375: Presence (2025)

SPEAKER_00 0:04

That's real rich coming from the guy who loves skin of a ring.

SPEAKER_01 0:12

Greetings and salutations, and welcome to Hacker Slash. If you're joining us again, welcome back. Have you been here long? If this is your first time listening, welcome to the party. We are a horror movie review podcast dedicated to telling you whether a movie is a hack, a total joke, a waste of time, or a slash.

SPEAKER_07 0:30

Totally killer pun intended.

SPEAKER_01 0:32

We believe horror is for everyone, and as such, we're rating these movies with the perspective we've gained from our bearing walk's wife 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_07 0:46

Was that a scream?

SPEAKER_01 0:48

The classic horror connoisseur Sean.

SPEAKER_07 0:50

I think I made it worse.

SPEAKER_01 0:51

And the paranormal paramour, Binx. It's suffering just like you are. This week we're back in theaters to check out a new take on a haunted house film.

SPEAKER_07 1:00

And if you support the show, you'll also get to hear our B-side at the end of this episode where we talk about all the ways we would get our spooky on and haunt a house.

SPEAKER_01 1:08

This week's film is a bold experiment set entirely within the walls of a suburban home. The production was a study inefficiency. It was shot in just three weeks with fewer than a hundred cuts in the entire film, no close-ups, and single continuous takes for nearly every scene. The film premiered at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival, where its story left some audiences walking out because of the film stress. And that stress manifests in a story following a family who, after moving into their new suburban home, begins to suspect they're not alone. This week we're talking about presents. What were you all expecting going into this?

SPEAKER_05 1:46

Straight up paranormal activity. That's what I thought we were getting. And I was not a fan of paranormal activity. I was like, this is gonna be so cheese.

SPEAKER_07 1:53

Yeah, I could see that. I I really had no strong expectations going into this one. I gotta be honest. I hadn't even heard much about this one, if anything, at all, before watching this movie. And I think based on the like the one or two-sentence synopsis that I read, we obviously know it's some kind of haunted house type horror flick. So is this gonna be your run-of-the-mill haunted house movie? Is it gonna be that paranormal activity type thing, right? Are we gonna do something different? I don't really need anyone to really reinvent the wheel here, but I do love a good haunting or ghost story. We'll see. I just didn't know what to expect.

SPEAKER_02 2:30

Yeah, I vaguely remember the marketing of this film depicting it as an extremely scary film.

SPEAKER_03 2:37

But what actually really hooked me and got me interested was the fact that it was a Steven Soderberg film. You probably recognize his name or you would know his work for sure because he did Oceans Eleven, 12, 13, Aaron Brockovich, Magic Mike, weirdly enough. Okay. The guy's done a lot of things.

SPEAKER_01 2:53

I gotta just tap in right here because I fucking looked at this guy's filmography and none of those films feel feel like the others.

SPEAKER_03 3:01

Which is his thing. He loves to experiment. So the next film I was gonna say, because we are a horror podcast, obviously, is Unsane, which was super famous at the time because it was entirely filmed on an iPhone. So that one was really popular at its time. I really loved that film in particular, but his entire filmography is exactly that. It's very different one after the other. He loves to experiment. So I figured this film under his helm was going to be that. It was going to be experimental. He's only done Unsane as far as horror goes. This is his second horror film, right? So the fact that it's a POV from this presence felt very him. It felt very interesting, again, spare experimental. And I was interested to see how it was going to be scary, though, because that's how they market it as something extremely frightening. But it was giving a little bit of skin emerink. It was giving a little skin and rink in that marketing. So I went into this already a little hesitant, like, you're not gonna get me.

SPEAKER_01 3:57

You're not gonna trick me down over here in skin emergency.

SPEAKER_07 4:00

We do.

SPEAKER_01 4:01

Yeah, I didn't know shit about this movie except for two things. One, it's POV of a ghost, and two, Lucy Lou. So, you know, I went in mostly blind, and I'm totally okay with that. I had high hopes just because of the premise itself. What a great idea. I know I fucking bashed into violent nature last year, and that's POV of a slasher. I had my hopes up for that. But in this one, the idea of the camera moving around an entire house, a haunted house from the ghost perspective. I know we've gotten plenty of these haunted house movies in the past, but this one actually excited me, and I was really excited to go see it. And let me tell you though, while I was watching this, it was such a mixed bag. Because on the one hand, what a great movie. On the other hand, not a great horror movie. This has family drama written all over it, and that's not a bad thing for the movie, but I do think my experience suffered because I went in expecting a more haunted film. And instead, it's almost feels like you're a voyeur into this family's struggle and strife, which is cool, but it was almost like a mixture of a sense of underwhelm, which I didn't feel was fair to it because holy shit, this movie looks really good. I love the sound design in this movie, but you know, I also was struck by the feeling of like, why does this feel like an older version of Casper? Like an older, more serious version of the film Casper.

SPEAKER_07 5:35

Yeah. I think like the horror feeling, you're right. Like, I don't feel a lot of horror with this movie. I do feel like it could be a completely different type of movie. But to me, aside from all that, because I'm sure we're gonna talk about that and that feeling that we got in the spoiler zone, but man, for me, this movie really felt long as fuck. For a buck 20, this movie felt like it was dragging on and on. Aside from that, I also felt like I was watching a virtual fucking Zillow walkthrough or an open house or some shit on Instagram for one of those real estate agents accounts or some shit. So there's that. But yeah, long as fuck.

SPEAKER_05 6:14

It does remind me of when people started using their phones for VR and they would be like, Oh, I'm on a mountainside, and somebody just like moving the camera, and you know, it's not current VR. It was kind of like, oh, that's neat. It's not the future, but it's neat. I don't know. I was caught off guard though, because when I first saw the camera work and the field of view, and you know, it just it feels weird. And I'm thrown off and I'm like, I'm gonna get sick. This is not gonna be fun at all. But holy crap, this movie shocked me with how it pulls you in. I think the story is the most interesting part. The acting really draws you in. And I think you can you can forget that you're watching a horror movie real easily and not care about that. The whole ghost thing is wholly unimportant for almost the entire film because everything else on the screen is more interesting to where they have the shtick where we're seeing it from the ghost point of view, but honestly, who cares? I'm enthralled by what's going on, the tension they build, especially during some key moments, really can get your heart rate going. And it's almost a level of discomfort than fear. So it definitely feels closer to a thriller than it does a horror movie, but it's still effective as a thriller in pulling in the audience.

SPEAKER_01 7:23

You know, what's really interesting to me is there are moments where I felt like this ghost must have been thinking, ooh, do I just need to let y'all have the room for a sec? It's getting a little uncomfy. Man, it's so interesting what you say because this movie feels more like a stage play than it does a movie, which is not a bad thing, but that's what it felt like for me. Like this this camera is us, the audience, and we're just moving through different sets and we're seeing all of these things unfold. And it felt like that because of the way that the film is acted, these actors have to interact with each other and just let the scene play out. But because we're using all these continuous takes, it almost feels like we linger in some moments where we wouldn't naturally linger in interactions with people. There's a couple moments that I can think of in particular where I felt that. And again, that's not to discredit the movie, it's just holy shit, what a different experience this was watching this film. But I will say there were moments where I felt like the acting was not consistent through all the players. I loved the father, loved Chloe, loved Lucy Lou. The brother was a little like for me in some moments. Not all of it, but in some moments I was like, oh, what are we doing here?

SPEAKER_02 8:37

Yeah, I would agree.

