313: Night Swim (2024)

SPEAKER_00 0:04

That's the sequel. God. Night sprinklers. No way.

SPEAKER_03 0:08

The irrigation.

SPEAKER_00 0:13

Greetings and salutations, and welcome to Hack or Slash. If you're joining us again, welcome back. Tinker Twin. If this is your first time listening, welcome to the party. We are a horror movie review podcast dedicated to telling you whether a movie is a hack.

SPEAKER_02 0:26

A total joke? A waste of time.

SPEAKER_00 0:28

Or a slash. Totally killer. Unintended. We believe horror is for everyone, and as such, we're writing these movies with a perspective we've gained from our varying walks of life and the flavors of fear we fancy most. My name is Chris. I'm your friendly neighborhood slasher enthusiast. And this week I'm joined by the classic horror connoisseur Sean.

SPEAKER_02 0:46

You're all wet.

SPEAKER_00 0:47

And the paranormal paramour, Binx. You're not gonna swim? Let's see. This week we're checking out a newly released film that's based on a 10-year-old short film of the same name. In October 2014, directors Rod Blackhurst and Bryce McGuire released a roughly four-minute film featuring a woman enjoying her pool, only to be watched from the shadows. The short went viral, and four years later, Maguire sold the rights for a feature film adaptation to James Wan's Atomic Monster. Following the success of Meghan last year, Blumhouse and Atomic Monster moved forward with that adaptation, and they put Bryce McGuire back at the helm as a director. The story has expanded from one woman to an entire suburban family, though, and the exploration of the evil that lurks in the water of their backyard pool. This week we're talking about Night Swim. What were you both expecting going into this?

SPEAKER_02 1:35

I remember the trailer for this movie because I feel like I watched the trailer a number of times watching various different films and theaters over the last year, and it did look a little bit eerie, the Marco Polo in the pool at night. It definitely felt like it had potential. It didn't give you enough though. I don't know. You never really know until you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:58

When I saw the trailer, I expected it to be a little ridiculous because I was just taken aback by the premise. I mean, at the time it was giving a little bit lady in the water type thing, but modern day Blumhouse, obviously. So I wasn't sure what to expect. I think in general though, I was taken aback by the fact that it was centered around a pool, but as time went on, continuing to see the trailers and the teasers, whatever, I was like, okay, this is pretty good. I mean, it's original at the time, right? So I was like, well, let's give it a shot. Maybe they can do this really well. I didn't know it was a short film though.

SPEAKER_00 2:36

Yeah, I watched the short film before watching the movie, and I think that was a nice setup for what we were gonna get. I was still expecting mediocrity, and I was expecting it, quite frankly, based on what we've already done. Let me just review a short list of other films we've seen that are adapted from short films. Lights Out, Oculus, Mama, Smile, When a Stranger Calls. Now, When a Stranger Calls, I'm talking about the original one from the 70s. There is a short film called The Sitter that is almost the entire opening 20 minutes of that movie done as a short film. It's absolutely fantastic. But I go through this list and you might think, hey, Chris, those are pretty good movies. But those movies mostly have something in common where there's an element of it that still feels bland. There's something in there where it's like it's really good until it's suddenly not. That's really what I had going into this as an expectation. But during the experience of watching this movie, honestly, I was I was pretty shocked. I had some very different feelings.

SPEAKER_01 3:35

You see, if I had known that it was coming from a short film, I think I would have felt a little differently about it. Because you were going through that list and the first one that comes to mind for me was Terrifier. And that's a pretty interesting comparison now to think about in terms of adaptation to the short film to you know how the movie actually panned out and now having seen Night Swim, but still haven't seen the short film, so I would be interested to see how that goes. But man, yeah, I saw this movie in theaters, obviously. Saw it with two of my really good friends. And I think we went into it in general anticipating a good time, a fun time, because what what can you really see coming from a movie that's about a haunted pool? You can't really go into it expecting too too much, and I'm not expecting all the feels either, right? This is a PG 13 film. But I think that Ultima at the end of the day, with all of the horror films that are coming out lately, even PG-13 films have to do something to really provide value to cinema. And I'm not trying to be super profound with this, but you've gotta give me something. You've gotta give me at least a couple characters that make me wanna feel invested. If you're gonna do flashback scenes or the jump scares, like make it good. So compare it to like another PG 13 film that we did last year, which was The Boogeyman. I thought that one was pretty good at that, right? It was a great attempt at being rich, at being worthwhile despite it being a PG 13 film. So I'm watching this, I'm wanting to see something to that effect, starting the year off right, let's go, it's a new year. But it just continued to be a disappointment throughout. I kept feeling the eye rolls. I kept feeling like, come on, you're being really cookie-cutter with this PG 13 film.

SPEAKER_02 5:19

Yeah, you gotta give the people what they want, you know? I think that's a big thing. I think first I would imagine Mac would have been dead from the get-go with this film, with that opening like flip scene on the water. So it's a good thing he's probably not on this episode, R.I.P. That being said, I felt a lot while watching this film. There were moments where the film felt eerie, I'll give it that, but then all of a sudden it felt like I was watching like a Robert Redford baseball movie. You know what I mean? What's that movie? Like the natural, right? Like it was like, are we watching horror or are we watching some random like baseball movie?

SPEAKER_00 5:56

I have so much to say on that subject.

SPEAKER_01 5:58

Of course you do, because man, when it's established the profession of this man, I was like, oh, Chris is in the bag, she's ready to go.

SPEAKER_02 6:05

Yeah, but it's like they focused on it for so long, and it was such a big part of it, and I don't really we'll talk about later, but I don't know why.

SPEAKER_00 6:13

The baseball presence was also a surprise to me. I'm not gonna lie. They actually, though, weaponize a very popular athletic trope, which is mystical baseball. There are so many mystical baseball movies. Think of Angels in the Outfield, think of Field of Dreams, where the mysticism of baseball is used to tell a much bigger story. And this one goes a little bit in that direction, but it weaponizes it in a way that I think is fun. The thing though, about just the experience of this movie, I want to back this up because I was not excited about watching this movie until about an hour before I started to watch the movie, because it was only at that point that I consider my own relationship with water. So I'm gonna be honest, I have not felt this uncomfortable watching a movie in a very, very long time. I can pinpoint to the last time I felt this way, and it was watching his house. But where his house made me feel this in a really beautiful, painful way, this one was sheer sending me right back to 2008. This movie had a lot of ups and downs for me, so I don't want to say that it's a fucking perfect movie by any means, but I was shocked how much I felt. Y'all know I don't get scared in fucking movies. I can feel a lot of things emotionally, but this is the one where it triggered a lot of things for me from things I saw in the Navy. It made me anxious. Like I could feel my fucking heart rate start to accelerate, and I have not felt that in so long in a movie. And listen, I had my disappointments, but I think between that and then the weaponization of mystical baseball, I fit into a very niche demographic that this movie might work for.

