256: Skinamarink (2022)

SPEAKER_01 0:04

You're all my hero.

SPEAKER_02 0:05

I can be your hero, baby.

SPEAKER_01 0:07

I will stand by you forever. Greetings and salutations, and welcome to Hack or Slash. If you're joining us again, welcome back. Put the knife in your eye. 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_03 0:30

Totally killer pun intended.

SPEAKER_01 0:32

We believe horror is for everyone, and as such, we're rating these movies with the perspective we gain 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 Superfly Space Guy Mac.

SPEAKER_02 0:45

Come to the basement.

SPEAKER_01 0:46

The classic horror connoisseur Sean.

unknown 0:49

I want to play.

SPEAKER_01 0:51

And the paranormal paramour Binks.

SPEAKER_00 0:53

Can we watch something happy now?

SPEAKER_01 0:55

The people of Spoken and our patrons have decided we're covering a newly released independent film that was made for the low, low price of $15,000. Before we get down to business though, we have some follow-up.

SPEAKER_02 1:06

Let's follow up on some stuff. So our community has grown so much over the last few years. We very recently just had a watch party for Freddie vs. Jason. Fantastic community turnout. So look, if you haven't joined our Discord, you need to do it. It's a great place to meet like-minded people and talk about movies and sometimes talk about dogs and sometimes talk about dad jokes. It's pretty fantastic. And if you become one of our patrons, there's even a patron exclusive area of the Discord. So join. Speaking of patrons, thank you so much to our newest patrons, Steven and Alessa. Welcome to the family. Enjoy the perks of that patron exclusive part of the Discord. Can't wait to uh see you perhaps on some live recordings pretty soon. Hell yeah. And finally, last reminder, okay? We can't we can't keep doing this. We gotta get the planning going, gotta make some decisions. Links.hackerslash dot live slash 2023 meetup. Let us know where you want to meet up so that we can get together as big hacker slash family. I know we've got some got some top votes going on in there, so follow that link. It's in the show notes if you if you've already forgotten. I just said it a moment ago. But go ahead and jump on in there and tell us where you'd like to meet up and meet your heroes. Mostly Chris, though. Chris is the biggest hero of all.

SPEAKER_01 2:20

Bullshit. Absolute bullshit. You're all my hero.

SPEAKER_02 2:23

I can be your hero, baby.

SPEAKER_01 2:24

I will stand by you for it.

SPEAKER_02 2:26

I knew it was coming. I knew it was coming. And that's our follow-up.

SPEAKER_01 2:30

Alyssa, Steven, we can't wait to see what you nominate because your friends have been put in some work. The patron nominations for this month featured a creepy ventriloquist flick from James Wan, a New England farmhouse film starring Steven Spielberg's son, and a low budget indie film that has recently hit theaters before it releases on Shudder later this year. The polls were closed, it was tight voting, but the winning film brings us a story in which two children wake up in the middle of the night to find their father missing, and windows and doors in their home have vanished. This week, after winning 45% of the overall patron vote, we're talking about Skinner Rink.

SPEAKER_00 3:04

So this movie was nominated by our patron Melissa, and along with her nomination, she shared it's rumored to have terrified even the most unshakable horror enthusiasts, as if David Lynch directed paranormal activity.

SPEAKER_01 3:18

Well, we'll see, Melissa, how terrifying it was for us. But first, what were you all expecting going into this?

SPEAKER_02 3:24

It's funny that her nomination includes paranormal activity because that's what I was expecting was paranormal activity, but with kids.

SPEAKER_03 3:31

Interesting. I I actually, I'm gonna admit, I had no idea what I was getting into with this film. I I had no expectations. I had not even heard about it until I think I heard or saw that it was in our lineup at some point, and I didn't for some reason this wasn't one that like I looked into. I didn't hear anything about it, I didn't look at any hype about it. I did read the synopsis. I think the expectation after reading the synopsis, because it's like literally a sentence long, uh, I was like, hmm, I felt like it was gonna be a little lackluster, maybe a little bit, I don't know, a little bit ambiguous. It was I wasn't sure how to take it. This movie came out of left field. I'll leave it at that.

SPEAKER_00 4:14

That's so interesting. I had known about this movie for a while, um, because of good old TikTok, of course. So I was kind of curious if we were ever gonna get into it. And then obviously when I saw Melissa had nominated it, I was like, oh, it's time. So honestly, I had such insanely high expectations of this movie. I thought that it was gonna scare the living hell out of me. I even told my brother before we watched it, I was like, you know, hey, Chris, this is really gonna be scary. Like, this is gonna be intense for real. And he was like, No, it's not. They always say every movie is the like scariest. And I was like, no, Chris, for real, this is gonna be real bad. So yeah, I I've been looking forward to this movie for a while for sure.

SPEAKER_01 4:57

So I had not heard of this movie at all, uh, until Melissa nominated it as her patron pick. I thought it was like just an up-and-coming situation. I had no idea, it's already made its rounds on TikTok fame. Again, I'm not on TikTok, so what do I know? But I did watch the trailer. One of the best things about the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre is John Larriquette's voice in the narration specifically at the beginning of the movie. And this trailer features a lot of like still moments, um, a lot of shots from the movie, but it has a man's voicing in this house. In this house, and then it gets a little bit more distorted as you go. That voice reminded me of John Lyrica, and it sent chills down my spine. So I went into this not having a clear grasp on what I was gonna get, but knowing that I felt uncomfortable even by the trailer alone, because that voice was fucking haunting. So I was hoping for something good, and let me tell you, I struggled with this a little bit. I found that the expectations I had for like a chilliness kind of situation as I was watching this movie, I was there on the edge of my seat, I was ready for what we what we got, but then it felt like it kept going. And I started to wonder where the hell is this going?

SPEAKER_02 6:19

It felt a bit aimless. I'll agree there. It was a bit slow for me, and I tend to like slow, but I watched this after a long day. You look forward to a movie at the end of your day, because it's gonna it's gonna wake you up a little bit, get you on the edge of your seat, get your heart pumping a little bit, but that just that just didn't happen for me. It didn't really keep my attention captured. I mean, I'm watching, I'm paying attention, I'm waiting for something crazy to truly go down. But it it felt it felt too low energy, I think, for me. It just needed some more oomph to it. And as it goes on, it builds up a little bit. And I thought, oh, okay, now is when the really crazy stuff's gonna happen. And then it just like you mentioned, aimless, it just kind of pitters out.

SPEAKER_00 7:04

Yeah. I felt the same way because I think at the beginning for a while there, I was feeling pretty tense, and then I started to feel a little bit bored, and then it picked up again, and I was like, all right, okay, it I'm we're back in it. I'm getting tense, I'm getting a little scared, a little spooked, but then I felt bored again, and eventually the boredom kind of outweighed the the tension and the fear a little bit. And so that just felt overall very confusing for me. I think throughout the whole movie, I was kind of just like, all right, where is this going? And even days later, right? I I don't know how to feel about this movie or how I felt just generally, other than not what I thought I was going to be feeling, unfortunately, which is extremely scared. But oh well.

