Hey Smiling Strange
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Hey Smiling Strange
The Backrooms Movie with Tim Howe
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Hey you guys wanted me to review and share my thoughts on the movie The Backrooms, right? You want to hear me say the word Zoomer a lot, right?
Anyway I'm joined by Tim Howe of Vista House to discuss our thoughts on The Backrooms, the sudden end of the Millenial in culture, and the fact that Tim has almost certainly been possessed by a ghost at one point in his life.
Brought to you by Klubhouse Fantasy Football, check it out at Klubhouse.fun
Today is going to be a podcast that I've wanted to do for a little bit, but uh because I know that the audience out there needs more white guys talking about movies, but I like talking about movies, mostly because I'm not really much of a movie buff. I haven't seen most of the movies. I want an excuse to go to more movies. I like going to the movie theater. Occasionally I have to stand up and just like, you know, go to the side because my knees hurt or whatever. But uh so what I did was I got uh Friend of the Pod, former uh Purity Wing podcast host, and frontman of Vista House and uh First Rodeo, whenever you guys get that back, because I need that. That's my I play drums in that when you tour. I don't get to be on the record, so the record is Nathan.
SPEAKER_00Sorry, man. No, I get it. I understand.
SPEAKER_01You guys go have fun that weekend, and then we go on tour, and you guys talk about how fun it was to record the album.
SPEAKER_00You can hang out.
SPEAKER_01You can look. You can't touch. You can't touch. But yeah, first rodeo uh is a a band. Sorry, I was just checking levels there. And uh we got Tim Howe here in the house, in my literal house. Radio puppets. You're locked in on that accent now, actually.
SPEAKER_00The backrooms. It's the back rooms. You saw the back rooms, I saw the Mandalorian.
SPEAKER_01Did you did you say nope, can't do accents?
SPEAKER_00What if I did that the entire that would be an instant uh L for this for this podcast?
SPEAKER_01I think the funny part is that I would have to I would have to release the podcast. I'd have to put it out there. Release, release the Grogu tapes. Uh we didn't see the Mandalorn, we saw the backrooms because we want the zoomers to think we're cool, right?
SPEAKER_00That's why we did it.
SPEAKER_01That's why I did it, you know?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Uh no, I'm really glad that we're filling this this niche of yeah, two white guys who have uh varying but pretty similar degrees of understanding of movies. Like one guy who doesn't know much about it, one guy who thinks he knows a little bit more, but probably does knows about the same amount.
SPEAKER_01Well, you convince me that you know more, then that's good enough because I have a podcast.
SPEAKER_00So uh that's your whole fucking model, Bog. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Oh my god, yeah. Just find somebody that knows a little bit more than you and be like, this is my expert now. We get an expert witness. Uh mostly, honestly, uh uh Tim, I think that you I think of you as a movie guy because you and your son, when he was a newborn and you had uh daddy's hour at three o'clock in the morning?
SPEAKER_00Uh dude's hour. Dude's hour. Daddy's hour is way creepier. I wake him up in the middle of the night to feed him a bile and I whisper, Daddy's hour. We're watching the Sopranos. No, it's Dude's Hour, yeah. Dude's Hour, man. Yeah, when Benji was um but a young wee wisp of a boy. Um, he's you know, not much bigger than that now, but when he was three months old, I'd you know, he'd ask for a bottle very kindly and politely at three in the morning, and I'd wake up and oblige and get him that bottle, and we'd I'd turn on the sopranos, or or it it wasn't always the soprano, it was the sopranos for a bit, but it was like either the sopranos or a movie that was it had to hit a sweet spot where it wasn't too slow and boring that I fell asleep while feeding him, but it also couldn't keep me awake afterwards. So, like perfect days would just like we'd both fall asleep on the couch. But if it was like I don't know, something from Gaspar Noe, I'd I would uh not go back to sleep. And so it was usually either um it was it would be something like I don't know uh Michael Clayton. That's that's like the the sweet spot for dude's hour.
SPEAKER_01I love that. Uh that also also is officially the best piece of parroting advice that has been given on this podcast.
SPEAKER_00Dude, dude's our dude's hour rips. I honestly uh Benji is has not been waking up in the middle of the night, which is great, um, but I kind of miss it. I low key miss it because it's it's just sweet. We share a bottle, we hang out, couple bros on the couch, just chilling. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01The next time he wakes you up at three o'clock in the morning and it's uh you're exhausted and don't want to do it, just write a little note to me. It's like, I can't believe I said I missed this.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I do know for sure. It's gonna uh hit real hard when he's like two or three and like is waking up and can like talk back and be like, I don't want to go to sleep. I'm like, well, what about dudes out? He's like, I don't want to do dudes out. Like, once he has those kind of opinions, I'm fucked.
SPEAKER_01You're definitely fucked because you're not coming on the pocket. At that point, we're getting him in as the what generation is he? Is he a zoomer?
SPEAKER_00No, dude. No, no, zoomer. No, he's dude. There's been Gen Alpha, and he's the next one, which is, I regret to inform you, Generation Beta.
