The Rewind: Black Christmas (2019)

SPEAKER_03 0:07

Wait, Taco Bell is an authentic Mexican?

SPEAKER_02 0:09

That's what Chipotle is for.

SPEAKER_04 0:17

Seasons, greetings and salutations, and welcome to the Rewind with Hackerslash. If you're joining us again, welcome back. Many sacrifices have been made to keep our traditions alive. If this is your first time listening, welcome to the party. We believe horror is for everyone, and as such, we're rating these movies with the perspective we've all gained from our varying walks of life and the flavors of fear we fancy most. Now, normally the rewind is a patron inclusive benefit, but we decided to bring this episode to our main feed to celebrate the holidays. If this is your first time rewinding with us, these episodes exist for us to revisit films we've previously covered in our early days, but with the added perspective of our current team. My name is Chris. I'm your friendly neighborhood slasher enthusiast. This week I'm joined by the Superfly Space Guy Mac.

SPEAKER_01 0:58

I can't believe how easy it was to cook. I could have been making ham all my life. This Cream Queen Paris. I'm wearing a thong and some other underwear.

SPEAKER_04 1:05

And a special guest, host of the Who's There podcast, Allison Broder.

SPEAKER_03 1:09

Merry Christmas from this Jew to you.

SPEAKER_04 1:11

Allison, welcome. We're so excited to have you now. There is such a wide variety of fans out there. So we'd love to know a little bit more about you. What is your connection to the horror genre?

SPEAKER_03 1:20

Well, first of all, I'm very excited to be here. I'm a big fan of Hackerslash. Uh so thank you for having me, and thank you for having me on this episode because I am a fan of this movie, which is a very unpopular opinion. So I never realized until recently how much of a horror fan I actually was, because I didn't start actually paying attention to horror and looking into the deeper meanings of horror movies until until I started listening to horror movie podcasts back in 2017. And then I started looking back at my two decades worth of ticket stubs, and it was like seeing the ring twice in theaters and Sleepy Hollow and Scream 3 I saw three times in theaters for some reason. I love that movie too.

SPEAKER_04 1:58

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 1:59

So I really love listening to podcasts that analyze horror in a much deeper way than I ever thought possible, and that um much deeper than I am capable of because I'm sort of a surface viewer until somebody tells me no, it's actually look look at all these deeper meanings. And then I'm like, oh yeah, that that was obvious. Um so and now I host a podcast called Who's There, and I talk to all different kinds of Hammer fans and Hammer creatives about why they love the Hammer genre because I realized that there are so many different types of Hammer fans and that we're not just all goth kids that hang out at on a hot topic.

SPEAKER_02 2:33

Not all of us now. Just Alexis. Hey, I think we all had that phase at some point.

SPEAKER_04 2:37

No, I dated a girl who hung out at a hot topic, but I wasn't there. I did start going to Hot Topic as an adult of mine. They're horror pins, though. So that's a delight. Allison, I absolutely love your podcast, especially because I feel like there's just this perfect intersection of, you know, what you're carving out with the work that you're doing, meeting people, bringing them on, picking their brains. And then our core belief that horror is for everyone. So to our listeners, if you love that philosophy of ours, you will definitely love Allison's work. But Alison, what style of horror is it that you prefer?

SPEAKER_03 3:07

I love a couple of different types of horror. I really love the found footage genre. Um, I don't care why people are carrying the cameras around. I I'll buy any any excuse they give me. And I also really love psychological horror and moody horror like The Ring. Give me a small town in a mountainous area that's covered in fog and rain, and I'm in. Um, and I like a horror movie with a really good story. I'm not a fan of 80s horror because I think the story isn't there and the acting is kind of terrible. So I need Slasher for Slasher's sake, is just not for me, and horror comedies are not for me.

SPEAKER_04 3:42

So I think Paris has found an ally.

SPEAKER_02 3:45

Allison, you're gonna fit right in here.

SPEAKER_04 3:48

Good. I love that. Especially I I feel you with found footage horror films. I know Mac isn't particularly a fan, but for me, I'm starting to wonder if it just scratches this particular itch I have of being nosy. Like you just want to see what someone's up to. I don't know. Yeah. What is your favorite horror movie of all time?

SPEAKER_03 4:04

My favorite horror movie of all time, I think, is The Ring, followed by Scream and Cloverfield.

SPEAKER_02 4:09

Oh my god, that like encapsulates all the things you just said you love. Um The Ring, incredible choice.

SPEAKER_03 4:14

Ah, I know. I love it. I went to go see it on Halloween this year in a theater on 35mm. So it was Oh my god. It's amazing. It was amazing.

SPEAKER_02 4:24

And then obviously Scream is excellent taste as well. Cloverfield, I think that one did give me a little bit of motion sickness, but I remember it being like really iconic at the time when I saw it in theaters.

SPEAKER_04 4:34

Yes. I still love Cloverfield unapologetically.

SPEAKER_03 4:36

Yeah. The two sequels I could do without.

SPEAKER_01 4:39

Can I say that while I'm not a huge fan of found footage, I actually really enjoyed Cloverfield. Maybe it's the sci-fi genre, you know, the whole sci-fi horror thing is kind of my thing. And I don't know. I actually did like the sequels though, because I'm weird.

SPEAKER_04 4:53

Well, welcome aboard, Allison. We're so stoked to have you. Now, Allison is actually hanging out with us this week to discuss the third rendition of an early slasher we previously rewound last December. Now, on Friday, December 13th, 2019, Blumhouse Productions gave us something no one asked for. A second remake of the 1974 classic that helped pioneer the slasher genre. The original Pop Clark film is remembered for its unparalleled creepiness, unhinged anonymous villain, and bounty of feminist subtext on the heels of high-profile Supreme Court cases surrounding the right women have to make choices about their bodies. It shined in the relatability and authenticity of its characters. The world these characters lived in felt genuine, with real consequences for seemingly mundane choices. The sorority sisters had real relationships with real dreams, real flaws, and real fear. Now the first well-intended remake of that film premiered on December 25th, 2006, and in retrospect, it seemed to prove the notion that the classics were better left untouched. The majority of fans may find it easy to recall their disappointments in that 2006 film, and subsequently project those very disappointments, perhaps even unconsciously, onto this newest installment. When the 2019 film released, it quickly earned a reputation for being the worst in the franchise, and in fact, currently holds Get Ready, a 39% Rotten Tomatoes rating and a 3.4 out of 10 on IMDB. This is largely because of its take on and deviation from the original source material. This film features a group of sorority sisters being socked during Christmas break, but instead of retraining the same plot, this film explores the feminist tone of the original and explores the question of what it's like to be a woman in present day. This week we're talking about the 2019 Black Christmas. Who's seen this one before?

SPEAKER_03 6:32

I had. I love this movie. I don't think I loved it the first time I saw it in theaters. I actually had never seen the original Black Christmas when I saw this. I saw it a couple days before Christmas in 2019, and then I went back and re-watched it sometime in the middle of the pandemic in 2020, and I was like, this is awesome. I was like, I really I like they beat you over the head with the feminist message, but I, you know, we need it right now. So open the newspaper. It's appropriate. We need to hit hit people over the head with it until they get it.

SPEAKER_02 7:03

I have never seen this movie before, this watch, despite Chris's strong recommendations. I just knew eventually we'd do it for the pod, and I was like, let me just like save it until we're gonna review it. Um so this was my first time.

SPEAKER_01 7:16

I also had not seen it until we were gonna record this episode, and I remembered seeing the trailer for it, but not watching it, and then I remember Chris and Ryan talking about it, but thankfully, without spoilers, so it didn't, you know, that didn't ruin anything for me, which was good. You guys are the best about that. But like, I don't know. I feel like when I watched the trailer, I learned so much about the movie, you know, so I felt like going into this, like, have I actually seen this? Um, but I had not, so thankfully.

SPEAKER_04 7:40

Yeah, the trailer is something that even hurt my soul when it came out. Obviously, such a huge fan of the original, absolutely love it. It's like my my second favorite film, very close to being tied with Halloween from 1978. And it's one of those things where I went in hoping that it would be bringing the best parts back, right? I thought, you know, we got that trash, at least what I thought was trash, from 2006, and I wanted to see a return of Billy, but I didn't want Billy's backstory. I didn't want any of that. I wanted to modernize that film and see the things that I would love about Jess, the things that I'd love about the tension between the sisters. I wanted that back in modern day. So when the trailer came out, I was furious. Because I was like, A, you're spoiling it, spoiling the hell out of it. But B, why is this so different? And I didn't understand and I didn't think about like what they were actually gonna be doing with this movie. And I was frustrated about it for like three months, but I'm so glad they did that because what it helped do was help me reset those expectations so I could walk into the theaters, and to be quite frank, I walked into it expecting it to be total trash. But I think the trailer being what it was helped me at least cleanse my palate and reset my expectations in a way so that I was at least not blinded by the differences during the viewing and be distracted by that, if that makes sense. But what were you all expecting?

SPEAKER_02 9:12

Honestly, Chris, based on how much you've said about this movie, obviously still spoiler-free, but I pretty much expected the vibe to be like modern feminist horror. So I was optimistic. I know we texted right before I started, and I was like, you were like, I hope you're pretty neutral about it. And I was like, I think I'm like vaguely more optimistic than I am neutral, but not so much that I'm like gonna have really high expectations, so I tried to keep I tried to temper my expectations as much as I could, knowing everything I know from what you've told me about this movie and how much you love it.

SPEAKER_01 9:44

I've been pretty optimistic, I think, in mo like, you know, from 2018 until now, a lot of the remakes and reboots that we get, I think we've seen some really good quality. And I even though I'd seen the trailer ages ago, I didn't really know what to expect going into this. I thought, you know, it's it's a remake, so it's either gonna go one of two ways. It's gonna be really good and I'm gonna enjoy it, or it's gonna be so bad that I will wish that I had never seen it. So I just didn't know which way it was gonna go. You know, I mean, we've done some remakes recently where we were like, wow, great job. And then we've done some remakes recently where half the team just like turned it off and you know, browsed Instagram or something. So it really could could go either way. I think something that helped me was like thinking about some other movies that have come out recently, not necessarily remakes, and just thinking like you can you can modernize a lot of you know a lot of horror and it can be really entertaining. And you know, if you entertain me and I have a good time, like that's really what matters.

SPEAKER_03 10:37

I was expecting just to have fun again. I actually I re-watched the trailer after listening to your original episode about on it today, and you were like, the trailer is really like there are a lot of parts that aren't in the movie that are in the trailer, and so I watched the trailer, and I think the trailer is kind of very misleading. And there are parts in the trailer that aren't in the movie, but they make you think that that first girl is Helena. She's not Helena at all. I don't know if I saw this trailer before I saw the movie, or if I went in blind. I feel like I would have been mad if I would have watched the trailer and then gone to see this movie because it wasn't similar at all.

SPEAKER_04 11:16

Yeah, it really sets you up for m misdirection, which I was happy about when I actually watched the movie. So I remember like racing, you know, getting off of work and hitting the theaters to watch this movie, and I've rewatched it several times since then. But I'll never forget the overwhelming sense of relief from the moment the movie started to picking out all these little nods to the original 1974 film, and then thinking, oh, okay, so they're not doing that dumb shit that was in the trailer. Fantastic, here we are. But then this movie, when considering the feelings, right, it gives you enough fuel to stoke flames of rage within you, at least it did for me. And and thankfully it can't even bring itself to really complete the delivery of like the boys will be boys line, but it has that energy, it carries that spirit. This movie also has a way though of delivering such like incredibly nuanced perspectives and performances, and it shows the complexities of like nobody is purely good and nobody is purely bad. So navigating life post-trauma is a really unique journey for everyone, right? Each individual person is gonna react and respond differently, and their support system is going to react and poke and prod and maybe abandon them, and those things are nuanced. So, I mean, I've even like felt that and known that firsthand. But this movie is packed with moments that acknowledge how exhausting the constant fight is and how traumatic even just existence can be, regardless of if you endure the type of trauma and assault that is depicted in this film. And it talks it it makes you recognize, right, how easy it can be to feel defeated, because even the strongest women after decades of fighting can ultimately step back and choose to be at peace with things. So I walked away with like those feelings, which are really, really intense, but also this really safe feeling. Like it felt like a s like I felt like that theater watching this movie was a safe space to feel these feelings that I've never gotten to feel from watching another movie.

