311: 2023 Slasher's Choice Awards

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Uh Let me see your starfish.

SPEAKER_04 0:23

If you're joining us again, welcome back. Who gives a fuck about movies? If this is your first time listening, welcome to the party. We're 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_05 0:38

Totally killer, pun intended.

SPEAKER_04 0:40

We believe horror is for everyone, and as such, we typically rate movies with the perspectives 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 slasher enthusiast. This week I'm joined by the Superfly Space Guy Mac.

SPEAKER_06 0:54

I'll loop my own crankshaft from now on.

SPEAKER_04 0:57

The classic horror connoisseur Sean.

SPEAKER_06 0:59

Don't make it a sexual thing.

SPEAKER_04 1:00

And the paranormal paramore, Binx. There's something wrong.

SPEAKER_03 1:04

Like more than you being female.

SPEAKER_04 1:06

Normally we're here to review movies, but this is our very last episode of 2023. And in true hacker slash tradition, it's time for us to sit back, look back on the year, reflect on what we've done, and then set our course for 2024.

SPEAKER_06 1:21

Yeah, in this episode, we're gonna go through some of the best and the worst from the show, from survivors, villains, kills, and overall films. We made our nominations for each of these categories, and our sweet listeners voted to decide each winner, and I can't wait to see what won.

SPEAKER_04 1:39

Oh, it's gonna be pretty intense. I was filling out some of the responses and looking over the results, and I was like, oh shit, some of these are actually shocking upsets. But before we dive into that fun, Mac, let's look at how 2023 turned out by the numbers.

SPEAKER_05 1:53

All right, Chris, Spinks, Sean, this is your life in 2023. Together, we recorded 79 episodes.

SPEAKER_06 2:01

Okay, that's a lot.

SPEAKER_05 2:03

Yeah, we watched 72 movies this year. Now, that means we had to spend a lot of time watching movies in total 144 hours.

SPEAKER_04 2:13

Yikes. That's hours, not man hours. I didn't multiply that by each person because that would have been nuts to look back at how many people are on each episode.

SPEAKER_05 2:22

Four of us watching all those movies and then having to talk about it for hours equals 316 hours recording.

SPEAKER_02 2:29

Sick. That's what's up.

SPEAKER_05 2:31

Now it gets better because once you record it, Chris has to do her thing. 632 hours editing.

SPEAKER_04 2:39

Woo! The big number. The most editing in a year.

SPEAKER_06 2:42

The most ever. It's amazing that you're still here alive.

SPEAKER_04 2:46

That you're well and live. I don't know if you know this, but I'm wearing my support your local haunted house hoodie because I'm a fucking ghost. But I did have some help this year, which is really, really cool, which is also why this number's a little bit more inflated than it typically is. I can get through it at it pretty quickly, but with training new people and the time that it takes to A, have someone look over it, but then B, go back over, inspect the quality of it, fix some things. The numbers just keep climbing. Hopefully, next year that number is smaller.

SPEAKER_05 3:16

It would be great if the editing hours like were less than the recording hours. That would be amazing.

SPEAKER_04 3:22

I would love that so much. Let's talk about how we can reduce ums and uhs.

SPEAKER_05 3:27

Um, well. Okay. So we go off the rails sometimes and we record some B-side stuff. Now that means 39 hours of actual B-side content this year.

SPEAKER_06 3:39

Wow. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:40

Pretty impressive, but also I expected it to be way more considering how much shit we talk.

SPEAKER_04 3:45

Yeah. Well, that is what made it to the final episode. That isn't what everything gets deleted.

SPEAKER_03 3:51

There it is. That's not a part of the 316 hours.

SPEAKER_04 3:55

No. What I should do is try to figure out a way for setting up next year how to measure how much time gets actually cut from the episode. I guess what I could do is take total recorded hours minus total output of episodes. That's a basic math thing that I'm not good at. So we'll figure that out.

SPEAKER_05 4:11

Math is hard. Let's get down to our ratings this year. We gave out 56 hacks and two universal hacks.

SPEAKER_03 4:19

Criminal.

SPEAKER_04 4:20

I just want to point out that 56 hacks is around the same amount that I have in my entire hack or slash career.

SPEAKER_05 4:27

Feel better about yourself because we got 206 slashes and 37 universal slashes this year.

SPEAKER_06 4:34

I really felt like we had a ton of universal slashes. Like it felt for a while that we were just slashing the shit out of everything.

SPEAKER_03 4:43

I agree. We were having a good time.

SPEAKER_06 4:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 4:46

We were having a good time, and I was almost concerned because then I want to go back to universal hacks only being two, and that's almost a little criminal.

SPEAKER_04 4:53

Okay. I think so. What I first thought looking at how low that number was, because I was like coming through the database multiple times to validate myself. But then I was like, oh, how many of these were fucked up because I was the only slash? And only like one or two. So not even quite. That wasn't that bad. Yeah. I stood alone on a couple, but otherwise, we just watched really good horror movies this year.

SPEAKER_05 5:17

We did pick some winners. I think this year's list was free of bunny man-esque movies for the most part, right? So we were pretty safe. But to wrap up our stats for the year, we have 70 new patrons and 163 new Discord members.

SPEAKER_06 5:32

That is fucking amazing.

SPEAKER_03 5:35

That's incredible. Incredible. Wow.

SPEAKER_04 5:38

Yeah, it has been absolutely magical to see how the family has grown from year to year. Maybe next year what I'll do is actually listen to the end-of-year recap of the past few years to hear those numbers and hear how our community is changing. Now, one thing that I'm really excited about is looking at all the success that we had this year in terms of like our show's performance and our audience growth. And Binx, I know that you have some to share from Spotify.

SPEAKER_03 6:03

Yes. So I love Spotify. I use it a lot. And I love, in particular, the wrapped feature. So obviously, you can listen to us on many different platforms, but wanted to share some stats from our Spotify Wrapped. So it's based on just our Spotify listeners. And based off of that, we were able to discover that our top episode is, of course, episode 282. That would be Talk to Me from 2023.

SPEAKER_04 6:31

I really want to also point out how special this was because this is the first time you ever met Sean in person.

SPEAKER_06 6:36

Oh yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 6:38

It's christened by being the top episode. And fun fact, it was streamed 645% more than our average episode.

SPEAKER_05 6:47

Wow. Yo, people loved that movie and they loved listening to you all talk about the movie since I was not on that episode. Oh Mac.

SPEAKER_04 6:55

It would have streamed it 700% more if they had your voice on it. Exactly. Oh, that's a fact.

SPEAKER_03 7:01

We know that to be true.

SPEAKER_00 7:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 7:03

Also, our most shared episode of the year on Spotify, which is pretty cool. So, in general, that episode won. It was great.

SPEAKER_06 7:10

That's amazing. What an accomplishment. That movie really persevered through all the shit that it had to fight through, right? Like that came out right with Barbenheimer, right? And that's like a that's tough because there was a lot of people going to those movies, but this movie gained traction, and that's great. I love to see it.

SPEAKER_03 7:26

It really did. And also how cool that we were able to see it early access with A24. That was also a fun little tree. Let's not forget.

SPEAKER_06 7:33

Heck yeah.

SPEAKER_03 7:33

That was nice. Cool. So, in terms of listener growth, so 76% of our Spotify listeners discovered us in 2023.

SPEAKER_05 7:42

Yo, that's wild.

SPEAKER_03 7:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 7:44

Which is nuts. I mean, I guess that's to say because we started our show through the Apple Podcast Directory directory. So, of course, all of our listeners were there, and Spotify has been investing so much more over the last couple of years in discoverability and just being able to establish itself within the podcasting space. So that's really exciting.

SPEAKER_00 8:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 8:04

And you can see it. So there's 69% increase in listeners, there's 83% increase in streams, and 89% increase in followers. Just going up.

SPEAKER_06 8:16

That's amazing.

SPEAKER_03 8:17

In terms of countries reached, this part's pretty cool. We have reached 77 countries. That's a lot of countries.

SPEAKER_06 8:23

Worldwide.

SPEAKER_03 8:24

Worldwide. Some would say we're like what is it, Mr. Worldwide? We're like pit bull. Okay. And there's the Miami. There's the Miami. There's the Miami. I couldn't help it. But okay, so top countries. United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and Germany.

SPEAKER_06 8:41

Yeah. Pretty cool.

SPEAKER_04 8:43

Which feels like it tracks based on where we get a lot of our listenership and our patrons from. For number four to be Australia, I'm so sorry that you had to deal with the embarrassment of me not noticing that the doorknobs are so high in Australia from our Better Watch Ad episode.

SPEAKER_06 8:58

Oh.

SPEAKER_04 8:59

And here I am thinking you were going to bring up my can my kangaroo and deer thing.

SPEAKER_06 9:04

Yeah, you were going to bring up the kangaroo incident.

SPEAKER_04 9:06

I already did that in the Better Watch Add episode, so we're good.

SPEAKER_03 9:09

And of course, I just brought it up to just ruin myself. Amazing.

SPEAKER_04 9:13

Yeah, I don't know if you know this, but I snuck that into a category later, so we'll talk about it.

SPEAKER_05 9:18

Sick.

SPEAKER_04 9:19

I I figured we just bring it up in the animal report.

SPEAKER_05 9:21

I like how our top four countries, English speaking primarily, and then number five Germany. Yeah? Dunka. That's all I have to say.

SPEAKER_04 9:27

Well, it's because you live there, so that's it.

SPEAKER_06 9:30

It's true. Couple years.

SPEAKER_04 9:32

The real Mr. Worldwide right over here.

SPEAKER_06 9:34

That's right. This is true.

SPEAKER_04 9:35

Obviously, a lot of success here. We can't look back on the numbers of our show and thinking about uh quantifying a year without quantifying the hard work that Sean has put in to our body count every single episode this year.

SPEAKER_06 9:50

Yeah, this is true. Let me start off by saying that it has been an honor and a privilege to be the keeper of the death toll for this show. It hasn't always been easy, right? There has been a lot of pausing, rewinding, research, playbacks just to keep like as accurate a number as possible. We have literally seen everything from cranial impalements to alien parasite infections through the anus. We have seen the campiest of camp to the goriest of gore, but one thing I can assure you is it was never a bore. Needless to say, we have seen our fair share of kills this year with an outstanding 1,727 and a half total kills. I don't know how we got a half a kill, but I do know where it came from. It came from that Thanksgiving episode that I was unfortunately not a part of. So hopefully someone can enlighten me on how we got a half a kill on the count.

