8. CANADIAN HORROR

Welcome back!

What is it, July 1st already? This week we show our Canadian pride and look at three iconic Canadian horror films, including SCANNERS (1981), GRAVE ENCOUNTERS (2011), and PONTYPOOL (2008). This is only PART ONE of our ongoing discussion on CANADIAN HORROR, so look out for PART TWO sometime in the future! Thanks for listening and be sure to tune in for our review of A24's UNDERTONE next week... OR ELSE!!

Time Codes:

Intro: 00:00:00

Horror News: 00:00:47

Canadian Horror Intro: 00:09:55

Scanners: 00:12:16

Grave Encounters: 00:32:36

Pontypool: 00:57:25

Who What Watch Read When (Weh): 01:11:59

Outro: 00:017:37

Logo designed by Kiah Ellis-Durity

Musical theme by Moira Christy

Special thanks to Gordon Durity

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:24

Hello, welcome back to Whispers in the Woods, your weekly fix for all things horror. My name's Emily. I'm Devin.

SPEAKER_05 0:33

And I'm Tom. And you know what, guys? Today's gonna be my best episode yet because I have home field advantage. Yeah. We're recording at my apartment instead of Emily's this time. I'm so grounded.

SPEAKER_00 0:44

Oh perfect. Perfect.

SPEAKER_05 0:47

How about we begin with some horror news for this week then?

SPEAKER_00 0:50

Sounds good.

SPEAKER_05 0:51

Um, guys, there is a trailer for Scary Movie 6.

SPEAKER_00 0:55

There is.

SPEAKER_05 0:55

Which is like oddly much anticipated, I feel. It's been like uh so long since the last one. Spoof genre died.

SPEAKER_00 1:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:03

Now they've come out with this and there's actual hype for it. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:08

I think there was a pretty big fan base for the original scary movies.

SPEAKER_05 1:12

I definitely loved the first one when I was 13.

SPEAKER_00 1:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:15

I think everyone did.

SPEAKER_03 1:17

I thought I didn't.

SPEAKER_05 1:18

If you watched it.

SPEAKER_03 1:21

I didn't like it. No.

SPEAKER_05 1:23

Not everybody's cup of tea for sure. Yeah. And maybe this trailer also wasn't your cup of tea, Dev.

SPEAKER_02 1:30

No.

SPEAKER_05 1:30

It was understand here.

SPEAKER_02 1:32

I'll talk about what I did like. What I did like was seeing the modern movies that they are spoofing. That's always fun to see what movies will be parodied and how they make them all one narrative. I will give Scary Movie that. That is a clever thing to do to marry a bunch of different films. And I did like the Subway beginning part of the Subway scene, and you have Megan, and then they're doing a spoof on the whole, um, what's it called? Emily and I've spoken about this, songs getting slowed down for horror movies.

SPEAKER_03 2:02

Guess who's back? Oh, true.

SPEAKER_02 2:04

And then they reveal Ghost Face. I liked it up until the next part.

SPEAKER_00 2:09

That's fair. Yeah, there was, I mean, as there always is in the scary movies, like some pretty questionable jokes, jokes that are taking it a bit too far.

SPEAKER_04 2:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:21

Um, but like you were saying, like I was very excited to see which scary mo which horror films they were gonna pick to parody. So that part for me looked really fun. I think I probably still wanna watch it. Probably on streaming and not in the theaters, but yeah, it looks pretty it looks pretty bad.

SPEAKER_05 2:43

I think this one's gonna do numbers though. I feel like it's actually gonna make a lot of money.

SPEAKER_00 2:47

Me too, because it's been like 20 years or something. And it has that nostalgic feeling. Yeah, yeah. Well, they're bringing back Dewey, they're bringing back their parody of Gale Weathers, and Anna Ferris, and Regina, and they have the Wains, like everybody's there, everything back.

SPEAKER_05 3:06

So it's kind of odd that it's gonna be spoofing like these newer Scream movies that have brought back all the old cast and played with your nostalgia. It's perfect while also doing that.

SPEAKER_03 3:17

That's so clever like I will say that is clever of them. It's like it's a parody legacy.

SPEAKER_05 3:22

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_03 3:22

That is hilarious in itself.

SPEAKER_05 3:25

Unlike what you were saying, Emily, about like the offensive jokes, in my opinion, a joke needs to justify its existence if it's gonna be offensive. Yeah. It has to be really funny. Either like equally funny to its level of offensiveness, or funnier. Yeah. And I can't say that that it did in this trailer.

SPEAKER_00 3:46

Yeah, I agree. If it's not funny and it's offensive, it's just awkward.

SPEAKER_05 3:51

Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 3:53

Exactly.

SPEAKER_05 3:54

There was another exciting trailer that came out recently, and it's for Kane Parsons Backrooms. Yeah. Released by A24. Yeah. Exciting. This trailer looks really cool.

SPEAKER_03 4:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 4:06

I also have a fun fact about it. Uh, it is almost 100% made in Blender, except for the final shot.

SPEAKER_01 4:14

Wow.

SPEAKER_05 4:15

And then when you get to the lowest level of the backrooms, that is a physical set that they built on a sound stage. It's apparently crazy big, which actually gets me incredibly excited.

SPEAKER_02 4:25

Yeah, that's really cool. That's cool. That's really cool.

SPEAKER_05 4:28

And I wonder if it was Kane Parsons who made these uh other shots in Blender. I think that's where he started with this whole backroom series, just making them himself on 3D modeling software. And now he's making an A24 movie at age 20.

SPEAKER_00 4:46

Oh my god. Jealousy. Yeah, same.

SPEAKER_05 4:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 4:52

If there's not a twinge of jealousy there, I mean you're just not being honest with yourself.

SPEAKER_00 4:57

Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. But I am very excited about this film. Excited. I'm excited to see what they do with the creatures in this like feature-length movie. Because in like the smaller backroom shorts, uh, they have some pretty cool creatures in that. And I'm wondering if they're gonna like try and elevate them, if they're gonna keep them the same.

SPEAKER_02 5:21

Yeah, I wonder too. It'll be really, really cool. And I know one of my little cousins is very excited for it. Sweet. And he's like, I know everything about the backrooms. And he's like, Do you know this creature? Can you even say you're a fan of the backroom stuff?

SPEAKER_03 5:33

And I'm like, okay, okay, you listen. You know a lot more than I do.

SPEAKER_05 5:37

So this could be another one of those like um Minecraft movie or Five Nights at Freddy's movies where you get like the Gen Alpha kids who know it from the internet just like storming the theater because it's something they recognize online.

SPEAKER_00 5:53

I think this film's gonna make a lot of money.

SPEAKER_05 5:55

I feel so, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:56

I'm excited to watch it.

SPEAKER_05 5:58

Maybe I'll have to go to a matinee to avoid a bunch of Oh, a bunch of kids uh yelling chicken jockeys, throwing popcorn, fireworks and response.

SPEAKER_02 6:08

Yes. This one's high art, high art.

unknown 6:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:11

I feel like every year now, like horror is getting bigger and bigger.

SPEAKER_05 6:17

So I also have another piece of news which unfortunately is very sad. Uh so actor Bruce Campbell, known for the Evil Dead franchise, uh, has recently been diagnosed with a type of cancer that he isn't disclosing. But he has a couple of quotes says that his cancer is treatable but not curable. Um, he's going to be taking gaps from going to cons and doing any other kind of work over the summer to hopefully uh recover enough to promote his new movie, which is called Ernie and Emma in the fall. I think it's his directorial debut, actually.

SPEAKER_01 6:51

Wow. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 6:52

So he's excited to go out and promote this film. And he says, Fear not, I am a tough old son of a bitch, and I have great support, so I expect to be around a while.

SPEAKER_02 7:02

That's wonderful. That part's wonderful. That's positive. Yeah, that's positive.

SPEAKER_05 7:06

Yeah, it seems like he's keeping a positive attitude about it, and I just wish him well. He is one of my very favorite actors of all time, and this news was bad. Yeah. Bad thing. Yeah. Uh let's see. So also, um I'm a big Buffy the Vampire Slayer?

SPEAKER_04 7:25

Yeah. I'm a fake fan. I forgot what the show was called for a second.

SPEAKER_03 7:29

I like very Buffy Gray.

SPEAKER_05 7:31

For a second, Buffy the Vampire Hunter. Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Yeah, that's like alternate universe. Buffy shapes. Uh-huh. I watched that show throughout like all of middle school and high school. Still love it, still have a huge soft spot for it. And like every show out there right now, it's getting a revival continuation.

SPEAKER_02 7:51

Uh oh, no.

SPEAKER_05 7:52

Same universe. Sarah Michelle Geller is back, and she's going to be training the new Slayer. So a new 16-year-old girl. Her name's gonna be Nova. She's played by Ryan Kira Armstrong. Also, this first I don't know who that is.

SPEAKER_03 8:07

Me neither.

SPEAKER_05 8:08

Maybe we'll we'll find out. Yeah, we will. I'm skeptical.

SPEAKER_03 8:11

Yes.

SPEAKER_05 8:11

Here's something that might make you less skeptical. The first episode is directed by Chloe Zhao. Who directed Hamnet, which is doing Oscars. Like I when I read this, I could barely believe it because I'm like she's doing it.