SPEAKER_02 13:14

That's really interesting that you say that, Chris, because I feel like that somewhat reflects my own feelings while watching this movie. In general, like from the jump, I was like hyper aware of the creepy, like predatory, just always lurking, always like in the background, in the foreground, somewhere, just like all ever-present uh threat of male violence. And throughout the movie, I had like a like just like a vaguely sick to my stomach feeling the whole time where I was just like, oh my god, make it stop. Oh my god, I hate this so much. Get out of my face, please get stabbed a million times. But I think it's interesting that you said the movie was a safe space because even though the movie was making me feel all those things, I felt like I knew it wasn't going to let me down in the end.

SPEAKER_01 13:54

It is it is a tough movie to describe your feelings on because I think on the one hand it is a very entertaining movie, and I was not expecting that. You know, I I tried to say pretty neutral going into it, but I knew that like, okay, it's a remake, and I I think we all pretty much enjoyed the original, uh, if I can remember that episode. My brain is not that great. Not Paris. Not Paris. Well, you know, he enjoyed it in his own way of not enjoying it, I'm sure. Right? He enjoyed the experience of talking to us about it. I thought, okay, like it's probably gonna be good, but will I actually like have a good time and really get into it? And I really, I really did get into it while watching this movie. I found this to be like a really good ride, a very entertaining movie. But then on the other hand, there is, like you mentioned, a lot of emotion that's brought up. I mean, I mentioned that I moved to Charlottesville, Virginia, you know, a couple couple years ago when I moved, you know, first place I lived in Virginia, and this was right before the Rolling Stone article, A Rape on Campus, was published. So I moved there, and then like within a couple months this came out. And even though the article was later retracted, it did in that moment suddenly bring this like huge discussion to the forefront. And I had, you know, I had friends there who in that moment would like tell stories, and it's like, holy cow, like I had no idea. I mean, this was a completely different culture from the one that I grew up in and went to college in. And, you know, I'm showing up here and then I'm hearing people that I know, people that I care about, tell me how they were like basically trying to just live their everyday lives and go to school and get stuff done. But in reality, there was always that like lurking threat of violence, and they had been assaulted. And it's just like crazy. I mean, because you know, you feel kind of helpless because you can't go back in time and you can't, you know, save people from that. But I'm sitting here watching this movie thinking, like, yes, one on one side it's it's very entertaining but on the other side, like I know people have like gone through this stuff, and it's it's it's a lot of pressure on your brain.

SPEAKER_03 15:37

I have to agree with, I think Paris said that he felt tense the entire time. Um, and I was immediately um uh drawn in and emotionally invested when the first girl, Lindsay, when she was walking home by herself and she like that guy was behind her and he was 100% not paying attention and just walking and he didn't realize that he was making her nervous and she kept turning around and she got her keys out. I've been there. I'm there all the time. There's rarely ever a time in New York City when there's no one on the street. But like, even if it's still like I'm coming home late at night from something and there's not that many people around, I'm still like always, always looking around. I'm always like, who who could come after me right now? And I think that I feel like a lot of women can relate to that.

SPEAKER_02 16:22

That level of hyper-vigilance was definitely translated through this movie really well, I think.

SPEAKER_04 16:26

And that I think was one of the things that really surprised me. I didn't expect it to go quite so hard. I felt like surely this is a slasher movie that we know in historically, the last time they tried to do a horror movie that was written, led, and directed by women, it was Jennifer's body, and everybody hated it until they ended up loving it years later. But I you know, you you think of horror and you think male gaze. And I wasn't expecting this to go quite the direction it went. And I wasn't I wasn't expecting this sense of like comfort and I hate the word empowerment, but empowerment. I absolutely love that. And I think one of the things that really surprised me was how it perfectly carried the energy from the original film in terms of that like casual, it's feminist because we're not even trying to be feminist, but obviously our our main girl can make choices about her body and you know, she can stand up to her boyfriend who's trying to force her otherwise. Whenever I watched that original film, I always just I knew that I like I loved Jess's character for that, but I never understood the energy that that whole movie brought when I was a little girl. So to see that spirit really carved out and you know, and really enlarged and carried through this movie. This movie is PG-13. They made several decisions and they cut several things out specifically to make it accessible to young women so they could see this. And I think that was the biggest surprise of it all. You know, the surprise of how well this movie was executed and how intentional they were with who it was for. And it breaks my heart that it's getting the trash that it does because people who it's not for hate it.

SPEAKER_03 18:09

Yeah, I feel like most of the people trashing this are just straight men. Yeah. And it's like, sorry, not everything is for you. And it's said that we need to start educating young women so early that they should, you know, be on guard and also be empowered, but we have to.

SPEAKER_02 18:28

I feel like it's kind of like the Ghostbusters remake that they did with an all-female Ghostbusters team, which personally the only Ghostbusters movie I've ever enjoyed, but it got like really bad reviews, and I was like, listen, Ghostbuster boys, this isn't all for you. Like, have a seat, let everybody else enjoy this one. And I feel like that's probably what's happening here, and like maybe these movies will be better regarded in the future, like in hindsight, the way people are finally stopping sleeping on Jennifer's body. But I think one of the things that surprised me a lot was the direction certain characters took. I was texting Chris throughout my watch, and like I was very much trusting nobody that had a penis in this movie, and I was like, no, he's secretly evil, he's secret he's on the inside. And then not everybody turned out to be as evil as I had expected, which was a big surprise to me.

SPEAKER_01 19:15

That was also a surprise. I think I I think we're one in, you know, one in the same when it comes to a specific character that we're probably you know suspecting the entire time. But you know, the thing that surprised me the most was the change to the antagonist from the original. And I know that probably worried a lot of folks once they saw the trailer and they're like, what on earth is happening in this trailer? Like, you know, we see the original, we know what happens, we know who the bad person is. But the I think the surprise was just how meaningful that change was and how like how much in the zeitgeist it is, because I think it's such a big thing. Like if you're shrunken down in that in that scope and you're focused on just like one particular thing, sure, you can send uh you know a message about the danger of an individual, but I think we s we get such like a bigger scope now in how the odds are stacked against people. And I I think I can't wait to talk about it in the second half. I don't want to spoil too much, but um I think it was such a great change, especially in 2019, um, to show what people should be and are constantly afraid of.

SPEAKER_02 20:16

I love that, Mac. That's definitely an updated version that we need. Um, but you saying that just reminded me of something else that surprised me, which is how many references to the original Black Christmas I actually noticed and picked up on. I think Chris would be very proud of me.

SPEAKER_04 20:29

Oh, I can't wait to go through your tally list later.

SPEAKER_02 20:32

It's not that long. Don't get too excited.

SPEAKER_04 20:34

Oh, damn, but there's so many.

SPEAKER_02 20:36

Like maybe five that I never would have picked up on otherwise.

SPEAKER_04 20:39

I love that for you, Paris, but Mac, going back to what you were saying, right? I think obviously the the change in the antagonist, it brings about a different level of fear. And that's not something that I was expecting. The number one thing I was shocked by in the trailer, obviously they show you what the antagonist looks like, and you're like, oh, what is this kind of cloaked figure? What? Billy never wore a cloak. Billy hopped up that uh was climbing that lattice in a turtleneck, and that was a huge surprise, but I can't say it's one that I ended up being mad at.

SPEAKER_01 21:10

Yeah, I mean I think it was a good change. I I think Alison, you you hit the nail on the head earlier. This is not something for me to be afraid of because I'm a straight white male. You know, going into any horror movie, I always expect that I won't be afraid, but it it does make you fear for others. I I think when you watch this, you can you can think about it and go, like, okay, like this is not something I have to worry about, but you can also sit there and think like how many people have to live their lives constantly, constantly in fear, constantly having to hold their keys in their damn hands. You know, and it's it's it's a worry that like you can brush it off and say, nah, not me, don't have to worry about it, or you can think about like this is reality for so many people, and that is just so utterly bothersome.

SPEAKER_03 21:50

Yeah, I I actually I love that you said that, and I hope I hope that you know, young men who saw this came away thinking that and Maybe they'll be a little bit more conscientious in their lives. I'm not sure if this movie, if with all the blatant feminism in it, really changed anyone's mind, but maybe it could make them think a little bit harder about some things and be a little bit more empathetic because I feel like empathy is something that people especially young people sometimes lack.

SPEAKER_04 22:21

Absolutely. I mean, empathy is a gateway drug to like just humanity healing, right? Like that's it. Alison, was there anything that surprised or disappointed you about this movie?

SPEAKER_03 22:30

Just how blatantly in your face feminist it was, because I didn't expect that at all. And I I had no expectations for this movie because I had not seen the original before I saw this one. So I was just pleasantly surprised. I was like, they're just they're just coming out and saying it. They're not they're not um scooting around it at all. So I loved, I love that they were so forthcoming with their agenda.

SPEAKER_04 22:54

Absolutely. I think that forthcoming stuff, right? It reminds me of the line Paris from Jennifer's Body. You're killing people. And she's like, No, I'm killing boys. You know what I mean? Like it's just like, alright, we're out here, we're doing it.

SPEAKER_02 23:06

That excellent line that got cut hatefully.

SPEAKER_04 23:10

Here we are. What do you hear what else got cut from this movie?

SPEAKER_02 23:13

Uh I do really want to see this R-rated version, but I I love that I love the motivation behind making it PG 13.

SPEAKER_04 23:20

Paris, I actually own this movie that has like the director's commentary on it, and it also has all the deleted scenes and the extended scenes. I'll talk a little bit about it in the second half of the episode post-spoiler break, but there's a lot in there.

SPEAKER_03 23:33

I own the DVD. I just haven't watched it yet. I'll have to watch the uh the extras.

SPEAKER_04 23:38

Oh, I I listened to it, I listened to the the commentary today, and it's the director, Sophia Tikal, and Imogen Boots, who plays Riley. Absolutely fantastic insight.

SPEAKER_02 23:47

I hope in this version there is more gore. I think when we talk about fear and horror and fright in these movies, for me a lot of that comes down to the gore. Um, but this movie was very scary in a different way, in a very like realistic way, especially with that first kill like you were describing before, Allison. Like that whole time I was like, like my stomach was like clenched. I was like, oh my god, oh no, I hate this. And then just like how things played out, I was like, well, that's a very real thing, and that's something that I've I've felt before, even though like I am a six-foot-one man. Um my life experiences have led me to sometimes be afraid at night as well. Um, and I have to remind myself, I'm like, wait, nobody's gonna fuck with me in the dark because I look very scary. So just pretend that you're scary and nobody will fuck with you.

SPEAKER_04 24:32

Not when that wingspan, sir.

SPEAKER_02 24:34

I know, right? And my legs, my legs for days.

SPEAKER_04 24:37

Yeah, you're famously the Thunder Man. Could you imagine a silhouette of you walking down the street?

