SPEAKER_05 0:00

Greetings and salutations from the future friend. This is editor Chris here stopping by to thank you so much for tuning in. We've got a great episode in store for you. I'm so stoked for you to be able to listen, but first I want to give you a heads up on something a little different this time around. When we finished recording around 75% of this episode, Mac experienced a family emergency and had to step away. Now, as such, he's largely absent for the second half of the show. This is you know following the spoiler break, right after the favorite kills. Thankfully he and his family are well, everyone's safe, and we'll be back up and running as normal next week. We just wanted to thank you in advance for your understanding. Our community of listeners and our patrons have been a tremendous amount of support for us, and we're so glad you're here. Now we still did our best to bring you an episode with varied perspectives, and believe me, Maxwell has a ton left to say about this movie, but for now, we hope you enjoy the show.

SPEAKER_06 0:59

Those thighs, the little dirty panties. I was like, ew.

SPEAKER_05 1:07

Greetings and salutations, and welcome to Hacker Slash. If you're joining us again, welcome back. It's all but a beautiful dream. 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_01 1:25

Totally killer, unintended.

SPEAKER_05 1:27

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 Super Fly Space Guy Mac. I'm your god now. The Gore Lover Alexis. Hey everyone. The cowardly creeper Ryan. Hiya. And the Scream Queen Paris.

SPEAKER_06 1:49

Jeremiah says I'm the most sensual lover he's ever experienced.

SPEAKER_05 1:52

The people have spoken this week, and our patrons have again decided which movie we're covering for this episode. Before we give up the goods, though, we have some follow-up.

SPEAKER_06 2:00

I am personally looking forward to the end of the year when we can recap all of the patron picks because the taste is interesting, let's say that. Anyway, we recently reviewed the film The Fog, both the 1980 original as well as the 2005 remake, and it was a good episode. If you haven't listened to it, go circle back. But we wanted to hear from our listeners. Now, 83% of our listeners actually preferred the 1980 original, and only 17% preferred the 2005 remake.

SPEAKER_03 2:26

And I bet it's because that 17% hasn't seen the original.

SPEAKER_06 2:30

That is certainly possible. We have a comment from somebody who has seen the original, and it's Anthony. Anthony said, That was a special listen. I can't wait to let some siblings and my mom listen. I know my dad is smiling down, my parents did have the best ideas, and I will definitely carry on that Saturday night movie tradition. I also can't wait to let Lila listen. I'll take the high road and forgive Paris. He doesn't know any better. Three out of four slashes is cool, and five out of six, including Lai and I. Universal hack on the remake? Great. Chris, I like how you mentioned that Rupert Wainwright's directing ended after this, similar to Glenn Morgan in 2006 with Black Christmas. I loved hearing you guys talk about the fog. Thanks again for a great listen.

SPEAKER_02 3:08

Thank you, Anthony. I too agree that uh I will forgive Paris for that hat.

SPEAKER_06 3:13

Oh my god. I said what I said and I stand by it. Anthony, I appreciate your forgiveness.

SPEAKER_08 3:19

And we appreciate you nominating it.

SPEAKER_06 3:20

We also have a comment from one of our listeners, Brittany, who said, You're all so great, but I think Anthony stole the show this week. What a sweet phone call and great discussion. Hashtag Canadian PatronsUnite.

SPEAKER_08 3:29

They are growing in numbers steadily. But yet none have talked to me about my accent yet. And I'm just really not okay with it.

SPEAKER_06 3:36

It hasn't been problematic enough.

SPEAKER_08 3:39

I need help.

SPEAKER_06 3:40

Speaking of problematic, we do have a call to the HackerSlash Hotline. It is from one of our dear listeners, Rob. Let's listen to it.

SPEAKER_00 3:47

Ladies and gentlemen of the Hacker Slash Podcast, how are you doing? This is your old buddy Rob. And I just had to call in. I finished listening to the episode on the fog, and congratulations, most of you got it right, Paris. I'm looking at you. I don't know what you're thinking, sir. I have determined that if I leave live to be a thousand years old, I will not understand what your thought process is. I just will never understand you. And I'm okay with that. That's alright. I don't get it. Not really why I'm calling you. The man is a natural treasure, and this flavor cannot be tolerated. The guy has been in movies like The Fall, which you talked about, Creep Show, Escape from New York, the classic Halloween 3 Season of the Witch. He was even in Lethal Weapons. I mean, you gotta love Tom Atkins. Can somebody explain this to me? I just I don't understand.

SPEAKER_05 4:45

Okay, so first off, excellent call. Paris, I'm sure you have feelings. I'd like to take an the initial stab here. I think we all have a lot to say. It is not so much that a many a movie makes a great actor. I don't think that's the case. Uh B, I actually don't have a lot against Tom Atkins. He just always ends up in bed with someone who's way out of his league. Yes. That is a regular thing. I think he's always painted to be the most attractive man in the world, and then all of a sudden he's doing things he shouldn't really realistically be doing.

SPEAKER_04 5:17

I don't know. I just don't get it.

SPEAKER_06 5:19

I would love to say, hey Rob, your voice is incredible. It gives me KCK some energy who is a legendary voice actor and radio star. But also for me, Tom Atkins like just gives such pervy, like casino man energy. You know what I mean? Like, smells of aftershave, textured like a squash, in a casino, like smokes a cigar because he thinks it looks cool. That's just the vibe I get from Tom Atkins that it's just me. He is not my cup of tea. And like Chris said, he's always like dating women that are like so unrealistically hotter than he is. And I'm always just like, no, how did you get to do this? Get out of here. But you know, I'm sure his body of work speaks for itself. I just haven't found my Tom Atkins fancy yet.

SPEAKER_05 6:01

He's got great movies.

SPEAKER_04 6:02

I just think he is unnecessarily pushed into a sexual agenda.

SPEAKER_01 6:07

True. That really does seem to be the issue, I think. I think he is a good actor, and he does seem like a really nice guy. Like he seems like the kind of person you'd want to get, like, you know, a glass of whiskey with and sit around smoking cigars, but at the same time, he also seems like the kind of person when he's cast in those roles that would hit on like Hooters' waitresses. Yeah. And that's that's what I think we have a problem with, is it's probably just like the casting and the lines he's given seem really weird. Also, just like the time period of all of his movies didn't help with that.

SPEAKER_08 6:37

Rob, I don't have a lot of strong feelings about Tom Atkins. I'm kind of a fan, but I do wonder if you feel so strongly about Paris. What do you feel about me? You know? I'm like half we're like half and half here. Same, same but different. Am I understood?

SPEAKER_04 6:54

Am I misunderstood? That's a great question. Inquiring minds must know.

SPEAKER_06 6:58

Anyway, that is our follow-up. Rob, thank you so much for calling in. Anyone that's listening to this episode right now, think of giving us a call. We would love to play it and talk about it.

SPEAKER_08 7:06

And clearly you can take the piss out of us because we don't care.

SPEAKER_06 7:09

Yes, please do.

SPEAKER_08 7:10

If you want to rose Paris, more than welcome.

SPEAKER_05 7:13

I love it. Well, Paris got roasted for his take on our last patron pick, and we'll see how he fares in this week's. Now, this week, as we mentioned earlier, we have another selection from one of our patrons, this one though, having been nominated by Darren. This film comes to us from director Panos Cosmatos, who wrote the script by channeling his feelings of loss, mourning, and grief following the death of his parents. Although this movie greatly exceeded producers' expectations for revenue by generating one million dollars at the box office, it's important to remember the budget was originally six million dollars. Uh, but they were convinced they'd make all their money back in the video on demand market. It surprisingly, though, generated high enough interest in theatrical screenings and resulted in an entire rework of the film's distribution model. What was all that fuss about? Well, this film explores one man's quest for revenge after a cult and a pack of demon bikers traumatically disrupt the life he built with his girlfriend. This week we're talking about the 2018 film Mandy.

SPEAKER_01 8:13

Now, not only did Darren suggest the film, but also gave us a comment on why he suggested it. He says, I love this movie. Nicholas Cage is fantastic in it. It walks that fine line between Art House and Over-the-top exploitation film. It feels truly original to me and offers great rewatch value.

SPEAKER_05 8:29

Well, it's near and dear to Darren's heart, but how about all of you who've seen this one before?

SPEAKER_08 8:34

I had heard of Mandy, but for some reason I had this thought in my mind that it was like related to the Carrie movies. So I can I can 100% say I went in with no idea what was coming.

SPEAKER_02 8:47

Yeah, this has definitely been on my list to watch and has been for a while. And then we had a listener a few months back suggest, uh especially me, that I watch it. And I took a look at it. When I go back, I realize I had watched this, even though it was only the first 10 minutes. I thought I hadn't watched it, so I guess it was erased from my mind somehow.

SPEAKER_06 9:08

Yeah, that listener was actually Freya, who I love dearly. And that was my first introduction to this movie as well, was her recommendation.

SPEAKER_02 9:14

Sorry, Freya, that's all I have to say for anything that comes out of my mouth tonight.

SPEAKER_08 9:18

It's a lot of apologies after that uh recommendation as well. Like, do our best.

SPEAKER_06 9:25

I also I also remember seeing just like a still of Nicolas Cage driving a car covered in blood, and I was like, okay, so it's it's peak Nicolas Cage.

SPEAKER_01 9:34

I have not seen this until this viewing, but I remember hearing all the positive reviews when it first hit streaming. It seemed to be kind of crazy. People were talking about it like, oh my god, Nicolas Cage is fully redeemed in this movie, or it's just completely batch it and you have to watch it. But this was my first time going into it.

SPEAKER_05 9:49

Yeah, Mag like you, I have heard all the positive reviews. I haven't seen this movie because nothing about it struck me as something that I would be particularly interested in when it came out. I just remember the horror community being set ablaze with all these reactions to how beautiful it was, how crazy it was. It gave me this really interesting, reminiscing feeling of like terror fire when everybody was freaking out about that. I think one of the things that really threw me off about it was everyone's reaction to Nicolas Cage. And I think that led me to have some pretty lofty expectations, but even that couldn't result in anything different than Nicolas Cage is gonna be fucking crazy in this movie, which is weird because I don't think I ever had that impression of him watching like National Treasure or some of the older films like Gone in 60 Seconds that he's been in. But I've heard that this movie is wild. If Nicolas Cage is in it, seeing what he did with Wickerman, I was expecting it to be absolutely absurd and to be unable to actually take it seriously. But what were you all expecting?

