Hello and welcome to another episode of the
shock doctor's podcast. I'm Jim Smith. I'm Matt
J Daisy.
And we are the shock doctors.
In this episode, we're going to be discussing
long legs, which is the latest film from
Oz perkins,
and
oh boy.
Yeah. It's the
I finally, that big dark rain cloud that's
always hanging over my head whenever I'm poo
poo talk to me or whatever, a movie
like that. Ill it has has finally
painted.
Ray of light has shown through. I like
this movie a lot. I like it as
much. I think it's it's it's sort of...
It's Os goods
first normal movie, I would say. And I
would I would tend to agree with that.
It's still fairly like I know what you
mean.
Yeah. No. I mean, it's it's not a
a studio pot boiler by any stretch.
But it is it is more of a
crowd please than I was expecting. It got
laugh lines in it. It's got rep tay.
It's not as
chili and alien.
As his work often is... Yeah. It's a
police procedural for the most part with horror
overt tones and a super natural twist. It's
very much in the vein of
silence of the lambs, and it's a nineties
period piece, which I did not know going
in. We were just talking, I think in
the last episode the Magazine episode about how
the nineties got the short end of the
stick, and it feels like at best
there's, like, as much eighties and nineties pan
happening right now, roughly evenly distributed.
But the eighties that, I think it's an
overstate. Well, yeah. But in and even if
that were the case, it would be too
little too late because the eighties have been
steam rolling us for... I don't even know
how long at this point, but this takes
us back to the Clinton years in a
very pronounced way his his thesis his picture
is hanging on the wall during a few
key scenes. Well
headquarters. It's not just a police procedural. It's
a fed's
procedural. And
true to form, they have
presidential portraits up all over the place, and
it is Bill Clinton.
Appears to be
first term bill Clinton, which I think holds
with how all the fucking cars look.
Yeah. Which is usually my benchmark.
It being said in the nineties, it being
about the feds
and them hunting a serial killer, but with
a supernatural twist gives it a little bit
of a twin peaks vibe, a little bit
x files. It is really hitting
more than 1 sweet spot for me. So
I was just, like a puppy getting its
belly rubbed for the most part in this
movie. And and so I was able to
suspend any
expectation that it had to be the scariest
film of all time, which it isn't. Right.
But because... And but that's was the way
it was marketed,
it had a marketing campaign, and I'm not
the first person to point this out. It
had a marketing push that would make William
cast old blush. You know, These really h
tried and true carnival barker tactics.
Come see long legs. And if you die
of fright, we'll pay your funeral expenses that
kind of that kind of William Castle, Roger
Cor shit.
And it still puts asses and seats apparently.
I was in a packed house, and I
was kind of dread that as soon as
I saw that we were gonna be shu
it off into the corner because all the
good seats were spoken for. I I thought,
well, this is this has been marketed.
To within an inch of its life, everyone
is gonna go in expecting a thrill a
minute kind of thing, and then you're just
gonna get a whole theater full of
restless people who are watching an Oz perk
slow burn.
So I I felt I felt like a
meteor epidemiologist watching, like, conditions for a perfect
storm developing like, oh, this is this is
gonna be... They gonna end well. Yeah. But
it... They they were perfectly well behaved there
were some some gas, so the woman next
to me was jumping and and jolt around
and her see very gratifying
to witness and just exist in the vicinity
of. It was 1 of the better movie
going experiences I've had in quite some time.
Yeah. I had just a sliver of that
experience. My screening was not at all full
in part because you're living in a a
major
metropolitan area, and I drove into Flint. But
when I pulled up to the theater,
I saw, like,
6 to 8 cars in the parking a
lot, and I figured that long legs would
not be the big draw. At noon on
a Sunday.
So I figured I might be seeing this
alone or with 1 other person. And to
my surprise, it's seemed like the majority of
people at the theater at that particular moment
were there to see long legs. Now again,
that amounted to. 10 or 12 other people,
but still, it was Yeah. It was kind
of neat to see because I like you
did not necessarily anticipate this movie
doing numbers. Obviously, it's got Nick cage attached
to it, and he could still be something
of a box office straw. Even after all
of his years of direct to video garbage.
They've been carefully
aligning his face, which is also very old
school. The kind of thing that Roger Cor
or William Castle would have done. Like, you
gotta you gotta pay up before you can
go into the freak tent. You know. We
you don't you don't get to see you
don't get to see the bearded lady for
free. You gotta pony over some cold hard
cash, and then we'll show you what long
legs looks like. So the that... I think
that's enticing to people, which is amazing in
an Internet age
that his face... I was expecting his face
to be plastered all over Twitter within a
day of this movie going into wide release,
but I went in un spoiled. His visit
is pretty interesting. We'll get there when we
get there. Yeah. But Yeah. It's it's it's
kind of a normal movie by Oz standards.
It's it's a crowd please,
grand old time.
I think a lot of that is down
to the marketing. I mean... But it is
it is just sort of more thoroughly and
consistently
entertaining.