SPEAKER_01 8:26

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 8:27

It seems like beneath her, I would say, honestly.

SPEAKER_01 8:30

But you said a couple weeks ago, TV or movie, and movie TV now. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 8:35

This is what you see. It's a little bit that for sure.

SPEAKER_05 8:38

Who knows? If she can, you know, make it more cinematic or lend, you know, like this big filmmaker eye that she has to it, maybe it could actually be good.

SPEAKER_02 8:48

I hope it's Monster of the Week style still.

SPEAKER_00 8:50

Yeah, that would be cool.

SPEAKER_05 8:52

So the show is also gonna be called Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Colonel New Sunnydale. I don't like that title.

SPEAKER_01 8:59

No, it's a bad title. Just call it Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

SPEAKER_05 9:02

It doesn't really like Grab, does it? No. No.

SPEAKER_00 9:05

It's not original either. It's not like. Yeah, it's just new Sunnydale.

SPEAKER_01 9:09

Buffy the Vampire Slayer, slay the day away.

SPEAKER_05 9:11

There you go. And it would also be a musical, obviously. It would be a musical, of course. This is why we should all hire Devin to name our things. Um That's it. That is all my horror news, actually. Um, do either of you have anything.

SPEAKER_02 9:28

Nothing new to report.

SPEAKER_05 9:30

Maybe because we recorded like six days ago. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's fine. I feel like we yapped a good amount about scary movie six enough to call it a section.

SPEAKER_03 9:40

Yay! Yay!

SPEAKER_05 9:42

I said that with like a weird, like. That was like my South African accent.

SPEAKER_03 9:48

Yeah, yeah. I was like, we're getting people geared up for the Canadian accent of it all, but you went full. Who knows what the Canadian accent is?

SPEAKER_05 9:56

Um yeah, so Canadians. That's what we who what we are and what we're talking about in a way.

SPEAKER_00 10:02

We all sound pretty Canadian.

SPEAKER_05 10:04

We do. Yes. Yeah. We can all slip out in a boat.

SPEAKER_02 10:07

No, it's also not only that, I thought, I'm like, yeah, we just sound as is, and then when I was editing one of the episodes, I'm like, oh my gosh, and compared to Dead Me, I'm like, ew!

SPEAKER_03 10:18

We're so good. It's like very sing songgy, lots of uptick.

SPEAKER_05 10:24

That I have noticed when editing this, and my sentences end with, and then this? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:28

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_05 10:29

And then we do this? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:31

My voice does a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 10:32

We all do it. It's a Canadian thing, and that's fine. That's just the accent. That's the dialect.

SPEAKER_00 10:38

Our quarks. Quarts.

SPEAKER_05 10:43

Are we all made of quarks or something like that?

SPEAKER_02 10:45

We're not made of corks.

SPEAKER_05 10:46

Are any of you physicians? We're not physicists. Can anyone scan my brain and tell me why I can't think of the right word? Oh lord. Oh, true. Does that mean we're starting with scanners?

SPEAKER_01 11:01

We're starting with scanners. Wait, wait, wait. What's the theme? What's the theme?

SPEAKER_05 11:05

I was trying to do a sweet segue into what our theme is, and then I think we got way off the page. We're doing Canadian horror. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_04 11:14

Canadian horror. Good lord.

SPEAKER_05 11:17

Okay. Part one. Sure. I think we'll do more.

SPEAKER_00 11:21

For this week, I surprisingly had so many picks for this theme. Like I had like 10 different movies that I wanted to talk about. I have so many honorable mentions. Yes. But I think I picked my favorite one.

SPEAKER_05 11:36

Okay. Fair enough. So actually, why did we choose this theme?

SPEAKER_02 11:40

Canadian movies need more love.

SPEAKER_05 11:42

Yeah, that's true.

SPEAKER_02 11:43

We really do. And a lot of movies are filmed in Canada, but they're not based in Canada.

SPEAKER_05 11:50

Yeah, we film the world's movies. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 11:52

And like there's a lot of service production for American movies, and it's like Vancouver is 12,000 other cities and rarely ever Vancouver.

SPEAKER_05 12:01

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 12:02

And so we wanted to highlight movies that are made in Canada by our beautiful little taxpaying dollars. And these are pretty good movies. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:11

Made in Canada, made with Canadian casting crews.

SPEAKER_05 12:15

Yeah. So anyway, this is the theme that we're we've chosen for this week. Yes. Uh, and we've taken our picks, and mine is Scanners. 1981's Scanners directed by David Cronenberg. Um, is this the most famous Canadian horror movie?

SPEAKER_02 12:33

Oh, that's a good question. The fly with ginger snaps.

SPEAKER_05 12:38

Yeah, that's true, that's true.

SPEAKER_02 12:39

I feel like the fly might fly and scanners are probably on par. They're both Cronenberg.

SPEAKER_05 12:44

The fly doesn't quite count as Canadian horror. I would have chosen it if it did, but it's categorized as a Canadian-American co-production.

SPEAKER_02 12:53

Oh, okay, fair, fair, fair, fair, fair.

SPEAKER_05 12:54

And I think all of our films are straight Canadian productions, right? Yeah. But just like that image of that guy's head exploding.

SPEAKER_01 13:02

Oh, so good. I know about that.

SPEAKER_05 13:04

Is everywhere. Okay, so Scanners. Scanners was shot in Montreal. Heck yeah. In 1979. It was shot for a budget of four million, or roughly equivalent to 16 million in today's dollars. It's a good budget. One thing that this movie did is it actually put Canadian movies on the map in a way that they weren't previously, because even though this movie is kind of categorized as a cult movie, it's not. It did well. It actually did really well. It got 14.2 million across the US and Canada. That's not adjusted for inflation. Yeah, yeah. So that showed that like Canada can produce movies that are good and also successful throughout North America. And that's worth celebrating, I guess. So yeah, this was done by David Cronenberg, one of our most famous directors, director of The Fly. And I will give you guys a quick synopsis as well. This is a world where telepaths are kind of spread across the country. There's not a huge amount of them. They reference maybe like 230 something. But uh these people can read minds, some of them have the ability for pyrokinesis as well. And there's a government facility called CONSEC, or at least it's a company, maybe it's independent, that is doing experiments and trying to get them involved in espionage and defense. So one of these scanners, his name is Cameron Vale, and he starts out the movie as a homeless man uh who has this ability but doesn't really understand it. And one thing I really love about this character is that they establish that he has never really been able to garner a personality because he's only ever had people's voices in his head that he can't turn off. So he's never been able to give himself a sense of identity because he's constantly sharing everybody else's identity.

SPEAKER_00 15:06

Yeah. That's a really interesting concept, and I think that is still so relevant today.

SPEAKER_05 15:12

For real, for real. Yeah, this movie has like a lot of really great concepts. Um, so he is recruited, well, recruited, he's kind of like kidnapped in the beginning. Yeah, by uh by this company, and um he is drawn into this ongoing battle between Consec and Michael Ironside's character, whose name is Daryl Revik, and Daryl Revik is uh also a scanner, and he is forming like an underground society of scanners, and they're going to eventually take over. Uh, so Cameron is now drafted into a war, basically, and they want him to make contact with Revik, become part of his organization, and take him down from the inside.

unknown 15:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 15:57

It's a really cool premise. Yeah. I was into that as a premise. I would say, unfortunately, I don't think it quite lives up to that awesome premise. How did you feel, Dev?

SPEAKER_02 16:06

I don't know. I really like the telepathy.

SPEAKER_05 16:09

The way it's done, yeah. They do it with like a sound effect, it's kind of like exactly and how much body acting it is.

SPEAKER_02 16:15

Yeah. It's really like let these actors act. And I think that it was really clever with like the mystery when the guy is presenting his scanning abilities, and then the one guy's like, fine, I'll volunteer.

SPEAKER_05 16:27

Oh, Michael Ironside's character who's in there as a plant. Yeah, it was a plant. He planted himself in there.

SPEAKER_02 16:33

And there I really did like it, and then when he's just in the vehicle controlling the other people, he can't even see.

SPEAKER_05 16:39

Uh, just going back to that scene though with Michael Ironside in the presentation of the case. Yeah, presentation. So we have this guy from Consec who is establishing that these scanners exist, and he himself is one, and he asks for an Yeah, he asks for a member from the audience to come sit with him, he's gonna read their mind. And then Michael Ironside. This is him so young, he has so much hair. So much. I'm like, what's going on here? I don't recognize you. Um but yeah, once this guy gets him up on the stage, it looks like he's reading Michael Ironside's mind, but then Michael Ironside starts to read his mind, and then he makes that dude's head explode.

SPEAKER_00 17:18

Wow.

SPEAKER_05 17:19

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:20

Just tomatoes reaction.

SPEAKER_05 17:24

The audience like flips, runs out of there. It wasn't what anybody was expecting. No. And it wasn't even what I was expecting, because I thought that that was like the climactic moment in the film.

SPEAKER_00 17:35

How far into the movie is this?

SPEAKER_05 17:37

It must be like 10 minutes? Yeah, somewhere. Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_00 17:40

This is at the beginning.