SPEAKER_08 10:53

It's so funny, Chris, because I'm kind of the same as you, as far as like I've never seen Nicolas Cage as the crazy person that I guess he is perceived as on the internet. So when we did Wickerman and you guys were talking about like the cage rage, I was like, I don't know what this is about. Now I'm fully aware of it, and I wish I wasn't. I feel like it ruined Nicolas Cage for me. So I went in and I was like, I mean, I guess we're getting I guess we're getting more Nicolas Cage being wild. I had no idea what else to expect for this though. It has such like intense graphics, like as far as the advertisements and everything. Like the artwork for this movie, it's super bloody red. Like it's very intense, and I was just I I didn't know what to do.

SPEAKER_02 11:37

I would didn't know what to expect going into this. I too did not know what to expect from Freya's comments um saying that I would like this. I figured it would be gory, so I was expecting to like it. And expecting a lot of kills and gore in this.

SPEAKER_06 11:51

I said the same thing, Alexis. I was like, if Freya recommended this for Alexis, it's gotta be super gory. I was thinking this is gonna be Nicolas Cage's over-the-top acting, but maybe in like a vehicle where it makes sense, and I was really optimistic that this would be good.

SPEAKER_01 12:04

It's interesting that we all have like very particular thoughts about Nicolas Cage. And I mean, a lot of the other people have like really negative thoughts about Nicolas Cage. I I haven't really seen any of his most recent films, but I remember having pretty positive thoughts. Like Face Off, absolutely loved it. Con Air loved it. The Rock is still to this day one of my favorite movies. Even some of the other films that it I don't know, they just don't seem like Nicolas Cage. Like Lord of War was so absolutely fantastic, absolutely loved it as well. But I went into this just from seeing a couple images because I didn't watch any trailers for it. I just expected it to be Insane and a Bloodbath. And that's what my only thoughts were going into it.

SPEAKER_05 12:39

Insane and a Bloodbath is so par for the course for this movie, at least with a lot of the stills that I saw look like going into it. But I found that there are three main things that stuck with me. The first one's really, really silly. There's a moment in this film where one of the characters says she burns, and like keeps repeating that phrase, and for some reason it reminded me of that Ricky Martin song She Bangs. She burns, she burns. I mean it when she moves, she moves. Yeah. So that was like it took me out of the movie a little bit, and I could not stop like laughing hysterically. But on a more serious note, I found that this movie has like this really avant-garde high concept that I just have never really quite understood in other movies that have tried to do similar things. I logically understand it. This movie has a plot that is it looks wild at times, but I think the basic through line makes a lot of sense and it's really easy to follow. And it's a matter of like, does that resonate with you in particular? So I found myself trying to like sort through my emotions as I was watching it. And the other thing is, damn, this movie is pretty. There's like a lot of fantasy to it, and there's a lot of dream-like imagery, Giallo style coloring. It's it's fantastical, similar to the way that I think Phantasm try to play with like dreamscapes and doing things that didn't really make sense. And I think that it worked a little bit better in this movie. And I I think I'm I'm sorting out, hey, is this the kind of movie for me? But I think for what it is, I found myself thinking, oh, okay, so like people who are into this shit, I I see why everybody loves it.

SPEAKER_02 14:18

Yeah, I agree. When I was watching this, it definitely had this, like you mentioned, Chris, very simple kind of plot. But I feel like so many things were added that I was very confused on this ride. I was like, okay, what are we doing? Why does this person seem like the main character? Then it's switching. Why does this seem where it's at? It was just a very seemed like I was going through a lot of obstacles while I was watching this movie.

SPEAKER_06 14:44

Yeah, while I was watching this movie, it certainly felt like a fever dream. Uh, it was very art house, very kind of disorienting, but still, like Chris was saying, straightforward as far as the story goes. Um, a lot of things were solely just to build ambiance, which I felt like was really great. Um but honestly, like the first act, I was so intrigued. Second act, I was falling asleep. But then the third act, I was like, okay, you have my full attention. It felt like a long ride.

SPEAKER_08 15:14

Yeah, it's really funny, Paris, that you say intrigued, because that's exactly what I wrote in my notes. I felt like the first bit of this movie is so intriguing. The, like we said, like arthouse kind of feelings really set a tone that pulled me in. And I was like, man, like where are we going? What are we gonna do here?

SPEAKER_06 15:34

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_08 15:35

And then it and then it kept going. And I was like, where did we go? I this is not the location that I agreed upon arrival. Like, I don't want to go here at all. This is a long, long ride, and it it you get lost a little bit a few times along the way, I think. I don't know. I think intriguing is the right way to describe how this movie makes you feel.

SPEAKER_01 15:58

You know, I was I was pretty satisfied when I expected it to be insane and have a bloodbath because it is pretty insane and has a bloodbath, but I don't think I correctly like found the word, and fantasy Chris, is definitely the right word for it. This this film is is utterly the hero's journey in a fantasy world, but it's also the 80s and it's and it's a horror universe. And like somehow it's straddling all these things where the story, like you mentioned, Alexis, seems fairly simple, right? I mean, it's like the backbone of all modern revenge films. It's a it's John Wick through and through. But the way it's played out is is quite different. Um, there's characters in here that upon initial viewing of them, I was very confused what kind of universe we were in. And as we get further into it and learn more, it's it it sticks with you for some reason. I was really like, I was consumed by this, not like losing my mind googling stuff, but for days, like I would just now and then think about the film, and it does have this ability to just stick with your brain a little bit until it's it's sorted through all the imagery that you just witnessed and all the themes that you just had to go through. So it's the the viewing experience was one thing, but I think the fact that it sticks with you for a couple days is like a whole other thing because your your brain is sorting through pictures and video and some of the lines of the film and just trying to sort out really how you feel about it.

SPEAKER_06 17:20

Mac, I totally thought about you talking about the hero's journey while I was watching this movie. I'm so proud. It's like very like cut and dry hero's journey in this one. Uh it's never been like a better example. Um, but also to talk about like what you're saying where the movie sticks with you. I watched this last night, like right before bed, and I literally said, like, oh, this is gonna be a rough night's sleep, and I was tossing and turning all night long. Because I watched it with AirPods in, so like everything that all the audio was going right into my brain and my subconscious. I might have been brainwashed by this movie last night. The subconscious is the perfect place for this movie to go.

SPEAKER_05 17:54

I don't know, I don't want that shit in my subconscious. That's just me.

SPEAKER_06 17:57

Yeah, I'd rather sleep.

SPEAKER_05 17:59

In terms of all those feelings, I think you obviously there's a lot to sort out. One thing that I for sure felt was pure surprise by Nicolas Cage for the first hour of the movie. Up until that first hour, I remember even like I think I was chatting with Ryan about this on the separately. This feels like a different Nicolas Cage. It really takes a hard turn about the hour mark in where you start getting all the Nicolas Cage you missed out on doubled down on. So it's a little bit of a disappointment. I can't say that I'm too disappointed because you would expect it to come, but the first hour was such a pleasant surprise that it really kind of threw off everything I was feeling.

SPEAKER_08 18:42

Yeah, it really, really makes it worse when you like Nicolas Cage to start with, and then it makes that hard left. You're like, Man, I I I thought I thought we were gonna do something different. It really hits a different way when he comes around to his normal self again.

SPEAKER_05 18:56

Yeah. He never reaches Wickerman Nicolas Cage, but it's definitely extreme Nicolas Cage in a different way. Because Wickerman Nicolas Cage is him being cage rage but terrible. And this is if you like cage rage, we got something for you. This is it times a thousand, and it's like a different branch. I think it's different but just as bad.

SPEAKER_06 19:22

I feel the same. It felt like they thought, we know what Nicolas Cage is good at, let's give him a context to do that thing he does. But for me, I still just kept thinking Wickerman energy, because it's the same thing, but maybe it makes more sense in this movie.

SPEAKER_01 19:36

You know, I haven't heard good things about his direct to Redbox movies that he's been putting out for the last like 20 years, but I was surprisingly okay with his performance from start to end in this film. And I feel like the point where he snaps made sense to me that he snaps, and he had some lines and some facial expressions that really worked. I mean, we all know the crazy eyes that he does and the smile that he does when he's trying to be like, I'm crazy, look at me being crazy. I don't even feel we got that in this film. I feel like it was still tamed, it was still put in the right place. Is it bad shit? Of course it is, but I feel like you knew going into this, you were gonna watch a movie where Nicolas Cage loses his mind because just look at any of the artwork at the covers, you know that's gonna happen. And I think part of it was a bit subdued, and I was okay with it. I I think it really worked for the actor that he is.

SPEAKER_05 20:25

Let the record show that I think he looks way better with the beard.

SPEAKER_01 20:28

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 20:29

Surprisingly, um, he had no effect on me in this movie. What surprised me, but was also a disappointment, was the gore. So I was surprised at how much there was, and I was surprised that it was all concentrated towards the end. And the amount surprised me, but I think because I had this certain context of how much there might be, I had more of an expectation. And I think just because it's thrown at the end, and to me, there's not really enough character development for me to believe that Nicolas Cage would be doing all this stuff um in vengeance, it just wasn't believable. So I think there should have been more, to be honest. If if he was in character and had felt the way I thought he should have felt, had he gone through this arc and this journey beforehand in this two-hour movie, I thought I'd be getting way more gore for someone who loves someone as much as he did.

SPEAKER_06 21:26

I am very surprised, Alexis, that you're disappointed by the gore, but it makes sense when you explain like you had a really high bar. Um that's totally fair. Uh the thing that surprised me, I think, the most about this movie was how beautiful it was. It was like candy for my little eyeballs. Like so many of these things I would love freeze-framed and just put, I don't know, as like an entire wallpaper in a room in my house. One huge disappointment though, the movie's called Mandy, and I'm very disappointed with Mandy's overall story arc.

