SPEAKER_00 0:04

Oh, you have intelligence. I will deploy rich white male in America.

SPEAKER_01 0:14

Greetings and salutations, and welcome to Hackerslash. If you're joining us again, welcome back. It is my honor to welcome you into our elite society. 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 0:33

Totally killer. Unintended.

SPEAKER_01 0:35

We believe horror is for everyone, and as such, we're rating these movies with the perspective we've all gained from our varying walks of life and the flavors of fear we fancy most. My name is Chris. I'm your friendly neighborhood slasher enthusiast. This week I'm joined by the Superflex Based Guy Mac.

SPEAKER_00 0:49

I pity the April Fool.

SPEAKER_01 0:50

The Cowardly Creeper Ryan. Hiya. And the Scream Queen Paris.

SPEAKER_02 0:54

I prefer social climbing fag.

SPEAKER_01 0:56

The day of pranks is drawing near, and just like last year, we're checking out a film that commemorates the occasion. Before we get down to business though, we have some follow-up.

SPEAKER_02 1:05

We recently reviewed the reboot to the wrong turn franchise, and honestly, we enjoyed it. Uh but we wanted to hear from you, our listeners. So we reached out, and it turns out 26% of you gave it a hack, and 74% gave it a slash. So not too bad for this one.

SPEAKER_04 1:20

It seems to be pretty popular, and I'm finding the same thing from people that I talk to in life about it.

SPEAKER_02 1:26

Yeah, we actually have a lot of interesting comments this week. Daniel on Twitter said, I freaking loved this one. Saw it twice in theaters, and the first time I took my friend to go see it. She never saw the original, and we really loved it. So happy it was different and new. The hunting scene is creepy and awesome. I'm glad you guys reviewed it. Listening now. We also have a comment from our patron Brittany, who said, I rented this so I could keep up with you guys, and to be honest, I want my money back. Far too cringy and on the nose. I could have done without the entire storyline with Jen's father. He was laughable. As were many moments in this movie. I did love the cave full of the eyeless victims, though. I wanted more of that. Truly creepy and unsettling. Overall, a handful of cool kills, but bad, bad, bad. It's a hack.

SPEAKER_04 2:07

Let me just say, if this made you want your money back for renting a horrible movie, don't ever start a podcast reviewing movies.

SPEAKER_00 2:16

Can I also add that I wanted Jen's father to like in the end turn out to be some like crazy Rambo style guy and take the entire group out? And I was so disappointed when he did do that.

SPEAKER_02 2:26

Yeah, anything from that character would have been better than what he gave us. We also have a couple comments from our friends on Instagram. Gee, that's sharp said, no inbred cannibals, no slash. The references cut deep too. Should have had a different name. And that was a bit of a common theme. A lot of people were expecting this to be very much the wrong turn that they knew, and some of them were very upset that they didn't get that, and that's actually pretty understandable. We were actually fortunate enough to engage with one of the actors in this movie, Vardan Aurora. He played Gary, but we started talking to him about like queer representation and horror. He said, it's been great to see a lot of queer horror fans and their reactions. A lot of people have complained about how the queer characters weren't handled well, and the representation politics have been insane to follow from both sides. It's all good though for me. It's a win. Getting to cast in the project and working on it felt so surreal. Plus the honor of being first kill in a horror movie.

SPEAKER_04 3:19

You know, I haven't considered that that might be an honor, but I guess it is. There's first and lasts. Everything in the middle doesn't really matter.

SPEAKER_02 3:26

Yeah, Vardane is canonically the Drew Barrymore of the wrong turn reboot.

SPEAKER_01 3:31

I mean, you did say he is the hottest.

SPEAKER_02 3:33

Yeah, truly. Everyone in that movie was hot, but he reigned supreme.

SPEAKER_01 3:37

In the running for daddy of the year, so let's see it.

SPEAKER_02 3:40

We also wanted to thank one of our newest patrons, Kyle M. Kyle, welcome to the family. We're so happy to have your support, and we hope to be hearing from you soon on our Hackerslash Hotline. And that is our follow-up.

SPEAKER_01 3:52

Now, around this time last year, we broke down a 1986 slasher in which a group of college friends vacationing on an island estate were stalked by an unknown assailant on the first of April. Twenty-two years later, the Butcher brothers, Michael Altieri and Phil Flores, had the opportunity to bring the film back to life for a modern audience. Instead of a straight up remake, though, the pair opted to take comedic inspiration from the original while writing a different story with fresh characters and a new approach to the holiday. This film, like so many other slashers, follows a group of friends in the aftermath of a prank gone wrong. A prank that resulted in an accidental death. One year later, someone's out for revenge. No, it's not on No What You Did Last Summer. This week, we're talking about the 2008 direct video version of April Fool's Day. Who's seen this one?

SPEAKER_00 4:39

Not me. I saw the original, and I had no idea until I saw it on the calendar that somebody chose to make another movie under this name.

SPEAKER_04 4:46

Yep, I was fortunate enough to make it an entire 27 years before ever watching an April Fool's Day related film. And uh unfortunately that run has come to an end.

SPEAKER_02 4:57

Yeah, I'm with Mac on this one. I watched the original for the podcast, but didn't know it was remade. And here we are.

SPEAKER_01 5:04

See, I I struggled to remember if I had seen this. Uh, because initially, like you, I think of April Fool's Day, I think of the original that we covered here on the show, and my gut reaction was no. And then when watching this, I uh I saw Scout Taylor Compton in her debutante dress, and I remembered the feeling of seeing her in this. And I have this really vivid memory of disappointment in her and a really sad realization that it wasn't just disappointment from her portrayal of Lori in the Halloween remake. It was like this feeling of, oh shit, she got me twice. Now I know I have seen this, but beyond that I couldn't remember a damn thing about this movie. And while I tried to keep an open mind, I I didn't expect it to be quite funny enough to please me the way the original did. What were you folks expecting? Ooh, I expected some hot garbage.

SPEAKER_04 5:52

Because most holiday-related horror films are not very good. And uh April Fool's Day, I would say, is maybe the worst excuse of a holiday in real life. So I wasn't expecting much from this movie, that's for sure.

SPEAKER_02 6:05

That's where you and I are different, Ryan. I saw that this was from 2008 and I was optimistic. I literally wrote, honestly, if it's a 2008 remake, I'ma probably slash it. Hopefully a boob, high gore, fun question mark. Fun question mark. Truly the question for 2008.

SPEAKER_01 6:21

Hopefully a boob. You did not get worn out on Wickerman, I see.

SPEAKER_00 6:25

I did not have high expectations because of the year. Anything from that era, I just immediately think of all the horrible remakes and reboots that we've seen already. And I just like always think like maybe somebody made a really good one, but most likely it's gonna be trash. So yeah, I had some pretty low expectations.

SPEAKER_01 6:42

Oof, yeah. Uh I feel you on the whole era thing. I've got some things to say about that later. Now, I I believe I've made this comparison on the show before, but I felt like yeah, I felt a lot like you do when you're texting someone and you know something is funny, but it's not funny enough to actually make you laugh out loud, but you type LOL anyway. And there were small character nods to the original that I enjoyed, but ultimately it was that. It was me acknowledging like this would be a moment that people probably maybe find funny, uh, but it's not doing anything for me. There's like a moment or two that made me laugh, and the jury's still out on whether or not it was supposed to make me laugh. But this this movie was intentionally made with very off-beat humor, and I think that's just not for me. I think I like my uh humor very arrhythmic and predictable, as boring as that sounds.

SPEAKER_00 7:29

I didn't even know it was supposed to be funny, so maybe that's uh that's saying something. While watching it, I didn't feel that there was humor. I felt like there was like in-universe attempts at humor between characters, but I didn't know there was supposed to be like actual comedy going on, so I'm sorry to the filmmakers, but it didn't click with me. I I did feel while watching it that I was watching a soap opera produced by WB. That's kind of the feel I got for this movie. Like the drama between the characters was very days of our lives, very general hospital, very Grey's Anatomy circa season one and two.