SPEAKER_04 10:46

I promise it'll make sense. Please watch the movie so I can tell you. Roll back the tapes to that episode. It was just Paris and I, and we confirmed the logistics of that kill. Absolutely fantastic. Wow. Wow. What a body count.

SPEAKER_06 10:59

It's a crazy body count. I'm waiting for that to stream, so I can definitely revisit that movie. I'm curious though, out of all the movies, if you had to guess, out of all the movies that we watched this year, which movie do you think had the highest kill count?

SPEAKER_03 11:14

I'm gonna say it's probably like maybe train to Busan Peninsula, like one of those. 28 days later. 28 days later, like we're talking mass deaths. But then also reanimation, like they're alive again. So logistics, semantics.

SPEAKER_06 11:36

There's a lot. You all said some some good ones because those are all in the top categories, but Binx, you did mention it. Peninsula does take it with 265.

SPEAKER_04 11:46

Nice, incredible. Yep, absolutely fantastic. I now want to think about the year-over-year growth of our body count. Are we getting bigger every year? I don't know. Maybe you feel like for sheer volume, we might because folks, this was the most content we've ever produced in a single year. When this show started, we started off weekly for like a couple months, and then we went to bi-weekly when our show resumed. And it was like that for a year before we became a weekly show again. At most, maybe in October, we do two episodes a week. But this year we did two episodes a week in October, plus a third episode every week, which is a rewind. And then on top of that, we had two episodes a week in September, one for the patrons, one for the public feed. The most amount of content we've ever made. And I just cannot overstate how blown away I am that we actually pulled that off.

SPEAKER_05 12:45

Speechless.

SPEAKER_03 12:46

Yeah, we're I think we just needed a moment to just really process that because that was quite the time. Like our summer was really just grinding, obviously, and especially you, Chris, obviously, but like watching these movies, dedicating an extra day of our week on top of our regular schedule to like record and then moving things around. And we had obviously like Sean and I had our birthdays, like we just had to like move things around, vacations, so many vacations that we all had, like or things going on in our lives. What a wild time. I really do can't believe that we did that.

SPEAKER_04 13:20

On top of having a meetup, yeah, a live show in the mix of all that. Absolutely wild.

SPEAKER_05 13:27

Thankfully, our team has this is probably the most episodes this year that I've been able to dip out on because of other obligations, because of the two of you being so consistent, like obsessive almost, which in like in a good way, though, not in a crazy way, in a really good way.

SPEAKER_03 13:43

Well, I'm glad. I'm glad you've been able to like enjoy your life a little bit and just take a seat back because I'm sure it's needed for sure. But it's been fun, it's been a lot of fun. Yeah, and I'm just glad that obviously it shows our hard work has pulled off, right? Insane growth in terms of our listenership.

SPEAKER_06 14:00

So absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 14:01

I also just want to point out that in terms of this year, it's been our most successful year in terms of the listenership. Obviously, we saw a lot of that with our Spotify Repped, but this year we hit our highest monthly record of consecutive months with download counts at over 25,000 downloads a month. Woo! Which, like, listen, comparatively, if you look at big scale podcasts, it's still pretty small, right? But in terms of like us being completely indie, not having any kind of celebrity backing behind us or coming up from that kind of perspective, I am super blown away that we were able to do that. And we look at over 300,000 downloads all time, almost 200,000 of that came this year.

SPEAKER_06 14:47

Holy shit.

SPEAKER_04 14:49

That is insane. Yeah, we are at right there, is insane. That's and now as of recording this, we're a couple days shy from the end of the year. This releases on New Year's Eve. We're at 178,754.

SPEAKER_05 15:02

Wow. Wow. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 15:04

Right. No big deal. Yeah. It's fine. Yeah, that's pretty fucking nuts.

SPEAKER_03 15:08

All right, here we go. Next year. Mind blowing. Let's see. Let's see what we can top. Because I think we can do it.

SPEAKER_04 15:14

It was honestly, it was the shock in your faces. I don't think I that's a stat that I don't think I've I've shared with any of you yet.

SPEAKER_03 15:20

Uh-uh.

SPEAKER_04 15:21

Well, no. Look at us go. Look at us go. That's what's up.

SPEAKER_05 15:25

I've been downloaded into people's brains.

SPEAKER_04 15:28

Well, I think a lot of that success comes from the fact that we've been very consistent and I think having a sense of loyalty to our listeners. And I think when I think of the word loyalty, I think of none other than Binks because loyal is very important to her. But I also think of all the good boys and girls that we featured in our animal reports this year. May they rest in peace. Oh man, certainly, absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 15:52

So let's talk a bit about it. I I have some good news, and the good news is that 65% of our movies were completely safe. So a lot of our good boys and girls made it just fine, unscathed, were completely fine. Now, that is 65%, right? So we did get into the fishy category. We had a handful of movies that were a little bit debatable, maybe not your average pets, but pet adjacent animals were harmed. But I want to talk really briefly about when it gets really bad, it gets bad. And there are five films that we reviewed this year that were really bad. Would any of you like to take a guess as to which they are? Just take a gander. The collector was pretty fucked. It sure was. That's one of them. All right. Well, I'm gonna mention one that's pretty bad. And it's actually unfortunate, it was not on the episode, but it is one of my favorite movies, and it is Ginger Snaps. Oh yeah, of course, of course.

SPEAKER_06 16:49

Okay, so many dogs lost their lives.

SPEAKER_04 16:52

It's not great, but also somehow it's forgiven. Not by me, not by you, but I think you need to dial that back a little bit personally.

SPEAKER_05 17:00

I think I brought up the Animal Report in my rating. Yeah. Yeah, so I don't know if I can forgive. Maybe forget.

SPEAKER_04 17:08

Listen, I don't like people killing dogs, but I was able to forgive Michael Myers in Halloween 1978, and so I can forgive Ginger Snaps because feminism. Fair enough.

SPEAKER_03 17:17

But look, I'd be remiss if I didn't bring up one particular movie that of course I famously this year confused in the Animal Report, and that would be the kangaroo that I could have sworn was a deer. Yep, there it is. I figured, you know what, why not? You said it now talk about it.

SPEAKER_06 17:37

You said that was the real tragedy of the animal report this year.

SPEAKER_03 17:42

Absolutely. Yeah, I failed that kangaroo.

SPEAKER_06 17:44

Not only did that kangaroo die, it was not even mentioned properly.

SPEAKER_03 17:50

Yes, it wasn't identified. Literally adding insult to injury. Fatal injury. Do you think that maybe that kangaroo has like imposter syndrome in its afterlife? Yes. Thanks.

SPEAKER_04 18:00

Well, absolutely. I wonder if we're gonna get the second coming of that kangaroo in Winnie the Pooh Blood and Honey. Maybe perhaps a continuation of that franchise because we have Kanga and Roo, I believe, from that folklore.

SPEAKER_05 18:14

Every day that kangaroo wakes up in the afterlife, looks in the mirror, and goes, Oh, I guess I'm a deer today.

SPEAKER_04 18:21

I think it wakes up and says, Why wasn't I enough? Now that deer has a complex. I think it's that. It thinks, why wasn't I enough? Absolutely. It's really a tragedy. I can't believe you had such nerve. But hey, onwards to a better year. And we think about that kangaroo deer, and we think about the standout moments here. Uh obviously it did not meet a great fate, but I want to take the time to go over our slash awards for the year. So we're thinking about the best in show. We're gonna start off with our first category. And again, just to remind everybody these awards are from the content we covered this year. So it's not just movies that came out in 2023. This is any episode that we did in 2023, any movie that we watched as part of our content calendar in 2023. So we'll start off first with Best Survivor. And in the category of Best Survivor, the nominees are Beth, Evil Dead Rise, 2023, Jim, 28 Days Later, 2002, Suwan, Train Dubusan, 2016, Riley, Talk To Me, 2023. And the winner for the 2023 Best Survivor is Beth, Evil Dead Rise, 2023. Fuck yeah, it's my nomination.

SPEAKER_06 19:38

I mean, it's no matter what, I feel like it's a good choice here, but yes, wow. Beth, kudos to her.

SPEAKER_03 19:44

I agree. And visually, what a finale moment. I just pictured her in all that blood and the chainsaw just looking like a boss bitch. So yeah, I can see it.

SPEAKER_04 19:54

I'm curious though, Riley? You really thought Riley was the best survivor this year?

SPEAKER_03 19:59

Yeah, well, let me explain why. First of all, similar to Suwon, right? Like a child at this point, you know, a young boy, teenager. Let's talk about the fact that he got reamed with the corner of that dresser. He got annihilated, sent there and back, and then he almost got killed again by his friend who just wanted to toss him into that frickin' highway after everything that he'd been through.

SPEAKER_06 20:24

Well, let's not forget that he was also being like internally attacked by like dead people.

SPEAKER_03 20:30

Correct. While he was being held hostage, all of these entities were just like attacking him and wanting to just keep him there.

SPEAKER_04 20:38

Interesting.

SPEAKER_03 20:39

Yeah, that that kid's gonna go through a lot of therapy.

SPEAKER_04 20:42

Okay. Well, I guess for me, I want to throw it back to almost like our final girl streams, right? When I think about final girl status, I think about survivor status, I think about someone who has some fight in them, not someone who just has to endure a lot of shit. And Riley, if I could give like comeback player of the year, it'd be Riley, because he came back through some shit. But you know, I feel like everyone else, even little Suwan, right? I feel like that they had some spunk in them. They had some fight. They did get through some shit. Fair enough.

SPEAKER_05 21:10

Well, then I think that brings us to the best villain of the movies that we watched this year. So in the category of best villain, the nominees are Ellie from Evil Dead Rise 2023, Beetlejuice from Beetlejuice, 1988, Bella Legosi's Dracula from 1931, and Good Old Tiptoe Through the Tulips by Tiny Tim Insidious 2010. The winner for the 2023 Best Villain is Tiptoe Through the Tulips by Tiny Tim Insidious 2010.