SPEAKER_01Oh, you've got a beta male.
SPEAKER_00We've got a beta male. Yeah. Dude, Benji, sorry, man.
SPEAKER_01It shows, it shows, dude.
SPEAKER_00Every time I get him up in the morning and he's like, you know, reaching for me and smiling, I just shake my head and grit my teeth. I'm like, God, you used to be a country.
SPEAKER_01You get him a little baby uh face chisel hammer and you get him looks maxi. You gotta get him looks maxi now if he's a beta.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, he's um he's what's like a what's uh for the bit, like the small version of clavicular. Like what's a smaller bone than a clavicle? I don't know. Oh this is yeah, don't let me bore you with my knowledge of it. Comment clavicle on next on Kyle's next video for a free ticket to his next show.
SPEAKER_01So we wanted to go see a movie. We wanted to see the backrooms because uh it's getting a lot of hype. It is I've uh basically the news story on movies or whatever right now is that the zoomers are now it. They're in millennials. This is the end of millennials being cool. We've done it, we aren't even making horror movies anymore. I hope you guys enjoyed get out. It's done.
SPEAKER_00I think we were too um boisterous about the fact that we had a moment. The minute we like um had our BuzzFeed article that some millennial uh wrote that was like, we're actually pretty cool right now. It was the exact mo that was the nadir of of like millennials doing anything in the world.
SPEAKER_011000%. It's already over. They have 20-year-old directors, like every single millennial right now, you're too old to direct, it's over.
SPEAKER_00Everyone talks about well, even not even movies. People talk about how like um you know, Gen X, there will never be a Gen X president. I legit think there won't be a millennial president. Like they might just skip to like zoomers.
SPEAKER_01I probably would vote for I would vote for Zoomer John F. Kennedy.
SPEAKER_00We're gonna get like a 105-year-old like boomer, and then we're gonna get some gen beta kid who's like um iPads on all walls.
SPEAKER_01You know, he's just skibbity toileting his way to the Oval Office, you know? He's gonna meme his way in there.
SPEAKER_00To skibbity toilet as a verb is very cool.
SPEAKER_01I'm so excited. Speaking of the backrooms and skibbity toilet. I said this yesterday. I'm trying my best. I'm I'm a professional now. Yeah uh I'm I love the movie. I'm very excited for the Skibity Toilet movie now. Yeah, for this if if this is the quality I can expect from my internet meme movies, like this was wild.
SPEAKER_00What was your thoughts on uh what would I'm a little concerned about Skibbity Toilet to be to be here, and here's the reason why because um it feels like it's in the same vein as like Friday uh uh Five Nights at Five Nights at Freddy's, yeah, which is kind of like it's something to scare six-year-olds.
SPEAKER_01But Michael Bay's not attached to Five Nights at Freddy's, Michael Bay's attached to Skibbity Toilet.
SPEAKER_00Oh, no shit. I did not know that actually. That's very cool. Doesn't that change everything now? It kind of does. Mark Wahlberg's like, who's this guy in my toilet? What's going on here? Um that toilet's wicked Skibbity. But you know what I mean? Like Backrooms feels like it has some kind of like aesthetic and cultural uh like grounding that Five Nights at Freddy's, I don't know, no, no shade, no disrespect, does not. And same with Skibbity Toilet is I don't know, maybe I'm I'm I'm gonna go. Have you watched Skibbity Toilet? Huh? Have you watched sure? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01I've seen the entirety of it. I stand by quality.
SPEAKER_00You know who I'd love to see direct that is like Terry Gilliam. Yeah. Like a guy who's like, you know, the Fisher King and like all these kind of like weird ass like Monty Python. It feels like a Monty Python skit or something, you know?
SPEAKER_01Well the thing is like, you know, it's it's just it's a story that's told through action scenes. That's what I always liked about it. It's like it's a completely dialogue-free thing, and the escalation of it is all very cool. Yeah. It speaks to what something we talked about a little bit at the end of the movie yesterday, where like the language of communication now.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So many people are able to make movies and make videos, you know, make YouTube videos like backgrounds or something like Skippity Toilet, that uh honestly, like you could be an illiterate mute person and still find a way to communicate in a very effective way via this like form of not saying that the zoomers are that, yeah. Maybe your son will be. Um, but like Skibbity Toilet uh effectively communicates in the language of short form video. And the backrooms, we talked about it, like it immediately pulls you in uh with just the atmosphere of it. Like he's really, really good. You can see that he has a talent for like creating a shot that makes you want to explore with your eyes.
SPEAKER_00I'd say it's like the strongest part of the movie, and also like it like it it points out, it highlights the best part of the movie and the worst part for me, which is anytime I I'm kind of ganking this from another podcast, but I didn't have the words for it the other day, and I heard this and it really resonated with me. Every time the movie is like in the backrooms and like just you're going through and you're like in that experience, it's like a peak weird aesthetic cinema. I love that shit. Um every time the movie is trying to be a movie, it's less successful. Like like the whole just like character arc of like a uh the therapist. It I get it, like that's a it's a very like kind of classic Hollywood thing, and you know, respect for for tying that into this like basically formless um YouTube video that came before. Yeah, but um it just wasn't it that didn't connect with me as much as what you're saying, which is like the the minute you're you're in that movie, you are in um a place that like we have all collectively been in, which is like lost in a dream. Yeah, yeah. That's what it felt like, and I'd really liked it.
