SPEAKER_08 0:04

All I'm saying is the first time you get sent a cake to rubble over your body, it's cool. The 15th time? You're like, what is this? I'm not doing this again.

SPEAKER_03 0:15

Greetings and salutations, and welcome to Hacker Slash. If you're joining us again, welcome back. You are such a gem. If this is your first time listening, welcome to the party. We are a horror movie review podcast dedicated to telling you whether a movie is a hack, a total joke, a waste of time, or a slash.

SPEAKER_00 0:32

Totally killer, pun intended.

SPEAKER_03 0:34

My name is Chris, and I'm your friendly neighborhood slasher enthusiast. This week I'm joined by the Superfly Space Guy Mac.

SPEAKER_00 0:39

Hola, muchachos, the Gore Lover Alexis.

SPEAKER_03 0:41

Hey everyone. The Carol the Groeper Ryan. Hiya. And the Scream Queen Paris.

SPEAKER_01 0:46

Hey sweets.

SPEAKER_03 0:47

This week we have a low-budget horror techno thriller that's currently streaming on Netflix. This movie has scored pretty favorably with critics and audiences alike, holding a 93% on Rotten Tomatoes and a 71% metacritic rating. In fact, it's one of the highest-rated horror films of 2018. But we're going to see how it fares with our team. Now, before we give up the goods, we have some follow-up.

SPEAKER_01 1:10

We have a lot of follow-up. So if you're one of our patrons, you are aware of our recording schedule, and we actually took a week off. So we're actually going to double up with this follow-up. First, do you guys remember when we rated the movie I Know What You Did Last Summer?

SPEAKER_04 1:23

I was not on that one, but I did listen to it.

SPEAKER_01 1:27

I remember that. Because we loved it. What is your vote, Alexis? Hack or slash.

SPEAKER_04 1:32

Oh, it's definitely a slash for sure. You know how I love my uh teen 90s slashers.

SPEAKER_01 1:39

Excellent choice. And you are actually in good company because 84% of our friends on Twitter also gave it a slash, with only 16% hacking it. We have a comment from Amber who said, as much as I wanted to hack this, it did stay true to the slasher format. In my opinion, different actors, more gore, better kills would have helped. Really enjoyed this episode though. And then the following week, we talked about Cabin in the Woods, and we were all here for that one. Uh, Universal Slash from U.S. A near Universal Slash from Twitter as well. 92% of our fans gave it a slash, and only 8% gave it a hack, so I feel like that bodes very well for this film. If you have not seen it and you are listening, give it a watch. It's worth your time. We have a nice comment from our friend Jason, though, who actually did not like this movie. He said, I've never understood the love for this film. I suppose it's the first behind the curtain style horror film. That's cute, but it felt like what if Disney made an R-rated horror film? The pacing felt really off, and the end I felt was just wrong for the overall earlier tone of the film. The acting was fine, the cinematography was fine, the plot was fine overall, but I think this one fell short of my expectations, and it may be because of the hype around the film going in. It's not an F or anything, but it's definitely a C minus or so, when I expected something a lot better by the talk of the town. And I know, Alexis, you kinda had some feelings like that, so you can probably relate a little bit to this.

SPEAKER_04 3:00

Yeah, I think I liked his comment on Facebook. Um, I mean, I see where he's coming from. It did seem towards the end it was like a little like chaotic, but like in like yeah, Disney sort of fashion, when I was like dun- dun, d- Yeah, that's what it reminds me. Yeah. Just throw something on the wall, hope it sticks.

SPEAKER_01 3:19

Like, yeah, it's definitely a movie that uh pretends to be one thing and then does not deliver on that initial premise. We also have a new patron joining our family. His name is Daniel, and we just want to give Daniel our warmest thank you. Uh, because it takes a lot to run this podcast, and any little bit of help you guys provide, uh, makes a really big difference for us. So thanks, Daniel. And that's our follow-up.

SPEAKER_03 3:42

Oh, thank you so much for that, Paris. Daniel is absolutely spectacular. Uh, constantly reaching out on Instagram. Uh, when when Daniel became a patron, I was so thrilled because it's a couple years now of listenership and support, and it just means the world to us. Now, let's talk about a movie where there is a lot of a lot of people supporting other people, uh, so to speak. This week, we're taking a look at a film that places technology at the forefront. So to our listeners, that may sound familiar. You've probably seen it in the den, unfriended, nerve, unfriended dark web, hashtag horror, but it does seek to tell a different story. Now, this film wields sex positivity and shows us an ambitious cam girl rising in the ranks until her stream is hijacked. Now, in fact, the writer herself describes this film as a crazy little movie that asks an audience to root for a sex worker that doesn't judge her choices and doesn't punish her for her sexuality. This week, we're talking about Cam. Now, this movie has been on Netflix for almost two years now. Has anyone else here seen this before?

SPEAKER_04 4:45

I shamelessly saw this. Uh maybe the following weekend it came out on Netflix. Nice.

SPEAKER_01 4:52

This was my first time catching this stream. Uh I also had not seen this movie before. I think every movie that you listed a moment ago, Chris, is the reason I didn't watch this. I thought it was going to be like one of those like shitty, like filmed exclusively on a webcam, kind of found footage type things that's like, you know, trying to be edgy and like modern by using technology, but like not really doing anything successfully. Uh so I avoided this movie until now.

SPEAKER_08 5:17

I mean, you could kind of argue that this may have been filmed on a webcam. True. Based on its style. Anyway, you guys know I haven't seen this movie. I don't even know why I answered this question anymore. I actually have seen a few of these like internet horror type movies. Um, but I didn't even know about this one. I had never heard of it.

SPEAKER_04 5:35

Right on, that's fair. I was like the only one super excited about it.

SPEAKER_03 5:40

No, that's okay. So you've met my girlfriend. Uh she's the one who told me about this movie forever ago. And here's the thing about us as much as we have so much in common um and we can understand each other on such fundamental levels of our soul, there is little overlap in our taste in media. So she tries watching horror movies, and it's either amazing and amazing psychological thriller or it's not her cup of tea. And oftentimes, if it's not her cup of tea, is because it belongs to me. So I didn't really know what to expect because I I trust her and I respect her so much, but it's a rare time for a recommendation to be like, hell yeah, and this is exactly the kind of movie I'm signing up for. So when we watch this together, I will say that maybe the phrase having me on the edge of my seat would be a bit of an overstatement, but I was certainly engaged the entire time. How about you folks? What did when you heard about it, what did you expect, or what were you feeling during this?

SPEAKER_08 6:39

Man, I uh you guys know me, I'm anti-trailer. But I did read I did read a brief description that was just like um camgirl gets her her scream taken over. And I expected a lot of boobs, and uh we definitely get that, that's for sure. And I expected um, like I said, like that like internet type of horror, like something's going wrong, someone's hacked into something. Uh I was expecting more like previous ones that were listed, I guess.

SPEAKER_04 7:10

Um, it's so crazy because uh it feels like I had just watched this. I was like, man, like usually I'm looking forward to watching a movie, and this one I was like, man, I feel like I just saw it, I know exactly what happens, but yeah, I had to watch it again. And it was crazy because it left me underwhelmed the first time I watched it, and then watching this the second time, minor I was on the edge of my seat. Um, I was biting my nails just like the main character was, and I felt a little bit more like maybe because I knew it was gonna happen, I was following her character a little bit more and paying attention to um her. Yeah, so I was like on the edge of my seat, nail biting, not extreme, not like taken kind of on the edge of your seat.

SPEAKER_00 7:56

I had kind of a different reaction, I guess. I was expecting this to be super cheesy and filmed from a webcam as well. I I thought it was gonna be that like point of view where you're like, please just like show me an external shot, maybe, but thankfully, oh yeah, thankfully it was not that. While watching it though, I did kind of feel like I was searching for some kind of like new movie torrent and uh you know on the Pirate Bay and like was just being shown a ton of pop-ups I didn't care about for for cam girls. And I and I I do feel bad about that because I don't know what the Pirate Bay is and I've never downloaded a movie illegally, but yeah, you know what it might be like yeah, I know of it.

SPEAKER_04 8:32

You can imagine, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:33

I've I've heard of things, but it was a very, very different experience, I think, from from what I was expecting. It was actually a fully fleshed out like horror movie, and we got to like follow multiple characters and have a little mystery and a little thrill.

SPEAKER_01 8:44

I agree with a few of you guys saying that like you were on the edge of your seat. Um, this movie was like strangely suspenseful. Um, it was sort of like a who-done it mystery, but there were like no real culprits or like suspects. The whole time I was kind of like, what is this gonna be? But overall, while I was watching it, I got a lot of energy from like Black Mirror. This felt like a like a Black Mirror episode. It also reminded me a little bit of Susperia, like stylistically. Yes, it also reminded me of It Follows.

SPEAKER_03 9:17

It's funny that you bring up It Follows. Uh one of our listeners, Spencer, shared on Twitter today, and I don't know who the original source was. They took the footage of Walt Disney announcing their reopening and they put the It Follows score underneath it, and it is haunting. It is the best rendition of that meme I've seen. So I think when we look at this at this movie, you know, I I said I was engaged, right? And I think that's because Madeline Brewster, who plays the main character Alice, she gives a really compelling performance. I found myself expecting quite a number of things to happen, which didn't actually, and I was surprised in so many ways. Now, the surprises I have are gonna be spoilery, so I'm not gonna get into that now. We're gonna put a button into it. But I would love to know, was there anything in this that stood out as a disappointment or a huge surprise to you? I'll definitely have to go with Paris.

SPEAKER_04 10:05

I think, you know, they s there's this lot of time like in the beginning of this film, and I I we'll talk about this in the pacing where it's just like you're getting to know what's happening, but you're not getting a lot of details or anything on who this culprit is or like this sort of mystery behind it. It's like, yep, it is what it is. And I really wish there was more to that, and that was explored in more of the movie than just, you know, sex acts.

SPEAKER_01 10:32

I mean, but with these who doneits, we're used to having like seven to nine people thrown at us being like, oh, maybe they did it because they also have the same track jacket.

SPEAKER_08 10:39

I think for me, uh disappointment came from some of the questions that I had, and it's almost I think almost impossible to talk about this movie without spoiling it. Because it's very it's simple, I think. And if you start to get into details, I think we could really ruin it for anyone that hasn't seen it yet. But I have questions, and they are definitely some some disappointments, and then also sometimes where I was surprised in good ways for sure.

SPEAKER_01 11:05

I'm right there with you, Ryan. I think I know like the the nature of your questions, and I think I share them. But I was also a little bit disappointed by some of like the supporting cast. I feel like there were some real like D-list actors in this movie.

SPEAKER_04 11:17

The mom.

SPEAKER_01 11:17

Oh, we'll talk about the mom. Um, but compared to like the main girl, it didn't feel like everybody was really at the same, like the same caliber with their performance.

SPEAKER_00 11:26

I'm I'm gonna shy away from disappointments, but I will say I I was surprised because I feel like they did a really good job of kind of going through the life of a webcam model. And uh I mean in reality though, like I did a little bit of of fact or fiction research, obviously, for for this episode, and they got like so many parts of just like the lifestyle and and her workflow like down.

SPEAKER_08 11:50

Oh, like uh buying a five thousand dollar couch and driving a 2,000 Camry? You gotta be humble on the outside.

SPEAKER_00 11:56

Well, there's there's there's other parts of it though that we'll break down when we get to to spoilers, but just like that the the way that they interact with their fans is like true to life. The way that they get paid is pretty true to life in many cases.