SPEAKER_05 17:41

It's still in the beginning. That's when you're like establishing your bad guy.

SPEAKER_00 17:45

I have a question for you guys because I haven't fully watched the movie. Do you feel like right from the beginning of the film you feel like the environment is like, oh, this is Canadian, or this is in Montreal? Yes.

SPEAKER_02 18:00

Because the food courts, the signs are bilingual. Oh, that's interesting. Okay, I didn't clock that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 18:05

One thing that is uniquely Canadian about it is uh the main character, Cameron Vale, he has a Canadian accent. It doesn't come out a lot. Usually when he says out, it comes out.

SPEAKER_02 18:17

Because but it is based in Canada.

SPEAKER_05 18:19

Uh it's never expressly stated, so I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 18:22

I'm going with yes then. Out and about and about.

SPEAKER_05 18:25

Just the fact that he is, you know, he has a Canadian accent. I feel like it's probably meant to be Canada.

SPEAKER_02 18:30

And then with the French, the food court. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 18:33

Um, one thing that I really enjoy about this movie is all of the pyrotechnics, the stunt work. They do so many different explosions. They do many different car crashes and car explosions as well. You were referencing a moment when Michael Ironside's character is in a car with these agents from um that facility, and he gets two of them to crash their car, and the car explodes the second it hits a barrier. Uh, and that's fun to see in a Canadian film.

SPEAKER_02 19:06

Yeah, that was really, really cool. A lot of explosions. Yes.

SPEAKER_05 19:09

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 19:10

Oh, and the I guess I would be jumping right ahead that ending.

SPEAKER_05 19:13

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Crazy. So there are also like great practical effects in this movie, which we can get to.

SPEAKER_04 19:20

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_05 19:20

There's later on in the film, after Cameron has like uh linked up with another group of these scanners, um, they're at one point escaping from uh Michael Ironside's characters, goons, and they're in a bus, and there's this fun like bus chase scene when another car pulls up and just shoots at the bus. They all get down on the ground, but the driver's shot, and then it drives into this record store and flips, and that's like just pretty cool to see in Canadian film.

SPEAKER_00 19:51

Did they flip an actual bus?

SPEAKER_05 19:53

Oh, yeah, it's 81. It's not a huge bus. It says that it's a school bus, but like not any school bus that I've seen. Um one aspect of this movie that I really, really liked was um Patrick McGuhan as Dr. Paul Ruth. This is the guy who's like spearheading this program to weaponize the scanners. And he has this really interesting energy of this kind of like a guy who's been kind of beaten down, I feel, still trying to maintain control of these scanners. And the way he talks about them too is is interesting. Like he'll say that he has like a way with them, he'll say that he admires them and stuff like that, but then he'll also call them creatures in the next scene as well.

SPEAKER_02 20:35

The best way to describe him when I was watching it with my dad, I'm like, oh my god, he's Papa from Stranger Things.

SPEAKER_05 20:41

Oh yeah, exactly. He's totally a Dr. Brenner type as well.

SPEAKER_02 20:44

The scanners are all the children, eleven, all of them.

SPEAKER_05 20:48

Yeah, and there's like a thing that's revealed later on about his character that kind of recontextualizes everything in this movie. Um, because he gives the the scanners something called ephemerol. It's a drug that will like shut off their powers. That's one thing that's introduced into the movie's lore. And that comes back in the end with the reveal that this guy is kind of more than he seems. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:12

It sounds like whoever wrote the film. Did David Cronberg write the film?

SPEAKER_05 21:17

Yeah, he wrote and directed it.

SPEAKER_00 21:18

Yeah, so it sounds like he wrote this character pretty in-depth.

SPEAKER_05 21:24

Yeah, it was a really interesting character. Very complex. And that guy is a really great performer as well. Like, I think it was one of the most competent performances. Yeah, at a certain point, so Cameron, I think I mentioned that he um links up with a group of other telepaths, and they're led by Kim Obreist is her name. And she it honestly isn't the best written character, I feel. How do you feel about that, Dev?

SPEAKER_02 21:51

She was fine.

SPEAKER_05 21:52

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 21:53

Present, very much a female character written in 1979.

SPEAKER_05 21:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:58

Like she's there.

SPEAKER_05 21:59

Yeah. Like, I like that she had this group as well. But she pretty quickly loses that group because um Michael Ironside's character is just like bringing in I don't know if they're scanners or people that he's like manipulating. But he kind of turns them into assassins. They come in, they they try to shoot you. Um so there's this interesting scene where she sat down with all of these scanners, and then two of these uh goons come in and just start shooting them in the head. Uh, and then she has pyrokinesis, so she lights those two goons on fire. And it's pretty cool. It's good fire stunt. Um, but then she mentions now I knows now I know what it feels like to die. Because when they got shot, everybody's minds were linked.

SPEAKER_00 22:44

So sh you can feel other people's feelings as well.

SPEAKER_05 22:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:49

Yeah, and since their minds were linked, she can hear their last thoughts.

SPEAKER_05 22:52

Yeah, exactly. They talk a lot about how it's like connecting a nervous system to another nervous system, even though you're separated in space. Yeah. So then she's she's along for the ride when they're, you know, in um consec and all. At one point, even Cameron links himself to a computer.

SPEAKER_00 23:09

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_05 23:10

Like he's able to access this computer and kind of like uh break down this con conspiracy that's been going on, finds out about like the production of that drug, Ephemerol, that's being produced by a subsidiary of this company, Comsec. So he's like confused, why is this happening? And big spoiler alert, you find out that this doctor invented this drug in the forties, I think, way back when, gave it to pregnant women as like a tranquilizer, but it turned their babies psychic. Yeah. Yeah. And so all of the scanners are kind of his children. Um, especially Cameron, who is literally his son.

SPEAKER_01 23:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 23:52

Yeah. Yeah. Um, and this Michael Ironside character is his brother. So it's kind of like a father versus son sort of story in the end. But also the doctor just left Cameron to be homeless and confused and crazy. Not knowing himself, and only brought him in and gave him a purpose when he needed him. So he's a real complex character in that way. That was cool. Michael Ironside's character is like trying to appeal to Cameron and be like, let's join forces, let's um rule over because also he is like, what's he doing? His master plan is to supply that drug to like the next generation of pregnant women, um, so that there's a whole slew of scanners that then he can control, turn into his own personal army. Again, that's just such like a cool and grand idea that like if this movie was like a Paul Verhoeven movie in the 80s, you know, like a total recall, I feel like it would have been huge, a blockbuster, and they could have really explored these concepts, but they couldn't. They could really only just hint at them. And what this movie culminates in is these two guys in an office standing a few feet apart from each other and having a psychic battle.

SPEAKER_00 25:12

So you think the budget held the movie back?

SPEAKER_05 25:16

I mean, like, it's hard to say because it is what it is, right? It's just like I think I have this image in my head of what this movie could have been if they gave it many more millions of dollars, which they obviously can't because it's Canadian film.

SPEAKER_00 25:31

It's just like they didn't have the money, you know, to eleven story with great concepts, and you know, I think for what it's worth, it sounds like still great effects.

SPEAKER_05 25:46

Oh, yeah, because the ending. Yeah, exactly. So that's one of my favorite parts of the movie. It's like both my favorite part, and also not because I have in my head, oh, this could be grander, but I still appreciate what's happening on screen. When they have this psychic battle, there's like these vein effects that are happening. Their veins are like pulsing and actually literally bursting, too. So gross like just fountains of blood.

SPEAKER_02 26:13

Coming out of the head.

SPEAKER_05 26:15

And um Michael Ironside just like decimates him, like he makes parts of his face peel away. Eyeballs. And then, yeah, his eyeballs just like gone and lights him on fire too, I think. Yeah. And then Kim comes in and is like, oh no, he's dead. Um, but then in the corner is Michael Ironside, starts speaking in Cameron's voice, and he's like, It's fine, I'm in here now.

SPEAKER_02 26:39

Yeah, so he blasted himself because at one point Michael's eyes are all white, he's going, which is actually what the movie posters so cool looking.

SPEAKER_05 26:47

Yeah. Uh they swap bodies and now he's in his body. Yeah. Uh, and that's just where the movie is. And his eyes do look a little different. Like, they do, I think that they're not the same color anymore. Exactly. So, like, that's that's cool. Again, like, I just can't help feeling like it could have been more.

SPEAKER_00 27:06

I loved it. Yeah, I feel like Canadian films specifically are so great at having a small budget, but doing great things with that budget, getting creative, and you know, instead of spending all this money and making it easy, just you know, throwing money at it, they have to like no, they don't have the budget. They have to get creative and think of other ways to do certain effects or or scenes or whatever it is. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 27:34

And I will see that in both of your picks. Yeah. Especially Pontypool, I feel, is an amazingly well done low-budget movie where most things are just talked about. Yeah. But you get to feel it because of the sound design. Exactly. It's just that I didn't get that payoff, that emotional payoff of this like next generation of scanners being born, or this big underground movement when they have no you never see a headquarters, there's no like, you know, I am Paul, Duke of Arrakis kind of speech to all of his legions of followers. Like, it's just he's got some dudes in jackets with guns coming at you, you know?