SPEAKER_04 21:37

I can't believe, Banks, that you're able to start a movement for a fucking song that is not even a villain in a movie to win the best villain category. That is the power of influence.

SPEAKER_00 21:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 21:50

Let me explain. I thought this would just be a ha ha moment for the shits and the giggles of it all. I want to be clear that obviously I did not even write out this. Because what I originally wrote was the song from Insidious and listeners, so that you can get a visual, I did take off my headphones as this was being announced and I put them back on so that I can now speak this, which is thank you, I guess, for taking it, but also wow, really? Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 22:19

Hey, I almost sang it, so you're you're lucky.

SPEAKER_04 22:22

And I would have lost it. But I think this is a really big validation for you, Binx.

SPEAKER_03 22:28

It is. And also because to be clear, I rewatched this movie for the first time since I had first seen it for this podcast. So at the end of the day, ultimately, like I feel a little vindication here where it was all worth it.

SPEAKER_04 22:41

Let's also mention the fact that it was a fucking rewind. So not everybody even listened to that episode because that was from our patrons.

SPEAKER_03 22:48

That's true. Even more reason for you to become a patron now. You can now really understand the lore that is this movie and how it ties to me.

SPEAKER_04 22:57

We really thought that it was a year of fuck them kids, but it's really a year of fuck pinks.

SPEAKER_03 23:02

Yeah, which honestly is a great segue to the next category, which is best origin story. Much like the origin story of that movie and my fears, we could talk a bit about best origin stories in terms of the films we reviewed this year. And so the nominees are Prey, 2022, Evil Ash, Army of Darkness, 1992, The Hand from Talk to Me, 2023, and then Beetlejuice, 1988. And so the winner for the 2023 Best Origin Story is The Predator from Prey, 2022.

SPEAKER_06 23:37

I had a feeling. I had a feeling.

SPEAKER_04 23:39

Once again, my nomination, I should know how to fucking pick them.

SPEAKER_05 23:42

Well, okay, so I was I actually thought about Prey because I mean Prey was just a masterpiece. I was like, does it really give us the origin story? But it kind of it kind of does. So I guess in my mind, as I was quickly going through here and filling this out, I like I just didn't really like nail it down well enough. But this is a great choice. This is a perfect nomination for this.

SPEAKER_04 24:01

Yeah, and really what we get is the origin story of this conflict on Earth, which I think is pretty fucking cool. I honestly prefer over just like the conflict, I prefer our main heroine in this movie, like seeing her story, absolutely phenomenal, but some good shit.

SPEAKER_06 24:21

It is, yeah. I was gonna say, like thinking about it now, it it is like even though they don't go into too much of the origin story of maybe Predator itself, it is like the origin story of the entire franchise so far. So it is it is really cool to see. So it it is a great choice, hands down.

SPEAKER_03 24:38

And how often do we find that an origin story like this or an explanation of a whole franchise way later into the franchise goes well? That's the beauty of Prey for sure. So good one.

SPEAKER_06 24:50

Very true. But talking about Prey, it would only be right if we now visit the category of best kill. So in the category of best kill, the nominees are French Massacre from Prey 2022, the entire massacre, mind you, David from Megan, 2023, Bridget, Evil Dead Rise, 2023, Charlie, Hereditary, 2018, and the winner for the 2023 best kill is Charlie Hereditary 2018.

SPEAKER_03 25:25

It sure is. Charlie and then Chocolate Telephone Pull. I knew it. I knew it. I figured when I nominated that one, I was like, the people are gonna back me up on this because it's a phenomenon. Everyone knows about this kill. Chris, you knew about this kill before you even watched the movie.

SPEAKER_04 25:40

It's true. Although I really wish the entire French trapper massacre could get its due because that was a stunning scene in terms of the cinematography. But listen, far be it from me to disagree with the trauma of seeing a child beheaded on the side of a road.

SPEAKER_06 25:55

It's the year of fuck them kids, so you just you had to know that it was coming. You had to know that this was gonna win.

SPEAKER_05 26:01

Also, we're I think a bit spoiled because we did get to watch this on like an 80-inch TV in a theater, like a private theater room in a house. And so we got to see it in like ultimate high def, like inches from our face, effectively is what it felt like. So this, yeah, this was a good one.

SPEAKER_04 26:16

You did. I watched this on a computer monitor with the Discord community because I went to go pick a Brian up from the airport when y'all were watching this movie. Ah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 26:24

True, that's true.

SPEAKER_04 26:26

But hey, you know what? On to our next category: Best Sequel or Remake. Now, in the category of best sequel or remake, the nominees are Evil Dead Rise, 2023, Prey, 2022. You might be sensing a pattern, Evil Dead 2, 1987, or Scream 6, 2023. The winner for the 2023 Best Sequel or Remake is Scream 6, 2023. Wow. I'm pretty stunned. Honestly. I was shocked. R.I.P. to the Scream franchise after it was come to light. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 27:00

I know. Look, obviously, we're extremely upset with the studio. But you know what? If we're gonna end this franchise on a high note, good thing it was Scream 6 because it was really great. However, I figured that this category was gonna be pretty tough. When I put Scream Six, I also was like, man, but Evil Dead Rise, right? And like we've done some pretty good sequel and remakes this year, so I it was a toss-up. I really had no idea how this was gonna go.

SPEAKER_04 27:25

Yeah, for sure. I thought Prey wouldn't win because it's a prequel, so I thought it would lose on semantics. However, it's still a great sequel entry in terms of like continuing the franchise. So I was like, ooh, okay, that might be good. I really expected Evil Dead Rise to to really do it because I feel like unanimously that movie was just adored.

SPEAKER_06 27:46

Yeah, I I definitely thought Evil Dead, one of the Evil Deads. For sure, Evil Dead Rise, obviously more popular with it coming out this year, but hey, Scream is also massively popular.

SPEAKER_04 27:56

Yeah, too bad it didn't get the ghost face it deserved.

SPEAKER_05 28:00

Facts. Oh boy. There was some plot issues in that movie, perhaps, and that brings us, I think, to best plot that we've seen this year. So in the category of best plot, the nominees are Megan from 2023, Bubba Hotep from 2002, the others from 2001, and The Haunting from 1963, the winner for 2023's best plot is the others from 2001.

SPEAKER_06 28:21

Heck yeah, I got one.

SPEAKER_03 28:23

Sean, this is when I screamed so loud. I screamed so loud in the car when I saw that you put the others. But then of course I put my favorite movie, which is The Haunting. So I was like, you know what? I feel a little like maybe perhaps doubted that anyone was gonna pick it, but can we talk briefly about Bubba Hotep? What the fuck?

SPEAKER_05 28:43

You're welcome. Yeah, think about it. Think about the plot of this movie, and it is it's like those graphics that people have on the internet where it's like a cat riding a unicorn holding pizza, and there's like sparkles in the galaxy and stuff happening in the background. It's just so amazing. You can only see Binx's face right now.

SPEAKER_04 29:01

Let me tell you what kind of graphic on the internet. This is a green to red to yellow to black gradient, not blended well, with purple Comic Sans font written. It's funny, I guess. No, this movie is fucking weird, Mac. Best plot, you had so many options. You had your favorite franchise, bro. You had the entire Evil Dead franchise, and you still went Bubba Hotep.

SPEAKER_03 29:27

It's that we've reviewed The Exorcist, and you still put Bubba Hotep. Bro.

SPEAKER_06 29:34

Listen.

SPEAKER_05 29:34

Okay, okay, okay. Think about it though. Bruce Campbell playing Elvis, although Izzy Elvis, but he's elderly in a nursing home, and a mummy comes out, right? And now he and another elderly member of this nursing home have to fight off a frickin' mummy.

SPEAKER_03 29:51

No.

SPEAKER_05 29:52

Excuse me, how does it get better?

SPEAKER_03 29:54

Once again, I want to give you the visual that as Mac was giving that dissertation, Sean was being his like champion and was gassing him up the whole time. Like, was really just saying, like, yes.

SPEAKER_06 30:06

I'm just thinking, like, man, somebody like out in the parking lot gets in their car, they smoke a fat joint, they come back in, they go to the boardroom, they're like, I fucking got it, guys. Check this shit out. Get Bruce Campbell in here. He's gonna play Elvis, he's in a retirement home. There's a fucking mommy dude, it's gonna be great.

SPEAKER_04 30:27

And that's also how Ginger Dead Man was made.

unknown 30:30

Oh no.

SPEAKER_04 30:31

But I'm trying to decide right now. I've seen three Elvis movies this year that weren't actual Elvis movies like Elvis Presley, but now I'm wondering: is this the worst Elvis movie I've seen? Maybe not, because I really didn't like the other Elvis movie. I like I love Priscilla. Priscilla was great, but I don't know, man.

SPEAKER_06 30:47

Hey, you all are just lucky I didn't plug in Skinner Rink into this category.

SPEAKER_04 30:51

Oh, we'll fucking get there.

SPEAKER_03 30:53

I'm sure of it. I'm sure of it.

SPEAKER_04 30:55

Skinema Rink got its due.

SPEAKER_03 30:57

I'm sure of it. But you know what? Hey, while we're at it, it's so funny that we're uh gonna talk about hacks next, huh, Chris?

SPEAKER_04 31:03

Oh yeah, look at that. It was the best of times that we've discussed, and now we're gonna talk about the worst of times.

SPEAKER_03 31:08

Absolutely. I just love thinking of all of the terrible antagonists that we've had throughout the year and the movies that we've reviewed. We call it the Stock of Shame, which I think is so funny. So let's talk about those nominees. We've got Ghostface from Scream Six 2023.

SPEAKER_04 31:25

I want to point out that it's unmasked ghost face. I failed to specify here, but unmasked ghost face, Scream Six.

SPEAKER_02 31:31

Fair.

SPEAKER_03 31:32

Very, very important. Good clarification. Then we've got the Ginger Dead Man 2005. And then, of course, Bubba Hotep 2002. But the winner for the 2023 worst antagonist is, of course, the ginger dead man 2005.