SPEAKER_02 24:42

I hope everyone would be afraid. Stay away. But that type of fear that this movie brought out in me was pretty effective, I'd say. So it's definitely getting some fright factor points.

SPEAKER_03 24:52

Definitely. I can there were so many moments in this movie where I was like, I would have been out of there, I would have been running away. So that those were some of the moments where I was like, why are you still in this house? Or why haven't you run screaming down the block? There has to be somebody home for you to knock on their door.

SPEAKER_04 25:11

Yeah. This movie doesn't scare me in the way that other slashers have tried to. I mean, there's some jump scare energy, there's some spooky figure in the distance energy that exists, but that's not what this the point that this movie is trying to make. This is more in like the everyday fear. And I will also say that the flashbacks that we get, the subject matter that we get, it's incredibly triggering, and it can absolutely resurface so many feelings of fright. And I think had I seen this movie ten years before it came out, I would have been terrified. But I think like lots of therapy, lots of healing, you end up moving on and growing, and at least in a way that I was able to receive this film for like, man, what a horrible time that was. And and it's interesting to look through the lens of what fear this movie is translating and how effective that pulls. Not only just it doesn't just punch the fear button in you, it punches every other emotion in you. And I think this movie's approach to tackling the momentum of the Me Too movement, that like obviously we're living in the wake of it when this movie came out. There's like this whole reckoning, and we see these films that have tried to tackle that subject far before its time. But I think pairing that with the plot, pairing that with the spirit of the original made for an incredibly original experience. The resolution we get at the end of this movie, I had no fucking idea what was coming when I went in and bought a ticket for Black Christmas. Like totally different experience.

SPEAKER_01 26:49

Chris, I am so with you. I think you know, we we often talk about movies like as if they're a recipe where, oh, you take these ingredients and you put them together, but it's a different, you know, the proportions are different. Now it's a whole new, whole new recipe. But I just think the analogy fails here. I think we have to go to the idea that like it's just it's so important when a movie is released in terms of what it's discussing. And I think this movie lives in the time that it came out, and it's still, of course, very unfortunately, um, just as important in 2021, uh, two years later, and probably will be four years. And I think it it has this spirit to it that is so different from the other movies before it. It's yes, it's related to the original, but like it's also completely different, and I think it's in it's completely different in really important ways. And it's it for me gets major originality points.

SPEAKER_04 27:38

Mac, I think the analogy could hold up if you look at the fact that feminist horror made by men or attempted to be made by men in the decades beyond, prior to this, it's kind of like you know, wanting to go to Taco Bell for authentic Mexican food. But then all of a sudden you have real authentic Mexican food and you're like, oh shit, this is what I've been missing my whole life? This is what's really going on.

SPEAKER_01 28:01

Yeah, good that's a much better analogy.

SPEAKER_03 28:03

Wait, Taco Bell is an authentic Mexican?

SPEAKER_02 28:08

That's what Chipotle is for. Oh no.

SPEAKER_03 28:12

I when I was watching it this time around, I watched it once last night and once again today.

SPEAKER_04 28:18

I love your commitment.

SPEAKER_03 28:19

It's only an hour and a half, so it's not that it's not that much of a time commitment. It's not it's not uh it chapter two. But I I I felt Riley's trauma from what had happened to her way more intensely anytime she was uh having an interaction with the killer whenever the killer was holding holding her up or holding her back or just touching her in any any way. I was like, oh god, she's being re-traumatized all over again.

SPEAKER_02 28:49

I have to say this movie did feel very familiar. I think it can get a couple originality points for its approach to the Black Christmas narrative overall. Um but I don't think it's the most original. I think it's maybe the most effective at the thing that it's trying to do. Um, but it did certainly feel like something I'd seen a lot of before. There's there's not much in this movie that I'd never seen before, but the things that I hadn't seen before, I did enjoy.

SPEAKER_04 29:17

Well, again, I'll say it loudly and proudly, I didn't not see the ending of this movie before because it is explosive, literally and figuratively. But one of the uh one of the things I picked up on going back into the movie and then listening to the director's commentary, it's absolutely brilliant. It's like the small things you pick up every single time. There is so much symbolism and even the final frames of that movie that it's just ooh, and it's so it's it's baked in so deeply. It's not just that first glance of who's holding hands or who did who made it, who didn't. It's none of that. It's the the symbolism that like runs from beginning to end of this film. And I think the ending of this wraps it up the absolute perfect way.

SPEAKER_03 30:00

Alright, I'm gonna have to hop off this call so I can go watch the director's commentary.

SPEAKER_02 30:06

We'll wait. We'll be here. Okay. Honestly, I had high hopes for the ending. I had a feeling I knew where this ending was gonna go, and it did go there. I don't know that it was as satisfying as I wanted it to be. There was a part where I was very confused. I was like, wait, what? Okay, sure, I'll go with it, whatever. But I kind of wanted more. I wanted at least, like, I don't know, more focus on the parts that were very satisfying, if you know what I mean. And listeners, if you've watched the movie, you know exactly what I mean. But overall, the ending was solid. It did the thing that I wanted it to do, and it did not let me down. But I think my hopes were a little bit too high for how much of that we would get.

SPEAKER_01 30:42

Well, I'm I'm I'm gonna go back to what Chris said, and I I actually really enjoyed the ending. And unlike you, Paris, there were a couple things that did catch me off guard. There was some stuff I think that you can kind of predict. You know, there's some clues as to what's gonna happen, what we're building towards. And yes, I think that's not gonna be a huge surprise to every every viewer, but I didn't know how we were gonna get there. I didn't know how we were gonna make it through because you imagine in a way, like, okay, I see where this is headed, and I think, you know, I see the crisis our characters gonna have to face, and obviously we know how they're gonna have to get through that. Um, but I don't think the reality actually matches my expectations when I was watching. And I think there was a curveball that that came in that was such a good way to get us through to a conclusion, um, dealing with more than just a protagonist and an antagonist. I think we had, again, it's all about this scope thing, and I love it. Like when you're dealing with a systemic issue, like you have to deal with it with more than just one person. Um, and so I I love the way that the ending happened. I think it wasn't quite as explosive as Suspiria's ending, um, but it was explosive and very enjoyable.

SPEAKER_03 31:47

I have to agree with Paris about the originality. I kinda I don't feel like this movie is that original. I feel like I've seen movies kind of like it before, and it's also it's a remake of a movie that already exists. What I haven't seen before is just the the blatant feminist agenda, which was great. Um but I I hear people, my friends have told me they would like this movie better if it wasn't called Black Christmas. But when you ask somebody what is Black Christmas 1974 about, you would basically say the same thing as you would about this one. It's sorority girls being stalked and killed. So the only thing that this one is missing is they just have a different protagonist. Or antagonist, rather.

SPEAKER_04 32:35

Yeah, it's not just a guy in the attic making obscene phone calls. Which arguably did anyone really miss. I thought I would have missed it and I didn't.

SPEAKER_01 32:44

We didn't miss it, but we did get the modern equivalent.

SPEAKER_04 32:46

Yeah, you're right. You're right. That little pig and cat emoji. I was like, oh, I see what you did there. You went back to the original, you picked that line of dialogue and you put it in an em emoji form.

SPEAKER_03 32:56

I would have gone to the cops immediately when I started getting those texts. That would have been red flag for me.

SPEAKER_02 33:03

Okay, but cops famously useless in these situations.

SPEAKER_03 33:07

Right? Yes, yes. But still, I well, I just would have gone and sat down in the uh the station. I would have been like, until this is over, I'm staying here.

SPEAKER_02 33:16

Not a bad plan.

unknown 33:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 33:18

Well, regardless of our feelings on the originality of this film, and regardless of whether or not we think the ending was particularly explosive, let's see how all of these end up shaking out into our scores. Let's take a moment and digest that. Think about what we're gonna rate this movie, but before we do, Mac, how many people died in this movie?

SPEAKER_01 33:34

We have a really good score this week. You know, a nice solid number of 27.

SPEAKER_04 33:39

And what about the animal report?

SPEAKER_02 33:40

The animal report is clean, which is good because there's a cute little cat in this movie.

SPEAKER_04 33:46

And boy, does it get its paws dirty. Let's go ahead and get into our ratings and Black Christmas from 2019. Alison, perhaps we can start with you. Was it a hack or was it a slash?

SPEAKER_03 33:56

Uh dashing through the snow, slashing all the way for me. I like I've said before, I love this movie. It's relevant, it's culturally relevant. The characters feel real, I want to hang out with them. I love the ending sequence. It's almost like an action movie. And I love watching the Frat House burn because they're all terrible. And I also love Imogen Poots, and it's blatantly feminist. Um, I like this one more than the 1974 version. Send your hate tweets to me. It's just this just resonates more with me than the one in 1974 did, and we let's not even talk about the 2006 version because that one's hot garbage. But so this is a slash for me.

SPEAKER_02 34:37

So Black Christmas is a franchise, I guess maybe at this point. It's a it's a vibe that Chris and I have yet to meet head to head on. The original, I didn't really care for. I didn't hate, but like Allison said, for me, like 70s and 80s horror very rarely does it for me. And then the only Black Christmas I had seen before meeting Chris was the was the first remake that happened with Lacey Shabert and Michelle Trachtenberg.

SPEAKER_04 35:03

Harriet the Spy.

SPEAKER_02 35:05

Yeah, and I didn't hate that one to the point where I actually did enjoy it. And Chris famously hates that movie so much. So going into this one, I was like, you know, Chris has said a lot of things about this movie. It seems like I would like it, but I don't know because sometimes it's either like Chris and I are absolutely of the same mind or we're complete opposites, looking at the same kind of content, having the same observations, and deciding we feel completely differently about those things. I'm happy to say that this time Chris and I are totally aligned. Uh, this movie was fantastic. It's a total slash for me. It's obviously the best black Christmas of all of them. I really don't even have that many problems with this movie. Like when it comes to worst part, I'm gonna be really reaching because I really liked the way that this movie approached the subject matter. It effectively made me feel those things that I felt like in-lived experiences before, but in a way that I felt like it was still safe, like Chris was talking about. I felt like this movie was very mindful of the way it brought up those things so as to not like completely trigger me or anyone else, but elicit those same things so you knew exactly like what the characters were feeling and what they were going through. But the thing I love most about this movie was like kind of its more philosophical approach, specifically the quote in the English class from Camille Pagilla about like the origin of like men and women and how like women are like giving belly magic, and like men obviously they couldn't handle that, so they had to like change the structure and create an entire culture so that they could oppress women. I read a book like when I was in college that talked about how like millions of years ago the planet was like in a female consciousness, like that was like the polar, I don't know, hemisphere of the planet at the time. And then like since then we've been in a completely male consciousness, which is like all of recorded history. But I think it was like 2012 or something that like the the we finally crossed the threshold of like shifting back into a female consciousness, and then this is something I like fully believe is happening. You it's kind of woo-woo, it's kind of like a little out there. Um, but when I read this, I was like, this makes complete sense to me. I absolutely believe this. Um, and I see it every day in movies like this, in the way the culture is shifting, like we are at a very tumultuous time in society because we're at such a transitional phase out of male culture into female culture. But I'm absolutely here for the change. Uh, I'm so excited for what's to come, and I really enjoyed this movie. It's a slash. I kind of went off the rails there, but it's a slash. Let's circle back.