SPEAKER_04 12:11

Um Do you know this because Google Google for fact or fiction?

SPEAKER_00 12:16

So um I had to look this up. I've never actually utilized one of these services before, so this was all new to me watching this film.

SPEAKER_08 12:22

Are you sure that you didn't enter any credit card information anywhere?

SPEAKER_00 12:27

I made sure not to. That's very specifically.

SPEAKER_03 12:30

Did you tip several thousand tokens just to have the one-on-one time to ask about the validity of this film? How committed are you?

SPEAKER_00 12:38

No, I I did a little a little Googling, obviously, but no, it actually turns out to be like really realistic uh on screen, which is awesome because most tech films you get, they always use technology in like the worst of ways and like people's relationship with technology in the worst of ways. Even when it comes down to like something as simple as like you know, diffusing a bomb, there's always like a diffuse button or like the one wire you have to snip or like elevators, you can just go in there with a pocket knife and make them work or or not work.

SPEAKER_08 13:02

But I would like to note they did still have an Android that made the iPhone lock noise, and that always is in is in movies, and I don't know why.

SPEAKER_01 13:11

I feel like it's plausible and they're pulling studs.

SPEAKER_08 13:13

They just always make it make the same lock noise a little also.

SPEAKER_00 13:16

Who keeps their lock noise out on? Just turn that off. I do sometimes.

SPEAKER_08 13:20

Then you need to hear those notifications.

SPEAKER_00 13:22

Sometimes I like to hear myself type.

SPEAKER_01 13:23

Oh.

SPEAKER_08 13:24

That's interesting. No, very.

SPEAKER_04 13:27

I never put my phone volume on it.

SPEAKER_01 13:29

It's a satisfying sound, and then the lock sounds good too.

SPEAKER_03 13:32

You are chaos. Interesting.

SPEAKER_01 13:34

It's only when I'm like at the house, never in public.

SPEAKER_03 13:36

That's what they all say. I love that you bring that up, Mac. And I think one of the best things about this movie is the fact that it travels in a lot of different different directions. Many of those directions are things that we've seen played out before in other movies. But what I'll say is refreshing is this film's approach to sex positivity and the way it handles the fact that our main character is a sex worker as a matter of happenstance versus being an exploitative excuse to hypersexualize a female lead, right? Like you could remove Camgirl from the equation, put Instagram model, put YouTuber, put social media influencer, and this all still pans out perfectly. Like it's still possible. There are a number of themes, and we're gonna get to that in the second half when we can spoil the hell out of everything. But I have so many different theories of different ways that this movie played out. Um but did you guys find yourself concerned or creeped out at all during this movie?

SPEAKER_01 14:33

I was anxious for the most part. Um there was one scene that I would qualify as scary. It's a it's a specific bathroom scene, and I'm sure you guys know what I'm talking about. Um, but that was the only time I actually felt like fear uh in this movie. Everything else was more like creepy, suspenseful, sort of just like straddling that line.

SPEAKER_00 14:51

The only thing I found scary was the main character's crazy ability to like Google people and look them up and figure out where they are and where they live.

SPEAKER_04 14:59

Yeah, but that's easy.

SPEAKER_00 15:00

Everybody does that.

SPEAKER_04 15:01

I can do that, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:03

Do you guys do that all the time?

SPEAKER_03 15:04

You like you meet somebody for the first time and I don't know that straight men do it, but literally anyone else does. Yeah, I've definitely seen it. Yeah, I've definitely done it too.

SPEAKER_01 15:12

Give me like a graduating class in like the state they live in, and I'll get you their social security then.

SPEAKER_00 15:17

I'm just kidding. FBI don't find me. It's that Ron Swanson scene from Parkston Rec where he just, you know, takes the computer and throws it in the trash can. That's kind of how you feel after watching that.

SPEAKER_04 15:25

One of my coworkers, she's like, Oh, all you need is seven books, you can find out everything. And I was like, Okay, well, I knew who I need to go to for information. I don't I wasn't scared like as I would normally be in a movie, like when there's like a creature feature or you know, something like that, but definitely disturbing. I thought it was unsettling a lot of times, and you know, I think it was just that kind of sort of scariness. And I think it's it one scene in particular is you know, when you're chatting with someone, I I think this is what really like solidified, maybe it's a tad bit scared is when I was younger. I I went in AOL chat rooms all the time, and it was like a thing because you didn't really same, I was never really worried about people like you know, who who weren't who they were. Like, I feel like at that point in my time, people weren't doing the sketchy stuff.

SPEAKER_08 16:12

Oh, my parents were stressed, but I was always like, dude, it's fine. You guys are being dramatic.

SPEAKER_04 16:17

Don't worry, ask them, ask them ASL. It's all good.

SPEAKER_03 16:20

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 16:21

There was a full episode of Degrassi about this.

SPEAKER_03 16:23

Well, this is like that in that wild, wild west of chatting with people, these weren't the days where your dating apps were verified by your social media profile.

SPEAKER_04 16:30

That is true, but and it's and it's scary, but I think like I there's people that play dumb in that, you know, like do a little bit of research and stuff. I don't know. There was someone I talked to when I first got into a chat room that like we're still friends, which is the craziest thing. He's like the person I've known the long, well, the longest friend I've probably ever had. And we still every now and chat, every now chat. Never met. We've been pretty close to meeting, but I'm like, nah, I don't want to freaking solidify that even at break the fourth years old. That's hilarious.

SPEAKER_03 17:01

Yeah, I once talked to a girl for six months before we met in person, and that was weird.

SPEAKER_04 17:06

It is, you're just like, I just want this fantasy, like, I don't need you to be in my real life, you're in my online life.

SPEAKER_01 17:11

Yeah, online friends are real.

SPEAKER_04 17:12

Why should be a cam girl?

SPEAKER_01 17:14

Yeah, we have a couple, everybody's got a couple, they're definitely real, and it's a valid way to form a friendship.

SPEAKER_04 17:18

Okay, good. Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_01 17:20

I will admit though that like when I was 13, I was definitely in those chat rooms pretending to be like an 18-year-old girl, um, just to like talk to boys.

SPEAKER_08 17:28

So aside from the chat room stress, I did not feel scary during this movie. And I I do have to admit though, um, after I was, you know, done watching, went to bed, I was watching something else on else on TV. I definitely had a moment where I was like, dang, I can't get that girl's face out of my head. And it's it was almost like uh an eeriness left with you. Like this could happen to people.

SPEAKER_03 17:53

Because she's good at her job.

SPEAKER_08 17:55

Yeah, she was. She was listen, I like to give credit where credit is due. She played that part really well. Um, and it stuck with me a little, definitely. During during it, I was like, this is not scary, but it there's something. There's something.

SPEAKER_03 18:08

Can I also tell you how shocked I was to watch her the second time and have this weird thing click in my brain where I'm like, holy shit, she's the girl from Orange's New Black with a cornrows. She was the junkie in season one.

SPEAKER_01 18:21

She's also from The Handmaid's Tale.

SPEAKER_08 18:22

I've never seen the show. See, I thought I thought she was someone else. I can't figure out which actress I think she looks like. There's someone um she just looks familiar to me in general.

SPEAKER_03 18:33

I'll say that this movie, aside from just how incredible she was, it was it had one moment for me that was particularly intense. But I do find that it hits you with a bunch of strikes that you don't really feel immediately. You know, Ryan, like you were saying, like there's something eerie that stayed with you after the movie. And it ultimately, I feel like, inspires this feeling of anxiety and dread with our data, our online personas, and this inevitable creep technology has in our lives. It's it's a fear not necessarily of what we have before us right now, but rather like a fear of the unknown tomorrow brings. And it's a fear of the things the things that we choose to look beyond right now in terms and conditions for just about anything we do.

SPEAKER_04 19:16

Can we just check that box and keep grow process payment, uh subscribe? Yeah, I definitely get that.

SPEAKER_03 19:23

Yeah, no, I'm like, uh at this point, I'm like seriously going through and thinking about like vetting everything that I'm doing now. But the ending is something that is to behold for in a few different ways. I would I'll say that it's not it was not my favorite when I first saw the movie, but I do think it gives you something to chew on and reflect on. So I wasn't mad about it. But what about you guys?

SPEAKER_01 19:45

Definitely have some questions about the ending. Let's say the the climax was very intense. The epilogue, uh I've let's talk about that. I look forward to having that that conversation.

SPEAKER_04 19:56

Yeah, I think watching it a second time I was able to like understand a little bit more. But I remember when I first watched us, the ending, I was like, what the heck did I just watch? And then I think I'm just able to like put a little bit more or just understand a little bit more watching it the second time. But um I enjoyed it. Still questionable, but it wasn't the worst ending, but I think you get this like girl who's standing up for herself, and I kind of like those those kind of endings.

SPEAKER_00 20:28

This this was actually an ending I enjoyed for the most part because I found it to be like the only feasible way to end the just kind of sequence of events we witnessed. And I'm obviously when we get into the spoiler section, we can talk about what we think happened. I'm like 99% sure that my answer makes sense as to what happened, and maybe we'll we'll talk about what we think exactly happened. But for for a film like based around technology um and have something this creepy happen, like the real fear lies in what you know, what's ahead. What for us with all of the tech and all the internet and everything coming in. So I think it's kind of neat to see like it wrap up in in that way. I was I was pretty satisfied with the way they they uh pushed us on to life beyond the film.

SPEAKER_08 21:14

I was pretty unsatisfied by the ending of this movie. I felt full of whys, and it just didn't it just I don't know, it the plane didn't land for me, and it wasn't on a very long flight. It was a pretty short flight and it just disappeared. That's how I feel about this.

SPEAKER_03 21:32

I felt similarly when I first saw the movie. I was just kind of like, oh, it's over, and this is this is how it ended. But it was definitely something that I had to like think on and think on and then discuss out loud and then think on. And so when I watched it again, I'm like, oh, okay, I get it, and I like it, and I'm here for it. But we have so much to discuss, and there's so much of this movie that we cannot discuss without ruining it for you folks, and we don't want to spoil a movie that you could have on a net. Netflix date night. So let's go ahead and start getting to the ratings. Now, before we get into the scoring process, Alexis, how many deaths might you see in this movie?

SPEAKER_04 22:10

We have mentioned before this point in the podcast that if we talk a lot about this movie, we'll be giving it away. So that's where I'm leaving um the deaths at. That's fair. But what about the animal reports?

SPEAKER_08 22:22

So there were some kitty cats in this movie, but we had no animal deaths.

SPEAKER_03 22:27

Figuratively, but not literally. All right, here we go then. Let's get into it. Cam 2018. Was it a hack or slash?

SPEAKER_08 22:35

All right, I want to get this out of the way. Because I feel like I'm on an island by myself here.

SPEAKER_03 22:40

I'll just write down a hack. This movie is a hack.

SPEAKER_08 22:44

I it's so hard, right? I want to support um film uh portraying someone that's trying to be successful in something no matter what it is, including sex work, right? I love that point of view. I however feel that the first half of this movie could be found on Pornhub and the rest of it could be found in the middle of a different movie that has more details and makes more sense. It's just I I I don't know. It's very hard to explain how you how this movie makes you feel. It really is unique and I think I wanted it to be good, and I it was I just didn't have enough answers for me, and I'm all about sometimes you just gotta suspend the disbelief, you just gotta go with it, you just gotta believe that it it didn't it didn't work for me, and uh yeah. Now you guys can all say your love poems about this movie because I feel like everyone else liked it.