SPEAKER_02 7:56

I get it, and I love that for you, even though it's probably fucked up feelings, but I love that you got that out of that movie. That's great.

SPEAKER_00 8:02

Binx is shocked.

SPEAKER_01 8:03

I'm stunned.

SPEAKER_02 8:04

Binx is shocked, her face right now.

SPEAKER_01 8:06

I'm super shocked, but not because, of course, from your lived experiences, I guess I'm just really shocked. And this is a testament to that, right? Like the lived experiences that you have when you see certain films, they impact everything. We obviously that's why we do this show. Like the things that you go through when you're watching certain films, it's going to impact you differently. I just, it never dawned on me that it could be that that much because I am so on the other spectrum of this, right? Where I wasn't scared a single button I'm the one that's always, ooh, I'm I'm like jumping in my seat or I'm the jump scares get me often. And that's the biggest disappointment for me, I think, was that there was a lot of potential with the story and the idea that they're taking something so simple, especially like a I feel like it's almost like a childhood fear, maybe. I I'm envisioning a lot of kids being afraid of swimming in the pool at night. Obviously, this can range in age, but that's what I first thought of, right?

SPEAKER_02 9:08

For sure. I'm still scared to go swimming at night, you know?

SPEAKER_01 9:10

For sure, yeah. But it's that childhood fear, right? Again, I bring up Boogeyman because that's like being afraid of the dark. That's a childhood fear that continues on. So I loved that. I thought that was really great, but the disappointment for me was that the delivery didn't hit. I was not afraid of this pool. I was not afraid of a lot of the things that happened. A lot of the jump scares went over my head. I was not impressed. It was very cut and paste, very generic. The characters to me didn't feel rich enough. And so it's awesome though, because it worked for you, it didn't work for me, and this is a testament to good old skin and rink, you know? It worked for Sean, didn't work for us. God, I love movies.

SPEAKER_02 9:53

Yeah, so cool. It's wild. If in any movie can evoke a feeling out of you, it's done something. So I think that's really good. I just think it definitely went from eerie to baseball to like a feature-length old Greg film. That's the roller coaster of feelings that I got while watching this film. That's what it felt like for me. Despite the roller coaster of feelings that I did have while watching this one, one thing that I think I was actually most surprised about from this film was was that it does successfully evoke some kind of feeling, right? So something happened for you, Chris, that's unique, I think, for you as a person and maybe some other people as well. I think what it was successful at is evoking some kind of that childhood fear that you're talking about, Binks, because I I immediately went to swimming in the pool at night, or that time that, you know, when I was in Hawaii and and I was with friends and we went into the ocean at night, and it was just super creepy. So it kind of brought me right back to those moments in my childhood, maybe not onto that level that you had, Chris, but I think it definitely was successful and surprising that it was able to evoke some kind of that nostalgic phobia type feeling.

SPEAKER_00 11:09

Yeah. It's interesting because I grew up not being able to swim, not getting into the water. So it's not even like I can tap into like a genuine childhood fear of that. I just never even really tried until I was like 18 and in boot camp, right? So it's like a very interesting like psychological thing for me. I will say though, Banks, earlier you talked about the potential of this movie. And damn, there are moments in this movie where it is almost squandering its potential. So I have a few things later that really stuck out in a very bad way for me. But man, when I think about the feeling that this gave me, it's just so much anxiety. And the jump scares got some people. I could see that, but there's nothing about this that I think is effective as a straight up PG 13 horror movie. Because the jump scares that you get, you've seen in other movies, you've seen them in Boogeyman, you've seen them even in Megan, you've seen them in Lights Out, you've seen them in so many different places that I think it it almost diminishes it diminishes that value. And where I think I have a lot of feeling from this movie, I think it's almost like my mind working overtime to make it scarier than it is. So I will acknowledge that. What I do feel that I can credit the movie for, just the way that Mac feels uneasy with his vertigo watching motion, what this movie does with sight and sound, with cinematography, with the way that it takes again this childhood feeling of you're in a pool. You know, logically it's a confined space, but it feels infinite. This should have been called infinity pool because the way they shoot this shit, it looks like it's never ending. And that's before you get to any point where you're supposed to feel that way. It plays a lot with your subconscious and the sound. I watched this shit in Dolby. As second we fucking hear that pool, I was like, oh shit, no. What in my mind, instantly, back to 2008.

SPEAKER_02 13:16

That's wild.

SPEAKER_01 13:17

We saw it in Dolby too, and I think the sound editing sound design is immaculate, really, really good. If you're gonna watch this film, I would say definitely do it in Dolby for sure. And you bring up such a good point about the cinematography and how that was effective in the fright factor, because from the very beginning, you just don't really understand the scale of how big this pool is. You don't really know how deep it is. They leave that very ominous and for a good reason. But unfortunately, everything else is just so predictable that you can't find any of it scary. I anticipated every single one of those jump scares. It's so copy and paste and so frequent that you're gonna get immune incredibly fast. And then even in the times where it's really just about intimidation, it's just lost on you. I think another factor is like the makeup effects and costume design is really great, but it's too late. You know, at that point, you're not really scared, you're just appreciating it, which is still acceptable. But if you're one to be very scared of a lot of movies or horror films, or you're just not one to watch horror because you are easily scared, I would dare to say that night swim could be a film for you because it's not gonna be that scary. Granted, adding an asterisk that if you are afraid of swimming or pools, open water, like that kind of stuff, of course, this is gonna be very different.

SPEAKER_02 14:46

You know, you mentioned it earlier and and a disappointment being kind of the story or the maybe the way the story is told, its delivery or whatever. And I think that translates directly into the fright factor of this movie because I don't think outside of what we're talking about right now, if you have like a specific phobia or something brings you back to a traumatic time or something like that, it's not a scary film in essence. It's not, and you're not alone in the sense of like being able to predict or see what's coming with all of these handful of jump scares or whatever that are in this movie. Because do I think this film had potential to be frightening? Sure. I think it definitely could have been scarier than it was, let's put it that way, but it just wasn't. It wasn't scarier it at all. Like there there were moments that were quite obviously meant to be like these big scary parts of the film, but they did squander those moments because you knew when everything was coming, like five minutes ahead, it felt like.

SPEAKER_00 15:46

Yeah, and I think that's really accredited to how yes, there was potential for this to be very original, but it ended up feeling like an echo of every other movie we've seen. It was giving Amineyville horror, and I know that an intention of the director was to make you feel almost reminiscent of that movie with the type of lens that they use, but it was to a degree where I think it it takes away from it, it detracts from it, it's a distraction. There are moments when it was giving the ring, it just was not a great situation. It's a real shame. I think looking at the short film, there's a lot there that it's really spooky, it's threatening, it's ominous, and this movie does capture a lot of that in a really good way, but it, like every other movie that I you know I mentioned earlier on that list, it just took things too far.