SPEAKER_01 37:24

Okay. So I want to jump into this saying that my wife has seen I think all three with me. And when we got done with this, I kind of asked her her thoughts, and I think she summed it up well, where she said, like, this is so much better than the 2006 movie. And I I completely agree there. I don't know if it's the best because I do like 70s and 80s horror though. So I just think it's the best in its own way. So, like, the 70s version, obviously, you know, classic archetype, really good at what it's there for and the time that it was released. And this movie is perfect for the time that it was released in. I think it's one, just a very entertaining movie. So if you just want to watch something that entertains you, you will love this, I think. I think as as someone who enjoyed watching it. But I think the themes that it brings up are just so massive, and the fear that it instills in people is a fear that already exists in everyday life, and it's just kind of showing you. I mean, this movie talks about what's wrong, but not just like with the fear of like one person hurting you. It's about the fear of the entire system being stacked against you and what's going to be required to battle that is not just you know one person on their own, but it's about a banding together and not leaving anyone behind. And I just loved that theme so much. Um, it was super important. And I don't know, like it's just like you relate to the characters and their arcs are fantastic in this film. Um, there's one worst part for me, Paris, and maybe you'll agree later. We'll we'll talk about it after the break there. Um, it's it's a character in particular, so maybe it's actually more of a character discussion than it is a worst part, but there's one person that just rubbed me the wrong way the second, the second they started speaking. Um, so I can't wait to break that down. But aside from that character, everything else, just like absolutely fantastic. I want to hang out with these people and just like have a cool college experience. I want to go back in time and improve my college experience because they seem just so like on it. They know what's going on in the world, and and a couple of them are not afraid to say it, and I love that. You know, I I think this movie does that. It it knows what's going on and it's not afraid to say it, and there needs to be 1,000% more of that. So it's a slash.

SPEAKER_04 39:36

Well, this is taking a turn that I don't know if I was fully expecting, but I'm not mad at it. So when we first reviewed this movie, it was just Ryan and I. And it got one hack and one slash. 50%. Better than universal hack, I suppose. And looking back to that day, I walked into that 7 p.m. showing expecting like heavy-handed mediocrity from another attempt to revive a film that helped pioneer a subgenre. And I walked out having seen my favorite movie of the year. And now two years later, I love it even more. This movie gets a lot of hate, but I'm a firm believer it suffered from expectations and our society's lack of readiness to see a film like this and contend with itself and look in the mirror. This was popping off in the midst of the Me Too movement, and the fact that so many people view it as a simple trot through man hating, it devastates me to no end because this movie is so much more. I think the the best way I can break this down about why this movie is so powerful. In 1974, Bob Clark showed us that we should fear the stranger on the street who might break into our home. But in 2019, Sophia to Call and April Wolf showed the world that we as women fear the strangers beside us, the ones we thought we knew. And for that, it's a slash. And Black Christmas 2019 has really made a comeback here unprecedented, coming back in the rewind with a universal slash.

SPEAKER_02 40:59

Yeah, Chris, when you said at the beginning of the episode that this movie is like not well regarded on like Rotten Tomatoes or like IMDB, it's like rated really poorly. At first I was like surprised. I was like, wait, what? But it was the best one. And I was like, oh wait, because sometimes I forget that like men exist. I've done a really good job of like curating my own personal bubble to only include like women and gays. Um, so it's a very like great world that I live in. Mackie might be like one of my only straight friends, straight male friends. Um so you should be honored. But yeah, I it makes sense now that I've considered that, but like hopefully this movie gets a renaissance and that this rewind is just a foreshadowing of things to come for it.

SPEAKER_04 41:35

Hopefully, indeed, Paris. Now you can find this movie available online. I think personally it's own it's worth owning a copy, but you can find it streaming on HBO Max. So go ahead, check it out. Then join us in the second half so we can break through all the spoilers together. See you in a bit.

SPEAKER_00 42:00

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SPEAKER_04 43:12

Paris, what's the gore score for this movie?

SPEAKER_02 43:14

I think Alexis and I would both agree that the gore score this week is low. Disappointingly so, I will say.

SPEAKER_04 43:21

Well, really, the real gore is the patriarchy.

SPEAKER_02 43:24

I don't think that counts as gore. That's just horrible. Just generally so. I think we could have used more blood, more stabs, um, more people on fire.

SPEAKER_04 43:34

Yeah, who knows?

SPEAKER_02 43:35

Um, I will say though, they'd got kind of creative with it in order to keep the movie PG thirteen, and that's shown in all that black goo that was all throughout this movie. Um, that was actually specifically because they were not allowed to show red colored blood in a PG thirteen rated film, which I didn't know was a thing.

SPEAKER_04 43:52

Mm-hmm. Well, it also represents toxic max masculinity.

SPEAKER_02 43:56

What do you mean? Like it's toxic ooze?

SPEAKER_04 43:58

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 44:00

I like that. Okay. I'll go with that.

SPEAKER_04 44:01

Multi-purpose.

SPEAKER_02 44:03

That black tar patriarchy.

SPEAKER_04 44:05

Yes, yes. Really, it's just kind of like when you see those videos of like smokers' lungs, you imagine that that ooze is what's coming out of those lungs.

SPEAKER_02 44:13

Mm-hmm. And filling their brains.

SPEAKER_04 44:15

This is your brain. This is your brain on the patriarchy.

SPEAKER_02 44:18

This is your brain on misogyny.

SPEAKER_01 44:20

It's kind of like an evil, like teenage mutant ninja turtles, you know, where they have the uh the power of the ooze, except this ooze is horrible.

SPEAKER_04 44:26

Mm-hmm. You know, regardless of the lack of gore. I absolutely love that for the kills in this movie, they take the kills from the original movie and then they use the weapon weapons that were used to kill women and instead use that to kill the pledges. Absolutely love that.

SPEAKER_02 44:41

That just clicked for Paris.

SPEAKER_04 44:43

Like the plastic bag.

SPEAKER_02 44:44

That one I got for sure, but I feel like a lot of the same kills were used against women again. The Icicle, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 44:54

Okay, but like from 1974, there is the plastic bag for the suffocation.

SPEAKER_02 45:00

The Christmas lights.

SPEAKER_04 45:01

That wasn't in the original.

SPEAKER_02 45:02

Okay, all the kills that I recognized were from the bullshit remake.

SPEAKER_04 45:07

Yeah, the bullshit remake indeed. But even looking at the glass unicorn, they use that to stab the pledge when the security guard is walking in on the house.

SPEAKER_02 45:17

Ooh, when that girl with the braids.

SPEAKER_04 45:19

That Barb is killed with in the original.

SPEAKER_02 45:21

That's so beautiful and oh, I definitely recognize the unicorn horn immediately in the first scene. Um, but I didn't realize that that's what the girl was using to stab that guy on the floor.

SPEAKER_05 45:30

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 45:30

Well, I think you you bring up my favorite kill, Chris, and that was the plastic bag. And I don't know if it's because it's been turned around, I don't know if it was just like a feeling of like, you know, when you watch a movie about like kids playing sports, like the Mighty Ducks or something, and they're like gonna make this like amazing goal, and they make it, and you're like, Yeah, like you root for them and you're happy it's happening. When that like moment came on screen and she just like lifts that bag over the head, I was like, hell yeah, girl, like get it.

SPEAKER_04 45:56

Okay, well, thanks for stealing my favorite kill.

SPEAKER_01 45:58

Oh, I'll pick another one. You can have it.

SPEAKER_04 46:00

Nope, that's fine, because what I'm gonna do is go on my runner up, which I know I'm gonna probably piss Paris off. It's Jess, because we don't see her death fully. All we get is her plugging in the Christmas lights, you plug it in, and then you see the uh the pledge like mask and hood just illuminated in the background, and the next time you see her, she's wrapped in Christmas lights with a glass shard through her eye. Now, we only see enough to know that like something is going into her eye, but in the deleted scenes and extended scenes in the extras on the DVD, it does actually show this huge shard just stuck right in there.

SPEAKER_02 46:37

That's super annoying to me, Chris, because I thought she deserved a better death, and apparently she got one, but we didn't get it in this version.

SPEAKER_04 46:45

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 46:46

I think uh my favorite death was when Chris threw the candle or the gasol gasoline or fire at uh Carrie Always and lit him on fire. That was that was my favorite.

SPEAKER_04 46:59

Yes, okay. She obviously says suck my.

SPEAKER_03 47:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 47:03

But it's not suck my dick. They actually say suck my clit.

SPEAKER_02 47:07

Oh my god, I was literally waiting for them to say clit.

SPEAKER_03 47:10

Oh, I didn't get that.

SPEAKER_04 47:12

Yeah, they had they cut it out because apparently the word clit is too sexual for a PG 13 movie. You can use the word fuck one time non-sexually, but you cannot say the word clit, period.

SPEAKER_02 47:23

In any context. Yeah, that sounds about right.

SPEAKER_03 47:26

Okay. That makes that makes that line make a lot more sense. Because I was gonna be like, I really like that kill, but I don't like her line. But now now it makes more sense.

SPEAKER_04 47:34

Yeah. It really takes the wind out of the sails, honestly. But again, in the extended scenes, you can have the full satisfaction because she just nails the delivery of it. I mean, the word just never sounded better.

SPEAKER_03 47:46

And just for everyone at home, it is five dollars on Amazon, so go buy the DVD.

SPEAKER_02 47:51

There you go. Honestly, it feels like that should be the only version you should watch because it sounds better in every way.

SPEAKER_05 47:56

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 47:58

So my favorite kill came pretty early in this movie, and it's the first kill we get of Lindsay. Poor Lindsay walking home alone at night. It's a tale as old as time, as sad as that is. Um, but I felt like that one was the most suspenseful. I felt like it was very stressful. I was like tense the whole time. And the way these, like, because I knew right away it was multiple men. It wasn't any like supernatural bullshit. I mean, it was in the end, but that particular element didn't necessarily contain supernatural elements. And I was like, the way these men are like in multiple places, like fully gaslighting her so that they can murder her, is like super symbolic. It was really impactful, and then just like it translated into one of my favorite visuals in the movie was when she like fell on her back on the snow and was like struggling and made that beautiful snow angel as she was stabbed. I was like, oh bitch, that is a gorgeous shot. And it was like a really great like punctuation mark on the end of that scene. And then Chris apparently told me that the snow angel turns into a penis.

SPEAKER_04 48:57

It did, and it was intentional.

SPEAKER_02 48:59

And I don't know how I feel about that.

SPEAKER_04 49:01

Well, I'm sorry to have ruined that for you.

SPEAKER_02 49:03

No, I'm gonna watch it again and I'll probably love it.

SPEAKER_04 49:06

So my favorite visual is actually very closely related to that, and it's not just that one shot, but really the design of the mask as a whole. Because A, it's creepy as fuck. It looks kind of like the man in the iron mask, but what's really, really interesting is that it's actually based on an old tool called the Skold's bridle, which is something that men used to put on nagging wives to silence them. So Sophia Tacal was like, oh, this old thing, let's just repurpose it and talk about how men are still trying to silence women with this. And it's absolutely brilliant. I'll drop a link in the show notes for everybody to reference.

SPEAKER_02 49:39

What the actual fuck.

SPEAKER_04 49:41

Right. It's literally just like an iron like muzzle that they would put on them.

SPEAKER_02 49:45

Just when you think it can't get worse. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_04 49:50

But I think in addition to that, it's just the there's so many incredible visuals that it's just impossible to pick one. I gotta say, the overall layers to the cinematography and the blocking and set design in this film, there's a lot of subtle imagery that like supports the idea of the ant colony. And we think at first that it's like this really just cute passive thing that Marty says this one time, and like, okay, it kind of makes it come back when she says, We're ants, Chris, but it's actually there and present before long before she ever even says that. It's like there's an ant farm on the professor's desk, and when the women are running out of the burning frat house, they're actually running in a straight path that's intended to visually represent the ants. I love that so much. It's so good.

