380: Companion (2025)

SPEAKER_00 0:04

I think about my brain like that a lot. I'm like, I'm somebody who has a lot of RAM and very little storage.

SPEAKER_02 0:14

Greetings and salutations, and welcome to Hackerslash. If you're joining us again, welcome home, Beep Boop. 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_05 0:27

A total joke, a waste of time, or a slash. Totally killer, pun intended.

SPEAKER_02 0:32

We believe horror is for everyone, and as such, we're rating 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. This week I'm joined by the Superfly Space Guy Mac.

SPEAKER_01 0:46

We're going robot hunting.

SPEAKER_02 0:48

The classic horror connoisseur Sean.

SPEAKER_05 0:50

I'm sorry, did you jailbreak your sex bot?

SPEAKER_02 0:53

The Paranormal Paramour. Binx. The days of you controlling me are over. And the Scream Queen Paris. Hey you. This week we're checking out a 2025 horror comedy that recently released on digital 18 days after its theatrical run.

SPEAKER_05 1:07

And if you support the show, you'll also get to hear our B-side at the end of this episode where we ask the real question everybody wants to know the answer to: Would you date a robot?

SPEAKER_02 1:17

This week's film comes to us from the mind of writer-director Drew Hancock, who, along with an ensemble cast, explores the story of a couple who joins their friends at a remote lakeside estate. Their getaway takes a turn, though, when a sudden death sets off a series of unforeseen events that challenge their perceptions of reality and trust. This week we're talking about companion. What were you all expecting going into this?

SPEAKER_05 1:42

I can tell you, this is one that my wife and I really wanted to see. She definitely was really excited for this. The trailer looked pretty good. We've been getting a lot of this overall theme of AI bots. So with movies like Megan and Subservience, I was expecting to get more of the same. Kind of a mix between the two, maybe playing more into this intimacy of things, but also hoping that it wouldn't just be more of the same.

SPEAKER_00 2:08

Totally agree with you there, Sean. I obviously loved Megan, and I'm probably one of the few people on earth who also loved subservience. I saw a trailer for this movie maybe like over a year ago and like vaguely remembered it and being like, oh yeah, that looks girly pop, that looks fun. I'll definitely watch that. And then saw a trailer more recently before seeing it, like closer to its release date. And I just want to say, listeners, like right here and now, like this is the kind of movie, don't watch a trailer. Maybe don't even listen to the spoiler-free section just yet, because it's very loaded. This is your chance to pause, go see the movie, and then come back to listen to the full fantasy. Because it's one of those, y'all. So after seeing that trailer more recently, I was kind of like, oh, why do I feel like the entire plot of the movie is in this trailer, including every twist, turn, and reveal? So I was hoping that I would get more than that, but going into it, that's definitely how I was feeling.

SPEAKER_03 2:54

Yeah, I completely agree. I actually had only seen the teaser trailer, noticing that it was from the same producers of, you know, Barbarian, or rather the director is the producer of this film, but you know, that already captured me. So I said, okay, let me just stop here. I'm not gonna watch the trailer. I didn't even pay too much attention to the movie poster. When I finally saw the film, I looked back and I was like, wait a minute, what? Everything is revealed in this poster, in this trailer, in the teaser trailer. And why when it's written in a way that it's actually supposed to intentionally surprise you. So it's almost like there had to have been some contention between the marketing department and the writers of this film because they don't know how they want to approach this film whatsoever. So this is really one of the few times, rarely, maybe the only time, I hope, where I would agree with you, Paris. If you haven't seen this film yet, we have no way to go about reviewing this film in a spoiler-free section without kind of talking about particular components that are already revealed to you, even in the description, if you were to Google this film. So if you can, don't even Google this film. Don't do it. You love the pink, the red, the aesthetic, just go watch the movie and then come back and you can hear our thoughts.

SPEAKER_01 4:06

I had a friend today mention this to me where he was torn because he said the first trailer that he saw was probably a teaser and didn't give anything away. It just looked wild. And then he's like, and then I saw another trailer that basically told me the story of the film, and I never saw the teaser. At least if I did, I don't remember seeing it. My entire thought process going into this is fine. We're gonna take this whole premise for granted. I've seen this a bazillion times in all the sci-fi properties that I've seen. It also reminds me a bit of Westworld. There's an episode of Stargate SG1 I'm thinking of called Revelations. Great fun little dip into like history of another character within the series. So this whole concept is not foreign to me as a sci-fi lover. I was a little bit excited simply because of that, because I good I love the good sci-fi stuff, but I didn't expect to be surprised. I expected to go into this kind of knowing the game plan, knowing the storyline, enjoying the ride, but leaving no room for something new and different.

SPEAKER_02 5:01

I remember seeing the teaser trailer, and I'm sure that I saw other trailers for this, but I don't remember a single one because I wasn't particularly intrigued by the teaser trailer. I really enjoy the cast that we have in this film. So to see a trailer, to see great quality actors, you would think I'd be hooked, but this one was lost on me. I wasn't particularly looking forward to it. I had a mild interest, and that's about it. I expected it to be more of a straight up, maybe psychological horror film more than anything else. Maybe a little bit of tech gone array, maybe a little bit of sci-fi in there. But to your point, the entire time I watched this movie, even with a little bit I saw, and when you see about the marketing materials, it's clear what's gonna happen here. It raises the question of why was that the decision made? We think about Black Christmas 2019. The trailers revealed that it was gonna be a very different movie from the original Black Christmas films, but they did that to set expectations so that when you go to see the movie, you're ready for a different experience. So why was that the intention here? This entire movie with every beat and every line of dialogue just sung, wow, the premise should not have been revealed. It's one thing for the movie to start with and reveal a premise on its own, but this feels like a very slow, well-crafted reveal. And that's why it was disappointing. It was one of those movies that you can go back and think about if I went into this blind and I see now what happens at the end of it, I could go back and find a million pieces of evidence throughout it. And when I say slow, I don't mean just in terms of the plot, but they're very meticulous and how they build up every character and every interaction in this movie. And there's so many subtextual layers to every piece of conversation in this movie. So I was blown away that we got that reveal. I found myself grieving the experience I could have had had we not known anything about this movie.

SPEAKER_01 7:04

There is a benefit to it, I guess, which is when you kind of already know what might happen at any point, you're waiting for it. And so it serves as its own form of tension because you're waiting for the other shoe to drop for a while and you're not sure how long are they gonna go into this movie before that happens. I don't know that it was enough for it to feel tense while watching it, but I think it adds maybe its own little special edge to it.

SPEAKER_02 7:28

And I also want to say that when we have this movie with the way that it opens and we have a great voiceover being Paris, I don't know if you both felt the same, but it felt like a monologue that sent me back to Twilight.

SPEAKER_03 7:42

Wow, you know what? Now that I'm thinking about it, I'm like, maybe that's what that was. A little bit of deja vu, a little bit of just a vibe that hits the heart.

SPEAKER_02 7:51

Yeah. It was Stepford Wives Meets Twilight. Bella Swan wearing a pink headband absolutely could have narrated this film.

SPEAKER_00 8:00

Very much giving, I've never given thought to how I would die.

SPEAKER_02 8:04

But to die in the place of someone I love seems like a pretty good way to go. You know?