SPEAKER_02 16:37

Yeah, this movie had a lot of every other movie in it for sure. I can give this film some kind of originality for being, you know, one of, if not the only, horror film revolving around a fucking swimming pool, legitimately around a swimming pool. So we'll give you that. You can have that night swim, that's cool. But outside of that, it explored a trope that I feel like we have seen forever, like not only in horror movies, but in many, many other genres as well. And I'm not I obviously can't really go too much further down this road without giving the entire plot away, so I'll leave that for the spoiler zone. But it definitely, from an originality standpoint, man, I've seen this setup plug and play in various other movies and various other genres, whether it's horror, action, fantasy, drama, whatever the fuck.

SPEAKER_01 17:28

Man, and almost how dare it think that it can be some of these movies, honestly, not to be that dramatic, but come on. There's no way that you're going to be like or even near Amityville Horror Ring. And here goes a long, long list of other ones that we can think of, right? And it's so cliche, completely agree with both of you, down to the very end. Okay. This ending I predicted from the first 15 to 20 minutes down to the details. And that is a problem. Because now I've spent the entire runtime just waiting for me to see if I'm right. It's almost like I was gambling, okay? I was like, you know what, this is how this is gonna go. I'm doing a parlay, and every single thing happened. Every single thing. Yeah. That's unfortunate. That's almost insane. And I'm thinking to myself, man, is it because I'm just watching a lot of horror movies? No, I don't think so. Because I've heard from other people and I've watched a couple videos of other people that have seen this movie, and it seems like everyone else was feeling the same. I don't know if you guys saw that coming too.

SPEAKER_00 18:32

I would hope so, but Yeah, so the struggle is that this movie and its ending were fine, but in a world where even fine endings are trying to be a little bit more bold or do things a little bit more differently, it loses touch with itself. Looking at the overall results of what happens in the plot, I can be satisfied with what happens, but it got too cheesy, and that's where I struggle. A good movie ends the way it begins, and this movie does technically, technically do that. But the difference is I felt a lot of concern, anxiety, and fear in the beginning, and I was like, fucking Jesus, all right, great, let's wrap this shit up at the end.

SPEAKER_02 19:16

I think you hit some good ones there. I don't know for me if it was the predictability, but I will say that the ending was probably one of the things I disliked the most about this movie. I get the whole love requires sacrifice line in the movie and its significance, if you will, but I personally thought it felt weak, and to be honest, it was kind of boring. It felt like it's trying to play on these heart strings, but it was out of tune.

SPEAKER_00 19:40

I don't disagree with that, but I am happy that it went the way it did. Again, I wish it was executed better, but we'll unpack this in the spoiler zone because I think if we didn't get what happens in the end, I would have been completely turned on this movie in a really fucking awful way. But I can't wait to actually get into the ratings here so we can start talking about some of these spoilers. Now, before we actually rate the film, Sean, how would you describe the gore score?

SPEAKER_02 20:07

I don't think this movie is super gory, so let's start there. You you do get some blood, but it's minor. So this PG-13 horror flick has earned itself a very low gore score.

SPEAKER_01 20:18

And what about the animal report? Of course, we're not completely safe, unfortunately, as a life was claimed. However, we are lucky enough to not witness it, so at least there's some relief with that.

SPEAKER_00 20:31

Well, let's go ahead and get into our ratings then. Night swim from 2024 not showing in theaters. Was it a hack or slash?

SPEAKER_02 20:38

Alright, I I wanna reiterate here that I do think that this movie had potential. This could have been a very scary film, or at the very least, it could have instilled more fear into the average swimmer. But the problem is the plot itself. I feel like a horror film centered around a swimming pool is going to be challenging from the get-go. Some might say you would be swimming upstream trying to make a movie like this. The thing is, the acting is not that bad, but the plot and the tired and played tropes just don't work here. It did evoke some childhood fears around being in the swimming pool, especially swimming in the pool at night, but it was more of a nostalgic feel and less nerve-wracking than Skinamyrink was, for example, right? So I thought that this film would benefit a lot from being a short film, and then I realized that it was adapted from a short film from the same name in 2014, right? So that's cool. And maybe that short film is good, but this movie was too predictable and just had too many issues for me, so it's a hack.

SPEAKER_01 21:48

You said it so perfectly, Sean. I too thought that there was a lot of promise here. This movie in general had me for a roller coaster because at first I started off questioning how great. A film could be regarding a haunted pool. It's me. I'm the paranormal paramour. Love this stuff. But really? And then it became me being impressed because I was like, well, we don't have many films like this, if any, so it's daring. Maybe it's not so bad. Let's give it a shot. And ultimately, what ended up happening was that I was extremely disappointed and felt like it was just overall a big eye roll. I didn't find it fun. And if we can just be clear, I've found simple plots, simple movies to be fun and entertaining. It doesn't even need to be very profound, but this movie just wasn't even that. Every single moment was something that we've seen before. Every single moment was extremely predictable. And like I mentioned before, the characters weren't even rich in detail. I wasn't invested. There were barely any kills. You said it like so little gore. To the point where when when you said the gore score, I was like, was there even blood? I forgot. Come on.

SPEAKER_02 22:59

Somebody cut their hand.

SPEAKER_01 23:00

Somebody cut their hand. Yeah. Ugh. And it just felt extremely cheesy. And not in the oh, this is a trash watch and I can find it entertaining. No, like rotten cheese. It just wasn't good. There were no real stakes for me. I felt like I wasn't really impacted. And ultimately, at the end of the day, like I started off by saying, PG-13 films, you gotta give me something. If you're gonna do it, there's gotta be something to make up for the lack of kills and gore and everything else that can make a horror a whore. There are plenty of great PG-13 films out there that are entertaining with very simple plots. This could have been that, and it just missed the mark. So overall, obviously a disappointment, so therefore a hack.

SPEAKER_00 23:47

Well, listen, this movie sent me back to being 18 years old and being terrified of facing the pool in boot camp every day. I I talked about this a little bit during our episode for his house, and that was a point when you know looking at what that movie involves and some of the trauma that those characters endure, I can see how it would be triggering for that. But I wasn't expecting it to be so intense here. Maybe because the trailer didn't make it seem like it would be as well executed as I think it ends up being in the actual movie itself. Where this movie gets me is its infinite expanse. The implications this movie has with its cinematography is utterly fantastic. And outside of that anxiety, I find it interesting that neither of you were really invested in the characters because I actually did find myself invested in them. And the relationships that existed between them are something that I was absolutely looking for and hoping that we'd get some resolution for. The question of what you're willing to sacrifice for what you think is your biggest priority is something that I think we subconsciously get in a lot of other horror movies, and this one hits the nail on the head a little too squarely, but it still addresses it. And listen, I know that's generous because while this isn't a perfect movie, it has a lot of things that are rinse or repeat. It is effective for me because I can't swim. I'm fucking terrified every single time I go into the water because I can remember what the water felt like on my ears or what it felt like stuck in my throat and in my nose when I was like almost fucking drowning in that pool. I don't think that this is something that if if you don't maybe have that kind of connection with, it wouldn't have its own merit as just a straight-up horror movie. But this is really good at picking a particular wound that I thought had healed completely open. And listen, I'm aware if this movie was gonna do anything for anyone, it'd be doing it for me, but it fucking did, and in my book, it's a slash. With that, Night Swim 2024 has earned two hacks and one slash. Now you can't find this movie in theaters currently, but if you're listening to this post, it's theatrical run. Check the link in our show notes here where you can find it right now. Then join us in the second half so we can dive into the spoilers together. See you in a bit.