SPEAKER_03 50:32

I actually I had to turn the subtitles on when I was watching it last night because I didn't know when they were sitting in the closet what she said when she says we're ants. So then I was like, oh, that relates back to that. Oh, that's so cute. It's cute and it hits you in the feels. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 50:47

I did like the explanation that we got for that because she was like, ants are cool, and I was like, are ants cool? And then I was like, oh, okay, when you put it that way, ants are cool. Um, but Chris, those masks, I don't know if you're familiar with it, but there's this like thing in New York, I don't know if it's still going on, but it's called Sleep No More, where like you go to this like weird warehouse and it's like very performance art, but everybody gets like a weird mask to put on. Um and those are like very similar to these masks in this movie.

SPEAKER_04 51:13

No, thank you. I would not like to know that.

SPEAKER_03 51:15

It is a very, very weird experience to have because you lose your friends, you don't know where to find them, you don't know who you're standing next to. It is definitely this should be the setting of a horror movie.

SPEAKER_02 51:26

Oh my god, yeah. Why haven't they done that yet?

SPEAKER_04 51:28

Sounds like uh we'll sleep no more.

SPEAKER_01 51:31

That sounds like a scene from like a purge movie, to be honest. Every room feels like the scene from a purge movie as you explore. I it's really hard to pick a favorite visual of this movie. I'll I'm gonna be honest about it. I'm like struggling to like pick one thing because it's a visually like beautiful movie to look at. The colors are are fantastic, and maybe that's because we've got like 2019 technology now, and this movie's just like really nice to look at. But the colors are great, the sets are amazing. I think we talked earlier about like the frat house, the the sorority house, like why do they look so nice? They're nicer than most people's houses, and they look pretty bomb. Um, but I don't want to be distracted by like a crappy, you know, house that they're living in because that would just like take away from the movie. Uh so it's nice that they get to live in a you know pretty baller place, but I think like everything, the snow that we get to see in the intro scene, gorgeous. You know, when we start getting into like meeting all of our characters, I feel like it's hard sometimes in horror movies to distinguish between people. I just feel like they nailed so many things about the movie before getting in even into like technical stuff with like the camera work, um, the framing of the shots like Chris mentioned. Like, yes, all beautiful, all talked about. So I'm just gonna say everything inside of it, like, great job. Like, I love good color. I hate the 2006 take on color where everything is green and gross. This is a Christmas movie, and this is actually one of the first like holiday-themed horror movies that I really enjoyed watching, and it feels like a Christmas movie. Like having some saturation and having some colors, it feels so much better than saying the world is green inside of like the land of horror.

SPEAKER_03 53:07

I think my favorite visual element of the movie, besides Lindsay's death as the snow angel, which was really beautiful, was the ending shot of just watching Riley watch the Frat House burn. Um, I felt very vindicated for her, and I also liked watching the Frat House burn because those men were assholes.

SPEAKER_04 53:26

Ooh, no one's gonna hate you for it. Absolutely love that. It it felt very uh what's that Usher song, Let It Burn?

SPEAKER_02 53:33

Gotta let it burn.

SPEAKER_04 53:34

Even going back to the Snow Angel with Lindsay, that whole moment is actually my favorite scene. Even the bit that we get with her friends back at her sorority house, like exchanging gifts. Because from that opening scene, this movie proves that it's different from Square One. The women are supportive, much like in the original. We're not falling for the women in sororities or dumb bimbo's card, and Riley is a big sister, and that's what really this movie's all about, right? It's like sisterhood banding together to fight for a cause. You know, we talked about this earlier, but it shows us that heightened state of awareness that women are constantly in and what's often felt when looking for help. And watching this time, I'm thinking about all the times in the last two, three weeks that Ryan, as she's been working on like finishing her semester in school, calls me every night on FaceTime until she's home safe. Or like just going out to her car, walking out of a building. And the fear of a man walking behind them in the middle of the night, right? Like the isolation when you're looking for help, and by all appearances, there's nothing wrong. But you know that there's something there, and you know that there's something lurking. This movie nails so much, but I don't know that it nails anything quite as beautifully as nails that horrible feeling in the entire opening scene.

SPEAKER_02 54:46

That's definitely one of the best scenes in the whole movie, Chris. It set the right tone for me, and it let me know that this movie was doing the right things for the right reasons and in the right ways, and that this movie knew what it was talking about because of how accurately it was able to convey that. I think my favorite scene though was pretty similar, actually, and it's when Nate finally reveals his true colors, because the whole time I was like, You're a garbage douche, I can just you're just radiating garbage douche energy. And when he like pops off and he's like, you know, when you guys talk about all this man hating, it makes me feel bad because like not all men are like that. And I was like, You are a literal piece of shit, you are proving that your point is actually incorrect. Um, and the way he was just like so fragile, and his ego was like so delicate and like bruised, and they were all like, You're actually I you all watched the scene. Um, but I felt like it was very satisfying because I was like, You are that girl. I knew you were Nate. You think you're different from other guys, but you're actually proving that you're not. Uh, and then he finally comes back in the house and then gets an arrow to the face, and I was like, Yeah, perfect, love this, fantastic. I thought he was gonna be in on the whole thing, but it literally in my notes when he died, and it was revealed that he wasn't in on the whole thing. I literally just wrote, That's fine, he can get fucked anyway.

SPEAKER_03 56:03

I feel like I feel like men like him are the reason why this movie's Rotten Tomato score is so low.

SPEAKER_02 56:10

Yes, literally, he symbolizes the critics of this movie that just don't get it, that it's just over their heads.

SPEAKER_04 56:17

Yeah. But I think the tension in that argument comes with several points, right? Like, I think the movie itself points out the fact that you can't live in these camps of extremes. And what I really appreciate about like Nate eventually showing his true colors, right? The men are like subtly affected by the influence of the toxicity as the movie goes on. You know, he's starting to get these migraines, he's starting to get a little bit edgier and snappier as the movie goes. And I think Sophia Takal even took inspiration from The Shining with Jack Torrance like slowly becoming more and more mad. And that happens with Nate until he just combusts. In the extended version of that scene, you get a lot more F-bombs like flying between he and Marty, and it's like a really intense argument that shows like how out of character it is for him and how out of character it is for her to see him this way and react in that, but she still stands strong against it. But then you look at that and see how Landon, you know, is eventually taken in and he goes through this thing, but he's end up shaking when they're facing the wall because like his inner good is fighting against it. It shows that there's nuance there. Like Nate isn't just a bad guy, he's just influenced in the wrong ways. I don't know. It it's weird. It's weird.

SPEAKER_01 57:31

You know, when that that whole like thing went down, I was with Paris originally where I was like, he's gonna be one of them and he's helping them out in some way. And then when he started doing that whole, like, oh, I was having really bad migraines, and he like had one, you know, on screen. We stopped when we were watching, we're like, what the hell's going on right then? And of course we don't find out till later, like that's part of it taking effect, but it is so perfect in how it depicts that like this shit is toxic. And toxic doesn't mean necessarily that like it's just bad, it means it's like sewage, it poisons everything around it, and he was poisoned by that, but at the same time, as like in real life, you know, it's you have the ability to fight it, you have the ability, like you have like logic and empathy to go beyond that, and he was not able to do that. So should you feel bad for him that he got an arrow to the face? I think, like Paris said, probably, probably not.

SPEAKER_04 58:23

Now that I think about this, I wonder, was he growing more and more irritated when there was another pledge in the house? Because we know that a pledge was there as early as the next morning when Riley realizes that like the cat got into some goo, and we see that he leaves the house and then he's like, I came back to apologize, like I don't know what's going on, I just have this fucking migraine, and it's like he gets further away from it and he feels okay. So I wonder if like there's like some ooze within the pledges that like triggers this feeling more and more. I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 58:57

Toxic by proximity. Which is like very real. Like growing up as a teenage boy trying to pass as straight, I was in close proximity to so much toxic masculinity amongst other teenage boys that were straight. And I was like, wait, like what? You guys are saying these things? Oh, I mean, yeah, cool, I agree. Um, just to survive. But as I've grown older and come into my own, I've since removed all of that influence from my personal bubble. And now I am in no proximity to this, which is why sometimes I forget it's real, because I try to intentionally forget that it's real.

SPEAKER_01 59:33

My my favorite scene also kind of plays on forgetting that this is real, and that's when that's when we finally meet like campus security, because I think we always expect the police in many horror movies to be completely useless. And I think in this case, it's more than useless. And like it's it's really detrimental to see like that attitude on screen where don't worry, they're probably just with their boyfriend. Most, you know, most times that's where they are. Like, this is not a big deal. I don't care about it, you shouldn't care about it. She's unimportant. Why are we even talking about this right now? I'm trying to eat a mayonnaise sandwich with a little bit of ham on it. Oh fuck. That was so disgusting. Oh my god. Did anyone else have the reaction? That was nasty. Yeah, he was a mayonnaise sandwich with some ham on it. Yeah, that's uh pretty accurate, Paris. But I I think it was it was such a great scene in showing that like how she's trying to do the right thing and trying to support her friend and trying to like find her and help her. And then she hits this systemic issue, which is the fact that law enforcement does not care about you because, well, you're not one of us, so why would we give a crap at all? And like this is one of those things where I love this movie for showing that the real threat is not just a person, but it's that an entire system is built against you.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:43

No, that's a really good point, Mac. I I've never I never thought of it like that. I felt like the way that the security guard was treating her was trash. But then he also said at one point, so you think this guy is doing this to you, but you you but you believe this person that you just met yesterday is definitely not doing it. And I was like, well, okay, he kind of has a point, but he's still a mega douche. So I wish he would still do more.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:10

Yeah, that was the part where I actually felt like the most sick to my stomach, to be honest, because it was every word that came out of his mouth was like a patronizing microaggression, undermining women, not believing women. And Egypt was just piled on top of each other so high that I was like, I wrote in my notes, the security guard needs to be stabbed and gutted. These microaggressions are making me ill.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:32

And then he was stabbed.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:33

Yeah, he was, thank God. Though interestingly enough, in an attempt to help, which I was like surprised by. I was like, Oh, so you actually do give a shit? Definitely deserved the stabbing at the end.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:43

It was like at that moment where he was like, Oh, I guess I have to believe you now. That's when that's when he got some uh a little dose of reality. I honestly assumed he was also in on it.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:51

I think my favorite scene is when Chris comes in at the end and Katniss is the killer in the back, and that whole action sequence starts in the frat house. I'd loved it. It was it was more action movie-like than horror movie-like, but I just I thought it was really really fun to watch.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:09

Yes, cat Chris Everton, absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:12

Yes. I think it starts off really, I don't know if realistic is the right word, but then because so many of those guys, especially because like they're basically possessed, they start overpowering the women, which I don't know. I'm glad that the women just didn't have like super human strength for no reason. So it was it was realistic.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:34

I love that. I also love that there's uh a pair of women in the background fighting with tinsel.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:39

Oh my god, really?