SPEAKER_00 23:41

Okay, love poems, let's re-reference a moment. While watching this movie, all I could think of was like this just everything seems like it smells like cheap perfume, bad makeup, and farts.

SPEAKER_08 23:54

So grungy.

SPEAKER_00 23:56

Yeah, that that combination.

SPEAKER_03 23:58

Where are the farts coming from?

SPEAKER_00 24:00

I don't know, but that's the combination I'm feeling.

SPEAKER_04 24:02

From the Camry.

SPEAKER_00 24:03

From the yeah, the Camry alone smells like all of that.

SPEAKER_04 24:09

True.

SPEAKER_00 24:09

I I don't know. It it it honestly did feel like I was being subjected to pop-ups on on websites that I accidentally linked to or something.

SPEAKER_08 24:18

Accidentally.

SPEAKER_00 24:19

Accidentally, but that being said, there's a pretty good story going on here. There's an amazing performance by by our our main actor here. So had had to you know commend them for that. I enjoyed the ending. I didn't think I was going to enjoy the premise. I really hate when we get into like webcam-based movies for any reason. I just think just throw the whole thing out. But I'm I'm thankful this one was executed well. And the relation between the webcam model and the fans was like pretty realistic because that can also get sometimes scary. So I liked that. So I actually have to give this one a slash. This was not like a really like super duper slash for me. I really was torn for a couple days after after watching it, but I I gotta give it some credit. This was like one of those, you know, it's 2 p.m. on a day off, and you're not really doing anything else, and so throw it on Netflix and why not. And you know, after watching it, I wasn't like, ugh, I wish I would have done something else. I was like, okay, cool. I'll watch that and I'm fine with that.

SPEAKER_04 25:20

I'm gonna give this a slash. I'll just start with that. I knew it. Uh Madeline Brewster, she's just, I think she really is what makes this movie. To me, she is super relatable. She is this girl that's like struggling, like, or not struggling, but you know, at some point you don't need to see her story, but she's in the circumstance, she's making the best of it. And like Chris mentioned, you have, you know, this you have a few themes. You have this positive view of sex workers, and then you go into um thinking of themes of like, okay, violence in um during sex or violence on you know social media or violence in porn. So you have that too, and then you have like this whole AI stuff. So I think it's there's just like so many things going on. So there's so many layers that I actually love. And I'm gonna be honest with you, I did not recognize any of that the first time I watched it. So I I the first time I was like, whoa, what was this? It it left it was not memorable. I mean, I remember what happened. I'm like, okay, I know the twist, uh, you're done. But I'm really glad I watched it a second time.

SPEAKER_01 26:26

So it should come as no surprise that I love this movie. Um, it's female-driven, it's female focused, it is empowering and sex positive, and ultimately it's a really fresh and modern, suspenseful mystery. Um, I will admit that it did have some pain points. Uh, specifically, the supporting cast was pretty weak in my mind. Um, the ending also a little shaky on it. Uh, it was definitely impactful, but we'll talk a little bit more about that afterwards. Um, also, Mac, I'm mad at you for saying that there would be any sort of malodorous uh energy from this film because Madeline Brewster's character and her attention to detail was so impressive and admirable. There were rose petals scattered, the the there was lint rolling, there was vacuuming. And it's like, this is for a webcam show. The girl is committed to this. I have no doubt that she sprayed some high quality fragrances on herself before going live. Um but Madeline Brewster like totally killed this performance. Uh, there's a few scenes that really just took me there. Uh, and I'm with Alexis. I found her to be so relatable. Um, I've definitely been in a lot of the situations that this character has been in, and I behaved the same way and I reacted the same way. Um, because it's it's I guess it's a normal human reaction um to some of these things. Um, but this is definitely getting a slash, and I feel like it's a great example of the power of new horror. Uh, it's also beautifully filmed, and with that, this is also my third slash in a row.

SPEAKER_08 27:51

So yes, who are you?

SPEAKER_01 27:53

I know. We've had a good week or a good couple weeks with these past few movies.

SPEAKER_03 27:57

I would agree about the idea of like you know, being empowering. This movie has an empowering message. It also does destigmatize sex work, and I think that's important to note the specifics of that word because it's not like that was a lowly line of work and now we must lift them up. It's more like, nah, man, these are just people doing their jobs and they're professionals and they're doing it. So r have some respect there. It's interesting because it is so powerful while also being so thrilling and so entertaining. So one of the things that I think this movie does best is it makes, or at least for me, it made me think and it made me consider things that I hadn't considered before, right? There's this, you know, realization that sex workers are persecuted in so many places and it within so many different lines of that industry, their work is illegal. Let's take Dominatrix, for example. Well, the Dominatrix, you're not doing any explicit sexual acts. It's a gray area legally, though. So people having agency and control of their bodies, using it in a way that allows them to make a living, that's illegal. And yet there are rarely protections for women who are sexualized without consent, objectified, brutalized, and sexually assaulted. So what I think this movie does is it takes this line of work and it gives you a hero. And it gives you someone that you can relate to, uh, someone that you can empathize with. And I think it does it in a beautiful way that makes for one hell of a suspenseful movie. And it's powerful. This movie rated in the top three of 2018, and that was the same year that had the remake of Susperia, Halloween, Mandy, Hereditary, A Quiet Place, and Summer of 84. Out of all those movies, Cam rated number three. So with that, Cam from 2018 available on Netflix has earned four slashes and one hack. Check it out, it's worth the watch, at least the majority says here, but uh give it a watch. Join us in the second half, because we have so much to unpack.

SPEAKER_00 30:11

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SPEAKER_03 31:12

But before we do, Alexis. There was a little bit of blood in this movie. What's up with the Gore Score?

SPEAKER_04 31:19

So to reconvene on those dusts that we were talking about beforehand, our body count, um, didn't want to give a bit too many spoilers. But yeah, so I was like, okay, well, I guess you could say um Lola dying, her doppelganger dying, um, but that's not a real person, so or who knows what the hell that was.

SPEAKER_00 31:39

Um literally wait, does artificial life not bleed once?

SPEAKER_04 31:42

Oh gosh, you know what?

SPEAKER_08 31:43

No one ever said it was artificial life. Oh, it was.

SPEAKER_00 31:45

Was it? Oh, absolutely. That was AI with deepfake technology. Deep fake for sure. That had to be said. I have that written in my notes too, Mac.

SPEAKER_08 31:54

But but but it wasn't said, just so we're clear.

SPEAKER_04 31:57

No one said it. We've said it. Sony RealTech, is that Sony RealTech technology?

SPEAKER_00 32:02

I'm not familiar with Sony RealTech. Can you explain more?

SPEAKER_04 32:05

I had no idea.

SPEAKER_01 32:06

But for the record, nobody died, right?

SPEAKER_04 32:08

No, I mean there was one off-screen when we talked about um baby, baby dying.

SPEAKER_01 32:14

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_04 32:14

So you see that headline. Um, but um, the gore, very little. I'll have to admit, I was very pleasured by the gore in this.

SPEAKER_02 32:26

Please tip extra tokens, Alexis.

SPEAKER_04 32:28

I would have because I don't know what the hottest thing is in this movie. Her just walking around like every normal girl in her underwear with a varsity jacket on with blood on her after she just slit her own throat. So cute. It was cute. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 32:42

You referred to that as hot?

SPEAKER_04 32:44

It was cute. Like she just like was like That was a look. Yes, it was. She was just like in this varsity jacket, no shirt underneath, so her tits were out, and then like blood on her, casually talking to this dude. Hey daddy, like question.

SPEAKER_08 32:58

I just want to remind everyone weren't you quite a scene girl back in the day? Yes, yeah, that's where it comes from. This is this is the part of Alexis that you may not realize still exists.

SPEAKER_04 33:08

It's deep inside. If I were to have a cam persona, it would be doing fake things like this. It'd be like, all right, special effects girl, come in and at you. Although it was creepy though, when she blew her head off. Dude, that was like the craziest thing I had ever seen. Cause I think at that point I was like, Oh, did she die? Like, I because I'm still trying to figure out. How fucky must it be to watch yourself die?

SPEAKER_01 33:34

Ugh, oh my god.

SPEAKER_08 33:35

It's freaky. And that uh performance that we got in that scene from Lola, the real one, was insane. Like the way she freaked out and like called her mom who wasn't gonna answer the phone, and like that that was one of those scenes where I was like, this girl is acting her butt off in this movie.

SPEAKER_04 33:54

Yeah, no, I it was crazy, and I think because it sets off the first scene too. That one, like, well, that's the second one, but the first one where you're just like, okay, you don't even know what's going on, so you're put into this and you're like, Oh, okay, maybe it's like you know, all these like torture porn sites that you see that go around in the dark, deep, dark web. We had this conversation a long time ago, which whatever it's called. Um, but the people like want that, and I'm like, damn, she's only at 50. I'm sure there's a lot of sick MFers out there that would pay a lot more money and a lot more tokens for some more stuff like that.

SPEAKER_03 34:30

But maybe they should they're on their own subreddit, not on this website.

SPEAKER_01 34:34

Yeah, she hadn't found the right audience.

SPEAKER_04 34:36

But yeah, no, I mean I I don't think it needed too much, I needed a lot of gore, but I appreciate the gore that they had put in and what it kind of meant for the film. Um, it was like a way for her to like spice up her cam dates, her cam show.

SPEAKER_00 34:51

Yeah, her performance, her performance.

SPEAKER_04 34:53

She's a her performance, but I loved how she kept calendars on what she did, what day she she did not repeat. I love that kind of organization. I I'm taking tips, jotting down notes.

SPEAKER_08 35:05

Oh, like this is over this quarantine and interested in new ventures.

SPEAKER_04 35:09

I wanted to see if someone wants to type all day and go, fuck, I sent that to the wrong person, like all day.

SPEAKER_08 35:16

I'll give you 10,000 tokens if you send your boss a mean email.

SPEAKER_07 35:22

Send someone a shitty meme.

SPEAKER_08 35:25

Accidentally CC everyone a lot.

SPEAKER_07 35:28

Reply all 20 times.

SPEAKER_00 35:31

Here's a thousand tokens if you'll drink another seltzer while you're typing one-handed.

SPEAKER_08 35:37

Man, our imaginations are boring.

SPEAKER_01 35:40

I I agree with you, Alexis. The the gore is pretty minimal, but uh every time you do get gore, it's super impactful. Like after that first, like the opening scene, like what you would call maybe like the first kill. Um, I was like, this whatever happens with the rest of this movie, this opening scene is like a top five horror movie openers of all time for me. Because it was just the aesthetic of it was so well done. It gave me like neon demon vibes. I'm not sure if you guys have seen that. Um, and then just like watching it escalate. I had I just had like, you know, my hand on my pearls as I do and my jaw on the floor, and then she just like slits her throat and on cam. And I was just like, what the fuck is this? And then you'd think that later on when a very similar thing happens and the doppelganger like blows her brains out, you'd think like you wouldn't be as like affected by it. But I was like even more shook by that one.

SPEAKER_04 36:27

Oh, when she was deep throating the um oh well, that was half. Sorry, that was a little too much, was it? No, I mean that's exactly what happened in the movie.

SPEAKER_07 36:37

Sorry, when she was gagging on the Glock eye. That's worse. But thank you for that image.

SPEAKER_03 36:45

And I thought she was gonna do something else with it, but no man, this is not the exorcist.