SPEAKER_08 21:53

I totally agree, Paris. I was watching this, and what happens and goes on in Mandy's role here. In this movie was so not enough for her to have the movie named after her. And I understand Nicolas Cage has a strong connection, but Mandy, I needed more Mandy here. Like, give me something.

SPEAKER_06 22:10

Needed more Mandy.

SPEAKER_08 22:11

And let me tell you the other disappointment. And now this is kind of a rogue one, so bear with me. When I searched on Shudder for Mandy, I accidentally started watching the deleted scenes before I watched the movie.

SPEAKER_07 22:23

No.

SPEAKER_08 22:24

And they're set up really funnily enough, like similar to this movie. It's like a title that goes on the screen and a little clip. And honestly, the beginning of the deleted scenes, I was like, wow, this is going to be an interesting movie I'm in. But I will say, after having watched the movie, those deleted scenes were so appropriately deleted, they could not possibly fit into this movie any less. And I can't even figure out why they were shot.

SPEAKER_06 22:49

Damn, now I want to watch them.

SPEAKER_08 22:51

I know. I was so surprised the whole time I'm like waiting for this moment. There's basically this moment that some guy comes up and talks trash to Nicolas Cage and says, I can't believe you're dating Mandy. What's she gonna do with all the sucking she used to do? And it just fits nowhere. It just could not fit in this movie any less at all. You should all watch it. It's great. There's actually a few, it's only like eight minutes on Shutter, and it's it's interesting.

SPEAKER_06 23:15

Bismirching Mandy's name in her own film.

SPEAKER_08 23:18

I know. And then Nicolas Cage just says this weird thing though and just starts laughing. So you know.

SPEAKER_01 23:24

The thing I was not surprised by though, it's not scary. It is fantastical and it is gruesome and a bit grotesque, but I did not find this frightening more than just intriguing. I think it is deeply weird, but not scary.

SPEAKER_05 23:38

I beg to differ. I think it's frightening, nay, horrifying what people will just fucking put in their mouth. Here's a jar of gray shit and just gonna openly taste that? That's disgusting.

SPEAKER_08 23:51

After choking on someone's blood. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 23:54

Okay. I don't actually think this movie is scary by any stretch of the imagination, but it is disgusting. And that is terrifying.

SPEAKER_08 24:00

So I kind of disagree. I was quite freaked out, but it was not at all by the parts that they wanted me to be afraid of. It was mostly by all the parts where Mandy stared into the camera with her odd light eyebrows and large forehead. She and dark, like no, no iris, just all dark pupil. She gave me the creepiest vibes. I was sitting in my house by myself, not ready, like not okay. I was, I would I needed a person with me. Unfortunately, I was just me.

SPEAKER_02 24:30

Yeah, I wouldn't say this is the scariest thing I've ever watched, but it was definitely a little bit unsettling after watching it. Perfect word to use. Yeah, especially the demons. Like trying to figure out what they were in this movie and what sort of like role they played was kind of confusing, but also very intriguing, but also terrifying to me all at the same time. And also didn't make sense at the same time, yeah. It all doesn't, but we'll get there.

SPEAKER_06 24:54

I totally agree, Alexis. The demons were definitely a source of questions and I don't know, like stress or anxiety or something for me. Like like Mac was saying, like the movie sticks with you in a weird way where it's like you feel like you have to rinse it off. You need to like burn some sage and like get the energetic contamination off of you. Uh so I wouldn't say that it was scary, because it's not a scary movie, but it's it's a creepy, unsettling movie that lingers in a weird way that doesn't feel good. In a fun way. Like a bad feeling, but fun. Because it's like, oh, a movie made me feel bad.

SPEAKER_05 25:28

Yeah, sure. For as unique as that feeling is, it's so good at making you feel bad in a weird way. There is certainly nothing I've ever seen like this. I mean, sure, we have the richness and the vibrance of not only like Susperia that we've seen on this show, but there are a ton of other movies. I believe Nicolas Cage also did a movie that was similar in terms of like its saturation and his richness of its like neon colors. There's that element. There is the cult element, which you would expect we've seen a lot of, but this still feels different. Like a pact with demon bikers feels different. The psychedelic hallucinogens feel different, even though we've seen gotten some of that energy in Midsommar. This movie is such an interesting blend of so many other factors that it has given me an experience that hasn't been replicated in any other movie.

SPEAKER_08 26:19

I know where you're coming from, and I think factually you're right. But the feeling in my heart says this movie is not original, aside from the visuals. And I know that I haven't seen anything exactly like this, and I understand that's the whole point of originality, but it's just something about this movie just feels like stuff I've seen before.

SPEAKER_02 26:41

Yeah, it's like um I'm probably gonna make a stupid analogy. Um, no offense, Mac, very similar to some of yours, but it's like when you put pepper, salt, and garlic powder together, but somehow like McCormick or whatever the seasoning may be, they brand it a certain way to make it seem original, but it essentially is the same thing as all three ingredients that you currently still have in your cupboard right now.

SPEAKER_08 27:07

I think that's a great way to say it.

SPEAKER_02 27:09

Yes, that's how I feel.

SPEAKER_08 27:10

Great analogy.

SPEAKER_01 27:11

For me, it Paris comes back to you what you said. It comes down to being a modern usage of the hero's journey. It feels like it could be set in medieval times in 1890 or in 2021. It would like all still work. It is like a classical fantasy story slash revenge flick, and it doesn't, it's it's not original in the story's composition, but it definitely feels unique to me. It definitely gives off a certain vibe. And it's like some of those really dark movies that we used to watch in the 80s, and a lot of those had that same feeling of a main character trying to get revenge or a crazy world that they're living in, and things are just unjust, or whatever that vibe was, there's there's one I'm thinking, and it was oddly like a weird sci-fi kind of thing, but this guy looks like a disgusting Power Ranger somehow. I don't even remember the name of it. But this one has its has its own feeling that it's giving out where it combines all those those nightmarish kind of things from the from those dark 80s movies with this classical fantasy journey that characters go on with the crazy and psychedelic. It's just wild, and I don't think I've had a movie like sit in my brain like this for two or three days recently.

SPEAKER_06 28:24

Yeah, I'm super surprised that Ryan and Alexis aren't getting the most originality from this because I thought this movie was highly original. I thought, like, at the end of the day, if this movie did anything, it was originality points. Now, it did remind me of three movies that I love, which are Neon Demon, It Follows, and The Witch. And these are all just like, let's make a spooky arthouse horror movie with an 80s synth soundtrack.

SPEAKER_08 28:47

This one just had rock and roll. Same to same business.

SPEAKER_06 28:50

But it did it so differently that I I think it just has so many original qualities. There's a dozen things that I've seen in this movie that I've never seen before. It almost felt at some points like they were doing things specifically because they hadn't seen them done before. Like you get a combination of two types of classic kills, but I've never seen them combined like this. And I was like, oh, you got me there.

SPEAKER_08 29:11

I so agree that there are moments where it felt like, oh my gosh, we're gonna do this thing that no one's done. Let's let's make sure it just happens here for some reason.

SPEAKER_05 29:19

Or you know that thing that we saw, the chainsaw fight? Let's just do that again. But this time, let's make someone have a much bigger chainsaw.

SPEAKER_01 29:26

This time with more chainsaw. I think the biggest thing for me that makes it feel its own film is the end. Because the end for me was the juiciest part of the film. I think it was honestly the the the last third of it was the best part of the film to me. And I enjoyed it. Maybe I just like revenge flicks too much because I'm a guy, but it there was a lot contained within there that definitely seemed satisfying.

SPEAKER_02 29:50

To me, the ending of this movie is a little soft. And I say it because I just think we all know how revenge movies go. We knew the ending of this, and I still think this ties back to I don't think there was enough information, or I was given enough feeling to feel for him for it to actually be meaningful to me. So to me, it's just very soft. I agree, and that's what she said.

SPEAKER_08 30:18

I just think that there's nothing there that I cared about. So when we got to the end, I was completely tapped out, completely lost in maybe details that they didn't want me to be lost in, but the ending really didn't hit for me. And I can't believe that Max said that was the best part of the movie.

SPEAKER_05 30:35

So I don't have a lot of feelings about the endings. I think there's a moment right before you get to the final confrontation of things where I think it's hilarious and also great. The ending is it's fine, it's okay. I don't I don't dislike it in theory. I like a little bit of the backstory, you know, looking back on like the relationships with Mandy, looking at how he's kind of like looking at how he's basking in this feeling now, but it I think what it left me with was this sensation of now what? I think that's the whole point of a lot of revenge films, right? It's is having it all as good as getting it all. And it leaves some really weird lingering feelings. I would agree that it's it's one of the better parts of the movie, but I wouldn't say it's the best part of the movie.

SPEAKER_06 31:28

Yeah, I feel like Mac, correct me if I'm wrong, but I feel like you're saying the third act is the best part of the movie and not necessarily the ending. Because for me, the ending was very underwhelming, specifically because of the Mandy of it all. There's kind of this, you know, tease that you're gonna get more, and then you don't get it at all. And I was like, really? What the fuck? And I was very actually upset by that.

SPEAKER_01 31:52

Yeah, I mean, the whole that whole last third of it, I think, was the best part. The ending, though, I was I was also very satisfied with the ending because that because it I think it's it met my expectations. See, I don't know how you couldn't have expected more from the Mandy storyline. Well, you know, you don't go into John Wick expecting to see the puppy for very long. Just saying. No, but I expect to see John Wick for very long. Yeah, the movie is a home. I know.

SPEAKER_06 32:18

They really should have renamed this movie to something else.

SPEAKER_08 32:20

They really should have.

SPEAKER_06 32:21

Nicolas Cage, Dante's Inferno.

SPEAKER_05 32:24

Cage! Cage! That's it.

SPEAKER_06 32:26

Cage Rage, done.