SPEAKER_02 26:31

At Ectopool, we specialize in pools that prefer midnight sacrifices over daytime splashes. You see, we understand that when your pool starts whispering sweet nothings or begins to resemble a primordial soup, it's time for a cleanup. Our team of professionals is not only skilled in pH balances, they're also fluent in ancient incantations. Because sometimes what lurks at the deep end is more than just a forgotten pool toy. We're equipped with the latest in spectral filtration technology, ensuring that your next swim is free from both algae and apparitions. And for those pools that enjoy a bit of soul sucking, our patented Echo Barrier guarantees to keep the spirits in the water, not in your home. Remember, at Ectopool Cleaners, we believe a clean pool is a happy pool, especially when it's one that's known to dabble in the paranormal. So give us a call. Our services are available 24-7 because we know that the things that go bump in the night don't always wait for business hours. Ectopool cleaners, where every cleaning is a supernatural experience.

SPEAKER_00 27:56

Welcome back, folks. You're now entering the spoiler zone for Night Swim from 2024, which has earned two hacks and one slash. Now we have a lot to unpack here, but before we get into the specifics of our ratings, let's go through those kills.

SPEAKER_02 28:09

Well, we don't really get much in this one. Let's just throw that out there. I feel like that's a miss, unfortunately. I feel like we should have gotten more kills, and maybe not more kills to this family specifically, but maybe getting to explore a little more of the pool's history or the spring or whatever the fuck it was, but we don't see any of that, and we do see what two kills with Rebecca and Ray, and maybe somewhere around eight to ten, something like that, past victims that were mentioned briefly exploring the history of the pool. So this really brings the death toll to a whopping, I don't know, we'll give it twelve. Do we give the film credit for twelve?

SPEAKER_00 28:52

I think so.

SPEAKER_02 28:53

Fuck it. We're getting twelve. Twelve is the death toll for this film.

SPEAKER_00 28:57

My struggle is this movie and its opening had me immediately terrified for this little girl. And you knew it couldn't end well because also Boogeyman did this with a literal toddler. It is what it is, but it was the way that we had this sweet perfect angel trying to do a nice thing for her brother, who obviously has medical needs we don't understand the full extent of in that moment. I wrote down, I swear to God, if this movie starts with this kid drowning, it's over. And then I wrote in the second note, the year cannot start with fuck them kids like this. I don't want to leave fuck them kids in the past. I don't want the kids to suffer anymore. And yet here we are getting a little girl screaming for her mother, screaming for help. And I think that was the shit immediately. I'll be real. One of the things that I encountered in the Navy was there was a point where we had people were trying to render aid to and their vessel capsized and literally watched several of them drown. And you have people who are like screaming for help, and then you see what the aftermath is. Maybe this movie just hit me with a cheap shot right at the beginning because that shit set me up to feel a ton in this whole movie.

SPEAKER_02 30:10

Damn, that's rough for sure. I I just think for me, I couldn't really get past, at least when we're looking at Rebecca and then even some other moments throughout the film outside of Rebecca's death, if you will. I just can't get past the it of it all.

SPEAKER_00 30:25

Oh, for sure. The pool was giving its best Pennywise.

SPEAKER_02 30:29

For sure. We get Rebecca with the boat, right? That feels like an obvious nod to it and Georgie chasing the little boat going down the gutter. But even going into Elliot, right, in the pool and talking to the entity or the little girl in the skimmer, like Georgie's talking to Pennywise in the gutter system. It it was giving too much of it. It was too much.

SPEAKER_01 30:54

Absolutely. That was a full-on copy and paste moment for sure. I wrote that down word for word. I was like, oh look, it's Pennywise.

SPEAKER_02 31:03

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 31:03

Scraggly haired Pennywise. It's a disappointment that there aren't many kills. Granted, I almost wanted to start a counter of how many people were gonna just accidentally fall into this pool or find themselves fucking around and finding out with this pool because it wasn't assassin. But one thing I enjoyed, and you brought it up, is the victims, right? I think the presentation of the victims, especially in the ending, was really nice. It was beautiful. Look at some of them were just a little bizarre. It was a hundred percent giving creature from the black lagoon, but others visually stunning, overall beautiful scene of just them trying desperately to grab her, like trying to go up, float up to the top. I thought it was really nice. The sheer bandwidth of how many of them there were was pretty impressive too, which is the disappointing part because it's like there's so many lives that were claimed by this pool, and we only really know who they are by quick snapshots of a newspaper.

SPEAKER_02 32:02

That's what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_01 32:03

And in any other circumstance, it's like, okay, fine, let's not waste time going into every single like backstory of every single victim. But this movie needed that because everything else was lacking. So it's like, give me the moment to really feel how intense this pool is and how terrifying and just the impact that this pool has.

SPEAKER_02 32:24

For sure.

SPEAKER_01 32:25

And let me sit in the weight of that, not just tell me that it's claimed so many lives very quickly and then be like, oh well, that's it.

SPEAKER_02 32:31

I legitimately wanted the like uncovering of the history, and I wanted more of it. Like I wanted to see I would be fine with fucking flashbacks to see that shit at this point.

SPEAKER_01 32:44

But well-produced flashbacks.

SPEAKER_02 32:46

Well, yeah, yeah, yeah. But you know what I mean.

SPEAKER_01 32:48

Because oh man. If there was to be a least favorite production element of this film, it's gotta be the CGI or whatever the hell that was of those flashback scenes.

SPEAKER_00 32:59

A thousand percent. And actually, now that you say this, it's reminiscent, and I don't mean this in a negative way. This is not about the CGI or the look of things in Talk to Me, but seeing the overwhelming amount of victims of the pool coming out, it reminded me of seeing Riley like suffering wherever the fuck Riley was. But the CGI, it's a swing and a miss. Fucking three strikes, you're done. You could have just really stuck with the shadows on the side of the pool, and it would have been fine.

SPEAKER_02 33:30

That's why they didn't give you much of it. It was like pa! There you go. There you go.