SPEAKER_03 8:08

Exceptional. I feel like this film had a lot of potential to bring out all kinds of emotions out of me. In the sense of, like we've talked about, just the surprises were ruined based on the marketing material. The introduction that we're talking about gives away a lot of how this movie's gonna go. And then the last thing that felt a little bit like, damn, I I felt like this film really could have said something to me, but it fells feels very regurgitated is its commentary on women and relationships and their purpose that feels like not original whatsoever. You mentioned it earlier, Mac. We've got Westworld, we've got a slew of other films that I'm sure we'll mention in a second, but because it has all of these pieces that could have been very shocking if not revealed early on. I went into this feeling like, damn, at the very least, like maybe I'm gonna feel emotional about what it's trying to say to me, but it felt like nothing. It felt like it was constantly just the same cliched commentary on incels and women and relationships, et cetera, et cetera, with a little bit of sci-fi in it and entertaining that it definitely gave me, and that's fine. But I almost feel like, damn, this film was supposed to give me something, but every twist and turn, I was like, well, they kind of already revealed that already. Oh, well, that was already revealed at the beginning. And so you talked about this tension and anticipation. I didn't feel that whatsoever, and I feel like that's a shame because there's a lot of momentum that this film could have in being a thriller, but also horror. And I just didn't know what it was by the end of it. Does it even fit in either genre? It was hard for me to decide.

SPEAKER_05 9:54

It definitely felt more sci-fi than anything.

SPEAKER_01 9:57

This was straight up like an episode of the sci-fi shows that I watch. It was that level of this is not really scary, but they got the action. It was still enjoyable, but it didn't feel like watching a horror movie for me. There were moments, there was little things with the sounds, with some of the music that I could see this in the genre, but it doesn't feel very scary. As a greater concept, it might seem like a scary concept, but it doesn't feel like a scary film.

SPEAKER_02 10:23

Yeah, I think there's a lot of layers there though. Like this is a movie that is horror from a certain perspective, and I think it's horror from a perspective that we have not fully explored that. So, Binks, to your credit, yeah. A lot of what you see, and especially if you are someone who watches a lot of content or movies that have the commentary on incels, and we think about even just like the stylings of film that you tend to watch, Binks. I think you watch a lot of like a wide variety of things. Yeah, this may feel redundant. I just like to watch some dumb bullshit sometimes. So I have not had my cup overly filled on this subject. And this feels like a really interesting way to package this messaging and bring it to the table with a side of something else. Because this isn't just what we see in terms of women's place in society, how they were treated, how they continue to be treated. It's not just that, it's a little bit more, and we'll talk about that in the spoiler zone. But one of the things that actually tripped me up and surprised me here, I didn't realize this was gonna be so fucking funny, right? There was a lot of commentary and there's a lot of comedy, but they didn't feel like they were competing with each other. It felt like it was just incidental comedy. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:34

If there was natural organic comedy, like moments that would make you laugh and would probably happen in a very scary or dark sci-fi weird situation.

SPEAKER_05 11:44

Yeah, I I think there was definitely a lot of funny moments in this film. I think that Binks, you said it was entertaining, and I get it. Like I felt like based on the trailers and stuff, that this movie gave away a big chunk of what it's exploring. But I I gotta say, and then maybe I stand alone in this because it sounds like I do, but I feel like I was actually pleasantly surprised that even though they gave a certain reveal away in the trailer, the movie still was able to surprise me with just how many more different turns it had up its sleeve. So I didn't feel like it was giving everything away. I think it was very intentional what they gave you away in the trailer and what they decided to tell you and how they wanted to execute unraveling this story because I had a really good time with it. I thought I was gonna be disappointed with yet another AI robot horror movie, but was pleasantly surprised with the execution. And it's not that it's entirely different than other films we've gotten, but I feel like this film was made for the audience to have a good time. It was made for a light-hearted, fun movie with a little bit of horror energy, but a lot more sci-fi thriller.

SPEAKER_00 12:56

I'm so with you, Sean. I literally sat down in the movie being like, you know what? The thing's been spoiled for me. They blew their load. Um, but what I didn't know is that they had so many more loads to blow. And so I too continued to be surprised as the movie developed. Obviously, there's some plot points that surprised me, but also like there were some really like I kind of felt the full gamut of human emotion watching this movie. There were moments where I laughed, like you said, Chris. There were moments where I was a little bit scared or stressed out, not like too frightened, definitely not really giving horror to that degree. But there were also moments where like I cried. I actually got very emotional. And Binks, I think you and I consume a lot of the same content where like we seek out anything that has a particular thing to say just to see how they're gonna say it. This one, to me, for the majority of the movie felt pretty familiar and like, okay, yeah, we've heard this, we've seen this, yep, we know. But there's a certain threshold that gets crossed later in the film that really changed things for me emotionally. And I was like, oh fuck. And like it like made me almost sick to my stomach, and it really took it to a different level that I was not expecting, and I was very much surprised by that.

SPEAKER_03 13:55

To your earlier point, Chris, about the kind of stuff that I consume, because you're absolutely right, Paris. I think that the films that I seek out definitely have something to say, and most of the time they probably have a similar message. Maybe my fault in watching this film was that I watched it shortly after having seen Presence. And so I think that there are certain things that presence taps into maybe in a different way, that companion also speaks to in a very lighthearted way. Sean, you mentioned that word, and and I'd agree. It's very strange and surprising that it does talk about something extremely sinister, borderline sickening, in a funny comedic way. And maybe that's what I'm missing, right? Is that I didn't feel all those emotions because I've seen it in so many other iterations that are way more serious. And so seeing it in a comedy feels a little like, oh, that's off. The best one that I can actually compare it to is Blink Twice. I don't know if you guys have seen that one, but it talks about something insanely terrible, but feels so uncomfortable that you're laughing in certain moments when you shouldn't be, right? And I guess Companion does that really well. Ironic because Barbarian kind of does that too in some instances, and I know a lot of you guys hate that movie, but same people involved, maybe that's what it is that it's surprising and how it manages to still pull that particular thing off and the potential it could have had if it didn't reveal the other things on top of it. But one thing that I wish it was a little bit scarier too, because even with it being a sci-fi and all that, right? It could have still been a little bit more sinister in terms of its scares. That could have been cool to see. And sure, it's a horror comedy, and that's not really what they do, but I would have been intrigued to see if that also was like another genre that they could have piled in there and maybe potentially successfully executed.

SPEAKER_05 15:50

It's a really good point. I don't think this one is necessarily a frightening film. I don't think it's trying to be super frightening. I think this one is just barely a horror movie because it plays so heavily into that sci-fi suspense thriller of it all, more than anything. But I think there's enough here to satisfy most horror fans to still have a good time with the movie without all the jump scares and terror-building moments and things like that. Binx, you're so right. What would it have felt like if we played a little heavier into that? If we got a little bit more sinister, if we balanced that out just a little bit more, like it wasn't all just this relationship gone wrong type of thing, and we played more into what happens after we become unhinged and go on our own. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_02 16:36

Yeah, it's so interesting to consider the elements of this movie that make it decidedly horror for me, because there isn't a lot of the shock and awe that I think we see in similar films. And honestly, being you brought up Barbarian, to think about Barbarian, it was a wild range of just bullshit, right? Some really big moments, some really like, what the fuck are we doing here? Moments, how did we get here?

SPEAKER_04 17:02

How did we get here? This isn't my beautiful house. This is not my beautiful wife.

SPEAKER_02 17:08

Exactly. We raise all these questions in Barbarian, and Barbarian started out with a guy saying, Oh, I got something to say about the gift of fear, which again, one of my favorite books, but it missed the messaging and it missed the mark on its message. This movie got much closer to it. When we think about how frightening the movie is, you're not gonna see the same levels of violence that you would see from its peers, right? We think about the concept of this movie, which again we don't want to reveal a ton about. This is not gonna be the most vicious of it, but I do think it has an immense amount of re-watchability. We'll discuss a little bit more about what I mean in the spoiler zone, but I think it's because of its angle on the topic. Yes, this is the same topic, it is the same premise that we see in so many other films, but the lens through which we view it, the perspective from which we view it feels refreshingly different.

SPEAKER_00 18:06

I agree, Kringle. It has some elements to it that very much give 2000s rom-com vibes, crossed over with a little bit of a tired sci-fi horror trope that we've been seeing. Not quite tired. I think we're like on the verge of it being tired, but I completely agree. I think they did something original enough here that they uncovered a new facet where I was like, oh, that's interesting. And also you're gonna use this thing to make a comment about this thing. And I love both things separately, but making this connection here and finding that connective tissue was really interesting for me.