SPEAKER_05 32:27

It's interesting to look at it from that perspective. I think the way I received it felt very much like, you know, this fascination that we have with serial killers or cults in general, where we know so much more about the person who killed them than we do about the victim themselves. Yeah, sure, you could probably name Bundy's victims, but you for sure can't tell me every detail about their life, right? And I feel like that's what we have in this movie. We have the idea of someone, we have a surface level view without diving into the sordid past or the imperfections of, and I feel like it tracks with kind of the chaos that was going on in the early 80s, late 70s in the country, right? You have this rise of violence, and it it didn't bother me. It didn't bother me, but it sounds like there are certainly some feelings here that need to be sorted out. So let's go ahead and start making our way to our ratings now. Before we actually score this movie, Alexis, how many people died?

SPEAKER_02 33:33

Very happy that we have a higher body count than we have in the previous weeks, and we have 13.

SPEAKER_06 33:39

Love that number.

SPEAKER_08 33:41

And what about the animal report? Yeah, we don't get anything crazy on screen, but the animal report is not not clean for this week.

SPEAKER_05 33:49

Well, let's go ahead and get into the ratings then. Mandy from 2019, recommended to us and voted on by our patrons. Was it a hackerslash?

SPEAKER_02 33:57

First of all, I apologize because I'm sure this movie is near and dear to a lot of people, and I'm sure that this is a place in horror that some people find enjoyable, which is why horror is for everyone. But it's not for me. I felt like these colors were a little too much. I felt it just was too like I I don't know. It was just like too much, like it just gave me too much, and now I understand why I turned it off after eight minutes. I was just confused on what movie I was watching and the dialogue that was going on, and it just I guess maybe I was just put in the middle of a scene that I wasn't necessarily comfortable with and was confused about. The whole movie is confusing. I'm not sure the intentions of this entire movie or why things go the way they're supposed to. And maybe that's because I wasn't invested from the beginning, but you know, I do appreciate some of the acting. I do appreciate where this movie was going. It just wasn't a movie that I enjoyed. And there is a lot more to unpack in the second half, but definitely giving this a hack, unfortunately. I appreciate all the people who would give this a slash. I see where they're coming from, just not for me.

SPEAKER_08 35:11

You know, I would like to note it's not super common that Alexis is like a I could see why someone else would like this, but I just can't get down kind of kind of thing. That's not usually where you're at. This movie is a lot to take in, and you're not wrong about a lot of things. I think the basics of the storyline, it's a revenge plot, right? That's really simple. But as the cake adds more and more layers, things start to wobble and it gets a little questionable and and it gets confusing. And it's like, I think it gets confusing in ways that we they don't actually even matter. So at the end of this movie, I found myself with a lot of questions that I know don't matter, but I still can't get past the fact that none of my questions were answered at all. I think what happens in this movie is based on like really real feelings, and it's a reaction that could be very realistic. It's you know, kind of a different perspective from what we often see in movies. And then it does it does a lot of things. This to me feels like a movie that was like released for Netflix, and it's odd to me that it's only from 2018, it feels a bit older. But watching it is beautiful and it's intense. Like the beginning of this movie is overwhelming, almost to the point where I was like, my eyes kind of hurt a bit from watching this, but in a good way, if that could ever be a thing. I don't know. This movie is like a bad trip for me. It's a hack. The beginning is really different from the rest of it, and I just couldn't get on board.

SPEAKER_06 36:46

Ryan, I totally get what you're saying, where this movie feels like a bad trip. Like I was saying before, like I dreamt about this movie and I was tossing and turning all night. And at one point my boyfriend was like, Babe, are you okay? And I remember like half asleep, half awake saying, I'm okay, I'm just bugging. Because that's the the vibe this movie left me with. I was bugging. Ultimately, it feels like a fever dream. It has super slow pacing that's almost painful at times. Like there were parts where I was dozing off while a cult leader was whispering things into my ear, so that probably didn't help me. But it was setting like really compelling ambiance. Like the things I like about this movie, I like so much. There's so much to look at visually, and I think technically, this movie is done extremely well. So many shots are like deeply underexposed, but then kind of kept that way and then color graded so that it works in a way that I've honestly can't think of anything that compares to it. And as I finish the movie, and even right now I'm still kind of torn about how I feel about it, it's like an art house action revenge horror movie, and it's very action movie in that you get like straight white guy doing straight white guy kills and then like smokes a cigarette or like says like a cheesy line after a kill. And I was like, no, don't do that because this movie, this movie can be fantastic. Also, I'm about to make the most heterosexual reference I've ever made, and it's that this movie feels like the meatloaf album cover to Bat Out of Hell come to life in a movie. If you Google it, you'll be like, oh yeah, that's literally this movie. And also, there's parts where it kind of gets like campy at times, but I feel like if you're somebody that loves like an 80s metal aesthetic as an overall vibe, watch this movie. You're gonna absolutely love it. For me though, the thing that was the deciding factor in if this is a hacker or a slash is how this movie handled the female characters. There's only three of them. Each one has a really unique opportunity to be like a bad bitch, like every other character in the movie. And each opportunity is completely squandered. The women in this movie are totally useless. We'll talk more about it in the character section, but there was so much potential with the Mandy character to do so much more and make this a total slash for me, but they completely avoided it so that Nicolas Cage could just like get his rocks off. And for that, this movie is a hack. Now I'm very happy that I saw this movie because I feel like it's gonna be like a stylistic reference point for decades to come, but ultimately they could have done a lot better to appeal to me specifically. So if you like any of the things we've talked about, totally watch this. It is worth watching. But for me, it's a hack.

SPEAKER_01 39:12

You know, Paris, it's interesting when you and I share a lot of thoughts. And in this case, we we do. This is a movie that for days I had to think about how I felt about it. And it was really hard to come to a decision about how I was going to rate it because I could go either way depending on what aspects of the film I was thinking about. Um, but there's a few things that I think really helped me decide. This movie is filled with deliberately weird glimpses of space art, animated interludes, and incredibly slow-moving shots of people for seemingly no reason, other than to possibly try to squeeze out more emotion. There's epilepsy-inducing flashing and strobing, obtuse uses of colors and lighting, and painful scenes of people just laying around and dialoguing. The story, the acting, and the bloody payoff at the end, which are all great, are simply held back by the actual execution. Although this movie excessively explores the theme of an overactive male ego through its antagonist, it too suffers from that same pitfall. Just like you thought, Paris, this movie is painfully masculine to a fault, and the women are relegated to being mere set pieces, including the titular character herself, Mandy. It's a hack. Not obtuse.

SPEAKER_08 40:22

And titular in the same sentence.

SPEAKER_01 40:23

That's right. No, I I I think it is a lot to look at. And for me, I the visuals are beautiful, but I think they took away from the film experience. Really? I feel like it was the film experience.

SPEAKER_02 40:34

Yeah, I know I agree with you. It was a little too much. It took away from what I wanted to take away from this film.

SPEAKER_01 40:39

Yeah, and I don't I didn't find it confusing. I think a lot of the answers you're searching for within the film itself, whether that's dialogue from other characters or simply by inferring things by watching interactions between people. But I just feel like the experience for me was was reduced. It was kind of lessened by having to go through some of the crazy mind-shifting visuals we get with faces on top of faces and you know, a lack of lighting in certain situations. And I know it was on purpose, and I know it was all very deliberate and very artsy, but I'm not usually the biggest fan of going that hardcore, that avant-garde.

SPEAKER_06 41:14

We should honestly do a QA in the spoiler section because when Chris was reading like the description of this movie, I was like, oh, so I did understand what was going on because there's so many questions.

SPEAKER_05 41:25

Indeed. And here's the funny thing, I don't disagree with any of that, Mac. I think, you know, hearing you your thoughts and particularly Paris's with what the women in this movie are relegated to. Imagine imagine one of your last monologues being what one of these women had at the as her last words living on this earth. It's just a little absurd.

SPEAKER_07 41:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 41:45

This movie was such a weird experience. It's it was so good for the first hour, and then it just took a real sharp turn and went into a direction. It's kind of like Padme talking to Anakin, and you know, she's on Mustafar with him, and she's like, You're going down a path I cannot follow, and her heart is breaking, and it's like, ah, look what you're doing, all this potential you had. And there's a lot in this movie that gives me a lot of conflict. There's a lot in this movie that is very, very positive, which I think brings me back to what kind of how I felt about Spiral. It's very much a 49.9% movie for me. And when I look at the end of uh the end result of all of it, I think I leaned favorably to Spiral because it was different from what I expected like a Saw movie to be. And with this, it it's a tougher pill to swallow. There are some things that I'm not a fan of generally, like psychedelics and hallucinogens in film. I'm not a drug user myself, and I'm not knocking you if you are, but it I think it's something that I cannot relate to. So it ends up being more of a turnoff for me in movies more often than not. It just kind of drags things out in a way that I don't quite understand. But then there was this really careful curation of like the cult mentality. Jeremiah's character, although horrific and disgusting and not someone I care to see on screen, saw more of him than I ever needed to, to be fair. It reminded me so much of all these like cult figures that I was fascinated learning about you know many years ago. And this movie at the end of the day leaves an impression. It leaves an impression, not quite in the way that Boys Don't Cry left an impression on me where I was just haunted for a really long time. But it leaves this impact of at the end of the day, am I glad that I saw it? And I am. And this is a 49.9% for me, but it's a 50.1% soft slash.

SPEAKER_06 43:50

I love that. I don't think this movie is deserving of a universal hack. So thank you, Chris, for keeping us grounded.

SPEAKER_05 43:56

Let me tell you what that point one percent was, and it was the reference from Man.

SPEAKER_06 44:02

There were a lot of real cute references in this.

SPEAKER_05 44:04

Absolutely. Thank you for being being the balance. Trying. Trying to bring balance to the force out here. Even if I have to take all the Jedi down with me. But with that being said, Mandy from 2018 didn't fare as well as some of our other patron picks have. It has earned four hacks and one slash. You can find this movie streaming exclusively on Shudder. Check it out if you dare. Then join us in the second half so we can unpack the cage rage together. We'll see you in a bit.

