X, which is great, and then he did Peril, which was perfect, and then he did Maxine and Shut the Beds.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, which I still haven't seen.
SPEAKER_04Was like this close to the end of the marathon, and then he fell, broke his leg, shit his pants, and then cried until an ambulance came.
SPEAKER_03Uh, The Sacrament is the other thing he's done. I want to watch.
SPEAKER_05Was the sacrament? Run me through it. I've maybe seen it.
SPEAKER_03It's a found footage uh cult compound movie where the nice guy from No Country for Old Man from the gas station plays the cult leader.
SPEAKER_04He did make Cabin Fever 2, also known as the best Cabin Fever movie, and people can eat it.
SPEAKER_03Oh, we should yeah. Maybe we should do a Ty West month at some point.
SPEAKER_05You could do a full month of just Cabin Fever.
SPEAKER_03Ty Wednesday, and then we just release it on Wednesdays. No. Okay. I'd just rather not.
SPEAKER_04Because then Joe we're doing movies that I mostly dislike, aside from two that I really like and one that I'm okay with.
SPEAKER_03My favorite Ty West movie is not even a horror movie. I like In the Valley of Violence, but that's a Western.
SPEAKER_04Certainly. But I feel like Ty West, isn't that interesting?
SPEAKER_03Not really, no. That I don't even think is a great movie. I just like the cast.
SPEAKER_04Like Perl I think's perfect, but then it's like, well, how much of that was me a goth film? A lot. And then X, X I like. But X is just like, we'll just do every trope. And it's like, okay.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, X was let's reverse the role that sexuality has in a horror movie. Like instead of it being the suppressed thing, it's the most present uh sense in the movie.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, but I go I a hundred percent I could find you at least a hundred sleazy softcore porn slasher movies in the 70s that do the exact same thing.
SPEAKER_03Oh, for sure. But it it did it really well. I'm not saying it's unique, but it's okay.
SPEAKER_04It did it well enough.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, no, it you're right. It's not an amazing movie, but for for that specifically, for flipping that vibe on its head, I felt like it did a good job of exploring just the uh not exploring, but sort of presenting the ideas of shame pretty well.
SPEAKER_04I think maybe my problem with X is I don't think it looks 70s enough. I think it looks too modern.
SPEAKER_03It does look modern, it doesn't look vintage kind of at all.
SPEAKER_04I don't think it's recorded on film. It's using modern cameras, it's using modern camera techniques. It's just them saying, Oh, it's for 70s, and we do a lot of cocaine. And that's it. Great. I also think the cast look like say you see people like Timothy Chalamy couldn't do a period piece because he has a like iPhone face.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Mia Goff can definitely do 70s, Kid Cuddy and Jenna Ortega cannot do 70s. Jenna Ortega specifically cannot do 70s. She looks like she's not really I can't even think. Has she done anything that's not modern? Even Wednesday, I think is a modern version of Adam's five.
SPEAKER_03She could she could play someone in the 90s. Kind of like more recent, but not not anyone that dresses super super differently.
SPEAKER_04What would I what would I if I was gonna put June Ortega in a role? Honestly, I think I would just wait till she's like 40 and make her mum. I think she can do it, mum.
SPEAKER_03You know who I'm really excited to see as an older actor, like above 38.
SPEAKER_04This is a strange conversation, but go ahead. Who are you waiting? I think Tom Holland's gonna fade away by the time he's like 35.
SPEAKER_03No, that's the thing. I want Tom maybe even older than 40. I want Tom Holland to fade away and then come back as a Ben Mendelssohn type.
SPEAKER_04No, no, I don't see it. I feel he was just gonna get his bag and dip.
SPEAKER_03Interesting. I I feel like he he seems to like acting enough that he does some weird roles that he wouldn't do if they were just for the money. They are well-paid roles, so I'm not I can see that. But I like to imagine a world where he's using that energy when he's way older and doesn't look nearly as good, I guess.
SPEAKER_04And I I see you fe you you you seem to have hope he's got this Robert Pattinson energy. I don't think he's got the Robert Pattinson energy.
SPEAKER_03Hmm, interesting. Okay.
SPEAKER_04I think who played the android um in Alien Romulus? I think his name's David something.
SPEAKER_03David Johansson. David Johnson.
SPEAKER_04David Johnson, I feel like he's kinda he's kinda floundering with movie rules at the moment. I think see when he's an old man, he's gonna fucking pull through some fire shit. True.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Robert Pattinson, when he's an old man, oh you know, he's fucking bringing in every single one.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, he's gonna slam that shit. That's true.
SPEAKER_04He's doing it right now, but oh my, I feel like see see when he has that little wise look in his eyes. Oh he's gonna smoke him.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, Robert Pattinson when he's Mads Mickelson's age.
SPEAKER_04Oh fuck yeah, we just do Mads Mickelson's roles, surely.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, basically.
SPEAKER_04Oh Joe Joey would be an insane cat. I feel like Robert Pattinson could pull off Hannibal Lector so well.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Give him like the the Ted Bundy, like he's attractive, so people are more likely to trust him vibe.
SPEAKER_00I'd watch that.
SPEAKER_05I would watch anything with Robert Pattinson in it, to be fair.
SPEAKER_00I feel like he's have you seen the rover The Rover? Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Is that that's not the movie about the big Kaiju car, is it?
SPEAKER_00Kaiju car? I don't think so. What the fuck's the rover?
SPEAKER_03The rover, it's an Australian movie about Guy Pierce. Uh it's like a Mad Max wasteland, and he runs into Robert Pattinson, and they go someone steals his car, so they're gonna go get his car back.
SPEAKER_05So dude, where's my car? But serious?
SPEAKER_03Very serious, yeah, and like he's got a gun.
SPEAKER_04Man, where is my motor vehicle?
SPEAKER_03Man's a man, where's my fucking car?
SPEAKER_04Where's my fucking truck?
SPEAKER_03Scoop McNary is in it, also. Also, rapper Pattinson plays an interesting character in that.
SPEAKER_05I think see, this is the part where we just start mumbling about random shit.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, alright. So we just close it out. If you want to reach us, you can email us at the uncannyvalleypod at gmail.com. You can follow us at the uncannyvalley podcast on Instagram. Have a good night.