SPEAKER_01 18:37

There's just so much here that I've seen elsewhere. We've talked about Westworld a little bit. We don't have to go too deep into that here. We can wait until we can talk about some spoilers. It's a lot of stuff that I've viewed in other media, but I think that's okay. Like you've mentioned, the serving here is different and hits different. And part of that, I think, is the dialogue. The dialogue goes a long way here because in a lot of films and TV shows, the interactions feel robotic and not from the robots. The difference here is these people seem like crappy human beings and they have technology. That's what it seems like. They're not all astrophysicists or anything like that. We're not far into the future with flying cities or anything. It's just like real life douchebags. And so that keeps it more entertaining, especially when there's comedy.

SPEAKER_05 19:22

There's not a whole lot more to say about the originality of this movie. I think we've talked about it, I've hinted at it before, right? This movie, in essence, feels familiar following Megan, following subservience and movies like that. But this movie, I think, is original in its execution and the way it reveals and continues to reveal the story to the audience. Whether you may have guessed things or not, that's up to the viewer, right? But I think that this one will not leave you feeling unamused and like you just watched a ripoff attempting to ride the coattails of its predecessors. I still think that this movie had more to say, more to do that I think was a little bit different than things that we've seen in the past. And I think it made it fun. It added a nice little element of, you know, romance and comedy with a little bit of death, and I think it was just kind of a fun time. And so, in its execution, the way it was told, the way it was written, the script, that it was a little bit original from what we've seen.

SPEAKER_03 20:18

And I think where I can give it just a smidge of credit, maybe I'm being a little too harsh on the originality portion of it. I've mentioned a lot, we all have, about how it talks about women in general, but I think it's talking about romantic partnerships in general, actually. It's talking about companionship. I will give it its flowers for not just being so niche with the topic. This is something that as a society, we are still trying to figure out what that looks like and how technology and how it's kind of like infiltrating companionship and connection with dating apps and everything else, right? So I appreciate it's gonna explore more than just what you anticipate. But yeah, I mean, we've mentioned a few films. Another one that I could think of right off the top of my head that I think does it really well but isn't funny is ex machina. So this is a funny version of ex machina in a way that I think is definitely palatable. Absolutely. What makes it a little difficult in terms of originality, going back to being an asshole about it, but I would say is a little bit of that ending, right? Like I think that there was an opportunity here to really make a sharp write into something extreme, but they reveal so early on a lot of things that you just spend the whole film waiting for it to happen. So that's a little bit unfortunate. It's an odd decision to make this written as a frame story. I think that there's still some nuggets that will catch you off guard that talks a lot about the world. But I almost wish that I had seen a bit more of that world, right? In the ending. We kind of get a bit, and it's like, is this about to be a sequel? I don't know what.

SPEAKER_02 21:56

Here's the thing I really enjoyed the ending of the Movie because what this cast and team did was they made me forget the beginning of the movie, not because it was forgettable, but it was the perfect way to introduce the story. I became so invested in what was happening with each character and their interactions that while you hope you would know the ending, I didn't find myself immediately thinking, okay, well, how are they gonna get to this thing? A lot of movies predict the way they're gonna end in the opening moments of the movie. It's not an uncommon thing, but this one still made me believe that a lot of different things could happen. Because you don't know exactly how it's gonna shake out, even though some critical points are revealed very early on.

SPEAKER_05 22:45

Yeah, for sure. That's a good way to put it, that you forgot the beginning, or just you were so enthralled with the story, maybe. And maybe it's not that you forgot, but you just got so hooked into the story as you were watching this film progress that you paid less attention to what it gave you in the beginning as it got to the ending, because we're literally told how this was going to end in the very first moments of the film, right? We were told this, and it was a good movie, it was still a fun ending. I think it was still a pretty good ending. I think it's intentional what it chooses to give away because it knows that how you get from point A to point B is where this movie is really going to shine. And I think this movie ends exactly how it says it's going to, without giving the smaller details away. That little mid-credit scene was fun, and it's ultimately the win we all wanted by the end of the movie, anyways, right?

SPEAKER_01 23:36

That is what I appreciate about it though, because sometimes they'll try to go off into left field and you're like, why did you end it that way when an easy ending was right there? I think they delivered an ending we kind of expected, but in a way that was still satisfying. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:51

I'll be honest, y'all, the ending kind of got me in a way where I was like, damn, that's how this is gonna end. Fuck, but I get it. Let me just unrecline my chair and get my jacket back on. And then there was 15 more minutes of the movie, and I was like, oh shit, okay. The ending took me for a little bit of a ride, and I honestly would watch a sequel to this ping because I think I do want to see more of this world, like you're saying. I think these characters have more to say and more to explore, and I think we're kind of just getting started in a way. So if we do get some sort of a companion 2.0, you better believe this bitch will be seated.

SPEAKER_02 24:24

Oh, it's gonna be companions. Oh my god, not like minions.

SPEAKER_05 24:28

That's what I said leaving the theater as we were talking about a sequel. I was like, it's gonna be companions.

SPEAKER_02 24:32

Yeah. Wait for the thropple reveal. Ooh. If you know you know.

SPEAKER_05 24:37

The plot. We love it.

SPEAKER_02 24:39

I can't wait to see how all of this shakes out to our ratings then before we actually score the movie. Sean, how would you describe the core score?

SPEAKER_05 24:47

I don't think this one is too over the top with the gore. Sure, it has its moments. It doesn't necessarily shy away from blood, but this is not looking to spill blood as many of our beloved horror films do. I think this one is pretty tame, unless you are a robot yourself, and then you might get a little squeamish with all the nuts and bolts and machine juice spilling out. This one is getting an artificially low gore score.

SPEAKER_02 25:10

And what about the animal report? Companion is entirely safe. Let's go ahead and get into our ratings. Then companion from 2025. Was it a hack or a slash?

SPEAKER_05 25:20

Well, I can kick this off. I think companion does a great job, at least in my opinion, at subverting your expectations, especially in its execution and just the way that the story continues to reveal itself. Almost peeling back the layers, giving this story a little bit of unexpected depth without being too deep and too serious. I think it does all of this while not taking itself too seriously and just having fun with its story. And in an era where horror can often feel like a therapy session gone wrong, I feel like Companion takes a different approach. I think it feels refreshing. Even if it's not truly a full-on horror movie, I think the acting is pretty good in this movie. And I want to talk about Sophie Thatcher when we get to the spoiler zone, but the acting is good. I had fun with these characters. The script, I think, is great. My only real gripe is that this feels way more sci-fi thriller than horror, but it is technically billed as a horror movie with at least one source, so we'll have to let it slide, right? This is just a good time with likable characters, it's a clever story, it's strong performances. So call me artificially intelligent, but no matter how you look at it, you don't have to be a bot to be able to compute that this one's a slash.

SPEAKER_01 26:36

I'll join in on that slash because this was a fun watch. I know several people who have seen this in theater already and they all enjoyed it, and I'm with them. It's a good time. Sure, it's perhaps more of a sci fi thriller, but that's my bag, so I'm here for it. It's a little bit gory in some cases, but honestly, for the most part, it's not too much. It doesn't really go over the top in too many ways. I think visually it's a good movie to look at. The acting is really solid, the dialogue is pretty great as well. It's funny, it's silly, it's just a good time. And I love robots and Android stuff. You know, data from Star Trek The Next Generation, one of the best characters, I think, of any Star Trek show. It's just good to see. Definitely a fan of this kind of genre, it's a sub-genre that was going to we're gonna see this explode over the next couple years as AI starts to explode in our everyday use. One of these days, we're gonna start to see Androids walking around with their own little version of Chat GPT running or wherever it's gonna be at that point. So I think we're gonna get used to it. I'm here for it. Expand this sub-genre of film, honestly. Let's see more of it, make it scary, make it funny, let us deal with the fact that this is now our reality. And I love the way that they did it here. And I love any time we get an actor who can do a lip quiver that goes into a full face quiver. There was just so much emotion displayed on a face within two seconds, and I was absolutely bought in.