SPEAKER_01Going to the uh the like the story of it, like that is honestly from a film meta-analysis thing. Sure. It is fascinating to see that it's like the task of like you have to turn the backrooms scary pasta, creepy pasta, into a narrative film with like these characters have to develop, you know?
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um I do I actually like uh on her character arc, right? I kind of the more I thought about it, the more I enjoyed it. I like this idea of this woman who uh, you know, I spoilers, it's all spoilers, whatever. Spoilers, spoilers let's go.
SPEAKER_00Uh but you know, she has what if there was a room in the back? Ooh, yes, that's that's the case.
SPEAKER_01Guys, there is a back room.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Uh she like grew up in this environment where her mother's kind of crazy and she's like stuck in this room and it doesn't really make sense to her as a child, and then obviously the the end scene where she ends up in a room that she doesn't really understand being monitored by people that you know have control over like where she can go or whatever. But what I really enjoyed was like it it's a story of her. Uh you know, we've talked about this. The millennial horror story was like the therapy speaker. Yes, right.
SPEAKER_00Totally.
SPEAKER_01You you they would literally have like speeches where people would talk about trauma in the way that you would talk about it in like a psychology class sometimes, you know. They look at the camera and they break the fourth wall. This is a story about a therapist learning that she shouldn't treat this guy anymore because he's it's she's her pattern of behavior that's self-destructive, is she's trying to help people that don't want to help themselves, yeah.
SPEAKER_00You know, yeah, there's a moment in the movie where they're going like before they uh enter the backrooms, and um it's this therapist and her patient, and they're going through this like exercise of like kind of uh recreating the dialogue of a fight that the patient and his wife had um to like be able to like observe it and like name it. Um and then it comes back to them later when they're in the backrooms, and there's like this moment of realization that it's like, oh shit, I have become like the other part of this fight. I have become like as a therapist, I have become the problem. Yeah. Um and I thought that was really cool, and I thought that it was uh an interesting way to approach um, like you know, we talked about this yesterday. All I th I am of the belief that all horror movies uh touch on trauma in some way. You're right, like the millennial horror movie is the one that's like this is about trauma. Yes, like looks at camera. That was our trope, right? Holding space, holding space. Um and you know, no shade to get out, no shade to hereditary. I like those movies, but they are very much like this is about what my family did to me. Yes. Um, and this is the first movie that's like clearly Gen Z being like, hey, why is everyone being so fucking weird about therapy speak? Like, you know.
SPEAKER_01So like I look at like that as like a de everything in development, right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So it's like you have the horror movies that came before the millennial therapy speak horror movie that were about trauma, but like could do it in a way that was completely unaware.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01To the point where they didn't even like the maybe the guy who made the movie didn't even understand that he was making that kind of movie or something like that. I feel like the the ramifications of the millennial therapy speak horror movie is that now everyone is well aware that like these things are, you know, tied like you said, all horror is tied to some sort of trauma, right? Right. And now the zoomers get to play in this field where they're aware, but at a more subconscious level. Like the first people were unaware, we were overaware, and now they get to like play in this field where it's like everybody is caught up on that type of media literacy, and now they get to play around with it.
SPEAKER_00I wouldn't I wouldn't go as far as to say that like the first people who created horror were like unaware of like the implications of their work. Like the idea of a vampire is like this is one of my favorite, probably untrue facts, which is that um uh in uh years with a republican uh uh cabinet, there is an uptick in movies about um uh zombies. Oh and in years uh uh with a democratic uh uh cabinet, uptick in vampire movies, and it's all about the the fear of the other side. Yeah, and so like zombies are this representation of like the brainless consumerist masses just storming through a mall and eating brains because they don't have anything, like just like uh constantly consuming vampires, uh vaguely European gay liberals who are like sucking the lifeblood of the society, right? Um, and so that it's it's inherently tied into like both the iconography and the history of these these uh characters. Yeah it's just that like as we've moved along, I think that I think unfortunately one of the um like uh big beacons of what it means to be a millennial filmmaker for a while, and not everyone, was to just say that this is what this is about.
SPEAKER_01Yes, you know. That was I I think it became a uh you can you can start to see if like you pay attention to how movies are made in the studio system or something like that. Like to some extent, a lot of people that like movies like movies in the same way that you like the WWE, in that like you know it's fake and you want to see how they craft the story. Yeah, and so it's like when you see a movie get made, a lot of the times uh what's more interesting than the movie itself is like, how the fuck did this get made? Yeah, there's a podcast, how did this get made? Sure, and that type of stuff. I think there was a period of time where for millennials, it's like the you had to go in and pitch, you could kind of feel like they had to go in and pitch this is a movie about trauma, this is a movie about race, this is a movie about this, yeah, because that was what was working at the time, that was what sold, you know, and that's because of you know, like get out is a brilliant movie, right? And that's a brilliant movie, regardless of you know, like it's good because of obviously like the commentary on race or whatever, but it's not just because of that, you know. This was a brilliant movie, but then the thing people latched on to is like, oh, he's talking about race. We should talk about that now, and it's like right.