Than I would have expected. And I think
that rather than it being jump out of
your seat scary
is the real selling point and why it
might have legs at the box office, long
legs even. It's kind of got the nun
in it,
which, you know, I mean, it's it's
so you're not like
it's not consistent with the con verse in
terms of its underlying theology or it's just
general
disposition or its style There's a moment in
it when the protagonist mother says that praying
never did anybody any goddamn good, and I
was like Jesus Ed Lorraine found dead in
a ditch.
Like that's
so so refreshing to watch a movie where
you just know
that that sort of thing is not gonna
save the day.
It just kind of rips that safety blanket
away from you. And it's like, good. I'm
I'm actually watching a horror movie. It's not
being
sermon at. Not watching
something from angel films.
Yeah.
Pure flex. Yeah. Going back to the marketing
for this film, the 1 blurb
that I saw rattling around in a couple
of places was, you know,
long legs making people vomit by the score,
or something to that effect. And every time
I read about a horror movie making more
than 1 person in the whole country vomit,
I I call bullshit. I just I don't
believe it. It's not. Gotta be, like, contaminated
popcorn at or at a preview screening. Or
something. Deliberately contaminated.
I'd be ever exact poison to popcorn.
But
particularly, at least it makes some sem of
sense when they're, like, terri
too. People are vomiting left and the right.
I was like, okay. Yeah. I get it.
That's that movie's
s. Damian Leon just trying to make everyone
vomit. I I get it. I'm uni unemployed,
and I don't believe it, but it makes
more sense here is... No.
Oz perkins is not doing anything that is
going to make you nauseous.
It might make your soul feel sick.
I I asked I asked Matt before we
started recording if he felt a a bone
deep soul sickness, And he he said he
did not. No. I I can't say that
I do, but that's not a mark against
to the movie. I think that I just
found it to the word I used before
was gratifying in reference to, the woman sitting
next to me. Normally, there's... It's like uri,
you know, in the men's restroom. You leave
us space seat. Yeah. Not so today. I
did not have that option. So I was
privy to every little shutter and sc.
It's, you know, not to... I mean, I
feel like I'm sound like long legs, like
I'm re the pain of a stranger, but
she was having a great time. After the
movie, she turned to her friend and was
like, that was so good.
I I just... I found it kind of
elect,
and I mean, we'll we'll, maybe my... I'll
change my tune. And after the sun goes
down, I don't think I will. But because
I've heard that it has that kind of
fridge effect, you know, where it's, like, it
it kind of sets in later. I think
that's what Hitchcock called it, the, like, or
the ice box
effect or something like that where you... As
you're, like, go into the fridge or the
freezer later that evening and something I think
that that was in reference to, like, plot
holes. So he doesn't want people to notice
plot holes until well after the movie is
over. Mh. But III feel like fridge horror
is like a it's probably a half remembered
Tv tropes ism
anyway. But I get what you're saying. It's
it's maybe I will change my tune after
it sat with me a little longer for
the time being, though, I just feel g
and energized and pretty gun h about it.
It it left me feeling cheerful
because...
Because because it was hitting so many of
my sweet spots, basically.
Yeah. For me, it was hitting basic
the same sweet spots because we have those
in common as we've talked about on a
number of occasions. But it did take me,
like, 5 or 6 minutes
to kinda shake it off. You. Yeah. I
I sat all the way through to the
end of the credits letting t rex wash
over me.
And wondering if that would help a little
bit. And then I got up, and I'm
walking out of the theater. I just kinda
like,
just Yeah. The the ending is pretty harrowing.
Although there's a Gallo humor
laugh line even in there. True. That is
pretty exquisite.
And It's just not something I would have
expected from old oz. I figured. I don't
know. His the first 2 movies are, like,
almost
With, like, how little of a shit they
give
about giving you something to munch popcorn too.
Yeah. And then after I got on the
road, and I was, like, Yeah. That's great.
I love it. Yeah. But I am curious
like you to see regardless of what Tv
tropes might call the effect, what specific name
a white sign, just seeing whether you get
recurring
impact once it gets dark up,
and you you you start jumping at shadows.
A little bit. It reminds me of at
least 1 movie that did grow on me
in that way, like a mold, which is
cure by Kyo K
U. That they have left me kinda cold.
When I first watched it, but it has
that literally mesmerizing
kind of quality that I've I've gone back
to it a couple times and it risen
in my esteem. Also there might be something
a little bit cosmological
going on with all of this because as
of as it so happens, we are recording
this episode on the 14. Oh sweet Jesus.
How did I not notice?
That's nice.
Hopefully, there is a next episode and that
we're not found Butcher. Well, given that we
are not neither 1 of us is a
father with a tidy, little nuclear family.
Hopefully, that means we're safe, because we are
outside of long legs o.
