206: X (2022)

SPEAKER_03 0:04

Her hip got like thrown out of her zip code.

SPEAKER_01 0:11

Greetings and salutations, and welcome to Hacker Slash. If you're joining us again, welcome back. Do you wanna come inside? 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_02 0:27

Totally killer, pun intended.

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We believe horror is for everyone, and as such, we're rating these movies with the perspective we've gained from our varying walks of life and the flavors of fear we fancy most. My name is Chris, I'm your friendly neighborhood slash enthusiast. This week I'm joined by the gore lover Alexis. What's your American dream? The cowardly creeper Ryan, we're like a foxy car wreck. And the Scream Queen Paris.

SPEAKER_02 0:48

You're a kidnapping, murdering sex fiend. I'm a star.

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This week we're heading back to the theater once again to check out the latest film from director Ty West. Before we settle in with our popcorn, though, we have some follow-up.

SPEAKER_02 0:59

Let's follow up on a movie. Okay, we recently reviewed another new release, and it was the newest Texas Chainsaw Massacre on Netflix 2022 edition.

SPEAKER_00 1:10

The worst movie of all time. Wow, I think there's certainly worse, Ryan. There is. That's aggressive.

SPEAKER_02 1:16

If you want to hear more about Ryan's thoughts on this movie, circle back and listen to that episode. But as we do every week, we wanted to hear from our listeners. Now, this movie was very polarizing, y'all. In the polls, it got a 48% hack and 52% slash rating.

SPEAKER_01 1:29

Because 52% of people know how to have fun.

SPEAKER_02 1:32

It's definitely one of those movies that could go either way, though.

SPEAKER_01 1:35

I do remember this is one of the very first episodes that we live streamed for our patrons, and as we were recording it, they were flipping out in the chat, and they were all split pretty down the middle.

SPEAKER_02 1:44

Which means you should probably just watch this movie anyway to see which side you fall on.

SPEAKER_03 1:49

Don't agree.

SPEAKER_02 1:50

We have a comment from one of our listeners on Twitter. Greg said, 100% slash, I enjoyed it from the beginning to the end. I have three questions for those that hacked it. Did it take place in Texas? Check. Was there use of a chainsaw? Check. Was there a massacre? Check. What more were you expecting?

SPEAKER_03 2:05

He has fair points.

SPEAKER_02 2:06

And that was four questions.

SPEAKER_03 2:08

That's not what comes out to a good movie. That's just a movie. That's that is something called the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but not a good movie.

SPEAKER_01 2:15

Here's the thing though, with the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, it's one of those franchises that, despite how iconic the first film is, you really get a lot of trash in there. So the barrier to entry or the price of admission for like a good entry is pretty low.

SPEAKER_02 2:29

We have a comment from one of our listeners on Instagram who said, Watched it before listening to the episode. Definite hack for me. I would say the 30% rotten tomato score is accurate, though it was a pretty bad movie. Positives, the kills, and the short runtime. It didn't overstay its welcome.

SPEAKER_03 2:42

That 30% feels so right.

SPEAKER_02 2:45

Another comment has come in from one of our listeners on our Discord. Jake said, This felt like the fast food variation of what should be considered a terrifying concept. Within the first five minutes, I thought, yep, this is a Netflix quality movie, which is a bummer. Every new director seems to botch on the approach on how to present Leatherface. He was just not scary in this. Just a lean, mean killing machine with little to no unpredictability. I didn't enjoy a majority of the cast. I did enjoy Elsie Fisher's, she was amazing in eighth grade, presence. And the influencer bus scene was quite abrasive, but still a hack.

SPEAKER_05 3:16

When my boyfriend was watching this, I said, wait, wait, wait, can you remember which one was my favorite scene? And he goes, Uh, no clue. The end. I said, No, it definitely wasn't the end. It was the freaking bus scene. That was so epic.

SPEAKER_02 3:28

Now, one of our patrons, Matt, wrote in, and initially they gave us a soft hack, but then they actually circled back after listening to the episode, and they had this to say. Chris, I had to come back and tell you I'm changing this to a slash, and when people look at me like I'm crazy for liking this movie, I bring up the point about Melody's juxtaposition of being loud and vocal over her sister's trauma, but handling her own trauma in a different way. You literally nailed the theme that I have not heard any other horror stands bring up. This script just has a lot of ideas, but I find myself appreciating the pros more than the cons, even if there are so many. This movie just feels so light and easy to watch. I've seen it three more times since this episode of Hacker Slash aired. Ryan, do not let this be a judge of my character or what I consider fun.

SPEAKER_03 4:06

I support it because I also don't want it to be a judge of my character and what I consider fun.

SPEAKER_01 4:11

Look at that, meeting in the middle.

SPEAKER_00 4:13

How beautiful. Thanks, Matt. I love that follow-up. They care about what I think about their sense of humor.

SPEAKER_03 4:19

That's cute.

SPEAKER_02 4:20

And finally, we have a new patron we would like to welcome to our family. Her name is Amanda. Amanda, thank you so much for joining our Patreon family, and thank you for this comment. Amanda said this. I need to preface this with a couple of things. It's so easy to entertain me. My friends constantly give me grief for my admittedly abysmal taste in film. That being said, I hated this movie. My expectations were set really low because I love the Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise, even the subpar ones. I tried to enter with an open mind and it somehow managed to limbo under the ground floor bar that I said. I feel they could have done so much more with the story, or more of an attempt to connect it even remotely to the others, apart from Sally, which, come on. Again, that being said, I like story more than gore, so maybe this just wasn't for me. Still loved listening to everyone's perspectives, but this is the only hack I've given to something in recent history, and I actively watch garbage horror movies on purpose.

SPEAKER_01 5:08

Amanda, welcome. I'm so glad you're here. And while our opinions on this movie diverge, I will say that I like your vibe and I like the way you structure your responses. I think we'd be friends in real life.

SPEAKER_02 5:20

Yeah, Amanda, you found your home here. You watch garbage horror movies on purpose. We do it out of obligation to the pod.

SPEAKER_05 5:26

I was gonna say, I definitely watch it for entertainment purposes outside of the podcast. Not likely. I watched all three recs. The third one is fucking trash.

SPEAKER_01 5:37

My sister's like, it's the best one. I'm like, I don't recall.

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And that's our follow-up.

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This week we're back at it with another gory 2022 release, one that also takes place in Texas, and even harkens back to the spirit of the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre. After making seven horror films in a row, Ty West took a break from the genre to avoid it making them feel redundant. For his return to the genre, he pondered how he could take a slasher film, you know, a genre generally known for sex and violence, and make something a little more, as he put it, highbrow. The result is a film that takes us back to the 70s to explore the symbiotic relationship between horror and porn. The film follows a group of young filmmakers on their quest for stardom making adult films for the home video market and their eventual fight for survival on the farm where they're filming. This week we're talking about X. What were you all expecting going into this?

SPEAKER_03 6:25

I feel like I sometimes sound like a broken record here, but I don't know that I've ever gone into any other movie as blind as I did for this. I knew nothing. I didn't know a character, a setting, a year, a a john like a gist. I knew it was horror. That's it. I've never been so blind.

SPEAKER_05 6:41

I wouldn't say I was that blind. Somehow I got a some sort of short clip on Instagram about it, but it didn't ring horror to me at all. So I knew A24, the production studio is behind it. I know Ty West was, and I know those movies can be a slow burn, so I was expecting something like that. But having multiple layers, I probably wouldn't understand. So that's pretty much my expectations for that.

SPEAKER_02 7:11

We've seen a lot of new releases this year, and I feel like this was a trailer in every single one of them. So I've actually seen the trailer to this movie. I knew to expect Texas Chainsaw Massacre meets Debbie Does Dallas, and I was also expecting it to be kind of like gross and grungy in its gore, and because it was Ty West, I was also expecting it to be very authentic in its portrayal of the 70s because he did a really good job in House of the Devil portraying the 80s.