SPEAKER_03 7:48

I so I can see, I can see where you're all going with like the aimlessness and the boredom and the like it the mixture of boredom and interest and boredom and interest and that kind of play on your, I don't know, emotions or evoking some kind of feeling. My initial thought was yes, like I think the first 30 minutes felt very aimless. It felt very kind of blah. But after you get through that first 30 minutes, I'm not saying it picks up into some kind of a pace that gets your that gets your um you know get gets you to the edge of your seat. But what this movie really did was evoke a lot of specific feelings, at least for me, that I thought were like, I don't know, it's hard to explain. It's like I wanted, I wanted to keep watching, but what the fuck was I watching? Why was I watching this? Should I be watching this? Right? Like it really felt like I probably shouldn't be watching this. It felt like some kind of a strange, weird home video that I wasn't supposed to have stumbled upon, something weird like that. Um, but that that was kind of like the feeling that I had the whole time. And I wish, I wish you could see my I wish the people listening right now could see the face that I'm about to make because this was probably my face for 90% of the movie. It was like a mixture of what the fuck? And a mixture of what am I looking at? What what am I looking at? Can I even look at it? Am I seeing anything? Like it was just a mixture of feelings, it felt intentional. I don't know, maybe it was supposed to bring all of these things out.

SPEAKER_01 9:35

Okay, so I have a few thoughts, but first a question. Sean, do you feel like this movie Schinema Rink spoke in some way to your inner child?

SPEAKER_03 9:45

A 1000% this spoke to my inner child.

SPEAKER_01 9:50

Fucking wild. Okay. I don't know that it spoke to my inner child, but I think there is a lot of good in this movie, right? Like I think something that I've had to parse, right, is once I got over that initial shock of oh wait, where's the voice? Oh wait, where's the chilliness that I expected based on the trailer? And once I kind of like settle into that, you kind of have to look around the house and see what is this movie? What is it all about? And what it's giving you is a child's nightmare. And the whole premise of this movie is like this filmmaker has uh made short films and taken inspiration from people's actual childhood nightmares. None of my fucking nightmares for sure, because it didn't speak to my inner child, but I think it's fascinating that this movie resonated so much with you and you feel like it did.

SPEAKER_03 10:39

Yeah, it's pretty crazy. And I don't know, like I get the inspiration from nightmares, and I can't necessarily recall specific nightmares as a child, but and and I think we'll probably dive a little more into this um later on in the episode, but um when we can really kind of dive into specifics, but yeah, I'll leave it at this. It's a feeling that I feel like I haven't felt since I was a kid in weird situations where my imagination may have taken the best of me.

SPEAKER_01 11:10

What an amazing feeling. I think we can all strive to feel something like that when watching a movie.

SPEAKER_02 11:15

It definitely, it definitely hit you much deeper than it hit me. And the face you made is honestly, it's it's the face of a grandfather watching like watching a TV show or a movie or listening to an album from their grandkid and just completely not understanding what the hell is the point of it all. That's like the exact face you just made where they don't want to say anything quite yet because they're like, I don't want to, I don't want to scar this kid, but at the same time, what are they on about? That's that's what I feel like you just summed up. I I gotta admit here, I was not expecting such an like avant-garde experimental style of film. And because of that, because I mean maybe I just didn't do any homework at all, I was really disappointed because it is, you know, ethereal. And I was disappointed by the fact that it wasn't a traditional character-based story. And that bothered me, and that left me not connecting with it really on any sort of meaningful level.

SPEAKER_00 12:11

Yeah, I would say that for me, I I really loved the premise, and I feel like there was a lot of potential for me to um really see myself in that situation and kind of connect to my inner child, especially that I saw it with my brother. So I think like the dynamic between obviously the two protagonists, um, and then me watching it with my brother and having had experiences where we were obviously in a house by ourselves in the dark for several hours and like wondering where I dad went and stuff, like we can relate to that, but I just it was missed, and so I was so disappointed by that. I feel like it was a perfect recipe and the and the way that I watched it, and with my brother, I was like, oh, we're really gonna just experience this skinema rink, you know? And then it was nothing, and that's what's uh that was really sad.

SPEAKER_01 13:00

That actually makes me so sad for you, Binks, because as I was watching this, I was thinking about my own sibling dynamic. And my older siblings, like I think the closest one to age is like six years older than me, but they're much closer in age with each other, and they kind of grew up in pairs, and it bummed me out watching this. I was like, man, I really wish I had siblings who are closer to me in age, who I had as like a little companion, you know what I mean? So I could like actually connect because I thought, man, watching this and then remembering that you're gonna go watch this with your brother, that felt like it would have made the experience so much better. So I'm bummed that it didn't have that impact for you.

SPEAKER_00 13:35

Yeah. Well, at the very least, we definitely did look at each other a few times and we're like, are you seeing something that I'm not seeing? And I'm like, I don't know, Chris. You have better eyesight than I do, I think. I don't know. Or like we're just kind of going off of that. But yeah, the the premise I think was so incredible. I think there was a lot of opportunity for me to really resonate with everything, like I said. And um I was kind of expecting a little bit of an art whore, you know. Um, but I was just again that disappointment of how it was delivered, of how it went about, the aimlessness. I just kind of got lost in what the potential of it all. Um, so that was, yeah, definitely disappointing, unfortunately.

SPEAKER_03 14:17

Yeah, it's in it's interesting, right? So um, you know, we talk about how good the premise is, and maybe the delivery fell flat. And I think at first I was disappointed by the delivery. I was disappointed by the fact that you can't really see shit in this movie. These camera angles of just like the ceiling or the floor, whatever it is, you don't really see much of the characters, you don't see a ton of the dialogue, or you don't get a ton of the dialogue, rather. Uh the picture is grainy, the audio is distorted, it's low, it's hard to hear at times, but I was genuinely surprised as it kept progressing by how effective it really was in how I was feeling throughout the film in specific scenes, right? I I could see where there were some scenes where it felt kind of aimless or it just kind of felt like filler, I don't know, but there were some scenes that were super effective, and I was genuinely surprised by how captivated I was in those scenes.

SPEAKER_01 15:17

That is definitely fair. There's a lot of moments in this movie that really I found like jarred me visually, but you know, honestly, the joke's on us because what we watched in Skin of Marink is just how Mac sees fucking darkness, apparently. So, Mac, I need to know, did you have like double of your like visual snow watching this movie?

SPEAKER_02 15:38

No, I mean, you know, hey, the the grain that I get at all times, it's just a constant thing. You learn to tune it out in many cases, but um, it it doesn't help. I'll say that. It doesn't help when things aren't as crystal clear as they could be. I I'm a huge fan of 4K TVs and high-resolution theater displays because the more clarity, the better for me.

SPEAKER_01 15:59

Hearing uh how Mac, how you see things, I feel like just looking at this is just how you see the world.

SPEAKER_02 16:04

Absolutely. Uh it is actually very close to how I see the world, especially in darkness. You know, I have found out that some people, when they look into a dark room, they just see black, and that's not me. It's just colors and pops of noise everywhere.

SPEAKER_01 16:17

I will say that there is something really great about this movie that surprised me and caught me off guard. I've had this lifelong dream of making a short horror film set to a specific version of the Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf song? And it's specifically like a Disney version of this song with the three the voices of the three little pigs. I always wanted to do that because it's like a really eerie cartoony kind of song, and I loved, and I was pleasantly surprised by and caught off guard by how fucking good the background music from the cartoons in this movie was and how much that really brought the experience together for me. Now, sometimes you couldn't really hear it, and that like made me a little sad, right? The you know, the filmmakers put a lot of intention and love, their specific kind of love, into the sound design for this film. But at least a little bit of that felt like a hit home for me.