That's true. He does have a type, and
that's another thing that took me back to
Thomas Harris, the Fbi profile
aspect of all of it, the will graham
sort of, you know, getting into the mind
of the monster
thing. I don't know. IIIII
mentioned on Twitter tweet didn't get any real
traction. I got 1 response though that did
interest me in which I'm about to reg
here. What I said was that I don't
need this movie to be scary because it
is checking so many boxes for me just
on its face that if it's even half
successful, I'll feel like I won the movie
power ball. Right. It's it's it's as the
7 silence of the Lambs thing got a
little bit of cure in there. I couldn't
be happier. And the response that I got,
can't remember from who was that it's it's
funny
how few movies we get like this now
because the whole genre has basically been banished
to television.
Yeah. And I would not really want to
see a version of long legs that was
stretched out over
6 to 10 episodes.
I think that it's... That would that would
have... It's bled out the tension for sure.
Yeah. Yeah. It is. It's it's the whole
thing is kind of it's not gonna make
you jump out of your seat, but I
did feel like I was on the edge
of my seat the whole time and
not possible to sustain. I don't think over
however, many hours, 5 to 10 hours, and
that edge of your seat tension is not
really reproducible
to any 1 thing. I mean, there are
scares in the movie, but
I was leaning forward even when
not much of anything was going on. Which
does speak to my pro, you know, and
and my net. I'm I'm I'm predisposed
to like this kind of stuff, but I
think it also speaks to the filmmakers
prowess that the air never gets led out
of the tire even for a moment.
Yeah. Speaking of how this genre has been
banished to television. I think the most obvious
point of comparison for me is
mind hunter? Yeah. It's a show I thought
of because there is at least some of
the time, a bit of a venture color
palette going on Yeah. Especially in that barn
at the very es flashlight beams.
Yeah. But then there are other times where
it's a lot different, just stylist statistically, which
makes sense because Oz Perkins and David Finch
fisher. They have some things in common some
of the time, but they're not really all
that similar.
But, yeah. I like mind hunter a lot
too, and that's just yet another great film
television series, what have you that this movie
was summon up, and that just all all
the more reason why it... It stands out
as being very good. Yeah. Well, AAA
Tv show can be cut down in it's
prime due to the whim of fate and
article.
David Finch ventured
not being able to make things cheaply enough.
Yeah. Right.
But but a movie, you know, once it's
in the can, it's in the can. As
long as David's Za love doesn't delete it.
They live forever. Yeah. Exactly. Unless unless it's
a special case like, horizon, which has... Yeah.
I'm a Kevin Cost horizon, I mean, which
is in Limbo, like a Tv show would
be,
but that's a a very special nigh unprecedented
case.
Yes. For sure. Well, or about 20 minutes
into the recording already. So I'm I'm going
to do the very brief setup, and then
Matt will kick us off here. Yeah. I
could I could just keep wall like a
pig and shit because that's how I feel,
and I will do it. That will recur
throughout the recording. I'm sure. But, yeah, let's
get a move on. Yeah.
So the film follows
both this serial killer named long legs, played
by Nicholas Cage,
and also a young Fbi
agent played by Mike Monroe. Name is Lee,
what is it?
Parker. So there's a there's a horror gene
there going back to Dracula.
Beautiful, which I liked.
Yes. Leigh Har. Thank you. And she is
basically
hunting for him. She's not hunting for him
from the jump,
but in some ways, she kind of is,
and we'll we'll get into that. And he's
kind of hunting for her from the jump.
And that's even more than kind stuff. That's
pretty.
Pretty much straight up.
But it is interesting because not only is
Mike and Monroe character kind of a Cla
Star or a Will graham. She's also them
splice with Robert Gray
from Zodiac.
Yeah.
Eagle scout. But see right. I don't think
they let women be Eagles scouts in the
nineties, unfortunately.
I'm sure bet they do now. But in
addition to the fact that she is at
least
for a little while, relatively early on, solving
cipher.
Which a lot of what Jake Sc Hall
gets up to in Zodiac.
They also just have kind of a a
similar
odd ball intensity to them, kind of a
an awkward
and a bit of a a staring sort
of weirdness to them. It's the the fact
that they are the protagonists,
which is unusual. They're saddle with this sort
of... Either, you could just get the sense
that they never really learned to interface with
other people correctly, and it puts them... It
makes it easier for them to tap into
that serial killer wavelength,
You know, because they're also kind of at
a remove. Yeah. On the looking... Yeah. Right.
Looking at the rest of the human race
as if through bin vernacular from a distance.
Right. Which is a trope that I loved
dearly.
It being
said in the nineties speaking of Zodiac also
gets you that much closer. You know, it
helps you tap into that x files twin
peaks. Sort of head space, which I also
love, but it also gets you that much
closer to the golden age of serial killers
because long legs has been operating.
For 30 odd years at the time that
the movie opens a a series of family
massacres spanning several decades,
and he got his start in the mid
sixties. I think 66 is the date that
they throw out. Yeah. And you could tap
into that herd Dirty man kind of Manson
Zodiac thing. And have it be set in
the present day if he were a million
years old, but I think that it being
set in the nineties.
He's still got more lot possible.
He's got a a long track record, but
not cartoon initially long. Yeah. And he doesn't...
You don't have to just assume that he's
going to be d decrypt.