SPEAKER_03 8:38

I think that going back to a little bit to what you were saying earlier in terms of that voyeuristic approach, I think that the film is super effective in making you feel like you shouldn't be in the room, just like the ghost shouldn't be in the room. And there are moments where you can see that they feel that, or and they being us, it's like a weird thing, right? But there are others where you feel like you really want to know, you want to listen, you want to be attentive because you care about some characters, maybe more than others. And that's the unfortunate part where you don't get too much screen time with a couple key family members that you probably want to, and more with others that you obviously are going to favor. And that really is reflective of how incredible some of these performances are. Chloe, the actress that plays Chloe and Chris, uh, I think his name is Chris Sullivan, he's from This Is Us. I haven't seen the show, but I've heard it's fantastic. Fantastic actors, performances crazy, crazy, crazy good. But I feel like throughout the film, I was not anticipating for it to be so melancholic. I felt very sad. And I think it's because I went into this film thinking that it was going to be a horror and a good time and something to de-stress. And instead, what I was met with was a film that is paralleling something that I'm going through in my life personally. So that was quite a time. But to your point, Mac, I think that you get so invested in the story that you can kind of disassociate just enough. There are moments in of dialogue where you can really feel and relate and it gets real dark real fast. There are others where I'm just curious and I just want to know what the hell's going on. I felt defensive of certain characters. I wanted to really jump through the screen and do something, you know, which was cool. And I think that that was the whole point. But that's where I feel like the film itself needed to be a film and not a screenplay and not a book, because you can't really give this perspective of this presence in the same way that you could if it was on screen. I can see what you're saying about like there are moments where you can peek a little bit more into a private conversation and time where it would be effective in a play. But that what really drives it home is what this presence is, that I can't wait for us to kind of dive into more in the spoiler zone. But this is exactly why the disappointment of this film is that a lot of people are gonna go into it thinking that they're gonna get scared, thinking that they're going to be terrified and that there's gonna be jump scares and maybe even misunderstand what this presence is entirely. So I feel like what sucks is that people are gonna go into it expecting one thing and they're gonna come out getting something else and really just hate the movie as a result, you know? And that you can't control that, but it's unfortunate. I think that there could have been a much better way to market this film. And one thing in particular that I do want to highlight, I think is important. And I say this because I'm someone that's very susceptible with certain themes in films. So I do want to provide a little bit of a trigger warning for this film that there is references to sexual abuse and sexual assaults, attempts at sexual assault, drug abuse as well. So I want to give that a highlight because that's the other part to this. If you're thinking that this is gonna be a fun little scary time, you know, no, this is actually like a very tragic drama that's gonna really sink its teeth in those themes in particular.

SPEAKER_07 11:55

Yeah. That's interesting. I think for me, I think because I didn't know much about this movie and I didn't watch any trailers or anything other than reading the synopsis of it being like a family that goes into this house and they feel this presence, right? I think that's where the POV kind of caught me off guard. So that was the most surprising thing for me. I do, however, think that I was most disappointed by this so-called reveal, not so much because I predicted everything that was gonna happen, but because there were signs for me early on that allowed me to understand the overall gist of what was gonna happen.

SPEAKER_05 12:34

Yeah, I think that's pretty reasonable. I think there's a lot that I grabbed onto when I made it through the film. I think there's some stuff that was kind of blocking me truly diving deep into it at first when I was watching it. One is it's kind of boring. And so it's kind of slow. And typically I kind of like that somehow. I think Sean, you might have mentioned it earlier, but you know, like an hour, 20 hour, 25, that's like a perfect runtime. But somehow this movie still felt like it just took so long. So that was one thing. It just kind of wears on you a little bit, you know, depending on how you're feeling that day. But the other one we've kind of hinted to the overall feeling it can leave some people with, and that is it's kind of depressing. It's kind of a downer of a film. So you're feeling a bit bummed, but at the same time, you're impressed and you enjoy the stuff that was done. So it's it tears you in half where you're like, I don't know truly how I feel here. And I'm not gonna criticize the story or say they should have done something differently at all here. Uh, it just hits you in some feels, I think. And so you leave this movie. If you can imagine this point of view for an hour and 20, hour and 25 as a non-participant, where it does give you that feeling of being dissociated. It gives you that feeling of being alone, but not alone simultaneously. It's kind of the nature of the beasts here. And so, yeah, you have to weigh that out with all the great stuff that does happen technically and and story-wise.

SPEAKER_01 14:01

Not the in a paranormal nature. Listen, the biggest place this movie suffers is from the expectations that are set for it going in. Because I think almost to be a film from Neon, who already may have oversold the hype on long legs to then distribute this film and for us to have marketing as a horror film, granted, horror/slash psychological thriller, I think it honestly takes away any bite. The thing about this movie is that it is emotionally terrifying. And there are definitely a lot of things to Binks' point that are triggering uncomfortable, unsettling. But that in that is in no way I feel indicative of what you would normally find in a horror movie. Horror often offers a level of either like brutal reality that's like almost an exaggeration on what you would experience in real life, and then there are other tokens of it that is just escapism, but this is really just looking in on the everyday horrors of someone's life. And that's like it's a dangerous game to play, right? To put this in a film and mark it as a horror film, and then this is what people go in and see. I I just wish better expectations would be set. I think A, the movie's gonna suffer from it financially, but then B, I think a lot of people who would love this movie are not gonna go see it in theaters because it's cast or they think it's a horror movie.

SPEAKER_03 15:28

Absolutely. And I am online pioneering and hoping that it changes people's perspective because that's exactly what I'm afraid of as well. The only thing that is horror about this is that it is a ghost P.O.V. Or presence's P.O.V. Rather. Maybe a win for the paranormal community, but not in the way that you even think. And so, yeah, the fright here is the everyday trauma that a lot of people have unfortunately been subjected to.

SPEAKER_07 15:55

I mean, yeah, for a haunted house movie, this had very little in terms of fright, right? Like we just didn't get really any scares. There's like one moment in this whole movie that I think could scare anybody, right? And I'm sure we'll talk about that later on as well. But yeah, it it just didn't have any kind of like it's not what you're expecting, right? When you're expecting a presence in a house to what you're all saying, we're expecting to see some really supernatural, paranormal, spooky shit happening around this house, fucking with this family. And it's really not that. And it feels like, I think, Chris, you said it, probably more of like a thriller than anything, maybe a thriller drama, right? I think this is even, I would relate it maybe to Stir of Echoes, but even Stir of Echoes, I think, was a little scarier than this movie. So I don't know. It's very interesting.

SPEAKER_05 16:50

It is, it's not scary. It is good at having really tense moments and really uncomfortable moments. And that I think lands it more in the thriller territory for sure, because it doesn't have scary moments, it doesn't have a slam, it doesn't have a jump scare, it doesn't have something that occurs on screen that makes you think, oh my gosh, really quickly. Oh, I can't believe I watched that, or I hope that never happens to me in real life. I think it just grates on you. It has these scenes that fill up your tensionometer, and you're just thinking, like, end this, please, like move on to something else. I don't want to see what's gonna happen. This is too much almost, right? And so I think it's really good at at pushing and just grabbing your nerves and twisting them every now and then, but I don't think it's it's enough to push it into this is a scary movie territory.

SPEAKER_01 17:39

Yeah, and I think it's because when you assume the POV of a character, you're interjecting yourself into that experience, and there's a lot in this movie where maybe your own feelings are projected into what you would think the entity is doing or navigating, and that is again a very tricky place to be. I think in this movie it's obviously said very intentionally, but there's a reason why I said this feels like Casper the Friendly Ghost, right? But let me tell you what I do love. For as underwhelming as a horror presence in this movie can be, I loved seeing the twist or the subversion of typical gender roles and norms that you would see in a normal, like fucking paranormal haunted house movie. It's always the dad moving his family in against the wife or the mom or the kid's objections because he's in too deep on something or they need a financial break. It's always that, and it's always testosterone just fueling this complete resistance to leave. But what we get here is a completely different family dynamic, and the dynamic in the movie in the family is much richer, and it makes the movie much richer because of it. Again, some of those moments aren't acted incredibly well, and it's because everybody's not really pulling their weight. However, when you look at the dynamic between these characters, specifically the father, if his role had been what we would typically see from a horror dad, this movie would have been lost to me.