SPEAKER_06 44:48

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SPEAKER_02 45:56

Oh, do we have some to attend to? Before the spoiler break, I definitely said I wish there was more gore. That doesn't mean that there is a lack of gore by any means in this movie. It's just fairly concentrated, like Kool-Aid can be. But yes, we have a high gore score this week, which I'm very happy about.

SPEAKER_06 46:15

Feels good.

SPEAKER_02 46:15

Feels good in a sense. Um, like I said, I wish there was more, and I just feel like it was all towards the end. And it wasn't dispersed in the beginning. You get that bug scene, which I don't know about y'all. Biggest bug I've ever seen.

SPEAKER_07 46:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 46:27

Like I didn't know if it was just me watching this movie, but that mosquito or whatever the hell they injected her with looked about the size of my hand.

SPEAKER_01 46:35

Looked like a tarantula hawk, to be honest.

SPEAKER_02 46:37

I its stinger was like a needle.

SPEAKER_01 46:40

That was a wasp. Uh tarantula hawk is a wasp. Oh, okay. Let me look that up.

SPEAKER_02 46:44

That's a real thing?

SPEAKER_01 46:45

Yeah, it's a massive wasp, like gigantic. I mean, it fights and kills and eats tarantulas, so.

SPEAKER_02 46:51

Yeah, because at this point, that's when I was like, what reality am I in? That they are just stabbing this chick in the neck with this huge bug.

SPEAKER_05 47:00

Oh, there's shit like that in Australia.

SPEAKER_01 47:02

That's huge. But it was thicker than that. Was it soaking in a vat of acid as well? Was that literally like an LSD jar that they had the hawk in?

SPEAKER_08 47:10

These are all questions that I think none of us have answers to. Just to be clear, this is the beginning of unanswered questions with Hackerslash.

SPEAKER_02 47:18

So obviously, this movie is very iconic for its bloody scenes, including the last scene, which I am a fan of when Nicolas Cage is in the car and he's completely covered in blood. Um, comes from one of my favorite deaths. Well, I guess it's a multitude of deaths at this point from the blood, but Scratch is probably my favorite death in this movie. It's really cool. You know, he's caught on fire, and then, you know, decapitated, and then I just think it's cool that his head is rolling, and then very Nicolas Cage-esque is doing something funny, but you're not sure if it should be funny. It's just awkward. And, you know, he lights a cigarette with the guy's head.

SPEAKER_01 47:59

Can I say that I honestly, like when I saw this going down and I saw him eyeballing the cigarette, I was like, oh, he should totally light that on the flaming body of this guy. And then when he did it, I was like, no way. This were you like badass, or were you like, of course, like hilarious, like spendables level ridiculousness?

SPEAKER_02 48:17

Also a macho man movie I've never seen before.

SPEAKER_01 48:20

Indeed. There's three of them.

SPEAKER_02 48:21

So Sylvester Stallone?

SPEAKER_01 48:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 48:24

Yeah. But what was y'all's favorite death out of the 13 that we have?

SPEAKER_06 48:28

Honestly, there's definitely something memorable about the combination of a decapitation while being on fire. That was one of the original things that I was like, I've never seen that before, that specific combination of things. But I think my favorite death has to be Brother Swan, who, like, first of all, Nicolas Cage like fully like blacksmithed this weapon together in the in with the intent of doing all this shit.

SPEAKER_08 48:51

I need to say something about the weapon. There is a lot of work that goes into making metal hard and strong. And he didn't do enough of it, okay? He just wal woke up, decided he was gonna make a freaking custom axe, and now all of a sudden it's just like his weapon. I don't like it, okay? I'm calling BS Nicholas.

SPEAKER_06 49:11

I appreciate that, Ryan. I trust you on this, if no one else, but it was still very satisfying to watch because he was kind of like stabbed in the throat, but like all the way. Like just when I was like, oh, he's dead, he pushed it deeper, and it wasn't down the throat, it was like to the back of the head. And I was like, Well, this is very fun to watch.

SPEAKER_05 49:31

Genuinely in my notes, I have written down Brother Swan's death, real intense, gagging on a metal rod, similar to how he was practically gagging on Jeremiah's dick earlier in the movie.

SPEAKER_01 49:42

I have a feeling that it was more than practically. I think he probably was because that's the kind of cult leader that Jeremiah is.

SPEAKER_05 49:48

Okay, that's a whole thing. Well, I'm sure we'll get there with the characters. I've never been able to understand that about these master manipulator cultists who just like can get everyone to bang them. Well, one, it's the LSD.

SPEAKER_06 50:01

It's also like the mentally vulnerable.

SPEAKER_08 50:03

That's sad. Like our friend Mother Marlene, which is obviously my favorite kill.

SPEAKER_06 50:10

Really?

SPEAKER_08 50:11

Specifically because of the ridiculous monologue she goes on just before death. Ridiculous?

SPEAKER_02 50:19

Uh it was disturbing to me. It's it's certainly ridiculous. It was sad.

SPEAKER_06 50:26

Did you not think they were fucking?

SPEAKER_02 50:27

I mean, I did. I think it was sad. She was very manipulated in this movie by Jeremiah. Well, here's the thing.

SPEAKER_08 50:37

She was clearly manipulated by this person. That's sad. Sure. At this point, I didn't have any sad feelings about this at all. One, she was she was actively proud of what she was saying. She was just so proud that he said that she's one of the best lovers because of her sensitivity and empathy. Yep.

SPEAKER_06 50:59

So unhinged.

SPEAKER_08 51:00

Let me just say things that make you a good lover, these are like two of the most random words to use, okay? These are not normal adjectives to use about being a good lover.

SPEAKER_04 51:11

And then your head gets chopped off. She can predict her lover's every move. Brace yourself.

SPEAKER_08 51:17

She said, I meet you like a soft wave. I know, I predict what you want and meet you. What does that mean? Anyway, she said all that proud, proud moment, thought she was going to do her thing, and then got her head cut off and rolled into the other room.

SPEAKER_01 51:34

Can I say how worried I was though? Because when they like cut to black afterwards, I was like, No, you didn't red. You didn't stick it in there. And then, like, you know, the head shows up.

SPEAKER_08 51:42

I think, I think he probably still did.

SPEAKER_01 51:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 51:46

We can't say that he didn't for sure.

SPEAKER_05 51:48

That's what I'm saying. That was gross. But that was the moment where in the third act, in that ending, it was hilarious, but also perfect. So I was laughing out loud uncontrollably, but it wasn't because I thought it was bad. It was just, how perfect is it? That those are your last words on this earth. Ah, congratulations, you played yourself. I think my favorite death among those, because those were stellar options, is gonna be Brother Klopek, who is getting into the chainsaw fight. And guys, really, this is the second time this year we have a chainsaw fight. I didn't see that coming. I'm gonna be real. To have been thwarted, to been disarmed, then to use a chain to wrap it around someone's neck and pull them onto a chainsaw that is still reving, then get disemboweled. Top-notch stuff. 10 out of 10 strategy.

SPEAKER_06 52:41

It definitely gave me go-go from Kill Bill vibes, and I appreciated that.

SPEAKER_08 52:45

I just want to do an honorable mention for what felt like a very practical effects death of Jeremiah getting his skull crushed. That was a good one. I really enjoyed seeing that.

SPEAKER_01 52:56

That death is so crazy. And the fire afterwards is, I think, bothersome to me because it seems like they're highly flammable. And I don't know if he like poured something onto them to make them that flammable, but with a flick of his lighter, those bodies are instantly ablaze. And it seems a bit fast. It seems like maybe it should take a little bit longer for their hair to light on fire than for them to fully light on fire. Maybe it was just sped up. Maybe that's what we're seeing.

SPEAKER_08 53:20

But sorry, was it all the realism leading up to that part of the movie that led you to think that part should be realistic? Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 53:28

Or unrealistic expectations on my part. Yes. Um, but but as he's dying and his head's exploding, it's just kind of ridiculous that he seems to be having an orgasm at the same moment.

SPEAKER_08 53:38

Yes, Nicolas Cage does appear to have an orgasm as the head explodes, and it is miserable to experience as a viewer.

SPEAKER_06 53:46

It's nutty.

SPEAKER_05 53:47

Let me tell you, I never wanted or needed to know what Nicolas Cage orgasming was like. Never. So horrible.

SPEAKER_01 53:56

I did not consent to that. Well, speaking of head, my favorite kill was an axe to the head of Brother Hanker. And it's a simple one, but when you make a really cool huge metal axe and you get like one kill with it, maybe I'm waiting for that thing to get thrown into somebody and for it to go just across the screen, right to left, right into his head was so satisfying. That was a really clean shot.

SPEAKER_02 54:18

Yes, the weapon that did not take very long, as we previously have described. But to me, the most unrealistic thing is how fast he goes through these kills. Like, and that's why I said I wish I I wish there was more gore. I don't think I needed more kills per se, but maybe a little bit more attention to these, like, and maybe a little bit more of a battle. Like those chain that chainsaw battle to me was weak. Was so weak. I need a little bit more, and like that's why he wasn't believable as someone who was hurting. He's like, Oh, cool, we're gonna kill you. Oh, cool, you're done. Like it was it was very simplistic, like it was very easy for him to get past all these demons. Maybe the cult people might have been easier, but the demons I thought were a little bit would be a little bit more tough.

SPEAKER_05 55:02

I mean, one of them had been watching porn mid-erection, and they're all on drugs, so I don't think they're of sound mind.

SPEAKER_06 55:10

The biggest pile of cocaine I've ever seen.

SPEAKER_02 55:13

Uh with his face in it. Do they run any of Lord of the Rings, those dudes from the Lord of the Rings?

SPEAKER_08 55:18

Yeah. I specifically noted, I was like, man, five minutes ago, Nicolas Cage was a normal person, and now he just did all the coke he's ever known to exist in the world, and he's totally fine.

SPEAKER_06 55:30

Like, and whatever that gray goop was.