SPEAKER_06 31:51

He did it all for the cookie.

SPEAKER_04 31:53

Can I tell you my toxic trait? I'd still take the ginger dead man over unmasked ghost face.

SPEAKER_03 31:59

That's troublesome.

SPEAKER_04 32:00

I'd take Ginger Dead Man's Camp over Unmasked Ghostface.

SPEAKER_05 32:05

Hot take. That is a hot take.

SPEAKER_04 32:07

I know, but I can't tell you how brutal unmasked ghost face was for me.

SPEAKER_03 32:12

That's pretty brutal. And I want to say, look, I did not like Bubba Hotep whatsoever. But I also, once again, I yelled in the car when Ginger Dead Men was nominated because I was like, that was what I was gonna put. So I'm glad that I wasn't the only one for sure that it that really felt that instinctually about how is it that a small cookie that is half baked can hold a knife and drive a car and kill so many people. And pull the trigger of a gun. That too. Yeah, just makes no sense.

SPEAKER_05 32:42

I did not feel bad when I saw that Sean had dominated this. I didn't care. I nominated it as well because all four categories should have been it just doesn't get worse.

SPEAKER_03 32:52

All four of us. I although, yes, I I agree, Chris, in terms of unmasked ghost face too, but we should have given the listeners no options other than the ginger dead man.

SPEAKER_04 33:01

No, unmasked ghost face needing to feel its shame.

SPEAKER_06 33:05

But nonetheless, what is a worst antagonist without a worst survivor? And in that category for worst survivor, here are the nominees. We have Jules, what keeps you alive, 2018, Tony, the Exorcist, Believer, 2023, and Gemma, Megan 2023, the winner for the 2023 Worst Survivor, is in fact Gemma from Megan 2023.

SPEAKER_03 33:34

I'm pretty shocked that I wasn't the only one that absolutely found her insufferable. I can't believe she won this category.

SPEAKER_04 33:41

Like, A, over Jules. Bro, Jules fucking sucks. It's because not enough people have seen that movie, is what it is. That's what it is. 100%. Listen, Gemma was imperfect. I get it. But also I did love Gemma. Did I love Allison Williams? Maybe. But Gemma is not the problem here. Jules, Jules is a fucking problem. Listen, if you haven't fucking seen this movie, I'm sorry. Go watch it and then you'll understand the suffrage.

SPEAKER_03 34:06

Yeah, look, I know that I nominated Gemma, but I do need to tell you guys, yes, watch what keeps you alive because maybe you'll think twice. I'm stunned. But here's my justification for putting Gemma. It's that I've never seen an aunt give so little fucks about her niece, quite frankly. Gave so little fucks she was full-on burdened by this child and really created a whole doll that she knew was gonna get a little AI crazy and could care less. I mean, she also didn't really seem like she gave a damn about her sister dying either, but that's neither here nor there. Please take a listen to the episode if you haven't to hear my dissertation on that part. But Jules, man oh man, she's also pretty crummy.

SPEAKER_06 34:50

It was, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 34:51

You think, oh, you can enjoy the satisfaction of her death, except there's a little bit of a fake out in the credits, and you're like, what the fuck is going on there?

SPEAKER_06 35:00

Oh, that's right. The last gasp.

SPEAKER_04 35:02

Is it life leaving the body? It's my patience leaving my body for sure. But listen, enough about jewels and her bullshit. Let's go on to our next category, which is the worst kill. In the category of worst kill, the nominees are all of the kills in Bubba Hotep 2002.

SPEAKER_05 35:19

The disrespect.

SPEAKER_04 35:21

The ginger dead man, the ginger dead man 2005, Jan Suk, Trendy Busan 2016, and the winner for the 2023 Worst Kill is the Ginger Dead Man, the Ginger Dead Man 2005.

SPEAKER_05 35:35

Okay. I feel very validated now that the listeners chose wisely.

SPEAKER_06 35:38

Just eat that fucking cookie and call it a day, dude. You know what I mean? Dip that motherfucker in milk and eat that fucking cookie, call it a day.

SPEAKER_03 35:47

Well, technically that's what they did, and he lit remember he guzzled a whole gallon of milk afterwards.

SPEAKER_04 35:53

It's a guzzling for me. That's what you gotta do. Here's my problem, though. At least that's a death that makes sense. All the kills in Bubba Hotep, only one of those motherfuckers got their soul sucked. The rest of them just died in their sleep of natural causes. It's just old people dying. Not a cool time. Not a cool time.

SPEAKER_02 36:12

No.

SPEAKER_04 36:12

The most lackluster killers you could imagine, it's honestly just a coincidence. That movie is just sheer coincidence.

SPEAKER_05 36:23

It's perfect planning. I don't know what I don't know what you're talking about over there. It's genius.

SPEAKER_04 36:27

Get the fuck out of here.

SPEAKER_05 36:28

Alright, well, we jumped into a lot of franchises this year, and some of them we rode out for longer than others, but I think we can agree there are some franchises that did not improve very well. So in the category of least improved franchise, the nominees are Halloween, specifically Halloween 5, The Revenge of Michael Myers from 1988, The Conjuring, The Conjuring 2 from 2016, The Nun Two from 2023, and The Exorcist Believer from 2023. So the winner for the 2023 least improved franchise is The Exorcist Believer 2023.

SPEAKER_06 36:59

Wait, that is a fucking travesty. That is a fucking travesty. You're gonna tell me one, listen, don't get me started on Halloween 5, but you're gonna fucking tell me that the Nun 2 wasn't a fucking shit fuck of a movie.

SPEAKER_05 37:14

Okay, first of all, it's about least improved. Okay, it's did you come out with a sequel or something in the franchise that went downhill?

SPEAKER_04 37:22

Well, I think there's also the measurement of that slope, right? Because it's like how far do you fall?

SPEAKER_06 37:27

Hold on a second.

SPEAKER_03 37:28

I'm just gonna let you guys unravel and I'm gonna go tell Alexa to play Vindicated by Dashboard Confessional, okay? Because I'm feeling vindicated. The people have spoken, the people have said what they've said, and the slope is quite crazy. The slope is nuts when it comes to the Exorcist Believer.

SPEAKER_06 37:47

That movie was not that bad. That movie was not that bad. I'm telling you, there were flaws for sure, but that movie was not that bad and it doesn't deserve it. That's all I'm gonna say.

SPEAKER_04 37:56

Okay, let me at least say this. I don't think any movie on this list really deserves it. Even Halloween five, like I know I nominated it for myself, and I get it. It's because no one else fucking liked that movie. But even that, as far as like least improved franchise, its predecessor wasn't exactly super great. I think the biggest steep that you get there is from Halloween one to Halloween four, maybe. But The Exorcist Believer, mmm, I guess I it makes sense in terms of how many people I heard dislike the movie, but I don't think that any of these are bad sequels. I mean, except for Halloween five, I realize that I am unconditionally loving that son.

SPEAKER_05 38:34

See, this is why we have another category later that talks about sequels, because sometimes you can have a fine movie that just like is nothing compared to the movie that came before it or the movies that came before it. In this case, like I when I saw Binx's nomination, I had to find another movie that I think just didn't really improve. And for me, the conjuring is just an easy pick because I really hate the franchise. But I agree, when we reviewed The Exorcists, I was not super happy with its progression from the first movie. I think my standard of the first movie is just so high. That's probably what it is.

SPEAKER_06 39:08

I I guess I can see that. I can see that for sure. But even when you're talking about the conjuring, right? The use of the conjuring two with the nun was way better than the use of the nun in the nun fucking two.

SPEAKER_03 39:20

I'll agree with you on all that. Even with the nun two specifically, I was not happy so much about that movie's ending per se. And that's where it was like definitely the slope is there, like we were saying. And I think that's a good segue to our next award because when I think of this category in particular, the nun two, I would put in this in the bigger picture. So what we're gonna talk about next is most disappointing ending. Okay. And here are some of the nominees. Really, it's just two, which is pretty interesting, and that tells you a lot in terms of the grand scheme of things. We've got what keeps you alive 2018, and then we have Cobweb 2023. The winner for the 2023 most disappointing ending is what keeps you alive 2018. Worst fucking ending of the year. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 40:06

Absolutely amazing. Let me just point out all right, Chris, you have your win here. That's great. I agree. Bad ending, but hold on. Three nominations from this cast for Cobweb, all right? And that just says something about that ending because that movie was not bad until it fucking got really bad.

SPEAKER_04 40:26

I agree. It's the shock of it, you know what I mean? Like a cobweb was really fucking high quality up until that moment. Here's the thing, though, about what keeps you alive is it was kind of okay, and then it became a fucking train wreck, and then it got even worse, and then it had the audacity to still get worse, and then you're like, fucking okay, I guess at least it's ending, and then it pulls some shit in the very very last moments of the movie, and you're like, What the fuck are we doing here? Like, what the fuck are we doing here? Is so much of what the experience of watching that movie is. And thank god I watched it with our patrons in a watch party in Discord because if I had to sit through that movie alone, I would have lost 20 years off my fucking life, I swear to god.

SPEAKER_03 41:10

But here's what I find even more interesting. Our listeners must have watched it to have voted that over cobweb, but then they didn't vote Jules for Worst Survivor. What is happening?

SPEAKER_04 41:22

Or maybe enough people watched Cobweb to know that they liked it. The by default, what keeps you alive, is like poop no fascinating.

SPEAKER_03 41:31

Fascinating. Okay, all right, maybe.

SPEAKER_06 41:34

I don't know. But you know, we talked about what was the best sequel or remake earlier, and now we're gonna talk about what the worst sequel or remake was because in the category of worst sequel or remake, the nominees are Peninsula 2020, Amityville 2, The Possession, 1982, The Haunting, 1999, The Exorcist Believer, 2023, and the winner for the 2023 worst sequel or remake is Amityville 2 The Possession 1982? Are you kidding me?