SPEAKER_03 1:02:40

There's also a woman with a menorah.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:43

I saw that. Shout out to the woman with the menorah. That was iconic.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:47

But yes, pairs actually in in one of the moments when they're leaving, when they're running out of the frat house, you can see that these two girls just like let go of the tinsel that they use to strangle this man. But I think the point that you bring up with these women not having that super strength, it really actually goes back to one of the reasons why I love the characters in this movie so much. I love how imperfect imperfect and unbelievably relatable they are. You know, I love that Chris calls the classics out as not being her classics. I love the support that you know Riley's friends show her. And Carriel was as a professor, you know, the more I think about it, the more I realize I've only ever like really liked him in one role. But he's so good in every role that he has. It's just that he plays a sinister man so well. But we're also like immediately focusing on how he uses his power to humiliate the women in his class, right? He's speaking out against allegations made against him in public, but in a way that like brushes them off and minimizes them. And then like Riley's growth, you know, I love that she's laying there in that scene that you mentioned, Allison, you know, she's seemingly defeated beneath a predator again who has already taken so much from her and she's lost the energy to fight, but it's because of that lack of superhuman strength that she's seeing her sisters around her starting to fall, and she like that gives her the extra surge. That goes back to Chris's quote of you used to be a fight fighter, it's time to be a fighter again, if not for yourself, then for your sisters. You know, ultimately I love that Landon stepped up and pushed her out of the way because it doesn't take away from the triumph that the victory belonged to the women who fought back. It shows that humans are imperfect and can be redeemed, and it shows men can be allies. And people complain about like this movie because they think it reeks of being like man-hating, but it's not, and you know, it shows that the real issue is the patriarchal structure and patterns that are ingrained in our society and our ways of life, compounded with toxic masculinity. Like toxic masculinity is the enemy, and Helena is complicated even. Landon isn't perfect, but he's like good in his heart, and uh, I just love the characters in this fucking movie. So good.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:54

Yeah, I also I love the characters too. The one who gets thrown out onto the balcony and left in the snow.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:00

Fran.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:01

Fran, yeah. I loved her, she was so cute. I would I want to be best friends with her. And not just because she's Jewish.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:08

Fran definitely had best friend energy.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:10

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:11

We deserved more of Fran, to be honest.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:14

And she was also a cat lady like myself.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:16

So I think for me, the two characters that stand out the most, I mean, this is gonna be super obvious, but it's Riley and Chris. The d the two top build of the movie stood out the most to me. Go figure. And I keep coming back to this quote about like the belly magic of it all, but they really symbolize to me like Imogen Poots as Riley was very much like trusting her gut, following her intuition the entire time. And to the point where, like, at one point, like as maybe like a survival reaction, Chris calls her out, she says she you're gonna keep shrinking and shrinking until there's nothing left of you. Like, warning her, like, hey, don't let this thing that happened completely consume you because I can see that it's happening. Um, and that's something that I've related to before. I feel like only in like the past, like Four or five years have I really started to like take up more space as a person because I think we've all at some point shrunk ourselves to a way that was not healthy. And then Chris, to me at least, symbolized the other side of the coin where she was kind of embodying the end of that quote from the lecture scene, where it said the very language and logic modern woman uses to assail patriarchal culture were the invention of men, where it's like in Chris's attempt to fight back, she's kind of painting things with a very black and white lens in a way that like sometimes her friends are like, You're doing too much, like you're putting too much pressure on me to like be the kind of woman you want me to be. And there were a lot of times where like Chris was the one person that wasn't believing her friends, and like her friends were like, This is a crazy thing that's happening. And they're like, That's insane. And I was like, Chris, like for all this like preaching you're doing, like, you're not really believing your sisters when they're coming to you with these things. And I found that to be a really interesting dynamic, and it was a really great depiction of how like nobody is perfect, like there's no one type of like reaction to toxic masculinity and like cultural oppression. And I think to round that out, we got that really interesting scene with Helena where she was like, We're just taking a rightful place, and she literally says, I'm helping women, and you could tell that she believed that. And I was like, Oh my god, this is wild, but it's very real because it had like handmaid's tale energy where like if something like this were to occur, there would be women in the world who would go right for it and go right into that same like subservient role as if like that's how they're supposed to be. And I think that's also another reaction to like years and decades and centuries of systemic oppression.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:37

Paris, I love that you said that because Helena reminded me of the character from A Handmaid's Tale, the uh the wife.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:44

Yes, Serena.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:46

Yeah, Serena. She used to be like a preacher or whatever, she'd be a performer, and then now she's uh now she's a housewife because she's not not allowed to do anything else, and she thinks it's maybe great. When Riley said to Chris in the car, or the police didn't believe me, and I you might not even believe me. I kind of also felt like maybe there was this undertone of do you believe that I was actually assaulted? Maybe I was reading into that a little bit too much, but that's what I kind of felt like in that moment. I also found it really interesting that Chris was the one that wanted to go to the cops and she was a she's a person of color, whereas Riley wanted to just go to the rat house and kill the bust. That's such a weird word.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:29

Speaking of that bus, um, can we not mention Jordan Peterson? I'm sorry, Professor Gelson. Did no one did no one see it? Carioas? Oh, yeah. Totally Jordan Peterson. The actual person in this movie portrayed as this college professor, Professor Gelson. I'm looking it up. He's creepy.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:48

I don't know who this person is.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:50

You don't know anything about Jordan Peterson? Oh this is gonna give you some headaches after after we finish recording and you have some time to add that to your YouTube watch list. So this is a very controversial professor and clinical psychologist and YouTube personality author, all those sorts of things, right? So he has some really outdated I find to be outdated views on like culture and politics, like ultra conservative, like questioning I think everything that all of us would would agree is reality in terms of you know equality. And so it's it's crazy to see a character that's basically like an echo of him on on film. Right? So someone who thinks that we should go back to the old ways because the old ways really worked. And it's like, no, they they didn't work, they worked for you. And anyone else that like didn't that wasn't benefited by that system, who was crushed by it, like you just don't care about. And and Carrie Always's character here, you know, I I think really shows like that a very real person who like goes out there and has these talks about this kind of stuff. Um and he kind of he kind of like does it like a little bit in the movie, like we get to see his like talk during his lecture. Um, but this real life professor is like way more outspoken in in what he thinks the world should go back to. Um and I just I find it personally truly insane. There are probably some listeners who might enjoy him or agree with him, and that you know, that's that's you. I'm just telling you, I don't. Um, I think we have a long way to go to reach my ideal Star Trek future. I just hope we can get there one day. You know, not everything about Star Trek's ideal, but I would love to be in a post-scarcity world where everyone is is treated equally. That's just me.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:27

Oh my god, Mac, I'm reading through this monster's 12 rules for life, and each one is more and more unhinged and absolutely uns insane. This man is off the rails.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:38

Do not let your children do anything that makes you dislike them.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:42

Literally, rule 11: do not bother children while they're skateboarding.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:46

Let boys do boy things and girls do girl things.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:49

There's nothing wrong with men having all the best jobs and women staying home to look after the kids.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:53

Oh my god, okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:55

I thought it was really weird that in the first scene that we see with Carrie always that he goes after uh Riley for the the petition because sh it's not her petition her petition. So I didn't understand that.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:08

I think he's picking on her because of the appearance of uh lack of resistance and being defeated and weak, and I think he's too afraid to actually take on Chris. And I think it's also a bit of shade, you know, perhaps her as a woman of color, he doesn't take her seriously.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:23

I feel like he was also like trying to dismiss the allegations that he knew that she had made about the the douche in the frat house.

unknown 1:11:30

Ah.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:30

I think that's that's really what it is right there. Like they're he's having his bros back. It's like I got your bro. Oh, okay. We're gonna get her together. Can't believe that anyone would ever say these kind of things. And the male characters in this movie, I mean, there's obviously most of them are garbage, but I mentioned earlier, Paris, that there is one worst part for me. This is weird, but I didn't like Landon at all. And it I honestly thought Landon was going to be evil the whole time. And maybe it's because I just don't like the whole good guy character. And initially he was seemed he seemed to be like sold to us as a good guy. And I was really worried that the entire time he was either going to be like their worst offender and he was gonna be like in charge of of all the fratros, or that like secretly he would just be weak and betray them when offered the opportunity.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:14

Mac, it's so interesting to me that you don't like Landon when you, in fact, are the Landon of our group. You're the guy who is not a bad guy. Am I the Landon?

SPEAKER_01 1:12:23

That's actually true. But but he succumbed to the toxic goo.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:28

As if you haven't said anything remotely misogynistic, at least once in your life.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:33

Obviously, I probably have. I am a man.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:35

He had the goo thrust upon him.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:36

Yeah, it was also like a spell and an incantation.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:39

Yeah, it wasn't his choice.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:41

Yeah. That's true. It wasn't his choice. But I just I'm not saying that he should be removed from the movie or anything crazy like that. Like, obviously, he serves an important role. I just didn't trust him the whole time. And it also seemed like he was he was kind of like, I don't know, like out of he was out of sync with what was what was going on in the world. It's like the bad stuff is happening, they're stressed, and he was just like, hey, what's up? Like you're cute. I want to hang out with you. I like what you guys said back there. That was really brave. And I wanted to be like, yo, chill. Like hit him up in a couple months or something, play the long game. I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:09

He has been playing the long game. He's gone into that cafe every day and made eyes and never actually said anything until he finally worked up the courage.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:16

That's true. Good point.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:18

I like Landon.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:19

I know you do.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:21

Leave Landon alone. Let Landon live.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:23

Maybe it's because I didn't trust him the whole time. You know, that made me just like dislike him.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:27

Are you projecting, Mac? Do you not trust yourself, sir?

SPEAKER_02 1:13:30

I don't trust anyone. I was with you, Mac. I also did not trust Landon the whole time. I was like, because of how like heavy they laid on the whole like not like other guys of it all, where it's like, oh, he holds the door for people and he's like very much apologetic for even taking up space in any capacity. And I'm like, yes, that is, you know, something where it's like, oh, maybe he's not necessarily a threat per se. Um, but the whole time, I was like, oh, he's in on it, he's gotta be in on it. And then he did, like, after they performed that song, he like took that as his moment to like flirtatiously introduce himself to Riley. And I was like, Landon, not the time. Not the time at all. That's not something you follow up with your big, like, big move.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:10

Is it bad timing that I don't like? Is that all? Maybe he was super cute though.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:14

He does get those points.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:16

I agree with Chris. I was never suspicious of him at all. Um, maybe because I've dated a lot of guys like him that are just very shy and like sort of awkward and don't always make the best time jokes. But I would I never thought he was in on it. And if he approached me, I would totally go out with him because he's adorable.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:33

I'm not a tall, handsome man, but I did see a little bit of myself in in him and his awkwardness and his shambles. So I wasn't threatened by him. But he serves the critical purpose of pointing out that it's, you know, not to say that the whole like it's not all men, but it truly is. Like the the issues that we face in society cannot be, you know, watered down to just men or women. It's truly like a way more complex problem. And I love that Landon is that. And I love that we also didn't just get that in the form of like a gay man ally. You know what I mean? Like a gay BFF. You know, I like that he has these feelings for Riley and she's starting to open back up too. I had no issue with him at all.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:12

Speaking of a gay BFF, Chris, I totally thought that Nate was gonna be that in the first couple scenes with him because I was like, oh, he's hanging out with the girls, he's he's in. And I was like, oh wait, he's a boyfriend.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:22

When he was encouraging them to like leave the house on time or whatever, I that's the vibe that I got as well.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:28

He just because you're punctual does not mean you're you're gay.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:32

I'm famously late all the time.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:34

But Paris, you know, looking at Landon's terrible timing after that performance, I gotta say, that musical number up in the frat house is undoubtedly the best part of this film. And I know that I had to give a worst part. And I will say this the worst part is all the shit they removed. Like suck my clit and the extended arguments that we get. Absolutely, that's the worst part. But I really want to just give some extra praise to this performance because it defined the movie and it is at the top of all my holiday playlists.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:02