SPEAKER_08 55:33

But yes, Alexis, I agree with you. It feels like we are in Nicolas Cage's fantasy version of what would happen if someone came to kill his girlfriend. Like the way he's so successful throughout the ending of killing everybody, it's like he wrote this story.

SPEAKER_02 55:46

Yeah, it's like a video game.

SPEAKER_08 55:48

Yeah. Like, oh, I'm just I gotta get this one, I get this one, I get this one.

SPEAKER_05 55:51

I just want to point out I don't know if anyone looked this closely, how disturbing it was when he approached when we see Mandy's body on fire in that bag. And at one point you can see her teeth. Like you can start to see the skull, and that was just a lovely detail that I did not think that they would uh they go to the lengths to to show.

SPEAKER_02 56:15

I did not see that, but I might have to go back to see that, to be honest, because I just remember seeing I was like, that was really fast for her to burn and be on the ground like that.

SPEAKER_08 56:23

Just toasting. I really thought she was gonna come back to life so many times. I just really could not believe that Mandy was done in this movie called Mandy. Yes. When she was in there, I was like, that's not her in the bag. I was in disbelief the entire time.

SPEAKER_06 56:37

Let's dive deep into that, into the character section, Ryan.

SPEAKER_02 56:40

Yeah, so those demons um were I we talked about it before the spoiler break, were super like creepy to me and very frightening. I wish you saw more of them. Like I I just got these like crazy shadows, and that just didn't really grab my attention too much. But I know the visual element that everyone appreciated were all of these colors, and like I said, it definitely took away from the movie for me. But if I had to pick a favorite, it would have to be with the light, which is when the clan, I couldn't even tell if it was the clan or the demons, were on top of the mountain going down to get Mandy in Red, and you can just see their backlit from that. So I appreciate those kind of effects, but when you're just like throwing colors at me, it's a little much.

SPEAKER_05 57:25

So that was actually one of my favorite shots from the movie. Only because when it lights up behind them and you see their silhouette, it reminded me for some reason of West Side's story, and I was like, oh, the sharks and the jets are gonna get it. I don't know why that specifically jumped into my mind, but it felt similar to how Paris was talking about in the rear window episode about watching a stage play. That light being used in that way felt very theatric to me.

SPEAKER_08 57:52

They also did this really insane thing, and again, you know, I don't wear my glasses when I watch movies most times, so I spent a lot of this movie wondering, am I just not seeing well tonight? Or is this movie like hard to see? And in that scene, it took a couple of like refocuses to see all the people. Like you knew what he was looking at, you knew they were gonna be there, but you notice like one character and then another character in between another tree, and then another character in between, and you're like, Oh my gosh, it just keeps growing and growing, and it builds this fear in you. Oh, so good.

SPEAKER_05 58:28

There's another moment within that where you have brother Lewis, who is, I guess, affectionately referred to as the porker. One of the biker demons just like grabs his head and he pulls him away from the glass with all the smoke billowing in front of him, it just pulled back into the abyss. So fucking beautiful. And I think not only considering the lighting and the color and like the richness and the vibrancy there, but the lens selection in this movie is top-notch. Even when you get to this, there's a point where Nicolas Cage, armed to the teeth with his like battle axe and his Reaper crossbow, he's driving down this wooded road, and there's a wide-angle lens that's showing you what the front of his car looks like from within the car, and you just see like the warping, the subtle warping of the curvature of like the tree line wrapped around and it's just red on the road. It's so beautiful.

SPEAKER_08 59:24

Yeah, the use of like colors going through the woods in several different scenes was so cool. I have a couple of things for visual elements. Uh, I have uh one giant one, which is the whole entire first bit before Nicolas Cage goes, I guess technically before Mandy gets killed, but there's some good stuff there. But the whole like romantic, um attractive, enticing part of the beginning was really, really interesting to look at. And I both like physically didn't like looking at it, but also loved how it made me feel. It made me really stressed out for what was coming next. My one specific really favorite visual element is this bedroom situation that they had where their bed was like jutting out of their house with glass all around it on this beautiful piece of land. Oh my gosh, down by the lake. So freaking cool. And it gave us the opportunity to have those really cool shots, like when they pull away the porker, all of that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_06 1:00:28

That's an expensive Airbnb.

SPEAKER_08 1:00:29

Yes. And I I do have to say there are two things that I really, really, really did not like visually about this movie, and it is one, the amount of time we spend just like staring into Mandy's eyes on screen. Honestly, lots of people's eyes just getting stared at on screen, very close shots, made me really uncomfortable. Some of them had a purpose. There was one with Jeremiah that I really liked, but generally speaking, the amount of like just a person's face on screen looking at me doing nothing made me very uncomfortable. The second thing is I hated the illustrations. I couldn't see I forgot about those for a second. Yeah, because they served no purpose. They kind of uh they kind of go hand in hand with like the title marker things that happened as well. Both of those elements were just things we didn't need. It had no impact on the story. We could have lived without that. I didn't like that at all.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:25

Okay, yeah, the animations were actually one of my worst parts of the movie. Not that the animation itself was done poorly, because I think it was good looking, and I think a lot of Mandy's artwork was really good looking too. Oh, sure. But it was stylistically all over the place, and a movie where it was already all over the place, you know what I mean? I feel like if I can describe a movie as saturated, rich, and also having some kind of like cosmic galaxy imagery, but also having wispy bits in the sky, but then also a fucking cartoon in the middle of it, it's too much. And and demons.

SPEAKER_06 1:02:09

Yeah, it definitely stuck out. Um speaking of demons, uh, Lexus, that was actually one of my favorite visuals in the movie. I feel like technically this movie did some really amazing things. My best guess in how it was achieved is like they used as little lighting as possible to get just enough detail and then underexpose the shit out of it and processed it so you can see just enough in the shadows, which left me with that same feeling you had, Ryan, where you're kind of like squinting at the screen, like, can I not see? But like you're trying to see more, which kind of like brings you more into the movie because they're giving you just enough detail to know that there's something there to see. And I feel like that translated really well throughout the whole movie. A couple shots that I really loved. One, the freeze frame on Mandy's face as this like the cult van drives by, and you're kind of like caught on her at the edge of the frame and her like spooky ass face with the one big eye. At first I was like, Oh, did the movie lag or something? And it lingers just long enough where you're like, Oh no, this is a choice. And then later you see like the cult leader Jeremiah is like so obsessed with her, and like you get it because he saw that. That was his perspective, and you're like, Who is she? And to me, she was so much more than the movie gave her credit for.

SPEAKER_08 1:03:16

That's what I hated.

SPEAKER_06 1:03:18

But also being able to see just enough detail in those like demon night riders made me love those characters the most. I felt like each of them was designed really well, the costuming was great. I feel like a if you have three friends, or if you have two friends and you want a really great Halloween costume idea, that's solid. It's a deep cut, but the costuming is great.

SPEAKER_08 1:03:37

Maybe maybe leave some of the details out. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:03:39

A couple details. The sword penis.

SPEAKER_08 1:03:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:03:42

But then, like finally, the most gratuitous shot I think of the entire movie, but also one of my favorites was just the tiger against like the wild night sky. I feel like that was every like 1980s thrift store t-shirt come to life, and I loved every minute of it.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:57

I was gonna say that reminded me of a very Walmart t-shirt.

SPEAKER_06 1:04:00

Yeah, just like a wolf t-shirt against a moon.

SPEAKER_08 1:04:03

Yes, and that is a hundred percent one of the moments in this movie that feels like, hey, man, we got this tiger. Wow, it would be so cool if we put him up against the sky, because like, what was the point?

SPEAKER_06 1:04:15

So unnecessary.

SPEAKER_08 1:04:16

Yes, doing things just to do it.

SPEAKER_06 1:04:19

And honestly, in regards to the super low exposure and the demon night riders, my favorite scene of this whole movie was when they first summon these demons, and then the demons immediately go and abduct our main characters in their home. Like the home invasion element by these specific demons, terrifying. The closest thing to being scared I was in this whole movie.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:38

Yeah, my notes said they blew the horn and waited, and a biker gang showed up. I mean, I love the aesthetic of it. The red hues, the lights in the smoke, but what the actual fuck? It felt very there's like a song called Leader of the Pack by the Shangri Laws, and I was hearing that song in that moment. This movie was meant to be a musical, but not with the music that was used in the movie.

SPEAKER_06 1:05:01

With the Meatloaf Bat Out of Hell album as the soundtrack.

SPEAKER_08 1:05:05

I felt like that that horn that they blew, that whistle that they blew, was really just it's so special.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:12

I love hearing it.

SPEAKER_06 1:05:13

That felt like a quest item.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:15

My favorite scene um involves Jeremiah, of course. When he's in the mirror, and you know, he's like, Tell me what to do, tell me what to do. And I was like, Okay, this movie could go one of two ways. Like, you know, they have him talking to himself, maybe someone appears in the mirror. There's a lot of things they could have gone with it. Instead, he's still talking to himself and says, Never doubt yourself. So I just saw this, like, you know, him go crazy and seeing that back and forth was really interesting. And then I also like how it tied in the end when you know he's essentially pleading for his life, this guy who's supposed to be crazy, um and the leader of this occult, but he's sitting there begging for uh you know, for hi his Life offering his mouth as a peace offering.

SPEAKER_08 1:06:04

Such a small bartering chip, like just he really had nothing to play with at that point. That was the last.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:10

I mean, yeah, he didn't have anything. Then you see him, and then he's like, Oh, I have to be, I have to be this like occult person again. It wasn't very convincing to me, but I do like the back and forth of it.