SPEAKER_00 36:49

Oh man. Both of those scenes, I I just like I would they were not for me. I was like, one, there's nothing sexy or sexual about it, really gross. And two, I don't want to watch this happen. I I think the part of the gore though that like really affected me was the nose-breaking scene, though.

SPEAKER_04 37:07

Oh yeah, the only real gore of the movie. That was how did I miss that?

SPEAKER_00 37:12

Yeah, I mean, smashing her own face into her vanity.

SPEAKER_04 37:16

I think it was more like what's going on on this screen than her face.

SPEAKER_00 37:20

Like, literally, there's like a separation in her nose now because she smashed it so badly and the bones like poking out of her face and like twisting her nose around. That was gruesome. That was so much, and I was like, I don't understand why she had to do that, but okay. I loved it.

SPEAKER_04 37:33

That for real made me squirm. Do you guys think you could hit yourself that hard? Like, I don't even know if I could physically do that.

SPEAKER_01 37:41

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_04 37:42

She has some balls that I don't have. No, no, I I would just once I almost hit like the table, I just dropped my head or something. Like, I wouldn't actually go full force.

SPEAKER_01 37:51

In a situation like that, you definitely could. You're full of adrenaline.

SPEAKER_08 37:54

I have a question for you guys, and I would like you to think about it before you answer. Okay. Is this a horror movie? Aside from what it was intended to be or anything like that. Like when you watch this, is this a horror movie, or is this just like a is it like a weird uh thriller mystery?

SPEAKER_00 38:17

Well, real easy answer. Like, who produced this movie? What production company?

SPEAKER_08 38:20

Yeah, but outside of that, boom, done.

SPEAKER_00 38:23

Horror movie.

SPEAKER_03 38:24

Yeah, you defeated you. Literally did the opposite of what I asked. You raise a good point, Ryan. And I did wonder that, right? I do still classify it as horror because it's like the cerebral horror, but I will imply apply the same argument here that I do with a hot dog being a sandwich, right? You have the main family of horror being the sandwich, right? Like is a hot dog a sandwich. Now, within those two main families, there are little threads that come down. And as a hot dog is a member of the sandwich family that you would not look at and think, oh yeah, no, that's totally a sandwich. It still falls within that kind of category of foods.

SPEAKER_01 39:03

No.

SPEAKER_03 39:04

I know, I know there's gonna be it's a Venn diagram. A hot dog is not a sandwich, it's definitely just a meat with bread on it. Well, okay, no, we're gonna table this because we will derail the podcast, but this is something that we are gonna have to discuss. Perhaps, perhaps it's Patreon content, I think, because I think we have some spicy stuff here. But this movie is part of the horror family, it's more like psychological horror. I think there is enough blood and violence in it for sure. Um, it's more of a thriller, but it still feels like horror to me.

SPEAKER_08 39:36

Yeah, I it's kind of like uh you know how you watch like Requiem for a Dream, and you're just like it just has a feeling, but not necessarily horror. That's not that not that these are related, but it's like a it's like this feeling that stays with you. But to me, in in my world of horror, my little strings that hang from the horror tree, um, this isn't a horror movie to me. And I think that's part of where my disappointment and my not tiny but regular size hack comes from. That's okay.

SPEAKER_01 40:08

I totally agree, Ryan. Uh I got like 90% into this movie, and I was like, when is it gonna become a horror movie though?

SPEAKER_04 40:14

But what makes it that way? Is there because there's no ghost?

SPEAKER_01 40:19

Well, I you know I love ghosts. Um for me, it was like the lack of kills um and the lack of gore, really.

SPEAKER_04 40:25

For me, it was the lack of story.

SPEAKER_01 40:27

Oh, see, it was all story for me.

SPEAKER_04 40:29

And I think what you mentioned before is like a new horror, which I'm definitely not a fan of, like at all. A24 needs to stop, but love their stuff needs to stop for a year or two. Like it's the only thing that's coming out right now.

SPEAKER_00 40:41

There's there's moments of terror for for the characters in the movie though.

SPEAKER_04 40:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:45

There's like real fear that they have for their for their life and well-being, and trying to evade it and defeat it.

SPEAKER_08 40:51

But her life and well-being wasn't really in danger.

SPEAKER_01 40:54

She was just except in that bathroom. That's where it's scary.

SPEAKER_08 40:58

Right, which was her own doing. Like, she could have easily not saying that this is what she should do, but she could easily listen to the cops and not be online and and not have to worry about it.

SPEAKER_04 41:06

Yeah, but then there's these videos you view and people saying that you called them and you're like, Absolutely.

SPEAKER_08 41:12

Absolutely, absolutely. And so I um, you know, I'm not trying to say that she did something dumb or anything. I think that this is a very realistic response. And I like the path that she took in this movie is maybe one of the most realistic I've seen in a movie. Like, you know, you might have thoughts like when she found out about uh the other girl in Georgia, you might be like, oh, she's gonna get in the car and go to Georgia. But the reality of life is you're not getting in a car and going to Georgia. Yeah. You know, and you're not like you don't know who to call, you don't get help from cops, you don't, you know, know how to explain it to your mom without it not sounding crazy without sounding crazy. So I think it's super realistic, but for me, it was just like I don't know. It I it she wasn't in danger realistically. No one was attacking her. Not that every movie has to be an attack, I don't know, man. It's hard.

SPEAKER_03 42:00

This is a tough it is, and I have a resource here that I'm gonna cite that I think will support you. Where you stand, Ryan? This is a book that I have, I'll link it in the show notes. What's the difference between horror and terror? Horror comes after. Terror is the suspense, the fear. You worry about something awful that could happen. What's that sound? Where's my baby? My boyfriend, what's that itch? Uh, what's that bump? These things terrify you. The panic starts with the dread. Terror is what's lurking behind the door, the promise of the pain, and horror is your fear realized. Horror is the promise fulfilled. And so I think when you look at this movie, it's a lot of promise, but not a lot of fulfillment. Yeah. I was pretty scared about that nose breaking, so that still works for me.

SPEAKER_08 42:46

But yeah, that was pretty gruesome. I I can't lie. And then at first I I kind of was like, what is she doing? Is she planning to kill herself to have Lola kill herself? But when the copy like morphed into looking just like her, I was like, that is insane. Absolutely insane.

SPEAKER_03 43:02

I think one thing when we look at like terror, right? We think about our digital presences and we think about losing access to that. And to a certain to for a certain point of view, that could be terrifying. The idea, the concept of having everything you've worked for just hijacked, that can be scary. So I think in the sense that we have this AI stuff taking over Lola's stream, I think in a way, in a very uh figurative way, the horror is fulfilled in that sense.

SPEAKER_08 43:35

Yeah. So for me, that's where part of my trouble comes in, is that they don't give even an ounce of explanation of what's happening. And so it doesn't I'm not I wasn't stressed about it. Like the sentences specifically to explain the entire movie were not, you know, you know, I don't have them word for word, but it happens to all the good girls. It always happens. It happens on other sites. They get copied, basically. Those are the things that were said. And like, what is that explanation? I'm sorry. I just want more from that. I don't want to, I don't just want to have to come up with my own thoughts of, oh, it's AI or oh, it's, you know, some higher group of people that actually own all of these companies and then they make the profit or whatever. I didn't watch this movie to write it. I want more answers.

SPEAKER_01 44:27

That's definitely something you're not alone with, Ryan, because that's why it reminded me of It Follows, in that like the actual antagonist was so like ambiguous, and we never really got any good answers. Um, ultimately, like if you are left to like fill in the blanks on your own, like what is this? Like some haunted camgirl malware that goes around.

SPEAKER_08 44:46

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 44:47

Yeah, so that's that's the part where the ending I was kind of like, uh, but for me, like the whole ride leading up to it was good enough to make up for uh like not necessarily sticking the landing.

SPEAKER_08 44:58

Bro, when I had to hear the man in the Mexican restaurant order his guacamole and queso tower.

SPEAKER_01 45:03

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_08 45:04

What were those why what why were we there with them? Why were why were there so many details?

SPEAKER_01 45:08

That scene was cringe.

SPEAKER_08 45:10

Why? Why did we he ordered a club soda and then said you're not gonna drink? Which okay, didn't make any sense. None of it made sense. I'm salty.

SPEAKER_01 45:18

I feel like that was there to to kind of give you a little more of a picture of like the kinds of guys that think they're like big ballers in these small communities. Like he was like, Oh, I come here for the authenticity, and like that guac was literally soup. Yeah. Um, and I think that was intentional.

SPEAKER_04 45:33

Yeah, and then the kind of people she interacts with daily and the kind of like what she subjects subjected to, and it's not even like via like online, it's like Anna in person, probably.

SPEAKER_01 45:45

Gross idiots with money.

SPEAKER_08 45:46

Yeah, these are the only two guys that she had to go to, and they were both absolute sleaze ball creep pedophiles. No, perpetrators. Perpetrators, predators, perverts, creep, creep predators, perfs.

SPEAKER_04 45:58

Yeah, I definitely I I get that, I get that vibe. I also thought it was like at some point, like at the end, uh especially the first time watching it, I was like, oh, is this sci like a like uh when I say sci-fi, I mean like a sort of like ominous like thing that's going around, like it follows. So I was like, oh, is this like haunted? I just didn't know, or is it like okay, this is an actual thing that actually happens to people who do face recognition?

SPEAKER_01 46:25

It's just a sexy algorithm, I think.

SPEAKER_00 46:28

I I a hundred percent watched this and just knew it to be an AI with deep fake tech that was, you know, circulating the web. I was, I mean, come on, how could you not watch it and think like, okay, there's some like for some reason, some weird AI that's just going around and gobbling up these profiles and and making its own to cash in on the money. And who knows who created it originally? Maybe they're cat you know, taking all that money at the end, or maybe they made it and it's out there just living its own life.

SPEAKER_04 46:52

The reason we didn't know that is because there was no context in any of this to know that that like AI was that sort of like okay.

SPEAKER_00 46:59

So get rid of the context and let's just look at the evil in this film as being the depersonalization and dehumanization of sex workers.

SPEAKER_08 47:07

I don't like writing stories. That's exactly what you're doing. You're writing the answer of why all this is happening.

SPEAKER_04 47:14

Quick side question Do you like have you seen Unsolved Mysteries?

SPEAKER_08 47:17

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 47:18

Do you like them?

SPEAKER_08 47:19

I I have less satisfaction. So I watch a lot of uh because they're not because they're not solved, right? Yes.

SPEAKER_04 47:24

Yeah, you and Juan.

SPEAKER_08 47:25

I watch a lot of forensic files, which is great because they have many details. And then I watched my first ever Unsolved Mysteries. I watched two of them, they were amazing. But at the end, I'm like, but what happened? It's the whole point.

SPEAKER_03 47:38

I understand that, but I don't like it. I'm not gonna lie. The first episode of Unsolved Mysteries fucked me up a bit.

SPEAKER_08 47:43

Yeah, the second one was real sleepy though when I took a nap. I fell asleep and didn't finish it. You should definitely nap during episode two, but episode one, very good.

SPEAKER_00 47:50

So, yeah, speaking of unsolved mysteries, let's go back to the like the metaphorical kind of understanding of this film of the main character winning because she's you know, she won the battle with the the dehumanization of of sex workers. And this perhaps you could look at the very, very end of the movie and think, like, oh, she's getting back into it and she's gonna own it and keep going with it. But she literally wins by getting her viewers to side with the real version of her and not the fake version.

SPEAKER_04 48:20

But people clearly like the fake version better.