SPEAKER_01 7:33

You know, I was actually wondering how it came to be that Ryan and Alexis went into this so blind, but then I remembered it's because they didn't go see Scream and it was just Paris and I. So that explains why he and I both saw the trailer and y'all didn't.

SPEAKER_02 7:47

Listen, I was thinking it, I wasn't gonna say it this week.

SPEAKER_01 7:50

Now, having seen the trailer, you know, obviously this gives very big Texas Chainsaw Massacre energy in that trailer. So I was expecting, knowing it would be Ty West and A24, it'd be a cinematic masterpiece. I was expecting a lot of gore because I remembered the shocking violence of House of the Devil, and I was really expecting it to pay homage and be kind of like a love letter to 70s exploitation and the Texas Chainsaw Massacre while also carving its own path. Now, I will say that even going in knowing that it's about a group of people trying to make a porno and it was gonna have a lot of that energy, I found myself still feeling really interested and invested and compelled throughout it. Now, the plot and the group of characters from the trailer didn't feel like they'd be super likable to me, but I found myself really charmed along the way. And I feel like he did a great job of like walking this fine line where I mean things get pretty graphic in this movie, but it was never so graphic that I was completely pulled out of it. And at the point where everything kind of kicks it up a notch, I found myself really, really invested.

SPEAKER_03 8:54

Sorry, if we're talking about feelings, you're not wrong about anything, Chris, but we just need to get this word out there. Uncomfortable is what this movie feels like. It feels uncomfortable in many different ways. It goes uncomfortable one way and then it goes uncomfortable another way, and it's that that is just the word to describe what this will make you feel.

SPEAKER_05 9:16

Being the person that sat next to Ryan, I can say the same thing. I think you're sitting in this movie theater, there's people surrounding you, and I think it's the vibe you get from the entire audience. I miss seeing movies in theaters, especially on opening nights, because you get the laughter, you get the seriousness, you get the shock. And to me, that really had me invested while I was watching this. So uncomfortable, yes, in parts, entertained in parts, what the hell in parts, but also very invested on trying to figure out what the absolute fuck was going on in this movie.

SPEAKER_02 9:52

You are not wrong, Alexis. We too saw this in a full theater. We had lots of audience reactions and participation. It was interesting to hear everyone else react in ways, uh, because there were times when like the audience laughed and I was like, oh, I guess that's funny. But then there were times like I screamed and I was like maybe one of three people that screamed. So it was definitely the kind of movie that's fun to see in a theater. I would say uncomfortable is definitely something I felt. There were a lot of times where I just like recoiled for one reason or another. A lot of recoiling happened.

SPEAKER_01 10:20

A little bit of gag every once in a while.

SPEAKER_02 10:22

Some gagging, I was gagging. And not in the fun way.

SPEAKER_01 10:25

Sometimes it was because of the things I'd whisper into his ear as we watched this together.

SPEAKER_02 10:29

Oh yeah, because I have a quote from you that's absolutely going in the second half of this episode. Stay tuned, listener, to hear what Chris whispered in my ear halfway through this movie. But there was a feeling I was expecting to have that I absolutely did not have whatsoever. And despite how like slutty and sexy this movie was, I didn't feel a damn thing as far as horniness goes. And that was surprising. It was like a highly sexual movie that's like like notably not horny at all.

SPEAKER_03 10:53

I don't necessarily agree, but I do understand what you mean. I have a different surprise, and that is to be fair, it's a dumb thing because I didn't see the trailer. But I was so surprised by the Texas Chainsaw vibes, and mostly that I didn't hate them. It was like as they were in a van, I was like, oh wait, I'm feeling like some Texas chainsaw energy, and then it kept going, and I was like, I'm not mad about it. And if you would have told me it was gonna have Texas Chainsaw energy, I would have been mad about it. I missed that note because I got none of that energy. With like the gas station, like it was it was so like on the nose.

SPEAKER_05 11:32

To me, it was just like a regular, we're going out to country Texas, like outside of Houston.

SPEAKER_03 11:39

And where did that start?

SPEAKER_01 11:40

That's the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Friends pile into a van on a road trip in the 70s. Okay, yeah. So there's a Texas, there's a massacre.

SPEAKER_05 11:50

It it has that checklist. You didn't realize, but you felt it. I guess, yeah. I picked up on a lot of other horror movies too, which was why I was so surprised about that part. But also, what surprised me was the freaking cast. Honestly, I wasn't expecting it to be so star-studded, although I had seen the trailer. I saw Britney Snow, iconic, the other people kind of muddled. But then also, how are we getting Martin Henderson twice in a week? We got him on the ring last weekend, and we got him on this week. I don't know what the chances are of that happening.

SPEAKER_01 12:22

Okay, I also want to point out that in the ring he was the video guy, and in this one, he's a filmmaker. I think he's being typecast.

SPEAKER_02 12:29

A V Himbo. He has not aged poorly, let's say that. Speaking of aging poorly, the presence of a certain character in this movie really surprised, and I'll say disappointed me. Uh, they play a pretty big role in this movie in a way that I wasn't particularly expecting going into it, and it was maybe my least favorite part of the whole thing. And they were a good chunk of the movie.

SPEAKER_03 12:52

I see where you're going with that. Can't wait to find out what you're talking about. Clueless.

SPEAKER_01 12:57

I will say that there are two things that disappointed me in this movie that are honestly fighting and duking it out for the worst part of the movie. I don't want to spoil any of the specifics for you before you head to the theater to watch this, but I think one of the biggest surprises was that overall this felt much cleaner than I expected. And I'm not talking about in terms of like its sexiness, its raunchiness, or its gore, but even the editing played a huge part in this movie that I wasn't expecting. This was really tightly edited, and there's some techniques in there that really made for playing the audience like a fiddle. Like honestly, there were points where the woman who was sitting to my left was jumping and reacting because of some of the cuts to build tension and suspense. And I was really surprised how effective it was.

SPEAKER_03 13:40

Yeah, I feel like this movie has these like little modern finishes that make it feel so good, which is very surprising because it felt like it was gonna be like a dirty, grungy throwback movie, kind of for a minute. Like it felt like it was gonna have a lot of like handheld stuff. It felt like it was gonna get weird, and then they were like, oh no, no, no, we got you. We know you don't want to watch that. We know we got better at filmmaking for a reason. Here's the good stuff.

SPEAKER_01 14:05

And I also love you know, just thinking about this moment, especially with how you frame that, with you know, you expect it to be grungy and dirty. This sounds like a movie. If you just wrote the description, it sounds like a movie Rob Zombie would make. You can imagine Rob Zombie making this movie, yes. But this movie, because of that editing, because of the tension that it builds, because of all these little nuggets of nuance that are scattered throughout the film, down to you know, some of the props and the lengths they went to to recreate 70s Texas. It wasn't scary to me, but God, it was just so authentic. It did feel very authentic, not scary.

SPEAKER_03 14:43

There was an instance where Alexis jumped almost out of her skin at a very obvious jump scare and just like threw her hands in the air. And I was like, Alexis, what were you gonna do with your hands there? Like, where were you going?

SPEAKER_05 14:57

It's like my first instinct is to ball up like that. So I think that's like me trying to ball up, which is probably why I have so much tension in my shoulders. But I don't think this movie was frightening, but somehow, even if I expect those jump scares, they just have something about them that I know it's coming, yet it's still effective. And I think it's because we watched in the theater, so it's so freaking loud. I'm very invested in the movie, watching it, and then it's coming at me. And fortunately, those got me. But all in all, I wouldn't say necessarily this is frightening per se. I feel like if I was in the movie, it'd be hella frightening though.

SPEAKER_02 15:32

I can definitely agree with that, Alexis. But I have to say this movie was pretty scary. I don't want anything that happened in this movie to happen to me. I don't want any of those things to touch me. And uh the jump scares got me a couple times. At one point, we didn't even see this in Adobe Theater, but there was like a line reading, and you could not tell me that that man's voice did not come from our audience in the row that I was sitting in. I literally looked over to the corner and I was like, who the fuck was that? Overall, I think this movie was a little scary.