SPEAKER_02 28:15

Hey, Canada's population was really small and big.

SPEAKER_05 28:19

I know. Like, I know I'm bitching and moaning a little bit too much. It's just this is the way that the movie left me feeling, especially when it's just Kim wakes up and walks into the room and goes, There's the end of the battle. That's also the end of the movie. I'm like, okay. Okay. I think I actually just have written in my notes, let me read this. Body swap. Alright.

SPEAKER_02 28:41

I love the body swap. That caught me off guard. Because also near the end of the movie, like every movie if I watch it at night, I am a little sleepy lady. And then when the papa revealed happened, I'd go to my dad at the house like today. I'm like, Dad, he's just like Papa. My dad's like, he's not like your grandpa at all. No, Dr. Len. And he's like, uh, monologue about how this stranger thing's got lots of inspiration from it. And then at the end, when the veins are coming on the face, I'm like, ha! But you know what? I always think is so interesting is it's like when you look at well, where the world's at and everything when a horror movie is made, because horror's always commentating on the fears at the time.

SPEAKER_05 29:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:26

And if it was filmed in 1979, and we see a lot of movies with telepathy in the 80s and 50s, 60s, 70s, because we have Chil Children of the Damned, we have Firestarter, we have Carrie, we have all these movies that are about like post-war or during war experimentation on pregnant women. And then in the 50s and 60s. Exactly. In the 50s and 60s, you have like birth control pills being created, as well as the morning sickness pill, and the morning sickness pill, if you aren't aware, was a pill that women would take in the morning to ease their morning sickness. However, it had so many side effects and led to um birth abnormalities in people dying.

SPEAKER_00 30:10

Didn't it have some sort of like crazy like metal in it or some sort of can't remember what it was, but it was really bad.

SPEAKER_02 30:18

So my mom in England had a few kids in her class who had limbs that didn't fully develop and things like that would occur. So it's just so interesting how all these movies about children born with powers after like the wars, people messing with pregnancy, like with pills and stuff when you shouldn't be taking pills when you're pregnant, but they did not know that at the time, and now that's how we know this. So Dr.

SPEAKER_05 30:41

Roth even says, Yeah, this could have been radiation that caused you scanners. We have no clue.

SPEAKER_02 30:46

Bloody liar. Exactly.

SPEAKER_05 30:47

He knows it was him. I think he was by far the most interesting character.

SPEAKER_02 30:52

I loved it. I love that movie. Recommend to everybody watch Scanners.

SPEAKER_00 30:55

Yeah, I think David Cronenberg in particular is so good at writing his scripts and bringing in like social commentary and just talking about the issues of whatever time it is.

SPEAKER_05 31:08

So one last thing that I liked about Sinners is the credits.

SPEAKER_00 31:11

Scanners. Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_05 31:13

So you're right, yeah. One last thing that I liked about scanners is the end credits are the the computer screen that they interact with in the film. And I'm just like, that's cute. It's a nice way to do it. I don't know if you watched all the way to the end.

SPEAKER_02 31:29

Yeah, and then it just goes, I really just down to the computer. So yeah, just like a nice little classic black and green computing.

SPEAKER_05 31:37

There's so much slow ass typing on that computer though. Again, uh for this being like my pick, I guess it probably seems like I don't I don't like it that much.

SPEAKER_00 31:46

It does seem too much.

SPEAKER_05 31:48

Yeah. I got nothing to say about that. That is just the truth of it.

SPEAKER_00 31:52

It seems like you don't know a lot about Canadian horror.

SPEAKER_05 31:55

That's true, but I have seen both of your picks, and I gotta say I like Pontypool better than that one.

SPEAKER_00 32:01

That's fair.

SPEAKER_02 32:02

Like thank you. Like thank you, thank you.

SPEAKER_00 32:04

Last thing I want to say about David Cronenberg, though, is I think that he had such a big effect on specifically like the special effects makeup of his time, and like he's just inspired so many other films as far as like the body horror subgenre goes.

SPEAKER_04 32:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:28

So I don't think we could have had a Canadian horror episode without mentioning David Cronen. Oh, absolutely.

SPEAKER_05 32:34

That'd be inappropriate. That's one of the main reasons why I wanted to bring him up.

SPEAKER_00 32:38

Okay, well, I had many picks that I could have chosen, but one that I kept coming back to, and honestly, one of my favorite horror movies of all time, is Grave Encounters. It is a found footage film from 2011. It is directed and written by quote unquote The Vicious Brothers.

SPEAKER_05 33:04

Oh, that's awesome. Is one of them Sid Vicious?

SPEAKER_00 33:06

No. Okay, that would be really cool. But no, it's two men by the names of Colin Minnihan and Stuart Ortiz. Uh they also did Grave Encounters 2, which I really like. Um, Colin Minnihan specifically does a lot of like music videos uh for Canadian artists, such as Mother Mother, Marianna's trench, and Carly Ray Jepson.

SPEAKER_02 33:38

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_00 33:40

Yeah. Amongst many other Canadian artists, I didn't know that until I looked into it, but that's really cool. So a very Canadian man making very Canadian art.

SPEAKER_05 33:50

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 33:51

We love that.

SPEAKER_05 33:52

Do you have the the budget and box office there?

SPEAKER_00 33:54

Yeah, the budget was 120,000. What? Can you guess what the box office was?

SPEAKER_05 34:00

I'm gonna guess, wild guess. Six million? Five?

SPEAKER_00 34:05

So like so close. 5.4 million. Oh, that's yours then.

SPEAKER_03 34:10

Awesome!

SPEAKER_00 34:11

Well, that's amazing. Amazing, like so successful for such a small Canadian film.

SPEAKER_05 34:17

Yeah, that's a high gross. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:19

It stars Sean Roger as Lance, who is kind of our main ghost show host.

SPEAKER_02 34:26

Ugh God, I love this.

SPEAKER_00 34:27

And then we have uh Ashley Grisco as Sasha. She is, I feel like I said this last episode, but the only female in the film. Yeah! To an extent it's true.

SPEAKER_05 34:41

Yeah, for so many horror movies.

SPEAKER_00 34:45

Exactly one other woman Demon Ghost. Yeah. Um there's Merwin Mondesser as T C.

SPEAKER_05 34:51

That's a fun name. Yeah. Merwin?

SPEAKER_00 34:53

Merwin. Merwin Mondesser.

SPEAKER_05 34:56

Yeah. That's a good one.

SPEAKER_00 34:57

And then Juan Monsieur.

SPEAKER_05 34:58

Sounds like you named him. He's that good. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 35:01

You um Juan Redinger as Matt and Mackenzie Gray as Houston Gray.

SPEAKER_01 35:11

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 35:12

Um yeah. The film locations are solely in Vancouver and Coquitlam, BC. Woo! Yes. And it premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival.

SPEAKER_02 35:24

Good for them. Holy moly. Tribeca.

SPEAKER_05 35:26

It's the hard one to get into.

SPEAKER_02 35:28

It's a great film. Oh, it's New York. Yeah. Great. It's a great one.

SPEAKER_00 35:31

I'll also mention that it has a 6.1 on IMDb. That should say.

SPEAKER_05 35:37

That's amazing.

SPEAKER_00 35:38

Honestly, I feel like that is the perfect rating for a horror movie. Yeah, for IMDB. Yeah. Yes, it is.

SPEAKER_02 35:44

6.1, it's like that means it's good. We're doing well.

SPEAKER_03 35:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:48

So I'll give a brief synopsis for the film. So for their ghost hunting reality show, a production crew locks themselves inside an abandoned mental hospital that's supposedly haunted. And it might prove to be all too true.

SPEAKER_05 36:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:06

So the film opens with um an interviewer talking to an executive producer that knew the host of Grave Encounters, Lance Preston. Um, right away, obviously, we know that this is inspired by Ghost Adventures and Zach Baggins.

SPEAKER_02 36:26

Oh god, I love the king of ghost hunting shows. Love ghost hunting shows. I've always been a fan of ghost hunting shows.

SPEAKER_05 36:33

I'm sure that I've seen like an ad for it on daytime TV. That's the only time to like as a kid, been like, can't watch this. Too scary. Ghost are real. No.

SPEAKER_03 36:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:43

I love that show. Um, yeah, so the executive producer who's being interviewed goes on to talk about the infamous episode six and says it's undoctored footage. And this is where everything goes wrong.

SPEAKER_03 36:58

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 36:59

Um it's filmed in the so-called Collingwood Psychiatric Hospital.

SPEAKER_05 37:05

Do you know the name of that real hospital?

SPEAKER_00 37:07

Um, it's actually Riverview Mental Hospital. I don't know if you guys have ever been to the hospital.

SPEAKER_05 37:12

I've been there. No, I haven't.

SPEAKER_00 37:14

Yeah, it's very, very creepy. Quick sidebar um me and Mateo did a photo shoot there way back when and I'm standing right in front of the most like quote unquote haunted part. And let me tell you, when I was standing up there by myself, I felt some energy for sure. And I'm not just saying that for the episode, like I've had this little story that I've told people before.

SPEAKER_03 37:42

So it's a very spooky place.