SPEAKER_04 42:13

I do want to point out that Amityville 2 The Possession and Exorcist Believer were actually tied for a while.

unknown 42:20

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_04 42:22

I also want to point out retroactively that Peninsula should have been my pick for a least improved franchise because of the disparity between that and Trina Busan. Not because it's a bad movie, but Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_06 42:34

I okay. I'm not gonna keep going down this trajectory, but all I'm gonna say is if you literally watch The Haunting and then watch the remake of The Haunting, there's no fucking way you can say that is a good sequel or remake. So I don't know. I'm getting pissed off here. Sorry, I'm gonna step back, but again, terrible. And Amityville 2, let me tell you, better than its predecessor. That's all I'm gonna say.

SPEAKER_04 42:57

That's a mic drop. Sounds like this is bullshit.

SPEAKER_06 43:00

I'm not here for it. I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_05 43:02

I just want to remind you of something, okay? It's a quote from the movie between two characters who are siblings. They're mine, my panties, other character. I took them from the laundry. I just want you to remember that scene. Oh, I remember it. Okay.

SPEAKER_06 43:16

Yeah. A. I just gave it a little spice. You know what I mean? We need a little bit of that family drama to really reel you into the movie.

SPEAKER_05 43:26

That's floor spice right there. That's not real spice.

SPEAKER_04 43:29

Well, here's to hoping our next category won't be nearly as controversial. Because in the category of worst plot, the nominees are What Keeps You Alive, 2018, Skinema Rink, 2022, The Ginger Dead Man, 2005, Infinity Pool, 2023, and the winner for the 2023 Worst Plot is Skinnema Rink 2022.

SPEAKER_06 43:55

Absolutely insane. Absolutely insane. What plot, bro? What do you mean? This should have been the most underrated movie of the fucking year. Skinemarink 2020 fucking two. All right. This movie flew under the radar. People don't understand it. That's cool. It is the most chilling and haunting atmosphere in a horror movie in the last probably fucking 10 years. That's I said it.

SPEAKER_04 44:20

I think in the category of best corners, I'd go skin a rink. But not best. Like what plot?

SPEAKER_03 44:28

I have several thoughts. One being ultimately it is definitely flew under the radar because Skinner Marink is like the most fascinating plot to an HGTV show. But it's like the horror version of HGTV. And I think that it needs its flowers for that. One. Two, I'm realizing now that the hack section is really just let's rile Sean up because three, Mac, you knew exactly what you were doing when you did this.

SPEAKER_05 44:53

I hey, I answered as honestly as I could. I tried to make picks that I thought represented my feelings about the movies we watched that year. I just I still if you like it, I'm not trying to yuck your yummer or anything like that, but I just feel like that movie's plot was basically being half asleep and trying to play Mist. Okay, that's what it felt like to me. It's just focus on a thing, look at a thing, nothing's really happening. Maybe every now and then you click and you go to a different room, and then that's oh my god.

SPEAKER_06 45:22

Let me just tell you you think of Peter Pan. The whole thing is you forget what it's like to be a child, and then you grow old and you fucking die. Here's the thing remember what it's like to be a fucking child, remember what scared you. This movie tapped into that. I'm sorry that y'all don't remember what it's like to be a child. My bad. That movie was great. Mic drop.

SPEAKER_03 45:42

And look, and mic drop for sure. And I'm gonna pick up the mic just to quickly say it to defend you, Sean, because I want to run the tape back when you were defending Mac, and then he just like at two brutes. You know what I mean? Like he just like backstabbed you a little bit. I want to pick up back the mic and say, to be clear, in present day, I would not watch Skinamarink again for fear of what it might do to me based on what you have shared. So I think your input and your I guess perception of Skinamarink has impacted me enough to be now scared of the movie retroactively. So good job.

SPEAKER_04 46:14

Listen, Sean, I love you, but it's a no for me, dog. I will say though that in retrospect, looking at the notes here, I think you and Mac are just silently at war with each other in the hack nominations.

SPEAKER_06 46:25

Yeah, it's all good.

SPEAKER_03 46:26

What a twist. Sean was like out here, like Bubba Hotep, yeah, silently, backing back up. And then Mac said, Yeah, fuck you.

SPEAKER_06 46:33

I did hack that movie though.

SPEAKER_03 46:35

Speaking of Bubba Hotep.

SPEAKER_05 46:37

Oh my goodness. Don't try to qualify this next category in that way, okay? There's some hot takes, I think, in this one here, but we've got the nominations for the worst movie of the year. All right. The nominees are What Keeps You Alive 2018, The Ginger Dead Man 2005, with two nominations, and Bubba Hotep from 2002. Okay. Well, the winner for the 2023 worst movie of the year is The Ginger Dead Man from 2005.

SPEAKER_03 47:04

Absolutely. But hey, listen, I said it in the episode. I'll say it right now. It is definitely the worst movie of the year. However, I think that you should watch it just for the sheer experience of watching the worst movie that we have reviewed in 2023 and watch it with a friend. Watch it with a friend, just have a grand old time hating the fuck out of this movie. It's hilarious.

SPEAKER_04 47:25

Could you imagine a triple feature where you get stoned or get drunk with your friends and watch the bunny man, the mean one, and then the ginger dead man back to back?

SPEAKER_06 47:37

I think I would rather watch the ginger dead man three times.

SPEAKER_03 47:41

And I had a grand old time watching it completely sober and a grand old time annihilating the heck out of this movie. So it's just it's fun to hate on. So I'm glad that it won.

SPEAKER_05 47:53

We have a track record of picking movies. We had Thankskilling, you know, we had Bunny Man. This year we have the Ginger Dead Man. So you guys gotta up the ante next year. We gotta really pick a loser, like a real big loser next year.

SPEAKER_04 48:05

Yeah, we always gotta spike one in at the end of the year. Well, that wraps up our hack awards, but we also have a few other honorable categories.

SPEAKER_03 48:14

We sure do, and one of them is most unnecessary nudity. So let's hear those nominees. We've got Let the Right One In 2008, Hereditary, 2018, and Infinity Pool 2023. The winner for 2023's most unnecessary nudity is Hereditary 2018.

SPEAKER_04 48:34

I'd like to point out that I don't disagree, but I do feel like Let the Right One In is objectively correct.

SPEAKER_06 48:41

I think it's it's obviously a great choice. Obviously. I don't think anyone's arguing any of these choices here.

SPEAKER_04 48:47

Yeah. Also, though, Infinity Pool, in retrospect, I uh where was the Alexander Skarsgard representation in your animal report, Binks? I thought about bringing it up.

SPEAKER_03 48:57

I did, but I was like, uh, no need. But I can bring it up now, which is nudity of Alexander Skarsgard. Always necessary. And here's why I think Infinity Pool didn't win, because some would say Mia Goth's tit necessary. But what comes out of that tit? Think about it. Do you really need it? And then there was like a whole scenario there where there was lots of nudity and then lots of things coming out of orifices that technically that's not even how that works. So that's why I nominated that one in particular.

SPEAKER_06 49:29

But we can all agree, right? Like hereditary.

SPEAKER_04 49:31

Oh yeah, super fucking gross. Honestly.

SPEAKER_06 49:33

Like there was just a number of instances where we just didn't need to didn't need to see it.

SPEAKER_04 49:40

I just need uh Ariaster to just back away from the naked old people, is what I really need.

SPEAKER_06 49:45

And the most disturbing was literally the dollhouse mother holding her tit out at the end of the bed. Like there was no need for that.

SPEAKER_03 49:55

I also want to say that I'm surprised one of us didn't mention the taking of Deborah Logan in this category too. But that is just one singular person versus like a slew of nudity in a certain position where assholes may be seen.

SPEAKER_01 50:12

Jesus Christ. Okay. Let me see your starfish.

SPEAKER_06 50:18

Alright, well, along with the unnecessary nudity, we also have unnecessary hair. So with wiggiest wig in the category of wiggiest wig, the nominees are Andreas, Let the Right One In, 2008, Ginger Snaps, 2000, Megan, 2023, and the winner for 2023's Wiggiest Wig is Megan from Megan 2023.

SPEAKER_03 50:44

Y'all, look, let me clarify something because this took a turn. I nominated Megan because I thought, you know what? Let's reclaim this category a little bit. Let's reclaim it. And let's just say that Megan, she was throwing that hair back and forth. Okay. She was doing all of the things. That synthetic hair on that little doll was doing the damn thing. In all those dance moves, it was looking pristine until obviously it wasn't at the very end, but for the most part, it was doing its damn thing.

SPEAKER_05 51:13

So then why nominate it?

SPEAKER_03 51:15

That's because I wanted to reclaim this category. I wanted to make it clear that Megan's wig was wigging, it was doing the damn thing versus it being looking bad. And it's a good thing. Okay. I didn't actually think it was gonna win.

SPEAKER_06 51:29

So you wanted to highlight it.

SPEAKER_03 51:31

I wanted to highlight it.

SPEAKER_06 51:32

You wanted to highlight it.

SPEAKER_03 51:33

But I didn't think it was gonna win.

SPEAKER_06 51:35

This is always the toughest category, I feel like. Obviously, I talk like this has been like so many years of doing this, but like at least in the last two years of going through these categories, wiggiest wig feels like the hardest category because I'm trying to think like I have to remember picturing a wig or something that looked like a wig, and I just can't think of those things. But I do know that we talked ad nauseum about Andreas's hair. So they did.

SPEAKER_04 52:02

The real secret is listen, when you're watching the movie, you just screenshot that shit, throw it in your notes. You're like, this fucking feels weird, and Andreas for me.

SPEAKER_06 52:10

This is it. Fair enough.

SPEAKER_03 52:12

I just want to say I am glad though that a particular Dracula of all the Draculas that we've done, yeah. My man Gary Ullman's wig didn't make the cut.

SPEAKER_00 52:22

Didn't I?

SPEAKER_04 52:23

Listen, it would have been backup if not for Andreas and Let the Right One In 2008. Well, as shocking as those wigs were, some movies we found to be more of a surprise. Some we expected to be slashes and they turned out to be hacks. Some we expect to be hacks and they turned out to be pretty okay. And the category of biggest surprise, the nominees are Sick 2023, Anna and the Apocalypse 2017, Skinamarink 2022, The Taking of Deborah Logan 2014, and the winner for 2023's biggest surprise is the taking of Deborah Logan 2014.

SPEAKER_06 53:01

The shit is rigged. Yeah, I remember.