SPEAKER_00 33:35

Well, that's the thing, they still did too much of it. If they had just done the dark, shadowy figure, I could get into that.

SPEAKER_02 33:41

For sure.

SPEAKER_00 33:42

But the second we see eyes, scraggly hair, it's just gross and it's too much, but not even gross in a way that's cool. It's gross in a like a oh, it's gross and disgusting that you think this is a competent effort. Yeah. That's really what it is for me. But again, that negative does not outweigh how absolutely incredible it the cinematography is for this pool. Even from the beginning, when you look at the house and then we realize that we're seeing the reflection of the house in a rippling pool, it is fucking brilliant. You know, there's a rational fear that could a shark get you in a pool? Obviously, fucking no, but you're still a little scared of it, right? You're still a little scared that something could touch you or how deep that pool is. And for how huge this thing is made to feel and the way they bounce back and forth between showing you the very fine limits of this pool to then letting you imagine the much bigger scale of the pool, it was just so damn good.

SPEAKER_02 34:45

You mentioned that before, too, the cinematography, and you know, I I hate to do it, but it really is one of the best elements of the film because of all the different things that they did do with the cinematography. So you mentioned some of the visuals that we see with that, and I think it's the pool shots that really make the movie, the underwater shots that are looking up towards the surface of the water, right? The play on what they think they see, even when they're just in the water swimming and they go underwater only to come to the surface and nothing is there. I think just some of the shots that we get and the sequences of the shots that we get, I think were probably the best elements of the film because it did play off of, you know, kind of messing with your head a little bit, giving you that kind of eerie feeling. And to your point, less is more, right? That's what we're talking about. Did it just play off of that kind of psychological horror? Did they play off of the shadows, or do they just give us a bunch of shitty CGI? But they did some stuff that I think was really good, they just didn't do enough of it.

SPEAKER_00 35:49

Yeah. I do also want to shout out though, even the sound. I know we talked a lot about the sound of the water, the sound design in this movie overall. Another spot that they really, really won for me was a subversion of the trailer. In the trailer, we had the Marco Polo scene, but we eventually just get her saying Marco with no response back. In the movie, we get a deep, eerie fucking voice saying Polo. And obviously I can't fucking say that well, but the s the sound of that, the potential of that is so much more scary than the bloated creature that we end up seeing.

SPEAKER_01 36:28

It's reminding me of I feel hilarious now saying this. When we did the skin em rink episode, almost a year-ish to the day, you were talking a bit about how the teaser for that had the voice from was it is it Texas Chainsaw Masquerade?

SPEAKER_00 36:44

It feels very similar to John Larriquette's voice doing the Texas Chainsaw Mascara narration.

SPEAKER_01 36:50

Yeah, it's definitely impactful. Seeing it in Dolby guys, you really gotta do it because I think that's where it lands. But to take it back to the pool again, like the cinematography, I completely agree. I said it earlier, we all did. It's stellar. The fact that they could enhance the pool, make it seem like it's a fucking massive when in reality it could just be a standard pool in a backyard. It's very intimidating, and it's a fricking pool. Like oh gosh, such potential. And I want to take it to the short film. So I didn't watch it. Chris, you said that you did, but since I hadn't seen it, I looked it up, wanted to get some context, learn a little bit more about the director. And I thought it was super interesting. The short film was filmed in the backyard of Michelle Branch.

SPEAKER_02 37:39

Nice. Her pool, huh?

SPEAKER_01 37:41

Like what? What I found even further interesting is that he is a Florida boy. He's from Tampa. That's where I partially live. It's where I'm at right now, actually. And the thing about Tampa Bay specifically, much like Miami, obviously, but Tampa Bay, you're surrounded by water. You're surrounded by immense water from all corners. Everybody's got a pool too, sure. But when natural disasters hit, they hit. And so I say all of this to say that obviously he took inspiration from being from Tampa, the fear of open water, of large amounts of water, and what is in this water, especially after natural disaster, all this stuff. And I think, man, I'm glad that they landed on how they needed to convey the pool and how intimidating it could be. But what missed potential to really bring that element from what I would assume was pretty evident in the short film into this one, because that would have been even crazier. Like, yeah, the pool is clean, but wouldn't it have been great to get like keep that murky pool from the beginning a little bit sometimes? Like just change it up a little bit, a clear pool all the time. Like what? It didn't seem believable a bit.

SPEAKER_00 38:53

Interestingly enough, the pool, and you know, I'll go back and watch it again. The pool in the short film is clear all the time. The only difference is is it dark or not? It's almost like there's this entity that controls the lighting when Eve is in the pool and she thinks she sees Ray, and then there's moments where when Izzy is swimming and she's doing the Marco Polo bit and we see these dark, shadowy figures around her, yeah. That is more the essence of what the short film is. It's more so like there's something watching her from outside the pool.

SPEAKER_01 39:26

I guess for me, what I I think I would have hoped to have seen was a bit of is this just dirty pool water or like a bunch of leaves that hit the bottom of the pool and I just can't see right? Or is this an entity in the bottom of my pool, you know? Because when it's just purely clear and you just see a black blotch there, then it's like, well, that's gotta be something not good because what the hell else could it be, you know? I I think that's what I'm trying to talk about. Is like if it was inspired from him living in Tampa Bay and it being obviously hit by so many natural disasters, we have so much shit that lands in our pools and stuff like that after hurricanes hit. I don't know, it would have been kind of nice to have that moment of like, is that what I think that is, or is it not? We do get that obviously when you go up and down from the water, you see you think you see someone at the top of the pool, but you're not sure who it is. I think I would have liked to have seen that in the pool too, though. Like in the actual pool. The Marco Polo thing, for sure, maybe just more of it.

SPEAKER_00 40:22

I think what hits for me though is just the feeling of it all. I almost think though, because it's so effective for me to just have a clear pool, because then it's like a false sense of security, right? It's the same reason why I like slashers where it looks like the person next door did it. It's a quiet town of Haddonfield, and then all of a sudden a six-year-old murders his sister, right? It is the reality that there is nothing wrong here. It doesn't look wrong.

SPEAKER_02 40:49

Right.

SPEAKER_00 40:49

It looks safe, and yet it's not. I see. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 40:53

The real question is though, did anyone fact check this fucking pool system? Is there really a fucking natural bullshit ass pool that pulls water from the earth?

SPEAKER_01 41:03

There's like natural spring pools all the time. That's the rich right there. The rich are out here.

SPEAKER_02 41:09

Do people have that? Is that a real thing? Natural spring pools? Like you can get that on your property? I'm just like, how are you treating this water? This water doesn't sound like it's gonna come out nice and clear.

SPEAKER_01 41:21

Okay, true.

SPEAKER_02 41:22

Are you chlorinating this natural water or is this some nasty now? We're talking about you just have a lake in your fucking backyard, like a concrete lake. That's basically what you're saying now.