SPEAKER_00 48:22

They they did for a while, and then she showed them the real person, they realized what a glossed up, like fake thing they had, you know, going on, and then they sided with her and she won. She did get the most votes, and then she's like, I'm gonna get back into this and I'm gonna be on top and I'm gonna do it my way.

SPEAKER_08 48:36

But she won because they're psychopaths, and sh and she was slamming her head into the desk.

SPEAKER_04 48:42

Also won because these guys don't want to see a bot, they want to see some real girl on the webcam.

SPEAKER_00 48:48

Right.

SPEAKER_04 48:48

But I don't think that's even true. I think they do want to see I mean, I think she was at like number eight.

SPEAKER_00 48:53

Do you think we do what now?

SPEAKER_04 48:54

Do you think they do this now? You think those are fake girls on the webcams?

SPEAKER_00 48:57

Probably not. So I so what's going on a lot, especially right now during the whole like COVID-19 madness, is there's just a lot of everyday people getting up and and and making their money this way.

SPEAKER_04 49:08

Amen.

SPEAKER_00 49:09

Yeah. The girls next door, literally, literally next door, probably just you know, making making a few bucks every uh every uh couple hours they work. In the next townhouse, in the next townhouse over. You never know.

SPEAKER_04 49:20

Maybe at this very table. Very cool. Question. Maybe can you guys close your eyes and just send me money? Paris exposes a nipple. Ryan can see me naked, and Chris can see me naked in Paris. But Mac, I don't know, it's kind of weird. Everyone on this podcast can see me naked except for you.

SPEAKER_00 49:35

I mean, I feel like I just witnessed, like, you know, Paris's little cam show. That was definitely an episode that was just a teaser on some TV show on Netflix.

SPEAKER_08 49:44

So Niflix?

SPEAKER_00 49:45

Indeed.

SPEAKER_08 49:46

Paris's nipples are free. They do not require tokens. You can see them anytime you want. You don't even have to log in.

SPEAKER_01 49:53

I will tell you, um, there was a period of time where I did fully like apply and create a profile to be a cam performer. Um, and I got approved. And then I got a different job, and I was like, maybe I'll I'll put this on hold for now. Um, and I never went back to it, but it is something I definitely considered. Uh, especially like it's really good if you're just like an exhibitionist, um, as you guys have learned that I am. Uh, because one, people will pay you to do things that you enjoy doing anyway, and two, like, you can make some solid money off of this. I have a couple girlfriends that have done this, and like on a good week, you can make like a couple thousand dollars. Stop in bed.

SPEAKER_04 50:30

Okay, I'm saying stop because I'm quitting the podcast. I'm sorry. I full-time MCamgirl. Maybe I can review the podcast naked. I need to be on the other side. Oh my god. Sorry, I'm just my mind's running right now. I need to talk.

SPEAKER_03 50:44

She's gonna reallocate the few hours a week for the podcast straight into the cam show.

SPEAKER_00 50:50

Just live, just watching horror movies naked on camera.

SPEAKER_04 50:54

There you go. And making my commentary. I mean, people watch people play video games. That's the stupidest shit I've ever seen.

SPEAKER_00 51:01

Wow.

SPEAKER_04 51:01

Sorry, guys.

SPEAKER_00 51:02

I don't watch them, but I like playing video games. I just don't like watching any other people play them.

SPEAKER_04 51:06

Why would you want to watch someone play it unless you were trying to get through like a certain It's usually for their personality? Oh.

SPEAKER_01 51:14

My boyfriend watches a lot of like streamers, and it's usually because like they're funny.

SPEAKER_00 51:18

See, the way I think about it is like when I was a little kid and you're playing like Sega and you had like pass the control over, and you're like, I don't want them to play. I want to play.

SPEAKER_03 51:24

Oh, I never wanted to play.

SPEAKER_00 51:25

Same. Sharing is lame.

SPEAKER_01 51:26

I want to be the one playing. There's also games that I'm not very good at, but I watch other people that are better at them, and I'm like, oh, this is fun.

SPEAKER_08 51:32

I'm really bad at video games and sometimes watch people play because I suck at them and I feel shame. Like because you wanna No, it's it would, it's only like people with a certain it's it's just like anybody else that you would like watch on YouTube or something. I would like to offer the opposite perspective here. On the other side of getting a lot of money, maybe maybe making some some cash. You have to deal with a lot of humans. And humans are not cool, especially when they're trying to look at you naked. I don't think that you and Alexis would enjoy having to entertain all these people. Like, someone's gonna be like, I want to send you a cake to your house and you have to rub it all over your body and eat half of it, and you're gonna be like, that's not on my diet.

SPEAKER_04 52:14

I would be like, is it sour cream frosting? Sour cream. No, it's like uh buttercream.

SPEAKER_00 52:20

You think it's a buttercream? Yeah. Oh, cream cheese frosting. Cream cheese frosting. Nope, you're getting a sour cream cake. Nah, bitch, it's fun fetty. You're thinking of buttercream. It better be a fun fetty because that's the best cake.

SPEAKER_04 52:31

I hope they just send a bunk cake, is what I really want. That's my favorite.

SPEAKER_08 52:34

All I'm saying is the first time you get sent a cake to rubble over your body, it's cool. The 15th time, you're like, what is this? I'm not doing it.

SPEAKER_04 52:41

Do you know how hard it is to get this out of my book? $100,000 to my private uh channel where I will do stuff with a candle. Like, I don't I don't know. Hello. I don't know what I would do. I'm just saying.

SPEAKER_01 52:54

I will do stuff with a candle. I love you.

SPEAKER_08 52:58

Listen, I was a bartender in previous lives at a place that was not trashy or I didn't, I wore full-length pants and three quarter length sleeves. It's a nice place. And I couldn't do it anymore because I constantly felt like I had to be nice to people for them to pay for my regular services that I like, like I can't pay my bills unless I'm nice to these people that are rude to me.

SPEAKER_04 53:22

Yeah, and I guess I've never been in that sort of situation. So I feel like I'd be great at it, but I probably would be like, To be fair, get on my chat. Fuck you!

SPEAKER_08 53:31

You do have a blog feature, and to be fair, there's there are everyone I mean, except the ones that are playing. A lot of people are built for things like this.

SPEAKER_00 53:40

I tried serving once, like I was, you know, a waiter or server, whatever it was, for a good three months, and I was 18 and very fit at the time. I don't know what happened since then, but I remember bringing over like some food and some wine to some people, and they were like, Why don't you go ahead and sit down? You want to have a drink with us? And I was like, Oh, I can't do that. I'm at work, and they're like, Oh, we know, but why don't you go ahead and sit down and have a drink with us?

SPEAKER_08 54:02

Listen, working in a restaurant is not not stripping or prostituting yourself. It's kind of prostitution with no sex, kind of. I don't get it. It's light prostitution.

SPEAKER_00 54:13

I don't get it because like when I go to a bar, if I sit down at the bar, I want to order my two drinks to get my food or whatever, and then I just want them to go away, just disappear and come back in when it's time to take the money or order me more beers.

SPEAKER_08 54:23

You're not trying to hire a prostitute, indeed.

SPEAKER_00 54:25

There and sometimes I'll go to a bar and they'll get like really, really friendly.

SPEAKER_04 54:29

Just go for that and the experience.

SPEAKER_00 54:32

Oh, and they're like, you know, they'll come over and they'll like tell me about their lives or what they went to school for, whatever it is. And I'm just like, cool, cool.

SPEAKER_08 54:38

Can I just get that beer and then I mean I love a good bartender, but doing it, it just is like so like I can't pay my rent this week because y'all didn't think I was nice enough. You didn't deem my services good enough for your pleasure.

SPEAKER_03 54:53

Yeah, I don't want to subject my salary to the people who say you should smile more. Bingo.

SPEAKER_00 54:58

So what we've learned from this episode is that the tip-based economy needs to end and that sex workers need to be embraced. Yes.

SPEAKER_03 55:04

And Alexis will be a cam girl, and I will not. And that concludes our episode. Thanks for listening. But I do want to just point out, right, when we look at like the end of this movie and we look at Lola kind of resubmerging back into that. First off, the girl before she ever cracked the top 50, she was able to buy a seven, a several thousand dollar couch just casually like that, probably investing it back into her room, back into her business. But she was making solid money. I don't blame her from starting back over. It's like, oh, okay, cool, I'll just make another one. I'm making some good cash and I like what I'm doing and I'm good at it. I don't disrespect that at all. I think uh the the lack of answers that you get, I I get um I definitely wasn't I wasn't clued in on exactly what it was, so I I had to chew on it a while after I watched it the first time. But I will say that my final theory after watching this a second time and looking at the little context clues the campsites are behind the AI.

SPEAKER_01 56:07

Totally.

SPEAKER_03 56:08

And that's because Lola breaks the top 50, so her stream gets hijacked, she's making real money, and then something intervenes, right? And that's like spooky, whatever. You know, you have her friend Fox that says, Well, they do own all of our footage. The access code that she provides, uh she catches on to it, she calls customer service, they gotta put her on hold real quick. The next time she calls, that access code isn't valid. So it just plays into this uh conspiracy of like, okay, it's not valid because they're shutting her down, she's just gonna have to make a new one anyway. Um, and even when the guy on the phone, ma'am, I need you to calm down, you're acting hysterical, not acknowledging anything really that's happening, it's just like you're acting hysterical, gaslighting her. Uh, it just seems something that's like big corporation beating up the small person, right? I agree. And that's what it kind of felt like to me the second time around. That's also my favorite theory.

SPEAKER_01 57:00

There was also a line when uh I think it was um Lola and her friend were talking about baby, and they were like, she doesn't even like get to know her, like she doesn't even like take the time to like get to know her viewers, uh, and it's because she was a fucking robot and an AI.

SPEAKER_03 57:14

Yeah. No, exactly. And when you look at it, it's like the AI was pulling everything it's already seen on this site and other sites, right? So you have this compilation of of just shit happening, and you have her soaring because data is objective, right? Data doesn't have morals, data doesn't have its own rules that it follows. It's like, oh, um, if you are the monkey and you try to get the banana, then you're gonna get the banana and people are gonna be happy, right? So they're like, okay, yeah, do any number of things, fake your orgasms, whatever, break all the rules that Alice had and the boundaries that Alice had as Lola. So I think when you look at this, it's like this idea of like online fantasies versus reality and the rise and fall of your own internet stardom based on whether or not you break your own rules.

SPEAKER_04 58:01

No, those are and those were three really good rules too. But it was sad that like, yeah, that's what sh that's what I had had to break. And it's funny because you always see these. I was trying to think of like other movies that reminded me of like all the extremes like people go to, like, and that's where I thought this movie was going, like like how far you would get to go to stardom. So that's what I thought this was, so I realized clearly it's not her. Once you get to stardom, they keep you there because it's not you. Um, so Renny of this, I don't know, it's a horror movie, but it's called Starry Eyes, and it's pretty much like a girl trying to be an actress and everything like that, and all the horrors behind that, you can imagine. But yeah, I don't it was it was I loved those rules where they were um, I think I might have written them down. Yeah, no public shows. Uh I don't tell guys I love them. Also my number one rule. Um and three, don't fake orgasms. That's your number one rule. Which you know, I want to bring this up, not for any other reason, other than I think there's like always this like this stigma around like women having an orgasm. And I should probably like especially especially on the internet.