Yeah. Right.
It'll be joking me wrong or something. The
nineties
iteration of long legs appears to have seen
better days, but he's not really dramatically
worse or weirder looking than his earliest appearances.
Yeah. And we begin, the movie opens, we
open with 1 of those appearances,
very much in line with the marketing. The
movie itself
collide, long legs face for
roughly the first half of it. Yeah. And
it's not as
gh
as you'd expect it to be given how
coy they are. I mean, he's off putting,
but you can understand
how he's able to go out in public
without just elicit screams. Right. The first person
that we see
lay on him looks pretty non plus and
in fact, has dealt with him before, the
sort of disinfected teenage girl I tell a
lie because this pro lock also has a
character
laying eyes on him, a character that's ultimately
revealed to be our protagonist Lee Har as
a young girl, but we don't know rid
off the bat. We maybe suspect it, tropes
being what they are. But in any case,
long legs approaches, this little girl who is...
It's quite a tense scene. There's a car
that she appears to not recognize,
parked outside her house. It's a snowy scene
kinda quiet and tranquil well, but with this
obvious note of unease,
and she catches a glimpse of someone dart
around at the back of the house and
pursues the figure into the backyard and then
gets jump scared and we see just the
lower half
of long legs face, just this kind of
g mouth, this Ashley skin palette sorta of
corp
creature, but we don't. You know, it it
doesn't doesn't look inhuman or anything.
And long legs says a bunch of spooky
Gibberish, and we get our title drop. And
there's 1 line I wanna highlight because it's
the sting before we get the title drop.
He's like, oh, I'm I... I'm not even
gonna try and do the voice because it's
too it's too weird, and I'm just gonna
ruin it, but it's like, Oh, I wore
my long legs today. And so he cro
down abruptly
into frame, presumably to get more on her
level.
And yeah. We don't. As you said, we
don't get any time really to look at
his face. It just kind of lu in
and then before we can look at it.
You know, we get a big scare cord
surge and
cut to red, I think at the title
drop, long legs.
And it jan my nerves, but good. I'll
I'll tell you,
likewise. I was a little worried that the
rest of the movie wouldn't live up to
it, but there's is pretty
strong scares
sprinkled throughout. And the movie also uses
scare cords
in a way that felt classy
to me. Yeah. Not that noise that you
would get in a James wan movie of
yes year, where... Which I've in the past
liken to a piano being dropped 20 stories,
you know, and it just hits the ground
and goes blog. You know, It's just the
loudest thing you've ever. Or it's more of
a a nerve j
spider on a violin strings kind of noise.
Like, literally
It just has that sort of
seventies.
III... It it's it's aggressive in a modern
horror. Away way, and it was getting reactions
from the crowd that I saw it with,
but it... I don't know. Felt a little
classy to me a little more old school
in a in a way that's kind of
just down to what it's doing sonic.
I think I always like when jump scares
sound like a musical
manifestation of, like, that heart the throat feeling
when it's not just a loud noise. I
mean, a loud noise can provoke that reaction,
but it should also sound
the way that feels if that makes any
sense at all. My favorite example being the
weird s streak that you get when Ben
Ga head floats out of the whole of
the boat and jaws. It's like nothing I've
heard before or since. It's just kind it's
this weird yelp that the soundtrack does. Yeah.
Oh, I'm not even gonna try to approximate.
No. But long legs, it's this sort of,
like,
screeching
t
sort of Yeah thing. And, yeah, It's... What
makes them good is that the jump scare
cords
are not
startling just by virtue of volume.
Right.
J deposed with whatever's going on on the
screen. It's like, yes. They're loud, but it's
an un unsettling
fucking
musical
sequence.
Yeah. Effectively unnerving for sure. So within are
introduced or actually reintroduced,
to Lee as a newly recruited Fbi agent,
and I thought at first,
She's in a briefing.
And I thought they were talking about long
legs. You know. They're hunting for, like, a
middle aged white guy, and we see him
in relatively short order and know right away.
Oh, that's that's not our man. That's not
Nick cage.
But they're going door to door
even in the nineties, the guy giving them
their marching orders, acknowledges that this is old
fashioned,
but they need boots on the ground out
there. You know, have you seen this man
that kinda door to door grunt work, and
she is paired with this very
milk toast other Fbi agent guy, and he's
not long for this world as it turns
out, which I guess is good because he's
appears to have very little going on. He
also kinda brings that eagle scout energy, but
not in a protagonist kind of way. He's
some... He's... It's he's somehow less charismatic
than a Robert Gray smith. Say, but he
just doesn't have... Well, he just... He's he's...
Yeah. Milk toast is exactly the right word
for it. He's just... Yeah. Kind kind of
boring
and he doesn't seem to be taking the
job all that seriously.
Mh. You would think that he was selling
girl scout cookies or canvas saying for a
politician.
Right. Lee picks 1 of the cookie cutter
houses basically out of thin air and says,
like, he's in there It's that 1. I
know it is. Call it in. And he's
like, what we're not gonna call in a
hunch on our first day. Tell you what.