SPEAKER_01 41:33

Here's what I'll tell you. A quick Google search led me to a YouTube account from 2010 that said how to make a DIY natural swimming pool. And I gotta tell you, that water looks brown.

SPEAKER_02 41:42

That's disgusting. You just built yourself a pond.

SPEAKER_00 41:46

Yeah, I didn't fact check it, but man, I will say that the the pool guy was actually pretty funny.

SPEAKER_02 41:50

The pool guy was fucking hilarious.

SPEAKER_01 41:53

Man, I was gonna bring it up later, but let's talk about it. That pool guy was hilarious, and I'm so disappointed that he didn't stick around because since I thought the movie was a joke already, he might as well have stuck around just to really keep with the comedic relief, keep with the jokes, because he was good. He was good. And you know who was another one that I thought was pretty funny was the realtor. I thought the realtor had a few quips here and there that was pretty good.

SPEAKER_02 42:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:18

I think about the realtor in particular and looking back at that scene where she's just acknowledging that there is something in the past, and she's like trying to like cut something and eat a little snack and just trying to keep herself busy. I think it was those moments where the chemistry between these actors actually shined. And yeah, there are moments where it doesn't hit, but I really want to go to where I think the characters shine the most, and that is which is my favorite scene. It's when they're alone in the pool and they're scared, and you see them shift from safe to concerned, to startled to holy shit, what's actually going on? I think about when Eve is in the pool and the camera's panning from side to side, we see things that she doesn't see yet, and then she has this realization that is straight out of the short film. She sees someone who is presumably like I think in the short film the character just says, Oh, you're home early, but she sees someone familiar, and then all of a sudden they're not there. So I think that was a really great moment. But to see the range and looking at her in this again, this sense of security, she's just swimming in her new house's pool to then oh no, there's something not right here. And she doesn't particularly like to go into the pool after that. This is a moment, a place where they just had a great memory together, a great conversation with her husband, talking about how this is where he wants to be. There's a lot there that I think builds some, at least for me, some emotional investment and being able to buy those moments.

SPEAKER_02 43:52

There's no question that there's emotional moments in the film because let's be honest, this was more of a baseball. Family drama than it was a horror film. So there are those emotions for sure. And I I think that I was, you know, you mentioned this earlier, and I I wanted to react in in your review, and it's just I did buy into the characters. Like I did buy into their relationships. I don't think the acting was bad. I think the characters were okay. I just don't think that they belonged in a horror movie. I believe that this should have been a completely different film centered around you know this dad trying to cope with trying to not be in Major League Baseball and taking out on a taking it out on his son and you know favoriting his daughter and all this shit. And like this was this whole family drama. Like you could see it, but whatever. I think from a scene standpoint, it was the fucking trailer scene because that was to me the only great scene in the whole movie because it was creepy. Like you got this Marco Polo thing going on, you're night swimming, it's eerie, you know, you're seeing all this weird shit happen, and I think that it was cool, and then it wasn't at the end, but I think the scene overall and what they were able to evoke, kind of what they did in a sense with Rebecca at the beginning of the movie, even though it was a an it ripoff in a sense. I think that feeling that it evokes of you being in this water at night and trying to like get something and you get spooked, and the feeling of like, should I go back in and be really quick and trying to get this thing and come back? Like I think that was successful. But overall, yeah, the trailer scene, they got it right in the trailer, they should have just left it alone.

SPEAKER_00 45:33

Yeah, that's where it just hits for me. Like that would have been my favorite scene had we not gotten so much bad CGI.

SPEAKER_02 45:40

Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_01 45:41

What they really should have done is maybe just been terrible with us, and all of the trailers and the teasers just be ominous water, you know, you just watching the pool and then someone being there, but not, you know, just keeping it so insanely vague just throughout the marketing and keep it that way. Because the problem is that with that Marco Polo scene, you see that and it was fantastic for the trailer, it hooks you like it did myself, but then you're hoping that there's gonna be more. That if you're giving me that, and this is the thing about trailers every time, if you're gonna give me that, I hope that everything else in the movie is gonna outdo that. No, but that's one of the best scenes. The only alternative to that, which would have been for sure a spoiler, so not good for the trailer. But what I really enjoyed, one of my favorite scenes, is Rebecca's mom, when confronted, that she just starts coughing like crazy, but she is being fully taken over by this water, black glue c coming out of all kinds of orifices, is just insane. When she initially starts crying, the black glue's coming out of her eye, terrible CGI. But for some reason, and thank God, when she turns her head and is just facing the camera and slowly smiling, it was very intimidating. I liked how it looked, how that looked visually as well. I think it was very impactful. Unfortunately, though, that comes too late. Like for that to evoke any kind of emotion out of me and for me to be impressed is way too late into the film. But I really did enjoy that out of everything I had seen, there was finally a moment where I was like, damn, this is getting a little eerie. You would think that I would feel otherwise earlier in the film, but that's what made me feel eerie.

SPEAKER_02 47:25

But it was also weird, wasn't it? Weird.

SPEAKER_01 47:27

Oh, it was yeah, it was bizarre. It was giving like smile.

SPEAKER_02 47:31

It's just the whole, yeah, I was a part of that, I realize it now, and I'm cool with it, and this thing is still in me somehow, and I I'm cool with just having my one child and I sacrificed my other one. Like kind of fucking weird, if you ask me.

SPEAKER_01 47:45

But it was the weird that was like, oh, this is creepy, and maybe this is what this movie really should have been. Because the rest of the film goes the way that it does, that moment is taken as this doesn't even make sense, this is ridiculous. This water all of a sudden shows all the way up here, like you're out here Gucci living with this water taking over you this whole time.

SPEAKER_02 48:06

Right.

SPEAKER_01 48:06

So that's unfortunate. If it had really leaned into just overall this water being so menacing that it takes over, and we kind of see that a little bit, but I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 48:15

I I enjoyed it, but how does it stay with you and it's also in this person, but it's also in her for however many years since 1990 fucking two? Like it's strange. The water it finds its way. Like, what the fuck is happening here?

SPEAKER_01 48:29

I had to do the mental gymnastics with my friends that I was watching it with to be like, wait a minute, but if the water, you make the pact with the water, and it's your wish, but then in this case it was the father's wish, but she got the water, and what how does this all what in the hell? This movie is is not good enough for me to have to do all this mental gymnastics.

SPEAKER_00 48:50

That's where I struggle with the story. It was a devastating to see Rebecca go. It felt like adding insult to injury that her mother stared and watched her drown willingly to wish for her son. And granted, she was possessed, she is possessed in the same way that Ray is later possessed and willing to throw away his child. But it was still just so damn sad. So for me, in look in looking at this, it's a moment of she's coughing up this shit the same way that Ray was coughing up this shit and couldn't leave, the same way Elliot was coughing up this shit and couldn't leave, except she got her wish. So how is it continuing to possess her all these years later? That's what I'm saying. I don't know. It's again another swing and a miss.