SPEAKER_08 59:15

I mean, like there's a lot of content on the internet and or a male is uh and almost none of it has to do with a woman enjoying herself doing anything, much less like just being in her room, like doing stuff that she wants to do, whether it's having dinner with herself or like whatever that is. So this does definitely like it gives some like light to that, yeah, some acknowledgement to that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 59:39

Also, a lot of times when you see the girls squirting, uh, they're actually just peeing and just doing it for the camera.

SPEAKER_04 59:44

Why isn't it yellow? Well, I guess they might drink a lot of water.

SPEAKER_01 59:46

I like that in Madeline's performance of her watching her doppelganger sort of uh like spiral, like basically watching herself like spiral and break all the rules that she set out for herself. She had a reaction to it that was like horror, obviously, but also like a little bit of excitement watching her rank uh like climb higher and higher. Because even though it wasn't her that was doing it, it was her like image and her brand that she had curated that was succeeding. So just like the the nuances that she put into those performance like elements of the performance, I felt were like just so uh well done.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:20

It was uh definitely like I mean, just watching her performance. I think my favorite was just you know, when she's kind of in this point where like no one's believing her, and every time she goes, she's like logging in, watching Lola 2.0 or maybe negative 0.2, um however we want to describe it. And like she has this thing where she's like picking her nails, and I think I've been more in tune with it lately because I have someone who does that very often, and I'm really realizing like that's like because I bite mine, but I don't bite it because I'm nervous, I usually bite it because I'm bored. But when I see people pick now, it like rise, it gives me anxiety. So seeing her bite her nails the entire time, and you'll look like I do it all the time, but I'm just not because I'm nervous, I'm I don't even know why. Plus, I have a million hangnails, but it that her performance just of this person that's like lost and like trying to like figure out what to do, and it was just it was just all so believable. I mean, shit, she was shopping at the dollar store. Like, I mean, it it was it it was her performance just so believable. It was it was just it was remarkable, so thorough, thorough, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:29

Alexis, with what you were pointing out with the uh like the nail biting, there's a very specific moment after the first like big like uh like throat slitting scene, uh, where she goes to like post like a little Snapchat video in like the makeup and everything. And what she does is like she she gets into character and she like puts on, she films a take, and then immediately she like looks at her phone, starts biting her nails, and like gets out of character to like look at the video and decide if it's worth posting, decides she doesn't like it, takes another one, and then posts it. And that those choices of like how well she went in and out of character, like with the performance of her her Lola character. Um, that's when I knew that like the acting in this was gonna be like stellar from our lead actress.

SPEAKER_08 1:02:12

When I was watching that, I was like, man, I know that like not that I turn on to take a video or something, and I don't do it very often anyway, but we all like take selfies and like stuff like that. And like to see to watch someone else take like 50 selfies and then hate them and then take another one and fake a smile and then hate it and take another one, it's like such a creepy out-of-body experience because it's like when you're doing it in most generally speaking, like most of us are not crazy, and we're like, cool, we're just gonna take a picture, and I just don't like any of them, so I'm taking 50. But when you like watch someone else do that, you're like, gosh, you look like you need some help.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:48

Exactly. There's been roles where it's like slight eyebrow raising, and I'm like, really?

SPEAKER_08 1:02:54

My lip is one millimeter longer on this side. And I do think it gets worse the older you get and the more self-aware you are of your own aging. So true. And also you realize that you're being silly.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:05

You're like, wait, why am I taking more pictures? I think one of the things that I that I love is looking at the quality of her performance and then just thinking back to like all the movies that came out that year. When you look at this, she's not really a final girl, right? But she is the hero of the story, and I think she's actually now in my top ten of horror movie characters based solely on the quality of her performance. Looking at this, uh one of the other themes that I picked up on this in this movie, it reminds me of this idea of like plagiarism and identity theft, right? Look, this is a small little mini rant. Uh, I love this podcast network called Relay FM. They do a lot of tech reviews, stuff like that. And there is a YouTuber and podcaster not affiliated with them at all, who basically just rips all their shit and has his own YouTube channel where he talks all about uh iPad lifestyle. And if you listen to anything he says, it was set on Relay FM like two weeks before, and his podcast does the same exact thing. He finally started citing the podcast that he got the source material from, and now the podcast is just done and over with. But it's just that kind of shit that pisses me off, right? It's like you have someone who relies on the power and influence of the internet to make their living, and then you have people who just steal that shit from you. I will say that I had two things I disliked in this movie, and I'd love to hear if you guys had any other pain points. One, in that scene where she's in the varsity jacket, she's in her panties, she's looking great. She gets the food delivered. I have never seen anyone bite a piece of sushi that's a normal size. It was so offensive. You guys take two bites out of it?

SPEAKER_01 1:04:45

You mean instead of eating it all at once?

SPEAKER_03 1:04:47

She didn't even really bite it. Yeah, you're supposed to like that size, you should just like eat it all at once. And she just like picked up with her finger and just for like a corner bite on something that's round.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:57

Um I will raise a counterpoint, Chris. She was still in a private chat with uh Tinker, so she was still technically like on.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:04

I think we come to see that she doesn't give a shit about what Tinker thinks.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:08

Right, but like she's gonna take this like dainty bite as opposed to just like shoving it in her face like a normal person because she's still performing.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:13

I don't know, she was all like food. I don't know. I I feel like she kind of let that wall come down because she stopped eating when she was really on for Barnacle Bob.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:21

Yeah, that's true. When you take a piece of sushi, isn't that already the perfect size bite? That's what Chris is saying.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:27

Sometimes they're big. That's what she said, literally and figured it. The other thing I have is when it comes to Barney. Clearly he's a fucking creep, right? But I do feel like she made efforts to tell everybody else what was fucking going on, and she made no effort to tell a guy who was super fucking influential. Not to say, hey, you might get an alert that we're live right now. Clearly, this is me. I can talk to you about any fact that I should know. Uh, I'm not scamming you. I I just I feel like that was like the one poor choice she made.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:57

You think she should have like leaned into Barney more as like A source of help in the situation. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:02

Yeah. Maybe like maybe he had no help to offer her, but just like a moment of like, oh hey, just so that I don't put myself in a dangerous situation here where you think I'm ripping you off. This is the honesty about what's happening right now.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:14

I could see that.

SPEAKER_08 1:06:15

I think it probably has to do with uh him being an influential person. And it's not like she was giving up on this life. She's just trying to figure it out. And so for him to turn against her, I think would be a big impact on her career as a cam girl. And I think that probably like she sees because she didn't have any issue telling Tinkerboy, right? Because he's like a scummy, gross, uh, someone that's like obsessed with her. And you know, so she's like, she doesn't have like respect for him. Not that she should have respected our our boy order in the queso and holy tower. I don't know how to represent the most pathetic voice known a man, so yeah. But I think that has something to do with it. I think she saw that person as someone of power, and that's why she couldn't explain it. Um to be fair, she had a hard time explaining it overall. There were words that were not used that I would have used when she was especially talking to her mom. But I think that's probably why in that situation she didn't, because she like didn't feel like she knew who to go to or what she could do.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:18

I feel like with Barney specifically, she was like she knew like he's a big spender. Um, so she was like still putting up the facade for him. And you see that very clearly when she's like waiting in the lobby for him, and she's like it's just sitting there like an anxious mess, like trying to figure out what the fuck's going on. And the moment she realizes he he comes in, yeah, he she turns right on, her body language changes immediately, and she's like, Oh, hey, Barney, everything's fine. How's it going? I'm gonna give you what you came for, basically, in order to like get some information from you to try and figure this shit out. But I can see why you'd think that his influence and power could have been leveraged to get to a solution faster, Chris.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:56

Or to the very least, just say, Oh, that's fucking weird. Obviously, my feed is messed up. Let me tell you about the weird shit that's been going on.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:04

But he was already like in the women's room, like being so shady.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:07

Yeah, he was already really aggressive about it.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:09

I was stressed out at that point.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:11

I'm just saying she could have met him. There are obviously people let more people outside in the restaurant than there are in that room where no one else was. I would love to know from you folks, what do you guys think was the single worst part of this movie?

SPEAKER_01 1:08:22

The mom. Did anybody else hate the mom?

SPEAKER_04 1:08:24

No. I didn't necessarily hate her. I just thought, like, I don't know, her interaction with her daughter was kind of weird, but I think she's like a certain type of mom.

SPEAKER_08 1:08:34

Like the type of mom that like they clearly didn't grow up with a lot of money. She does hair, she does makeup. It's just there's just this certain type of thing. Her daughter's getting older, and then it becomes like a weird friendship thing.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:48

For me, it was just there were a lot of little like comments that the mom made about Alice that were just like, Mom, like, why are you being a bitch to me? Like, she would comment on her appearance in negative ways. Um, and I was like, Thanks, mom. Like, why, like, where are you what is the point of a mother telling her daughter that she looks like shit? You know what I mean? Um, I didn't really get it. And then at the very end, when she's like helping like make her up for the cam show, she literally says, You're so lucky to have me as your mom. And I was like, Ew, no, she's not. So I didn't I didn't care for the mother's uh role in all of this. I feel like she was kind of a toxic uh person.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:24

I can kind of relate because my mom has said those things to me. So to me, that's why she was even more relatable because some of these interactions that she's had, I've personally had. Um, I don't know, my mom's always been the I love her dearly, but she will be the first one to talk about my appearance. But I think it just comes with like certain the way certain like mothers were raised and all that sort of stuff.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:46

So my least favorite part of the movie was having to watch the whole thing with the brothers' friends, and I think it's probably super realistic. So it's obviously not a bad part of the movie, but God, I didn't want to have to watch that awkward scene at the birthday party.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:02

And if you know that character, he's in 13 Reasons Why, and he almost shoots up a school. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:10

And yet another reason I don't want to watch the show.

SPEAKER_08 1:10:12

Yeah, no, don't worry. But also, I mean, like, she was super cool about it. Like, I feel like she kept her character about it the whole time. She's just like, I'm not gonna tell. Like, I don't care. Cause I mean, that's real, it is kind of cringy.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:24

Yeah, because I'm sure it's happened to plenty of people too.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:26

Looking at that scene in particular, that actually has my favorite visual moment, but also just like my favorite moment of storytelling because the score with that is like this slow, methodical march to the inevitable. Like, you know what's bubbling up in that moment, and it just like it feels like you're on a train that you can't get off of. So I love that Mac.

SPEAKER_08 1:10:45

Yeah, uh, I feel like I've dogged this movie plenty today. I would like to take this opportunity to reiterate how much I hate the grunginess of this film. It was like, it it just immediately, I was like, what is this? Why do we look like this? And I mean, you know, this isn't a a rich film. It's a cam girl. I mean, she's making more money than most of us, but um, you know, her family didn't come from a lot of money, stuff like that. So I get the style choice. I just hate it.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:12

I I kind of noticed just like some personality grinds, just like interactions between people were just really kind of abrasive.

SPEAKER_08 1:11:18

Yeah, I mean, I think it everything from the way the film is like I a bit grainy, I guess, to the relationship with like her family and like the like I said, like the house that her mom is living in, um, that I presume she grew up in. It's it's like this whole thing, like her bedroom, it's it's all this I I guess it's a little too lived in for me, including the fact that it's filmed in such a grainy way. If that makes sense, does that make sense?

SPEAKER_03 1:11:48

That's fair. I think my problem is whenever I hear the word grunge, my mind immediately goes to Rob Zombie. So I'm like, what? And I just have to like reprocess something like no, that's not actually the normal amount of grunge in a movie.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:00

So I get it. Yeah, I think of that or I think of the uh collector. So that was grungy.