SPEAKER_00No, totally like there was a lot of um lesson learning that the people were learning the wrong lessons there for a while, I think. I think that's really what it comes down to. Um oh, speaking of WWE, I had something to say about that, which is um you know, the director of backrooms, his name is Kane Parsons, and then the other big like zoomer uh move like horror movie right now is Obsession. Yep. Director's name is Curry Barker. Don't those sound like wrestler names?
SPEAKER_011000%.
SPEAKER_00I want to see Kane Parsons, Curdy Barker. I'll see you at Sunday. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah, it's a cage match. Wyoming brother. It's beautiful in late September.
SPEAKER_01I do love uh my favorite tweet I've seen recently is uh the zoomers got to make horror movies for the first time, and they made a movie about uh talking to girls and going in the basement. Yeah, truly. Um another thing that I've seen, which uh this is just I saw this tweet today where uh people were having the regular Twitter discourse on like DEI because the uh uh the backrooms has a black man as the lead, you know, lead act right and people were talking about like somebody was making some accusation of like DI casting, and I don't know if you agree with me on this one. That movie would have sucked with a white actor just because you can't have a white person walking around those hallways with that lighting. It's just it wouldn't work. The fact that like the skin he's you know, skin.
SPEAKER_00With a white woman down there.
SPEAKER_01I know, and it was less appealing to look at you know, then hit the contrast between the black skin and the weird yellow walls. Yeah, I thought that worked better. I'm like, this is a situation where I'm like, yeah, 100% that should have been a black guy just because of his skin color. Yeah, yeah, aesthetics. Aesthetics. Well, lucky for you, Kyle, I don't see race, so I didn't notice until you brought it up.
SPEAKER_00Weird.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean, that was you know, I just saw that on Twitter and I was like, Yeah, no, guys, you do not want to watch pasty white skin trying to walk by that yellow, your eyes would burn. Like you needed something to focus your attention.
SPEAKER_00There'd be some weird clipping going on the entire time. Well, I can't I can't tell the difference between this wall and this man.
SPEAKER_01I just constantly have been thinking about this movie since we saw it last night. Sure. Like its ability to draw your attention to every corner of every single room when there's nothing in any of the rooms is fascinating.
SPEAKER_00It's it's that's what I mean by like the back room when it's backs back roomsing, it's it's like perfect. It's so good. You'll be in a blank room and there will be like a very like slight like water stain on the on the ground. Yeah. Well, what the fuck is that about? And then you'll go into a room and there's like, I don't know, a dead bird or something. Dead birds are creepy, yeah, yeah. And like sometimes it's more s more subtle and sometimes it's like bigger, but like I I guess, hmm. Here's how I feel about it. I just I didn't and I don't where how do I want to put this? I didn't need any backstory on the backrooms. I didn't need any explanation as to how anything got there ever. Um, and maybe some people will want that, and maybe some people won't, but like the the what the fuck keeping the what the fuck energy um was what really drove me through 95% of that movie.
SPEAKER_01I feel like that's a case with a lot of like horror movies or like monster movies, is that the first two thirds of it are easier to write because you don't have to resolve anything, and it's scarier if it's unresolved.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And it's like, you know, again, what the challenges of the backrooms is like you're writing a movie off of isn't it this doesn't this picture of a back room look creepy to you? That is the plot of the movie. Right, exactly.
SPEAKER_00They get to him they get to like a room at one point and no one addresses it. No one it actually it still it feels like a mystery, but there's like a room that's like white tiled and like big columns, and in one of the columns is like an enormous like eight-foot face. Yeah, like a like a stone face, and it's like that's that kind of shit that like literally exists in like the darkest parts of your brain that like is just anxiety. I like I don't know what this is, and it didn't actually fit with the explanation of any of like how the back room happens. And I love that shit, that was so fucking cool.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah. I love they unexplored it. We kind of discussed it uh yesterday where it's like the movie feels like that memory you have of a kid where you were going shopping with your parent and you wandered too far away from them, and then you had to you just started crying until an adult saved you, but there's no one there to save you. And it's like it touches on the other part of it that I really you know we were talking about again as uh this is a zoomer movie, it's for like this generation. Our generation, the millennials and younger, we remember big box stores as a place full of stuff to buy, as places kind of full of life. There was things there, you know. Toys are us was filled with toys. If you go to a big box store now, they feel empty, and if you're 20 years old. That's the only big box store you've ever known. Right. Because the internet hollowed out inventory on these things. And so it's like there's this kind of sense of when you're in a Best Buy now, of like, why the fuck is this thing so big? It feels inhuman. Yeah. And like to have that stretched into the backrooms, backrooms. I I I just think it touches on a kind of anxiety that exists now in space publicly that we haven't really been able to articulate otherwise.