SPEAKER_00 17:08

Yeah, I would say that what I enjoyed the most about it would be, which is ironic, because maybe I didn't hear everything, but like the the sound design of it in terms of it using sound to scare you. So after the first couple minutes or so, my brother and I were talking about how, okay, this is gonna be a movie where it's not showing you what you should be scared of, but rather you're gonna be listening to what you should be scared of in the way that the shots are done. Um, you have to be listening intently. And so I kind of really liked that ambiance of it. And ultimately at the end of the day, when you are looking at a movie that is predominantly in the dark, you're going to feel scared to some extent. And that's that tension I was talking about earlier. I felt like I was just staring at a hallway for a while, waiting for something to pop out or like to hear a sound all of a sudden. And it was just constantly, constantly there, always holding me something like, you know, on a tether almost. Ultimately, though, eventually I kind of got used to it. And I think that's the problem, is that I kind of got desensitized to the fact that I would be staring at something and then nothing would be happening. Um, but nonetheless, when something did end up happening, I was like, okay, here we go. You know, it was like a weird roller coaster ride, but I do appreciate that the sound design was like the method of fear, which is something I don't usually get to experience in a horror movie.

SPEAKER_03 18:29

Yeah, when you think about that, the sound design and and the way that they articulated that in this movie, I think it plays off of your senses. You're looking deeply, closely for something to see. The things are really low, probably on purpose because you're really listening, you're really attentive to trying to hear what you should be hearing. And then you get these abrupt things that happen, and that's what really spikes the the the emotions and the things within you. And so like it really doesn't that's what I mean, like it really effectively plays off of your senses throughout the film, which is a very unconventional approach uh that a lot of movies don't take. Like, yeah, we have jump scares that have spikes in audio and different things like that to get the jump scare effectiveness out there, but this this film takes it two steps further and really pulls you in real slowly and then abruptly jerks you.

SPEAKER_02 19:35

I didn't feel any fear while watching this movie, of course, because I'm me. Quite the opposite. I actually started to fall asleep and I feel bad for it. My wife had to kind of wake me up a little bit as I started to doze off. It's one of those things that it's very slow, it's very calm for almost the entire film. It's got a little bit of snow, it's got some some film, you know, stuff going on where it makes it seem like this was shot on film 40 years ago and now they've retrieved it or something. The sound has that constant noise to it as well. It's got like a little white noise, and that combination, for whatever reason, calmed me more than anything. It legit was it's almost like a sleep aid watching this movie, but I didn't find it scary. There's some weird things, and I spent uh an at least the first third of the movie in heavy anticipation because I expected some really crazy stuff to eventually show up. Because anytime you have that nice soft launch into a movie, you're saving it, right? You're gonna you're gonna throw it at me later and try to catch me off guard, but I just never really felt that. We did get into some weird stuff, but it was then calm again. So I just wasn't it it wasn't scary enough at all for me.

SPEAKER_03 20:41

It's interesting. I I mean, I get it. One, you know, you watched it after a long day. I don't know, maybe that had a factor to play, but I agree. It's a calming noise, but I think again, it proves to the point of that's the intention. You could argue that it was more unsettling than actually scary, but overall it was an intense fever dream of a film, right? Uh, I think that you know it was the the white noise and the uh background noise and the things that were pretty constant throughout the film were very calming, and I think that it was very it was very purposeful. I think it wanted you to be calm because when it didn't want you to be calm, it was super effective in making you not calm, and maybe not for you, I'm not sure. But that's that's where I think the effectiveness comes in. And to me, uh it was actually one of the most frightening films that I've seen in a long time. I mean, I haven't gotten scared in, and I'm not saying scared in like I'm gonna jump and and be scared of like a ghost or something like that. It's the kind of movie that gets the hairs on the back of your neck standing. Like that's the kind of fright that I haven't felt uh felt in a movie in years.

SPEAKER_00 22:00

I feel like I saw so many people, like you know, Melissa said that this is the scariest movie that they've ever seen. And like I said at the very beginning, that's exactly what I was expecting. And so for me not to have experienced that, but but you did is just I'm like, what world am I living in? This is the polar opposite.

SPEAKER_03 22:18

I'm not saying it's the scariest film that I've ever seen, but what I'm saying is it was effectively frightening, more so than I've seen in a long time. So like I get it, yes, same, same, but different. But I think I touched on it earlier. Like it's it evoked a different kind of feeling that I really haven't felt since I was a kid in that kind of overactive imagination fear that takes a hold of you.

SPEAKER_01 22:43

Binx, I wonder if you would have had a closer reaction to that had you not gone in with the expectations that you did. And maybe you wouldn't have.

SPEAKER_00 22:52

No, I I think it's that. I think if I hadn't known anything about this movie, I think that it was like certain elements and variables had to change. I think if I went into this movie not having had the expectations that I did, I feel like I would have been a lot more scared and really been a little more immersed versus me watching the whole movie thinking, okay, this is supposed to be a movie that has scared people like insanely. And I'm trying to figure out what at what point does it start to do that. Like, what is it doing? I'm too focused on that and not like really like marinating at what's happening or letting my mind kind of go there. I also think I probably needed to have had it in like a different sound situation because I I think I didn't hear everything that everyone did, or maybe I misunderstood some things, maybe I missed certain things, I don't know. But this is gonna be a movie that I'm gonna have to re-watch and probably give it a second shot to be, you know, to test the scares a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 23:52

So for sure, folks, if you end up watching this when it releases on Shudder, you need to put captions on. You need this to be able to enhance the experience and figure out the other things that may not be coming through in your home viewing experience. Because I know for sure if I try to watch this on my TV, it wouldn't it would be a rap. It'd be a fucking rap. I know that. Um, but I think you know, when you when you when you consider how frightening this movie can be, there are moments that got me to the point of nope, but that's it. It got me to the edge, but never did anything with it. And I think that's what is most disappointing about like the feelings from this movie, because on paper, you have two kids in a vulnerable situation facing a threat, and it doesn't seem like there are any there's any adults there to render assistance, and that is terrifying. And the little voices in this movie, when you can hear them, they're pretty fucking cute. So you spend some time emotionally invested into these kids, but then some sometimes it does something with that, other times it just kind of walks away from it completely. And I think something that could have made this a little bit more frightening, I'm thinking if they took a little nod from Nosferatu and give us some more shadows that aren't of just objects, you know what I mean? If we had a few little shadows from the kids, I think it would have bumped up the fear factor for me.

SPEAKER_03 25:22

That's a fair point.

SPEAKER_02 25:23

I gotta say, the delivery of the content in this film obviously not something I expected, and not really something I've seen before. It is very arthouse to me, it is very cerebral, um, and it all it comes across as is fairly original to me. I wish it wasn't. I wish I had gotten a more kind of canned film because I'm boring and and and like blockbuster crap, but I just I I haven't seen anything like this previously. I I will give it credit for that.

SPEAKER_00 25:54

Yeah, I have to agree. I you're not boring. I I I am also the same. Um, but I have to say, despite it all, it is extremely original. I think it's pretty bold to have two children as your main focus, as your protagonists, you know, and and ultimately at the end of the day, with such a small budget, they're making waves with this movie, obviously. So I think what he was trying to uh say in terms of nightmares and the play on on darkness, having just one TV um be the main focus. I don't know, so many elements of this movie to tell the story, I think was really cool, and I've never seen it like before. Now, you know, did I really understand the story fully? You know, debatable. But uh I think it was really good. I I saw some people compare it to Blair Witch Project. And if that's what yeah, and and if that's what you're reading, I would say sure, I can I can see that too. I I definitely agree. But I personally was not an extremely big fan of Blair Witch Project, and um I uh can see certain elements where it's similar, but I think the best parts of Blair Witch Project are what this compares to, not the overall movie, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 27:09

Yeah, that's a a good clarification and specification there. I think obviously this is something that feels very, very, very different, and I think it's because again, it takes this really vulnerable situation and tells it from a completely different point of view, and almost at a to a degree where you can't almost discern which point of view it's coming from. There are some shots that are clearly from the perspective of a child, and then there are others that are like you're like a fly on the wall just watching this unfold, but not in the traditional way that you would as a as being behind the camera in any other narrative film. So I think that in itself is really unique, and the reality is it's so different that you you have to support independent horror, right? Like for this team to have done what they did with such a low budget and to achieve the feelings in Sean that they have achieved, you know, those feelings didn't hit for me, but it's absolutely amazing. Like, what a fucking year for horror. You know what I mean? And when you think about this being a 2022 film, and we think about like what Terrifier 2 did at the box office last year in independent horror, fucking amazing shit. But I will say that the ending was not a hit for me. It completely fucking swung and missed. It felt like, again, I talk about earlier, Mac, you mentioned and just kind of pittered out, but it was with the pitter patter of little feet walking fucking aimlessly in the woods. Not that they were in the woods, but this movie seemed to like have lost its direction the longer it went on. And I feel like the whole fucking like back third of the movie I could have done without.