SPEAKER_08 1:12:06

I feel like I I sometimes don't understand when people say things are too grungy, like when people are like that 2000s grunge or 90s grunge or whatever when it comes to movies. Sometimes I don't get it. But in this instance, I felt that word. I thought it was gonna make you a mood board of early 2000s and grunge. Okay, but not not like other grunge, like I get grunge music and like makeup and like stuff, just movies.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:29

It's just gonna be stills from early 2000s horror movies that do like define grunge. Let's do it. We can share it on Patreon.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:36

It's it's grungy, kind of like when you get into someone's car and there's like old cigarette like packages on the floor.

SPEAKER_08 1:12:43

I don't want it.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:44

Yeah, but yet they have like 10 of those like those trees hanging from the mirror.

SPEAKER_08 1:12:47

Bro, that camry was grungy. Everything everything I could do this all night.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:51

The grungiest camera I've ever seen. You know, when you forget to like uh trasher like bottles in the car and they and they go on the front, but m mostly like most humans like will get it after like five or six. This guy I dated, no kidding, had the back filled with shit, like trash and the fucking front too. And I was like, it was I was like, how do like how is this humanly possible? No, he did not live in his car, he actually had a nice apartment. That's what you thought.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:20

My um, my first girlfriend I had after I came out was like the if if I ever showed you guys what kind of woman she was, I I think you would like be shocked that I would date her. However, she had the same thing, Alexis, but instead of like just regular bottles, it was strictly Red Bull cans.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:38

That's like a drug habit.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:39

It was disgusting. And I like Red Bull. Did she smoke cigarettes? She did. Oh God, those are the She'd smoke a cigarette, chug a Red Bull, and then go play soccer. I'm like, what the fuck? That breath though.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:51

Oh God, this person, I can see them, and that's not you. I can smell them. We weren't very affectionate.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:58

Uh, one last thing I would like to drag this movie for uh while we're at it. Um, with how well it paid attention to detail, specifically around technology, uh, there is a moment uh at the birthday party where the girl's friend says, Lola's friend says, Hey, can you take a picture of me? I want to like get a picture in this outfit. And she takes like the most close-up like headshot I've ever seen. And I'm like, there's no outfit to be seen in that photo. What are you doing here? Like that was an oversight for me. I was like, that's not a picture of the outfit. You're doing a bad job.

SPEAKER_08 1:14:29

Didn't you also okay? Did you feel like the that character was gonna be something and then she was nothing? Like she served no purpose.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:36

I thought maybe she was behind it at one point.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:39

She for sure served her purpose. She was in the dollar store. She worked there, she was ashamed of it, she didn't want to talk about it. But yet, when it came out that Lola was a porn star, which I mean different. Uh, when it came out, even she had a look of like, oh, I'm better than this. It was like an ultimate flip of tables.

SPEAKER_08 1:14:59

Yeah, she was smiling. Oh, can I tell you? I did not relate her to being the same girl that was in the store.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:06

Oh.

SPEAKER_08 1:15:06

And sometimes that happens. Listeners, that happens sometimes. Don't feel ashamed. It happens to me all the time.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:11

It's okay, Ryan. I did recognize that she was the same person, but I didn't pick up on what Chris just pointed out.

SPEAKER_08 1:15:16

I did see the smile.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:17

She had a big old smile in the back. That whole scene was super powerful, but I think what stands above it slightly in terms of comedy was when Alice is looking for Tinker and she goes up to this cleaning lady and she's like, I'm looking for this guy, tall, sweaty, nervous. I don't know what's funny, like her describing him as that, or the or the cleaning lady knowing exactly what fucking room he was in.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:40

Because pervs, you can pick them out.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:43

I love that she didn't hesitate to offer assistance either. She's like, Oh, this girl's clearly distressed. I'm gonna give her the information she needs without question. I was like, Thank you, girl.

SPEAKER_08 1:15:50

To the pervy guy. Yeah, let me tell you exactly where he is.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:53

But what about you guys?

SPEAKER_04 1:15:54

What was your favorite moment in this movie? My favorite, favorite, favorite, favorite, favorite moment in this movie was um when Alice is watching her doppelganger um with baby doing the live show and they're going through her house. Oh my god, was I on the edge of my seat? Because I was like, oh my god, what could happen? Because at that point I wasn't even sure. I was like, they could just walk through the freaking door. And that's where I think I was like suspended in disbelief at that point. I was like, what? And I think, and just she was great in that moment too. So that that was just a definitely like a that was a nail biter for sure.

SPEAKER_08 1:16:32

In that moment, I definitely like felt her like chaotic fear, just like, like, what is going on? Get out of my house. Like, I think she knows they weren't gonna come, you know, out of her into her room, but uh that was definitely a very intense moment for sure. For me, I I can't say it's one thing, but I can say it's a place in her house, and it is that filming room. I love her commitment to a theme, okay? I love her commitment to uh full curtains. We don't need no no walls up in here. Um, everything. Like, I mean, to be fair, some of my favorite parts were also with her copy or whatever, where she's like in the pool, you know, um, just just all the different things that she did. She was so committed to it. And I feel like if you do something like this, you should like excel at it. You should just be killing it, you know. Like, I want you to be 100% committed if you're a cam girl. Don't be ashamed. You do you and get some matching, some matching furniture in that room.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:33

Yeah. Alexis, we're all gonna buy you curtains just in case you decide to try it. Can I get a heart-shaped bed?

SPEAKER_04 1:17:38

Yeah, for sure. Right, yeah, there you go.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:41

We'll just all go like uh control shift C, Clapacius, and mother load sheets until we get you a heart-shaped bed. There you go. You could go uh 90s water bed.

SPEAKER_08 1:17:51

That'd be a good play.

SPEAKER_07 1:17:52

Oh, I I had a waterbed. Of course you did.

SPEAKER_08 1:17:55

This life was meant for you.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:58

No, I I specifically will donate a thousand tokens for you to have the worst possible spring bed.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:02

Oh, well, I would never be on it. I would be on like near the camera. Like she's never on the bed.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:09

So I if I had to pick a favorite, I think it's when she was eating the steak.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:13

Oh, that was cringy too. How fucking wild is it that that is what got her to break the top ranks.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:18

Yeah, I know. Because it was so weird because I didn't know which way it was gonna go because we were like being introduced to the idea that she was presenting it as a date night, and I thought it was just like a cover, and then she was like, No, it's like a legit date night, guys. Like, I got my food and I got my wine. And that's it just goes back to that commitment level, which I kind of liked. But that steak looked so well done, I was really upset.

SPEAKER_08 1:18:37

It was really well done. It looked really gross, it was chewy. I'm so sorry. I forgot something that is so important. The filming house. Oh my gosh, with all the different rooms, all the different themed rooms. That place was awesome, and then all the little hate and chicks in there, and you know, all the little drama between the cam girls, which is so real. Like, I wouldn't believe anything less than that. That place was awesome.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:01

And those kind of houses do exist.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:03

Yeah, I was gonna say, is it residential or is it in like a business like park? They probably get a cut.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:09

Yeah, so it it depends. Um, because they do the same thing for YouTube and Instagram celebrities as well, where sometimes they'll buy a residential house, like legit straight up in a neighborhood. And then there's been a couple cases recently where there's like you know, YouTube and and Instagram and TikTok douchebags are out there like causing havoc in really expensive residential areas. But in some cases they'll buy like old factories and turn them into you know their their loft style kind of setup where they can split it up amongst as many uh you know cam girls as they can. So it really depends. But yeah, this is like a legit thing where you could like pay for a room, and in some cases that's how they do it. Like you're basically paying rent, and in other cases you're paying a percentage of of what you make.

SPEAKER_08 1:19:50

They also have stuff like that for like um photo studios. Like if you want to go get photos taken, you're in like a house and like room from room, go room to room, and it's like themed and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:01

It's like a co-working space for sex workers.

unknown 1:20:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 1:20:04

I like that.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:05

I like that.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:05

Ryan, with what you were talking about, like the the other girls in the house, um, I do want to recognize two actresses that I love that were in this, and I wasn't expecting them at all. Um, but Imani Hakeem played baby, and she is a beautiful black actress who you can also see in the show Mythic Quest. Uh, in that she plays more of a comedic role. So to see her in this, I was like, ooh, because she's just so stunning. Um, but also Samantha Robinson was in this, and the only thing I've ever seen her in is a movie called The Love Witch, which is basically like uh it was made like a few years ago, but it was like filmed like it was a 1970s film. Um, but it's basically about like a sex witch who has Lana Del Rey vibes. Uh, and she played Princess, the one who was kind of like the bitchy mean girl of the house. Um, so I loved seeing those two women in this film. Uh, and if you like the sound of the Love Witch, you should absolutely watch it and then talk to us about it because that is a very good movie.

SPEAKER_08 1:20:56

The things that are different about me and Paris, um, we very similarly haven't seen a lot of movies, but then Paris pulls out these random ones, and I'm like, what is that? Like, you've seen a lot of obscure films, and I've just seen none.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:10

But coming back to this film, my favorite scene was after it's towards the beginning when she's in the salon with her mom and her brother. Um, there's a moment where she is talking to her brother about like what's going on while also like sexting a random fan. Um, and the way that they were able to convey that very specific type of interaction. I don't know how much sexting you guys have done, but I've done plenty in my life. Um, so to like really recognize that feeling of when you're like half-heartedly like secting somebody, just like casually picking out a nude and like tossing it their way mid-conversation with somebody else about something totally like mundane, like you're not even remotely aroused at all, but the other person is. That was so relatable to me. And I've never even thought that was something that could be like encapsulated on a film until I saw it.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:01

So take LOL but not laughing to a whole new level.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:05

Oh, all the gays out there know exactly what I'm talking about.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:08

No, I know what you're talking about. We all know what all women know what you're talking about. All women know what you're talking about. Yeah, sure. And you're like, send me crap. I'm out shopping.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:18

Like, yeah, exactly. You're you're barely paying attention to it. You're having a conversation about like pizza with the person you're with. Um, so for me, that was like the the the crown jewel of how well this movie integrated technology into the visual element of it all because there were just like hard cuts from her talking to like what was going on in her phone screen, just back and forth. And a lot of times when they try to like convey the use of like text messaging or like email in a movie, it's always like overdone and cheesy. Yeah, just the first time. Yeah, exactly. This is just the first time I thought it was done very like artfully. I do have a question for everybody. Was did anybody else pick up on like an Alice in Wonderland motif that was going on?

SPEAKER_03 1:23:00

Madhatter.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:01

Yeah, but yeah, and our girl's name was Alice, and she's just like fallen down this rabbit hole of sex cams.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:07

Wow, no. I did not pick up on that, but it all makes sense now.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:11

Second favorite part of the movie when she's like doing that control show and she's like riding that clip destroyer. Um, and the whole time she's like really just being tortured by this, but in the end, she comes only because she breaks into the top 50.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:25

She definitely faked it.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:27

No way. She did no, she never broke any of her own rules. Only the doppelganger did that. Because the moment she got to 47, that's when she came. She just like looked up at the ceiling and she was like, I did it.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:36

I don't feel like that was that could not have been real.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:39

Oh, I thought that she was just distracted and celebrating and not actually feeling anything physically.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:44

There's no way in hell in there's no way in hell that she rode that vibrator for god knows how long. One didn't have an orgasm fairly quick, and one lasted without like just all sensation being gone. Like, or oh god, it's terrifying to think of. It could go real really bad or really good. I I can't imagine being able to feel anything after that long. It it's terrifying right now to think of. It's it's absolutely okay. This movie's scary. It it it just solidified this movie is terrifying.