SPEAKER_03 15:58

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I can't agree, but I do gotta give it originality points. I mean, they definitely take inspiration from a lot of places and you can feel it, but as a whole concept, what happened here is all I could say, and that means originality to me.

SPEAKER_01 16:17

Oh, 100%. In a genre where people are so often punished for having sex, this is a movie that fights against that. And, you know, we can talk about the order in which some deaths occur later on, but one of the beautiful things about this is it takes on exploitation films without feeling like it itself is exploitation, in spite of some of the really graphic sex scenes that are in this movie, which I think is a really fine line to walk. And I think that Ty West is probably one of the only people who can pull it off successfully.

SPEAKER_05 16:48

Yeah, I would definitely say this is original. I think even walking out of the movie and just being like, huh. And having that sense of I don't know what I just watched, but I'm still thinking about it, it's a good feeling to come out. And knowing that didn't feel like something I've watched before, but it still felt familiar. You know, I can't wait to talk about in the second half some of the parts which to me felt like a dedication to another film, which I truly appreciate because it's one of my favorites. But can't we talk about that later? But to me, I felt original.

SPEAKER_02 17:22

Definitely gotta give this movie a lot of originality points as well. It was filled with things I have never seen before, never wanted to see necessarily, definitely some original kills, uh, and overall a unique piece of cinema and a unique moviegoing experience for sure.

SPEAKER_03 17:38

You know, as far as originality goes, I feel like that takes us straight into the ending. Because for me, the ending was not what I expected in some ways, and also exactly what I expected in some ways, but successful in what it did, I think. I really enjoyed the ending. I know that the ending had a big play in how we felt walking out of the theater.

SPEAKER_05 18:00

I agree with that. It left me with something, and I think it was because it ended on a good note, but also it had a lot for me to think about, and there was a complete twist at the end, and I loved that. I was not expecting that, and I was very interested. I'm like, ooh, this can continue on to possibly some I mean, like, there's so many options that this could have left you with, this sort of feeling. You could be thinking one way, another way, and I like that. So depending on how you watch this, it's kind of how you, you know, t what you take away from the ending.

SPEAKER_03 18:31

I think that so much happens in this movie, and there's so many feelings that when you get to the end, like you kind of need things to go the way they did for you to be okay. Because otherwise it could be a bit traumatic.

SPEAKER_01 18:42

Yeah, this is a movie that I think frames itself in its ending as one that has potential. I think typically you watch a movie and it feels like clear sequel baiting, and this one didn't. It felt like this is a story that could naturally continue. This is a story that I wouldn't mind watching another entry for, but were it to end and completely finish right here, it checked all the boxes for me. So I was also satisfied by the ending.

SPEAKER_02 19:06

I too was satisfied by the ending of this movie. And there's something to be said because this movie starts with the ending, and you're kind of like, okay, how did we get to the point that we've already seen? And I think there were still enough surprises and twists that even though we saw how everything ended, getting there was its own journey.

SPEAKER_03 19:24

That is so true because I spent a lot of time in this movie thinking, what would I be thinking right now if I hadn't seen the beginning, which shows us the end. And I really think that without it, it wouldn't be the same. And to round us back to the end at the end and it feel good is kind of surprising. It's rare that I want to see the end of a movie at the beginning. This one works so good.

SPEAKER_01 19:46

Yeah, but it's also like the Texas Chainsaw Maskere make that starts off with police footage exploring the carnage, and then it shows you what happened. Except this one felt like a better version of that, and there was enough mystery in there where we don't see exact, for example, who died. You only see some numbering of bodies, but it's not even clear how many people died. But it shows you enough of the brutality and it shows you enough of the wreckage to really pique your interest. And I think that was just another really successful element of this movie. Now, obviously, uh, there's a lot more to say about it, and the conversation has to continue as we go on, but for now, let's go ahead and get to our ratings. Alexis, how many people died in this movie? We had a total of eight deaths in this movie, all very killer.

SPEAKER_03 20:34

And what about the animal report? Yeah, the animal report, once again, not good. Pretty rough. There's literally a tongue hanging out at one point.

SPEAKER_01 20:42

Well, as tragic as that animal report is, let's see how it impacts our ratings. X from 2022, now showing in theaters. Who is it, hacker or slash?

SPEAKER_03 20:52

Yeah, I'm I'm just gonna go rogue here, and I could do a bunch of build-up to this, but I'm not going to. I have a very bold statement, okay? This movie is campy and like legitimately campy. Not like the stuff that y'all tell me is campy because it's actually bad. This is the first movie I've ever seen where I go, oh, that's campy. And I get it, and I don't know if you guys even agree with me, but in my world, what y'all say is camp doesn't make sense. It's just a bad movie. In my world, this is campy. This is good campy. This movie is hilarious. Like, we did so much laughing in the theater, so much more laughing than I expected, and not just laughing at the movie, but like laughing with it and having a good time. And I'm in a very weird place about this because I also spent the rest of the time gagging in the movie theater. Like, this movie is uncomfortable and a little disgusting in several points. So I find myself unhappy about how much fun I had watching it and like Unhappy about the things that I had to see on screen, but also I feel like I wouldn't not watch it again, you know? So I am gonna slash this movie. I don't recommend it. I'm not telling people they should go see it. It's like a guilty pleasure situation right now. Like, I don't know that anyone really needs to watch this. However, this is my kind of fun. Y'all are out here talking about Texas Chainsaw Massacre. That movie was bad. This movie is fun. This movie is good. It's like it the bad things are done so well that you're just like enjoy it, and then the good stuff is really good. Like the story, the shooting, everything. Like the story, the filming. There's so much quality to this movie that it is very tough to hate it for the disgusting stuff that it does, even though it is very disgusting. So I'm slashing this, and I feel like it's very out of character for me. But this movie is a great time.

SPEAKER_05 22:57

So I have mixed feelings about this movie. I love the acting, I love the actors, the nods to some of my favorite movies, the visuals in this movie, the practical and special effects are great, and the gore, chef's kiss. Perfect, in my opinion. But looking back at this movie and how the plot and the storyline during the first time I had watched a trailer really didn't grab my attention. And you know, and I also saw Britney Snow, and I know she's been in other horror movies, but I was like, this doesn't fit. I didn't even know what I was going to be watching. Despite realizing all of that, I know you're supposed to go into this and sometimes not expect too much. And I probably wasn't supposed to take the plot and the sexual aspects of this movie probably to the lane sided, and maybe I just misunderstood what Ty West was doing. But this was a really good time. I'm not sure if it was because I was watching it with Ryan in movie theater. I don't know if I have the same feeling watching it at home, but I thought this movie was really entertaining, oddly enough. Like you mentioned, Ryan, a guilty pleasure, like something you don't want to say you like, but you do like. Like Rob Zombie. I love Rob Zombie movies. I'll get trash for that. But this is definitely a slash for me. I think people should watch it, not with their parents.

SPEAKER_03 24:22

If they're okay with watching softcore porn, I think you should watch this. I think the point of that is it is very important that you choose wisely who you watch this movie with. Because Alexis and I both were like, oh, I'm so glad certain people aren't here. Because if certain people are here, this would be very uncomfortable. So, listeners, if you go watch this, be careful, okay? Know who you're going with, go with fun people. Don't go with prudes, they won't enjoy it. It's me. She's talking about me.