I'll go over there. I'll check it out,
and it's gonna be fine. And so he
goes over and rings the bell. And
after
some delay, we hear...
Somebody coming down the stairs. We don't see
who opens the door. We don't even really
see the door opening because it's just around
a corner, but these guy just like, Yes.
We're canvas singer arrived. Have you seen this
bam?
Immediately gets his brains blown out. Right. Right
out. And then.
The guy was banging on the stairs. So
you knew that this guy, it he didn't
have, like, buddy cop
potential that you thought, well, maybe we'll be
stuck with him for 10 to 20 minutes
or something until she gets a promotion. No.
No.
He's is
6 feet under is decisively
dispatched. So then we get our first sort
of suspense sequence
in the silence of the lambs mold where
she's going through house, which has tarp, you
know, see through
torque plastic heating. Plastic sheet over all the
walls
behind any of which the killer could be
lurking. And eventually she tracks into a bedroom
and he doesn't resist to rest.
Next thing we know she is taking some
kind of test to gauge her psychic abilities
because she had this seemingly
super normal hunch that led to this guy's
arrest, and
she is doing, like, Ro shack kind of
stuff. What does this remind you of this
picture, this picture, this picture flashing almost with,
like, a para wax view
quick
across the screen. Very fast a number between
1 and 100 has just been generated. What's
the number and she later tells another
Fed, her commanding officer. I think his name
is Carter,
Carter. That She she got, a bunch of
them right, but she also got a bunch
of them wrong, you know, And and so
he he dub her
half psychic. Right. I think it's exactly half
because it's like, that how did you beat
the number generator 8 times and she says,
Well, I also got it wrong 8 times.
Right. So she's at best medium psychic, but
as he points out, that's better than nothing.
And
her
pseudo psychic abilities
do not come into play as often as
you would think they would given how early
and how sort of how to put this.
It it... It's presented in a very matter
of fact way. And it's presented very early
on. And so what that does is it
creates precedent.
In your mind. You think, okay. So supernatural
things
do happen and are are basically acknowledged to
have happened.
By the Fbi and some kind of formal
capacity even though it seems a little hush.
And that's useful not so much because it
gives
Lee super superpower because they don't come up
at several key juncture.
There there are several points in the movie
where having those abilities would have avail her,
you would think, and she does not seem
supernatural
in endowed in those moments. Like I keep
saying, it it does not come up as
often as you would expect given how early
it's introduced, but it does do the movie
an incredible boom in the sense that it
creates that precedent because there are some big
swings
near the end of the movie that I
think would have been disaster us if they'd
come completely out of left field, and there
was no sense prior that supernatural things were
possible. So in that sense, it is good
to get it out of the way early
on. It happened so early that we kind
of half forget about it. But nevertheless, that
groundwork has been laid.
So I guess, due to her
alleged clair,
she is put on the long legs case.
And as soon as she is, it starts
heating up, but this is something that Carter
observe how interesting that you know, this is
basic... It it, it's not a cold case.
It's still active. It's still open, but this
guy has been running circles around us. For
30 years with a cipher that no 1
can crack, and then as soon as we
put you on his trail. And there's, like
11
crime scenes over that time, and he's never
left a shred of physical evidence. The only
indication that they've ever gotten that he was
even there is the letters he's left behind.
Right. All signs long legs written in a
Zodiac
style cipher.
And the handwriting isn't a match for anyone
who was actually involved, actually getting up to
their elbows and gore at the scene of
the crime, which is basically how they all
play out. It's all family
annihilation, type stuff, father's
snapping and killing their wives and children, and
there's always a girl child in the family,
whose birthday falls in the middle of the
month on the fourteenth and the killings always
happen within a week on either side of
that birthday. Well, no not a week. 6
days. Let's 6 6 is a big number.
As we to find out. This is it's...
This is the kind of movie that makes...
That that gets you into that Zodiac mode
where you start taking the new neurology very
seriously.
So
that's a an appreciated
correction. So the movie throws a lot of
little stuff like that at you. And you
are off k because you know that something
supernatural might be a foot, but it is
mostly just pretty grounded police work. That's going
on here, not psychic
intuition. However, long legs does appear to take
an interest in lee specifically.
She is seemingly visited by him at her
home.
She's on the phone with her mother, and
that's a tense sort of chilly
relationship. And then she's in interrupted by a
figure in the yard. She pursues it outside,
and then the guy gets into the house
and leaves a letter behind the moment that
shield me here is when she runs her
thumb over the signature long legs at the
bottom of the cipher and it's still wet.
Hopping bag real quick to when you mentioned
that Carter points out how the case
started heating up just when she got involved,
I was don't wanna say afraid because this
probably could've have been done in a way
that wasn't irritating, but nevertheless, I was still
somewhat afraid
that that would turn into the whole. Her
colleagues thinks she might be in on it
thing.
Yeah. I was afraid of that, and I
was more so afraid that she actually was
going to be revealed to be some kind
of a sleeper agent pro.