SPEAKER_02 8:03

Yeah, it wasn't until about halfway through the movie that I was like, are they trying to be funny? Um, a couple moments got me to laugh, but overall I was mostly just enamored with the nostalgia of 2008's fashion. That's the year I graduated, that's the year I went to prom. So you specifically the opening scene really had me taken back with all those like bargain bin Boskov's gowns. But ultimately this movie was kind of confusing. Like the tone was confusing.

SPEAKER_04 8:31

Yeah, I would say uh I I don't know if like confused is the word I would use to describe what I felt, but I know where you're coming from. It was like unengaging or something. I don't know. My feelings were just this is uh some 2008 buffoonery. And listen, if we're talking about rich people and all the ways they treat people horribly, I'd like to talk about all the rest of their interesting habits and lifestyle choices. Cause you know, that yeah, we if we're gonna dig in and and be funny about the the way rich people are, I want to go harder than this movie went. Because all this movie had was people saying rude things to, you know, someone in the kitchen. And I'm just saying, let's go all the way, you know, like you guys are talking about drugs and stuff. I wanna I wanna go deep, but we didn't go deep. It's very surface level. I don't know. I felt like I knew every move this movie was gonna make before it happened, and I was pretty much right. So uh I felt like I deserved some money for writing the script later in life, you know, 15 years later I wrote it.

SPEAKER_00 9:32

You know, that that reminds me of what surprised me in this movie is the fact that we didn't have surprises, like it was pretty predictable because this was the era that M. Knight Shyamalan was really cool in. Like everyone still thought like there was always gonna be a great twist at the end of his film in the 2000s, and they didn't really deliver. That really surprised me because watching the original April Fools, I was caught off guard by the ending. Um, and so I was expecting there to be some kind of shocking twist, or maybe in the middle, or maybe something, and it really felt predictable. And that I guess both surprised me and disappointed me.

SPEAKER_04 10:03

Yep, I'll have to agree with that. I mean, it it it is disappointing the way this movie goes. What's not disappointing is something Paris talked about is uh looking at all these people during this movie and all the interesting things that they're wearing, and uh their fancy old cars that are new cars to them, and they right now if you drove up in that Mercedes, I'd be like, What's wrong with you? So that's a that was a surprising excitement that I found in this movie that I was searching for.

SPEAKER_02 10:28

I honestly didn't know if this was a remake or not. Um so the opening scene, I was like, okay, bunch of teens coming to an event. I see we're kind of skipping ahead, we're no longer doing a boat thing like the original. Um, but then it veered way off and was like totally not a remake at all. And I was like, okay, that's a surprise. Um, and also a bit of a disappointment. Um watching this, I was kind of like, was the original April Fool's Day kind of good? And that is an answer I still don't have.

SPEAKER_01 10:58

Well, Alexis and I thought it was. Uh we both are the only ones that slashed that movie, but it's fine. You're right. Th so much of this movie is predictable. Uh it it is surprising how much of a departure they took, but it's one that I think makes sense for what the early 2000s was doing. And if you were not doing shot for shot, you're doing something else. And uh I I'm I'm pleased with the intention they had. But one thing I wasn't pleased with, and in fact was largely disappointed by was how dated this movie was. It feels extremely dated, not just in fashion, uh, not just in in the approach to it's how it executes alleged scares and things like that. But it it was dated in what I felt was mostly the dialogue. It's like a trip back in time to the very worst of like commonplace language, and it makes just about every single one of the characters in this entirely unlikable.

SPEAKER_04 11:50

I also feel like it was kind of dated for its time. I mean, obviously it's hard to say, but like I don't relate to this. The 2008 version of me also doesn't agree and relate to anything in this movie and just feels like it's like it's like a theoretical version of humans and not a real version of them.

SPEAKER_01 12:09

Well, I mean, look, I was still hearing a lot of this stuff in 2008 just from people who weren't offended by it or like who weren't uh victimized by it, right? In 2008, things were starting to turn around, right? Like progress was starting to be made in a in a more meaningful way. This is around the time that I think people started feeling a little bit cringy about it, but it was still largely terrifying. And I think that was a really shitty feeling. And there's also a bit in this movie where it's revealed a character has a history of sexual misconduct, and when it's said that a ton of women have come forward, someone waves it off as they're probably riding the media train.

unknown 12:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:45

And like, I'm not gonna soapbox right now, I promise. But the whole approach to it was just a mishandled attempt at injecting something serious and real in a movie that's neither serious nor real. The movie itself isn't funny enough to be ironic or for it to feel like it's this way of saying, Hey, isn't this some bullshit? We should really fix this and change the narrative here. It's just like this feeling of of course. Yeah, okay. It's it's a sad reflection of where we were, and it's actually a big reason of why we are where we are now.

SPEAKER_00 13:16

Yeah, there's plenty of terms in this movie that would uh trigger the modern mind and really kind of make you wonder, did we ever talk like this to each other? And if so, can I go back in time and slap the people that I knew? Because it's just when I was, you know, this age, because I was I was in my early 20s in 2008, so I was close to the probably the actors in the film, maybe a little bit older. I think some of them are pretty young. And I just watching it felt like their dad. I just wanted to put soap in their mouths because it was just so bad.

SPEAKER_04 13:44

Yeah, I agree with you guys, and that's the scariest part of this movie, the humans. That's it literally it, nothing else.

SPEAKER_02 13:52

The 2008 culture of it all is the only fear.

SPEAKER_04 13:54

Yes, and the low rash genes.

SPEAKER_00 13:56

And the flattest hair I've ever seen.

SPEAKER_04 13:58

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 13:59

You know, I'm not surprised though, because I I'm looking up some 2008 horror films, and we have things like The Happening, and this is, I feel like, right when Shy Milan got really not cool, was like this movie solidified that that we're done. He's been he's been canceled using modern terms. The Ruins, which okay, uh The Strangers came out in 2008, so that's maybe a plus in the right direction. But other movies that came out that year are not even things that you'd even care about. Um, maybe like Midnight Mithrin, if if you just want the fun of it, I guess. Uh Prom Night, the remake, came out in 2008. So I think that really speaks to that year and how bad horror pretty much was. And it really wasn't a scary time. Like horror movies were just another form of blockbuster, it felt like, but even not really blockbuster because this movie was released uh straight to DVD. So it wasn't a good year for horror, and it wasn't a good year for uh for terror and scariness.

SPEAKER_04 14:54

To be fair, also not a good year for many other things in the world in 2008. Are bad horror movies the reason the stock market crashed? Who knows?

SPEAKER_01 15:02

Maybe. But I will say that for all the negatives I've had so far, this movie does a lot of really little microscopic things well. Specifically, I enjoyed the bits they subtly took from the original. Things like uh one of the characters always walking around with the camera. The music is uh is an interesting take. It's an interesting reminder. It doesn't have the same spirit, but it does take the spirit and twist it to make it a little bit darker. And I don't think it executes that well, right? I I think their intention is a nice one, but uh I think they get at least a few points for deviating from the blueprint.

SPEAKER_00 15:39

So do you think it's more original than it is scary?

SPEAKER_01 15:41

No, I'm just being very generous right now in complimenting that it has made some efforts. It's not scary at all, which I think you've all covered sufficiently well, but it is certainly not original.

SPEAKER_00 15:51

I gotta give it credit for not being a direct remake, though, because while it was surprising and perhaps disappointed for Paris that it wasn't the original storyline, um, I was caught off guard by the fact that this was not just, hey, we took the storyline and made it in 2008, like you know, format. So I'll give I'll give him credit for changing things up at least.