SPEAKER_02 28:52

You know, it gets really juicy. It gets to a point where you're like, this is gonna build to something absolutely insane, and I don't know that I could watch it if it does, because it involves kids, but it doesn't really. It just it fizzles, for me at least.

SPEAKER_00 29:06

That's interesting because I think for me it's the the issue with the ending is that there was several points where I thought it was about to end and then it didn't. And then if truthfully, if it had ended when I thought it was going to, I probably would have sent this movie to hell. I think it actually picks up, but it picks up too late. And so for me, the ending is where we see so much of everything that I wish we had seen throughout. So, like a lot of the dialogue. I would say some exposition that I would have enjoyed thoroughly throughout is now seen at the very end. Definitely some fear. I think that some of the parts of the end I felt like a lot of the tension was there for me, or like a lot of the scares. So actually, I would say like the ending to me was actually pretty good, but it just didn't make up for the entire movie, um, which is a little unfortunate overall.

SPEAKER_03 29:54

Yeah, it's tough, right? I have mixed feelings around the ending. I think overall the ending, you know, uh it it did drag on a little bit for sure. It was again something that maybe was intended. I think that the movie, the whole movie had you guessing, and this really fueled the fire in a way. I feel like it it you you have some surface level things that are just kind of right there, and then you have you know, something that if you looked a little bit deeper, right, into the depths of the film, that you maybe can find some more meaning out of it, or it it just plays on your interpretation of the film and what you get out of the film. And I don't think it was necessarily intended to be one straightforward answer. I think this is the type of film uh that that is intended to bring something out of you, and whatever you get out of it, that's okay. I think that's the intention of the film. And so, in that sense, I feel like the ending can be successful. Do I think that it dragged on a little bit? Yes. Um, but overall, I wasn't I wasn't upset about it. Um, I I don't truly know how the film could have ended any other way, to be honest, at this point. Um just kind of like reliving it and thinking about it. I feel like it worked and it was effective in its own right. Uh it was just meant for you to be able to have your own perspective or take on it.

SPEAKER_01 31:25

I can respect having your own perspective and take, and I'm excited to see how this commentary unfolds in the next half of our episode. But before we actually start making our way to our ratings, Sean, obviously we're dealing with some nightmarish fuel and there's children. How would you describe the gore score?

SPEAKER_03 31:40

To be honest, there's really not much gore in this film at all. Like, unless you count the blood splatter here and there, like you're not. I mean, it's I'm gonna go ahead and say it's safe to say that this one gets a very low gore score when you look at it from a gore perspective.

SPEAKER_01 31:56

And what about the animal report?

SPEAKER_00 31:58

Unless something happened in the dark that I didn't see, we are all good.

SPEAKER_01 32:02

That would have been the real nightmare. Let's go ahead and get into our ratings. Skin of a rink from 2022. We have to determine if it was a hack or a slash. And listen, I've already said a lot about this movie. I have a lot more to say, but I think my rating is very brief. So I'm gonna go ahead and slip it in right here at the at the front end. There's a lot of good in this movie. It tries to take you to a lot of different places. And when you think about the potential of a first date, it starts off really promising. But then sometimes what happens is that person has then overstayed their welcome, and you spend the last few hours really wishing you had just gone home or that they were not in your home, things like that. I can think of at least two dates that this movie reminded me of because of that vibe. This movie overstayed its welcome. It was 40 minutes too long. It's a hack.

SPEAKER_02 32:49

Okay. I Chris, I'm I'm with you. This movie is the looping video that plays in a tech-infused art installation in a modern art gallery. So you watch it curiously, only to eventually realize you're not connecting with your artist's intent, and you walk away to see what the next room has on display. It reminds me of my musician friends who go through lo-fi recording phases and record live onto Daisy Chained tape decks because they love the sound of overplayed worn-out eight-tracks. Look, we all have nightmares, and sometimes they can be interesting enough to discuss with each other, but this is just too damn cerebral and ethereal for nearly a two-hour runtime. It's no joke, but I found it to be a waste of time. It's a hack.

SPEAKER_03 33:31

You touched on independent horror, right? And what it's done this year, andor last year at this point, but this technically was filmed last year. We think about it and and what it's done as far as box office and success and evoking, you know, the fright in me with this one. And I think it speaks to just how refreshing it is to see something unconventional and something that goes against the grain and something that's not the same thing we've seen over and over and over and over again, right? This movie for me really came out of left field. Uh, when I started watching the film, I said it before, I had a hard time with it for the first 30 minutes, and then suddenly it pulled me in. I went from what the fuck to what the fuck. It gave me chills, and they're multiplying. It felt like I did something wrong. I don't know. The film really chose to hold back more than it chose to reveal, but it left me wanting more, wondering more, and I think it's on purpose. I think that's just what Kyle Ball wanted, and it's brilliant to me. So it's both mesmerizing and menacing, and for that I give it a slash.

SPEAKER_01 34:46

Sean's really out here, like, you're the one that I want, you are the one I want. That's fantastic.

SPEAKER_03 34:53

Last minute audible.

SPEAKER_01 34:54

And let me be clear. I know I have like a very brief reason for hacking this movie. I am so thrilled that it is a slash for you. And I can see why it's a slash for a lot of people. I think this is just one of those ones that it's gonna hit for some and it's not gonna hit for others. But man, I'm glad that you're here to defend this movie in the in the way that I think it deserves to be defended.

SPEAKER_00 35:13

Yeah, I was gonna say, I what I can appreciate about this movie is that it's clear that it's a movie that either you really love it or you really don't like it. And there's gonna be a few that are kind of in this in-between, this purgatory, ironically enough, about their opinions on it. So for me, I'm at a rocket a hard place, okay? Because ultimately, at the end of the day, I really wanted to like this movie. I really did. And while watching it, I kept trying to find reasons to absolutely love it, like all these other die hard fans seem to be about it, right? All these reviews and all this hype that I saw, and I kept trying to find reasons all the way to the very end, but ultimately I just didn't. And for that, I'm sadly going to give this a hack. And I and I'm already disappointed in saying it out loud, right? And it's very similar to the disappointment I felt from this film, and the hype was just too much to come back from. Chris, you said it earlier. If I hadn't had this expectation, maybe I'd feel a little differently. And that's kind of where I'm at, right? I can give Ball the credit that he was trying to convey in this film because I definitely saw it and um other times I didn't, but that's okay. I can see the appreciation overall, and I think that the concept in and of itself was so fantastic, but it just dragged on so unnecessarily. And like I said, I watched it with a perfect recipe. You know, it was extremely dark, obviously. It was silent. I I saw it with my brother, but ultimately that boredom outweighed the fear for me. And I was waiting for these feelings that you're just saying, Sean. Like I was waiting for it to happen to me for me to feel like my skin was crawling and all these other things, but it just never did. You know, I can see myself re-watching this film maybe later along this year, and maybe we, you know, we address it at the awards at the end of the year. Who knows? But for right now, it's just gotta have to stay a hack.