SPEAKER_00 37:43

Well, yeah, let me get into like a little bit of the history of Riverview. So it was built in 1913. And originally it housed up to over like a hundred thousand patients at one point. Like it was just way too like overcrowded, basically. And it closed in 2012, I believe. So right as actually they were filming.

SPEAKER_05 38:10

It was still open?

SPEAKER_00 38:11

Yeah, technically parts of it. Obviously, they were filming in a building that was abandoned at that point, but there was a small part of the hospital that had some patients.

SPEAKER_03 38:22

Really? Wild.

SPEAKER_00 38:24

Um, my aunt actually worked there in the 80s. Oh my god. Yeah, 80s or 90s, I believe. Um, and she has quite a few stories of things that she saw going on there that were not right. I believe it. Yeah. Um, lots of patients died due to cruel treatments such as shock therapy, hydrotherapy, which is basically just blasting extremely cold or extremely hot water at someone.

SPEAKER_05 38:54

Oh god.

SPEAKER_02 38:55

Mm-hmm. And sometimes you're in a metal bathtub that closes on the top so you can't move and only your head's out.

SPEAKER_05 39:00

Using the word therapy loosely, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 39:03

Yep.

SPEAKER_05 39:04

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 39:05

Uh also sterilization's gone wrong. Yeah. And we're against people's will.

SPEAKER_05 39:11

Oh Lord.

SPEAKER_00 39:12

So yeah, a lot of people died from those things. When the hospital closed, many patients ended up on the downtown east side where they still are. Um yeah, accommodation down there obviously is cheap, so that's why they would be tempted to go down there. And uh they would also be preyed upon by drug dealers, gone into drugs, some fun little history of river view. Great place for a horror movie. It's horrific. So, anyways, now the crew is on the you know, quote unquote Collingwood psychiatric hospital grounds, and they start to interview some people that work there, um, as well as the property owner who tells them some creepy backstory of the hospital, as well as some other workers tell their experiences. Um, they do a little tour of the hospital, and there's a lot of things in the building that were just originally there.

SPEAKER_05 40:19

Oh yeah, they didn't have to do a lot of production design.

SPEAKER_00 40:23

No, so that's one thing that's really interesting to note about this film. So there's a lot of like old crusty bathtubs and like wheelchairs and patient beds. At one point, one thing that I think is particularly creepy is they go into a patient's room and there's all this like red writing all over the walls. That's real.

SPEAKER_05 40:49

Oh lord. That is real. Makes you feel a little icky when like the line between fact and fiction is blurred. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:01

Do you think that that's like not a good thing to do, or how do you feel about that?

SPEAKER_05 41:05

Argument can be made for like raising awareness to the conditions of these kinds of places. Yeah. Then it's also like we're using these stories and we're selling it, so I man, I'm not qualified to pass judgment.

SPEAKER_00 41:19

I think in a way it's like touching on the history of a Canadian building. Yeah. But I don't know if it's super ethical.

SPEAKER_05 41:32

I don't know either. Well, you know what? Speaking of like ethicality, one thing I really enjoy about the movie is that these people are frauds. They know it. The most of the time they're making fake ghost encounters on their show. It's this like theatricality, and then they encounter something real for the first time in this movie.

SPEAKER_00 41:56

Well, yeah, it's um that's interesting that you point out the whole like fraudulent side of it. At one point, when they're interviewing uh some of the people that work on the grounds, they like pay a guy like $20 to like, okay, just just tell us that you saw a ghost. Yeah. He was like, I saw a ghost over there. It was scary.

SPEAKER_05 42:18

Yeah, it doesn't look like a very good show.

SPEAKER_00 42:20

No, not at all. They're not doing well.

SPEAKER_05 42:22

Yeah, and I like their fake psychic guy who comes and is like, Yes, I'm feeling the energy in here, and he's not.

SPEAKER_00 42:30

Going back to their little tour around Riverview, I thought like seeing the inside of the hospital was so cool to me, especially in like its like raw state. Because I have been on the grounds many times. When I was younger, I've been a couple years ago for a photo shoot, I've been, but I've never seen inside the building. So to actually see inside was like something I had always been so curious about. So very exciting. Back to Mackenzie Gray, they so they bring in a hokey medium, Houston Gray. Mackenzie Gray's a big Canadian actor. Um soon after this character is introduced, they the groundskeeper locks them into the building, quote unquote, for the night. For the night. So the team starts to investigate the building, and it's the exact nightmare inside that I thought it was going to be. Uh of course they start hearing noises, the windows start opening, the doors start slamming, the ghosts are out and about within the first like twenty minutes of them being in this building at night.

SPEAKER_05 43:46

Do you remember what's like the first evidence of real paranormal activity in this movie?

SPEAKER_00 43:51

I think it's when TC goes off by himself to like capture some sort of. It's the door.

SPEAKER_02 43:58

Something with the door happens. I think maybe just before that, a wheelchair moves. And he's like chatting with his daughter on the phone and the wheelchair moves again. Cool.

SPEAKER_00 44:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 44:08

Yeah. Oh, I would not enter that building at night.

SPEAKER_00 44:12

No. So this team are a bunch of chickens, let me tell you. Because after like what? Like, I don't know what it says on the camera. Like an hour, maybe two. Yeah, they start getting antsy. They start getting lost, and they want to leave. ASAP. They regret locking themselves in there. Yeah. At least I think. Right away, they can all feel that something's going on here. And yeah, right away the tension is building slowly. I think this film is very good at building tension. Right from the moment they get in there up until the end, it's just like one big like going up the roller coaster track. Yes. You know? Um, as quote unquote morning comes, oh Brutal. It's still dark, and they've lost a crew member, Matt. This is, I think, the tipping point of the film when they start to realize that, like, oh, it should probably be light out, but that's okay.

SPEAKER_02 45:17

Yeah, that really stressed me out because you know, especially when you're a little kid and you're having a bad nightmare, or you just wake up part way through the night, like, when is it morning? When is it morning? And it's never morning, and then finally you fall asleep and it's morning again. These people are just living in perpetual that.

SPEAKER_05 45:31

Yeah, endless nights. It's so creepy.

SPEAKER_00 45:34

Sidebar. That's why Skinnabrink was so creepy. Totally.

SPEAKER_03 45:38

Yes.

SPEAKER_05 45:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:39

Canadian horror. Canadian horror. Tommy, you need to watch more Canadian horror.

SPEAKER_03 45:44

I guess so. Yes, you do.

SPEAKER_00 45:46

Um, then we go back to our character TC. Um, he is another one of the paranormal investigators that's part of the crew. He's done waiting around. Um, and he gets everyone to try and push through the front door. This scene, when I first watched it, it got me like no other horror movie. When I saw this, I was gobsmacked. Yeah. I think I actually visibly like my jaw dropped.

SPEAKER_02 46:15

Like I was like, the gobsmacking occurred.

SPEAKER_00 46:18

Um, so basically, they push like a patient bed through what they think is the front door.

SPEAKER_05 46:25

Well, it used to be the front door. It used to be the front door. They got in through the door.

SPEAKER_00 46:30

Um, and big reveal, it goes into another hallway.

SPEAKER_02 46:34

Yeah, I got tears in my eyes for them.

SPEAKER_00 46:37

But that's when you know it's all over. At this point, Lance also reveals that it should have been light out three hours ago.

SPEAKER_05 46:46

Oh, was he holding on to that?

SPEAKER_00 46:48

Yeah, so he's like watching the time, I guess. And so, yeah, this is kind of where like the loop concept comes into play.

SPEAKER_05 46:56

Um and he wasn't telling people what to like protect them from the knowledge, or he's just scared of it himself.

SPEAKER_00 47:02

Yeah, I think at one point when the camera's on his face, like before this moment, he like makes a comment to himself, like, oh, it should be like morning.

SPEAKER_05 47:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:14

And then he like tells people that yeah, it should have been light out three hours ago. Um, which is super freaky, nightmare fuel, in my opinion. And I think this is where all hell breaks loose. The ghosts are coming out and getting the violin, and everyone starts going a little crazy because they're introduced to the concept that maybe they can never get out of here.

SPEAKER_05 47:40

What I like is the the one who I believe goes the craziest is the spiritual medium, in quotes.

SPEAKER_00 47:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 47:47

The guy who should be the most at ease with all of this is like, no, this is real and I'm not enjoying it.

SPEAKER_03 47:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 47:55

It's just like a fun juxtaposition for his like on-screen persona, the character that he made for himself, versus how he is when he's actually faced with reality. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 48:07

Um, so yeah, again, slowly more tension building. Like the idea of this costs not a lot of money, but it's very effective. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 48:18

Yeah, for real.

SPEAKER_00 48:19

But you know what? The team is still determined to find a way out. Uh they start to search the hospital with the little light that they have, and the ghosts start to get crazy. Like I said, they start to get violent. They're throwing beds around, they're yelling. At one point, um, they scratch hello into Sasha's back.

SPEAKER_02 48:45

Oh yeah. Yeah. That's rude right there. Yeah. That was brutal.