SPEAKER_04 16:12

Yeah, so I'm coming from the side of someone who didn't see the original, and therefore I'm I can't compare it to that, but this movie isn't, I mean, not even a single part of it feels original, especially in the context of the 2000s and uh, you know, a murder mystery type of movies. I mean, I feel like I've seen a billion of these where a group of people is trying to figure out who's knocking them off one by one. Uh, so it gets negative originality points from me, if I can give negative.

SPEAKER_02 16:41

I will also throw in a couple negative originality points for this, Ryan. Uh, this was very much I know what you did last summer. Um almost like play for play, to be honest. Uh, and as somebody who did see the original, it wasn't great, but it was original, unlike this movie. This really, there's nothing in this that I haven't seen. It felt like a really flat gossip girl. Yeah, this this gets no originality points for me, Chris. That was really great how you were able to find something nice to say about the originality of this movie. I'm impressed.

SPEAKER_01 17:14

One of the better things about this movie though, is the way it attempts to do something with the ending. I don't know that I'm pleased with the takeaway of the story. That is actually a misleading thing to say. I know I am not pleased with the takeaway from this story. It's a little complicated. But the ending may have been the best part of the whole movie for me, with the exception of two elements of it. I think it's satisfying for fans of the original who wanted this uh surprising-ish moment, and I think it does enough different to distinguish itself in its tone. So it gets close to being shocking, and I'm a fan, except for the message we're left with, which I will unpack in the second half.

SPEAKER_00 17:55

The ending was rough, I'm not gonna lie. I think other soap operas would probably be disappointed in the ending, as I was, because I mean it really is a soap opera ending. I feel like we should have had an evil twin. I feel like maybe somebody should have been in a coma and then come out of the coma and revealed themselves to be their own lover or something. I don't know. But I it just for a soap opera movie, it didn't have the juiciest of soap opera endings. It just it felt a little it felt a little played out. I think the surprise that you're mentioning at the end of it, I didn't find surprising. Maybe that's probably why I'm I'm thinking about it poorly, which is maybe a a bit unfair, but I feel like the ending fit the rest of the movie in that it felt it felt kind of copied, felt kind of stale, felt kind of already been used.

SPEAKER_04 18:40

I think we just went down such a path to get to the ending that once you're there and you're going through it, you're just like, okay, I guess. And then it kind of makes you say, Okay, I guess, like three or four times, and then and then you're just like, Well, what uh what did this movie matter to my life? I'm just gonna move on and pretend I never watched it. That's basically what I was left with with the ending. And I will say that the ending is not the worst part, but it is certainly not my favorite part of this movie.

SPEAKER_02 19:06

Interesting. Ryan, I will tell you the original had pretty much the same ending plus a bed and breakfast.

SPEAKER_04 19:12

Nice.

SPEAKER_02 19:13

But yeah, I'm with Chris though. The ending of this movie was actually my favorite part, and I think there's a specific element that you can all probably infer that I'm talking about that I wanted more of. I wanted the the impact of the ending to be not the best part of the movie. I wanted more of that throughout.

SPEAKER_01 19:33

I think I'm picking up what you're putting down, Paris. Uh, and the unfortunate part is that as nice as it would have been to have it, you didn't get it. So now we have to see what that translates to in scoring. Now take some time to dig deep into your souls, think about what you might rate this movie. But before we do, Ryan, you have uh some work cut out for you in Alexis's absence. It's our body count. Hey, at least it's not a zombie movie this time. That's true. You do pick up extra work on the hard days.

SPEAKER_04 19:58

So this week we have eight deaths on screen, and several of them have an asterisk, but I don't want to ruin it by sharing how many. Nice. But what about the animal report? Yeah, well, we have a really good animal report this week. There is a dog that is very important. They talk about him a lot, and then all of a sudden he just disappears and nobody else cares about him and he he no longer exists. But he didn't die. He's good. I just don't know. He went to a shelter or something. They made a big deal and then he just was not important.

SPEAKER_01 20:25

But he didn't die. Well, hot diggity dog, at least we are confident he's safe somewhere out there in the ether. But the time has come. I'm so sorry to do this to you. You now have to give your ratings. April Fool's Day, 2008. Direct a video inspired by the original, but doing its own thing for a quote unquote modern audience. Was it a hack or a slash?

SPEAKER_00 20:46

I know if everything I've said has seemed kind of negative, but this is actually a hardcore slash. April Fool's. Just kidding. It's a major hack. Yeah, this movie was the definition of waste of time because I even had a hard time watching it without just doing something else at the same time. And I know we have to do that sometimes because we lead busy lives, and squeezing in a movie means we're gonna multitask. I think when I was watching this, I was on my day off and I didn't actually have to do something, and I found something else to do while watching it because it was that hard to pay attention. The characters are insufferable. The storyline is so played out it hurts. The I don't even know what you would call the feeling of this movie, but to me it's very old school WB before it became CW, and that's just not like my vibe at all. The the kills were, you know, they they did them, they tried to do them on screen and everything, so that's something that happened. Uh, but overall, I just felt really not enthusiastic about it, and I was hoping it was gonna be kind of fun, because the original was kind of fun. I mean, it wasn't necessarily the world's best movie, but it was a lot more fun than this. And I feel like the problem with this this movie is that people aren't having fun, they're just mean, and in the end, it's Is that a fun April Fool's Day if if nobody's enjoying themselves? So yeah, it's a hack.

SPEAKER_04 22:04

Yeah, on April Fool's Day, definitely only the people getting the jokes played on them should not be having fun. Everyone else should be having fun, not being mean. I think I agree with most of the things that you just said, Mac, especially the part where you said that everyone is insufferable, because that is the perfect word to describe this. I fortunately had something else to do while I was watching this movie, and it was very productive, and I was very thankful. Um, this being on the background was was not exciting. I don't know. This is actually the kind of movie that really doesn't elicit like a ton of like passionate hate or love in my heart. Like, I'm not like pissed that we watch this. This is certainly not one of the worst movies I've ever had to watch uh to review for this lovely podcast that we do here. But it just like doesn't make me feel anything. I feel like I've seen it or something so similar. I think the biggest thing for me is I relate to people in this movie a negative percentage. Like the the rich, snobby vibes are so far from anything I've ever felt in life that I just can't even I I I would never even stay in the room with somebody who acted like a single one of these people. My brain was hardly on when I watched this, and not in a chill way, but in like a miserable way. So obviously it's a hack.

SPEAKER_02 23:24

I feel that. I made the mistake of giving this movie my full attention from top to bottom, and that was rough. Uh it was like the the biggest takeaway for me is that this movie is flat. It didn't build to anything. It was sort of kind of all over the place, it was loose, and it that kind of made the ending not as good as it could have been. I truly had a lot of fun playing the game, Who is that girl? What and what is she doing in that outfit? Which is something I saw on the headline of a newspaper that was shown. But ultimately, like this movie was just planned. And I thought about it. I was like, you know, Twilight came out in 2008. Like, what's this movie's excuse? Like, yeah, Twilight had a budget, but it also had at least a vision, which is something I feel like this movie lacked. Um, it also just had like a bad script, and while the characters may have also been insufferable, I feel like the actors didn't do them any favors. Oh several many of these actors, I was like, please don't be in anything else I have to see, or at least like get better, which is maybe hateful for me to say, but this movie was hateful for me to watch. So this is going to be very much a hack from me. Not the worst movie we've ever seen, but maybe one of the most bland.

SPEAKER_01 24:30

Paris, would you like to know what the difference is between Twilight and April Fool's Day that went straight to video?

SPEAKER_02 24:34

Money.

SPEAKER_01 24:35

Only about $32 million, because this movie still took five million dollars to make. Which is outrageous.

SPEAKER_02 24:43

Where did the money go?