SPEAKER_05 19:11

Oh gosh, the characters, the crises that they go through, the interactions between them, they really make this movie different from any other haunt movie, ghost movie, paranormal movie, any of it. Because on their own, just their story is more interesting, I think, than probably the rest of the movie. The other stuff is cool, uh, don't get me wrong, but seeing what they go through and seeing how they're dealing with it could be a really successful drama all on its own. Just their dynamic, like you mentioned, Chris, this family dynamic is very different from most others that we see on screen. But this is a real one. These are these feel like real people. And I had to question myself like, did they get in, you know, is this Lucy Lou's actual family or something? Is somebody here related to somebody else? Because like they, in some moments, really kind of nail this back and forth. In other moments, they don't. It falls a bit flat. Uh, but there's just such real feeling emotions between them that I'm like, I don't even care about the shtick anymore. I just want to see what happens. I just want to see how they're gonna deal with the stuff that they're going through. And I can't say that about pretty much any other ghost movie out there.

SPEAKER_07 20:18

Yeah, it's the real-world haunted house edition, you know? Family edition.

SPEAKER_01 20:24

Now we need a ghost confessional.

SPEAKER_07 20:26

Exactly. I'm telling you, these are great ideas. But yeah, I think, you know, it's not that we haven't seen a different POV movie, right? Like we've seen it actually a lot recently, but I believe like the we haven't seen it in this way. We haven't seen it exactly the way this movie did it. And so I think even just what we got there, aside from like the overall story of it all, because that's not the most original thing, but the way they told it, the execution and the way they gave us a different POV for a haunted house, I think separates itself from other films.

SPEAKER_02 21:01

Certainly. And I believe I had read an article that talked a little bit about how this came to be. And Soderberg had mentioned that he just wanted a film that explored this perspective. He gave it to David Cope, who basically has written every major blockbuster we've ever seen in our entire lives.

SPEAKER_03 21:20

Um, trying to think right now, Jurassic Park, I think, is one, Mission Impossible, Spider-Man. Can't forget that legendary film. So, okay, every movie that you've probably ever seen, he's probably the one that wrote it. But, anyways, that just goes to show you that the guy knows what he's talking about, obviously. He's written a lot of major works, but this is something that felt so non original because I'm sure that we know lots of families that have that kind of similar dynamic. God, I would hope not in the particularness of it. But you know what I mean? Like it felt so personal. And I'm sure more specifically to the Northeast and the Midwest, where they suffer from a couple of the things that are explored here thematically. But I really enjoyed that it blends something that feels so normal in a way that is paranormal. The other reference that I felt I was getting a bit is there's this game called Beyond Two Souls that I love very much. And it's exploring both the perspective of this young girl who has these superpowers, but also has this ghost or this presence constantly. And so in the game, you are both the perspective of the ghost, but then you're also the young girl. And so when it started to when the film started and I was in that perspective for a little bit of this presence, I was like, damn, this is giving that video game. I should go play it again. That was a good time.

SPEAKER_05 22:36

I think the camera work we get lends to that feeling of video game like. There was, I think, a a short or a movie or something that came out a couple years ago that was action-based, where you're from the person's like you can see like their body beneath them when they look down. And so it's from their actual perspective. And it was like really cool to see. It was super action-y guns running, all sorts of cool stuff, but it gives you that kind of surreal video game energy here. But I think this movie is successful in going further than that and playing to your emotion, and this ending is no exception. And I don't want to say like there's some, hey, there's a crazy twist or there's a reveal or anything like that. I think that's the idea of that's kind of boring and unimportant. I think what's amazing here is the build of tension throughout, and then subtle little drawbacks. And then here it's like this massive spike at the end to like the last second. And so it's just this tension is building to the point where you're like getting a little itchy in your own skin. And then it's like, all right, and now you've earned the finish. And I think the ending was really impactful. I think it was really effective. Uh, it was definitely part of what makes this a bummer, you know, obviously, but it's still it all worked out.

SPEAKER_02 23:48

And I think that it really works because it ties back moments of dialogue that you may miss, though.

SPEAKER_03 23:55

So if you caught it, it's incredible. And I think it was you, Sean, that said that you probably figured out the ending pretty early on. I personally did not see it coming because I think we're so stuck in the moment and watching this family unravel that I couldn't even imagine how this was gonna finish or how they were gonna tie it all together, what this would even look like. And there was that particular scene that I'm thinking of where it there is that callback. It almost missed me. I actually afterwards I took a moment to think about like, wait a minute, was that really what I thought it was? And would it really sticks in? Yeah, it's a major bummer, but I think it really just sticks that landing of wrapping up not only the theme of the film and the sense of grief, but also trauma and also family dynamics and how complex that is. You know, there's so many different relationships that are explored, both from like uh a daughter to her dad, and then the father and the like it's so intricate and it's so personal that I thought, like, wow, that's a ending that'll really stick with you.

SPEAKER_01 24:59

Yeah. I have so much to say about this ending, but I'm gonna save just about all of it for the spoiler zone because I have complex feelings to unpack. What I will say is as a drama, I loved it. As a horror movie, I wanted so much more, and I was disappointed in it.

SPEAKER_07 25:19

Yeah, I feel you. It's gonna be interesting to to break this down in the spoiler zone. Uh, you kind of have to wait, in my opinion, to the second half to really talk about the ending of this film because that's pretty much the bulk of what this film is gonna give you. Because, Mac, you talk about it spiking big at the end. Yeah, the end was the most entertaining part of this entire film. I feel like the first two acts of the movie, yeah, there's some moments that build a little bit of tension, it's a slow burn, I get it, but man, it felt slow, and in a lot of parts for me, it felt boring as hell. And we finally got into the third act of the movie, into the ending, and I feel like this movie finally started to pick up. So, needless to say, the ending was probably the best part of this entire movie, although I did find it predictable. I didn't have all of my ducks in the row, so I will give it that.

SPEAKER_01 26:14

Well, I can't wait to see how all of this discourse translates to a rating. But before we actually score this film, Sean, how would you describe the gore score?

SPEAKER_07 26:22

You know, I know we're not really expecting a ton of gore in a haunted house movie. We're just not. But we don't even get any gore when we find out what happens to some of the people that die in this movie. So the gore score is as ghostly as the presence in this movie. It's a goreless gore score, it's earning a non-existent gore score.

SPEAKER_01 26:45

Just because you can't see it doesn't mean it isn't there.

SPEAKER_07 26:49

In gore, yes, it does.

SPEAKER_01 26:50

And what about the animal report?

SPEAKER_03 26:52

Similarly, sh and shockingly, there's not a single presence of an animal in this film, so we are safe.

SPEAKER_01 26:59

Well, let's go ahead and get into our ratings and presence now hitting its theatrical run in 2025. Was it a hack or a slash?