SPEAKER_00 48:50

It looks pretty good too. I like the especial the special effects here. Nice. It's not again, it's not like super like fancy effects or like you know, like anything crazy, but I think it's still pretty cool. Like it's subtle, but it's cool.

SPEAKER_05 49:06

Yeah. Is around this phase of the movie when they like walk into a patient's room and see a woman standing in the corner. I feel like it's in this like exploration phase.

SPEAKER_00 49:15

It is, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 49:15

Yeah. And then when she turns around and her mouth like drops open, it's like weird like CGI morphing effect. That was a good scare.

SPEAKER_00 49:23

Yeah, I actually have a note here. Then comes the famous demon mouth girl. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 49:29

That's like the most well-known image, I guess, from this movie.

SPEAKER_00 49:32

I think there's a lot of gifts of it on the internet.

SPEAKER_02 49:35

I had seen that so much, and so watching this film, I was like, oh my goodness. Yeah, this is where it's from. Yeah, and same with the hands.

SPEAKER_00 49:41

I was like, hmm, it's this. Yeah, that scene's really cool.

SPEAKER_02 49:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 49:46

So yeah, like I said, at this point, people are getting thrown around. Houston unfortunately dies. He gets like, I don't know, lost on his own at one point, and he is in like a hallway, and you see something like lift him up and then like throw him against the ground, which is really cool. Something that was also really creeping out in this movie is some of the sound design. Like after uh Houston dies, and it shows like the other team members of the ghost hunting show like running around. Uh the ghosts start like laughing. And the ghost laughing in this film specifically is really creepy. I don't know what it is about it, but I was watching it last night by myself in the dark. Oh, in your haunted apartment. In my haunted apartment.

SPEAKER_04 50:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:40

Yeah. That probably added to it. But yeah, the ghost laughing was giving me goose flesh.

SPEAKER_04 50:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:46

Um, eventually they find Matt, the crew member that was lost originally, and he is in a hospital gown. Um, he has a hospital bracelet on as well, and he says there's a way out. He just has to make us better first. What does that mean, Matt?

SPEAKER_05 51:07

Right? Who's he? Yeah. Are we ever gonna meet him? Hope not.

SPEAKER_00 51:12

Hope not. So yeah, Matt is crazy. Something bad's happened to him for sure. And they start hearing ungodly sounds coming from the hospital, and arms start coming out of the ceiling. Love this was that scene you were talking about.

SPEAKER_02 51:29

I love that scene. Like, I had seen it on the internet for years, never knowing where it came from, and then watching it in the movie, I'm like, yeah, that sucks.

SPEAKER_04 51:36

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 51:37

Like, yeah, I think I would just curl up on the ground in fetal position, cry until I died. Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 51:43

Like you have to go back.

SPEAKER_05 51:45

I think my favorite scare in this movie is to deal with the therapy bed. Is that coming up in your nose?

SPEAKER_00 51:51

Yeah. Are you talking about the bathtub filled with blood?

SPEAKER_05 51:54

Yes, so the bathtub scare.

SPEAKER_00 51:56

End up in a room with a bathtub, which is a real bathtub for an overview, which is so disturbing. And it's full of blood.

SPEAKER_05 52:06

Yeah. Scary on its own. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 52:09

And TC gets pulled in by a ghost. Oh. So cool. Yes, I love how people are just disappearing.

SPEAKER_05 52:17

Because then also all the blood drains. It's gone. It's like a portal to bathtub tip over. And it's no more blood in there. There's not a ghost woman. TC's gone.

SPEAKER_00 52:27

Where to go? Yeah. Into hell.

SPEAKER_05 52:30

You assume, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 52:32

Yeah. Um, so we are left with Sasha, Lance, and Matt, and they when they're running, because pretty much the entire time that they're in this freaking hospital, they're running away from ghosts and just into like new rooms that they haven't been into or have been into. Yeah, true.

SPEAKER_03 52:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 52:55

Um, and they see like a black-eyed, bloodied-mouthed ghost that's like another jump scare. There's a lot of like CGI ghosts in this, but I do think that they're pretty effective.

SPEAKER_02 53:05

They are.

SPEAKER_00 53:06

As far as cheap CGI goes.

SPEAKER_02 53:09

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 53:10

Um, and at this point, when uh Sasha and Lance are kind of like uh distracted by this black-eyed blade-mouthed ghost, uh, we see Matt just walking like in the can porter footage, and he do decides to throw himself from an elevator shaft.

SPEAKER_03 53:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 53:32

Yeah, I think that part of Matt is still in his brain, and he's just like, I've had enough of this.

SPEAKER_05 53:38

Yeah, okay. You think it was more his choice than not? Interesting.

SPEAKER_00 53:43

What do you think?

SPEAKER_05 53:45

Who's to say?

SPEAKER_00 53:47

Who's to say? Lance and Sasha decide to climb down the elevator shaft into the tunnels. Oh, yeah. Oh, which is the last bit of the film that I think is the most terrifying.

SPEAKER_05 53:59

And do you know where they shot these?

SPEAKER_00 54:02

In the tunnels of Riverview.

SPEAKER_05 54:03

Wait, there's tunnels under Riverview? Oh yeah, yeah. There's tunnels in VGH. Oh my lord. I didn't like I don't like knowing.

SPEAKER_02 54:10

Oh, old hospitals have tunnels. Wow. You gotta transport bodies. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 54:16

And the tunnels are what most of the actual Riverview staff says is the most active. Yeah. As far as ghosts. That makes sense. Yeah, it makes sense. So that also adds to the creep factor. Yeah. At this point, when they get down to the tunnels, Sasha is throwing up blood and is not doing well. And at this point, we know she is she doesn't have too much time left.

SPEAKER_04 54:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 54:43

Um and then Lance says into the camcorder that they've been walking the tunnels for days.

SPEAKER_05 54:50

Yeah, that depressed me. Yeah, it's like a 1408 time dilation. Never gonna let you out. There's only one way out.

SPEAKER_00 55:00

Yeah. It's quite depressing. Yeah, and at this point, like Sasha and Lance are like sitting on the ground, and like a ghostly smoke just like takes Sasha, and we don't see her.

SPEAKER_05 55:12

Yeah, I remember that. Yeah. Hi, Sasha.

SPEAKER_00 55:14

So Lance is by himself in the tunnels, and of course, he starts to hear disembodied voices coming from a walkie-talkie. He's eating rats.

SPEAKER_05 55:25

I'm like, he must be hungry. It's been days, right? You would be.

SPEAKER_00 55:34

What a dedicated ghost hunter host. So you guys committed to the craft. But yeah, uh, like I was saying at one point, he's really gnawing on a rat with his like bare hands, and you hear the guts like squelching. He's really getting his lips in there. He's laughing while he's doing it, also.

SPEAKER_05 55:55

What else are you gonna do? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 55:57

If you're not laughing, you're crying. Yep. Um the film ends with Lance finding uh a random door to a room with lots of like gory photos in it of like botched surgeries. He sees a picture of Matt also with his like brain open.

SPEAKER_02 56:17

Yes, and it's like lobotomy, like a bad lobotomy.

SPEAKER_00 56:21

And like one person has like their chest open so that you can see their like rib cage and stuff. Quite disturbing. And then he f he goes into like another small room with all this like satanic ritual stuff, and then quickly sees a bunch of ghost doctors.

SPEAKER_02 56:40

Ghost doctors have never done anything good.

SPEAKER_00 56:43

And they do this specifically creepy thing that they also do in the 1990s House on Haunted Hill, where all the doctors are like looking at whatever like subject they're terrorizing, and then they slowly like turn around and look right at the camera, and that freaks me the fuck out. So scary. Of course, they lobotomize him. Yeah, and then the last kind of image of the film is Lance Preston signing off for the last time for Grave Encounters.

SPEAKER_05 57:24

I love it. Fun, spooky ending. Good pick, Emily.

SPEAKER_00 57:28

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 57:29

Ponty Pool. Pon de Pool. Panty Pool. Pantypool. As he says at the opening, Pont de Fond, he's saying so many different things. So, yes, Pontypool is a 2008 Canadian horror film that had a very small box office. This is why I'm like, this is very much Canadian film. At the box office, it only made $32,000.

SPEAKER_05 57:56

Oh, that's wrong.

SPEAKER_02 57:57

And I'm assuming that's $32 Canadian dollars. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_05 58:01

What was its budget though?

SPEAKER_00 58:03

Hopefully lower than $32,000.

SPEAKER_02 58:05

Definitely higher. Unfortunately. Yeah. So the estimated budget, according to IMDB, of $950,000.

SPEAKER_05 58:14

Oh, yikes.

SPEAKER_02 58:16

But this does not surprise me because this is kind of the way of Canadian film.

SPEAKER_05 58:22

It's also a zombie movie, but also not a zombie movie. It's a bit of a niche film.

SPEAKER_02 58:28

Yeah, so I really, really like Pontypool because I think the film that we'll be seeing pretty soon another Canadian horror film, Undertone, has some inspiration. It must have pulled from this because Pontypool follows, I would say, three main characters, and they have a radio show. And I think that's a brilliant way when you're doing low budget film is to have one location.