SPEAKER_02 24:49

Okay, so this movie, uh, where do I even begin? This movie is a lot, it has a lot going on. It's very familiar yet also very fresh. It has a really interesting antagonist who at one point is like very sympathetic, and I was like, oh, I get it. And then the rest of the time I was like, no, I hate you so much. Please die. It was something where I was like, this is not a compelling antagonist. It's original, it is, but I don't want to see it, and I don't really care for it. But this movie also had a lot of really great things going for it. Like the girls in this movie are absolutely girling. It's also like very sexual, without, like Chris was saying, without being exploitative. And it also had like a surprisingly sex-positive, like feminist agenda, which I really enjoyed because it was really close to fucking that up pretty much the entire time. And the fact that it stuck the landing, I was like, you better work, Ty West. This was very thoughtful of you. It also had Hot Himbos, dying. Uh so this movie's gonna get a slash from me. It's a weird movie, but the gore and the kills are so fucking good in it that I was just like, mmm, like Alexa said, Chef's kiss, the gore in this movie's incredible. This is like a really solid horror movie, and there's not enough that's bad about it for me to justify hacking it. So it's a slash. I had fun.

SPEAKER_01 26:02

I'm so glad you had fun, Paris, and I had fun with you watching this movie. This movie's a good time. As fucked up as it is, as disgusting as it is in some points, it has some of the best performances I've seen in a horror movie where characters are playing almost like a period piece, right? Because they're traveling back to the 70s, and sometimes that can be real trash. Sometimes you look at someone and they ooze 2000's energy, and they really nail it in this one. Paris, going back to what you said about an exploitation film without feeling exploitative, this movie nails it. And this is a movie that I think subverts expectations. I love this approach to a slasher. I love this unrelenting violence with a little bit of depth here and there, but we still don't get so much backstory that we overexplain anything. This movie did just enough to make me curious, but not so curious that I needed to know the answer before the movie wrapped up. And ultimately, it's a story that I want to continue with, and it's a story that I want to see. So for that, it's a slash. Now, X from 2022 has earned a universal slash, which is a little bit surprising, I'm not gonna lie. But go check it out in theaters. And listen here, if you're watching in the movie theater, stick around for the end credits, watch all the way through for a little special treat. We'll talk about it in the second half. We'll see you in a bit.

SPEAKER_03 27:34

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SPEAKER_01 28:22

Welcome back, folks. We are now entering the spoiler zone for X, which has earned a universal slash. Now we have a lot to get to here, but before we get into the specifics of our ratings, Alexis, what's our gore score for this movie?

SPEAKER_05 28:34

Oh, um, it's high. I don't even have to ask you guys whether you think it's high or not. It's not holy shit, which it could be to some audience members, but Ty does it really well. Like it's just very crafted very well. It's not like in your face, it's done very tastefully. It doesn't like gross you out, but it is like intense. I I mean that that cow scene, that shit was I was like, holy god, there I'm like, it looks so real.

SPEAKER_03 29:01

It I mean, that truly looks like a cow got hit by a truck and is laying on the side of the road. And not in a good way. Like it's too real. We didn't need to see it really.

SPEAKER_02 29:10

I feel like it set the tone though. It was like this is just a sampling of what you're in for. And I think it was good because we didn't get a lot of gore in like the first half. But I totally agree, Alexis. This is like high gore, just enough without being too much.

SPEAKER_01 29:25

Mm-hmm. It's palatable, even though it's intense. Like so, even some of the uh the stabbings that we get, they're fucking vicious, like really vicious. When you start looking at all the little meaty bits that are dangling off, it feels like it's like just quality craftsmanship, honestly.

SPEAKER_05 29:40

Yeah, and it's the I I mean, I don't know why, but I'm comparing it to something like Rob Zombie, where it's just like just throw meat everywhere, just throw blood everywhere. Are you thinking of hatchet when they literally just took a bucket of blood and threw it at a tree? Yeah, but that was supposed to be camp, and then I'm glad the kills in this not not necessarily the kills, but the gore in this wasn't campy, because that would have really probably put this in hack territory for sure. But I'm really excited to talk about the kills because I know there's a lot to explore with those involving gore. So I want to hear from you guys what would be your favorite kill from this movie.

SPEAKER_01 30:16

Look, I'm just gonna take it right off the board, RJ, because fuck that guy. Uh, he's kind of a little bitch. Let me just tell you that. You think you can just be out here exploiting your girlfriend for work and then just all of a sudden get upset when she wants to do something, and you want to question her own sense of agency and try to tell her what she can and can't do? Not a fan. Now, I think he could have had that same stance and had that conversation in a much more respectful way that I think would make clear to her what her boundaries are. But honestly, getting to the point of encountering Pearl, uh, telling her that you know she they need to go find her husband while he's storming off in the middle of the night, abandoning these people there in the middle of nowhere. To see that knife go in his neck, what a chef's kiss moment. It was so satisfying. And then for her to just keep going and going and going, so fucking good.

SPEAKER_05 31:06

Yeah, that was one of my favorites too. I just like it because I can't remember, was she having sex with him? I'm pretty sure Ryan said, Yes, I think she had an orgasm. She was not having sex with him, but she was having an orgasm.

SPEAKER_03 31:19

Yeah, those are two mutually exclusive things.

SPEAKER_05 31:21

It was also interesting. I like the shot too, because then you see um the red on the lights, so the blood gets on the lights. And when you see her, it's all red, which was freaking fantastic. I know we'll talk about visuals later, but that was that was also Chef's Kiss.

SPEAKER_04 31:37

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_05 31:37

Makes me want to do that kind of at home. Not blood, just red lights. Because I see it. I know Chris has got the vibe, Barry's got the vibe. I kind of want the vibe.

SPEAKER_03 31:46

Red lights are very creepy in your home, trust me. I came home the other day and a smart light had just turned itself red, and I was like, why is my house a murder house now? Help.

SPEAKER_02 31:55

The devil is here.

SPEAKER_03 31:56

Well, I don't know if this is gonna be like a big pick here, but my favorite death is Wayne getting stabbed through the eyeballs with the pitchfork. I mean, we didn't know he was about to get stabbed with a pitchfork, I don't think, but we knew he was dead soon. We knew it was over for him, especially after that nail and oh, it was rough. But the scene of just seeing that through the wall into his eyeball, it was horrific. And I don't want to go that way. I'm not completely certain that he would have died from that, just like outright. I feel like he would have been alive for a little bit, unfortunately. But it was disgusting and I loved it. Paris knew. So Alexis also knew. Alexis was like, a pitchfork? And I was like, How'd you know it was a pitchfork?

SPEAKER_02 32:41

Oh, but earlier in the movie, he makes a comment after he sees the footage and he's like, People's eyes are gonna pop out of their skulls when they see this. And I was like, okay, foreshadowing. So I was on high alert for any eyeball action with that himbo.

SPEAKER_03 32:52

Oh, I did not notice, and so I wasn't prepared at all, but it hit, that's for sure.

SPEAKER_05 32:57

It hit and it did so well because it just cuts right off to the string being pulled for the light bulb. And I was like, oh, that's very interesting. Don't dwell on it because you're gonna dwell on shit later.

SPEAKER_01 33:08

Oh. It cutting back into the pitchfork retracting and him falling down and then seeing the eyeball out on the floor. That moment was a jump scare that made the woman to my left actually visibly jump, like her legs flailed on the recliner. It's hilarious.

SPEAKER_02 33:24

For the record, I was sitting to the right of Chris. I'm glad nobody has taken my favorite kill. And it's obviously Brittany Snow as Bobby Lynn mauled to death by that alligator. Because we get so much alligator foreplay in this movie, and the whole time you're like, who's gonna get gator? Somebody's gonna get gatored. And I loved the way that she like went to help Pearl, and she was like really nice. And then Pearl was like, fuck you, you hot young bitch. And Bobby Lynn was just like, you know what? No, fuck you. I don't have to deal with any of this. I came out to help you. And then just the way Pearl pushes her into the water, and then just like has this little blanket wrapped around her, and then just casually says, bitch, as she gets eaten by the gator. If anything in this movie was Camp Ryan, it was that moment, and it was so good for me.

SPEAKER_03 34:10

Many moments. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 34:11

I can see it.