Mh. Particularly, once they make it to the
mental hospital,
and
long legs or so we think is revealed
to have visited the day prior, but left
Lee Har name in the, like, registry book.
Yeah. So I thought, like, well, there's an
outside chance that she actually did visit and
has no memory of it, and I didn't
want that to be the reveal and thankfully
that's not the reveal.
Yeah. Neither 1 of those things proves true,
which is good. She's not involved and also
other than that basic off hand or remark
her boss makes? Nobody spends the rest of
the movie really looking at her sideways. Wondering
like, well, how does she know all of
these things. How could you Right?
Yeah. There's no, like, skeptic asshole suits. Like,
well, there's no, like, ghost buster bad guy
to be, like, you know, I've had enough
of this sp house nonsense, you know, to
get
William At does not piss in anyone's corn
flakes? Yeah. No 1 shows up to, like,
slash their funding because they've promoted this witch,
you know?
It's it's all very matter of fact, which
is sort of what gives it that twin
peaks x files flavor.
Yeah. Carter also goes a long way towards
getting you back in that mode. He reminded
me a little bit of early army in
7. He's is, you know, sort of he
he's kind of just... He's all... He's sort
of a hard ass, but sort of
laid back at the same time, and he's
a comic relief character, but he's also all
business, and that's just not something you see
that much of anymore. Ar Army and 7
is a very apt comparison I think. Yeah.
This ain't even my desk. This ain't even
my desk.
And it's just some of the... And I
know you'll appreciate this shout out. It's... It
some of their scenes
took me back to fallen
a little bit, hell where it's like, these
2 kinda straight laced cops or feds in
this case, just, like, talking their way up
to, like, well, yeah? Are we dealing with
a demon? You know? Like, is that what's
going? Like like just kind of. Like, staring
right at it and being like, man, really?
As it's probably not, but as soon is
son bitch.
And, like, that's 90 as head. That really
takes me back. Hell.
So Lee is able to crack the code,
not because she's psychic, but because long legs
gave her an entry point in the letter
that he left for her. He translates
some of the symbols. And the phrases that
he translates are taken from the Bible, the
book of revelation. At 1 point a character
says revelations and in my head, I was,
like, already correcting it and planning to be
a snoop about it during the recording, and
then Lee,
jumped all over it. Beat me to the
punch. Yeah. Revelation singular.
And she recognizes it at once and is
a little bit snip when when people get
the name wrong later in the movie because
she was raised with religion.
She
You know, that all that yeah.
Yeah. Alright. That that all time religion, and
this comes into play later on. It's partly
responsible. We sense for producing
her general demeanor, and and and to her,
you, her general weirdness church Girl, maybe kind
of a sheltered shut in. Yeah. Mother behaves
erratic. First on the phone during a couple
phone calls that they share, 1 of which
I already mentioned and then later on when
we get some 1 on 1 time with
her facetime. Yeah.
Facetime in the sense that they're inhabit the
same room because again, this is set in
the nineties. It's not Yeah. Yeah not. The
Facetime app. Yeah.
This was the 1 other reason I was
afraid of the red herring of everybody looking
a scant at Lee because when she translates
the message that long legs has left her
in her home. It says base
tell anybody you got this, and I kill
your mom. It's much Yeah. More unsettling and
flower language. I don't remember any of the
specific except that he refers to her mother's
milk tits?
Yes. That's the verbiage. That's also the only
part that's stuck with me,
which is bad enough. So you kind of
expect that somehow
it's gonna come out that she's had this
all this time and why didn't you tell
us and this is suspicious. And in fact,
it never comes up, which you might think,
like, well this this is kind of a
weird plot, but actually no. It's good.
Yeah. No. It it is good. And it
it's great too because she's translating the cipher
in real time. So I might be mis
remembering this, but there's a good chance that
you you see the word milk before you
see the word tits. Maybe they're a package
deal. I don't remember
exactly. I know we see her right the
last line out in its entirety, which I
don't remember. It ends with the word dead,
which supplies rhyme. Yeah. But the phrase milk
tits. There's spoken dialogue and occasionally occasionally written
phrases in this movie that Are I just
found
really
disconcerting.
Kieran and Ship has a couple of them
when She shows up later. That's a hell
of a fucking scene.
Yeah. It's a it's a it's a doo.
But just like milk tits is just stuck
in my crawl because you would expect it
to be like milk bags
or something like that. Like, the they're... It
milk tits just creates this feeling of like
It's something that an alien in a wrote.
Well, right. But it's not even... Like, it's
it's not even as
d
as it could be. I mean, once you,
the idea that they're just milk
of some. You're just not expecting the word
tits. You're expecting it to be even more
divorced somehow from what it's describing, but no.
It's the inclusion of the word tits in
this weird non standard j to position construction.
It's less d in a sense, but it's
still weird enough and wrong enough, and it
you you tie that in with it being
cra,
and it's just this which is brew of
it.