SPEAKER_05 58:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 58:52

Heck, even if you're doing high budget films, one location, because I have this saying to myself, kind of, and with my friends, but I really think a good movie, if you were to take away all of the big fancy setting, all of the big sets, can it be a play? And is it still interesting? Because if so, then I know you have a really good movie. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 59:12

This film definitely does that. Exactly. One location relies on sound.

SPEAKER_02 59:17

Exactly. And if they were to ever make a staged version of it, I would watch that. Like I think it's really, really fascinating. So yeah, Pontypool takes place in Ontario, and we know it's Ontario because the Ontario police get mentioned a lot throughout it, and we the CBC gets a shout-out in this film, which I absolutely love. So, Pontypool has Grant Mazie, he's the main character, and he has a radio show, and it opens up with his monologue, which is so cool. What I just love about this opening scene is it's black, and then we start hearing what he's saying. He's talking about how a cat is missing, and then he starts talking about Pontypool, Pontypool, all of that. And snow starts to fall. They're in Pontypool, Ontario. A real place, right?

SPEAKER_05 1:00:05

Or is this a fictional tip?

SPEAKER_02 1:00:06

See, is Pontypool a real place?

SPEAKER_05 1:00:08

I'll look it up for you.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:09

It's an unincorporated village in Ontario. Wonderful. It's a village. Because let's be real, most of Canada are unincorporated small towns. That's the majority of this country. When he gets to work, he works with Laurel Ann, who is the youngest of the trio. She's kind of the disc jockey assistant, if you will. And then there is also a character who is the manager. Her name is Sydney. She would be like the producer who's trying to keep Grant Mazzy on track. It's like, okay, this is your show. Yeah. Feeding him stories, telling him when to wrap it up, when to change. So it's really cool just to see how a radio show works and how you have to keep moving with the stories. I really appreciated that because Grant Mazzie is keeping his mazziness the whole time.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:56

He's a loose unit. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:58

So, Mazzy, he's just doing his mazziness, and then they start to get fed the story about violence that is occurring with some ice fishing. And the people coming up, there's like a car roadblock situation. 16 people, two cops are there, and then the woman's like, we need to wrap this up. This is just about drunk ice fishers at the end of the season. Not really. It's not. It's not. It's revealed to be so much more. There is shooting happening, and people are going off.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:26

One thing right away that I noticed about this film is it's so creepy to think about you being away from whatever chaotic, violence, terrible things are going on. Yeah. But you can hear it. You can hear it happening, but you're not there. Like, I don't know.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:46

And it's your job to make sense of it and report it. You have to deal with those emotions, but then be clinical about it and cut to the chase, give people the news. I think that they do a really great job of depicting that.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:02

Um, and then more calls start coming in about strange occurrences that are happening across the town and people acting oddly violent towards one another, things just going off, and then one man, Nigel, calls in from the BBC. It's like, okay, we have someone from the BBC coming in, and he talks about um the riots that are occurring and Quebec forces being involved and wondering if this has to do with separationism within Quebec and Canada and the United States. Yeah, I really love that.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:30

The suspicion from especially Britain that we're just making noise again. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:39

Exactly.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:40

So there's something else going on.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:41

Exactly. So I thought that was very interesting, and again, that's another very uniquely Canadian thing that this brings up. It does bring up some Canadian history and politics in there, which I thought was really interesting. And then, of course, their radio show does get interrupted by French. Um, and it's so funny because when listening to that, I was like, okay, trying to hear, but it's hard because it's intercom. But then the last sentence I picked up on it said, do not translate this message. And then he reads it about and it's like avoid terms of endearment, avoid family, avoid talking to children. And whatever you do, do not translate this message. I love that because they translated it and they go, oh shit. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:24

That's so interesting that it said, do not like translate this message in French. I didn't even notice that, right? And I feel like it's like a little nod to like uh French Canadians.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:36

Exactly. And because it kind of gets revealed, it's only English is viral. Yeah. It's the only thing with the illness, the French language. It doesn't have it. A doctor comes in speaking German, Dr. Mendez. He hypothesizes that the virus has infected certain words in the English language, and that's making people sick.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:54

And then what it does is kind of turns you into a word zombie.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:57

Yeah, a word zombie.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:58

They call them talkers, I think is what they're called in the script. And you walk around repeating nonsense phrases, and it kind of spreads throughout, and then you are finding people you then try to burrow into their mouths how they describe it. Eat your way through somebody's mouth because you're so frustrated trying to communicate and you can't. So you just eviscerate someone out of frustration, and it's creepy.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:27

What do you think that's a metaphor for?

SPEAKER_02 1:04:30

Well, it kind of reminds me of I can't remember the exact term for it, but when people have strokes, yeah, I can see that. Yeah, and they can no longer say what they're meaning to say. So it could be a metaphor for that. It can also be a metaphor for just how English has conquered all of the world.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:49

That's a really interesting interpretation, too. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:52

Brandon has colonized the entire world, and it's like a lot of languages are dying and going extinct. Luckily, there's a revival for a bunch of other languages coming back, but yeah, how English kind of dominates and borrows itself everywhere.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:07

I think that's probably what the filmmakers were going for.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:10

Yeah. One part that is just so heartbreaking is when people do lose their ability to communicate, like Laurel Ann ends up getting infected because the word sweetie and honey husband said to her, and everything's going fine, and then she starts getting confused, and then she gets frustrated.

SPEAKER_05 1:05:25

And you get to see also what happens when Laurel Ann, who's now a talker, isn't able to seek out the others, and they they call it steal their words.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:37

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_05 1:05:38

Because they're they're locked in the booth at one point and she's outside.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:42

And it's soundproof, and the Dr. Mendez says, Your friend doesn't know it, but she's hunting us, but if we stay quiet, she will lose track of us, and she does for a bit, until they realize she's now libreeding.

SPEAKER_05 1:05:55

Yeah. And she's standing outside the booth staring at them, yeah. Their words, I think.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:00

Yeah, she's mouthing their words, so she has now learned to lip read.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:04

Um it's also pretty interesting when she gets frustrated enough to just start running into the glass, smashing her head, especially her lips too, because they go lip first, into the glass, and then there's some great gnarly effects of her lips being split.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:21

That's very cool.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:22

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:22

Yeah. I really, really, really, really like that. And then, yes, the doctor unfortunately starts to lose it, and then he just releases himself out into the snow. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:32

Um, because the doctor is an interesting character, too. Yeah, isn't he? Do you think that he has anything to do with the start of this virus? Because the talkers attack his office in the beginning. He's been on the run. So, do you feel like there's some connection there?

SPEAKER_02 1:06:47

Hmm, that is a good question. I never thought of it before. I always thought that the doctor was always infected because he was always being so strange. You know, the first couple times I've watched this film, I'm like, okay, well, he's speaking English, now he's speaking German, now he's speaking in a different language.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:03

He keeps repeating breathe and breathe.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:06

Yeah, so I'm like, maybe he just has figured out how to postpone it for himself.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:11

He's also one thing that I love about this character is that he's oddly clinical. Like he's a weirdo. Yeah. And the way that he's cataloging Laurel Ann is so cold. Yeah. He's like, oh, this is very interesting. Here's what's going to happen now. At one point, he's even like snacking as she's like smacking her head into the window. And it's like really hard to tell where this guy stands morally.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:36

Yeah, he was a very weird character. I really liked it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:39

I would love to talk about the relationship. Because it becomes sweet, you know?

SPEAKER_01 1:07:44

Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:45

Like uh at a certain point, uh Sydney becomes infected.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:50

And then Grant figures out a way to cure her by changing the definition of the word that she's infected with in her mind. Tells her that kill, the word she's stuck on, is kiss.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:02

Mm-hmm. And it works for her.

SPEAKER_05 1:08:04

And then, smooth dog that she is, she goes, kill me. And then they they have a quick kiss.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:08:10

Um, which then leads Grant to realize, hey, I know the cure for this now. And um he's gonna go back on air and kind of broadcast this message. And I love this moment because um Sidney's saying, No, why are we gonna do this? This is just gonna attract attention, this is gonna get us killed. And Grant, who's kind of been like a sort of an asshole a little bit in the movie, you know, like he's kind of self-centered, he's not happy to be there. He's like, No, we need to do this. This, like, the world is ending out there, and we've been playing Muzak. Uh, and then she's like, Okay, I'm with you, and the two of them get on the air, and then he starts like changing the definition of words. Yeah. Well, we have a message in French coming in, yeah, stop talking.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:08:58

Because they think he's sick. He's not, but they think he is. Um, and then they start counting down.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:09:05

Yeah. Uh, as he's like making a really inspirational speech, too. He's saying, like, this isn't the end of the human race, it's just the end of the day. And I love that whole moment. And then just as the countdown reaches zero, she rushes in, gives him a kiss, and then boom.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:22

Yeah. Kill his kiss.

SPEAKER_05 1:09:24

Yeah. Yes. So kind of a sad ending, but also But it's also the only way it can end. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:31

So yeah, I really, really like this movie, and I think it does such a good thing at playing with not the most simple concept, but having it in a very simple location. Again, it is sound and audio-based horror, which we do see a lot in Canadian films. Like, we'll be seeing that in undertone next week. And it's just very inspirational as people who like to make horror films. Just finding something simple. It's like, okay, one location, and now make a story. And yeah, I believe everyone's like a Canadian actor in this movie, too.