SPEAKER_01 24:44

You're a reminder that movie sets are like corporations, the money just disappears. I I can certainly agree with a lot of your sentiments. Uh I saw this movie in 2008, and clearly because I didn't remember it, I found it largely forgettable. I was 18 years old, finishing high school, prep, you know, fresh out of the closet, preparing to leave home for the first time, super naive. Been through some stuff, but like life wasn't too bad, you know? So at that point in my life, my biggest issue with this movie was that Scout Taylor Compton was in it and I didn't like her. This movie cemented as me just not liking her. Thirteen years now have passed since then, and if you're catching this episode the day it publishes, you're listening to it 13 years in one day after it was released in the United States. Just let that sink in. Think about the passage of time. This movie has some good bits in it. Every character is a caricature. Some good, some bad. There's a lot of clever work with how the strands of the original's DNA were like used in this remake. The problem is there isn't enough of that good to go around for me. The problem is it's it's not 2008 now, and I'm not thirteen years younger, blissfully unburdened by events in my life that happened just even two years after watching this movie. This movie doesn't stick to landing, and it also doesn't respect anything it tries to do along the way. It doesn't have the scares, it barely has a few laughs, uh, the kills are pretty meh, with the exception of one or two. It's just at its core, a regurgitation of every manipulative story we see of people in power who walk through the world with no consequence. And maybe if it were actually funny, I wouldn't take it so seriously, but it's not funny, so it's it's it's just so poorly constructed, it's getting a hack. I liked Leprechaun 2 better than this movie.

SPEAKER_02 26:29

Now that's bold. I don't know that I agree with that.

unknown 26:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:32

I'm not sure about that. But I respect it.

SPEAKER_01 26:34

Yes. Leprechaun 2 had its problems, but even it was less offensive to me than this movie. And really, when it comes down to it, April Fool's Day from 2008 is a universal hack. So really, I guess joke's on us, ain't it?

SPEAKER_02 26:49

As we all somberly nod.

SPEAKER_01 26:51

If you happen to own one of the DVDs this was released on, you decide what to do with it now. Uh, but if you were mildly curious about this movie, it's available to rent. I don't think we'd advise you to spend your money that way.

SPEAKER_04 27:03

Rather than renting this movie, you could subscribe to our Patreon and listen to our interesting conversations for B-sides that have nothing to do with this movie. That would be better.

SPEAKER_02 27:12

Literally that. Do that.

SPEAKER_01 27:14

Make your decision about what you want to do with watching this movie or not. But regardless of whether you do, join us in the second half so we can unpack the trash that is April Fool's Day.

SPEAKER_00 27:35

Marty McDuch here, folks. You love playing with toy guns as kids, but aren't real guns just too darn messy to play with? All the blood, murder investigations, lifelong guilt. Who has time for that? If you really want to up the fun, get yourself the squid bip. This comfortable lightweight felt bib keeps the food off your shirt and makes the fake blood squirt. Use it with our patent pending squid remote, and the fun just explodes. You could keep playing with foam darts, but those are as fun as stinky parts. Get yourself a squid bib today and let the fun start popping.

SPEAKER_01 28:08

Welcome back, folks. You are now entering the spoiler zone for the 2008 version of April Fool's Day, which has earned a universal hack and underperformed in comparison to its predecessor. Now we have a lot to get to here, but before we get into the specifics of why we all dislike this movie so much, we have the matter of gore to attend to, and Alexis isn't around. So, Ryan, what's the gore score?

SPEAKER_04 28:29

Well, even though we have kind of a high body count, I mean, it's not astronomical, but like eight is a pretty good number. Um, we we don't have much gore. I would say for half of the movie, it's almost none. And then we get quite a bit towards the end, but it's like gore-flavored stuff. It's not gore. Do you know what I mean? Like we get a lot of um fake blood, of course, uh actually, actually fake blood, you know, in the movie. A lot of like things happening and then the camera moving off screen and stuff, and then of course, like we come up on like a bloody body like Wilford, but we don't see those kills. Um, so it's really not very much in the way of gore, and it's a little unfortunate. I think maybe that's a time where this movie could have had a little more success throughout the film if we got more of the feeling from the end and that, you know, that that uh gun scene at the ending. If we could have had more of that throughout, I think it could have been a little bit more interesting and kept us all in a little bit more.

SPEAKER_02 29:29

Yeah, you never really expect a 2008 remake of an old ass movie to have less score, but this one somehow managed.

SPEAKER_04 29:35

That's so true. It almost felt like it was gonna be like uh this is a PG 13 horror movie, you know? It had that vibe like most of the way through.

SPEAKER_02 29:43

Made for TV. Or or DVD.

SPEAKER_01 29:46

Sadly, unrated is uh something that can be classified as.

SPEAKER_04 29:51

Yeah, it's just unrated because they were too lazy to do it, not because it's so good that they didn't want to put a rating on it, you know?

SPEAKER_00 29:58

Nobody cared to rate it. There was like a $10 payment to file the uh paperwork, and they were like, nah, nah, we don't have that kind of budget.

SPEAKER_01 30:04

We've already gotten through the five million. I'm not paying out of pocket for this. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 30:10

I will say though that the two kills we actually get are semi-satisfying. The only real you know, kills, the other kills that were fake kills, don't really count in my book. But my favorite, of course, is gonna be the ending kill, but I do heavily appreciate the the first real kill of the movie as well, because it's like kind of surreal for that character and drug-induced and falling over and hitting the ground, and there's actually blood underneath her head. I was I was under the assumption this was gonna be a fake kill, and this was the whole prank of the movie was that this person didn't die. And I feel dumb for thinking that because it's one of two actual real kills. Uh, but the whole like build-up to it where they're like, gotcha, we roofied you, and somehow that is funny in 2008. I don't get it. But the whole like you know, toppling over the the balcony thing like was a pretty effective way, so that uh of ending somebody. So I'm gonna I'm gonna give that one actual the main credit because of the two that are real, I think it's probably undervalued because it's not as like you know, it's not as gruesome as getting shot in the head and your like scalp flies off.

SPEAKER_04 31:14

Yeah, that fall off the balcony, or honestly, it was a tumble was very intense, and there were some I'm I'm not sure if it was the sound effects of her hitting the table. I don't know what it was, but I was like, uh, okay. A little bit doing a little bit much. And then we get a shot and she's just like her crumpled body like on the floor. So my favorite kill is actually Blaine because it's like the first one after, of course, we have the first really intense kill, and then a series of uh kind of like disappearing bodies basically, and then we get to Blaine, and it's just like he's shot in the stomach on camera, and you're just like, whoa. Because you you you don't have that feeling all the way through the movie until then. And of course, it ended up being fake, and you know, he's got fake blood strapped to his chest. But I thought that that was the point in the movie where I was like, man, this could be interesting and things could happen here. But then of course it was just 2008 and they were all just pretending.

SPEAKER_00 32:11

You know what's great about that kill? That's exactly when my fiance walks in, was not watching the movie with me, walks in and goes, Oh, that was fake. Had no idea what was going on in the film, just knew. Nice. Just instinctively knew.

SPEAKER_04 32:21

To be fair, aren't they all fake?

SPEAKER_02 32:23

Yeah, they pretty much are. And Ryan, I love that you said the word tumble because in my notes I literally wrote, Milan takes a tumble. I'm with Mac. I'm I have a toss-up between Desiree and Milan. Um, really the two pillars of this movie as far as characters go. I think I'm gonna give it to Milan, though, just because she looked really good in that like little nighty, like little lingerie under garment moment, and then just like everything she went through was actually the closest thing to being scary in this movie, and then to just tumble right off the balcony um and onto that gorgeous platter of craft services. That was really unfortunate. It also reminded me very much of the kill from Valentine, where we have our girl shot in the chest with an arrow and then tumbling off the balcony and into some garbage. So I'm gonna give it to Milan on this one.

SPEAKER_01 33:08

You love a tumbling blonde.