SPEAKER_08 1:06:21

So for me, my favorite scene is uh related to Jeremiah, and as much as it is one that made me very uncomfortable, it's one that really gave me the creepiest feelings in this movie, and it is where he's monologuing to Mandy, and he's right in the camera. I think before he shows his dick, before he disrobes himself. I can't believe we saw that, by the way. God, yeah. Regrets, very many regrets. So he's monologuing to Mandy, and they did this insane thing, or I don't know, it felt insane to me. I've never seen it done before, where as he's droning on, they stop showing his mouth moving. So there's like a, I think what I believe is a couple of layers of different shots going on at the same time. But it is so creepy the way he goes on, and you are like watching his mouth, and then he keeps talking and his mouth stops moving, and then his mouth movement comes back, and then you're like, wait a minute, did it stop moving, or was I imagining it that it stopped moving? And you keep it's that thing again where you can't tell if it's that you're not seeing something properly or if it's actually what's happening, and it just creeped me out so much. I this is the peak moment where I was like, I need another person here watching this with me. I love that scene for how much it made me feel horrible.

SPEAKER_06 1:07:44

Ryan, that truly made me feel like I was tripping balls the most. And Chris, correct me if I'm wrong, but I feel like they were splicing Mandy's face over Jeremiah's face, but blending it so well and so eerily that you're left kind of being like, what the fuck is happening? I'm being hypnotized.

SPEAKER_05 1:08:02

I'd be shocked if they didn't. I just thought they already looked too similar.

SPEAKER_08 1:08:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:08:07

I felt like they looked related. Yeah. But they also just both look bland.

SPEAKER_08 1:08:11

Paris, I had the same thought, and I was like staring at the screen. I'm like, what is this? Is it switching to her? Is it switching to him? But then I'm like, but his hair is still there. What am I looking at? So much time looking at it. Yeah. So insane. I don't even know what he said. He could have said anything during that monologue. I was not listening.

SPEAKER_06 1:08:26

Did you listen with AirPods?

SPEAKER_08 1:08:28

No, I was just looking so hard. Okay.

SPEAKER_06 1:08:29

I truly don't know what he said either, but my subconscious still knows what he said.

SPEAKER_05 1:08:33

Earlier today, I sent Paris a video of Willem Defoe. With his like his face was on Julia Roberts' body and pretty woman.

SPEAKER_06 1:08:44

You did. You did send me that today.

SPEAKER_05 1:08:46

And I feel like that's probably what they're doing there. It's like the deep fake shit, man.

SPEAKER_06 1:08:50

That's like stupid accurate.

SPEAKER_05 1:08:54

Exactly.

SPEAKER_06 1:08:54

Is that what made you send me that today?

SPEAKER_05 1:08:57

No, that's not. I just saw it and thought somebody else needs to suffer at this. I need to see this, please.

SPEAKER_06 1:09:03

We will link that in the show notes.

SPEAKER_05 1:09:06

But Ryan, that was actually one of my favorite scenes too. Also pre-dick reveal. But there's a moment where he asked if she likes the carpenters, and I'm like, oh, I fucking love the carpenters. And he's like, Yeah, they're sensational.

SPEAKER_06 1:09:21

Literally wrote that in my notes, Chris.

SPEAKER_05 1:09:23

But then he says, This is even better. And it's his own music. And it reminds me again so much of Charles Manson, and they really did such a good job of building up Jeremiah as like a plausible cult leader with inspiration from other cult leaders in the past. So that was that was a detail that I appreciated. I think aside from that, my other favorite scene would be when they go to see Red, Nicolas Cage, at the house, he's all tied up with barbed wire to his wrists, and he's gagged, and they kill Mandy in front of him. Not that I enjoy Mandy's death at all, but it was the chaos and the heartache of that scene, and Nicolas Cage reacting in his performance in that. And it was one of the points where he didn't look crazy. He looked like a man genuinely broken and devastated and horrified by what was happening in front of him. And he looked really defeated and dejected. Ends up passing out. But all the way up through that, he's a normal person reacting very reasonably to this horrific thing that he's seen. Bonus points to the cheddar goblin ad, because that's funny as fuck. But I also don't understand why he stopped and watched it. Yeah. I guess it's just shock. But after that, he goes he goes full cage real fast.

SPEAKER_08 1:10:59

We all gotta love that bottle of vodka we keep under the bathroom sink.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:04

Just in case. Um, I will take the vodka um because the worst part for me was seeing him in tidy whiteies.

SPEAKER_06 1:11:12

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:13

Amongst all the other things.

SPEAKER_06 1:11:15

I know I don't get a worse part, but totally same. Like those thighs, the little dirty panties. I was like, ew, I never needed to see this much Nicolas Cage.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:24

The blood, the like crying, the out like sitting on the toilet. It just reminded me of a really I'm gonna say a sad man, but obviously that's what they were going for, but like someone that just got broken up with and not like their girlfriend dying. I know that's very surface level. I will be honest, the plot, not the whole vengeance thing, but the entire plot, just the time that they left on certain things. Like, I feel like I would need to see a little bit more of Mandy and Red's interaction with each other to feel a little bit more of why he would be so like gung-ho on like trying to like kill these people. Like to me, it wasn't convincing in the beginning. I know it might be different from other people in their opinions on this movie, but I just really needed I need more of the interaction, more of a backstory. This is the first time I think I might say that because sometimes I feel like there's a fine line in movies where you get too much info and then not enough, and this is where I got not enough and then too much other bullshit about like demons. So here's what I think happened.

SPEAKER_08 1:12:31

Basically, we we get thrown into the situation with a couple, cool, and uh you're not saying anyone who watches their girlfriend get killed is not gonna react, right? That's not the point. But the point is that we don't know these people at all, but we're given these little like nuggets that just make us have questions that we don't have any answers for. So, for instance, the scene where Mandy is on her bed reading, and she's reading this fantasy book, and it's kind of intense. You know, we get her reading not out loud, but we can hear her reading. What is that nugget for? We didn't have any other, I mean, we get the one little thing that she says about like the her favorite planet, but there are these things that don't give her value in their relationship value, but they're just like creepy. And her just being in the lake with her face half out of the water, staring into the camera, staring at presumably Nicolas Cage. These are things that didn't give their relationship specific meaning and value to us. We just know that these are two people that are together, and then we just start knowing random things about her. Like, I don't know. It it's a puzzle piece that to me doesn't they don't fit. They just threw stuff in in in a lot of spots.

SPEAKER_06 1:13:47

I love these questions you're asking, Ryan, because I had the same ones. The Mandy of it all needs to be addressed. So in the beginning, Mandy's this like mysterious bitch, and it's like, what does she know? Like, what is behind those haunting eyes? And when you get that like freeze frame I mentioned earlier, when the van drives by, I was like, okay, so this cult leader is captivated by this girl, and she's like some sort of Satanist with this unknowable power. Like he doesn't know what he's in for with like being obsessed with her. And then they kill her, and I was like, okay, she's dead, but she's not actually dead. Like I wasn't buying it like you, you were saying earlier. Um, and then we get these like stupid, like animated scenes of her like in the underworld, and I was like, okay, I don't care for this execution, but I'm good, I'm glad to know that like she still has her storyline going on. And then in the end, you get nothing. And what I needed from this movie is for like Mandy's little side quest in the underworld to have a like to have amounted to something, or in my best case scenario, her storyline have been have been like the main quest. Like I wanted to see what happens when you kill a girl who has this power you have no idea about, and then she comes back with a vengeance. She needed to come back at this end and shut it all down.

SPEAKER_08 1:15:00

I'd love to see that movie with the visuals from the from the beginning, the romanticism. Bring that back a little extra red. She's a little bloody, a little fiery. I'd like to see that movie.

SPEAKER_06 1:15:12

Yeah, you like see her in the underworld, like killing demons and like finding like quest items and shit, and I was like, okay, show me more, and then they'd never address it again. And I was like, what's the resolution for Mandy? She's just dead and we're moving on.

SPEAKER_05 1:15:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:15:26

She's a ghost in Nicolas Gage's car. I don't think.

SPEAKER_05 1:15:28

It's one big trip. This whole movie is one big mind fuck. But I I actually like that they don't explore much further because she, like so many other women who have been victims to random acts of violence, is a life extinguished. And she doesn't, yeah, she uh horrifically, she doesn't come back with greater power. She is not a Satanist just because she's an artist and into some spooky shit, right? Like she doesn't come back with like this this evil vengeance or anything like that. I actually don't mind that there isn't anything more because it it kind of reminds me of the subversion of expectations you get with like Psycho and Scream, where you have the main hero what you presume to be the main hero of the story knocked out in the first act. And I I'm I'm a fan of that. But what I'm looking forward to is after this episode publishes, hearing from our listeners who love this movie so much, because here's what I I picked up on. There's a lot of quotes in this movie, there's a lot of reference to very specific things that I know nothing about, and I am entirely certain that this is way more fleshed out. I just don't fucking get it. Right? I feel like I'm usually pretty good at like picking up on some things and and doing a little bit of reading and figuring figuring some piece of the puzzle out. This is one where there's so many, there are so many layers to this story, and so many specific details, even like the style of artwork that's used. I am so sure there's like a plausible explan explanation and and exploration of the story within it. It's just not something I'm ever gonna be able to put together on my own.

SPEAKER_06 1:17:04

I feel like that's totally fair. I feel like there was definitely subtext and allegory in this that I wasn't picking up on. And earlier I mentioned like Dante's Inferno. I am only so vaguely familiar with that story, but I feel like this might be referenced here. But yeah, I would also, Chris, love to hear from the listeners and the people that love this movie and pick up on all those things. Like tell us about it because I certainly miss stuff myself.

SPEAKER_08 1:17:27

Yeah, I'm on the same page there. I think one thing I still feel weird about in this movie is the use of satanic panic adjacent things, but then also the Satanism is real and also not real in the movie. It's also a cult thing. There's a there's a bit of like a mash of these worlds of Satanism, cult leader. I don't know, a few of these different things that I'm not sure if they quite work out in this movie for me personally. Again, it left me with a lot of questions about like people's motivations, why they're doing things, why they aren't doing things, time period, etc. And then of course, what's reality? Nothing, because we're all doing LSD when we got to this movie. But yeah, I just have some questions there about that kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_05 1:18:18

Yeah, I mean that's I think that's the greater point of of some parts of this, right? Because this is during the time of satanic panic. This guy proclaims that he is a god. He's clearly not actually Christian, but he's appropriating Christianity or Christian symbols and a Christian concept of God, and he's kind of making a mockery of the whole thing, and so it's not really like you have Satanism, you have Christianity, and then you have whatever the fuck this guy is doing who's making it all look bad, right? And I think it's just like a bigger story of toxic masculinity in the male ego, like that's really what it is, that's really the villain here.