Well, it just... It just... The point I'm
trying to build to is that it just
sounds like something an actual serial killer would
Yes. It's it's it's just... It's got this
convolution to it that could have only sprung
from a disease mind. Mh. Because any of
the alternatives that occurred to me, whether it's
milk bags or or or maybe, you know,
you can replace the word milk to blank
tits. Any of that would just sound kind
of like maybe Edge lord or maybe just
a little more... I don't know. It it's
it's it's a disease thing. Yes.
Yes.
That's all I have to say.
How do they find their way to the
David Finch venture Barn where they find the
doll? Because there... That that there's 2 leads
that they get? I think it's after she
cracks the cypher, and they debate which 1...
They don't really debate. They boot go to
whichever 1 is closest, which is the bar.
But there's an old crime scene. That they
wanna check out, and then there's a a
witness, a survivor of 1 of the long
legs massacres
in a mental hospital, and they go check
on her second.
So
Lee cracks all of his letters translates all
the letters gets a full cipher cracked in
record time.
In part because she's been given some clues
and then just the rest because she's a
little bit weird and half psychic. And
She says that repeated reference scattered across most
or all of the letters, but certainly not
limited just 1. Reference is constantly being made
to the fun we had at the camera
camera name. Yeah. A it's a weird. It's
a weird name, and I couldn't remember what
it was. The camera farm. It's not a
farm for cameras. It's Right. The the name
of the family camera or whatever. Locust lucas
wiped out my whole camera. Crop, you know,
and I'm a des.
Where x marks the spot. Where marks in
the spot. And then they they go. There
is in fact a unused barn. There's a
door that has... It looks like black tape,
maybe x's made in black tape. So sealing
the door shut, and then as they proceed
through the interior of the barn, which is
very... It reminded me of the first crime
scene in 7, where the the power is
out, and the characters acknowledge that it looks
very gloomy and they're very... I think 1
of the Csi guys shows up and it's
was like, oh, wonderful, very moody. You know,
they kind of lamps shade the fact that
it looks like a horror film in this
guy's apartment, the Glut victim. Yeah. It's very
much like that. And as as they're making
their way through the inside of the barn,
they come upon more x's, which, again, look
like they're made in black tape on the
walls, but increasingly they don't look like x's.
They look like crosses, and they're never the
right way up.
No, which is not to say that they're
pointing straight down either. They're just a skew.
Yeah. They're 45
degrees below the Meridian.
Yeah.
Tilt it down. But, yeah, there's there's 1
that marks a staircase. It's like, hey, go
up the stairs, basically. Mh. And so they
do. They go up the stairs. They find
a cross
an actual cross this time. Crucial Yeah Like
with a crucial
with a Christ on it and everything. Yeah.
And
they pry up the floor boards, immediately underneath
this cross, and they find a little scrap
of paper
with an inverted... Well, it's start to be
an inverted triangle. It's a triangle, whatever way
it's oriented. But, you know, But does it
does it does have a smiley face in
it, which has the utility of telling you
which way up is is up. You know?
So that's how we know the top point
of the triangle is angled down. Yes. Because
otherwise the the smiley face would be upside
down. I thought that was a nice touch.
Inverted triangles came up when she was cracking
the cipher. She maps out
the birth dates of all the victims and
the dates of their deaths and is able
to produce this room this like satanic ruin
something or other that well she she finds
the same thing somewhere in research materials and
cross glasses it with that. But anyway, underneath
that little note, there is a box
with a creepy fucking doll inside.
Yeah. Like a like a a life like
8 9 year old girl
looks like. I mean, is it is visibly
a doll. There's no fake out where they
think it's a body. At at first glance,
it is a doll but it's life like
enough that you expect it to go all
talking Tina on you at the drop of
a hat. Well, and it does it does
blink once. Yeah. It's eyes snap open, accompanied
buy a scare cord, and then we cut
to the next scene. And the other weird
thing about it is that most of its
hair is gone.
Like it's... Right.
Like it's been subjected to chemotherapy
or something. Yeah. It's got these wi strands
of what we soon learn as actual human
hair. Coming out of its scalp. And here
we get 1 of those great 1 scene
performances that you always get or used to
get in movies like this. It's like, from
the coroner,
almost always.
Corn munch mentioned on the corner munch mentioned
on the doughnut is the classic 1, or
I always think of the ent epidemiologists
and silence of the layers. Just any guy
who seems like he's a little too into
his work, the way that the ent epidemiologist
in that movie
sort of rh
about the bug, the moth that they found
in the 1 girl's throat. It's like, you
know, the how it's
It's an exotic
moth, and it's, you know, somebody had to
care for it. Somebody loved him. I think
is the line. Right before we cut back
the Buffalo Bill's basement,
and you get that energy from this guy
talking about how the Doll was made by
a master doll maker and the hair is
real human hair
and check this out. He shows you this
metal or that he dug out of its
cra.