SPEAKER_05 27:07

I'll jump in and get things started because I only have a couple things that I really want to highlight about this film. It caught me off guard. You know, it was not what I thought it was going to be. I don't really love things from first-person perspective when it comes to films. I love doing that in video games, but when it comes to films, oftentimes it'll make me dizzy. And this movie used that perspective moving through a house at one point, the entire house, in the dark, and I was like, this is my worst nightmare because I, in the dark, can't see, I have no balance, it's miserable. Please don't make the entire movie like this. And then it was like, no, no, no, no, no. Just giving you a taste. And the rest of the film focus on these characters, and I really got sucked into it. I really started to identify with this family. Not that I could personally say that I've experienced what they've experienced, but I just found them to be real human beings that you can empathize with. And in some moments, sure, they're poorly acted and it's cheesy. There's a moment when a character is peering through a doorway at another character and it's like, this is bad. Somebody yell cut and redo that because it just did not work at all. But I think overall, they showed us what they could do from this perspective a few times, and that was fun, but then they didn't overuse it the rest of the time. They really used it as a setting, as a medium, as a way of just giving us a different type of context when it comes to this type of story. And that I will heavily appreciate. I didn't think I was gonna like it. I don't like this kind of movie. I don't like paranormal stuff. It's boring, especially ghost things or presences or whatever you want to call them. They're usually just incredibly snoozworthy. And while this was very slow, it was totally killer. It wasn't really a horror movie, but I don't care. I enjoyed myself and it was totally a slash for me.

SPEAKER_02 28:44

So in the past, I would have given the film some heat for not entirely feeling or being a horror film.

SPEAKER_03 28:51

And for this film, I would for sure say that there is definitely a case to be had. That is not being argued for sure. However, honestly, objectively, I really enjoyed this film and it touched upon some feelings regarding grief that are rarely said out loud. And I appreciated that, especially again, maybe I'm projecting a little bit of what I'm going through in my personal life right now, but this is something that I think a lot of people can relate to, you know? It's sinister in nature, especially for maybe a younger demographic, but it's because everyone can relate to this film in one way or another, because everyone maybe is a best friend, right? Or they've got a sibling. Maybe some people are parents, you know, or they've lost someone. Everyone can relate to those things. It's universal. And what I really appreciate about this film is that it begs to question what happens when your trauma is what haunts you, you know. And although it isn't horror, it is a question that we don't often consider or want to face. And I think that there was definitely potential for this to really lean more into the horror genre for sure. And some of the writing is a little bit cheesy because again, you know, Kepp, although a great writer, Mission Impossible can be a little cheesy, okay? I'm gonna say it. Some of his work could be a little cheesy, so it's fine. But for me, I thought that the runtime went really pretty fast and was effective and efficient with time. I thought the performances were pretty solid. And the stressful POV is effective because you really want to interject. And so, although it may not scare you in the way that you anticipated, I think it's still worth a watch for sure. So I'm gonna be giving it a slash.

SPEAKER_07 30:33

Oh boy. Well, I think potential is probably the key word there because I really think that this movie presence had all the potential to be an intriguing supernatural thriller of a horror movie. Honestly, I think the premise, once I understood it, promised to be a pretty haunting exploration of grief mixed with psychological tension. But the execution for me, I feel like unfortunately fell flat. I think this movie moves at an excruciatingly slow pace, making an hour and 20 minutes feel like a fucking eternity. I feel like the characters, while some of it was acted right, I wasn't bought into the relationships. I think the characters to some extent were underdeveloped. I think the scares were non-existent, I think the tension barely flickered like the flame of a fucking candle about to go out. So sure, the final act picked up the pace and tried to salvage what it could, but by then I had already lost so much interest in this movie. And the supposed revelations lacked the weight they needed to really make an impact. And to be honest, the only presence I truly felt during this movie was the oppressive presence of time itself. I honestly think I spent more time admiring the house than the actual movie itself. So this movie is less presence and more absence, absence of thrills, scares, and any reason to keep watching. It's a fucking hack.

SPEAKER_00 31:58

That's real rich coming from the guy who loves skin emarink.

SPEAKER_07 32:01

Skinimarink built more attention, skin emarink was more fucking hair raising, skin emarink was more it was so much scarier than this movie could ever fucking be. This movie was like watching a fucking Zillow walkthrough for three quarters of the movie and then giving you a big reveal at the end, trying to say whoop-da doo.

SPEAKER_03 32:21

I think you are projecting the fact that you recently bought your home and had to deal with a real estate agent, okay?

SPEAKER_05 32:28

Maybe. Hey, it's okay that he's scared by pictures of gray walls with a noise filter added. Okay, that's okay that that's scary.

SPEAKER_01 32:35

Listen, okay, Sean, all jokes aside, I can agree that there's a lot in this film I find underwhelming. This is a great drama, but I'm not going into a fucking haunted house movie for the drama. I do feel, quite honestly, like I was hoodwinked, bamboozled, I was scammed, robbed, duped, swindled, portrayed, deceived, I was lied to. And genre aside, once you put all that over to the left, there were things that I absolutely think demanded better execution. But then I I struggle because there is a lot to be admired here, and I'm looking forward to not only the potential of what I think this movie can feel like giving it a fresh rewatch, now understanding what it is, but also the potential of what can come after this movie. I really wrestled with this because the biggest thing I felt immediately leaving the theater was, oh, I wish that had been different. And it's not that even it deserves to be different, I think it deserved to be marketed for what it is, because the reality is that my experience is completely colored by the very little expectation I had going into it. And so I I really I really struggle here, honestly. I'm uh at a 49.9 and a 50.1 when it comes to this movie. And today, I think as I sit back and I think about the things that I loved about this movie, but all the things that drove me batshit crazy, I think I'm at 15.1% hack.

SPEAKER_07 34:12

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 34:13

I didn't do it for you, I did it for me.

SPEAKER_07 34:15

I know, but you're welcome. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 34:19

And with that, presents from 2024, now running in 2025, has earned two hacks and two slashes. Now we clearly have so much to say about this when we return from our break. And if you've already seen this movie before, please let us know what you would rate it. You can do that by joining the conversation for free in our Discord server. If you haven't seen it yet, you can follow the link in our show notes to see where you can catch it right now. If you're listening to this post, it's the actual run. When we return from our break, we have to dive deep into the spoilers on territory, unpack the complexity of the ending, and also dive into some of those character dynamics. We'll see you in a day.

SPEAKER_06 35:21

With Presentsure, you'll never be alone, or unprotected because with Present Shure, you're not just getting home protection, you're getting supernatural supervision. Here's how it works. Our patented ectoplasmic AI binds friendly entities to your home, ensuring constant supervision. Forget motion sensors, our spectral scanners detect disturbances in the realm of the living and the beyond. When a threat is detected, be it human or otherworldly, our manifestation mode activates summoning a spectral deterrent to ward off intruders. Imagine burglars facing a floating poltergeist while you relax, knowing your valuables and soul are safe. And for those presence-like scenarios, our cleansing concierge offers complimentary visits from licensed mediums to ensure your spectral team remains cooperative. And for premium users, our poltergeist package allows you to unleash full-scale chaos, floating objects, slamming doors, and the occasional spine-chilling laughter. Your neighbors will thank you or move. Protect your home and dive into the thrill of supernatural security with Presents Shore. Use promo code Hackerslash at checkout for 20% off your first haunting.

SPEAKER_07 37:15

Yeah, I mean, this movie is not the movie to watch if you're looking for thrills and kills, but we do get a total of four kills in this movie. Two of them we don't even see on screen, we only hear about them, and the other two happen at the exact same fucking time. So I don't think it would be fair to really ask what your favorite kill is. I don't know, we'll see. I guess we can talk about the impacts that they have.

SPEAKER_00 37:38

Listen, you know fuck Ryan. Ryan had to go.

SPEAKER_07 37:42

No, that's an it's an obvious one that Ryan is gonna be because everyone wanted to see him die, he was a fucking douchebag.

SPEAKER_01 37:49

His Nick Carter, Devin Sawa looking ass, who's fucking late. No, no, fuck Ryan.

SPEAKER_03 37:55

My notes specifically say fuck Ryan. Yeah, yeah. To a 20th degree.

SPEAKER_07 37:59

But that's what I'm saying. Everyone have everyone, we know what we're gonna talk about, you know? It's not like, oh, what was your favorite kill and we all have different ones? We all fucking know.