SPEAKER_02 33:10

I really do.

SPEAKER_04 33:11

Also, just a quick shout. When Milan took that dress off, I was like, man, I need to put more effort into things that I wear under really fancy dresses because she looks great.

SPEAKER_02 33:21

She was ready. She was ready for anything, and I love that about her.

SPEAKER_04 33:24

Just like when you take off a dress, but you're like still fully clothed, but in a cute way.

SPEAKER_00 33:28

I think the opposite. If you're wearing something really fancy, you should 100% wear Star Wars underpants underneath. I'm cool with that too.

SPEAKER_01 33:34

I'll definitely agree. Milan and Desiree really hold the whole thing together. The one negative I have for Milan's death isn't even Milan or her death. It is Scout Taylor Compton's character, Torrance, looking up at the balcony saying, What did you do? And that's when you know she's gonna be the eh killer. So it like ruins the surprise very, very early on. Not a fan of that. I'm not a fan of her overacting, it just spoiled the moment. And even her poor acting could not spoil the moment for me of Desiree being shot. It was a suddenness that I wouldn't say it's entirely shocking because again, leading up to it, Torrance's character is like, oh yeah, see? And it's just in the seconds leading up to it, you obviously know it's going to happen. I thought maybe they'd either have Desiree committed or all take turns and like kill her, the stranger's style, right? Like with the stabbing in the chair tied up, another 2008 movie. But for that gun to go off and to see the reactions afterwards, as shitty as Blaine it proves to end up being, the reaction and the surprise were some of the oh my gosh, I can't believe I'm about to say this. It's some of the better acting in the uh in in the movie, and that's actually my favorite scene. And I only think I'm I'm I only think I'm giving it that much credit because it reminds me of the death of Brandon Lee. Are you all familiar with this?

SPEAKER_00 35:04

No, no, yeah, it's true. It's pretty tragic.

SPEAKER_01 35:06

You know Bruce Lee?

SPEAKER_00 35:07

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 35:08

You know the movie The Crow?

SPEAKER_00 35:10

No.

SPEAKER_01 35:10

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 35:11

This is fun. Oh, the the the Crow is a whole mood. You gotta watch it.

SPEAKER_01 35:15

It's a great movie. So Bruce Lee's son, Brandon Lee, is the star on The Crow. And during production, he was killed accidentally with a gun that was supposed to be firing blinks, and the prop was mishandled.

SPEAKER_02 35:29

What?

SPEAKER_01 35:30

He was shot in the chest.

SPEAKER_02 35:31

The level of unprofessionalism.

SPEAKER_04 35:33

What a cursed family as far as like untimely deaths and such.

SPEAKER_01 35:37

I'll drop a link in the show notes if you haven't heard of Brandon Lee or the circumstances surrounding his death. But I I think just keeping that in mind and then seeing the level of their they were trying to exhibit shock, it made that the most powerful death of the movie. And then they ruined it.

SPEAKER_02 35:54

I definitely agree, Chris. That was my favorite scene of the movie. Um, like I was saying before the spoiler break, I wished we had more of that vibe. Um because it was for me pretty shocking to see I think that they showed it. That's I think that's the part that was shocking to me because obviously frickin' torrance and her overacting was really letting you know what was about to happen. She's like, see, it's a fake gun. Bang. But the fact that they showed it and the angle that they showed it at and like the way the blood kind of splattered on Blaine, I was like, oh shit, I guess Desiree is getting the last laugh because now y'all have to deal with this.

SPEAKER_04 36:30

It's a vicious cycle, really. We're trying to teach somebody a lesson for an accidental quote unquote kill, and then we learn a lesson for an accidental quote unquote kill, and I'm sure someone else will be accidentally killed next.

SPEAKER_00 36:42

Yeah, every every year there's a new April Fool's Day killer. You know, that's in the universe of this movie every year. It's been continuing from 1986 to 2008, and uh who knows if it'll keep going to current day.

SPEAKER_04 36:53

Yeah, the joke's on us, really.

SPEAKER_01 36:55

In 2009, it was one of the women that Blaine tried to hook up with, and she tries to murder him to get his trust. So they can go back to that same judge and have the estate transferred. Thanks. I hate it. It's one big franchise of follow the money.

SPEAKER_04 37:08

I would like to take this moment to leave the realm of positivity, and instead of talking about my favorite scene, I'd like to talk about my least favorite scene. That's not normally how we do things here, but I'm gonna just make my own podcast. The worst scene in this movie is the 10-minute news clip.

SPEAKER_02 37:23

Oh my god. So bad.

SPEAKER_04 37:25

It's so bad. It's so dramatic. I don't know why anyone thinks they need to put a news clip into a movie. At least though, when you do it, let's let's do the thing that people do where they can sometimes get like uh Chris Cuomo to actually do a scene, you know, like legitimate onset. But no, we just have like some random chick uh and and this horrible, like, you know, um, what's it like, high school news set.

SPEAKER_03 37:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 37:52

And it's just so bad, and I hated it. And it is like the cheapest excuse for a way to progress a story. Just be like, oh, here's this guy, and what he's gonna say about it. Oh, but let me tell you about this and this and this. And it's just like cool things. You're just listing information for us.

SPEAKER_00 38:07

There's one correct way to do that, and that's having the news clip on a TV in the background of a bar with one of the main characters drinking a whiskey. Yes. And have to be really haggard about it, like, uh Yeah, well, I could have gone for that.

SPEAKER_04 38:20

I can go for that. Don't give me full screen news. I'm not watching the news here. I'm not watching 2008 news for sure.

SPEAKER_02 38:26

Honestly, the one good thing to come from that wretched news segment was Charles revealing that the title of his book was Lifestyles of the Rich and Deadly, which to me was so stupid that it circled back around to being funny.

SPEAKER_01 38:37

Yeah, that's like an investigation discovery title.

SPEAKER_04 38:40

Yeah, and then most importantly, he did not say anything during his segment except the title of his book and the release date. That's it.

SPEAKER_02 38:47

Gotta plug the book.

SPEAKER_01 38:48

The one thing that I can appreciate from that there's a ticker at the bottom that says generic Republican candidate beats generic democratic candidate.

SPEAKER_04 38:58

Oh, see, I didn't see that. That is kind of funny. That's something we would do, right?

SPEAKER_00 39:03

I also feel like that's something maybe they they had a placeholder in there and they were like, nah, just put it in. Just leave it there. That's fine. We don't need to put a name in there.

SPEAKER_01 39:10

I mean, Peter for sure is the generic Republican candidate. We can agree with it.

SPEAKER_00 39:15

Yeah. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:16

Lowering taxes and raising values, that feels like a very Republican platform.

SPEAKER_00 39:21

And I'm gonna pick on him for a minute because I feel like the whole realization that he's a robot and doesn't actually have human emotion in the beginning of the film while they're doing their like the recordings of all the friends, I actually found that part kind of funny, just picking on him. Just being like, oh, he needs a teleprompter. And I found it humorous. So I'm gonna give my favorite scene to that, even though it was all kind of bad. Um, that I actually found humorous because I found it to be real to life.

SPEAKER_04 39:48

I would say that the the opening scene of this movie, uh, from like a series standpoint, is actually like one of my favorite uh parts of this movie. I guess one of my favorite scenes. Just, you know, you do get like a little bit, even though some of these characters are hateful, you get little bits of them and it's and it's interesting. And then things go off the rails.

SPEAKER_01 40:06

Yeah, that's totally fair. And Mac, I would 100% agree with you. That was one of the two times that I actually laughed out loud, was just him trying to read this letter uh that he wrote for congratulations and all that good stuff. Ryan, you mentioned that uh the whole opening scene was was a high point in this movie for you. My high point that was kind of like a question mark in terms of visuals, and this is one thing that I appreciated, just like generic Republican candidate beats generic Democratic candidate the newspaper. The picture of Milan Hastings looks like Kesha, and that was a weird thing for me, right? It felt like every little prop in this movie had somebody having fun with it, and it seemed like they were having more fun than a lot of people making the movie, so that was uh excellent prop work.