SPEAKER_04 53:15

And I was like, ooh, fuck, man. It was a good movie, but I I never want to see that shit again in my life.

SPEAKER_03 53:20

Yeah. Which so on a little more serious note, then obviously, like that's where I put it as biggest surprise because Chris, your grandmother passed away, my grandfather passed away just a few months prior. So this movie, when we were reviewing it, it was in the depths of whatever family trauma theme that we were going through with the earlier part of the year. But what surprised me the most was how scary it was. To me, I think of all the movies we reviewed, we have reviewed this year, this is the scariest movie that I've watched, or one of definitely, because it was it hit deep in the core. It was very tough to watch for sure. And not just because of what we went through, I'm sure that obviously was a factor in it too, right? But I watched it with a friend of mine, and he also was just as impacted by the movie, too. So I'm really surprised that others agreed with me, I guess, to per se, that they were just as surprised as I was by how good this movie was or how much it affected them.

SPEAKER_04 54:16

Yeah, it feels like it really just preys on you.

SPEAKER_06 54:19

Yeah, this movie has so much depth. I think it it's a well-deserved win for sure. I think even if you don't go through this kind of thing in real life, it is scary the first time you watch it. But I think that the more you watch it and the more that you can unfortunately relate to these moments, it just gets even scarier, I feel like. It just sits in your mind. It's a it's one of those movies. So I'll give it the credit for sure.

SPEAKER_05 54:44

I thought about this category as what I found to be the biggest surprise for me. And I think a musical, like a Christmas zombie musical that I enjoyed was a big surprise. Just specifically to me that like that could be a good thing because of the musical part of it, because I'm not the world's biggest musical fan for like most modern musicals, so that's what was surprising to me that it could actually be like really good. But there's not like a big surprise inside the plot or anything. There's not a shy melon like twist or something like that at the end. It's just I was like, oh, I was pleasantly surprised by that. I think I misread. That's what happened. You guys have enjoyed, I think, also some good movies this year. And so our next category is guilty pleasure. So something that you enjoy but you feel a little guilty about. So the nominees here: Black Friday 2021, Fresh 2022, Army of Darkness 1992, and Repo, the Genetic Opera 2008. The winner for 2023's Guilty Pleasure is Repo, the genetic opera from 2008.

SPEAKER_04 55:43

And I just have to say, You should feel guilty about that.

SPEAKER_05 55:46

What on earth? That is my only ri reaction to this is what uh Banks, how do you feel?

SPEAKER_04 55:52

Why am I getting emotional? Binks, I am so relieved for your sake that you were not on the Anna in the Apocalypse episode to hear how much shit I was talking about, repo the genetic copra.

SPEAKER_02 56:05

Oh, now I have to watch this movie so I can listen to the episode. Oh boy, you waited until I wasn't on the episode.

SPEAKER_06 56:13

Oh, I think I I even had a stab in there.

SPEAKER_02 56:16

Of course, of course.

SPEAKER_03 56:17

How could I want to point out that I did talk shit to your face too? To be clear, you both in particular would never hold back in front of my face. All three of you, really, but that's incredible. I didn't I didn't expect I didn't expect it to also make an occurrence, I guess, in this movie. To my defense, though, I didn't know it was musical, so that makes sense now. So there's that part. I just want to make I feel like I'm giving an acceptance speech right now. I want to say thank you so much to all the listeners, especially those that are like engaging in our Discord and like through our social media, especially with this movie. If this is like this is my movie, and I feel like a big part of the team Bings, like I don't know, there's like a whole war going on at one point because of this movie, and I had like a cult following along with it. So I appreciate all of you. I'm gonna remember this moment for sure. So much so that I now want to bring up a fun category I think that we like to talk about in terms of when we review episodes, and that's mom of the year. We've had some really great moms, okay? Some that have really gone through some things and have persevered in all the movies that we've reviewed. So let's check out those nominees. We've got Pamela from Ginger Snaps 2000. We also have Pam from Totally Killer 2023, and then we have Sue from Talk to Me 2023, and the winner of Mom of the Year is Sue Talk To Me 2023.

SPEAKER_04 57:47

Well deserved, but the biggest crime was not nominating also Pamela Voorhees. Not that she was present this year, but like a nice clean sweep of Pams in the Mom of the Year category would have been dope.

SPEAKER_06 57:58

Yeah, there's a lot of Pams there. Wait, what did Sue do that made her like such a great mom?

SPEAKER_04 58:04

She was fucking hilarious. That's all I remember about her.

SPEAKER_06 58:07

Okay. So she had a couple of like one-liners in the movie where she snapped back at her kids or whatever.

SPEAKER_03 58:14

She was iconic, hilarious. She also told this girl to like back the fuck up when she was in the hospital trying to like get next to Riley, and it's like, shoo, go away.

SPEAKER_06 58:25

I'm just saying, any mom that's just down to cover up a murder for their kid, that's the mom of the year.

unknown 58:31

Okay.

SPEAKER_06 58:31

That's just hands down.

SPEAKER_03 58:33

I do want to say, I completely agree. I think this may be another category where maybe people haven't seen ginger snaps, and so they don't know that. And and that's coming from me that I said talk to me, but really the real winner here is Pamela from Ginger Snaps because she's a ride or die mom.

SPEAKER_06 58:50

That's what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_03 58:52

But then also we do have Pam from Totally Killer. She also was quite literally agile, was quite literally ready to fight it out. I'm I'm assuming that we're talking about like mom Pam, like in present day, though.

SPEAKER_05 59:06

Yeah, the one she was actually a mom.

SPEAKER_03 59:08

Hell yeah. Yeah, she was busting the moves, she was ready to go, doomsday style.

SPEAKER_04 59:12

What you don't realize is that Mac didn't really nominate Pam. He nominated Julie Bowen.

SPEAKER_05 59:17

Damn it. There it is. Maybe subconsciously, but not. That's not what I wrote. So subconscious at most.

SPEAKER_04 59:24

What you wrote was totally killer. I wrote Pam.

SPEAKER_05 59:29

Julie Bowen is totally killer, just saying.

SPEAKER_06 59:31

Alright, well, while there are some pretty great moms out there, what's a horror movie without a shitty father? And in the category of worst dad, the nominees are Detective Bailey, Scream 6, 2023, Roddy Largo, Repo the Genetic Opera 2008, Mr. Marsh, Beverly's Dad, of course, it 2017, Josh, Insidious 2010, and the winner and our 2023 Trash Dad of the Year is Mr. Marsh from It 2017.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:10

Without a doubt, another moment where I was like, God damn it, Sean, you did it again.

SPEAKER_06 1:00:15

I mean, it's like, come on.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:17

I do have to say though, it was a rewind that we did earlier this year. And had we not rewound, I feel like Mr. Marsh, Beverly's dad, is such an objectively disgusting human being that no matter what category he was in for the worst of, he was bound to win. But I do think there's a lot of credit to be given and distributed to the rest of these shitty fucking dads. Roddy Largo, come the fuck on. Josh Insidious, oh but because you're supposed to be the hero of the movie? Go fuck yourself. Detective Bailey, worst on Masco Space ever. Fuck that shit. Honestly, these are all winners. And by all winners, I mean they're all fucking losers in my book.

SPEAKER_06 1:00:56

They're all trash.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:58

It was the passion behind the oh, so because you're supposed to be the hero of the year, go fuck yourself. That was incredible.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:03

Because correct.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:05

Because yes. I will never take back what I fucking said about Josh. Patrick Wilson, he's fine. Josh from Insidious, absolutely not fine. Which actually takes us to our next category here. Not something to vote on, but something to reflect on. We've talked about the best in show, we've talked about the worst in show. And sometimes our minds are changed by the sands of time. So for our next category, retract the hack. If you could go back and alter one of your hacks, which would it be? I'll start by saying I only had 12 hacks this year out of 79 episodes. Fucking awesome. But I still stand behind them. I will say though that I think the two that stand the most chance for being overturned one day would be either smile or sick. Because I remember those being very promising up to a certain point, and then it's like, what the fuck? And the foul taste in my mouth from those experiences really put into hack territory. But I think maybe with some time and space, I could be worn down.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:07

I am the opposite here. My my choices this year, I am going to just go ahead and double down on. I don't want to retract any of my hacks. In fact, I probably should have given more hacks this year, but the ones I chose, I feel like I did the right thing.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:22

So you better fucking rehash some slashes here in a second.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:25

Well, no, we'll see.

SPEAKER_06 1:02:28

But there's a point there, right? When you only hack so many movies and you look back on them, like which ones do you really want to take back? You can't make me take anything back. I feel like I would stand by my hacks too. I think if I had to pick something that I hacked this year that I think has the most potential to like not be a hack, it would probably be Five Nights at Freddy's. I think that one at least is entertaining enough that you could probably enjoy it, but like it's also not for me. So I still stand by the hack, but it has the most potential to be slash.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:02

Thank you for being vulnerable. I appreciate that. Sean, before we started recording, made a comment about how I, throughout the course of this year, have said that I was going to retract a hack or rehash a slash or whatever in many episodes, right? But there are two in particular that stood out to me that I feel like listeners have just been waiting for this moment. They've been waiting for this episode to find out. But I definitely am going to retract my hack for the haunting 1999 that was our old versus new episode. Because ultimately, at the end of the day, although I definitely love the original way more than this version, the haunting 1999 was one of the first horror movies I ever remember. More specifically, one of the first kills that like really just got seared into my brain. And I feel like that needs more credit than it just being a hack. So I'm gonna go ahead and retract that. But this next one is gonna be the real shocker. It's Evil Dead 2, 1987. What? As time has gone by, I've actually appreciated this movie more and more. And it really is because I've hated Army of Darkness more. So I wasn't on that episode, but I absolutely do not like Army of Darkness whatsoever. So you know what? Be grateful, okay? Be grateful that Army of Darkness took that hit so that Evil Dead 2 can rise. There can only be one of those two.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:26

That's a win. We should go ahead and find out the next category here, rehashing the slash. If you go, if you could go back and alter one of those slashes, which one would it be?