SPEAKER_01 37:11

Well, there you have it, folks. Skin em a rink from 2022. A film made for $15,000 has earned three hacks and one slash. To be determined if it stays that way at the end of the year. Now you can find this movie in theaters presently, but it will be releasing on Shudder to stream later this year. So go check it out. Then join us in the second half so we can break down these spoilers together. We'll see you in a bit.

SPEAKER_02 37:39

Are you tired of babysitters who don't always do the job? Are you tired of paying for someone to watch your children but never being sure if they're safe? Do the doodles on your walls make you feel like you can't trust anyone? Well, worry no more. With Magic Eraser Pro, you can lock your children up and keep an eye on them without a babysitter. Magic Eraser Pro will erase all your windows and doors so you can be sure your children are safe and sound in this life and the next. Don't trust your children to anyone else. Trust Magic Eraser Pro.

SPEAKER_01 38:13

Welcome back, folks. You're now entering the spoiler zone for Skinamar Inc, which has earned three hacks in one slash. Now we have a lot to unpack here, but before we get into the specifics of our ratings, let's go through the kills.

SPEAKER_03 38:25

I guess we may have gotten two kills in this one. Are they truly confirmed? I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 38:30

Allegedly. I feel like this is a good time to talk about your interpretation of the film because I went with the whole the filmmaker did nightmarish things. His inspiration for the movie was a nightmare he had. Thus, nobody died because it's just a nightmare.

SPEAKER_03 38:45

Yeah, absolutely. There's so many. I I don't know. Okay, I I'll retract that. I don't think there's so many, but I definitely think there is a good handful of things that you can get from this movie, or at least things that I've gotten from this movie. So I think to your point, like let's let's dive into this. Uh, the nightmares, uh, the different things that we all took from this. I think this is a good opportunity to dive into that for sure. So I'm curious to hear everyone's thoughts. Mac, you said you got like a nightmarish thing out of maybe you're you're talking about Kevin, I take it.

SPEAKER_02 39:18

I think, yeah, so I think this is Kevin's nightmare. You know what? But this is because I looked up like the origin of the film. Okay. While watching it though, the first thing that came to mind was this is purgatory or hell. Yeah. And either both the children died or the entire family did, or the more sinister option was the father killed all three of them.

SPEAKER_03 39:43

Yeah, that's wild. I think uh I think there was a uh brief moment in the film, and I even put down as I was taking notes that I thought, is this purgatory? You know, I think on this I I think on the surface, on the surface you can argue that this is, you know, if you're not looking too far into it, that this is maybe a dark entity, a haunting, torturing these poor children. I think that's a surface level adaptation of the film.

SPEAKER_01 40:10

Okay, so I didn't have a lot of strong convictions either way, because this is one where, yes, I was trying to follow along what the movie was showing us, but I didn't want to fall too deeply into figuring out what the fucking point of it was until after it was over, because I didn't want to get stuck in it, right? I will take it for what it is. Let's say it's a nightmarish scene. Let's say this is a kid's nightmare. I think logistically you could argue this movie is all taking place from the perspective of a concussed child who probably should have stayed at the hospital instead of coming home, or maybe he just dreamed that he came home. Uh, but I think the question here, you know, if nightmares are fake, so sure nobody actually died. Uh but all movies are fake, so no one actually dies. I still think, for what it's worth, in this nightmarish concussion state, maybe a coma, whatever, I still think in this movie the two kids died.

SPEAKER_03 41:10

Interesting. I yeah, I think I think if you if you now take away the surface, right, and you look deeper, I think maybe you can see that Kevin truly had that accident, fell down the stairs, maybe went into a coma, and everything that unfolds to your point is in some form or fashion in his head. And the the 572, right? I think the 572 can be how long he was in this coma for.

SPEAKER_01 41:40

Oh, I thought that was just how many years had passed since the fucking movie started, because again, this shit overstated welcome. Savage.

SPEAKER_00 41:46

Woo! For me, I think it was I'm kind of torn between thinking that they both died or that they're both actually alive, but stuck still in this kind of weird realm of purgatory, I guess, but maybe just in the mind, right? Like at the very least, I'm leaning more towards the theory of like, okay, perhaps he did fall, and this is a nightmare that he's having within his coma. I think what ends up happening at the very end, where this thing, this being, where I presume to be actually his mom in a weird way, but his mom telling him to go to sleep is him about to die, or like at this point he is going to die because that's the sleep, right? Just go to sleep, just end. And this and everything in the 572 days could be how long he has been in this space by himself at that point. Because I feel like after the 572 days, you're stuck seeing him do these same things. That's when he asks, can we watch something happy now? Like he's kind of like more of a routine, he's gotten to know this being, but doesn't to some extent until that conversation at the very end. So I don't really know. I'm kind of torn between the two.

SPEAKER_01 42:55

Even even that interpretation alone makes me like this movie a little bit more. And to be fair, like I know I hacked it. There is a lot of good in the movie that we're gonna get into a little bit later once we're out of like the interpretation interpretation realm. But I think I just had a hard time really feeling all of that. And now that does add an interesting note of complexity.

SPEAKER_03 43:18

Yeah, well, here's here's the thing, right? Like the the nightmare, that the coma, the falling down the stairs, there was also there was also the mention of Kevin falling down the stairs because he was sleepwalking, right? And that could be an excuse from a child, whatever, but it also could be that Kevin is actually sleepwalking, and this was all a fever dream of Kevin's imagination while sleepwalking. Uh, there's a lot of eerie scenes throughout the film where they say things like, There's someone here, go to sleep. These all can be things that the family is actually traumatized by Kevin sleepwalking and being fucking eerie and scary. Shit. If I have a little four-year-old fucking creeping up on me in the fucking darkness because he's sleepwalking, and who knows what people do when they're sleepwalking, maybe he did grab a fucking knife out of the kitchen. Like, fuck that shit. Like, what the hell? That's crazy. That shit is crazy.

SPEAKER_01 44:15

The most sinister thing I ever did when sleepwalking was wake up, walk around my room, and then fall asleep on my toy box. Thankfully, I didn't grab any knives. But now, you know, maybe Kevin is just uh is just astral projecting. Maybe this is a prequel to Insidious.

SPEAKER_00 44:33

We don't we don't say that word here. No, no, no, no, no. Don't do that now.

SPEAKER_02 44:37

I gotta I I gotta throw a curveball at you. So I don't know if anyone else caught this. The kids at one point talk about their mother. Yep. And Kaylee mentions not wanting to talk about it because something apparently has happened to her or that the father did something to her. So I'm gonna throw her in as a candidate for kill number three, potentially within the confines of this nightmare or hell or purgatory.

SPEAKER_01 45:00

Here's the energy that I got from the mom. Uh, she's either already dead or they're divorcing, and maybe he called her on the phone. Maybe she has a terminal illness, etc. etc. I'm not fully convinced that she's like super dead. However, there is certainly like it was giving this energy of like there's childhood trauma here that we haven't processed, so now it's coming out in the form of this nightmare.