SPEAKER_02 40:56

That's funny that you mentioned that, Chris, because I totally thought Milan looked exactly like Ivanka Trump.

SPEAKER_01 41:01

In real life, yes, but that one specific picture I felt like it had cash out energy.

SPEAKER_02 41:06

I don't doubt that one bit.

SPEAKER_04 41:07

Well, to go from that, my favorite visual element is very simple and it's Desiree. As much as she is a flaming hot piece of garbage in this movie, is it a lob the asymmetrical Bob here?

SPEAKER_03 41:20

Big angle Bob.

SPEAKER_04 41:21

Oh, oh my god. Man, it's just like and and she spends this entire movie running in heels. Not the entire movie, not the entire movie, but a good portion of it. The like the whole second half. And I just I, you know, like if if you're gonna give me something horrible like this movie, at least give me something to look at, and at least we got that here. And it was just, I mean, the gas station look, and she's just like I I I could just I know how gas stations are, and the way she's dressed, and supposedly the neighborhood that she's in, and she just like steps out of the car and is just like standing there, and I'm like, I can feel this energy. You don't care how you look, but you look at a place, and I'm here for it.

SPEAKER_02 42:03

I'm right there with you, Ryan. Uh Desiree definitely stole the show early on with that red look. Obviously, it was good enough to be on all of the promotional materials for the movie. Um, but I'm gonna call her out because in the van scene where they're running in the parking garage, she goes from wearing those like knee-high heeled boots to very visibly running away in a pair of Uggs and then right back into the boots when it's when it shows her full body again.

SPEAKER_04 42:29

Oh my god, I did not notice that.

SPEAKER_02 42:31

My boyfriend pointed out I had to rewind it because I was like, Yep, those are Uggs.

SPEAKER_04 42:35

Oh my god, that's hilarious. She was like, I'm tired of running in these heels.

SPEAKER_02 42:39

Exactly, yeah. Nor should she even be expected to. Just shoot her from the waist up and let the bitch wear a running shoe.

SPEAKER_04 42:45

Here's the problem with movies like this: it's on me to decide if that was an intentional comical effort.

SPEAKER_02 42:52

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_04 42:53

Or if it's just lazy editing. And so, like, I don't want to have to make that decision. I want it to be clear. And usually it's not, because y'all are usually not as funny as you think you are when you're making these movies. And then I'm like, oh, they're just lazy. They let her wear Uggs.

SPEAKER_00 43:06

Yeah, it was definitely not intentional. It should have been more intentional. They should have had her wear five different pairs of shoes during that entire run sequence.

SPEAKER_04 43:13

Yeah, you gotta go hard. That would have been so funny.

SPEAKER_00 43:16

I'm so happy with that. It would have been kind of naked gun or airplane or something, but it maybe it would have spiced things up a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 43:23

This makes me really want to show you all a movie called Student Bodies, where it's just an early, what you can interpret as like an early scary movie. It's like from the 80s, but everything is just absurdly ridiculous every step of the way in a great way. That feels like a very student bodies move.

SPEAKER_00 43:40

I I could appreciate that.

SPEAKER_02 43:42

And I was expecting kind of more of that because setting up the van scene, you kind of see Desiree and Peter like doing this weird side to side with a van, like they're not sure which direction they should move in.

SPEAKER_04 43:53

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_02 43:54

In a way that I found to be hilarious because it's literally a van, and as a human, you have so much more mobility. And more options as far as movement inside a garage. So when they were doing that and they were kind of extending it a little bit longer than made sense, I was like, okay, they're trying to be funny here. And it actually made me laugh. But then we didn't get enough more of that for me to keep laughing.

SPEAKER_00 44:14

I have a harder time figuring out things that I liked about this movie visually. I think like the cinematography, not a fan, the color grading was, oh, it was so dated that it hurt. The wardrobe gave me such bad flashbacks. And I think it brings me back to the thing I can actually appreciate. And that's how the opening scene in this somehow huge Carolina house actually feels like people that I knew in high school. Everything about it, the house itself, the guests, the way people acted, like just the pan through all the different guests like hanging out and how snooty they were and how the house was decorated. It reminded me so much of all these people I knew in Georgia. Because I moved to Georgia when I was 16, and that is a whole different world in the South. Like when you have money, it's a totally different ballgame there. And people act a very weird way. And I have a lot to say about the characters, or maybe a little bit, I don't know. But that just that scene just gave me those vibes of like circa 2003, 2004, maybe when I moved back to the States. And this girl complained that her parents bought her a new Honda, but she wanted the new BMW Z3.

SPEAKER_02 45:21

Gross.

SPEAKER_00 45:22

And she was so upset, she was crying. And it just that's these people, but in real life, and I experienced it.

SPEAKER_04 45:28

No me gusta. I'm truly so thankful that I am not friends with rich upper class white Southerners because it just seems not great. Not great. With that being said, before we get to quality of characters, I have a question, and this may be I'm not sure if this is gonna be a dumb question or not, but I'm okay with it. Was there a point in which you guys realized that these were fake kills? For me, once Peter got hit by the van and there was just like a slew of papers, and I was like, did he have papers? I think he did have a briefcase, but it was just like, why are there papers flying?

SPEAKER_03 46:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 46:03

At that moment, I was like, oh, these are not real kills. Did you guys have an aha moment?

SPEAKER_01 46:07

For me, it was this underlying hope that they would be fake kills because they looked shitty, right? Like gray Charles in the pool after he drowned that was then sinking to the bottom of these awaited dummy. And then the weird final destination setup you get for Barbie's death. They're all ridiculous, and I was hoping that they'd be revealed to be fake.

SPEAKER_02 46:29

For me, I never had that moment, Ryan, because spoiler alert, in the original, all the kills are fake.

SPEAKER_04 46:35

So Oh yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 46:37

So I went into this being like, okay, these deaths are fake. What are they gonna do with it? Same. But truly, the original isn't worth like going back to watch. It was better than this movie.

SPEAKER_04 46:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 46:48

I'm sure you would have hacked it.

SPEAKER_04 46:49

I feel like it would have been so fun if they stepped back for a moment, uh, like after after they've revealed that the kills are all fake and showed little clips of like behind the scenes setting everything up, like painting Charles Gray. Like, how much fun would that have been?

SPEAKER_01 47:05

That's very Saul. That's some shit you'd see in Saul. Very true.

SPEAKER_04 47:09

I would have enjoyed this movie more if they were like, you know, instead of being in his tanning bed, he's like laying down and like someone's painting him, and he's like, This is gonna turn orange.

SPEAKER_00 47:18

Okay, so let's take a few minutes to break down these horrible human beings that we have to suffer through. Because while they are insufferable, like these are people that I knew. I'm not saying they were my friends. My friends were all like nerds and geeks and stuff, and we were really cool uh because of that. Um, so because you know, nerdery is cool. It wasn't cool in 2003, but whatever, I don't care. But like the absolute attitudes that these people have. I mean, these people have horrible attitudes about the world and about each other. And then looking back, I realized like, was Milan a better human being than all of them? I mean, she did have that charity. But kind of, maybe I can't tell. I think they're all kind of trash. And it bothers me that when I watch them and I just I'm like, oh, it's just so fake. I can go back and like think of people in the South that I knew that would like speak like they would and treat other human beings like they would, and it just bothers me.

SPEAKER_04 48:12

I agree with you about how much I didn't like these characters, and my my actual problem is that I also didn't like the like, I don't know, humble isn't the right word. I didn't like Ryan either, which is not necessarily he's not them, right? He's supposed to be like the relief from the dramatic, uppity elite society, but I I didn't care about his character either. He was just annoying and like weird. I don't know. I mean, not I don't know, he wasn't weird, he just didn't do it for me, and everyone else sucked so much.