SPEAKER_04 1:04:36

I actually was very hard pressed for this. I think again, I stand behind it, but best case scenario, maybe I could give back Sinister. It was much better this time than when I originally, when we originally did this movie, I fucking hacked it, right? So I feel like maybe it's a little bit of a fence hopping action here.

SPEAKER_06 1:04:54

I think for me personally, I wanna say, like, I wanna, I really want to slash Cobweb. I'm just gonna go back to it just because I'm not gonna I'm not gonna be out here saying that the ending wasn't completely terrible and egregious. Like it was just a terrible way to land the film, but the name Cobweb stood out to me. I enjoy the title of the movie. I enjoyed most of the movie going into the third act or into the ending. So I want that movie to be a slash so bad that ending is just hard to get through.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:29

Without a doubt, it's Renfield for me. Without a doubt. Throughout the year, I've thought about it and I'm like, man, I almost feel like another person must have slashed that movie because as time has gone by, I have just really hated that movie. And it is because we have just done so many Dracula movies throughout the year that I'm like, no, what a fail. What just a massive fail for me. So yep, it's Renfield, no question about it.

SPEAKER_05 1:05:56

Okay, I might surprise you. I actually picked one to rehash. And this might be the first year I've done this. I don't remember if I've done this in the past. But that's because I made a really poor choice in slashing the collector. And I want to go ahead and rehash that because I gave it a lot of credit for like enticing me with what could happen next. And honestly, I need to just go ahead and walk that right back. I truly don't care about what happens next. And I can't believe at the time that I like was a 51% slash. It's not. It's really not. Thinking back, looking through my notes, looking through my memories in my brain, I want to take it back.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:33

I think that was an episode that you and I were like, we're so angry at that movie that why is it that we're so angry that do we like it? Like it's just a very confusing feeling that it leaves you with.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:44

So toxica.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:46

It was definitely giving confusion. Looking back on that episode, I would love to have more of you on the hack side of things. So welcome. I love this. Well, folks, the time has come. We've talked about our slash awards, our hack awards, we've talked about our miscellaneous awards, but now it is time for your voice. We are moving on to the Slasher's Choice Awards for 2023.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:07

Yes. So for best episode of the year, our patrons nominated several episodes they felt best represented our show. And it was a tight race, but the top three episodes were episode 262, Scream 6, 2023, episode 282, Talk To Me, 2023, and of course our 300th episode live show. And the winner of the Patrons Choice Award for Best Episode of the Year is episode 262, Scream 6, 2023. Nice. I'm pretty surprised considering that Talk to Me was our most popular episode, at least on Spotify. But ultimately, in terms of content, in terms of our deliberations, Scream 6, that's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:49

This feels good. I feel like they really made some solid choices, and throwing the live show in there just feels warm and fuzzy too.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:56

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:56

Definitely.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:57

Scream 6 only won by a little bit over the live show. Nice love that's exciting. That's cool. That's cool.

SPEAKER_06 1:08:05

That's awesome. Going into the best new release of the year, we definitely covered a bunch of new, newly released movies in 2023, and our patrons voted for the ones that they enjoyed the most. And the top three new releases were Talk To Me 2023, Scream Six, 2023, Evil Dead Rise, 2023, and the winner of the Patron's Choice Award for the 2023 best new release is Talk To Me 2023.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:39

There it is.

SPEAKER_06 1:08:40

That seems right. These three movies are tough. Like they're these were arguably the best movies of the year for sure. So it's really tough to pick.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:46

Yeah, it really is. I mean, I think Evil Dead Rise deserved to win a few more things. I did purchase the vinyl for this movie, and the artwork on it is absolutely incredible. I cannot wait to watch this again later this year. When I have some time off, I'm going to revisit this one. It was top-notch for sure. What surprises me more though than Evil Dead Rise not winning some is an omission from the nominations of our next category. Now, we covered a lot of newly released movies. Not all of them were a hit, some of them were a bust. And the top nominations for worst new release were The Exorcist Believer 2023, The None Two, 2023, and Knock at the Cabin 2023, and the winner of the Patrons Choice Award for the 2023 Worst New Releases, The Exorcist Believer 2023. And let me just say, for all the shit that the Boogeyman got, I'm surprised that the Boogeyman wasn't nominated in here.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:46

I okay, look. I was getting all high and mighty about The Exorcist Believer winning. But I will say, in general, in terms of the nominations here, I thought Boogeyman was gonna be here. I thought Cobweb is gonna be here. Knock at the Cabin, I guess, but that's also because it was one of the first movies, if not the first new release I think we did at the beginning of the year. So it's also been so long since it has been.

SPEAKER_06 1:10:10

I don't know, yeah. I don't know why I'm like a little bit surprised that knock in the cabin is even in here.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:15

Me too, but I I mean I only figured as much because it's M Night and it's not I know that at the time we were like, uh, it was not one of his best per se.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:24

But ultimately, though, the Exodus Believer and the Nun 2 were extremely popular in terms of marketing and whatnot. So I guess that's why it's top of mind.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:33

I'm surprised that the Nun 2 is here because I feel like I heard more great things about that movie than any of the other movies on this list. And for as much shiz as I heard about Boogeyman, I'm just shocked that it's not here.

SPEAKER_06 1:10:45

Interesting.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:46

Some might say the Boogeyman gets a dishonorable mention. I enjoyed it, but that's just me. But let's move on to a few things that we maybe didn't get to cover this year. Obviously, we've done 72 movies on our podcast this year, 79 episodes overall. Maybe there's some things we watched recreationally that just didn't make it to the content calendar. So the question is was there a movie that you saw this year that you feel is good enough for you to mention, even though we didn't cover it?

SPEAKER_06 1:11:13

I will start off that I watched recently late at night, I was flipping through Shudder, and I found I stumbled upon this foreign horror film. Hopefully I say it right, Jesara The Bone Woman 2022. This was a fantastic Mexican horror film. You get this crazy blend of like folk horror, body horror. It's psychological, it delivers this intelligent, truly unnerving film that I think like if we don't get this in the lineup soon, like it's a miss because this movie was wild.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:46

I've heard that movie was very good. I have it on my watch list actually. So when I saw that you had nominated, I was like, I know what I'm gonna be watching soon. And first of all, you did a great job at saying it. Second of all, going on a theme here because I recently watched One Evil Lurks, and it's unfortunate we didn't get to squeeze it in. I know that it came out actually pretty recently, but this is actually my favorite horror film of the year. It is so incredibly good. I know that there's been a lot of buzz about this film and it being everyone's favorite film of the year, especially in terms of horror. It's Argentinian and supernatural. It has to do with this demonic curse that is plaguing a small village, and it does not hold back in terms of gore at all, while also not cheapening the character development. It blends it so well. It's just so good. And when I tell you it's quite literally a oh shit, they don't give a fuck. I mean it. We're talking no one is safe. So I really recommend this one.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:49

Yeah, I've had so many people recommend this movie. Even Veto has seen this movie and said we absolutely need to do it at some point. And I have a coworker, she's been telling me for weeks now to watch this movie, and every time I see her, I'm like, I let you down. She's like one of the only people at work I get to talk to about horror movies with, and I'm like, okay, I gotta I gotta watch this. I had at this point, I need to watch it for her.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:09

If no one else, then I need to watch it for her. It's so good. And I watched it at 9:30 in the morning, and I regret it because that was not a movie to watch with your breakfast. So I'm definitely gonna check out Voice Ida next and not watch it in the morning if you're telling me it's all so pretty intense.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:28

So I'll do that. Hey, keeping things a little bit lighter here. I finally saw cocaine bear, and that was a great time. Nice. I haven't seen that one actually. I haven't seen that one. So maybe I'll watch that at 9:30 in the morning. It was actually way funnier than I expected it to be. And I hear that Slaughterhouse is supposed to also be really funny. I haven't seen that yet, but cocaine bear definitely worth a good chuckle.

SPEAKER_05 1:13:52

I wish I could contribute here, but honestly, I think every horror movie I watched was one for the pod. So I'm pretty lame here this year. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:59

I wouldn't say it's lame.

SPEAKER_05 1:14:00

We did watch a lot. That's very true. I mean, I also watch a lot of other stuff as well, a lot of TV to fall asleep to. So I miss some of those opportunities.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:09

No, I feel that. Well, moving on then from the horror movie of it all, let's think back to just our lives. A little bit of human time here. What is a positive personal thing that's happened for you this year?

SPEAKER_05 1:14:22

I'm stoked. Just recently, I have registered for some classes. I'm gonna be going back to school for a business degree starting this upcoming January. So second week of January, I'll be I'll be learning some. That's gonna take me a little bit because I also work full-time and everything, but I have left my degree unfinished for many a year, and I just want to I want that off my back.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:43

Nice. Congrats! That's great. Very cool.

SPEAKER_05 1:14:46

Thanks. You can congratulate me if when I even when I finish everything up.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:49

Yeah, but look at you, regular scholar. You will, you will finish. So it's a good segue to mine because it obviously has to do with education, and I work in education, so I got promoted at work this year, which was really nice. Hey, yeah, it was really good. I also just in general, I've built like stronger connections with a lot of the friends that I've made. I've obviously I got to know a lot of my friends from Trivia last year, and so we've just spent a lot of time together this year, getting to know each other, doing fun trips, just a lot of stuff. So it's been really nice getting to know everyone and building stronger friendships, even with you guys. I loved meeting everyone and spending time with you guys at the meetup, so that was nice. And then another thing I wanted to highlight just super recently was it's been my dream to build my own PC, and I did that recently. I'm using it right now, and it's coming together. It's the whole setup, the whole rig is looking nice. So we'll see what comes of that. But it's been really cool to finally do that and get handy.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:47

I love this, and I just want to point out that now this is the third consecutive year where in human time we congratulate one of us for getting promoted at work. So who's next? Listen, this year's been fucking rough, guys. It's been real fucking trash. However, I'd like to point out that it doesn't rain in my house anymore, so that's cool. I got a roof. And actually, as of today, my roof finally passed inspection. So no more wet carpets. Super stoked. Super stoked.