SPEAKER_00There's there's also a feeling of kind of like um like alien opulence in these spaces that like like how do I put it? When I Anna and I went bed shopping the other day because we decided that our 20-year-old bed was actually killing us. And um we oh man, yeah, yeah. Well, we got a new bed, which is uh it's I'm I feel great. I feel like I'm a different age than I actually am. Um but um I we went into this bed mart, and it was like it it just felt like a backroom store where it was like I it the the scale of this place is comical. It's like the beds actually look incredibly small in the back of the because it's so fucking big. And there's a guy in a tiny little desk in the corner, and he's like, Can I help you? And it's like I it just it feels but there's also there's this sense of this, like when I say alien opulence, I mean it's like it feels like a decadence from a different time or space, and you see that in a lot of the imagery and backrooms too. It's like there's like curtains and chairs and stuff that is like from outside of this era, some of it is like that 90s aesthetic, but some of it just like the face and the columns and these like big like bathhouses that they find themselves in. It's like this is something that a child would see in a dream because that like image was like planted there. Yeah which makes me I I want to tell you a story. Yeah, um when I was a kid, I had a lot of recurring um existential nightmares. Of course. I think a lot of kids do, right? Um I had two in particular. One is uh just an example of of like the kind of dread that I felt, which was that I I would have for months on end, as like a four-year-old, I would have this dream where I was in a boat and I was I was paddling in this boat in the middle of the ocean, this great expanse, and it felt like I had been plopped into the middle of the dream while I had been paddling for like months, like I I w I was uh uploaded into the dream with a sense of um hopelessness as if I had been out on on the sea for months. Um I finally get to a port and I have all this like cargo that I'm unloading. I'm a four-year-old. And um I as soon as I get the final bag out, um, they start loading the um boat up again. It's like, all right, time to head back. And that's when I wake up. Oh and I got that dream over and over. And it was this sense of uh the the feeling that I got as a four-year-old, four-year-old is you will suffer forever. Yeah, yeah. Oh yeah. So for fast forward like two years, I'm now six uh six-year-old. Wise in seasoned six years old. I'm just uh I'm sage. I sit on rocks and I say, I see you, sir. Um I I had visited recently, I'd visited my my like extended family in Maine, who all lived in in Rockport, Maine, and they had this cool old school New England house, and we had a big party there, and I would have this dream every week. I'd have this dream where I was in the first floor of this house with all my family there, and they're you know, we're cracking lobsters, you know how you do. You get it. Come on, Mr. Massachusetts, you understand.
SPEAKER_01I just if you are from this is a little PSA to anybody listening. If you are from uh around Boston, if you describe yourself as being from Boston and you live outside of Boston, if you do not want to hear everybody's attempt at a Boston accent, lie about where you're from.
SPEAKER_00Sure.
SPEAKER_01Otherwise, everyone I tell, like I am from Boston. Hey!
SPEAKER_00That wasn't Boston, that was uh rural Maine that I was getting on. Of course, yes.
SPEAKER_01Who who could have who could have seen?
SPEAKER_00Not her different, slightly different. Um okay, so anyway, uh I'm there, it's loud, it's noisy. I decided to go up these stairs in this dream. And as I go up the stairs, um the the voices they start to muffle and it's really quiet. I can still kind of hear things, but it's it's very much in the background. There's like this weird humming, which is something I want to uh put a pin in that for the um backrooms. But I'm in this room and it's incredibly lacy white, and there's this alien opulence everywhere. It's like this Victorian style, yeah, all white room, and there's like a uh draft coming through the window, and it's blowing, and there's like like yeah, lacy curtains. But then to my left, I see this even smaller staircase with velvet stair red velvet stairs, and I go up and all of a sudden all of the sound that I hear is gone. The buzzing, the noise downstairs is gone. I can't hear my own myself. And I go up this and it I get to this room and it's a red velvet room, kind of like um like Twin Peaksy, but it's not drapery. It's like red, tight red velvet with a red um velvet couch and a red velvet bed, and all of a sudden I feel this deep sense of death and um and existential doom. And I got this for years and years of my life, Kyle. Now, fast forward to really quick. I'm gonna finish this story up quick. I I fast forward to 2018. I am now on like one of my first dates with my now wife. We are in Astoria, Oregon. We've it's our first time out of town together. We decided to go to this place called the Museum of Whimsy. I don't know who named this place because that place was anything but whimsical. I think satanic is the right word. It's just like haunted dolls and uh and prosperity.
SPEAKER_01I feel like Astoria is weird.
SPEAKER_00Haunted dolls sprout from the earth like potatoes. I think that they just form in this it was in an old 1920s bank building. Oh. It was three stories of just haunted dolls. But then you get you get to the top story, and they have all these like room setups with like um, you know, ropes, they're roped off, so you can't go check them out. But it's like this is what old houses in this area felt like in the 1800s when the first white settlers were here. We're walking around, we're having a good time, we're like, look at that fucking doll. Oh, look at that doll. It's got three eyes. And we and we turn and I get to this walled-off corner, and it is the red room. It's the red room, it's got the red couch, it's got the red bed, it's got everything that I remembered, and I I went cold. I started sweating.