SPEAKER_05 1:10:02

I'm not sure if Steven McHaddy is. I feel like he is. Never mind. Yeah. Stephen McHaddy's Canadian. That's wonderful.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:13

Because it's a lesser amount you get paid.

SPEAKER_05 1:10:16

And this guy is amazing. He's one of my favorite parts of this movie. He has such great charisma. He nails like this kind of grizzled veteran of radio who's kind of over it, but he's still trying to bring his personality in his A game. Damn the man, that's kind of his sort of way. Like he says he's taken no prisoners all the time. Like, I just love that character and that performance. This movie is probably my favorite Canadian horror movie.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:44

Yeah, better than Scanners?

SPEAKER_05 1:10:46

Yes. I have to say, I like Scanners. I probably made it seem like I didn't. I do have some issues with it. But Pontypool, I full scale love. I think it's great.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:00

Really good acting, really good characters, character development, really good stories, and I think that's like what Canadian horror does best. Yeah. A lot of the like pre-production and writing and getting creative without a budget. I think we're really good at doing that. I agree. Also, after listening to all of our films, I think that like a running theme in Canadian horror films are that they're very depressing and very dreary. And I think that that is Canada in the winter in a nutshell.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:35

Oh, it absolutely is.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:37

I think Canada is a very beautiful place, but it's also got a lot of dark darkness.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:44

It has a lot of darkness in many ways.

SPEAKER_05 1:11:46

Yeah, and I think there is also this underlying bitterness as well in Canadian identity just because we've been so mislabeled and misrepresented, so we reflect that in our media. We're like, hey, we're here, we do stuff, but there's kind of that tone to it.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:03

Alright, Tom, what's the next segment?

SPEAKER_05 1:12:05

Whoa! Alright, guys, it's time for Who What Watch Read When. Yeah, uh the segment of the show where we give ourselves a platform to say what we're watching, listening, reading, either in the near future, presently, even in the past. Uh, and I will say for me, I have been forgetting what I've been watching. Let me see. Oh yeah. So just today I saw a makeup test from this movie called Cold Storage, which has Joe Cierry in it, came out this year, and it's about a group of like minimum wage workers who are at a storage facility and they unearth and accidentally release this like fungus that was engineered by the government or something like that.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:52

I've heard of this.

SPEAKER_05 1:12:53

Yeah, and it's got good reviews. Uh, and I saw this makeup test from it earlier today that was like properly gnarly, like this like green fungus bursting out from under somebody's skin. And if that was just the makeup test, I that looks even better on screen. So I think I'll probably take a look at that within the next week uh and report back.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:16

Sounds good. I love Joe Qui and uh love some makeup effects.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:21

Um, and then what I'm currently reading is this book called The Cure for Drowning by Logan Paler. It is a Canadian book, and in fact, the author is from Abbotsford and currently lives in Abbotsford. I don't know yet if it is a horror or not. I just read the first chapter and some spookiness occurs. It starts in 1931 and it's based in Ontario. These kids are walking in the winter, you already know how this ends, along a river looking for some cranberries, and the sister starts to see a glowing light from underneath, and she's like, they want me down there. Oh all of this, and then she collapses into the ice. The brothers presume she is dead because she is dead, you know, fell into the ice.

SPEAKER_05 1:14:04

But they never find her body.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:05

No, they're carrying her back home. Her body, they scoop it back out.

SPEAKER_05 1:14:08

Safe presumption that she's dead.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:10

Yep, exactly. They see that she's dead by ice cold, all this, and the mum's in denial that she has passed is feeding her warm soup all this, saying a prayer in Gaelic, and it's just heartbreaking as the brothers wait. While she's dead. Yeah, while she's dead, feeding her soup, and the soup is just pouring back out her mouth because she's not eating it. Next day she's awake. Oh she's alive.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:35

That's horror.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:36

Not only is she alive and wake, she's not the same. She cannot really speak anymore. Interesting. So it's she doesn't have the same likes or interests as time goes on. So I'm gonna keep you guys updated, but so far I'm really liking it.

SPEAKER_05 1:14:52

This sounds really cool.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:53

Yeah, the cover, I'll describe the cover to you guys. There it's blue with a bunch of long kelps, somebody going in the water, but on the other side's a seal. So I'm like, are there selkies? Is it folklore?

SPEAKER_05 1:15:05

Do you want to give us a quick background for what a selkie is?

SPEAKER_02 1:15:09

Oh, yes, a selkie is um in Gaelic and Celtic folklore. It's like a mermaid, but not quite. So in the water they are seals, but on land they are human, so they are they can transform between human and seal. And they are said to be like the most beautiful people in the world and land, but as soon as they're on land, if they're on land too long, all they want to do is be back in the sea. So it's very, very beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:35

I will say the cover doesn't really read spooky.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:39

It doesn't read spooky, so I'm curious as to where it's going.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:43

It reads more like magical things.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:45

Yeah, magical, mystical, so we'll see. All I know is that beginning I was like first five pages. I'm like, I'm heartbroken, and now she's alive, I'm going through a roller coaster.

SPEAKER_05 1:15:55

And what about you, Emily?

SPEAKER_00 1:15:56

Okay, guys. I watched Primate. Oh, I am happy that we didn't do an episode on it and that we didn't go to the theater and pay Monday to see it. Um it was not good. Oh no, go find it.

SPEAKER_05 1:16:11

Was it fun bad or just it was kind of fun bad.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:14

Me and Mateo watched it the other night, and we did have fun watching it, I will say. It was pretty entertaining. It was pretty cheesy, the acting, not so good. Um the storyline, not so good. Oh no. The kills, good. Okay, okay. The kills were good, and that's what kept me watching it.

SPEAKER_05 1:16:37

Does anybody get their face eaten?

SPEAKER_00 1:16:39

Somebody gets their face ripped off.

SPEAKER_05 1:16:41

Right, and that's yeah, close enough. That's what I expected.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:44

And the monkey gives a big old chomp into somebody's flesh, and that part's really cool. Yikes because it looks like real, like, prosthetic teeth. Oh. It's not CGI, which I was like, yes, that's cool.

SPEAKER_05 1:16:59

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:00

So that was really cool. There was quite a few really cool kills. Yeah. But besides that, it was awful.

SPEAKER_05 1:17:06

I'm gonna watch the kill count. Yeah, that's a kill count.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:09

Is appropriate. I will give you that. Don't watch the movie, watch the kill count. The one and only time I will come and say that.

SPEAKER_05 1:17:16

What about for terrifier though?

SPEAKER_00 1:17:18

No! You must watch the movies.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:22

Babies.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:23

I am a baby Emily. Have you listened to any of my recommendations?

SPEAKER_03 1:17:28

None of my recommendations have gore.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:30

Okay, we'll we'll build up to it. Sure. But yeah. Primate, four out of ten.

SPEAKER_05 1:17:35

Two opposable thumbs down.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:37

Two opposable thumbs.

SPEAKER_05 1:17:41

Oh, okay. That's it then, isn't it? Yeah. Alright, that was Who What Watch Read When. Uh, then I guess we'll just wrap up the show now. Uh guys, thank you so much for being here and recording this show with me today. Uh, thank you to the listener for coming back for another week. This is week eight. Woohoo.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:00

Week of many thousands, hopefully.

SPEAKER_05 1:18:03

We also just hit 200 downloads today as of recording. So thank you so much for everybody who's coming back, downloading, listening. Uh, hopefully telling friends as well, because that is how we'll get new listeners. Um, special thank you to Moira Christie for our theme. Thank you to Kia LSD for our logo. Thank you for Gordon Dearity for our microphone. Yes. Uh thanks to me for the edit. And dinner. Oh, that's true. I did do that as well. Hey, well, thank you guys for the company. Oh, you're welcome. Uh guys, where can they find us on the socials?

SPEAKER_00 1:18:39

You can find me at emily.english underscore on Instagram and at horrorhoe on YouTube.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:48

You can find me, same name across the board, Devonella Sterity, and that will be on Instagram, YouTube, and Letterboxed.

SPEAKER_05 1:18:56

Um, you can find me at ThomasNJackson2002 on Instagram, ThomasNJackson at Letterboxd. You can also find this show at Whispers in the Woods Pod on Instagram, uh, where you could give us a DM with an episode suggestion, comments, critiques, just want to say hi, please do. Also, we're gonna be rolling out some uh new things coming up, aren't we? Maybe some giveaways, some more, you know, audience engagement plans as well. There will be some episodes where we're going to need help, you know, from our listeners in order to supply the topic of the episode. So that's coming up.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:40

To give you what you want, to give the people what they want.

SPEAKER_05 1:19:44

Exactly. Yeah, so uh that'll do it. I guess we will see you guys next week.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:48

Well, we will not see you. You will hear us.

SPEAKER_05 1:19:50

You will hear us. Yes, you will hear us. We will enter your ears next week. Alright, deal with your lizard DNA, folks. See you next week.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:58

Bye.

SPEAKER_05 1:19:59

What we're a scrappy little industry.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:04

The scrappy guys.