SPEAKER_06 1:18:59

And now you said it.

SPEAKER_08 1:19:00

That's right, and that can take us into my personal best part of the movie, which is the entire first half before Mandy died, and I want to see Mandy not die. That's it. That's all I got. I need I need more Mandy. I need more women in this movie to make good decisions, be strong people, that's where I'm at with it.

SPEAKER_05 1:19:20

But everything up until her death was a great movie that I'd love to see more of. I want to see the story where sister Lucy is having to stand trial for the heinous acts of all these people since she was the only one who got away with anything.

SPEAKER_06 1:19:35

Wait, yes. Why couldn't she have been evil and in on it and put up her own fight? Like she didn't have any agency. She was just like, oh, I'm a helpless victim here and I guess I'm free now.

SPEAKER_05 1:19:46

I saw her as someone who wasn't buying into the long con.

SPEAKER_06 1:19:51

Sure.

SPEAKER_05 1:19:51

Like, so when when Jeremiah hands her the gun, I think she sees that as a moment of like, I'm just gonna fucking be done with this, right? Like give me that sweet, sweet release.

SPEAKER_08 1:19:59

Yeah, I saw her as the most hopeless and not trying and not wanting to be a participant kind of person.

SPEAKER_05 1:20:06

Exactly. Exactly. So I feel like if there ever is a sequel to this movie, she'd have a really interesting story.

SPEAKER_06 1:20:13

And hopefully take some sort of action.

SPEAKER_05 1:20:15

Maybe this is like the really weird prequel that is if you squint your eyes just right, you can imagine it's a prequel to The Lodge.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:25

Interesting take. Trying to think of a best part. And Ryan, I could not agree with you. Um, the beginning has way too many colors um that are just super distracting. I mean, I still appreciate the gore. I appreciate the kills that they had in this movie. So I think if I had to say a best part, it would definitely be that. I thought they were unique. They were just not loaded with emotions like I hoped they would be, but I still do appreciate what they did.

SPEAKER_06 1:20:52

The best part for me is just the visuals from top to bottom in this movie. The gore was really well executed, the digital and practical effects are all stunning. Um, this movie is just a visual marvel. That's the one thing I feel like it did flawlessly for me. It it created such a specific style and it didn't deviate from that, except when it did the animation, actually. Uh but generally the visuals and the style of work great in this. For the next 10 years of this podcast, you're gonna hear me be like, oh, this movie kind of has Mandy vibes. And that's what I'm talking about when I say that.

SPEAKER_05 1:21:27

Fantastic. I know I've said some good things and I've said some lesson sellers things, and I think I s I alluded to one of the worst parts earlier. If I'm gonna give you a backup worst part of this movie, and it's seeing Jeremiah's dick, it wasn't necessary. It wasn't even nice. It was just there.

SPEAKER_06 1:21:43

It was sad.

SPEAKER_05 1:21:44

Now that is not the only reason, but it is chief among the reasons why I don't think I'll be watching this movie again. I think it has great rewatch value, like Darren said. I think there's a lot that you could, you know, revisit this movie time and time again and pick up more and think about things differently. But because it's just not my cup of tea, I'm good with a one and done experience. And I'll I'll I'm open to hearing more about it, reading more about it, but not sitting through and just experiencing it again. I totally agree.

SPEAKER_08 1:22:18

I'd watch the first half again, but not the rest.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:21

I agree with uh someone who has not seen this before, they should watch it. I feel like there is some sort of opportunity that they could have. Um, maybe that I don't uh appreciate in films, but obviously other people do, and I appreciate that. So with that said, I will not watch it again, but I implore other people to do so.

SPEAKER_06 1:22:42

Strangely enough, I hacked this movie, but I think I will watch it again. I definitely need some time to like recover psychologically and emotionally, like probably a couple years. But I feel like watching this again with somebody who hasn't seen it before. Um because Ryan, watching it alone is weird and hard. So I think the next time I'll I'll be with someone else so I can be like, Are you seeing what I'm seeing? Um, so you can check your own psychosis. Uh, but I do want to watch this movie again. It's visually just something I do want to see again, and it reminds me of a lot of things that I love and have rewatched many times. So who knows? This might be the movie that at the end of the year I decide, I was too harsh on that movie, maybe it's a slash. But I'll definitely revisit this at some point.

SPEAKER_05 1:23:26

Hmm. Well, let's see if any of the facts or fiction we have in store for you is compelling enough to make you want to watch it sooner. Let's start off with number one. Originally, the director wanted Nicolas Cage to play Jeremiah the Bullfrog, uh, cult leader. Uh Cage was so interested in playing red that negotiations ended up being stalled for a year. I believe he would do something like that, so this is fact.

SPEAKER_08 1:23:48

Oh, I think fiction, I feel like this was meant for Nicolas Cage to be read.

SPEAKER_06 1:23:53

Sam Ryan, this is fiction for sure. Especially when Chris mentioned the point where they like muted his audio and just showed his face. I was like, that's how you shoot Nicolas Cage in a scene like this.

SPEAKER_05 1:24:03

He is to be seen and not heard. Unfortunately, for you, it's a fact. Oh shit. And actually, when it was originally written, the director felt like this movie was a st a story of old age versus youth as well. And so he just did not see Nicolas Cage as red, and it wasn't until they ended up reconnecting around over a year later, thanks in part to Elijah Wood, that he came around to his point of view.

SPEAKER_06 1:24:30

Yeah, I saw Elijah Wood's name in the credits for like producer, and I was like, is that the same Elijah Wood I'm thinking of?

SPEAKER_05 1:24:36

It isn't the one and only. Now let's go on to number two. Linus Roach was swayed by Margot Roby's performance in Wolf of Wall Street to appear fully nude in the Louis C.K. inspired masturbation scene.

SPEAKER_06 1:24:47

Not Louis C.K. inspired, oh god.

SPEAKER_05 1:24:50

You know Mac wrote this. Oh.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:52

Fact?

SPEAKER_06 1:24:53

I gotta say fiction. This feels dicey. I hope it's not a fact.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:58

Yeah, I hope it's not facts, a fiction. It's a fact. You only got no.

SPEAKER_06 1:25:02

Of course it is.

SPEAKER_05 1:25:02

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_06 1:25:03

This movie is a penis.

SPEAKER_05 1:25:05

But let's move on to brighter things ahead. Number three. Nicolas Cage's Reiji performances were absolutely insane, but if you can believe it, he actually had a screaming coach. Fact. He feels that dramatic. Uh, fiction.

SPEAKER_06 1:25:19

Yeah, fiction. Nicolas Cage is a screaming coach.

SPEAKER_05 1:25:22

It's a fact. His coach was David Sellers. Moving on to number four. The song Jeremiah plays during his atrocious attempt at winning over Mandy was IRL, released on Bandcamp and blew up. Ooh, ooh. Feels campy. Definite fact. Feels like a fact. Yep.

SPEAKER_06 1:25:38

Yeah, I'll say fact because they talked about this in the opening credits, and I was like, okay, well, this song better be good. And it wasn't that bad.

SPEAKER_05 1:25:44

Yeah, it actually became, as it is a fact, a huge bandcamp hit, and it also contains a 17-minute Jeremiah exclusive about his life and thoughts about God and life and stuff.

SPEAKER_06 1:25:56

Of course it does.

SPEAKER_05 1:25:57

Bless his heart. 17 minutes.

SPEAKER_06 1:26:00

Are there people that love this movie in a cult now?

SPEAKER_05 1:26:03

Probably. I think it's debatable. But wrapping up here with number five, Red mentions his favorite planet is Galactus, the Marvel Comics character famous for eating planets and sending the Silver Surfer out to find new planet-sized meals. And Red's actor Nick Cage is, oddly enough, named after a Marvel character. I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:21

Fact. I'll say maybe not the Nicholas part, but Cage, possibly a Marvel character, so fact.

SPEAKER_06 1:26:29

I feel like Mac is trying to trick us here. I know surprisingly a lot about Marvel. And there's a Luke Cage and there's a Nick Fury, but I don't think there's a Nick Cage, so I'm gonna say fiction.

SPEAKER_05 1:26:43

Well, Mac's intentions were a little more devious. It is a fact. Cage is a huge nerd and chose the name Cage after Luke Cage, aka Powerman. His birth name was Nicholas Kim Copola. Francis Ford Capola is his uncle. That sounds about right.

SPEAKER_08 1:26:59

Definitely no one was named Nicolas Cage in life. No mom had a baby and was like, this will be the Cage Rage.

SPEAKER_05 1:27:07

Well, that's been fact of fiction, folks, brought to you and curated by Mac. But Mandy from 2018 has earned four hacks and one slashes. I'm so sorry to you, Darren. I thought it might have gone better for you. We have talked about a lot here, and there's a lot more to say on this movie. We want to know what you think. So keep in mind you can reach out to us a number of ways, starting with our website, hackerslash.com, or on our social media accounts on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

SPEAKER_08 1:27:31

And if you have a bedroom with a cool glass enclosure like this one, you can reach out to our Hackerslash Hotline to tell us about it. You can leave us a voicemail at 757 606 0128 or visit hackerslash.com slash contact to send us an audio message.

SPEAKER_05 1:27:45

Or if you also would go on a homicidal rampage if someone murdered your girlfriend, you can reach out to us at feedback at hackerslash.com.

SPEAKER_06 1:27:52

Or maybe counseling. Also, if you've enjoyed listening to this episode, consider becoming one of our patrons, like Darren, who recommended this movie. And then the patrons voted for it. You're really missing out on a lot of great action on the Patreon page. You can visit patreon.com/slash hacker slash to earn cool perks for as low as $1 a month.

SPEAKER_05 1:28:08

We'll see you next time, folks. And remember, it's better to burn bright than fade. Bye.