SPEAKER_01Well, because you're clearly you have been invaded by a ghost at some point in your childhood. Yeah, man. What six-year-old deals with that much existential dread? But like, I've uh do you feel like you returned the ghost to their room?
SPEAKER_00Is that well, that place closed down shortly after.
SPEAKER_01Oh shit. Yeah, you completed the site or the circle.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you're welcome, Astoria. Yeah, yeah. No one ever go in that bank, by the way. It's fucked up. But yeah, Anna was like, oh, look at this place. Oh, did you see that crocheted Donald Duck? That's weird. Hey, are you okay? And I'm like, uh, yeah, oh, we gotta go. And we just left. That's fucking wild. Anyway, that is kind of the feeling that I didn't get the same like dream existential dread I got from from this movie, but that is the kind of feeling that this movie and the YouTube series seems to try and evoke is like you've been here before, you will end up here at some point, you will never escape.
SPEAKER_01Those are yeah, and that is honestly like one for me as a kind of queasy guy, I don't really like watching like people get stabbed. I don't like watching gross stuff. I've never enjoyed watching the you know, the Saw movies or anything like that. Yeah, sure. And I have said for a while now that like every time for a while, the last couple years, a lot of the good movies that came out were like horror movies. And people would be like, oh, you gotta go see this thing, and I would go, and there'd be some type of gratuitous violence that like really bugged me, where I'm like, uh I liked the spooky thing, I liked the unsettling feeling that I was doing, and then this thing happened, and then I I just feel like I really watched somebody get disemboweled, and it really bugged me. And I don't like that. I am sensitive to that kind of gross thing. I know I'm the baby, I'm fully aware that I'm the baby.
SPEAKER_00How did you feel about the little bits of gore in this movie?
SPEAKER_01It's what I fucking loved about it, to be except because it was like this movie had bits of gore, and it heightened the stakes. You know, there's like there's blood and stuff like that. The scene where the giant monster man takes a bite out of his shoulder, but we didn't zoom in on the blood. Yeah, yeah. It just was very visceral.
SPEAKER_00What a satisfying bite that's gotta be.
SPEAKER_01Oh my god, the crunch.
SPEAKER_00What part of me would you want to eat, Kyle?
SPEAKER_01Honestly, I've never really thought about how much I just want to eat. What is this? Is this the the shank of the the man?
SPEAKER_00Is that your trap?
SPEAKER_01I don't know what it is, but I just it's the shank?
SPEAKER_00It's your shrug muscle. Your shrug muscle. Anyone who's wondering, he's talking about your shrug muscle.
SPEAKER_01And it just it seemed like, especially for the size of his mouth. Yeah, it was like a perfect.
SPEAKER_00It was just so satisfying.
SPEAKER_01That cookie's crumbling, baby.
SPEAKER_00Kane Parsons, he just knows aesthetics.
SPEAKER_01Well, that's I I mean, that's the thing there, too, is like uh what I've been trying to do the last couple of weeks with the stupid podcast is like I just realized like I want this thing to be something. I want to get good at it. I want to get good at this thing. And I just go to like, well, you get good at stuff by doing reps, you get jump shots up the Beatles in Hamburg, man. They played every night.
SPEAKER_00That's how they got good. That's us right now.
SPEAKER_01That's us right now.
SPEAKER_00We're the Beatles in Hamburg.
SPEAKER_01Exactly.
SPEAKER_00But we're just two Georges. Looking for a Ringo, baby. But uh Paul can fuck off. Oh, absolutely. Two Georges in a Ringo. Have you heard those? I've seen that movie. I've seen two men in a baby, but this, yeah.
SPEAKER_01But like uh what I got from that movie is like this is a kid that just made this scene so many times. He's made so many creepy, viscerally and engaging versions of the scene that like by the time he gets to the movie, he's already a master of it. There's no think of how much this movie would kind of suck if there was like two of those rooms just felt cheesy, just felt like not scary, they didn't hit as hard, or they like took you out of it. How easily it would have been to like break the immersion of the backrooms with a couple of rooms that sucked.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, uh that would just like if if there were a couple rooms that sucked, that would that would be lame. If there was one room that sucked, I'd be like, Kane, you are a genius. Welcome to the suck room. Um uh what was the scariest room for you? I mean Christmas room. Christmas room.
SPEAKER_02Christmas room.
SPEAKER_00When when they open the door and it's just like this one Christmas tree and like a red light under it, and just like a weird like bell song, everyone in the in the theater goes, Oh god. Just like, oh fuck, we have to be in this goddamn room now.