SPEAKER_01 38:07

Um death of the marriage is always a good one to have.

SPEAKER_03 38:12

That's always an honorary death and kill. And this is a big one, I'll tell you that much. Because at this rate, also the sad part about it is the death of Tyler is what brings them together. Question mark.

SPEAKER_01 38:26

They're not really together, even, you know.

SPEAKER_03 38:28

Barely.

SPEAKER_07 38:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 38:30

When he phoned a friend, aka that lawyer, and was like, let me just see. Am I held liable if uh hypothetically the partner was doing some illegal shenanigans, you know? He was smart. That's that's worth something.

SPEAKER_05 38:46

I don't know. I just think the near death, our near third kill, technically first on-screen kill, that alone, that moment, that almost kill, that really counted more to me than the actual jumping out of the window kills that we get. And I think, you know, every time that little piece of plastic was lifted up, I was just like, oh, it's not coming off the next time. It's gonna stay there. We're gonna watch this because we almost had to watch the horrible stuff leading up to this. They're gonna do it. They're gonna take this chick out, and then she's gonna have ghost powers, and then she's gonna kill Ryan, even though he's like a poor man's Evan Peters. That's how they're using him here.

SPEAKER_07 39:21

What? I agree with you, but it's that moment that you're talking about where I feel like it makes the thought of Nadia and the other friend, their kills, so much more impactful, even though we don't get to see them, because you're seeing what Ryan is doing to her, right? And then thinking of what happened to Nadia and the other girl, I don't know if they ever mention her name, but they didn't make it, so that shit actually happened. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01 39:49

Okay. Yes, and Mac, having to see that asphyxiation, awful. However, I do want to point out that this is one of my many qualms with the entity in this movie. This bitch has rearranged some shit, she's tidying up, she's fucking destroying Tyler's room. And you mean to tell me that even though she could go poof, poof, poo and knock this glass off so she didn't get drugged the first time, there wasn't a single other thing that could happen in this moment. We really just had to sit there and watch the whole thing.

SPEAKER_07 40:24

Like poke a hole in the plastic.

SPEAKER_03 40:26

I want to point something that you said though. You keep saying she, the presence is Tyler. The presence is Tyler.

SPEAKER_07 40:32

Yeah, the brain.

SPEAKER_03 40:33

That's why he can't that can't that's why he can't intervene because the whole thing, and this is the part okay, so you are the perfect example of what I was talking about earlier.

SPEAKER_01 40:40

Listen, Tyler's still girl's girl.

SPEAKER_03 40:43

No, no. The part that I was talking about earlier that may fly over people's head is what the what it what is she called? The psychic or whatever, the paranormal psychic was talking about in terms of this entity living both past, present, future, and it it's confused as to why it's there. And that's why we see Tyler in the reflection of the mirror, because it's Tyler's ghost unaware of where he is in time. So he can't intervene at that point because at that point he realizes where he is, and he can't intervene because he needs to die. And that's why the psychic comes later on and says that he know the ghost knows what it needs to do. It's something with a window.

SPEAKER_01 41:21

This adds more value in hindsight. However, I still think, goddamn, Tyler fucking just blow this little bit of plastic off.

SPEAKER_03 41:29

He could have lived, but it can't because it would intervene in his own death.

SPEAKER_01 41:34

Okay, now we're interrupting with the space-time continuum shit. Nah, that fucking. But that's literally it goes up and goes right back down.

SPEAKER_03 41:42

No, but that's literally a thing in terms of, I mean, the paranormal, right? We don't necessarily know what point in time the paranormal lives, where they're at. I mean, it's a super fascinating concept that I thought was what made the ending super great, and especially Tyler, because you spend the whole time also really feeling like Tyler is also a piece of shit, brother. You resonate so much with the dad and the way that he says, you know, there's a good person in there. So when you when it's revealed that the good person and the better version of Tyler that's reflected, is this presence that you've been the whole time, it's like mind blown. Like, holy shit. That's even sadder because at that point it's too late, right? This better version of him is a ghost, is no longer present.

SPEAKER_07 42:27

It's too late. It's too late. The moment I guessed part of the ending was early on when the ghost or presence was starting to intervene with certain things. So that's when I knew the presence was obviously trying to help instead of harm, right? So I knew it had to have been something trying to protect her from some kind of significant event. The brother, I actually, when I said I didn't get all my ducks in a row, it wasn't the brother that I guessed until we got the mirror shot or whatever. Then I pieced that together. But overall, I knew it was gonna be the ghost trying to do something, especially when they talked about traveling, don't know if it's past or present. I mean, it's kind of like stir of echoes, it's kind of like Donnie Darko, it's kind of like you know what I mean? It's kind of like all that shit mixed together.

SPEAKER_05 43:12

But I'm with Chris on this one. 12 monkeys, you know, go back in time. If you're if you realize what's going on, be like, yo, we can both win in this universe. Because honestly, if if you have that power, set yourself up for success or something. I just it that wasn't really a big plot hole. It was just a questioning of like, why would you not if you could? But I guess you're saying Minx that you can't. I think to me, that was the plot hole were the other two kills. And that was bothersome. I know we can talk about it more later separately from kills, but how are you going to have them move to this other school and somehow this killer is the one who killed the two of them? It just seems so rare.

SPEAKER_01 43:50

Just a little zip code situation. It's like there's Carol City High, Miramar High, right by where I live. It's pretty close by.

SPEAKER_03 43:56

Well, they do emphasize that it needs to be still in the specific zoning of Of which they were previously living in. It has to be the same school district.

SPEAKER_05 44:04

That I did not catch. So that makes a lot more sense.

SPEAKER_03 44:07

At the very beginning, the mom is so specific about the fact that they stay in the same school district that they were living in previously because he competes and he's supposed to be the star athlete and such. So they don't actually move very far from where they lived because at the same time it's revealed that Ryan knew the girls. He admits it. He's like, Yeah, I've heard of them. I think I was friends with them or I saw them. Something to the fact that makes you realize, oh, not only did she emphasize that they needed to be in the same school district, but also that the circle of high schools and like the people that you know is very small and very reflective of New Jersey in general. I mean, there are a billion quadrillion schools at every corner, it feels like, especially in like the North Jersey area. So I felt like, okay, that's pretty that clicks, that tracks, I can get it, I can understand as to how this connects. But my biggest emphasis is there are plenty of films and theories about time. And I mean, I'm preaching to the choir. I know, Mac, you know that like the back of your hands, but we know that there is a section or a subsection of that that reflects and emphasizes that you cannot change certain things. If you go back in time, you cannot, or it will cause a ripple effect. And who's to say that if he were to have interjected when he did, that he would have died downstairs, maybe something else would have happened that was worse. You just don't actually know. He knew that he was going to save his sister regardless. He knew exactly how he was going to do it, and he knew that it required him to have her back, which is what the dad had mentioned earlier in the film.

SPEAKER_07 45:38

In some timeline, though, she dies.

SPEAKER_03 45:41

Okay. And that's what you want. You want her to die.

SPEAKER_07 45:44

In some timeline, she has to die, otherwise, he wouldn't be coming back to save her. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_03 45:49

So Well, he didn't his intention originally was not to save her, because again, it goes back to what the psychic was saying. He was confused. The presence is confused as to why they're there.

SPEAKER_07 45:58

Yeah, he was like put there. It was put there. Right. Somehow, whatever force brought him to this moment. Yeah, I get it. Right.

SPEAKER_01 46:06

A couple things. So, one, when we talk about the district thing, I remember catching the the conversation about the district, but to me, it felt more like they're trying to upgrade the school that they go to within the district. That's what it felt like for me at least. And it felt like he was trying to fucking fit in with Ryan.