Yeah, Chris, because of you, I had actually listened to this song, I think, last year at some point, when you mentioned it, and I was like, Okay, I'll listen to the song. And I was like, Oh, this is a fun song. I don't know what this movie is. But for those of our listeners who are fans of DeGrasse, you may remember this exact same thing happening with Paige in their like high school talent show. Her basically, her assailant showed up at the talent show when like her and her sisters were about to like perform their rock song for the first time, and she like totally choked at first, and they were like there to support her on stage, and then she like looked him dead in the eyes and delivered the song that she wrote about her experience with him. So it was like very much like I think the writers are also fans of Degrassi, and this was like in some way a nod to them because it was almost like shot for shot the exact same thing. And obviously, it's one of the most incredible scenes from that show, which is cut sometimes gets some crap for being a little bit too cheesy. Um, but I think this movie did that scene even better than DeGrasse did.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:57

And it was a great way of linking back to the 2006 Black Christmas by referencing Mean Girls with AC Shaber.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:05

Oh my god, yeah. It did have Mean Girls energy.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:08

The worst part for of this movie for me were was when Riley and Chris are driving in the car from their house after they've killed all the mystical frat boys, and uh Riley is basically recounting the entire plot of the movie so far. It just felt a little bit like we were being told because we were an idiot. We were idiots. So I feel I feel like we just we didn't need to be told everything that we had just seen in the last hour.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:36

Kind of like a saw moment.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:37

Okay, James Wan, yeah, there it is.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:39

I think Alexis would have appreciated the recap. Okay, honestly, all of the worst parts that I have for this movie were like supposed to be bad. Like they were the things that I hated because I was supposed to hate them. Okay, fine, I'll say it. The very end, this is one of the things that I was confused by in the ending scene, and it was a little bit of a disappointment for me, when like the whole thing starts to be set ablaze, and you see everybody still fighting inside, and then the girls are just like, let's lock everyone that's still in there inside there. And I was like, Are none of the girls still in there? Because I thought everyone was still fighting.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:12

No, they escaped. The guys are tripping over themselves.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:15

Apparently so. Um, that part confused me, and I I also tripped up for a minute because I was like, Wait, are we gonna lock our sisters in there? What are we doing? And then I saw everybody leave, and I was like, okay, so I guess everybody just made it out. Never mind. I think they could have done like maybe a better job of conveying that. Uh, because I was kind of just like, uh I will suspend my disbelief in that everybody happened to get out except the boys in that moment. Um And also I wanted more from the ending. Maybe we get more from the ending in the deleted content that Chris has been referring to. Um, but I wanted like more satisfying kills. I wanted like extreme close-ups of each of those boys dying by the hands of one of the sorority girls in a really cool way. Like, let show me a close-up of the Hanukkah menorah kill. Show me a close-up of the girls murdering somebody with tinsel. Give me each one of those in its own moment, and then we can lock the doors and let them burn. I know what you wanted, Paris. You wanted the Suspiria ending. You know what I wanted, Mac. I wanted the Suspiria ending, except instead of dancers, it's Frat Boys.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:14

I I think that's definitely an okay thing to want. You know, when people deserve it, you want their heads to explode. Please and thank you. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:20

I think the best part of the movie for me, besides that musical number, sorry, I know we're already up to worst part, but was probably when they locked the doors of the frat house and just let it burn. Which is maybe really mean of me to say, but I think they all deserved it.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:33

I don't think that's mean at all.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:35

Let it burn.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:37

And if we're talking about symbols again, the way to deal with this is to burn down the system. It's my favorite Mac. Hey, look, I'm I'm really in like an anti-capitalist mood right now, this this last week or two, so there's a lot of systems that can burn.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:50

Well, with all these struggles to really identify the holes in this movie, is it something that you all will watch again?

SPEAKER_03 1:19:56

Yes, I'm gonna watch the uh director's commentary on the DVD.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:00

I have admitted in the past that when I say I will rewatch something, I'm always lying. So I won't lie this time. I'm probably not gonna go out of my way to re-watch this anytime soon. It's not like in my top ten favorites of all time that I'm gonna intentionally rewatch. But if and when I do re-watch this, I hope I remember to watch the director's cut.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:18

I think this is one of the few holiday horror movies that I would re-watch. I think when I, you know, when I when I think back of like what Christmas movies like really like hit the mood for me. You know, it's it's elf, of course. It's diehard.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:32

Gremlins?

SPEAKER_01 1:20:33

I mean, yeah, gremlins, but that's like a feel-good movie to me because it's so kid friendly. Is there something that's not kid friendly? Is there is there that genre for me? And like I feel like this would would fill that niche.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:43

Better watch out.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:44

Oh, we haven't watched it yet, Alice, and I tried to get it on the lineup this year.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:48

We'll get there, Paris, I promise.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:50

I know. I'm excited. It was a real surprise for me, that one. But wait, speaking of Gremlins, I recently heard, and I don't know where I heard this because I don't remember anything, but somebody said that Gremlins was like a xenophobic depiction of immigrants in America.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:04

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:04

Chris, did you say that to me?

SPEAKER_04 1:21:06

No, but I probably was around when you heard that, because I also heard that very recently. Maybe Mac told us.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:11

So this is from a uh a friend of mine uh who shared this recently while watching the movie. I was actually reading their post while we were getting ready to record one day. Got it. Okay, thank you.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:22

The passive listening really just did it for us. Well, look, I've watched this movie several times since it came out in 2019. It gets better and better and better every time. I'll absolutely continue to rewatch this. This is one that's such a great double feature with this and the original 1974 film. And look, up in the Frat House is absolutely something that I am just like always listening to in the holiday season, even though it can be listened to outside of the holiday season. And I think the best part about continuing to watch this movie is how much you pick up on it as you go. But let's see what Matt can give us a little early on with fact or fiction.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:59

Allison, we're in this together. Paris, this is entirely on your shoulders once again. What do you mean Alison's here? It doesn't matter. Allison can get everything wrong and still gets all the points. God damn it. You have to get everything right still. That's how this works.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:12

Double standards.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:13

At least they're working the right way this time. That's right. So we'll start out with number one. A trained cat was hired to play Claudette, but an untrained stand-in was used because the feline actor became unavailable for shooting.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:24

I'm gonna say fact.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:26

This is so random, Mac. I'm gonna say fiction because all that cat had to do was walk out of a room, and for all we knew, somebody was holding that cat there.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:35

Well, it's a fact. And you know, even cats have scheduling conflicts. A friend's cat was used instead, and I think she did wonderfully.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:41

The hilarious thing is that they didn't know it was like a just a random friend's cat. Like they thought it was another trained cat until it got on set, and Imogen Poots in the feature commentary is talking about what a little bitch that cat was because it wouldn't comply with anything, and it didn't like cat nip, so it just wouldn't respond. So it was a cat.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:59

Yeah, just giving cat.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:01

And number two, in the beginning of the film, Lindsay crashed into a snowman, made of fake snow, since you know New Zealand.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:09

I think this is fiction.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:10

Yeah, I'm gonna say fiction. That snow seemed real, it seemed to have the weight of real snow, and also I don't know that this was filmed in New Zealand.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:18

Okay, Mac, before you reveal, I would actually like to just throw out there this movie was filmed in New Zealand because it wasn't winter stateside, but when they went to New Zealand, everybody in New Zealand's like, why are you filming a movie here? It's not even snowing, because of global warming and climate change.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:33

So this one was a fiction, uh, because they had real snow shipped in to make the snow. Ooh. It translated as real snow. You're really giving me real snow.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:43

I like how they show that house again the the morning after that kill, and the kids are putting the snowman back together.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:49

Oh my god, I didn't even notice that, Allison. Number three, Helena's twist betrayal wasn't even written until after she was cast.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:56

I'll say fact.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:58

Ugh, this is tough. I feel like that actress like really nailed that role as like be revealing. But that seems like such an integral part of the plot, honestly, that no way. This is it's just always so hard. I'm gonna say, Allison you said fact. Let's hedge our bets, and I'm gonna say fiction.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:14

Well, this one's a fact. And Sophia Tikal found it important to include her character to remind us all that there are often women, notably white women, who side with the patriarchy. She didn't want the film to be this whole just, you know, girls are good, boys are bad kind of message.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:27

I love that addition from her.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:29

Incredible. And I think it goes back to, I think, you know, some points we made earlier that it's not just one side or the other. It really is a a cooperative effort, and it takes everyone to either uphold a broken system or to tear it down.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:42

I mean, speaking of upholding a broken system, I thought that was really well depicted when the violence was occurring in the Frat House and all the boys turned away and just looked at the walls while it was going on. I was like, you not acknowledging that these things happen is what continues to allow them to happen.

SPEAKER_03 1:24:59

Yeah, Carrie always says, see no evil, and they all the evil's inside you, Carrie.

SPEAKER_04 1:25:04

Evil dies tonight, Paris.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:06

If only. Oh man. But uh, in this case, it's not been forty years, it's been eternities of the patriarchy, so. Number four, due to some of those issues with filming a movie overseas, we ran into some delays, and the movie took over three months to film.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:22

Uh fiction.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:23

Why do you say fiction?

SPEAKER_03 1:25:24

I know how many days it took. I read it online, so I already know.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:28

Oh, you do? Spoilers!

SPEAKER_03 1:25:30

Sorry.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:31

I'm gonna say fiction.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:33

Thanks, Alice.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:34

Sorry.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:36

We we've talked about how it's important to have an ally. So in this case, yes, this is a fiction. It took about three weeks to film this, so 21 days.

SPEAKER_04 1:25:43

Blumhouse obtained the rights in early 2019 to Black Christmas and then said, Hey, we want this movie, but it has to come out Friday the 13th of December, 2019. So good luck.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:55

Make it work.

SPEAKER_04 1:25:56

So for a whole movie to be conceptualized and put together, I know we talked about this with host, a short film during the pandemic, but for a movie of the scale to really come together in that short amount of time, impressive.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:05

Also, it's kind of an interesting choice. They didn't want to do Christmas. You know, they wanted to go for Friday the 13th. I think that was the right move to make. And number five, most of the casts in this movie are from New Zealand, because we've mentioned it's filmed in New Zealand. But there's one person, and I was asking Chris about this person earlier, Sydney. So you'll notice Sydney has blonde hair and wearing a plaid shirt. They happen to be an American that the director ran into randomly one day.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:29

Allison, be careful. Whenever Max adds in a little detail like that, it tends to be fiction. But don't trust me, because if it's wrong, I'll feel bad. But I'm gonna say fiction, because I bet that Sydney was played by the director's niece or something.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:43

I also want to say fiction.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:45

This one's actually a fact. So God damn it. She and the director met each other in a cafe, and she asked her if she wanted to be in the movie because they were looking for people with American accents. And well, she's an American and she's overseas. She's a university student, and she's like, perfect, you can be in this movie.

SPEAKER_04 1:26:59

Yeah, apparently she had never been on screen before, she had never acted before in any capacity, but they said that she had such an ease about her, and like the whole cast fell in love with her.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:09

And that's been factor fiction.

SPEAKER_04 1:27:10

Well, there you have it, folks. This time around, Black Christmas from 2019 is escaping the rewind with a Universal Slash. Alison, thank you so much for taking the time to join us here. We've absolutely loved having you, and you did beat Paris in Factor Fiction. Congratulations.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:25

Thank you so much for having me. This has been such an awesome time. I'm so glad I got to meet all of you and talk about this movie that I love so much that is, you know, sorely underrated. So thank you so much for having me.

SPEAKER_04 1:27:38

Ooh, absolutely. Now, where can our listeners find out more about you and the podcast?

SPEAKER_03 1:27:43

My podcast is called Who's There, and you can find it at find it at Who'sTheirPodcast.com. It's on all of your podcast streaming platforms. I'm on Twitter at Who's Their Pod, on Instagram at Who's Their Podcast, Twitter. You can find me personally. Personally, at that girlAllison. That's where you can find me in my podcast. And come check us out. And maybe if you want to talk about horror movies, you should email me and be a guest.