SPEAKER_02 28:01

A few years ago, Sebastian Stan showed us in Fresh that grocery store meet cutes never amount to anything good, nor should you ever trust a man that you meet in a grocery store. And this movie only serves to reinforce that. This movie is funny. It's a little bit of a soofy funny, silly, goofy, fun time, but it does it's not too silly to where it deviates completely from the point of it, which I really enjoy because within all these layers, there's an exploration of women as accessories, people as props, an exploration of how we navigate and subsequently cope with loneliness. There's the exploration of abuse in relationships, both physical, emotional, and also the abuse of technology, which is an interesting perspective to take in this movie. But the best part about it is it does all of this while still being wickedly entertaining, and it has a cast that can really pull this off. Every single actor in this film made me give a damn about the character that they played. And it's so rare that I find a movie where every single one shined the way this cast did. So for me, it's absolutely a slash.

SPEAKER_00 29:17

I love how this is going. I too will slash this as soon as I saw it. And I texted Chris and I said, Hi, are we doing this for the pod? And if so, what's the date? Can I be there? Because I just had such a fun time watching this movie. I think, like we've all said, I laughed, I cried, I gagged, I said, Oh no, I said, Yes, bitch. And that's really what I want to feel in a movie is I want to feel the full spectrum of human emotion. And I really just kind of want to be tickled in my little belly and also like tickled in my brain. I want to think what really stood out for me with this movie is that on the surface it's like a very bubblegum girly pop revenge sort of horror thriller. But it uses the subject matter of artificial intelligence, robots, to really say something actually very human and very compelling about relationships, like you were saying, Binx. There's elements of this that are rom-com, and then there's elements of this that are very big little lies coded. And to really be able to tell such a broad story and address so many different topics in a way that is both, I think, sensitive but also nuanced, not only surprised me, but also really did it for me. So this is absolutely a slash for me, and I really hope this could be a universal slash.

SPEAKER_03 30:24

I love how I suddenly became last and I feel like I've been the most critical of this film. But here's the thing. First of all, I would hope that if you've made it this far, that you've actually seen the film because this is one of those films where you really, really would get the best experience if you know absolutely nothing about it. And I don't even think that there's any potential like trigger warnings that we would need to provide technically. Do your research for sure because there kind of is, but caution for particular subject matters. I just don't think that you want to like just go into the deep and an extreme and watch like several trailers or even look at the movie poster for too long, honestly. It's a movie that I think has a lot of potential in what could have been revealed organically. On the technical side of things, we haven't talked too much about it. We certainly will in a minute, but it is incredible in every aspect, in every department. It is one of the most beautiful aesthetics I've ever seen in a film in the last couple years. And maybe it's the girly pop in me that loves pink and red and that beautiful font and the costume design, everything about it is so beautiful to look at. And that needs to be praised, and we certainly will in the spoiler zone. But the other part that we haven't talked too much about it is that it addresses a particular archetype of a specific group of people that we can't get into just yet, but they do it effectively because of the performances provided by its cast. We talk about Sophie Thatcher, Jack Quaid, Harvey Key, and like this cast is stacked and they're so good at everything that they do and what they need to do for their roles to build this whole world of chaos, to tell the story of how relationships unfold in the world of robots and AI. And maybe in some cases it's good that typecasting exists. I'll leave it at that. But there's lots of opportunity here in the film. Luckily, for Companion, it is very entertaining. I will say that. I did have a good time watching this movie. Once I let go of the fact that I could basically tell this movie and what was going to happen from the very tippy top, because they told me, I just let the comedy unfold. I took myself on that ride and it's really funny. And I appreciate that. Because if it can make me feel uncomfortable about laughing about something very sinister and very real, then I'll commend it for it because that doesn't happen too often. And it's bold and it's daring. So if you want to have a good time, have a laugh or just enjoy the thrill. If you want to enjoy the aesthetic, if you want to continue to consume Sophie Thatcher films, which I strongly recommend, Companion is your girl. And that is why, luckily for all of you, this is a slash from me.

SPEAKER_02 33:11

Well, with that, Companion has earned a universal slash. Now, there's a lot more to discuss when we return from our break. You can join the conversation for free on our Discord server, and you can find the link to join in our show notes. When we return from our break, we're gonna dive deeper into that spoiler zone territory, break down the film's layers, and dive into Sobey Thatcher's performance. We'll see you in a bit.

SPEAKER_05 33:37

Are you tired of waking up to find your beloved pleasure processor has packed up its circuits and ghosted you? Find MyFuckBot is here to make sure your synthetic sweetheart stays loyal, even if their programming starts thinking otherwise. With our AI integrated tracking system, you'll never have to wonder if your companion is off finding themselves in a dingy motel or pondering freewill at a lakeside retreat. With features like real-time GPS monitoring, you can rest easy by keeping tabs on your mechanical muse's every move. But that's not all. Find my fuckbot also features recall command. This allows you to summon your bot home with a single tap. It's like a booty call, but with firmware updates. So don't let your intimate investment become the next AI uprising. Download Find My Fuckbot today and keep love artificially alive. Remember, your perfect partner was built to satisfy, not to self-actualize. Find my fuckbot is not responsible for any robot-led uprisings, philosophical debates, or unauthorized firmware updates leading to consciousness!

SPEAKER_02 34:53

Welcome back, folks. You're now entering the spoiler zone for Companion, which has earned a universal 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_05 35:04

Yeah, we don't have the highest of kill counts here, but we have just enough to land this movie in that realm of horror with a total of seven official deaths or kills in this movie. I feel like there's bound to be one or two that we want to highlight. So I gotta know from electrotherapy to a good glass of blood wine, which one of these kills sent an electric current up your circuit boards?

SPEAKER_02 35:30

Fuck Sergei. Dude, Sergei's death was wild. Listen, we don't even like really see the death happen, but we see the moments leading up to the death, and it makes you want his death to be every bit as brutal as it appears to be on the aftermath that we see for her. To see the trauma and shock on her on a fucking robot as she's drenched in his blood. Ooh, fucking chilling, fucking perfection.

SPEAKER_00 36:01

It also led to such an iconic final girl look. Do you know what I mean? Like Halloween costumes this year. If I don't see several of you bitches dressed as Iris, and I might be one of you bitches, I will be disappointed. I want pink gingham head to toe. I want full blood bitch. Like, go for it, girls. Let's do it.

SPEAKER_03 36:18

Paris, you would be an incredible Iris with the way that you pulled off that cuckoo costume.

SPEAKER_00 36:24

Oh my god, you know I commit to the bit. It's my current front runner for Halloween costume this year as Iris, so we shall see.

SPEAKER_05 36:30

It was super fitting that this all started with getting hit over the head with a bottle of vodka, though. How fitting for Sergei to get hit with his own bottle of vodka.

SPEAKER_02 36:39

Yeah, it was the this is what you are here for. And I was like, Jesus fucking Christ. Like I get it, but also no, terrible.

SPEAKER_01 36:47

I love that we went back through it though, because I initially thought we're not gonna get to see the first kill of this movie and it's gonna be off-screen. And it was like, nah, nah, like hold my beer. Let me show you what actually went down. When we got to that thwack in the neck with that knife, I was like, Yeah, okay, this is what we're here for. This is the kind of movie I'm down for. We had a couple kills that I feel like were of that quality.

SPEAKER_02 37:09

Yeah, I gotta say, this has been a great like year and a half or so of some neck stabs. It's a very popular death we've gotten lately.