SPEAKER_03 45:27

Yeah, that's so it's a good thing, it's a good scene, it's a good point that you brought up, Mac, and I I I think it can go a number of ways, and I don't think I initially went to maybe the dad killing the mom. I I I don't know. I did initially think that um that there could have been something that happened with the mom, maybe a divorce, maybe separation, um, maybe they couldn't handle that situation. I think you know there is in the back of my mind something that keeps circling around, whether it was the dad or the mom that would really be the most chilling theory, which is the theory of abuse and how the antagonist is really one of the parents or both of the parents. And I don't I don't know, maybe it's the mom, maybe it's it's the father who knows, but um it it's tough to say. There there is a a line where they're talking, like you said, where they're talking about their dad, and and you know, they didn't want to talk about the mom. You can go in different directions with that. I think the theory is really horrific because it's really now portraying the mentality of a child going through trauma and the darkness that lives within the poor kids' minds, the feeling of like no escape, the vulnerability, um the unknowing, that just the it's like innocence that's met with just malice. And it's and I don't know. The more that I think about this film, and I've thought about it for uh a couple of days now, going through my head, and it just feels like I I go back and forth mostly between the theory of abuse and the theory of just supernatural entity.

SPEAKER_01 47:12

Look, I'm gonna say it again. There goes Chris Rojas falling in love with potential. You're really selling me, Sean. However, I stand by the like still arranging 40 minutes too long. I will say though that what I'd be fascinated by, given what you just shared, I'd love to see a child psychologist or like etc. in that professional realm watch this movie and said, if a kid walked into your office tomorrow and said he had this dream, what would your understanding be? I'd be curious to know, like, are there some things I get picked up on, you know, in in and exploring? And I can't wait to hear more. As this movie continues to grow in its popularity, I can't wait to hear more from the filmmakers to hear like exactly what specific choices were made for these specific reasons to represent this specific thing. Because I if if there is something there in that realm, I think it makes it a lot better. I still think it it suffers in its runtime.

SPEAKER_02 48:05

But we do get a small amount of gore and we do get a little of like body horror as well. So not exactly kills on screen, but an entity telling you to stab yourself in the eye with a knife, you know, and then it and then it happens. That's pretty horrendous.

SPEAKER_03 48:22

Uh that is, I mean, that is super horrendous. It's horrific. Uh it's just down to the way that it was spoken and then the suddenness of how it was just obeyed was just crazy. And then the faint, like, I don't know if it was faint now thinking back at it, but just the the hearing of the cries or the whimpering that ensued afterwards, it was just uh really intense.

SPEAKER_00 48:49

Which is great because although we didn't see it full on, we heard it, and then it goes back to that whole element of like this is a movie of sound and fear in that sound, versus like having to visually see everything that would be scary. Um, yeah, because the yeah, the crying and and all that, yeah, that definitely sucked for sure.

SPEAKER_03 49:10

Yeah. I think what really got me, and I know that this is something that people probably struggled with, that you may all have struggled with, but I think that the lighting in the film, the cinematography, all of it, right? I think it all played with your emotions. It it's like I was explaining earlier that where this kind of really evokes that feeling when you were a kid and your imagination takes over you and you start to see things out of the darkness, you start to feel things. It's that moment where you're maybe in the basement at the bottom of the stairs, and you get the creeps, and you have to shut the light off, but the switch is at the bottom and not the top of the stairs, and you gotta switch that fucker off and run as fast as you can up the stairs because who the fuck knows what's coming for you? It's that exact feeling right there. Can I point it to the lighting, the cinematic cinematography? I don't know. The sound, I don't know, but whatever it is was my favorite element of the film.

SPEAKER_01 50:07

Okay, so I gotta agree with you right there. I know I talked about earlier um how much I wish they could have infused some more like human shadows to really amplify everything, but that feeling that you just described it hit me again, even when we were on our brief break before we got into the second half of the episode. Went to go use the bathroom, and I'm remembering all those times being here as a child in my living room, racing my siblings down the hall, because nobody wanted to be the last person because then you had to go back out and turn off all the lights. While I think the quantity of the shots was excessive, I think the aesthetic of the shots and in of most shots, what you could see, and maybe the the ambiguity that it left in the shadows and the potential that it left in the shadows, I think it all worked really, really well. I also though really loved the cartoons. And again, not that you could see a lot of what was happening, but that old-timey classic, like those public domain cartoons, it just added a layer of sinister energy that I just like it gave me chills, and that was about all that gave me chills.

SPEAKER_02 51:20

At one point when I was in peak boredom, I commented to my wife, well, at least they gave us cartoons to watch. And that honestly was also one of my favorite uh visuals in this movie because there's something just so interesting about old cartoons, especially black and white cartoons. The animation style is something very different from what we get these days. And a lot of the cartoons also seem kind of sinister for whatever reason, just there was always a lot of violence in those cartoons. There's always somebody hitting somebody else or somebody chasing somebody, so it really worked for all the motifs in this movie as well. And I don't know what it was, but they were just a very violent people back then, apparently. It was also simultaneously, though, my least favorite visual because we had the one cartoon that was looping like several times in a row. And then they would loop the audio when we actually moved away from that, and that was starting to just get on my nerves, and maybe that's kind of the point to to evoke that emotional response from you. But that that part was kind of a lot and almost made me hate the cartoons, but I did enjoy them aside from it.

SPEAKER_01 52:19

I'd be curious to know which cartoon it was for you that did that, because I think a cartoon that saved it, the moment that you can hear one of the kids start to snore, and it's as a cartoon of two kids dreaming is coming on, and these two kids are lifting out of their bed. Maybe they're dying, maybe it's a Peter Pan moment, but they're singing a song about Dreamland. And that was one of those instances of like a repetitive song that was starting to like, you know, I've never heard the skin of my ring song that this shit is based off of and inspired by. I I never have, but that fucking song was getting under my skin for sure.

SPEAKER_02 52:55

Honestly, it was the cartoon with the the rabbit. Yeah, the disappearing and then coming back, and yeah, yeah, over and over, and then it like loops and goes back to it. And then the the toy does the same thing several times. Yeah, and then later on the blood does the same thing several times. Yeah. And we got that repetition on purpose, but it was the music or something that just really started to grate on you know on my nerves. It was bad.

SPEAKER_00 53:17

Although I did enjoy the cartoons a lot, my favorite was um it's kind of two things. So I really enjoyed the yellowish tint that they put on the lens when they were filming the perspective of the kids barely awake. Because all in all, you're thinking, okay, they're sleeping, though, this is a nightmare. But it's that extra layer of they really are like not seeing or not sure that they're what they're seeing is okay. That was a really cool element for me to like really understand, okay, this is what I'm looking at, or this is what I am seeing through the eyes of either Kaylee or Kevin. So I thought that was cool. And then also when the camera is slowly panning to something. That was like those dr that dreadful moment, especially in the uh parents' bedroom, which we'll get to in a second, but like the parents' bedroom scene when it slowly is going down underneath the bed or slowly just stick back up to the it was so slow that I was like, okay, this is the slow that I enjoy. This is the slow that is like, please get me out of here, do something. Something happened quickly because I'm scared. So I enjoyed that a lot.

SPEAKER_01 54:28

That look under the bed moment and that slow pan. Oh, that was a big nope. That was a big nope for me, dog.

SPEAKER_03 54:35

Oh, yeah. That was a great it was. Let me ask you this. Was that your favorite scene? Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 54:40

Yes. Wait by far. My absolute favorite scene without a doubt. Yeah, that was my favorite scene by far because at the same time, it's like I was saying with the yellow-ish tint, because in that scene, we get both of my favorite visual elements at once. It's already hard to see anything in this movie. You're already feeling like, did I really see that or did I not? And then when you add that layer, it's like okay, you're the child at this point who really can't see things or can't trust that what they're seeing is what they're seeing. So now I'm looking underneath a bed. We've got this tint to it. I'm looking like intently, but I really don't want to. And that's how the child is supposed to be feeling. So, like you were saying, Sean, like that you're oh, I don't know if I should be watching this. That was the brief moment where I felt like you must have felt throughout the whole movie, where I'm like, Oh, I don't want to do this. Please don't make me do this. And that's how the character should be feeling. So, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 55:32

Yeah, it was a mixture of that exact feeling and also the feeling of stumbling upon a home video that I shouldn't have found.