SPEAKER_04 1:28:10

Ooh, absolutely. And she does ask some really great questions.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:13

Yes, Chris has already been on. So, and it was awesome.

SPEAKER_04 1:28:16

Well, listeners, while we certainly had a lot to talk about here, it doesn't end here by any means. We obviously want to know what you think about Black Christmas from 2019. Now keep in mind there are a number of ways you can reach out to us, starting with our website, hackerslash.live, or on our social media accounts, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:33

Or if you're ready to burn down the system, you can reach out to our Hackerslash Hotline. You can call us, text us, leave us a voicemail, or send us an audio message to 757-606-0128. That number is also down in the show notes. Or if you are not quite ready to burn things down and just really want to talk about it, you can send us an email to feedback at hackerslash.com.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:52

And if you've enjoyed listening to this rewind episode, consider becoming one of our patrons. Visit patreon.com slash hacker slash to earn cool perks for as low as one dollar a month.

SPEAKER_04 1:29:02

We'll see you next time, folks, and remember, we will never bow down.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:06

Bye.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:16

Alright, team, this movie, like many others, features people living the Greek life. Um, I was never in a fraternity myself. Did you all have any dealings with fraternities, sororities? Anyone in any sort of Greek life in your life?

SPEAKER_02 1:29:31

No.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:31

No.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:32

But it is something that I've always found very fascinating. To me, it doesn't seem very real, like these strange teens all living together in a house, and there's like, what, there's like a queen or there's like a king? There's like a main there's like a leadership of some sort. I actually don't fully understand it, but it's always been interesting to me.

SPEAKER_04 1:29:49

My understanding of Greek life is limited to the Greek life I've seen in horror movies. And so mainly Scream 2, Alison was so kind to remind me of Happy Death Day. That's important. Or really just uh thinking about sorority row, then there's like the house in sorority row. There's a few sorority adjacent movies. That's about it though.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:08

And the house bunny, let's not forget.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:11

I definitely forgot.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:12

I think you just reminded me of something, but what on earth is the house bunny? That sounds really familiar.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:17

Oh my god, Alison, have you seen The House Bunny?

SPEAKER_03 1:30:20

Yeah, it's Anna Farris, I think. Yes. She goes to be a house mother at a sorority after she gets kicked out of the Playboy mansion.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:27

Yes, exactly that. Aka one of the best movies of all time.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:31

Truly unfamiliar, but I think it for me it comes in the form of just different organizations. I feel like sororities and and frats are like notorious for what they are because it's a bunch of young kids who just suddenly have freedom for the first time. But we've definitely seen that come to life in other forms. I feel like within any microcosm where you have like a bunch of young people together, they will undoubtedly just form their own almost like sorority frat kind of click situations. And I feel like I'm not missing out on much.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:00

No, I'm my my small state university that I went to had one sorority and one fraternity, and they were mostly like study groups. And every now and then they would do like a bake sale. Um, but I'm not sure, aside from like hanging out and studying and eating food, like what they actually accomplished. Like, I don't is it just to hang out with people and like have friends and stuff? I I truly don't get it.

SPEAKER_04 1:31:22

They want a sense of belonging that they'd never had before.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:26

Yeah, I never joined Greek life because, well, I went to school in New York City, so there wasn't really a lot of Greek life, but also it's mostly just a way to like pay for your friends. So that was never very appealing to me.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:37

What? Wait, what does that mean?

SPEAKER_03 1:31:39

You're you're you have to pay to be in in a sorority or fraternity.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:42

So what?

SPEAKER_04 1:31:44

Really? I thought you had to like pay the price with like hazing and pranks. I didn't know you had to like pay money for that.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:49

Yeah, you still have to pay after. You have to pay like like dues and stuff, I think. What a fucking scam. Damn. This is why everybody's poor.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:58

Like in addition to your tuition, you have to like pay to live in this like old dilapidated mansion.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:02

Yes. But the one in this movie looked really nice, so I would have lived there.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:06

Oh yeah, it actually really did.

SPEAKER_04 1:32:08

Okay. Sororities have never looked quite as good as they did in the 1974 Black Christmas and this Black Christmas. Uh beyond that, or actually no, Sarah Michelle Geller, a CC in Scream 2. What a nice gal. You know, she seemed to have it fine until she was dead.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:22

She got got.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:23

And and Tree and Happy Death Day, her house is really nice too. So it's just in the movies that they're really nice. Otherwise, they're shitholes.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:31

And it's always like a two to three-story, like old colonial type house.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:35

Yes. The better to get thrown off the roof from.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:38

Exactly. If there's not a balcony you can fall from, it's not a frat house. Um, but now that I'm thinking about this, when I was in college in Pittsburgh, I went to so many frat parties. I forgot. They mostly do parties. I feel like that's the main thing. And it's also kind of like, I feel like it's a built-in friend group for those people.

SPEAKER_04 1:32:53

I feel like at that point you're just kind of stuck together, yeah? It's kind of like misery loves company. Like you really just want to find people that you commiserate with. And you've all been through this treacherous thing together. And if it's not a sorority, it's not a frat, you're also just struggling to survive on the outside of that if you can't afford to go to college. So there you go. We all just a miserable loving company.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:11

I I'm thinking about it. Is it is it kind of like Boy Scouts, you know, where or um I I guess now just Scouts BSA and and uh so you have like a den mother, right? And you have to pay dues and you have activities that you like have to attend. It sounds very similar, and I never did that either, but I wonder if there's any like overlap between the two groups, you know, people in scouts who then grow up to uh want to be in a Greek life organization.

SPEAKER_02 1:33:36

Mac, I think there has to be because according to the house bunny, there's a house mother who like is like an older woman who actually isn't a student, I don't think, but she kind of like oversees. And remember she was like that one funny Jewish woman in the Black Christmas that Chris hates?

SPEAKER_04 1:33:50

Yes. Yeah, she was also Andrew Martin, who was also in the original Black Christmas. Oh yeah. I oh I always forget.

SPEAKER_02 1:33:57

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 1:33:57

That whole important thing.

SPEAKER_02 1:33:58

I remember her gorgeous nose. Um, so yes, there is some sort of like supervisor, den mother figure, but I don't know what that's called in a frat house. Is it like the den daddy or something?

SPEAKER_04 1:34:10

Sounds like you wanted to be the den daddy.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:12

Well, how do I meet him? I've been to so many frat parties, I've never seen the Den Daddy.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:15

Paris, if you never saw the Den Daddy, that means you were the Den Daddy.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:19

Oh my god. I didn't get paid a damn.

SPEAKER_04 1:34:22

Have you ever seen you and the Den Daddy in the same place at the same time?

SPEAKER_01 1:34:25

No, but I'd like to. I have worse stories about Greek life. So when I first moved to Virginia, I moved to Charlottesville, where the University of Virginia is, and there were a lot of like people in sororities and fraternities. And I didn't know anything about that life, and I and I dated someone who like knew tons of people who were in sororities and fraternities. And the stories that I would hear were insane. Just like drinking to blackout on purpose every single every single weekend, let alone like you know, to me, doing that like once in a lifetime would be too much. But they were like, no, every Friday you would go out and just like drink until you passed out, um, or drink until you walked home and didn't know how you got there. And that to me doesn't sound very fun, but I'm boring. Like like to me, even when I was younger, fun was like going home and getting some good sleep. That sounds fantastic. When I was in college, the idea of sleeping was like the only thing driving me to finish any course.

SPEAKER_04 1:35:20

Honestly, same. And outside of college, I really just want to go to work and come home and snuggle.

SPEAKER_02 1:35:26

I can't say I had the same college experience. I went to college during the summer of Four Loco, um, where a blackout in a can was a regular Friday.

SPEAKER_03 1:35:36

I went to school in New York City where we had a bar near our c near my school that we would go to that would never ID, and they made really strong Long Island iced teas. So I had three of those in two hours once. It wasn't it wasn't a good thing. I haven't had one since because I don't remember getting home.

SPEAKER_04 1:35:54

I'm gonna be honest. Like I know logically it's a drink and it's famous, but I don't know what it is.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:59

Wait, have you not made it to that episode in the Big Bang Theory where uh Penny gives Sheldon Long Islands?

SPEAKER_04 1:36:05

No, because who watches the Big Bang Theory in consecutive order? You just kind of like just stumble upon it in random happenstance.

SPEAKER_03 1:36:12

This is true. Hey, Long Island iced tea is vodka, rum, gin, tequila, triple sec, sweet and sour mix, cola, and a lemon slice.

SPEAKER_04 1:36:22

So Okay, that those all do sound like things that I would really like. It's tasty.

SPEAKER_02 1:36:26

And it's also dangerous because those will sneak up on you.

SPEAKER_04 1:36:29

Just how I like it. What is the uh is it 11 Cloverfield Lane? What what is it 10 Cloverfield name? See, I was close. That was actually a really good movie. That went in a direction that I did not expect or see coming, and I was like, you know what I see you out here, Cloverfield reinventing the game. That's fine.

SPEAKER_02 1:36:46

Is that the one with John Goodman in the bunker? Yes, it is. Oh, interesting.

SPEAKER_03 1:36:51

John Goodman is amazing. I also love him in the movie Red State.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:55

So yes, me too. So good.

SPEAKER_03 1:36:57

Yes, I got to see that at uh screening at Radio City back in 2011, and then Kevin Smith and the cast came out to like do a talk back after. So that was really fun.

SPEAKER_04 1:37:07

My experience with John Goodman is 10 Cloverfield Lane and Roseanne? Yes, that was him. Yes. Yep, there it is. Damn it, Claude, look what you made me do. That's from the original. Not Claudette. All right, here we go.

SPEAKER_02 1:37:23

Oh my god, they did change the gender of Claude.

SPEAKER_04 1:37:25

They did.

SPEAKER_02 1:37:26

Literally, the moment I heard Claudette, all I thought was Dead by Daylight. I was like, God damn it, Claudette.

SPEAKER_04 1:37:31

No, it was definitely there was a white cat named Claude that uh the mother I remember. That Mrs. Okay, great. Love that. Alright. Didn't think you would.

SPEAKER_02 1:37:41

But the thing I love most about this movie was like kind of it's more like philosoph the It's kind of woo-woo. It's kind of woo-woo, but it's a good book.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:52

It's called The Ancient Secret of the Flower of Life. Well, I I guess that's another book for my reading list, Paris, so thank you.

SPEAKER_04 1:37:58

Sounds like it's a book about a vagina.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:59

Well, I mean, I don't know. Maybe it is. That's okay. It's not not.

SPEAKER_04 1:38:03

It's not not, I got it.

SPEAKER_01 1:38:05

I do find it interesting that they don't want 13-year-olds to know about that word.

SPEAKER_04 1:38:08

They don't want men, period, to know about that word, apparently.

SPEAKER_02 1:38:11

Apparently. Yeah. It's a secret. I mean, well, dick and balls are public domain.

SPEAKER_03 1:38:17

Well, if too many, if too many women know about that word, then they're gonna expect men to also be able to find it.

SPEAKER_01 1:38:24

But just with like their, I don't know what you would call them, like costumes, I guess, at this point. What do what are they wearing at movies? They costumes, outfits? An outfit, yes. Okay, their outfits.

SPEAKER_03 1:38:33

Wardrobe.

SPEAKER_01 1:38:34

They're wardrobe. See, that's the word I was looking for. Their the wardrobe is fantastic. Sorry, words disappear sometimes.

SPEAKER_02 1:38:41

Wait, I have to just get this out before we wrap this episode. Can we talk about how gorgeous Imogen Poots is and how she has the ugliest name on human record? Poots? Imogen? The combination is just hateful.