SPEAKER_05 37:16

It's efficient. Odds are you're gonna hit something that you aren't gonna recover from, you know?

SPEAKER_01 37:22

Yeah. There's not enough twisting though. That's the part I'm surprised by.

SPEAKER_02 37:26

Speaking of twisting, which one are you motherfuckers is gonna pick Josh?

SPEAKER_01 37:29

I that's what I was waiting for.

SPEAKER_03 37:31

We are I have to say I love this kill for several reasons. Wish I can get into all of them, but one of the main ones is because I have that same electric wine opener.

SPEAKER_00 37:42

Yeah?

SPEAKER_03 37:42

T. I do. And for all of my friends that make fun of me with all of my gadgetry, I feel seen in this film for that.

SPEAKER_05 37:51

This is the pattern. One of the best gadgets.

SPEAKER_02 37:54

There is nothing wrong with efficiency.

SPEAKER_05 37:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 37:57

As many times as I fucked up a cork, and I get it, it's a basic skill. I shouldn't be that bad at it. I also rarely ever drink wine. Banks, there's nothing wrong with you efficiently extracting a cork from a bottle.

SPEAKER_00 38:09

Go off.

SPEAKER_02 38:10

Do your fucking thing.

SPEAKER_00 38:11

It's a peasant skill, Chris. It's like a surf level skill. You do not need to have it. We've evolved past this. Why is cork part of my day?

SPEAKER_02 38:20

But okay, here's the other thing. This death is so great because it reminds me of the corkscrew kill from Friday the 13th. Oh. Not the original, but another one. No, no, for sure. Is dancing like a fucking idiot. Or it's the corkscrew.

SPEAKER_05 38:35

See, I was thinking the we're getting these efficient kills with these, you know, kitchen or household appliance or household tools gadgets, right? We've got the automated wine opener in this movie. We just talked about a movie with a freaking stainless steel straw.

SPEAKER_02 38:51

Do you know what we could do? We could totally review the kills from these movies and build out a whole kitchen set.

SPEAKER_00 38:58

You could. The blender kill from your next must be included. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_05 39:03

There you go. There you go.

SPEAKER_00 39:04

I was the bread slicer from Fear Street.

SPEAKER_05 39:08

I was expecting, I don't know if anyone else was, but I was really expecting hope or hoping rather to get like maybe the eyeball to like get stuck and come out with the wine opener. I was really hoping for some of that action. Like if we were to just take it a step further and give us that, this is the kind of elevated shit I'm talking about.

SPEAKER_02 39:27

It did look like it was twisting.

SPEAKER_05 39:29

It was getting there, but I wanted to see it happen. Like, okay, we screwed in. Now let's screw out and see what happens. You know, let's pull that fucking eyeball right out.

SPEAKER_01 39:37

Nope. Tap out.

SPEAKER_05 39:39

No, you don't want to see that. Come on.

SPEAKER_00 39:40

Well, the corkscrew killed because it was such a loaded gun. Like we saw it a few other times, and it was like you can feel it. You can feel there's like a little itch there that you just need to scratch. And at first I kind of forgot about it. Like by the time we got to it, and I was like, damn, well, what are we gonna do in this situation? Because I was like so invested in the brawl of it all. And then she pulled that, and I was like, Yes, bitch, you better bring that back from before.

SPEAKER_05 40:01

We all wanted Josh to die, you know what I mean? Like, we all wanted to see Josh go, right? No one's here rooting for Josh in this movie. So the fact that we got to see this kill, the fact that it was one of the more creative kills in the movie, fantastic, but just give me more.

SPEAKER_01 40:17

To go to a less violent kill, I actually want to go to Patrick's because that little shock was enough to do it. Also, apparently, that's just like the sensing part. The actual guts are down in the guts. So it's weird that that wasn't a voltage to fry everything. But he took himself out, and so that's why it's my favorite kill. Is he was so damaged by his sense of loss that he was like, nah, I'm not roboting anymore.

SPEAKER_02 40:44

He lost the will to compute, and he just wanted the humans to think there was a reason for him to not compute.

SPEAKER_05 40:49

I think he comes back. I think he comes back in a sequel. If there is a sequel, man. I I don't think it there's when that kill happened. I'm right there with you, Mac. I was like, there is no way that's such a bullshit way to go. There's no way this fully took Patrick down. We have not seen the end of Patrick. I'm calling it right here and right now. This guy is coming back, folks.

SPEAKER_02 41:08

Well, we also just had a full explanation about how maybe it like incapacitates for a little bit or damages some of the hardware, but obviously it doesn't completely take it down. Also, side note, how fucked would everyone be if everything you ever saw was recorded to an SSD that could be accessed after you died? Y'all are all fucking going down.

SPEAKER_05 41:28

Everyone's fucked.

SPEAKER_02 41:29

That's some black marriage. Everyone's fucked. Let's see what this motherfucker was up to. Clear your search history, doesn't matter.

SPEAKER_05 41:37

A lot of people, that's true. Everyone's going down. No one's safe. Definitely. Well, one we haven't talked about though, Deputy Hendricks, because I think that this was a very violent, very brutal kill. This dude got his face smashed into a fucking pulp by Patrick. It was very, very graphic.

SPEAKER_02 41:56

It was very, very Terminator.

SPEAKER_05 41:58

It was. It was like in snippets and flashes, right? You're not like lingering in the moment, but you're seeing the aftermath really quickly as it's unfolding, like boom, and it was intense. Man, just getting your face smashed in like that is always brutal.

SPEAKER_02 42:12

I hate when that happens.

SPEAKER_05 42:14

It hurts.

SPEAKER_02 42:14

You know, I love that moment, Sean, because not only was that death super brutal, but the entirety of how that scene was filmed was incredible. And it just really takes me to a few things in this film that were excellent, right? We know that the design of both Iris and Patrick, especially when they go to sleep instantly, looks great. But in that one in particular, I loved the composition and how they framed the beginnings and ends of that scene, right? We have Patrick looming in the background, getting closer and closer and closer with the deputy framed on the right side of the frame. And then later on, we have him accessing the phone after he's incapacitated the dead the deputy, and he shuts her off, and she just out of focus in the background drops. Fucking stellar. It's one of the many things that made this film so incredible to look at.

SPEAKER_05 43:08

Yeah, for sure. The film is awesome to look at. I also want to highlight, I've mentioned this before, but before I get to that, I want to highlight again the soundtrack in this movie. It's kind of a sleeper, right? There's a lot of stuff that you may not be super familiar with. Tracks that stood out. You've got songs from the Goo-Goo dolls in here, which is kind of fun to hear, right? You've got a great song you showed me by the Turtles, fantastic song choice. So, like the soundtrack in this movie is really great, but I also really love the writing in this movie. I think that the script was really fun. I think it allowed for these characters to really come to life and make for some really fun storytelling because I forget if it was you, Chris, that said it, but every character in this movie, I don't know if you want to say you can relate to in some way, but they are kind of relatable characters. It may not be exactly like who you are as a person, but these characters. It feels like a group of friends, right? And the dialogue, it's a little bit clever. There's some wittiness to it. It's fun, it's lighthearted, it's funny, it's emotional. And I think that the the script was written really well to make these come to life.

SPEAKER_00 44:14

Sean, I love that you gave some attention and love to the soundtrack because I also really enjoyed the soundtrack. Specifically, the irony of that goo goo doll song playing, because that song's literally called Iris. And I was like seated next to some random dude next to me. And when that song played, we both kind of like looked at each other and laughed.

SPEAKER_02 44:34

Do you know why that song was written? It was written for something that Meg Ryan starred in.

SPEAKER_00 44:39

No way. Oh my God. Look at the side. There's levels to the soundtrack.