SPEAKER_03 34:12

I do have to agree that Bobby Lynn, the alligator kill, is my like honorable mention because I was just waiting. I was like, I just need a gobble, gobble them up, please. Tell me who it's gonna be. Brian was definitely like, this is about to be crawl. Is this crawl? When when Maxine was swimming across the river and he was chasing her, I was like, is this crawl? Did we switch? Are we going to crawl right now?

SPEAKER_01 34:34

Yeah, I thought the gobbling was for sure gonna be Jackson, and I was relieved that it wasn't, but I'm really upset with the way Jackson went. I'll hold that off for later. But Bobby Lynn's death was absolutely great. Paris is a great choice. My the only reason it's not my favorite is because low-key, she was one of my favorite characters, and I was sad to see her go. I didn't expect her to make it to the end, not by any stretch of the imagination, but I just didn't want to see it.

SPEAKER_02 35:00

Okay, but whenever you have a fave character, you want them to have a good death. And she got that.

SPEAKER_01 35:05

I'm not mad at it. It's just I want I wanted the death to be something that was not only cinematically appealing, but also appealing to my sensibilities and my and my endearment to the character. That's why I was ready for RJ to get the fuck out of this movie.

SPEAKER_03 35:20

Okay, but also before we leave Gore, we have to talk about Pearl being absolutely blown out of her house by a shotgun.

SPEAKER_05 35:28

Definitely a Pearl was my favorite kill. I think for her talking mad shit about Howard, how they can't have sex, he'll have a heart attack. She was blown, and this whole time her hip is so bad, and then her hip is literally thrown out of like probably dislocated in some sort of sense. Her hip got like thrown out of her zip code. But continuing with that, it's like Max driving over her, which was a point in the movie where I'm like, they're not gonna show that. I there's points in movies where you're like, you know, it's gonna cut away, and I really thought it was gonna cut away, and it didn't, and that was so shocking. And to see that mouth hanging open and just oh my gosh, and for her to leave her like that, it was just terrifying. I just thought it was it was great. The gore in that that was Chef's kiss.

SPEAKER_02 36:21

She definitely got fucked.

SPEAKER_05 36:22

Finally, right?

SPEAKER_03 36:23

That's one of those scenes that makes me wonder. Not that I ever want to know what this is like, but is that what a head looks like when it gets run over? Like, is there some resistance? Does the car just win immediately? Like, does it just smush like a watermelon? Because this just smushed like a watermelon, and it was disgusting.

SPEAKER_01 36:40

This shit almost popped like a balloon, which is gross. There was some poppage. And I knew something had to happen because with her crawling out towards Max. I remember the beginning of the film, and I'm like, all right, so she is the last body. Trying to figure out like who's gonna be under these blankets. There wasn't enough blood there yet. So as soon as we cut to a scene of Maxine changing gears, I'm like, all right, here it comes. Room, room, motherfucker. And it was delightful. I do want to give an honorable mention to another death that I wish did not happen, which was Lorraine. But it was a shocking moment, and I think it was really well done. Another jump scare.

SPEAKER_02 37:19

Yeah, that one got me so good.

SPEAKER_01 37:21

Is that the one that got me?

SPEAKER_03 37:22

I am not sure. I cannot remember. Let me tell you, the jump scare that got Alexis was basically like you know, in every horror movie they open a door, like the fridge, and you can see behind them, and then they close the fridge and something's there, like that cheap of a jump scare. It's basically what got Alexis. I can't remember what it was, but there was one where she just was out of her skin, and I was like, you knew it was coming, Alexis.

SPEAKER_02 37:46

Was it the one towards the beginning where Maxine was running away from the main house back towards the guest house, and then Wayne like grabs her from off camera?

SPEAKER_03 37:55

I think that's exactly what it is. She's running back, and Wayne just grabs her. He says, Hey there, and yet we still jump. It got me too. It was either that or it was just after that. We may have jumped at that one together, but there was a couple where it was just like intense, like just jumping out of your skin vibes.

SPEAKER_05 38:10

Yeah, I I'm always jumpy, so that might be it too. Not that I'm giving this honorable engine at all, but very lame kill was Howard because I was really expecting him to die in that bed when he was having sex with Pearl, and he fucking didn't, man. He came out of that like a trooper.

SPEAKER_01 38:26

Unfortunately. I do love Howard's death though, because Lorraine is the one who killed him. And that's the one. There's just a little bit of the blood curgling. It was like she got him back for that shot.

SPEAKER_02 38:37

That's true.

SPEAKER_05 38:37

I wanted it on the bed. I I mean, I think that's where this goes into possibly Rob Zombie, Alexis's fantasy movie.

SPEAKER_03 38:47

So please be careful where you say those words. This movie is proof that Rule 34 is real because this is porn. It just is. This is old people porn. This is as much as I want. I know that there's real old people porn out in the world. I don't want to know about it. This is as far as it needs to go for me. I just, it's it's just too much. I'm just disgusted by it. Now, as much as this movie disgusted me, it is beautiful. I have a hard time even really describing how I feel about this movie visually, and I think this is maybe what y'all felt during like Texas Chainsaw or something. I didn't feel that way, the most recent one. But this movie is beautiful, and I'm gonna point out something as my favorite. Unfortunately, it was already mentioned by the lovely Alexis, but it is the kill of RJ and what happens to the screen that we see afterwards where the headlights turn red, she turns red, everything turns red. Because it's such an intense first kill, it's such a good introduction into what's about to happen and how insane things are about to get. I mean, the whole kill in front of the headlights and everything is of course already beautiful, but the way they use the red, it it really is one of those things that sticks with me, and I think that it'll continue to stick with me as something that stood out for this movie.

SPEAKER_05 40:02

Yeah, for me, what really stood out was all the visuals. I mean, I have I feel like I have a list, you know, it's these wide shots, these split screen shots. But for me, what really stood out the most visually were these transitions between scenes, and it was almost like you were mixing like a DJ mixing two songs together, going back and forth between the two, and then you're finally into the next scene, which I'm not sure really how to describe it, but Chili See, my dad, probably can uh explain it a little better. He used to be a DJ in the 70s, he knows how to start one, intro the other, and it was just done beautifully in this and just really artistic. Honestly, I feel like I've never seen before. I wouldn't, I don't think I've seen it done this way. Yeah, I mean I've seen it like one, two, but like usually this one had like three, three or four, possibly.

SPEAKER_03 40:53

Sometimes when it would switch back and forth, it would then like morph into a third thing, too. That was it was crazy the way they go back and forth here.

SPEAKER_02 41:00

There's so many great visuals to talk about in this movie. I love those transitions. I loved the way they used like distinctly like 70s filming techniques to really add to the authenticity of the movie. Specifically, there's the scene where Maxine goes to the lake and we see her step out onto the dock, and then you see this like really harsh zoom out. And I remember when I was in college, they taught us to like never use the zoom feature when you're filming because it looks unnatural, like that's not a natural thing that a human eye would ever experience. But it's something that they did a lot in the 70s. So when they did that, I was like, oh, that's a really good use of that like deliberate technique. And then, of course, we get the ultra-wide shot from above as she's swimming back towards the dock and the gators chasing her. That was just like beautiful, wall art worthy. But I really loved all of the shots that we got of the movie that they were making, like the actual porno they were making, the farmer's daughter, specifically when they were fucking in the barn, and you have Maxine just like really like getting her life, riding Kid Cuddy, and she like looks over her shoulder and she sees that Pearl is watching her through the window, and then you have this like flash of like Pearl riding Kid Cuddy for like a split second, and it was like so rotted and so dark, but it was so well lit, and like the the film grain that was on it was just like a really beautifully orchestrated visual.

SPEAKER_03 42:17

You wouldn't think it would be a beautiful thing to see, but it really was a lovely scene. Can can we just like briefly shout out all of the like setting and the little details that we get that make this feel like a legitimate timepiece? Because this movie looks so cool. The people look like they're in the 70s, the van is like campy, but also authentic. I just I in the little cabin, it's like gross and ugly and like ew, you could probably hear everything through all those walls. Like you could probably hear them moaning like four properties away, but it was so authentic and I loved it.