SPEAKER_01It did a really good job too, though, of like he had to be in Christmas room. There was no other place for him to be. I feel like in a thing like that, where it's like he could kind of go in any direction, why is he going into the scarier room is like a very hard thing to kind of like understand. Yeah. Uh they did a very good job of like establishing enough understanding of like you never really thought, like, why are we in here? Yeah. Which then like think of how easy this movie could have just been like we're just gonna have the characters mindlessly go, like the Minecraft movie from like scene to scene to show you creepy stuff.
SPEAKER_00It just would have become like Rick and Morty. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. And it's like the fact that the backrooms feels like a real place is it's an achievement, man. I like I really gotta give him credit. Uh and you know, I don't know, we've talked about this before with like um House of Leaves, the book. Yeah. This idea of uh of house being significantly bigger than what it's supposed to be, or like that space, it's been floated around for a long time. Why do you think it is that like it got made now and it works now? Why do you think that we haven't seen this movie? Because the idea's been around before. Why is it now hitting with people?
SPEAKER_00Well, I don't know. I I feel like there's been um like homages to this idea of like looming dread and the sense of scale of lots of times. I mean, I d I I don't want to sound like a hack and just be like, well, this is very Lynchian, but like that is what a lot of this is, is like I don't know if Kane Parsons has has like watched a lot of uh David Lynch. It sure seems like he has funny. Has he watched a lot of anything? And it's not like he's like lifting anything necessarily, but it is the same sense of like there's sp uh there's a lot of scenes in like Lost Highway and Mole Hall and Drive that are just tracking shots through rooms that seem much too big or like the architecture doesn't quite fit. Um The Shining's a great example. The shining is a movie that like it you they they intentionally make the um floor plan um impossible.
SPEAKER_01That little office with the window that's facing outside that's like right in the middle of the building.
SPEAKER_00I love that exactly shining.
SPEAKER_01I I love that because that's the movie to me. That has always been my movie of like this is the kind of horror I like where it's just it makes me just feel unsettled, yeah, but I don't feel like gross about it.
SPEAKER_00Right, totally, totally.
SPEAKER_01And I just don't I just don't like feeling gross. I'm a baby.
SPEAKER_00No, but I I hear you.
SPEAKER_01But talking on that point with like David Lynch, obviously very popular director, the difference to me feels like you know, maybe it's just the fact that the only other competition is the Mandalorian and Grogu or whatever. But like this movie is really big. Right, yeah, no. For what right now, it it has hit a perfect stride in a time, and it feels it does feel like the first time it's like, oh, you know, this and uh obsession being the first zoomer movies to to really hit big. I'm just trying to figure out it's like is this is this a real moment, or is this just like there was nothing else to watch?
SPEAKER_00I think everyone is trying to figure that out. Yeah, and I uh uh the answer is no, it's not that there wasn't anything else to watch because we are inundated with so many things to watch. It's just what I I think is amazing is um this is a return to the m theater. Yes, $80 million box office in the first weekend that like David Lynch uh going to movies is awesome.
SPEAKER_01I know that it is awesome, it's a really fun experience, and that is a movie where it's like, yeah, I could watch this at home and it would be creepy. I could watch the YouTube videos at home and it'd be creepy. It was awesome in a theater full of people.
SPEAKER_00I think that it it is it's hard to say whether this was like not a fluke, but like uh uh uh certain circumstances that came together, like you know, backrooms has been a thing for five or six years, right? So it's and it's been very popular and people have been waiting for this. I think obsession is the one that is more amazing because that that box office keeps growing, whereas um the others have been fallen off. But the fact that both of those movies are just like eating Grogu's goddamn lunch um is is um is what I think the big story is here. Yeah. Is that like people can uh you don't have to come from a stud in fact the studio system is failing directors more and more.
SPEAKER_01That does seem to be if if this is a moment, if this is something that we look back on and was like, oh yeah, that was the moment where like these Zoomer kids kinda kinda came in and tossed everything aside or whatever. Uh it does speak to this idea that like going out and just making stuff online, going out and getting your reps in, making YouTube videos, making you know, making reels or something like that, uh, and just working on your cinematography in whatever way you can. Get some audience that you can and get the feedback from the audience immediately, early and often. It's like that might be if it is a moment, I think that's the moment we're talking about where it's the moment it's like, well, this old studio system, this dinosaur, this Titanic that can't really maneuver, got outflanked by people just getting their reps in wherever they could.
SPEAKER_00Right. Well, I think this is a great time for me to announce uh our movie uh Two Georges in a Ringo. Two Georges in a Ringo. It's a horror movie where uh two Georges eat Ringo, I guess. We are uh we've we've filmed most of it, but uh, we are looking for uh it's on Patreon. Yes.
SPEAKER_01But I mean, you know, I I I just uh ultimately I I kind of walked away from this whole experience just wanting to see. We talked about this a little bit, like where horror movie is uh low-key kind of pornographic, right? Horror is an easy thing to get an immediate reaction out of because it's spooky, it's scary, or something like that. There is a visual language that I think that they're tapping into, this this guy's tapping into that he was able to use with horror to get a lot of attention to. Right. I would be very interested to see this kid make a movie that was not explicitly a horror movie, just to see if like the language that has developed through internet filmmaking can like translate into other genres because this it that's sort of the thing is like is this a uh a new way to kind of speak through movies that he's tapped into, or is this just it's spooky, everybody's finding it's spooky to do the backrooms, he just kind of hit the Did he get lucky, or is this a new skill?