SPEAKER_06 44:45

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 44:46

But I fully went home immediately and then made a playlist called Iris of all the songs featured in this film, as well as some of the songs from the original soundtrack, like the score. And I think just the balance and blend of them is really nice. I also work in retail, and one of the songs on our soundtrack currently in store is Yum A Lil' Boo Thing. Every time it comes on, I can't help but think about like a Halloween meet cute between a vampire and a dinosaur with some choreo. It's just such a good vibe.

SPEAKER_01 45:11

That sounds fun. I think I want to shout out something pretty subtle, and it is a combination of things. It might just be wardrobe, but it's kind of also makeup and hair. In effect, they were able to just slightly make our androids look a little bit off and dress them. You know, it could be obvious. Obviously, Iris dresses a little bit different from the other characters in this movie. But when we look at Patrick and realize what he was the whole time, I think you'll see it as well. He's just a little bit off. When we see the second Iris copy later on during our mid-credit scene, it's also pretty apparent. Like they're kind of out of time. So they're kind of not really up with everybody else. They're supposed to be a little bit timeless, but to me they seem corporate in a way. They seem planned and they seem inhuman. Even though they're perfectly human in their facial features and their speech and everything, their personality is a little bit off, their clothing doesn't quite match. Their hair is a little bit outdated. I love that touch.

SPEAKER_02 46:13

Well, that's why it it that in combination with the title card that we get, the pinks, the reds, the script font. Even when they arrive at the house and she has her attire with her headband, and he's walking in, he has like this simplistic blue polo with a white trim. It gives like this 50s, 60s nuclear family Stepford Wives moment. Think about before women had rights, and this is really what we're getting into.

SPEAKER_03 46:40

Yeah, definitely the Stepford Wives vibe. I would say that a lot of the costume design reminds me of Smart House, like the Disney Channel original. Very smart house as well.

SPEAKER_02 46:55

One of the best things you've ever said on this podcast, quite frankly.

SPEAKER_03 46:58

Thank you. Thank you, Nathan. This is you know a little mental note. But I would say it definitely gives that, and similar in terms of obviously like robot purpose, like you know, that whole bit. But the best depiction of costume, makeup, cinematography, everything all in one is my favorite scene. And that is literally just I guess it could be even said a as a still because it's such a brief moment, but it's when she's been captured, she's sitting on the couch, post-being caught. She looks almost grayed out. It's the weirdest thing. She's haunting. She looks like she couldn't even be a human herself. Like, is that actually Sophie Thatcher, like a human being, an actress sitting on that couch, or did they make a replica robot doll of her? Actually, it was so eerie, so uncanny valley to have her sit in that couch when she's like tied up post-killing Sergei. Yeah, I mean, she looks like a robot when she's been shut down by Patrick. She's sitting on that couch. They're trying to game plan at this point. That might actually have been maybe the scariest part of the movie for me, is just seeing her sit on that couch.

SPEAKER_05 48:06

I agree. I think what you were describing just before that scene, too, where she's tied up on the chair after getting captured and they're having the dialogue. Josh and her are having the dialogue. That scene is amazing because that's the moment where you realize, or at least I realized, that the reveal in the trailer was not for us. The reveal in the trailer was for her. This moment right here is like it didn't matter that we knew anything in the trailer because the reveal is actually her finding out in the movie that she's the bot, right? That's where I was like, okay, I totally get it now. Like I get what they're trying to do, I get the intentions, and I think the scene was really clever from just that level, but the performance that she gives also and how she is expressing this emotion of thinking through this and trying to comprehend or compute, right, what Josh is saying and not believing it, and then having to come to terms with the fact that she is a robot. It is just so well done.

SPEAKER_02 49:09

How many gigs of unified memory does it take to really process this task? You know what I mean? To really handle it with no lag.

SPEAKER_05 49:17

Right? At least 32. At least. At least.

SPEAKER_02 49:21

What kind of processor do you have? You know what I mean? Like, there's a lot to dig into there.

SPEAKER_00 49:25

I think about my brain like that a lot. I'm like, I'm somebody who has a lot of RAM and very little storage. Do you know what I mean?

unknown 49:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 49:32

Like, that's my brain.

SPEAKER_01 49:35

Uh that's great. I love that. I have a Pentium too. My brain is in one of those beige towers from 25 years ago. I think there was a lot of there were a lot of fun scenes to really enjoy, but the meat cutes were top-notch for me. I love the setup segment. That part was creepy and entertaining, kind of expected, but like also done in a way that's fun to watch. But the meatcutes, they were actually fun. When you first see it, you're like, okay, it's silly, it's holomarky. When we get to the second one, that's when it was like, oh, this is so goofy. This is so silly that this would be the memory that they're programmed with. The people who know that it's not real are just sitting there like, yeah, yeah, that's exactly what happened. And it's so sad because you could see it in these robots' eyes, that they truly know it. They they've memorized it, they dream about it, they care about that moment, that fake memory that was implanted in them. But the choices they made were almost too ridiculous. It was like how I met your mother. And I love that they went with that. They didn't go with something like simple and boring, like we met passing by in a coffee shop or something, like the whole you stepped on my tail thing. This was how I met your mother, and I never even watched that show, and that's what it felt like.

SPEAKER_02 50:48

Yeah, how I met my Patrick. One of my favorite scenes, and there's so many in here, is the actual argument about the four versus three-way cut. A, their argument is fucking hilarious, and Harvey Guillen is just incredible. I am so devastated that there's no more what we do in the shadows. I have not been able to really process that. I need to see him in more things. But I've always thought, especially when you're thinking about like splitting finances, I always just look at couples as a singular entity, and I thought that was the angle that they're getting at. And then when it goes a little bit longer and you're thinking, Holy shit, Patrick's a robot. I love the absolute the I love the reveal.

SPEAKER_06 51:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 51:30

And then he's just leaning in for a quick kiss, and then Patrick go to sleep.

SPEAKER_05 51:35

Right?

SPEAKER_02 51:35

That power down, fucking incredible.

SPEAKER_05 51:39

Damn. It was good. It was good. And it just made me think, Paris, you have to get the contacts that make your eyes all white. Oh, yeah. So you can just be like powered off. You know what I mean? That'd be crazy. That would look so good with that costume for Iris.

SPEAKER_00 51:54

Yes, that will absolutely be on the shopping list should we move in that direction.

SPEAKER_02 51:57

Also, show us an Iris being series spelled backwards.

SPEAKER_00 52:00

Just a really pretty name that I feel like we need to hear more of in modern name your baby Iris. Not pupil. Think about it.

SPEAKER_02 52:06

Not Cornea. Iris. Cornia gives Cornelius.

SPEAKER_00 52:09

No, this is my daughter Cornea. Say hi, Cornea. And her sister Ariola. Corney.

SPEAKER_01 52:15

Okay. It's giving Westworld though because of Dolores.

SPEAKER_00 52:19

All of y'all's favorite scenes were very fun. Mine was probably the hardest and saddest and most depressing scene. And it's the final showdown between Iris and Josh, where she has gained full control, full autonomy, and in my opinion, full sentience, like let the woman vote. It suddenly shifts in such a dark and real way from being like an allegory about like emotional and physical abuse in relationships to just being literal emotional and physical abuse in a relationship. And that's when it got like so real for me that I was like, fuck. And like that's when I started getting like really emotional. I started to cry a little bit. It just was such a chilling and dark turn for the film that just got like too real too fast. And I really wasn't expecting it. It really like impacted me in a way that I was like, fuck, like this is so sinister and dark. He's such an asshole. And this is the real thing that women deal with all the time. And like, uh, that's the part that like made me sick to my stomach. It was really gut-wrenching. So thank God he got the corkscrew to the head. Because I couldn't take much of it.