SPEAKER_02 42:50

Okay, at what point did you realize they were filming a porno?

SPEAKER_03 42:54

There's a point where he says we can make dirty films classy, like something like that. So at some point we get it before the actual sex, but no matter what, we were never prepared for what we got. That first sex scene, we were like, hello.

SPEAKER_05 43:07

I was not fully convinced until they started having sex.

SPEAKER_02 43:10

Well, I think Chris knew a lot more than I did because at some point she leans over to me and she says, Do you think this old bitch is gonna fuck somebody by the end of this movie? And I was like, I don't know what. And she did. And she did.

SPEAKER_03 43:20

Just so we're clear, when we started seeing her, I said, Alexis, if I see old lady titties, I'm out of here. Okay. And it took longer than I expected to see old lady titties, but for sure they showed up. They did.

SPEAKER_05 43:34

I wish y'all were there. Ryan was literally screaming in the theater when they came in. She's like, No! Oh no! Or I forgot the word you use, but everyone else is doing the same thing.

SPEAKER_01 43:45

Obviously, this movie has so much baked into it cinematically that just makes it honestly a complete work of art. This is something that a lot of people have said, right? This is kind of like art house horror. This is something that you know Ty West sought out to do when making something that feels A little bit more highbrow. And I think the quality of the cinematography just supports that. But for me, it actually goes back to what Alexis said. And it's the editing that was used in this film to break up the story, to cut back and forth between certain moments and elements. And we talked about this a little bit with Wayne's death, where the pitchfork plunges into his eye and then it just cuts away. And then several moments later, we have the uh the fallout from that, which honestly hilarious moment with Pearl just scooting in like an old lady in her white robe, just like burying him as if a cat is burying its litter. It's absolutely hilarious. But I think where the editing shined the best for me was in the parallels found in my favorite scene, which is this moment of winding down the optimism and the quest for stardom that this group has. And they're in that farmhouse and they're breaking into song. And Britney Snow is absolutely delivering on Landslide by Fleetwood Mac. It just shows the happiness, the youth, the vibrance of this group, and with the juxtaposition of Pearl as she's aging and wiping off the makeup when she was just rejected by her husband because he doesn't want to have sex with her anymore because he thinks he's gonna die from a heart attack. There is something that's just so sad in that moment, and it's like hauntingly, achingly beautiful. And I know this is a moment where, you know, Paris, you mentioned that Pearl is a very sympathetic character at some points, and I think this was probably the peak of that for me. But then it continues with Lorraine talking about wanting to be in the movie, and they're really just taking all the expectations that you have about women in not only horror, but in adult films and restoring a sense of agency and people who try to challenge that. And this is where we see a lot of the feminist agenda that Paris alluded to. We see all that come to a front right here in this moment. And it's also the point where RJ says, it can't be done. You can't just change the story halfway through the movie, but this is the point where the story is changing halfway through the movie, and it starts as a nice little musical interlude to kick off the second half. It was so fucking brilliant.

SPEAKER_03 46:13

Chris, I love the gist of that scene, and I hated the singing so much, but it felt very real and it felt very authentic. And I love the conversation that they have, and I think you're right, it there are some times where the agenda of a movie is lost, and the look at these women empowered or something like that is sometimes lost to what I consider myself to be a casual viewer. This is not lost. This is like clearly, she's like, Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, I want to be in the movie, and she doesn't seem like she's gonna do that, and it's awesome. My favorite scene was already mentioned again by the lovely Paris who brought up the barn scene. I love that scene, it's beautiful and horrific all at the same time. And again, that thing where they are flashing back and forth, that's one thing. And then when it melds into Maxine being Pearl, and like I just was not prepared. I wasn't prepared for it. I was already like still in shock about the level of sex that we're having in this movie. So it's like a shocking, disgusting, intriguing, all of that scene all in one. And there's another scene that's like that for me, and specifically shocking and intriguing happening at the same time. It's Pearl crawling into bed with Maxine and like rubbing up on her and like breathing her old lady breath into her face. Absolutely disgusting, rotted. It is disgusting, repulsive, and yet, and yet so intriguing, so interesting the way that she didn't kill her, because everyone else, as soon as she sees him, she kills him. She there was no mercy, there was no chilling for a second. She's just out here murdering people. But she loves Maxine, she sees herself in Maxine, and so those disgusting scenes in bed were lovely and gross and beautiful and horrific. It's just very intriguing. It's like everything that this movie is beautiful and gross at the exact same moment. And you want to throw up, but you also can't stop looking at it.

SPEAKER_02 48:25

Well, Pearl definitely saw herself in Maxine, and she also saw that X factor in her that it was alluded to earlier in the movie, and I think that's probably why the movie's called X. But Ryan, did you know that Mia Goth played Maxine and Pearl?

SPEAKER_03 48:38

I did not know it to be fact, but I knew that it was a young person playing an old person, and I knew they looked very similar. So I didn't know they were exactly the same, but it was obvious to me that this wasn't an old lady, and it felt like a very specific intention of this movie, and I really loved that. Because immediately I was like, they look exactly alike.

SPEAKER_02 48:57

Literally same. I definitely clocked that it was a young person in old makeup, but I didn't quite get that it was Mia Goth until Chris told me at the end after we saw the movie, and I was like, oh, it was the same bitch.

SPEAKER_01 49:06

So they they absolutely look alike, but where I clocked it was when Max is actually in her house and she walks her to her old wedding photo because it's Mia Goth in the photo.

SPEAKER_03 49:16

Oh, makes sense. I have a very hard time recognizing faces even when it's literally in front of me. So I didn't realize that, but I did realize it looked similar, so I made up I put my own two and two together.

SPEAKER_05 49:27

So my favorite scene has to do with multiple scenes, but one in particular is when Lorraine is trapped in the basement and she's trying to escape, and you have her in this very Jack Torrance environment looking through the door and looking out into like the audience, the house. So I love that, but then there's also points where she's carrying around an axe, and I was like, this is so the shining. When RJ is in the bathtub, the shower, and there's that top view. I was like, oh my gosh, this is psycho. I mean, there's just so many little nuances, and I absolutely loved it.

SPEAKER_03 50:10

Can we talk about why she didn't use the axe on the outside door? Why would you axe your way back into the house? Yeah, I don't know. That was a fault for me too. I hated it. I was like, girl, you're too smart for this.

SPEAKER_02 50:21

Because it was chains. She couldn't axe the chains. Sorry? The cellar door?

SPEAKER_01 50:26

Yeah. I think the cellar door had thicker wood. A. And then also it's probably like a more difficult angle to try to like a axe herself out. Because because it's chained, she couldn't like easily unlock that. But to be able to axe herself out, she'd be doing that for a lot longer. I think she had a better chance doing it on the inside of the door. I disagree, but it's okay. I feel like other things were smart other than that. It also bothered me that she uh on that door cut out the further side from the lock versus the one that's actually like she went on the hinge side and not the lock side. And had she done the lock side, she could have unlocked it before he got there.

SPEAKER_02 51:03

I had like 15 seconds during that where I was like, could she see the hinges from the other side of the door? Because maybe she forgot which way the door opened. I was trying to justify that in my mind because I also struggled with that.

SPEAKER_05 51:13

Was there not a knob on the inside?

SPEAKER_02 51:15

So what is her excuse? She doesn't have one.

SPEAKER_03 51:16

I'm just saying the cellar doors are the more safe option because someone has to go all the way outside to know that you're doing it. That man just walked in his house and was like, Oh, you busted through. I got you. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 51:27

No, for sure, that would have been the wiser choice. I don't think it was just the more practical choice, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_02 51:33

Now listen, I don't think Jenna Ortega had what it took to be our final girl in this movie. And that was a surprise to me because Chris kind of implied that she was the final girl of the movie before we sat down, and I was like, okay.

SPEAKER_01 51:46

I was hoping. I didn't I didn't know by any means.