SPEAKER_07 46:21

I did feel that too. I I didn't differentiate staying in the same school. I didn't think that they moved far from where they were, but I did get the feeling like they were trying to get him in an area where he could go to this school.

SPEAKER_03 46:35

But she yeah, because she says that it's gonna be easy for him to win.

SPEAKER_07 46:39

Right, right.

SPEAKER_03 46:40

Because he had been winning.

SPEAKER_07 46:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 46:42

She's something else. We'll get more into her in a bit, but she is so a planner.

SPEAKER_01 46:48

So the other thing here though, I almost okay. The emotional element of this of the presence being Tyler makes it feel a little more wholesome, but also now I'm just fucking mad about it. Now I feel like my hack is like even more solidified because I would have, I think, preferred it to be one of her two dead friends. Because if we have to go back with the space time and all this shit of like, oh, I can I can intervene, but I I I can make sure that I can intervene and kill myself to save her. Like I I get it emotionally, but fuck, man, no. Like I would have like, you know, to Max's point, like, oh, we can both win. I would have loved to have seen that. And the it was it was just this inconsistency of we have the entity doing all kinds of shit, having a very physical effect on the world around him, and then in this moment, the only thing that he can do is wake himself up. That for me feels even worse now, knowing it's Tyler.

SPEAKER_03 47:42

Well, two things. One, I think that it would have removed a bit more of this tragedy, drama, familial drama, if it had been a friend that we don't even know, that we haven't even met. It's way more effective and way sadder as far as a film exploring grief when it's the son, especially when we see how it affects the mom. Because throughout the whole film, we're really emphasizing the relationship between the daughter and the father. But the other two characters are people that we kind of hate, you know, like they're assholes, they're very conniving, they're so far removed from us that that's the opportunity for us to see grief from her perspective and for her to then be able to relate to her daughter in a way that we haven't seen throughout the film. And then secondly, I guess that's what I was saying earlier about that whole scene with the psychic or whatever we want to call her, talking about these entities being lost in time. Like if you aren't actually paying attention or you don't take it as seriously because you just think, like, oh, she's just blabbering about whatever, then you will completely not understand that ending at all because she she lays it out as simple as can be. It is someone that is going back in time. And then at that point, it's like, well, if you had thought it was Nadia, then it that doesn't connect with what the psychic is saying. She's not going back in time or present or anything. She's just there. And why would she just be at that house already as the family's moved in? She wouldn't even know that that house exists. How would she have even known to be there? You know what I mean? This is a presence that is realizing and familiar with the house, navigating the whole house, which now talking about like more of the production aspect of things, that house is phenomenal. I wonder how it is marked at in terms of value.

SPEAKER_07 49:28

It's a beautiful home.

SPEAKER_03 49:30

Because beautiful home. I think that it is incredible at bobbing and weaving through so many hallways and doors and rooms that when you are this presence at the very beginning. And now, I guess from my perspective, obviously, understanding that it's Tyler running around the house that you know is your house, and you're like, wait a minute, what's happening? Why am I here? Why is it empty? I don't even understand. Then witnessing your family come in, seeing yourself, it's just all of these confusing elements that I think is so effective when you're storming around. However, to your point, Sean, did it feel like, or what did you call it? Zillow, right? Yeah, like a Zillow virtual walkthrough? For sure. My dad works in real estate. I have seen one too many of those. And it's for sure a thing. But when we consider that that whole scene and the whole film, filmed by Steven Soderbergh. So he is his own cinematographer. In a lot of his films, he's penned as somebody else, but he is the camera operator. And he's using a basic, well, I don't want to say basic because it actually costs a lot of money, but a Sony A7 III, which is a pretty common accessible DSLR, strapped on. And that's what I was talking about earlier in terms of him being experimental. We've got an iPhone in one of his other films. Now he's using a regular DSLR, roaming around the house, strapped up, natural lighting, doesn't even really go off the wall. It just feels like his movies and this one in particular felt so accessible. It felt like it was a film that people can make if they don't have a lot of money to some extent.

SPEAKER_04 51:03

Sure.

SPEAKER_03 51:03

You know? And I think that that's always nice because it I feel like it reaches out to people that are like always wanting to get into film, that maybe are a little hesitant to. So this is my ode to say to all of us that maybe we should get our shit together and make a film, huh?

SPEAKER_07 51:16

Maybe. I agree with you though. I think the camera POV, that whole thing, as much as we're kind of poking fun at it and calling it a virtual walkthrough of a house, which it does feel like that in a lot of moments. I do actually like the idea of getting the camera POV of the entity. I always think it's cool to kind of flip your perspective around a little bit. And we've been getting a lot of this type of shit lately, and I'm generally here for it, but I think it has to be executed in the right way. And I think this movie executed it in some good ways, but I think in other ways it didn't execute, right? This entity is trying to figure itself out. Why am I here? I'm gonna save. Once I figure it out, I'm gonna save this thing from happening or make this impact, right? And so I think that unfortunately made the first two acts of this film feel a little bit sluggish and a little bit boring because while this entity is trying to figure it out, we're trying to figure it out, but I love the idea of getting the POV. So it's really a mixed bag for me. But I think it's one of the stronger elements that this film has. It just wasn't always handled right.

SPEAKER_05 52:24

It was impressive though to see the shots that involved a mirror in the room, because anytime there's a mirror in a shot, I'm always curious how do they not get captured in that mirror? And we get so close. We had some angles there where I was like, oh, maybe I missed it. Maybe we got to see the glint of the lens or something in there. And I'm like, no, I think it was clean. I'm curious, did they have to edit that out in post? Or were they just that clean when filming this thing that he was literally just able to get the right angle to where it doesn't show up? Because it was very impressive if that's the case. And I mean, you mentioned the POV in here. I could have done without it, but I think even though I'm not a huge fan of that, it worked really, really well. The scenes where we feel like we are this presence, we are this ghost, the feeling that we get on top of that be simply because of how the camera's moving, was awesome. And so, like, yeah, in those scenes, I was like, actually, you made the right choice here. The rest of the movie, not super into it. It made seem it made things seem a little less clear visually. Uh, not necessarily blurry, but I can't make out a lot of details. And the details here, like you mentioned, Binks are beautiful in this house from a set design standpoint. This thing was dressed to the T's. It was amazing. I really wanted to live in this house after seeing it. You know, a lot of old houses that come up in these horror movies, and you're like, no one ever would ever walk in there and think they want to live there. They opened these doors, and I was like, all right, change the color and I'm down.

SPEAKER_01 53:51

Listen, the camera work on in here is obviously absolutely stellar. There is one thing, production-wise, that disappoints me about this movie, and that is the music. Because the music was very much what felt like, okay, yeah, this is obviously branded as an AMZ artisan film. And it felt a little felt a little pompous in some moments. It was something about that piano where I was just like, all right, this is a little too dramatic. And I think that again sucks that feeling of what I wanted to get from a horror movie out. But we hear that music in one of my two favorite scenes, which is the opening of the film. And what I love about this is specifically the production element that shines the best for me, and that is the sound design of this film, apart for the music. Because holy shit, I just loved being able to follow these characters throughout this house, hear the echoes naturally bouncing off of the walls, and the mixing of these conversations that are happening, the what you can hear and what you can just barely make out is so intentional here. And I loved every ounce of that.

SPEAKER_07 55:02

Yeah, I think for me, it's really the only, I don't know, scary part of the film, and it's at the very end, right? And I think that is probably one of the better scenes in the whole movie when we get to the very end, everything's already gone down, and it's the aftermath of everything, and the mom looks into the mirror and sees the reflection of her son and freaks out. But the the way that they revealed that, the way that the score kind of built that moment up, it was really kind of the one of the only moments in the entire movie that I actually got some form of chills.