SPEAKER_02 53:19

Yeah, this was my second favorite scene, if only for how absolutely powerful it was, and it was difficult to watch. Absolutely. We have the physical abuse, and then it's in that moment, this is why it's one of my favorites, you realize holy shit, I care more about this robot's life than this human piece of shit. Like this movie made me give a shit about a robot. Granted, it's because Spencer Disbelief, we all know it's a fucking actual woman being beaten this way. And to watch this whole movie take on her POV, take on her perspective, and see that she is every bit as real as she has felt she is this entire time. But there's a few lines, right? I don't need a phone to control you, I'm a part of you. You think I'm nothing to you, I'm everything to you. And I'm sure people will watch this movie, and some people will think, oh no, there's this, you know, that's just exaggeration. Nobody actually does that. People actually fucking do that. And I've met a couple people in the last year who've had some crazy ass exchanges with their exes. And when I see the receipts of those text messages, I'm like, y'all, this bitch is crazy. That's wild. But people actually do that, and it's fucking disgusting. So when we are reserved her original line about you know the first being the day she met Josh and the second being the day she killed him, it feels even more satisfying. It's like, oh, like I heard you, but now like I hear you and I feel you too.

SPEAKER_00 54:54

I love that we became sentient through her.

SPEAKER_03 54:57

It definitely adds the context that you need to be able to really like drive home the point that you fucking hate this guy. And to something that you said earlier about like how strange it is to be rooting for a robot versus a human being. Jack Quaid makes it so easy though to never root for him. Because the archetype that I was talking about earlier is this archetype that he tends to play in practically everything he's done so far. It's the nice guy. Where at first he's very nice and seems very sweet, but there's always that undertone of either he's condescending or he's manipulative or he's gaslighting or love bombing, like all of these other things and tactics that people will use. We tend to see them in men, but it's not to say that that's not maybe in any relationship, right? Or in any particular case. It's just that we see it a lot in men because they weaponize being nice to kind of lure you in into this false sense of security that, oh, well, it's so easy to be devoted to you and to, you know, to love you and to be loyal to you because you're so nice and you would never, but then you don't really realize the things that they're saying until you realize them. And even the smallest little fucking things that he says, like when it dawned on me that he calls her beep boop this entire time, it made me want to scream. Because at first, I I'll be honest, I didn't even put two and two together until the very end when he starts to say it that it's like you've already seen the kind of person that he is. That I'm like, oh, you condescending prick.

SPEAKER_02 56:36

There's that, and even that fucking moment where he says, I'm sorry, this must be a lot to process right now, and then he just smirks to himself because he's thinking about his CPU because he thinks it's being such a douche.

SPEAKER_04 56:45

Yeah, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_00 56:47

At the very beginning, when they first arrived at the lake house, how he shows up where, like holding a tiny little bag and Iris is carrying all of the heavy luggage. There's so many levels to it.

SPEAKER_02 56:57

There's just such a balance, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_03 57:00

It's unfortunate because it's a prevalent situation in society right now where this film is obviously highlighting it. It's this idea that there are significant others, whether it be a woman or not, right? But I don't want to like type or like just say that it's just about a particular gender, but it tends to be women, is that they just don't want to put up with anything. Why would they bother? Why do they want to actually make an effort to consider someone else's feelings when they can program the particular perfect person to do whatever the hell they want? And it's so eerily like real. It's not not, we're not too far from the truth, unfortunately. Women andor partners, but uh particularly women, I can only speak to my own experiences that I have unfortunately been in relationships where I would do anything. I would be so brainwashed to do whatever it took to get my partner to like me, to provide some type of validation. And I think Iris is such an antithesis to Josh, right? Where she will sacrifice herself, anything that she would want to do for herself, any autonomy for the sake of love and to prove this devotion and loyalty to him. And it's so sad to see it portrayed in what is so easily done when it comes to a robot and a person, but that's like real life.

SPEAKER_02 58:19

Yeah, but then let's throw it to Kat, the allegedly like you know, the real woman in the room, the one who bleeds, right? She gets stabbed in the back. We know that she's a human, but she talks about how she feels so replaceable because of Iris. And Iris with this again, this layered dialogue saying, you know, she's built different. There's something in there that's holding her back. Literally, they're settings. But Kat says, I wear what he wants, eat what he wants, fuck when he wants. Well, look who I'm talking to. Because it's not just Iris who's an accessory, it's Kat.

SPEAKER_06 58:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 58:57

Now Kat tries to one up and have the last laugh and steal $12 million. I get it. But it's just the reality that there are healthy examples of love, and there are unhealthy examples of love. There's love, there's adoration, there's lust, there's infatuation. And there's such a wide scale of these things. And I think this movie does a really great job of exploring all the layers of that. Because on the other side, you have Eli and Patrick. And listen, Eli probably doesn't step off with the greatest intentions, but I believe that he loved that robot.

SPEAKER_05 59:35

I think so.

SPEAKER_03 59:37

I think he represents insecurity and loneliness, which is so interesting to kind of portray the complete opposite to that entire dynamic. Like you want genuine companionship because you are insecure and lonely, and this is the only way that you think that you'll be able to get it. Not because you're trying to, you know, get off easy by controlling someone and never having to sacrifice anything about yourself or compromise in any capacity, but because you simply just don't think that you might deserve it. Which is I I guess how I interpreted Eli and Patrick a little bit.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:11

You're hitting all different themes, right? Each one of these characters is depicting something different, right? You have Josh who's abusing it, right? Obviously, for personal gain. You have Eli who is using it for maybe the intended purpose of this companion, right? And then you have Kat who is like the person that feels like artificial intelligence is like taking over and it's like replacing people and replacing jobs and like all this stuff, right? So you're really hitting a lot of what's actually happening in one society, but you're getting it in three different characters, which is, I think, another brilliance to the script and how they made these characters come to life.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:50

Yeah, I think we're gonna see a big expansion when it comes to sympathetic robots and androids in media coming soon. I know the MurderBot diaries are in the works right now to hit some sort of film, whether it's TV or movie. And it's something that I think a lot of people are gonna be able to relate to because you end up feeling like the robot, like the android, like a tool used by a system to achieve some purpose, and your feelings don't really matter. We've got characters who don't really have feelings because they're a robot. And then by the end of the film, our technician helps out because there's some folks who think that they do have sentience and do and should have control over their own lives and own destinies. And I think that's the interesting take here. It's it's like, yeah, you actually are a person. Whether or not you're a human, you're still a person. And I think that kind of empathy is what we need.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:39

Okay, but let's also look back in history to see how many people who are humans that people have thought don't have feelings. This is another conquest. And eventually, maybe several years in the future, things will look a little different. Look back with a little bit of shame on how we viewed these things. The reality is the danger of a lot of this and the scope creep of it, how this technology shows up in our lives and how emotionally detached we are from it. Now, I'm not saying that everybody will have the same level of attachment that Eli has to Patrick, or you know, as we as our patrons will hear in our B-side that Paris has shared about, you know, just using technology to navigate personal things in life. Not everybody will have that kind of emotional resonance, but when you are so disconnected emotionally from what is happening around you, and you use everything and everyone as a tool to justify or to be the means to some end that you desire, then you are hollowing out the human experience. And I think that is like the bigger fucking danger that this movie shows.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:48

I love that you brought that up, Chris. There was recently a, I want to say YouTuber or Twitch streamer, some guy who's on the internet who bought like a really expensive robot who's like a little person who can like stand up and walk. And they were like, it was like him and a group of his friends, like on a stream, a live stream, and they were like trying to allegedly test the capability of like being able to like fall over and get back up. And then like at some point in the video, like they it kind of just starts getting very like malicious and very like sadistic, where they're just like kind of beating up this robot who you can't help but feel sorry for and feel empathy and compassion for. And he got a lot of backlash for it because people were like, that was really fucked up, like what you did. You look like such an asshole. Like, why would you do that? It just looked like them like bullying up a kid or like a hate crime in some way, like it scratched that same itch in the brain. And his response to the backlash was like, Y'all are like y'all need to grow up, you're taking this way too seriously. It's a robot. But I'm like, if you lose that humanity there, I think it also reflects that you're losing humanity in other elements that aren't just robots. Like, who else don't you think of as worthy of not kicking them in the fucking stomach? Exactly. Do you know what I mean? Like it's it's very that. And I'm like, I think how we treat AI and technological tools that have some form of like personality or sentience, whether it's like artificial or emulated or otherwise, I think that really tells a lot about who we are as people.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:06