SPEAKER_06 1:16:18

That's great. Oh my gosh, that is great.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:21

It honestly sounds so pathetic of like how simple that is. But I'm like, guys, this is like a huge fucking quality of life improvement. So that's great. Really excited about that. I think that being one of the biggest obstacles, I feel like the most daunting to hand task to handle, at least now that is done. So hopefully next year can be quicker improvements in terms of some quality of life stuff. But we'll see what we'll see what lies ahead.

SPEAKER_06 1:16:47

Yeah, I think, man, that this year definitely has been challenging in a lot of ways. There's been a lot of ups and downs for sure, but I think I can't let the year go by without just thinking like, I fucking bought a new house this year. A brand new fucking house. So that that is an accomplishment for sure, and I think it's just been such a positive thing that, like, man, just I don't have to think of like all the bullshit projects that I need to do. I'm literally just making this new canvas my own, and it's just been a great feeling.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:19

And your little office space looks hella nice. Yes, everything's coming together.

SPEAKER_06 1:17:23

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:24

Next year, your good thing is that you we you're gonna say that you finally got the gigantic skeleton for your front yard.

SPEAKER_06 1:17:32

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:32

I want that to be the good thing.

SPEAKER_06 1:17:34

The 13-foot skeleton.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:35

That's the one that I saw, which by the way, at that restaurant that I put in our chat, that's the that was the skeleton I thought of you. I was like, oh my god, this is the thing.

SPEAKER_06 1:17:42

It's it, that's the thing.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:44

We looked back on the personal things that really made this year great, but let's recap the goals we set for ourselves to accomplish this year last December.

SPEAKER_05 1:17:52

All right, goodness. I set a goal, not only last year, but the year before, I think, to try to rebrand in some sort of way to not be the superfly space guy, but I've abandoned that goal. It just doesn't matter. I am the superfly space guy. I also set a goal to do something interesting vocally for the show that wasn't just an episode. This was a massive miss for me.

SPEAKER_06 1:18:13

Oh man, I'm I'm just thinking, like, I think I said a couple of different things last year. I said, like, one thing I definitely uh said that I wanted to do was I wanted to like be a constant on this show. I didn't want to miss any episodes, which is damn near fucking impossible. Let me just tell you. It is like you could try, reschedule, shift shit around, but life just like punches you in the face sometimes, and there's just no, like it happens. So I think I did pretty good though.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:41

Yeah, you only missed like what, two, three tops? Yeah, I was gonna say, let's pause for a second because I do a lot of our scheduling, and I'd want to say you've probably missed maybe a handful of episodes. Less than five.

SPEAKER_06 1:18:52

But that's a handful more than I committed to.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:54

I know, but considering what you've also been going through recently, I just want to say kudos to you, sir, because earlier you mentioned you even bought a whole damn house, you moved and stuff.

SPEAKER_06 1:19:04

Yes, I did a great number of these episodes in a tiny little Airbnb on a shitty little fold-out table. Sure did. Yeah, it was great, it was a good time. But I also I do also remember talking about like helping out with growth and different things of like what whether it was gonna be like rebranding in some way as well, with merch and different things like that. I don't know that we are maybe are where we want to be with that 100%, but I think recently we've made a lot of growth, which is great. But I think a lot of that is kudos to Binx. I think Binx, you really stepped up in a big way with that stuff, which is really great to see. But yeah, I think there's still work to be done, but I think some good stuff happening right now.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:44

For sure. Yeah, I agree. I think we have like a pretty solid vision in terms of our growth and we're heading there. Um, I know that even with sponsors, that was a big thing that you were putting in the work to try and get us some sponsors, and it's just tough, but we're gonna get there. I'm positive. I'm feeling good about it. I think for me, my goals last year was especially that I was the newest and I am the newest cast member. I think like I really just wanted to build rapport with listeners, have them get to know me, know my style, the way that I am and stuff. So I think that was pretty successful, a lot more successful than I realized, especially with you know, repo and all that stuff and that whole surge. But that was really nice. Another thing that I really wanted to do was to get to know you all more, and we did those bonfires, which was great. I think listeners love that as well. So I like to think that people know what I'm about now. And this whole Saint Binks cancel situation. If you're a diehard listener, especially a patron, you know what I'm talking about. That also got a little out of hand way more than I realized. So it's been fun, it's been fun getting to know everybody more.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:46

Yeah, there is a one-on-one Team Binks shirt that has been sold and is purchased and lives on someone in someone's closet.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:53

So there you go. Absolutely, and a custom candle that was made as well. And it's pretty wild.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:59

Yeah, shout out to Nathan being a real ride or die. Absolutely. So looking back on the past year, last year I set my goals for expanding our video content and bonus episode offerings, having a live meetup, which was honestly a fucking like huge thing, and then making it to a convention. And you know what? Check, check, check, and fucking check. Look at that. Nice goals all around. Obviously, I think there's a lot more we wanted to do with the convention stuff, but made it to the convention, which is really exciting because last year I planned to go and then didn't get to go with Paris. We had our fucking live show, which what the fuck was I even thinking, bro? Last year, December of last year, like what nerve did I have? Being like, we should do a live show. Well, we did it, we did it, pulled that shit off, and then expanding the video content and bonus episode offerings. Banks, you mentioned we did the bonfires, we've done a couple of things that were just extra this year, and then looking at now we have a good solid routine of recording video content. And next step is actually like rolling that out on a pretty consistent basis, which we'll get to. But I think looking at what we've already started building up on Instagram and thinking about our social media presence, I think we're on the right track. So I feel really good about the level of success from last year. But looking ahead at this upcoming year, it's interesting because I don't want to sit here and keep adding more and more and more and more and more, more, more, more, more. Like this was our biggest year because it was episode 300 and it was our sixth anniversary, and it was on Friday, the 13th of October. And so while I'm sure we'll have another big anniversary in the future, I don't want to set any kind of like false expectation that this October is going to be quite as fucking large as that. So I think this year I want it to be the year of iterative improvement and refinement. So like I want to streamline our workflows, I want to, you know, simplify our tools. That really helps simplify what we do, right? How do we get more consistent with some of the things that we have in motion? And then I think for like an actual goal, like if we do this by the end of the year, then I'll be I'll feel happy. I want us to actually have a vendor space at a horror convention. And I want to actually start putting our names out there, market ourselves, grow in that regard, and then also maybe host a local event down in South Florida. Maybe that's a horror movie trivia in October at some bar or et cetera. These kind of things are the things that I'm looking forward to.

SPEAKER_05 1:23:23

Yeah, I think this next year, I obviously want to attend another meetup of some sort. I I truly hope that we do it. But I also, going back to school, I'm gonna need to really improve my organizational methods, my planning, my routine because I'm not gonna have a lot of time. I've also been doing my best to get into a better habit of reading about 30 to 45 minutes every day. Just novels, just I like reading novels, so I have to make time for that. So I need to get a good balance of everything. The only way to do that though is again to be organized. But then as well, we need to come together as a team to really determine the best way forward for fact or fiction. Because if you've been listening for a bit, you may have noticed uh I've been skimping on that this year. And so we're gonna figure out really what would adds some good value as we go into episodes for the next year.

SPEAKER_06 1:24:08

Nice. Yeah, I think, man, there's so much to think about. Like what kind of goals do you want to set? I think the biggest thing for me, I I would say that I want to set goals for would be to see what I can take off of your plate, Chris, because I know you do so much, right? I know we've talked about editing, and we're gonna meet probably sometime this next week to get together and look at like how I can help in some of that regard, but I just look to see you know what we can do to continue like helping you with the process of this whole production and how it could be like less than 600 something hours plus the recording plus whatever off your plate.

SPEAKER_03 1:24:46

Appreciate it. Leave it to a Virgo to just be in the service of others because I'm not far behind. Yeah, I think in terms of goals for next year, obviously I'm a workaholic, so I'm I feel like I'm always bothering Chris with something as far as how I can help and such. Thank you so much. It is very helpful. But I think my biggest focus in terms of how I can help is really gonna be related to content in general that is outside of our episodes and such. So you mentioned it a little bit, Chris, in terms of like the bonus content that we've been doing. I'm thinking more of like a big passion of mine is video games. I mentioned that I built a PC. I've always wanted to stream video games, but I've had this like very massive imposter syndrome when it comes to streaming. There are horror games that I've bought that I've saved specifically for if I get the courage to stream and do content for our listeners. So I would love to do that for real this time. I also think that we have a lot of growth that's been going on in our Instagram, and I think there's a lot of potential there, especially in our reels. So I would love to continue to grow our Instagram, but also potentially maybe perhaps moving on to good old Tiki Talk, because I think that obviously that is the platform for a lot of video content. Instagram and YouTube would probably and most definitely disagree. However, that's just the reality of the present day, and so I would love to kind of work on those things. So content, social media, that's gonna be my main priority for sure.

SPEAKER_04 1:26:23

Oh, I love that. And it sounds like we have a pretty damn good roadmap for the year ahead. And I cannot be more excited about it. I also cannot thank you all enough for all the work and the love and the effort that you've poured into this show. I think every day we usually have someone reaching out, like, hey, I just found the show. I love the show. Thinking about the conversations that we have, getting DMs. I think even when we talk about like at the live show, the conversations that we had with our listeners there, talking about what our podcast has meant for them and the community has me, that wouldn't be possible without any of you. So thank you so much. We appreciate you. Thank you.

SPEAKER_05 1:27:00

Yeah. It was amazing to put faces to names and to give so many hugs and to take photos with some fine folks. It really helped like ground you in the community that has helped build this.

SPEAKER_04 1:27:12

Hell yeah. And I can't wait to see what happens next year. And listen, folks, we've had a great 2023. 2024 promises to be even better.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:21

Absolutely. And we want to know what you think, just in general of the year, what were some favorite moments of yours when it comes to Hacker Slash? You can let us know by joining in on the conversation by hanging out with us for free in our Discord. Click the link in our show notes to sign up.

SPEAKER_05 1:27:34

If you've enjoyed listening to us this year, 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_04 1:27:45

We'll see you next year, folks. And remember, not every movie needs a post-credit scene.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:50

Feels weird that Sean doesn't say bye. Sean, say bye or something. Do something.

SPEAKER_06 1:27:55

Oh, listen, I know I got nothing. I love you guys.