SPEAKER_03 55:37

Lucy Liu put her whole back into that one scene because throughout she's not given enough time, in my opinion, to really shine in the way that she could have. But that was visceral. That scream when she sang, My boy, he came back to save you. It reminded me of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, y'all. Truly. That was a lot. That was a lot. It was so tragic because again, earlier we see how almost obsessive she is about her son. That mother-son connection is strong. She's drunk and she's pouring out her feelings and like pouring into him that he has to remind her that she's got another kid. So you can see strange. Oh, it is it's a little there were some moments. It was a little sus. It's been a little Animityville too. It's giving sus for sure. But I gotta say, do know lots of people that have that kind of relationship with their mother. You know, it's uh it's bizarre, but it exists. And that's all I'll say about that. But I will say that that scene was painful for sure. But my favorite scene was also very painful, not to get very doom and gloom, but it is Chloe's monologue about losing someone. The way that she talks about wishing that you were in the room there with them, maybe not even to save them, but wishing that you were in the room there with them to feel the way that it feels like the world's cracking, that the mud is closing in and you're sinking into a hole. That was not something that I expected in this film to get so poetic about a topic that is so dark and sometimes very difficult to kind of describe. Again, it's paralleling a lot of what I'm going through in my life, and and I have in the past. I know we've all lost people in our lives, but it was just a way to describe that feeling to someone who at the time fiends that they don't know what that's like. Bastard, but whatever. And I just really appreciated it. I thought that it was a great performance on her part to just almost feel numb as she's saying it too, because that's another part of losing someone in grief. You're not always sobbing hysterically like the mom, right? You are almost numb to the whole thing altogether. And I think that it really set the tone for how she's gonna operate in the next couple scenes and throughout the rest of the film as she's like processing her grief, trying to tell her family that she's experiencing something, that she senses the suffering from this presence, trying to get them to listen. They're not really listening to her. They don't believe her, they don't get it. So yeah, I thought it was a really great tone setter for the rest of the film and what it tries to explore.

SPEAKER_05 58:25

I gotta talk about the other big dynamic here in terms of my favorite scene, and that's the father and daughter conversations that we get. Those were fantastic. This dad was really struggling to figure out what he was supposed to do, and this is someone who's kind of yielded control of everything to his wife, and then obviously to his kids. These kids run all over this dad. And when he is sitting there providing the snark to his son cursing while he's trying to tell the story, you could just feel the disappointment within him, and you could feel that he had given up on being able to really try to steer him in a different direction. I think that was the point where I was just like, Oh, this dude's out, like there's no way in six months he's still gonna be in this house. And it just hit so differently. And I think that scene was pretty heavy because one, it makes you hate Tyler because he's doing something so horrible, but and then two, it just really lets you see the four of them together dealing with you know the person that their son is.

SPEAKER_01 59:20

Yeah, see, that was actually my second favorite scene in this movie. A, yes, that moment is filled with such this like visceral detest for him. I mean, my thoughts are like, how the fuck is this guy bragging to his mom about pranking a girl? And she's maybe not okay with it, but she just looks over it anyway. It's it's as if you could see written and screaming, alerting in her brain, boys will be boys, and it's okay because he's my boy. I fucking hated that. But that was the good kind of hate that you get from this movie that gives you a fucking reaction. And when we finally get Chris standing up to Tyler and checking him and acknowledging, and even when Chloe's bringing up, like, how did you have the picture? When Tyler actually gets called out on his shit, I love that. But then when we finally get, you know, the entity or presence trashing Tyler's room, and then they all huddle outside for a family meeting. That is a moment that I feel like we don't see enough in haunted house in the films. Usually it's like one or two people reacting to it before the whole family's just trying to get out and at the end, exception there being like the conjuring. But when we have this whole family meeting and they're like, How the fuck do we go back in there? It felt very real, very relatable.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:40

That haunting is so perfect because if you're trying to figure out who this ghost is, when this happens, you're almost guaranteed to think it has to be one of her two friends. Right. This has got to be someone who's like, what a piece of crap guy her brother is. I'm gonna go take it out on all of his stuff, which is useful later because when the reveal happens, you're like, oh, I really didn't think, but it also makes so much sense now. But wow, they caught me off guard. Well done. That was such a good choice there because you can tell now, oh, he has guilt and like he can't deal with that guilt in that moment and has to go take it out on his old stuff. And that was great, like you mentioned the coming together of them because everything up into the point, like, nah, none of that's important in that moment. If that happens in your house and you watch it happen or you see the after effect, that is the only thing you're gonna talk about at the at that point.

SPEAKER_07 1:01:29

Yeah, for sure. On a lighter note, though, do any of you feel like there was a moment or two here where we were in an R. Kelly trapped in a closet moment?

SPEAKER_03 1:01:39

Most certainly. Most certainly.

SPEAKER_07 1:01:41

Yeah, that's what it really felt like as we were kind of descending into the closet while some fucking shit was getting freaky in the bed, you know?

SPEAKER_01 1:01:47

Listen up. Yeah, there's waiting for some gay metaphors here.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:51

Plenty of time in the closet. Plenty of time. Long overdue to come out. It was a lot. I somehow thought you were gonna bring up Julia Fox. Why did I think that? I thought she was gonna be in the film way more than she was. That was another missed opportunity, okay? I love that queen. She was hilarious. Even in a little bit, in the frantic real estate agent-ness of her, we needed more.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:12

I do want to go back to the sus relationship between the mom and the son, though, because he definitely seems like he broke both arms at some point in his life. It's an internet reference.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:20

Oh no.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:21

Sorry for those who don't understand. Don't look it up. Gross. Yeah, but that's what we remember in that moment. I was like, this is about to cross a line. I don't know what's happening, but I can tell this is very uncomfortable as a viewer. And even the kid is like, this feels wrong. So that was weird.

SPEAKER_07 1:02:37

It was wrong. It was a little bit heavy. It was a little bit too much. There was petting. There was petting for sure.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:43

It was definitely weird. There's so much that I wish I could say, but this is an episode that will live on the internet for the rest of time. So I will not. But I will take this time to elaborate a little bit more on Rebecca, famed Rebecca, because she was in a laundry scheme. What was that? You see, with all the things that were going on, okay, and her shadiness and her illegal activity, that was a moment that I felt like we could have used just a few more minutes for me to understand what the fuck it was that she was doing.

SPEAKER_07 1:03:11

That's what I'm saying. Like, why make that this big point if we don't really explore it? Is it because we didn't really have much else going on? You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01 1:03:21

See, I felt like a gossipy curiosity to understand what was happening, but I don't feel like I really needed it. I feel like this movie spent time on what it needed to spend time on and did just enough to show she's not a great person. She is incredibly short.

SPEAKER_07 1:03:38

I guess it's part of the character development, but they brought it up enough times, including the husband calling afterwards. Obviously, we brought that up where he's like asking for legal advice and kind of shit like that. Like they spent a lot of time around it. And I get that's probably like a significant event in their relationship, and that's how they're maybe depicting these characters and trying to make you feel one way or another. But I don't know. To me, it was a lot of emphasis without a lot of explanation.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:05

Yeah, my bigger question than what is her illegal activity was what kind of fucking trauma has she been through and who hurt her to make her treat her daughter like such shit?