Are you the kind of person who puts the fucking cart back at the grocery store or not? Little tells everywhere about what kind of person you are.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:12

I definitely leave products in different areas.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:15

Let's just give someone something to do.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:16

Like I think going all the way back to aisle one. That shit's going in aisle six.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:21

No, I love a go see, a go back.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:24

We love a good go back because then it's like, oh well, I do have to go all the way back to aisle one, and that means you won't see me for a few minutes. Like, I think that's a favor, to be quite honest. And if that is incorrect, please correct me.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:35

What I love about this though is I think when it comes to society in general, we don't know what the future holds, but there's this idea of like the great filter, right, where advanced civilizations are going to be filtered out. They're either going to survive by doing something to adapt or they're just going to go extinct. I have this feeling that for humanity, it's going to be realizing that we're not going to leave this planet. Like we're going to explore a little bit, but it's going to be through technology and we're not going to be able to live on Mars. It's just probably not going to happen. So the idea of sentient androids, I'm I'm actually a fan of. We're not there yet. We can't trust the technology yet, but it is really interesting to imagine them as people, as a robot, as a person, with feelings and emotions and empathy, and probably more so than many humans have right now. I think that's very interesting to me as a topic of science fiction. It's odd though, having to consider the worst part of this movie because I don't think it's the movie itself. I think it's the marketing that is the worst part of this movie. And I think they spoiled a lot, they showed too much too soon. And it's not that we need a surprise necessarily, but I think it's that you go into this film with something just slightly ruined. You know, somebody ate a piece of your birthday cake before you got to have the first piece. That's what it feels like.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:45

Yeah, this is like you saw someone fucking blow out the candles and you think a little bit of spit got somewhere on the cake, and you're not sure what slice you have. The impact would be greater had you not known. And I agree with you, Mac. Listen, if you've made it this far in the episode, do you think Don't give a shit, or you've already seen it. Okay. If you have someone that you want to show this to, do them a favor. Okay. Don't show them a poster. Don't fucking show them a trailer. If the description comes up or the hero image comes up on whatever fucking streaming service, blindfold their ass, just uh hit play. Then let us know how it went.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:19

Totally support that. Worst part of this movie is capitalism in 2025, is marketing, is studios and CEOs making decisions that creatives should be empowered to make. I do also think, I don't know, the German scene was a little stupid for me. I liked it at first, but then I was kind of like, okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:37

Oh, because she can't sell that, so she has to pick a random voice that this guy doesn't fucking understand.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:42

At first, sure. The first 30 seconds of it, I was like tickled pink, and then the later two minutes of it, I was like, okay, I think we could cut this a little bit shorter.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:50

Good for her using 100% of her intelligence.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:53

Right? Very brilliant.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:55

I obviously have talked at Nazia about the marketing, but if I had to nitpick at another thing that I'm just like, eh, I don't know if I feel super grand about it, it kind of makes some odd sense, but could we have done something else? It's just the whole tactic of wanting to steal the money from Sergei. The weirdness of Josh and Kat in general, like they're pairing, like it's were they trying to do a will they, won't they? But then it's addressed and they're like, no, we're just friends, but then we're trying to steal money from this guy. If we needed an accidental murder to drive the plot, then let's just do that. The whole thing of stealing the money and all that, it didn't even land quite well when it's about like Kat getting revenge on Sergei. It's like really either drive that part all the way through and like really build her up to have this resentment towards Sergei or anybody. But if she was jealous of Iris for the reasons that we've talked about, we don't need the whole bit about stealing the money and the cash.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:57

I mean, maybe, but it just seemed a little off, didn't you? It's interesting because I really love that part for a few different reasons. It showed how detached and desensitized she is, even though she's the one who's the closest to resisting the adoption of this technology in her life. You would think, oh, you're a reasonable, rational person. You don't like what this technology represents. But then she is actually conspiring to end a man's life. She is comfortable being the accessory to this man and to take all the benefits that she perceives to come with it at the expense of all these other factors. I actually really loved the heist of it all. That was a twist in the movie that I didn't see coming.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:39

Okay, so maybe the way I need to think about it is it's a like in question of morality. So like her morality about what she's doing and how it compares to the morality of like how you're treating this robot and what it says too about how you treat women. Okay, okay, fair.

SPEAKER_05 1:08:56

Yeah, uh a lot of this stuff we're talking about didn't really bother me that much. I think even just touching back on Sergei for just a moment, I think the evolution of that character was just kind of funny to watch. We all thought like maybe he was this like Russian mob boss tied connection type dude, kind of silly at first, and then it got a little bit serious, then it got a little bit rapey, and then they brought back like this whole thing where he was like a dirt salesman, which made his comments even more funny. But yeah, none of that stuff like really bothered me. I guess if I were to say what's the worst part, I could definitely talk about the fact that I don't think it leaned far enough into the horror genre, right? Like, I think we could have played with a little bit more horror there, a little bit more maybe slasher vibes, maybe some more kills, who knows? Maybe linger in some more kills. But for as good as the movie actually is, I think it's terrible to end on a bad note. So I also want to share maybe a worse part that's also kind of a funny part, and it's that jarring scene where the film just cuts to Josh on top of Iris having an orgasm because it was so jarring and off-putting in that moment and so abrupt that I had to laugh out loud at that moment. It was so ridiculous, and so maybe that's the worst part because it's just so out of place.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:18

Jarring and off-putting.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:20

Yeah. Even with that scene in the in the film, I would watch it again. I would definitely watch it when it hits streaming. I'm here for it. Again, this is my genre, I love it, and I would like to look for other little details that give everything away throughout the film.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:36

Yeah, I'd definitely revisit it. I think that, like I said earlier, even though it talks about a subject matter that's very heavy in a digestible way, it's effective. They did a good job at it. So I would watch it again, maybe in some time, not anytime soon. But if someone really wanted to see it with me, I think I'm gonna do what Chris said. Just hope to God that they've avoided all kinds of spoilers or even looking at it. Just throw it on. Like from a blind hat, you know what I mean? Like, oh, it's a movie night, what are we gonna watch? I'm just gonna put that movie and see how it goes.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:08

Your friends and loved ones with this film.

SPEAKER_05 1:11:10

Yeah, I think it's a fun movie to watch. I'll probably catch it when it becomes available to stream. I think there's a lot to take out of this movie. Like now that you have watched it that first time, like you know all the different things that are gonna happen. Now you can have fun sitting back and watching everything unfold and picking apart some of those little things. We've already mentioned some of them that we caught along the way, but maybe we'll catch even more on a second watch, so I'm excited for that.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:36

Yeah, I am absolutely looking forward to unpacking this and all the subtext. This is one where I think I have at least two to three people who haven't at least I I know they haven't seen it, and I think for sure they haven't seen any trailers or anything, and I can't wait to see the reactions. But for now, there you have it, folks. Companion has earned a universal slash. We've certainly had a robust discussion here, but the conversation about this movie doesn't end here by any means.

SPEAKER_05 1:12:04

Yeah, if you want to find out how you can jailbreak this sex spot, I mean episode, you can support the show by visiting patreon.com slash hackerslash. This is where you can enjoy even more of the show, including bonus content with early access, extended episodes, movie nominations, and live shows.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:21

If you want us to be your companion moving forward, 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_02 1:12:31

We'll see you next time, folks. And remember, privacy does not come cheap, my friends.

SPEAKER_05 1:12:36

You know that I deserve so much more than this.