SPEAKER_01 55:41

Okay. When you said that earlier, it reminded me of two different movies. One, it reminded me of the Poughkeepsie tapes, which kind of gives you that same feeling when you're watching the actual tapes. But then two, uh the snuff films that he finds in Sinister.

SPEAKER_03 55:55

Mm-hmm. Absolutely. Let me let me ask you this. So, if I'm not mistaken, the scene that we're currently talking about, Kaylee goes into the room, called into the room, you go into the parents' room, you do see someone's leg on the side of the bed that she's on. We do see that.

SPEAKER_00 56:13

Her father's, no? I that's who I assumed it to be. Her father's, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 56:17

Looks under the bed, nothing, looks under the bed, comes up, those are gone.

SPEAKER_00 56:21

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_03 56:22

And then the mom is on the or whoever is on the other side of the bed, right? Like that's I'm telling you.

SPEAKER_00 56:28

I was like, hell to the no. That also is when I was like, so her parents were up there the whole time? That doesn't seem right. Like, what do you mean? How did you not think to go up there at the beginning? Like, I don't know. Weird.

SPEAKER_01 56:40

Just now, you explaining this moment, because I've watched Friday the 13th so many goddamn times this month. It reminds me of the end of Friday the 13th, and Alice is in the hospital, and she's like asking, What about the boy? And the um the sheriff is like, We didn't find no boy. You're as you're talking about the parents, I'm like, We didn't find no parents in there. That's a demon. That's no no one's actually in the room. It's a demon. Man, okay, it's absolutely a fantastic scene. It is one of my favorites. But I will say that my I think second favorite comes before this, and it's the first time that she separates from Kevin. And I I mentioned earlier Bingsao, like I was watching this movie, wishing that I had siblings that I was closer in age with to have that more of kind of like a companion feeling. Because in this moment, so early on in the movie, I was invested in the two of them together as a familial unit. And there's a point where uh she says, I'm gonna go upstairs to get some stuff. And I was like, nah, kid, that trek alone to the spooky part of the house in the middle of the night, nah-uh. Nuh-uh. That was the first big nope moment for me. The bigger nope was looking under the bed after she summoned later. Yeah. But that right there, it gave me that feeling of like, fuck, that's a good big sister going to get some stuff. And you you hear her, she's just rummaging for toys. That's literally all it is. You think she's gonna make a trek for some important supplies, some juice, perhaps, some provisions, some rations, pure entertainment for her little brother. I want a sweetie.

SPEAKER_02 58:16

But at the end of the scene with the parents in the room appearing and then disappearing, we get the mother apparently getting taken out and then like screams of of pain or something at the end, and that itself was a nope moment.

SPEAKER_03 58:30

Yeah. And so that's a that also plays off of like was there something happening that was traumatic, right? Was that maybe was that the father doing something? Was there something that came in and did so I don't know, because you hear there's someone here, right? Or there's someone, I don't know, what it whatever was said. I don't know. There was a lot, there was a lot going on there.

SPEAKER_00 58:54

I thought that it might have been Kaylee screaming. From what we know of at the ending, the voice or whatever specifically says that her mouth was removed because she didn't listen, because I guess she opened her eyes a little too soon. I was like, man, she followed instructions, she closed her eyes. You didn't specify how long they needed to be closed.

SPEAKER_03 59:10

I hate every it it like I said, this is up for interpretation. But the interesting thing that I thought about Kaylee's mouth being taken away is also another theory that can be backed on abuse because they took the person away, or maybe it's Kevin's interpretation of Kaylee not saying anything when things are happening.

SPEAKER_01 59:34

That's actually a great take. That was a great take.

SPEAKER_03 59:37

There's a lot that has been simmering in this head.

SPEAKER_01 59:39

I love that.

SPEAKER_03 59:40

I will say, because I know that was such a great scene, it's arguably maybe one of the one of the best scenes in the film, but I really also enjoyed. I think it's the second iteration of seeing that like toy phone thing. Not the first part, the second part where the eyes are in the dark and then the light comes up and you see it, and then the clicks off, the flashlight clicks off, and the eyes are in the dark, and it looks like fucking some kind of like I don't know, some kind of demonic thing that's happening, and then the eyes kind of move a little bit. That scene really got me.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:14

Yeah, dude. We had a very similar toy phone in my house. I fucking hate toys with eyes. They should not make those toys with eyes. Eyes don't belong on things like that. They don't belong on those inanimate objects. No fucking sir. I will say though, the moments that we get, right? Because the flashlight keeps clicking on and off. There's a moment where the phone rings and then the eyes like move up.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:36

That aesthetically is cool, but the volume of that was felt like one of those cheap those cheap jump scares.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:43

It was getting you on volume alone, not just because of how creepy the fucking eyes were. I feel like I didn't need that.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:49

No. The vol the volume hit you. The volume just came at those times and really jerked you around. It's not the Hills have eyes, it's the Toys Have Eyes.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:58

No, for sure. I was already at a 64% disadvantage watching this movie in my left ear, and I feel like I lost any hearing I had left after hearing that fucking telephone ring.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:08

I feel you. I think it's interesting when you think of the characters in this film because you really don't see a lot of the characters. You don't get a lot of straight-up shots of the characters. And I think for not really seeing much of these characters, they did a really good job with what they had to work with to deliver this film. And when you think of having to work with two children, it was super effective. And I know they didn't necessarily have to do much as far as on-screen, you know, emotions and things, but they definitely had some parts where they had to voice some things. And uh I think for what it's worth, it was it was a job well done.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:55

I would for sure agree. I think, you know, in the history of our podcast, watching movies that feature children, Kevin has the advantage of being just so young that no matter how you say something, it sounds cute and also kind of creepy. But his older sister, on the other hand, I felt was able to deliver a lot of range. And both being concerned but also a little bit more confident, I got that feeling of just I want to be a big sister. You know what I mean? And that felt really, really good. There was especially a moment where uh we hear her, we hear Kaylee gasp, and then we see a doll suspended from the ceiling. And in the one moment I laughed because I remember in my neighborhood, people there's a a while there in the 90s where people were stringing up these Barbie dolls and like just hitting them just to see how far their the body parts would go after they get swung on. And it was just such a fucking weird, obscure memory. I don't know why, I don't know what the thing was about it, but it caught me off guard. It sent me back to my childhood, and then we get her scream, and then we get like her reaction to it. It was just very fucking unsettling, and I think so much of the unsettling feeling that I did get in some moments from this film largely came from her. So I thought it was a well d a job well done for sure.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:17

I think there's a character that none of us have really talked about yet, and that's the that's the entity that's interacting with the kids here. And I didn't realize until just now what the entity reminds me of. And I don't know if you've seen this show Legion. Uh it's based off of a Marvel property, but it but the entity reminds me of the Shadow King, um, also known as I think Amal Farouk. Um so the Shadow King is an amazing villain. So if I I watched, I think, all of the uh all of the seasons of Legion, but uh initially a character from childhood is haunted by this uh creature that like shows up in his dreams, in his nightmares, takes some pretty horrific looking forms and just taunts this kid his entire life and it just lives in his mind, showing up in the shadows and his in his nightmares. And he's got like these bright yellow eyes. And that's what this entity now reminds me of. It's amazing because later on we of course learned that this entity is just a mutant because this is like an X-Men-related kind of property. But I can think about this movie now as almost like a prequel to that show, to that character, and then it actually makes it almost more enjoyable now because I really loved that show.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:30

And now it's a slash for Mac.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:32