SPEAKER_05 1:04:16

Her mom did. That was pretty obvious. She is copying her mother.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:20

That was generational trauma at its finest. At its finest. I can't even put into the best words how fucked up of a person you must be to treat your daughter who has lost her best friend and another friend of hers to what everyone else is saying is drug abuse, but she feels is a little bit more. And it's kind of painted in a way where it's so superficial, like she was an addict, whatever. That is so fucked up. This is a teenager that has passed away. Two teenagers that have passed away. Your daughter was close friends, best friends with one of them. And it seems like it also happened very recently. I think they mentioned like a few months, maybe a year. Like, what? It's one of those situations where I can't believe I'm gonna say this, but it reminds me of it's a wonderful knife, where it's been a year, folks. The trauma is still very much alive and well. It's it festers and it grows for a long ass while. So when you're a parent and you don't even take the opportunity to feel that or take the weight, Tyler is one thing. Okay, teenage boys are abysmal, they're something else. And so fine, I can give him some credit in terms of him not having the emotional intelligence that he probably should, but you're a grown-ass woman, please.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:40

Boys will be boys.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:41

But to her point, right, that's how she acts, is that boys will be boys. And so that's kind of like I know that what they're painting Tyler to be like is reflective of that kind of demographic and and that kind of behavior. I would expect more from a mom. So I will give it credit that they dare to provide different perspectives of these. Relationships, right? So you mentioned earlier we typically see shitty dads in horror. And so I liked that we actually got a dad that gave a damn and was trying his best.

SPEAKER_07 1:06:11

It is refreshing sometimes for sure to see that kind of stuff. I think it's interesting also just to touch one last bit on Tyler. I do think Tyler's character plays an interesting role as like the protagonist slash red herring slash like not yeah, not the antagonist, obviously that's Ryan, but like the protagonist and the red herring throughout the entire movie, which is kind of interesting. But it is always good to see like not the usual horror tropes of like the shitty dad not believing shit and whatnot, right? And it's a different take on, you know, at first no one believes there's an entity, and then they all experience it, and then they're all kind of together on the fact that there is some kind of entity. But yeah, I mean, the dad really felt like you know, Chris Sullivan or whatever. I mean, he plays almost the same character in This As Us, I feel like. I feel like he's a very heartfelt good guy.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:05

Does he? Okay. I gotta watch that show. He seems like such a great actor.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:09

I mean, he named it. He's a great actor. No, he's good, yeah. He was great. Now, what we've called him all kinds of names at this point in terms of what he looks like, but Ryan.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:18

Fuck boy Ryan.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:20

Fuck boy Ryan. Fuck boy Ryan. He really is the worst part of the movie for several reasons. One being, my boy, you talk hella fast, okay? He was saying all kinds of things in that whole monologue and and speech that he was giving.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:35

He talks so fast and talks so slow and mumbles at the same fucking time. It's like, what are you doing, dude? Did you think you showed up to a fucking mumble core movie?

SPEAKER_03 1:07:44

Absolutely. He did. He got the wrong genre. He definitely did. I was really trying to buy into the whole serial killer vibe that he was giving, but it didn't quite make sense. It didn't quite make sense. And here's what I will say, Chloe, I feel for you, girl. I know that you are in the trenches and you want some type of validation and affection of some kind to feel something, and I understand that. But when my man goes on a whole speech about how he's never been able to make his own choices and he wants control because of his own mommy issues, and then he says, But don't worry, you make all the choices. This is you. That's where you should throw him out the window right then and there.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:28

But she's seeing her dad.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:30

Oh, a reflection of her father. In that, in in the way that he prepared that speech, to an extent, I feel like if she had really a real strong relationship with her mom, perhaps, or I don't even know. What could we have given my queen? Because yes, a passive kind of man that reflects her father, sure. But he was giving a tone that was giving serial killer.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:57

I don't know. I didn't I didn't get serial killer from him, which is why I didn't care for his character. I understand that he's a fucking serial killer, but what I'm saying is he did not execute his character, his performance, it gave and read more as fuck boy, who would drug your drinks and have their way with you. Still a vile, disgusting fucking human being, but for me, he just lacked the credibility, I think. Oh, and that's such a fucked up thing to say, right? He he didn't seem like he could really be that thoughtful and execute well enough. Like I didn't buy him the actor in this role. And that's what really fucking took me out of this, because again, for as great as Chloe's monologue was, his monologue, all of them, fucking terrible. And even with how he's trying to very insidiously reflect and really play on what she sees. Obviously, she's so close to her dad. And you would imagine we don't see these conversations happen, but you have to imagine she has opened up to him to some measure of her relationship with her mom and her relationship with her dad. By him saying you can make all the choices, it's your choice, it's your your control. She's looking at the one person in her life who does love her unconditionally and treats her so well, and he's reflecting that back to her. It's it's fucked up.

SPEAKER_07 1:10:22

Yeah. I didn't really buy into him until the moment with Chloe when he's actually doing the deed. You know what I mean? Like, I I feel like at leading up throughout the whole movie, I did get more of that fuckboy energy, like he's kind of a douchebag. Something didn't sit right in some moments for sure, but I wasn't getting serial killer until he completely snapped and he was actually putting like the plastic wrap or the cellophane like over her mouth and that whole fucking that whole system.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:53

Yeah, I would have bought more him being a serial killer via drugging these women and they are then killed by an overdose legitimately instead of the a uh the added layer of the cellophane. It seemed too smart for him.

SPEAKER_05 1:11:08

It it was strange, it didn't really match up too well, and I think that was an uncomfortable moment because it feels wrong, because it doesn't feel like it matches the characters that we've been shown up until then, but there was a really big uncomfortable moment, or at least a series of them, and that was when he and Chloe were getting intimate and getting real close, and I feel like we lingered in those moments way too up close for way too long. Didn't need to be in the mix like that, I'll say. And so it was, you know, discomfort through tension, that's okay. Discomfort through getting teenagers on a bed together, and then we're like right up in their faces. Nah, maybe pause on that. We don't need all that. That being said, I think this is a film that lends itself to a rewatch, especially a rewatch at home. It's good in a theater. I watched it in a regular theater, I didn't see it in Dolby or anything cool like that. But I think when you can spend more time on it and hit pause and focus on details, I think you can probably squeeze a lot out of it.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:00

Yeah, absolutely. I, of course, being the AMC Stubbs fanatic that I am, saw it in Dolby, which was incredible. That sound design was hidden, but I'm really looking forward to re-watching this film because I do think it has some high rewatch value, especially with its ending. And I mean, it's 80 odd minutes or so, like to Sean's point, sure, it could feel like an eternity, but to me, it felt like a quick crazy ass roller coaster. So I'd definitely throw it on and watch it again.

SPEAKER_07 1:12:29

I mean, yeah, here's the thing. I like the story that it's trying to give. It's not that it's a bad story, but I just don't think that I'm probably gonna watch this one again. Like, I really don't have a desire to see this one again. I get the the what they gave, and I'm grateful for some moments in the film, but overall, to me, I don't feel like there's a ton of rewatch value here. I don't think there's a lot that you can really uncover that you didn't get the first time. I'm honestly good. It's a one and done for me.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:57

Yeah, I mentioned earlier that I'd be interested in watching this movie knowing what it is versus walking into it expecting it to be a horror movie. But I think the longer this is sank in and as we've discussed these characters, the more I realize, like, yeah, I'm open to it, but when would I? And I I can't imagine that I would unless I'm sitting down to watch it with someone who has genuinely have this burning desire to. I think otherwise, I'll pass. But with that, there you have it, folks. Presence has earned two hacks and two slashes. Now, while we've certainly had a robust discussion here, the conversation about this movie doesn't end here by any means.

SPEAKER_07 1:13:36

That's right. Who knew ghosts could travel through time? If you want to find out how you can supernaturally travel through time and go further than this episode, consider supporting the show. You can visit patreon.com/slash hackerslash where you can enjoy even more of the show, including bonus content with early access, extended episodes with our B-sides, movie nominations, and live shows.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:57

If you felt a strong presence while listening that's made you feel nothing but enjoyment, leave us a five star review wherever you get your podcasts. This helps us continue to deliver great content for all you horror fiends out there.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:08

We'll see you next time, folks, and remember, it's life.

SPEAKER_07 1:14:11

The stupid ones tend to last forever.