SPEAKER_02 48:44

I'll be honest, I got very much a you know cruel intentions vibe between Desiree and Blaine. And I actually like cruel intentions despite those characters being absolute evil garbage. I think because they were like layered and had some depth to them. Um, but these two really just felt like the most like dollar store knockoff of those two.

SPEAKER_04 49:04

Paris, to be fair, you're kind of inclined to like wear fly and rich and evil, you know? Like that's kind of your your vibe.

SPEAKER_02 49:12

Yeah, that works for me a lot. A lot of the time. I'm not mad about that sometimes, but this was just done so poorly. Desiree was really the only one that came close to doing it, but she she dropped the R word, she dropped the F word. I was like, Desiree, don't be this girl that existed in 2008 because I know she's real.

SPEAKER_04 49:30

This is I got it. I figured it out. This is outlet mall rich.

SPEAKER_02 49:35

Ooh, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 49:35

That's what these these people are. This is the outlet mall version of rich people.

SPEAKER_02 49:40

We're like, yeah, you have a huge house, but it's decorated like an olive garden.

SPEAKER_04 49:44

But you filed bankruptcy last week. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 49:46

You know that like Tuscan vibe.

SPEAKER_04 49:48

Yes, I hate it.

SPEAKER_02 49:49

But I also I wanted to point out that I feel like naming the character Milan was like a play on like the Paris Hilton of it all. And I I suspect that because as somebody whose name is Paris, the first thought joke many people make is like, oh hey London, hey Milan, and I'm like, okay, hey, somebody I don't care for. But ultimately, like, I don't think there was a worse character or actress in this movie than Torrance. I literally wrote, God, she's bad, and then later, Torrance is truly awful. And Chris, you mentioned this actress's name, and I don't know her from anything, but I guess that's a good thing.

SPEAKER_01 50:21

Can't tell you where she's from?

SPEAKER_02 50:22

Please.

SPEAKER_01 50:23

She's from the fucking Rob Zombie edition of Halloween. And she was in Halloween too. Now, the thing is, she takes on the role of the iconic Lori Strode.

SPEAKER_02 50:33

Oh, I bet you hate that.

SPEAKER_01 50:34

And she turns her into such an unlikable person.

SPEAKER_04 50:38

Yeah, her character here is truly miserable. Miserable from the very beginning in her uh, I don't know, attempts to be naive. And then throughout, as every time she talks, you're just like, you're fake. But not in like an elite fake thing, just like a you're a bad actor type of thing.

SPEAKER_02 50:59

And her whole thing was like being the actress, and I'm like, but you're the worst one. You can't even act like an actress. It's so true.

SPEAKER_04 51:06

When she was like, Oh, I have to tell you the stuff about Ryan, like, nobody cares. You sound stupid.

SPEAKER_01 51:12

I feel like she was playing a really cheap, knockoff, C-rated version of what she thinks Anna Paquin is like.

SPEAKER_02 51:21

Oh my god, that is true. As somebody who was once an extra in a movie behind Anna Pacquin, I can absolutely substantiate that claim.

SPEAKER_00 51:29

I think I have a good analogy for this, okay? So most of the people here know of Publix, the you know, the grocery store, popular in the South, right? And so it's like, I'm fancy because I shop at Publix. I have enough money to shop there. You can keep shopping at Foodline in Walmart, but I'm gonna go to Publix. And then like Whole Foods shows up or something similar, and they're like, Oh, I I can't afford that. That's these people. They're like Publix rich. What they don't realize is it's not really that rich.

SPEAKER_01 51:55

Hey, we're Publix rich.

SPEAKER_00 51:57

Yeah, that's us. We just don't act like assholes.

SPEAKER_04 51:59

We too can be Publix Rich.

SPEAKER_00 52:01

Rich. In reality, they're piggly wiggly rich, but they just think they're Publix rich.

SPEAKER_04 52:05

Truly, the best part is where Blaine calls up the police station and is like, Hi, this is Blaine Cartier. I need to report a murder. And they're like Blaine Cartier, as if anyone knows who you are and what your name is.

SPEAKER_00 52:17

The Blaine Cartier. The You mean the Kennedys of the Carolinas?

SPEAKER_04 52:22

Obviously.

SPEAKER_00 52:23

So the thing about Blaine is that he is trying so hard to seem like he doesn't care about anything that it comes across so poorly. Like, it looks like he's trying to look bad at trying to not try or something, right? Like he's like, I'm gonna play the character as if as if he wants to look bad at at and not caring. I'm not gonna try to play him as if he doesn't care. I'm gonna try to make it seem like he's trying to look bad at not caring. And I know it's really convoluted, but it like it looks almost deliberate how bad it is. All he had to do was not care on screen. Oh, that's that's fine, whatever, whatever they're you know, it's cool. Instead, he was like, Yeah, I don't care, because I'm a cool guy, and cool guys don't care. They smoke whatever cigarette brand he smokes or whatever.

SPEAKER_01 53:13

Yeah. And the the thing about Blaine, apart from that funny moment, Ryan, that you're describing, the thing that infuriates me, and one of the other elements that I hated about the ending is just who we find his character to be. This is an undoubtedly one of the worst parts of the movie, but it also inspires what I think is the best part of the movie. But you get this point where after the end of it all, he's just another guy who's super rich, does whatever he wants to any woman and will get away with it. And it's infuriating. There's zero consequence. He literally inherits his entire trust and uh his sister is dead by his doing. You know he has to orchestrate it, uh, given his smirk at the end of the movie, and it's infuriating. But I will say though, that the best part of the movie for me is the glimpse of potential we get at who Desiree could have been, given the reflection and the regret of the year as she carried that guilt on.

SPEAKER_02 54:18

I love that you mentioned that, Chris, because I found it so disappointing that somehow Blaine comes out on top as if he was like somehow smarter than Desiree, because the two of them side by side, I'm fairly certain Desiree was the smarter one. Specifically for the reasons you mentioned, she grew and she learned, she developed as a human over the years. Um when the frickin' the whole prank that she pulled on Milan was just rape, uh, and also filming it and releasing it, which was the intention. Um, she reflected on those things and said, Yeah, that was really shitty, and I felt bad about it ever since. Whereas Blaine was like, Yeah, whatever about that. I'm gonna actually plot your murder and then get the inheritance back because that's how little I've grown.

SPEAKER_04 54:59

Yeah, it was really trash. The best part of this movie would have been Blaine getting hit by a truck at the end of this.

SPEAKER_00 55:07

Oh man. Honestly, you guys are so right about this. I mean, the best part for me was watching him get shot in the stomach. And it wasn't even real. Yeah. That was the best part of the movie, was like finally, I was imagining that perhaps he was actually getting shot, and like the both of them were gonna get taken out at the end of the movie, and that was gonna be kind of cool. But no, he of course had to survive because he was like, Oh, you have intelligence, I will deploy rich white male in America. And he used his, you know, his final form. Um, so that yeah, shot to the gut was actually really satisfying, although it was ultimately fake.

SPEAKER_01 55:44

Shot to the whole damn plot, really, is what it was.

SPEAKER_02 55:46

It was also just like upsetting that they implied so heavily that he was the hot one because it reminded me of a time when like everybody thought that we wanted our men to look like ski slope nose, like twink little elf boys, which is something I was never into. I was always like, you know, I like a man with a big, strong nose, and then finally that came back into vogue. But if I had to pick a best part of this movie, I guess it's the opening scene because I had a lot of hope. You know, we start off with that very first shot of the chef like pretending to cut off their finger, and I was like, ooh, hi Jinx, here we go. And then like Desiree enters with like her look and like a slit up to the thigh. But it was really all just downhill from there.