SPEAKER_00No, totally. I think that's that's a great question. Who's the guy there was that movie um uh called what Legion or something? Do you remember this? Yeah, he was like a really young guy. He was like the director was um something, his name was something trank. He was um uh 23, 24 years old and he made this movie, and it was the number one movie out there, and then he made Fantastic Four with the four in the wrong place. And uh and then he made it, I think he made a couple other stinkers, and so it was kind of like oh failed experiment here. Um I don't know. I don't want to speculate on on Cain and Curry Kane and Curry live in Tacoma Dome. I don't wanna I don't want to speculate on them right now because like um yeah, it would be very interesting to see them do some other kind of movie, but um I I am an advocate of whatever movie keeps the theaters uh moving and allows for a lot of different kinds of movies to thrive. And if that's horror right now, awesome. If horror is the engine for the movie industry, then boo!
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah, keep it going.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Uh all right. Well, you know, that's our movie podcast.
SPEAKER_00Wait, I want to ask you, yeah, who is your uh favorite little freak in the movie?
SPEAKER_01Oh, well, I know that you like uh Lamp Guy. Well, Lamp Guy killed it.
SPEAKER_00Click click.
SPEAKER_01I do feel something for uh 17 eye guy who they eat, you know, and they just cut off parts of his body.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that guy he because he he looked like just kind of sad. He looked kind of sad, but he also stab me, whatever.
SPEAKER_01My favorite part is when he cuts out parts of him to eat, yeah, he puts a little bit on the plate for the guys that were eating, and it's just and he just you know, droopy face looking sad.
SPEAKER_00It's hard to say if he was actually gonna eat it or if that was I like that that was unanswered.
SPEAKER_01You know, that was that was a nice little thing. And I I I like to imagine that every night he feeds him a little bit of himself.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. I just wonder if uh little lamp guy, like clicking the lamp like that, that's like his Morse code being like, Can I have a little bite?
SPEAKER_01Hey, hey, looking good.
SPEAKER_00Hey, click, click.
SPEAKER_01I wonder what the shank tastes like on that guy.
SPEAKER_00Uh yeah, that's true. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um, how many uh how many Georges, how many ringos do you give this movie?
SPEAKER_00I'd give it probably two Georges and oh, I don't know, one Ringo? Two Georges in a Ringo. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01I'm gonna give it the full two Georges in a Ringo. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The full two Georges and a Ringo.
SPEAKER_00Hey, that's a great maybe that's the segment.
SPEAKER_01There it is. I liked it. I I I I recommend it. Um, and yeah, I basically I think we leave it at that. Uh and people want to listen to more movie stuff, we'll see how this does. Here's the thing. We're probably gonna do another one anyway. It doesn't really matter if you like it or not. Uh hey, screw you!
SPEAKER_00I don't care what you think. I want to watch a movie with my friend Kyle. Yeah, I'm gonna keep watching movies and keep talking about it. So uh we should do, you know what we should do? Um, a series on on the horror um uh two movies, Smile and Smile 2. Ooh. Because you know what they do in that movie. They smile? They smile and smile and strange, yeah. They smile and strange in that movie.
SPEAKER_01What I have uh Googled myself to see if anyone's talking about me, which I've done, and the answer is no. Uh that comes up a lot. Smile, and it's like smiling strangers is a clip of the smile.
SPEAKER_00I can't tell if you'd love or hate that movie.
SPEAKER_01I don't I really don't like horror movies, which is why it's real wild that I liked this as much as I did. Yeah. Um because it's just it's a very particular type of horror where the it's just kind of unsettling, and I didn't feel I just didn't I was I just hate feeling grossed out by stuff.
SPEAKER_00I've I gave you this recommendation last night. I'm gonna give it to everyone listening. Um everyone, if you regardless of whether you like horror or not, you should watch Buffet Infinity. I watched it the other night and it was uh such a joy. It's like um it's a horror comedy kind of it feels like an adult swim horror. Yeah. Um and it's like, what if you were stuck watching nothing but local commercials for two hours, but you f slowly figure out a story through watching those commercials? Um, and there's like a weird cult and like a parasitic buffet in this weird town. I loved it. It's fantastic. Everyone should go watch that.
SPEAKER_01You sent me the link that is on my list of things I don't want to watch immediately. Uh Tim, anything to plug? Uh I this will probably come out today tomorrow.
SPEAKER_00Come see Mr. House July. Oh, sorry. Yeah, June 11th, baby. Yeah, turn, turn, turn.
SPEAKER_01I love to. I'll be there because my wife's in your bed. That's right. That's right. Um, yeah, besides that, uh Yeah, I got nothing, man. Thanks for listening to the podcast, man. Thanks for coming on, and I'm gonna go back to the same thing.