SPEAKER_02 49:39

Swingin' a miss is fitting for this baseball movie.

SPEAKER_01 49:42

I know. It's fine because I don't think anything about this movie is supposed to make sense considering that it definitely affected the water supply. You're supposed to clearly see that when she tries to drain out the pool or whatever the hell with the hose, and it it's everywhere, but then she just throws cement into the pool and everything's hunky-dory. Like, are we gonna forget that you like we're filtering out this water at one point? Did we just gloss over that? Was I supposed to think she was just hosing down the grass with that frickin' water and it's everything's fine? That's the sequel.

SPEAKER_03 50:12

That's the sequel.

SPEAKER_01 50:13

Oh god. Night sprinklers. No way.

SPEAKER_03 50:16

The irrigation.

SPEAKER_01 50:18

Let's get into characters. We talked about the pool cleaner. We tell Ur the poolman. The pool guy. We talked about the real turret, but let's talk about the mom. Once again, copy and paste. A film where the mom has to be the one to save everybody, goes on a whole voyage, solves the mystery. Solves the mystery, and barely because of the writers were like, let's just quickly jot this down real quick. Give you a little fountain of not even the fountain of youth. It's like a wishing well type thing, real quick. No explanation at all. Alright, head back. For sure. I drove all this way, far as fuck.

SPEAKER_02 50:53

Far as fuck.

SPEAKER_01 50:54

Zero information.

SPEAKER_02 50:56

Oh my god. Yeah, no, for sure. It it it feels copy and paste. It's the same with the dad. What can you say? Another cliche, shitty, selfish father in a horror movie. It's all the same shit.

SPEAKER_01 51:07

Who I'm supposed to sit down and be like, but he sacrificed himself as a hero and blah blah blah.

SPEAKER_00 51:15

Alright, but a few things I have on the dad. Absolutely a shitty dad. The possession is one angle. Obviously, we're supposed to acknowledge he's not that shitty of a dad. It's just the pool got him. He saw the potential of what it would be like to no longer have MS and to get his career back. And you could put it into the bucket and think, okay, he's not that bad. And maybe in some ways he isn't that bad. But I do think it's interesting that they paint him and give him something what it feels like actually serious to fucking deal with as motivation for his questionable decision making. Typically, it's money, it's pride. Typically, it is just, oh, we sink our money into this, so happy wife, happy life, fucking deal with it, and we can't afford to go somewhere else with no ghosts. Typically that's the situation. And in this, you have a flawed person who has gone from the pinnacle of his career, reliving his glory days, to a debilitating illness that is absolutely changing his life. And I think that and the portrayal of he and his wife's relationship in the early stages of that before he steps into the miracle pool, I think that is interesting. And is not redemptive, but I think it's a point in the good column for this movie to actually do something a little bit more interesting with the father. Yes, he sacrifices himself, and yes, you're probably supposed to think it's like the hero, but I'm like, yeah, motherfucker, you better, because Elliot doesn't deserve this, Eve doesn't deserve this, Izzy doesn't deserve this, go fucking die, Ray. Yeah. And I was happy that he was gone. I was really, really fitting. I list him as a nomination for Trash Dad of the Year, not because I'm sure he's gonna be the worst dad in 2024, but because he still did some dumb shit.

SPEAKER_02 53:04

For sure.

SPEAKER_00 53:04

There was a point where he was cutting corners in his parenting because he thought he could get his career back, and I'm just not about that.

SPEAKER_02 53:11

Yeah, it was just all bad, for sure.

SPEAKER_00 53:14

What I did enjoy though was Izzy's character, dude.

SPEAKER_02 53:18

Yeah, she was a fucking badass.

SPEAKER_00 53:21

She absolutely was, especially with her little final destination broken glass moment, because damn, that shit was out to get her. I absolutely loved that.

SPEAKER_02 53:29

If you can beat the shit out of your father with a baseball bat, you're fucking legit.

SPEAKER_01 53:34

But I predicted that. That was one of the things I predicted. The moment I saw that bat, I was like, oh, she's about to beat her father's ass in the end. Yeah. I knew that this was an Amityville horror very fucking quickly. The moment, unfortunately, the moment that it was clear that he had MS, that this pool healed him, I was like, oh, here we go. Amityville horror. That means someone has to beat his ass. She did that little tuck behind the ear thing, like, oh, he's kind of cute, but like I'm a little rebel. It's like, oh, she's gonna fuck up her dad. All right, let's fucking go.

SPEAKER_00 54:08

Mm-hmm. I've really loved the mother-daughter green light to swing.

SPEAKER_02 54:14

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 54:15

Maybe it's also because I wish that my parents were that invested in my own softball career, but I absolutely love that. That shit was charming.

SPEAKER_02 54:21

It was great. It was good for sure.

SPEAKER_00 54:23

And I also love we get so much of her character and we see how she reacts to things, but it's also the burden of being the oldest child and not necessarily shielding Elliot from a lot of things, but you can tell that she, as an older teenager, is trying to mentally process these things with her dad's very new illness, the impact and the weight that that has on her mother. And you think maybe she's a little bit rebellious, maybe like they think they have a loving family, but it's probably not the closest relationship. Yeah. But you know, she gets to these points where she's like, Well, it's not as easy on you. She's acknowledging and she sits back and she looks at what this is doing to her mother, and thinking about how absent her father was out of necessity for his career. Right. The bond that a daughter has with you know her mother in a situation like that is really, really interesting. It tugged your heart strings. You got a soft spot for that. It absolutely did because again, my dad was absent and I saw how much my mom sacrificed. So listen, yeah, I fucking get it. Okay. I'm a human and I'm reacting to things that I relate to. We love it.

SPEAKER_01 55:28

It's great. That's the beauty of film. We're here for it. And I I dare to say that I think I appreciate that resentment is being brought up in a PG 13 film. Or even a film in general. Not often do we see like resentment manifested in that kind of conversation with their mom. I think you just see it in acts of rebellion and like generic fucking rebellion. Like if it was just her bringing this guy over when they weren't supposed to be, it's like, eh, okay, we've seen that. But a moment of resentment in a conversation with her mom about how he's never around, that's not common. It's cool. I liked it. I thought she was a cool character, but in general, it wasn't enough for me. Elliot was also pretty sweet. He was pretty on his toes. The math was mathing for him pretty fast. He was like, all right, I'm gonna set this whole gear up, get ready, locked, and loaded to track what's going on. So he's got smart kids, that's for sure. Everybody else in that neighborhood, though, everyone else at that pool party, fucking idiots. Every single one. How are you not gonna tell that this man is drowning or this little boy is drowning?

SPEAKER_02 56:34

The whole fucking party. There not nobody has a clue.