Not quite there yet.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:33

When this whole thing started, I really but before you went the Legion direction, I thought you were gonna say Pazuzu. So great job, Mac. It's good, it's good stuff.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:40

Pazuzu. I think that's the word I was looking for.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:43

Listen, when I fucking saw Kaylee's blue face, the first moment we see her sans mouth, I was thinking pazuzu. Hello, father Baron.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:51

All right, I'm gonna go back to something Sean said though about the voices. The I think the creepiness of the voices is probably the best part of the movie for me because to me it was a complete shock. When we get into it and we see all the characters and we hear how the way they speak, and the kids are incredibly cute, and you worry for them because they're in this dream like kind of kind of hellscape, honestly. But then when the voices finally show up and we realize there's something more sinister at play, it's one really satisfying, but two, I think they just modulated them enough and didn't go too insane, they didn't sound comical, which which worked really well.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:26

For sure. There's a level of restraint there that I definitely appreciate. You know, I already already shared that uh the best part of the movie for me is the cartoons and specifically the way it infuses the musicality of the cartoons to provide more of a score for this movie when a lot of this movie is just ambiance. You know what I mean? It's just the ambient natural sound that you have from the house, but amplified up to a thousand. Um, but I I will say that I think one of the other best parts of this is just hearing all of Sean's interpretations of this movie. I think you made the movie better. And you know what? This is probably one of those fucking. Scenarios where the filmmakers have a direction, but then um, and I think even Jordan Peel has talked about this, like with Get Out, for example. He had a very specific mission, he had a very specific vision, and there are a lot of things that are just left to the unknown, right? He talks about all the time how there are so many brilliant theories that come up from the fans who love these movies, and he's like, I wish it had thought about that. It's just a coincidence. And I feel like that's like Sean for this movie. I feel like maybe some of it's just a coincidence, yeah. But you're really making and increasing the value. You know, you're the tide that raises all the boats for this movie. Good job, Sean.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:41

But I think that's also like the best part of this movie, too, in the sense that what the movie is is great. I think like the way that um it's shot in the dark, and so that's what's supposed to be scary. The way that the camera slowly pans to things so it makes you feel tense. The fact that the main protagonists are children, and children are scary. Sorry, but facts. Um, you know, they can be, right? Like you no one wants to hear a child laughing in the middle of the dark, like that's frightening, and that's you know, we we we get that. Everything about this movie was like made to freak the hell out of you. And so unfortunately, the delivery in that kind of felt flat for me and and was just so long. Um, if it would have been shorter, maybe I would have felt differently. But at the very least, there's so many components of this movie that have you wanting to like think of all these theories or perhaps have these discussions, have this debate of like, was this meant for this or did this mean that? And I think that calls for at least a decent time, like any a movie that can bring people together, like we are literally doing right now, discussing theories. That's a that's a good part. You see, this is why I'm on the fence about this movie. God damn.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:59

I I think it's tough in the same way is just trying to for me, like thinking of like what what is like the worst part of this film for me? And I think it's it's a cop-out and it's an easy route to say that there were moments that dragged on too long and things could have been edited out. I I'm not and I'm not calling you out. I'm not calling you out, Chris, but I think there I think there could have been a little bit more, and I've got to be careful here, right? Because I think at one one end here, the the effectiveness of the movie came from the senses, right? And not being able to see and not being able to hear some things, and then being able to hear some things, and the sound, and all of that stuff. But I think to an extent, the worst part could possibly have been the fact that uh you couldn't necessarily see more of the children. And I think I know Chris, you said shadows, that could have been more effective for sure. I think there's a possibility of if they even just were able to showcase the children just a little bit more and even just get some of the faces and things that were going on with them as they walked through the house and experienced these things. I think it could have been more effective. I think it could have added a little bit more pizzazz to the film. And so I think if I had to pick a worse part, it may possibly be just the fact that they just showed a little bit too little.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:35

You know, again, you know, we talked about with Mac, there's a level of restraint that you can respect in this film, and I think it's interesting to hear your perspective on like maybe that restraint went a little bit too far. As you're describing this moment, and as you're describing this movie, relying on the senses to scare you, it sent me back to this incredible local haunt that I went to a few years ago. And it was in the early days of the podcast. We went on a road trip, like three individual people, we picked a random place as a haunt. We didn't tell the other two people in the party, and we just planned this road trip. One of them was an extreme haunt where they could touch you, another one was a hole in the wall place, and then another one was just like a safe local option to like cleanse the palate. In this hole in the wall place that we went to last, we had a haunt where you had to crawl through a mausoleum. And it does not look like that from the outside. You would never expect how how intense it is. And they don't even do a whole lot to like touch you or anything like that, but it plays with your senses. It suspends you in darkness and it plays with sounds, and it plays with slightly different textures on where you're crawling to send your mind to mad places. And and thinking about like if I could experience that in a horror movie, that'd be fucking dope. It sounds like this did that for you, and I can I can admire it. I don't know though that I can re-watch this movie anytime soon because I've attempted to like really just like digest it. You know, you go through that first experience, there's a lot in there. I think you need to watch it more than once for sure to kind of like get all the all the bits and pieces of it. But I think I'm just so fresh to this that it left such a taste in my mouth about feeling long and drawn out that I'm gonna need at least a year to recover before I give this another shot. So, like when it comes out on shutter, I don't know if I'm down for it, but maybe in 2024, I'll give it another shot.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:31

I think if I felt the urge for whatever reason to re-watch this, I would probably just turn off all the lights, open my eyes, put on some white noise, and sit there for an hour and 40 minutes because I don't think it's worth it for me to actually rewatch this. It nearly put me to sleep. Maybe I should re-watch it just to help me go to bed.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:51

You know, gosh. At first I thought to myself, no, I'm definitely never watching this movie again. But after all the discussion that we've had tonight, I think I definitely will re-watch it. And I'm gonna do it a little differently. I am going to watch it by myself. Sorry, Chris. Chris, my brother, not Chris, Chris. I'm gonna watch it by myself and I'm gonna watch it with captions. Just to make sure that I'm like really understanding and hearing everything this time. And I'm gonna give it one more go because if I am so on the fence like I am right now, it's worth giving it another shot to see. I'm not looking forward to how long it is, though. And I'm not looking forward to all of the shots of the corners and the stairwell and everything else in between. But um, nonetheless, if there's things that I've missed, it's worth exploring one more time.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:41

I love that. I don't know exactly when I'll rewatch this. I don't know exactly how soon I'll rewatch this, but I do feel like I've been talking a lot about this film, and I don't think this conversation has just been here. Uh, it's been with numerous other people. Uh, and I feel like this is one where I'll probably end up watching again when I end up showing this to friends and being like, you gotta see this film just because I want to get the different reactions out of people. I want to get the different perspectives and conversations that will ensue afterwards. And uh so I will definitely be re-watching it. I don't know exactly how soon it'll be. I guess it just all depends on when the next person comes around that's willing.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:30

Well, look, I mean, Sean, you're right. We've certainly had a robust discussion here. The conversation doesn't end here by any means. Look, Skinner Marine 2022 has earned three hacks and one slash for us here tonight, but that's subject to change. And we also want to hear what your stance is, what your many interpretations are, so let us know.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:48

You can join in on the conversation by hanging out with us for free in our Discord. We even have a thread specifically for this movie so that you can chat it up and let us know your theories and your thoughts. So click the link in our show notes to sign up.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:00

If you've enjoyed listening to this episode, consider becoming one of our patrons. Visit patreon.com slash hacker slash to enjoy more of the show with early access, extended episodes, bonus content, and live shows.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:11

We'll see you next time, folks, and remember look under the bed.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:15

I need you to close your eyes.