SPEAKER_02 51:49

I thought you knew something I didn't, so I was like, okay, she's gonna be our final girl, let's see how it plays out. So when it's revealed, sort of, that Maxine is our final girl, and then you see all these different little things kind of falling into place to reveal things about her character, specifically in those final moments where she's absolutely pulverized Pearl's little old skull with the truck, and you see the TV that's been playing like that preacher's like black and white sermon all throughout the movie, and it's revealed that Maxine is the preacher's daughter who ran away to be like a famous sex movie star, and because she has that X Factor, and then she's just like driving off into the night, like doing a quick casual bump of Coke, and then she just says, like, praise the fucking Lord. I was like, Okay, Maxine, I did not see Final Girl for You, but you have absolutely earned it, and I just thought that was a really great way to add depth to a character that was kind of like mysterious and like hard to pin down throughout the movie.

SPEAKER_05 52:43

Yeah, they definitely drop you into this scene, which is what I love, and you're just like, okay, what's going on? And you're trying to figure it out like Ryan and I were the entire movie, and you're just trying to figure it out, and I love that scene because you definitely see what could possibly become of Maxine, and I don't know, it just gives her it gives her the X Factor.

SPEAKER_03 53:04

I definitely saw Final Girl energy the whole time, but I do need to point out one thing that I can't unsee or unhear. And if you've watched Ozark, I don't know if anyone here has, but Ruth is like the screaming Midwest girl, and Maxine has a lot of Ruth energy in this, especially at the end when she's screaming, like she sounds like Ruth, and Ruth has a very specific thing that happens in Ozark. The way that she screams and what she says, and like how vulgar she is, and just all that kind of stuff. I I do think Maxine should watch Less Ozark. The actress should watch Less Ozark because it feels like she's inspired by it. And honestly, it's hard not to be at this point in life. I, if I was a more vulgar person, would just be running around yelling Ruth quotes all over town because they're so fun. But that is a little bit here, it's a little bit of an influence that I could see that I don't know is maybe intentional.

SPEAKER_01 53:56

I know you all saw Final Girl for Max, and I felt like when the first moment we see her and she's in front of the mirror and Wayne comes up to her, I'm like, okay, well, we're introduced to her early. This is probably gonna end up being our final girl, but I still wasn't like happy about it. I didn't want her to be. For me, I just didn't like her very much. I mean, it's not that like she's unlikable, but I think I liked the other characters so much more that I didn't care about Max. What I did find interesting though is the insistence on showing how strong her spirit is and how she's living her life with a lot more courage than Pearl did. And I know we're gonna learn more about Pearl in the prequel that we're gonna get later this year to this movie. So maybe there's some courage there that we didn't see, but this movie, with its depiction of Pearl versus Max, left me with this feeling that, you know, Pearl's captivated her, partially because Max has that X factor, but she's choosing to live in that X Factor versus letting it pass her by day by day. I think that is a cool aspect of it.

SPEAKER_03 55:02

I agree. And the other thing that I think is really interesting is that the character that Maxine plays, being this young girl with some much older man, it kind of being groomed by him, like doing whatever he wants. I feel like normally she'd be a very like weak character. She'd normally be like, oh, I'm gonna say a disgusting thing here, oh, whatever you want, daddy, like that kind of thing, like just like a sweet do, I'll do whatever you tell me to do. I'm just like following you, I'm just trying to please you, whatever. That kind of person. And I'm so happy that Maxine isn't like that because I don't want to see that. I don't like that person, I don't want her to be in the movie that I'm watching. Maxine was like, nah, I'm a sex symbol. I got this. I got the X Factor. All a little bit corny, some corny mantras, but you know, to each his own.

SPEAKER_01 55:47

And I'm telling you, I know there's some corny moments there for her, and there were also some corny moments there for Bobby Lynn, but she stole the show for me. I walked in expecting to love Jenna Ortega's character Lorraine the most. She's just 10 out of 10 quality, and I absolutely do enjoy her character of Lorraine, but damn, Brittany Snow, you stole my heart. Holy shit. She was just like the wisest one of the bunch and the most like strong and steady in her convictions as a person, the most uh confident, the most experienced. And I loved almost like that that mother hen energy that she brought towards Lorraine and Max once Lorraine, especially once Lorraine decided that she wanted to be in the movie, absolutely loved her.

SPEAKER_02 56:32

Yeah, Britney Snow was obviously my favorite character as well. She was so dropped into that character, she was so lived in in her performance, and it was just like really satisfying to see her just be like a sexually empowered boss bitch, beautiful blonde bombshell, all the bees. Uh, she also had so many good lines in this movie. People spend a lot of money to look at what God gave me. Like, yes, bitch, they do. You better work it. I was so obsessed with her from beginning to end, and she got a great death, so I was like, you know, well done, Britney Snow. This was a great role for you.

SPEAKER_03 57:03

Yeah, Britney Snow doesn't normally really do it for me. And I would, she wasn't my favorite part of this movie, but she played this role a hundred percent.

SPEAKER_05 57:12

Yeah, that scene, I was just waiting for it. When she's on the dock and she's talking to Pearl and says that, and then it she's just kind of mean in that scene, in my opinion. I know she was just, you know, being cute and honest, but it just ended up, I guess, because she was talking to Pearl. To me, it just became off a little, a little mean girl.

SPEAKER_01 57:32

I think that's the whole point, though, right? Because she came at her with such kindness, gave her her, you know, a little shawl for some warmth. And when she received fire, she gave back fire. It was very tit for tat, not like just outward aggression. And I think that's the other thing, right? This movie shows us how we perceive others by their age, and people's perceived like fall from grace as they age. And we think about like, okay, in Hollywood, women are so rarely cast the older they get, right? There's like a select few that have really long careers. And I think that's something that's gonna be corrected as we continue to go on. But this movie shows, okay, Pearl, her husband doesn't want her, people talk to her a certain way, and yet Bobby Lynn, had she not done that, had she not given back that fire, I think she would have been just like every other person, right? Okay, well, let's go find your husband. I mean, I think her sassiness shows, oh, okay, no, you're still a regular ass person, and I'll give it to you as good as you're giving it to me.

SPEAKER_02 58:29

I love that.

SPEAKER_05 58:30

Yeah, I see where you're coming from, Chris, because I definitely agree with that part. So I possibly take back my comment, putting everything in perspective right now. I see where you're coming from in that. So she wasn't really a mean girl. Yeah, she's sticking it for herself.

SPEAKER_02 58:43

It was also very much like like Chris is saying, when Pearl revealed that she was a bitch, Bobby Lynn was like, Oh, you want to be a bitch? Then I'll treat you like a bitch. She very much gave her the benefit of the doubt until proven otherwise, and then treated her as an equal as one would. She's like, Okay, I'm not going to treat you differently because you're old. I think something that this movie does that's interesting is it it asks us to not desexualize somebody because they're old. But I think in this specific case, don't desexualize people because they're old. Desexualize people because they take horrible care of themselves. Like, look at Jane Fonda. Jane Fonda is probably the same age as Pearl, and Jane Fonda is still very sexually attractive. Like, there's choices you can make in your life. You didn't have to become a scaly, withered old crone, Pearl, and then just to be mad that nobody wants to fuck you. You kind of did this to yourself.