SPEAKER_01 56:38

Oblivious. No one.

SPEAKER_02 56:40

I guess it it's it's possible. I could actually see that happening.

SPEAKER_01 56:43

Absolutely oblivious. The pool is like just doing its happy dance and everyone is entranced, like this is true blood, and they're just like, for sure, something like that.

SPEAKER_02 56:52

Yeah. For sure. I I could see it happening in real life. You know, I'm gonna be honest.

SPEAKER_00 56:55

I'm sorry, I'm actually just thinking about something now because we're talking about Izzy, and I also love the relationship that Elliot has with his mom. I want to actually consider the reality that Eve, we know that she's fit for the task of saving Elliot because she was doing navy dives as a child. So we have that, right? We have this whole history here, and then it's honestly just hitting me again because her dad was in the Navy, put her through all this rigorous shit. She was a woman raised probably by mostly by her mom, with a dad who comes in and influences the lives. Like she and Izzy are living living the same life. However, for me, it was the moment when she's having a heart-to-heart with Izzy, and she's talking about you know how your dad talks about how the moment you were born, he had this great burst of strength, and she talks about how alone she was. Fuck man. See, that is the shit where I'm like, how could you not like these characters? Like the fucking vast difference between this man and his selfishness, right? And not necessarily his selfishness, because obviously, like good for him and his career, but what he's trying to get back to is a glory moment that is about himself. It's about a team and all that, but like no, it's selfish. It was his moment, it was him in the limelight, it was him stepping up in his masculine strength and his burst of power, and his wife is literally giving birth alone in a room of strangers.

SPEAKER_02 58:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 58:22

Man, I fucking love that shit.

SPEAKER_02 58:23

That's deep. I I I think the dynamic of the relationships, even to the scene that we get between Izzy and Elliot, I think are great. I think I can relate to that. I think seeing Izzy they're left alone, the parents go out, right? And Izzy's just walking down the hall and and just says, Oh, I have somebody coming over, it's no big deal. And like, okay, no worries. Oh, but it's for like swim class. You know, you're trying to implant this idea into your siblings so that if they do mention it because fucking siblings talk and it's fucking annoying as fuck, and that happens, and you gotta implant this thing that they subconsciously say to your parents, so I can relate to that. And then she gets real close and says, like, I'm you know, I'm gonna fucking do whatever to you. You do that as siblings, you're like, Okay, this is happening. I'm trying to do this, I'm gonna implant this for you to say to mom and dad, and then I'm gonna threaten the shit out of you, so you do not fucking fuck around.

SPEAKER_01 59:22

Even when he was just like out here playing with his Legos, or who the hell knows what he was doing. You know, like he was just so unaware and did not care at all. Yeah. But it she was like, Let me just still do this to make it so abundantly clear, and you can't say that I didn't.

SPEAKER_02 59:38

Right.

SPEAKER_01 59:38

Let me make sure that you understand I will fuck you up.

SPEAKER_02 59:42

Yeah, it has to be said. I get it. I get it. You gotta make sure.

SPEAKER_00 59:46

You gotta be thorough. You gotta be thorough. And I really wish that they were more thorough with what I think was the worst part of the movie, which of course was it's you guessed it, CG fucking I. I know that there's some rather rough things in this movie, things that are weird, but I think had they just not done that, it would have been a much more solid movie. It was pretty rough.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:07

However, on the other side of things, still within the production department, I would say the cinematography is the best part for sure, because we literally said it all the time throughout this episode. The shots of the pool, they nailed it. I thought it was so beautiful, so great. Sure, I I had my comments about what it would have been nice to see or what I would have appreciated to see, but in general, that pool looked like it was fucking massive, dude. There was no way that that was a standard pool with the way that they filmed in the angles that they took, and even just going up and down from the water and all of it was just really, really impressive. So that part was great, but CGI was just rough.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:51

Yeah, I think we're aligned in all that stuff. I think the cinematography is easily one of the best parts, but I think also just being able to bring or evoke that eerie feeling of night swimming. I think they dabbled into it. I think that they weren't able to follow through to a sense of you can still get that kind of feeling, the average person, you can go back to that feeling as a child and that fear of night swimming, but it did not instill fear in all swimmers, and so people are still gonna swim in pools the day after this, and that's a miss. And so for that, whatever. But I do think that the worst part of this movie, the best part is that eerie feeling, whatever they were able to tap into. The worst part is just a strange use of the baseball angle, they just didn't need to go down that road. No matter how you try to explain it, Chris, it just didn't need to happen in this movie. I'm sorry. You can get that with Dennis Quaid or Kevin Costner or fucking Robert Redford, and you can do all of that shit and you can go fucking dream the fields and all that, but not in this movie.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:58

Okay, well, listen, man, I'm just saying Angels in the Outfield is all about making a fucking wish. This movie's all about a fucking wish. Then we got Field of Dreams, where the fucking location in the setting is a magical character in and of itself, and it brings these people on a fucking journey of growth. And listen, do we this man grows from probably competent husband to living and and surviving with MS than to dying in a pool because he was selfish and he had to sacrifice himself to save his family. Whatever. I'm just saying I see the angle, I see the vision, I appreciate the vision, the mysticism of baseball. And I also think it's in more interesting. I just think it's more interesting.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:38

Some would say it's a curveball.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:40

I will say that again, I like a lot about this movie. It did make me feel a lot of things, but I don't care to see it without good reason a second time. It was effective, it did its job, but I think now that I know what's coming, now that I know what to expect, I don't think it'll hold up as well for me as on a second time.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:59

I definitely will not be seeing this movie again. I feel like I could just watch Amityville horror and pretend that the basement is a pool and be completely fine at this rate. It's just not one that I would like feel the need to put back on or or even honestly to even have in the background either. Like I that's so sad to say, but it's just what for? If there was going to be a circumstance, actually, it would probably be just remove all the dialogue and let me just hear the sounds of the pool just to really scare me at that point or to put me to sleep.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:35

Good ASMR. Well, the short film is only four minutes long, you should uh knock it out.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:39

Yeah, I don't feel like I have any real need to watch this one again. It may happen down the road, I'm not sure. I am interested in watching the short film. I will go back and and visit that just to see what inspired this film. So I don't know if I'm watching this one again, but I think the short film, I'll give that a shot.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:00

Well, we'll see how you feel about that when you visit it, but for now there you have it, folks. Night swim from 2024 has earned two hacks and one slash. I certainly had a robust discussion here, but it doesn't end here by any means. We want to know what you think.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:14

Would you dare to go night swimming after seeing this? Let us know. You can join 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_02 1:04:23

And if you've enjoyed swimming with us on this episode, consider becoming one of our patrons. Visit patreon.com slash hackerslash to enjoy more of the show with early access, extended episodes, bonus content, and live shows. I don't want to put any poo in the pudding.