SPEAKER_01 56:24

Would it have been better if she were named Muffy?

SPEAKER_02 56:26

Ew, no. Nothing is better with a woman named Muffy. No, you need a Muffy and a Duffy.

SPEAKER_01 56:32

Or a Buffy?

SPEAKER_00 56:32

Or a Buffy.

SPEAKER_02 56:33

I did like how many times they managed to say April Fool's Day, bitch.

SPEAKER_04 56:38

Of course you did. Paris, you bringing up that beginning scene uh with the chef like fake cutting his finger off reminds me of something that I cannot believe we've gotten this far without me saying, and that is that this movie feels so racist. Granted, it's got a lot of other things going against it, but like, God forbid they have a person with anything other than the whitest skin in any uh role in this movie that matters at all, that they respect at all. They they didn't even try to say, hey, we're being uh we're we're inclusive. We you know, we love we love people.

SPEAKER_02 57:14

That's 2008.

SPEAKER_04 57:16

Okay, so maybe I'm a little bit dramatic. There are some people of color in this movie, but it is I don't know, it's just like the way everything is done. They're like really blatant about some of the other offensive things and you know, throwing around F-words and homophobic remarks and stuff like that, but the the like underlying racism is there and it's palpable for me anyway.

SPEAKER_01 57:37

Ever pervasive. Yeah. I mean, that's one of the things that we talked about in that. And if you're listening, it is free, available to anyone on our Patreon. It's a uh bonus episode we had uh talking about horror noir history of black horror and talks about black representation as it has evolved, and it at some points it's just being in the background, right? And that does not equal representation. Yep, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 58:02

That quiet 2008 racism.

SPEAKER_04 58:04

Yeah, and and that's not even the biggest reason why I'll never watch this movie again.

SPEAKER_00 58:10

What what is it?

SPEAKER_04 58:11

Uh it it's the whole movie th there's nothing that would ever make me want to watch this truly, ever. Although I could look at Desiree a little bit, but aside from that, no thank you.

SPEAKER_00 58:21

I could not see myself watching this uh ever again. I I mean, even if I had something to do and I just needed noise in the background to forget whatever mundane task I was doing, I would rather just listen to like cats screeching, maybe, just so it would be a little bit more entertaining because like Paris mentioned, it was so flat. And you know, I just need a little bit of spice. That's this movie was mayonnaise. It was seriously like the most bland mayonnaise you could get on a hot Carolina day. And that's for these people that was too spicy in the film, but for this person, I need a little bit of flavor in my life.

SPEAKER_02 58:58

Honestly, Mac, I feel like the mayonnaise had chunks in a way that wasn't necessary or welcome. But do you know what I mean? Chunky mayonnaise. Does that track? Because yeah, it was flat and it was blah, but also it like, I don't know, created obstacles that meant nothing. Hence the chunks. Um, yeah, definitely never gonna watch this again. There's not even a part of this that I would like look up on YouTube to see again. Actually, you know what? I might watch Milan take a tumble again, but that's it. I swear.

SPEAKER_01 59:26

Does Milan's tumble uh rank on a possibilities of some of your favorite deaths of the year?

SPEAKER_02 59:31

No, no, no, no. It's it's really just like throwing this movie above.

SPEAKER_01 59:37

Okay, gotcha. I I will not look up Milan's death on YouTube, but what I will look up at some point, because I will be I'll never watch this movie, nor will I ever pay to watch this movie. I wanna listen to the music again, only because I know that it is like a rearrangement and it is based on the music from the original film. That is it. And even then the music was fucking weird in some spots. There I said it. Yep. It's very on brand for you though, nonetheless.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:07

I think if I could watch it again, if I had to, I would pick only the opening scene. We get to the part where you know Milan tumbles over and she's dead, and then we get we get we get some do some editing, right? Where they're in court and then like a gavel strikes, and then that's all we see. They just that would be the movie I want to see, is where like they cause this thing, and then we just infer that they're going to jail. And that would be that would be all I would need. That would be the movie I think would be better.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:32

If only life were that way.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:33

This movie needed a cruel intentions ending where Desiree planned to be shot in the head to fuck over everybody else in her death.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:41

Yeah, she like left a note in the room. I figured it out. You think you got me. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:46

This was my master plan all along.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:48

Welcome to your tape.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:50

It's sad when we all rally behind Desiree, who was truly an awful bitch.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:53

Terrible human. Um, but yet among some of the better ones. This this movie doesn't have much going for it. Behind every bad movie is a team of humans who put in varying amounts of effort to make it. And I am sure that there is so much maybe to uncover in Max Factor Fiction.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:12

No, I didn't even put any salt and pepper in this man, it's it's pretty bland as well. So let's let's dive right in. Scout Taylor Compton, playing Torrents, stated the filmmakers originally wanted to make this film, you know, or rated our film, and described this movie as being like mean girls crossed with horror.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:29

Fact.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:29

That feels like fiction that Mac made up.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:31

I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:32

Well, this is a fact, and the only thing I can think of is that 2008 must have had the best kind of weed.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:38

Plot twist, it didn't.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:40

Number two. Taylor Cole delivered such an insanely powerful performance as Desiree, that was sarcasm, that it's hard to believe this movie is only three years into her credited acting career.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:50

Uh, fiction for the hard to believe part.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:53

I'm gonna say fiction because I actually do find that hard to believe. Desiree, while being awful, felt felt like a seasoned actress.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:01

Well, not much season going on there because it was only three years. Now, to be fair, that was the beginning of the career, and it's still going on now. So we have to check up on Taylor Cole and see how things are going.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:11

So, is that technically a fact or a fiction?

SPEAKER_00 1:02:13

Oh, that was a fact. But the hard to believe part was a hard to believe was just a way to try to trick you. That's all. It was sarcasm. As always. Sarcasm's never fact or fiction, it just simply exists.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:23

We're all losers here.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:25

And that's gonna lead us to number three. So this movie is so chalk full of symbolism that even the female leads wear colors coded to their personalities.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:33

Um, fact, maybe?

SPEAKER_02 1:02:36

Yeah, I could see that being a thing. A fact.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:40

A relevant fact, maybe?

SPEAKER_00 1:02:43

Well, this is fiction. April Fools, this is a fact. Okay, so Desiree wears red. The girl knows what she wants, and she's ain't, you know, she's not afraid to cutthroats to get it. Barbie wears pink because of, you know, femininity and sexuality and all that kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:56

Also, Barbie.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:57

Thank you. And Torrance wears white to start out for her youthful purity, but switches to black when she engages badass mode.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:03

And then Milan is just in sky blue because she goes flying.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:07

Wow. Well, that's all I have for fact or fiction. Can I just can I follow up and say that I feel like we're all April Fools for having watched this movie? The joke's on us.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:17

Absolutely. Well, yes, the joke is on us in fact, Paris, and with that, the 2008 version of April Fools has earned a universal hack. We've certainly had a bevy of terrible things to say about this movie, but that doesn't mean we don't want to hear what you think about it, too. Uh, maybe you're someone who likes this movie, maybe you agree with us. Please share those opinions. Keep in mind there are a number of ways you can reach out to us, starting with our website, hackerslash.com, or you can also stalk our social media accounts over on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:47

And if you've ever done a really cool April Fool's joke, make sure to reach out to our Hackerslash Hotline. You can leave us a voicemail at 757-606-0128, or visit hackerslash.com slash contact to send us an audio message.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:58

Or if you were part of an April Fool's Day prank that left you with lifelong regret, you can send us an email at feedback at hackerslash.com.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:05

Hey, have you enjoyed listening to this episode? Consider becoming one of our patrons like Kyle. You can visit patreon.com forward slash hacker slash to earn cool perks for as low as $1 a month.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:15

We'll see you next time, folks, and remember, gossip is a poison for which there is no antidote.

unknown 1:04:20

Bye.