SPEAKER_03 1:24:24

And Max just back with his hands behind his head, not touching this with a 10-foot pole. But no, it's crazy.

SPEAKER_04 1:24:30

And you see this like in porn now, like in people like and I just can't imagine.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:36

Like, it's called Orgasm Denial, and it is someone's kink, but also very frustrating. In classic horror movie fashion, the police were absolutely useless in this movie. I think we can agree on that.

SPEAKER_08 1:24:46

As always, it's required in a horror movie, and and particularly to have one that's trash and then one that's just a trash cop, but one that's a predator.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:55

Yeah, predatory trash. But yeah, when he was like, What's the nastiest thing you've ever had to do? And then she was like, What? Like, no. And then he was like asking her all these questions, and then he was like, Do you ever have sex with these guys? And she's like, No, and he's like, Too bad. And she's like, What the fuck? And he's like, It's a compliment. And I was like, No, it was too real, too skeevy, and I was just like, I hate you, sir.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:17

Can't I tell you how real it was?

SPEAKER_01 1:25:19

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:19

So the writer of this film was a cam girl, a world renowned, world-famous cam girl. And most of the stuff in this movie was actually drawn from her own life. Uh, she actually had videos that were uh republished uh to other websites without her consent, right? So it kind of touches on that when she first started to crack into Hollywood. She had some executives find out she was a cam girl, and so they asked her to replace, what's the weirdest thing you've ever done? She actually wanted to make a movie that um that breaks that down and destigmatizes sex work. And she wanted to originally make a documentary, but she felt a horror film would be a better platform, which I actually agree with, right? Because I think documentaries are incredible. And in this day of Netflix, you have Making Your Murderer, you have Blackfish, you have Tiger King. They're emerging, but at the end of the day, you're only gonna reach people who are inclined to watch documentaries, or if it becomes so famous and so popular that everybody watches it. But if you watch a horror movie, you're gonna reach a different type of person. You're gonna reach people who may not be predisposed to watching those documentaries.

SPEAKER_08 1:26:36

Yeah, I'll I'll be up front here. I don't know that I'm ready to die on this hill, but I don't know if I agree that it this is a hundred percent an empowering film because of some of the things that like it's clear that she is really values like where she ranks on these, you know, things that seem like they wouldn't matter. Also, I understand that that's her job and we all like want to be good at our job. So I don't know. I feel torn about that. I'm not trying to say that I'm right or wrong, but I don't always know that just because a film has a sex worker that's not necessarily being degraded, that it is therefore empowering. But I do agree that it shouldn't be a documentary. I'm glad it wasn't a documentary.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:24

I'm gonna link some some articles that you guys can read with interviews for her and the way she talks through her experience of like getting started in camming and thinking about like the power that she had there and knowing that she could take control of those things and set boundaries and how that organically just translated into her personal life and how she, as she has dated women, uh felt comfortable like setting boundaries and and talking about sex in that way. Um, I think on its face, it could be very easy to look at this and not find that, but I think there's a lot of of love putting. In this movie that you can watch kind of time after time and peel back the layers too. Yeah, I'll feel you on that. But I think Mac has done so much research for us, and uh I can't wait to hear what he has in fact or fiction.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:10

I have a few things. Just just a couple things, and I didn't really want to dive too deeply into the specifics for this film because it's you know it's pretty small, and I think it would have been tough to kind of hold back on the fact that the writer had had this experience and really had those intentions. So I wanted to get into some stuff about webcam models, if you will. Ooh.

SPEAKER_06 1:28:33

Come on.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:33

Yeah, so number one, a real-life webcam model was arrested for public indecency after stripping and masturbating in a public library. But the media coverage allegedly led to a deal with Playboy.

SPEAKER_06 1:28:45

So many details. I know. Uh fact. Fact.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:51

Fact. I that just feels so real.

SPEAKER_06 1:28:53

Feels good.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:54

Maybe it did, I don't know. But yeah, this is a fact. 2014, the model's name was Kendra Sunderland, and she continues to cam to this day and is apparently extremely well known. But it just reminded me of the scene in this movie of the doppelganger doing the thing in the library, which I thought was wild. Oh yeah. But yeah, she did have to like pay a fee and like had to go to court and had to do the whole thing and was arrested and all that. But uh apparently she's blown up because of it, so I guess not a horrible thing to have happen.

SPEAKER_04 1:29:20

She's like, sorry, officer is making content uh uh content.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:25

But wait, let me finish. Almost there. Jeez.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:31

Number two. Number two, a camgirl fan was indicted with criminal charges for spending nearly uh half a million dollars on camgirls. What's criminal about that?

SPEAKER_08 1:29:39

What would be the what would the criminal charge be?

SPEAKER_00 1:29:42

Indeed. Would be the criminal charge. Fiction not her money.

SPEAKER_04 1:29:45

Fiction. You had to read that twice, too.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:48

Yeah, fiction. This is a fact. He was indicted because where'd that money come from? The company card.

SPEAKER_06 1:29:54

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:54

Well So John David Barrett. So apparently he even sent like $27,000-ish to someone to like help pay for their bills and like their parents' bills and her college bills or whatever. He bought Cam Girls flowers, chocolates, iPods, wine, shoes, handbags, and TVs.

SPEAKER_07 1:30:10

This is like 2005. Sold. Wait, wait. I'm sold. I'm being a cam girl.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:15

Yeah, Alexis, you get to make a wish list and then people just buy you stuff from it.

SPEAKER_07 1:30:18

My Amazon wish list.

SPEAKER_03 1:30:20

You can get an iPod classic girl. I love that this guy has the audacity to not just like watch streams on his company computer, but actually spend dollars on it.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:29

Yeah, that's bold. That's crazy. Like he took the company card and was like, boom, whatever, couple hundred grand, no issue whatsoever.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:37

Maybe he just had it saved and he accidentally got the last four wrong. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:42

He just used the wrong card. Auto fill, never use it.

SPEAKER_03 1:30:45

He's someone's executive assistant. Hey. Only done that once.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:50

Oh my gosh. Speaking of um camgirl fans, a man was given a life sentence for murdering his family because they asked him to break up with his uh camgirl, you know, quote unquote girlfriend.

SPEAKER_06 1:31:01

Feels like a fact. Fiction.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:02

I'm sorry, did you say murdered his family? Yeah, oh yeah. Fact. Yeah, this happened. So Grantamato. So apparently before this happened, he even like stole like 200k from his family to like spend on his relationship with this Eastern European woman that he had never even met. So yeah, then he basically methodically murdered everyone. I think one brother survived because they wanted him to end it because he's like blowing his life and his money on someone he's never met because he likes to s you know to communicate with them over the internet.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:34

How do I repay you for your love?

SPEAKER_08 1:31:36

I murder you. That got real dark, but I knew when you said that he had a camgirl girlfriend. If you think a camgirl is your girlfriend, you are maybe crazy enough to try to kill your family.

SPEAKER_04 1:31:49

Naive enough.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:51

I'd I'd have to look that one up, but I think that guy was probably in Florida.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:53

Just Florida for a man. Also, wherever that Eastern European woman is now, she's a queen.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:01

Oh man. Alright.

SPEAKER_08 1:32:02

Or living with guilt. Who knows?

SPEAKER_00 1:32:03

Let's throw an easy one out there because we've talked about this a little bit. But successful webcam models can make thousands of dollars per month.

SPEAKER_04 1:32:10

Fact. I would love to know exactly. So I can weigh my pros and cons. So if you have that, but yeah, it's definitely a fact.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:17

That's totally a fact. It is a fact. And the only reason I wanted to throw this in there, obviously we're gonna get to it during the show, was because uh we were joking with Alexis about this. But yes, some of them say they can make as high as like five to fifteen thousand dollars per month, depending on how much uh work that they do. Some of them talk about uh camming for literally 12 hours a day, others talk about waking up and like immediately getting to work, checking their phone, communicating with fans, instantly turning on the stream, just like kind of like we see in this movie. So um a couple that I read about make maybe like one to two grand. A couple of them say you can make as low as like a couple hundred bucks. It depends on how much you're doing. So uh I did read that they were doing this like it's part-time work, others it's their full-time job. Some of them are doing 60 hours a week to make their living because they want to make that cash.

SPEAKER_04 1:33:05

That's that's it's it money is addicting.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:07

So is attention. I don't know. She's still on the fence, still on the fence, so we haven't had a decision today, but that's the uh the fact or fiction. In this case, it was basically all fact because I just found it you know really interesting stuff about uh about these webcam models.

SPEAKER_03 1:33:21

Thanks for not lying to us, Mac. Welcome to uh fact or fact with Mac from Mac or Slash. I'll throw a bonus fact out there. Um, no fiction at all. So the director of this film actually filmed some of the writers' uh videos when she was a cam girl. Right? He also tried camming and he made literally zero dollars. That said, he gave it his damn b his damnedest.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:46

There was actually a really good New York Times article about uh sex workers uh because of the coronavirus like shutdown and quarantine and stuff, where basically some of the websites where people can sign up to do this were increasing like 75% sign-ups in a month. Which was crazy because people who would do things like live shows can't do that anymore because you can't be in person and take off your clothes around other people because you're too close. So they had to find another medium uh to do it. And other people were like, hey, I'm sitting at home, why not make a couple extra bucks?

SPEAKER_04 1:34:14

They couldn't be in the same room six feet apart with a mask on. I mean, I I don't know the rules, but did you see them drive through strip clubs?

SPEAKER_00 1:34:21

Yeah, not a good look. You know, phase one, they probably turned they closed all those things down. They're already they already seemed dirty enough to me. I've never been to one, but they seem like dirty enough to me that I wouldn't want to be there on a regular basis, let alone during an epidemic.

SPEAKER_04 1:34:35

Have you ever been to a strip club? I've never been either. I don't I don't know what I do. Yeah, yeah. And this is why, because I don't know what I'd do if some girl had her chest in my face. Okay, if I stare, they're gonna think I'm a creep. But if I look down, they also think I'm gonna be a big creep. I'm just gonna go hit to the bar, I think. So this is always running through my mind before when all my friends are drunk and let's say, hey, let's go to the strip club.

SPEAKER_08 1:35:01

I'm like, yeah, I'm just gonna go. You should live in Miami sometimes. It'll really change your perspective on uh what they are.

SPEAKER_03 1:35:07

The only one I've ever been to has not been down in Miami. It was a friend and I were driving to Florida from uh us where we're on leave when we're in the Navy, and he's like, Oh, I know a place called Cafe Risque. That sounds like a terrible place. Well, thanks for the Googling. Glad it didn't take you to anywhere dangerous. Now, Cam from 2018 streaming on Netflix earned four slashes and it earned one hack. Now, again, this movie rated in the top three of 2018, so this group right here is exhibit A of why it wasn't the top number one of 2018. Um, if you listen this far, thank you so much for joining us. We want to know your thoughts on this movie, so please reach out to us. You can do so a number of ways. First on our website, hackerslash.com.

SPEAKER_08 1:35:51

And on our social media accounts on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. If you would like to argue your point of whether or not a hot dog is a sandwich, please hit us up at our HackerSlash Hotline. The number is 757-606-0128. You can text us, call us, leave us a voicemail, or an audio message, but no hot dog pictures, please.

SPEAKER_00 1:36:09

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SPEAKER_01 1:36:17

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SPEAKER_03 1:36:27

We'll see you next time.