SPEAKER_03 59:31

Listen, I understand the like moral sense of like I I I have talked to old people who describe what it feels like to just feel like they disappear as they get older. And I understand that it will happen to all of us, but I'm not interested in the sexual rights of old people at all on movies that I have to watch. Okay. I I'm just not interested. I hope your grandparents are at home getting it down right now. But I don't want to hear about it. I don't want to see it. I don't want to think about it. I don't want to smell it. There were a lot of smells that I thought about in this movie. I just don't want anything to do with it. And I don't I'm I'm okay with being on the wrong side of history on this.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:12

Well, what do we what do we think about Wayne? I felt like Wayne was surprisingly not a douche.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:17

I totally agree. I think Wayne was like a bad person, but a good, like a good person with bad motivations in the world or something. Like, I'm not sure. It's so weird. He isn't an absolute bag of trash when you if you write on paper, man takes young people to country barn to film porn, like not not looking good for me, and dates the like 20-year-old girl that's like starring in it or whatever. Like, if you write that on paper, I'm not interested. But Wayne is actually kind of great. Honestly, the men in this are kind of really good, except RJ. He's not, but like Wayne and Jackson, I'm here for them. Yeah, they were solid.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:58

I love Jackson too, and I was really disappointed in the death that he got. I will say, um, one of the other things that I love is when you think about a horror movie and you think about the people who often die, right? Sure, some guys just kind of go out quick and painless, and then the women tend to suffer more, but then sometimes the women are penalized for being sexual. But in this movie, all the men die, with the exception of Howard, all the men of one group and one party die before the women are even touched. And think about you know Bobby Lynn going out and a gator gets her. Uh Lorraine gets shot to the face, and then Max survives. So the deaths are, I wouldn't say less bad, but they're markedly different than the men's death in this film.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:41

Yeah, the men got the most brutal kills. Especially starting with RJ, who deserved the most brutal kill. He was the doucheyest, so he got the most evil fate. I liked that Wayne answered the door in his little skivvies and then was like, Yeah, I'll go help you in this little slutty look. And I said, You work, himbo. He was given body too.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:01

He was, but why was he in tidy whiteys? Why?

SPEAKER_02 1:02:04

Because of the 70s.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:05

It's true, but also again, why?

SPEAKER_01 1:02:08

Just some other notes that I have in terms of the characters, which I think is one of the best parts. Now, obviously, I do have two complaints about this movie that I'll get to as the worst part in just a moment, but I love looking back and in recent history, right? So this movie takes place in 1979, and Lorraine mentions how RJ loves psycho. And we meant she mentions how the story changes about halfway through to build suspense. And obviously, that conversation is like the catalyst for this movie changing. But you know, Alexis, she mentioned earlier that we have RJ in the shower being emotional. We get that psycho vibe there. I love that it comes back again when we find that car submerged in the swamp area. There are so many other elements like baked into this movie beyond just the apparent Texas chainsaw massacre, which is absolutely killer. And those little details make this feel so much richer. Now, where this movie went wrong for me, one, Jackson did not need to be shot in the chest with a shotgun. Absolutely didn't. I know that he foreshadowed it. I know he said, I've had enough farmers shooting at me for one lifetime, but I still found it completely unnecessary. Two, the old people fucking in the bed. Could have done without it, didn't need it to linger. It was gross, and I guess it was effective in what it was trying to do. And I guess destigmatizing the sex and all that, but we didn't need to see Howard's ass.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:29

And I'm just gonna say, if Pearl's hip could handle all of that, I don't see how the fall took her out. But Chris, I'm right there with you. That's the worst part of the movie for sure. I did not need to see the old people fucking. And then specifically the conversation that they had on the bed leading up to it, I was like, I don't actually care about either one of you as characters or people, and I don't know that there's anything you could possibly say or do that would change that for me. The most I cared was during like this dramatic uh landslide music video that we got.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:57

I will say this though. We think about characters and and villains in horror. How much backstory do they need? Uh, are they real people, which makes it scary? Are they completely void of character and background? And that's the like the mystery allows you to project your own fears. Ty West chose simplicity here, and I really love that choice because that conversation shows you that these are regular ass people. They're evil people for sure. They're making fucking terrible decisions, but it's not the boogeyman. And I love Halloween and his depiction of the boogeyman, but it's not a nightmare demon, Freddy Krueger. It's not a man with a chainsaw wielding weapons and wearing people's face. It's none of that. These are just regular ass people. So I think that conversation gives value there, but honestly, cut it right there. Let us know that they fucked without showing us that they fucked, and I would have been better.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:56

Yeah, it was horrific. And I do just want to like nod to your point. The one of the loveliest things about this movie is that it doesn't like just tell us stuff, but we learn things about all these people in very simple ways. So it doesn't feel like they're like, hi, we're people making a porno. But we learn it so simply, and it's that that simplicity is beautiful in this, and it makes it more approachable for such a rogue storyline.

SPEAKER_05 1:05:19

Hard to think of a worst part, but I guess the worst part would be seeing the effects of these old people, like their skin and stuff, which I understand happens as you age, but when I saw them titties though, but it was her getting into the bed and this I I mean, I get it, she was obsessed with her. I wasn't sure at the point where if she wanted to be her or be with her, which is what I was trying to figure out. Yeah, it could have been both, I'm assuming. Just her sound like she was getting off behind her, touching her hair. Like it was just a little much. It was just just like the sex scene. I could also drop that in for being the worst part as well.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:58

Yeah, I think. Obviously, the old people's sex is the worst. That part was rough, but again, that I was like so intrigued by at least the sex scene with old man butt cheeks. There was nothing that I needed there. I already had everything I needed. All you had to do is tell me. It was gross. One other thing, like at the beginning of this movie, that bothered me is I felt like there was a significant amount of dubbing. And I don't know if that's fact or if it just has to do with the angles that they were shooting from. But when they were in the gas station, especially there were some other parts, but especially there, I just felt like everything that was being said was dubbed. And it's because they were filming from behind where you like really couldn't see the person's mouth moving. I don't know if it was actually dubbed, but it stood out to me. And maybe that's just because I'm in 2022 and this was supposed to be authentic or something. I didn't like that. I don't like when I think things are dubbed because I can tell when things are filmed specifically so that you can't see mouths moving. I don't know. It was a weird thing. I don't know if it's a like detrimental part of the movie, but it did bother me.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:00

Ryan, you are not wrong. I also noticed that exact same thing a couple times where they like film from over the shoulder and you can see the person's like jaw moving, but you can also tell that it's not moving in sync with the words that are coming out of their mouth.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:11

If it is doving, it's done really well though, because it also really like fades directly into scenes where you can see them and you're like, all right, well, that seemed like a full sentence. Okay, so it drives you nuts, but would you watch it again? You know, Chris, you asked me this question earlier, and I honestly don't know. I think I would watch it again, but it would have to be with some people I want to like really show it to. But then I'm thinking about it and like, who do I want to show this to? And be like, oh my god, there's this movie I really want you to see. Like, you know, when you want to show somebody something and they don't get it, and you're like, oh god, I thought this was gonna go well.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:46

And then they're like, remember that movie Ryan made us watch.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:48

Right, exactly. So then I'm like the weirdo that showed like a porn movie to my friends. Like it we would have to be in like very specific company or all of us again. That's basically it.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:59

Yeah, I was gonna say the company has to be specific, so I wouldn't not sure. So I'm not sure exactly when I would watch this again, but I probably would, and I would probably listen to the episode on this just because I've learned a lot about this movie, so I would love to watch it again just to see what kind of take, you know, from a different perspective it would be.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:21

Right. Like now that we know the shock that we couldn't handle in the theater, it would be interesting to see it again and like be able to pay more attention and not just be throwing up in my mouth the whole time.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:33

This movie, I would watch it again. In fact, I would like to watch it again sometime soon because a couple of us have mentioned some little foreshadowing bits that I didn't pick up on when I watched it, and I bet that there's a lot more deliberate choices that were made that I would pick up on in a second watch. This is one of those movies.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:50

Well, I'm curious to see how this movie continues to age for all of you, but listener, we want to know what you think. Because for right now, there you have it, X has earned a universal slash on this show. Now, the conversation doesn't end here by any means. We want to know what you think. We want to know if you're excited for Pearl. We want you to weigh in on the deaths in this film, so let us know. You can join in on the conversation by hanging out with us for free in our Discord. You can click the link in our show notes to sign up.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:15

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SPEAKER_01 1:09:27

We'll see you next time, folks, and remember it's better to beg for forgiveness than ask for permission. Bye.