And he's dubbed the brain,
which you know It seems... He seems he's
just... He's seems like half a serial killer
himself. Yeah. Which is what really sells a
performance like this, especially when they only show
up for 1 scene, just this a sense
of kind of latent psychosis lurking in anyone
who does this kind of thing for too
long? He also says
I could've have sworn it was saying my
ex wife's name over and over, and then
he quickly
covers that up by saying,
but, of course, I've been working a lot
and have been sleeping well. So clearly, that
didn't happen.
Yeah
Carter
Leigh and Carter are both kinda like...
Yeah.
Sure, buddy.
Get some sleep, please. They they wanna they
wanna crack into the or, and he assures
them. There's nothing inside. Eventually, we learn that
there is nothing inside, but it does have
seem to have these strange properties. It sends
Lee into a little bit of a few.
It it it emits this tone when he
interacts with it. I don't know what he...
What implement he was using it whether it
was a magnet or what. It, it's was
like a an ultrasound wand. Yeah. Yeah. Right.
Right You are. So it appears to have
some kind of odd properties, but we don't
know quite what.
And Carter is convinced that once they crack
that nut, we'll get something out of it,
and that turns out to not be the
case. It could still could have had writing
on the inside shell
potentially, you know? But but nothing ever really
comes of that. That was my first thought.
This is a guy who deals in cipher
just because there's not any physical material on
the side doesn't mean that there's nothing at
all, but it is a dead end. So
then they go to the mental hospital
and Lee has a sit down with Karen
and Ship, who
survived a long legs murder. Not just any,
but the 1 at the farm. There's the
1 of the farm. It's Yeah. Both of
these
locations, it's related to the same family
massacre.
And she's been cat tonic for many years
and just came to a couple days ago,
the same day that they dr the doll
out of the floor boards. Mh. And we
got another funny 1 scene performance from the
guy who runs the mental hospital who is
asleep at the wheel.
Does the guard check Ids? It's like,
Like, I suppose that would be a good
idea.
But no. We don't require that.
She's Patients because pretty much come and go
as they please...
Yeah. I mean, I I guess it's not
a... Maximum security or... Yeah. It's it's not
a pen
type. Yeah. No 1 there criminal insane.
So it makes a little more sense, but
even so, you would expect security to be
a little tighter.
Yeah. Because what we're meant to believe is
that long legs visited his surviving victim a
couple days prior and that was what reactivated
her, but it coincided with them poking around
the camera farm. Yes. And Kieran and Chic
gives a very cage creepy
performance. Again, just the 1 scene. Oh, there's
all kinds of little
dashes of flavor like that in this movie
where you just exactly the right amount of
these colorful
supporting character roles, but they don't over overs
stay their welcome. And it she took me...
It took me a minute to recognize her
too and part of Very gone. She's very
ga, and she's kind of got her head
tilted sideways and resting on her knees,
and she's got her hair clipped down to
basically nothing. Yeah. I don't I don't know
that I would have successfully peg her were
it not for the fact that I saw
people singing the praises of this performance on
Twitter, at least 1 of whom said that
they did not I her. So I had
a leg up in that regard. Yeah. And
it took me a minute. It's not like
I've been watching mad men recent so that
wouldn't trip, but I've never watched the sabrina
Netflix series. She wasn't black coats daughter if
I'm not mistaken. Yeah. Prior which is the
As good Perkins movie that left me the
cold, but when I've been meaning to revisit.
Yeah. No. She's terrific. She's the 1
who introduces
this element
whereby, it seems like those who have been
afflicted with a long legs and encounter
Yeah. There's a lot of incorrect plural polarization,
cutting both ways. I thought. And and it
comes up, like, like, cakes at the end
of the movie. And it might be why
book of revelations sets Leon on edge so
much. Of that and the religious up upbringing.
Yeah. I I didn't even think about that
but that's absolutely right. I bet that's exactly
what that's supposed to be. But it's just
saying basically saying, I do whatever long legs
said if he came back here and told
me to murder you with my bare hands.
I'd do it lick split or whatever her
folks see, you know, curve folk sea way
of saying that. It it is folks, and
she talks about seeing her eyes, pop out
of her head or something, but she says
eyes is like sm.
It's yeah.
Or, you know, if he wanted me to
do a oops daisy out the window or
or something like that. Yeah. Take a tumble
ke sp, a tumbling wobbly. Like, it was
it's it's really...
I mean, we're we're laughing out, but it's
unsettling.
For sure. Yeah. The whole the whole movie
is is written very def like that. There
are the lines that could have been funny,
and are maybe funny in hindsight.
Or easy to make fun of, which is
not the same thing as being funny in
and of itself. Yeah. It's like making fun
of hannibal le, It very easy to do,
but you're not doing it while the movie
is playing. Mh. Which is also kind of
classic. It feels to me a classy, old
school. Yeah. So many lines that could have
been
accidental laugh lines, but aren't because they have
just the right amount of weirdness
baked into them calibrated just so like milk
tits. That kind of thing? Or just at
least half the shit that Long legs says.
Was we'll get more into Nick cage, I
think post. But that's a feature of him
in this movie more than
anyone else, but it is throughout that there's
just stuff that if it had been executed
a little wrong. It probably wouldn't have worked.
And instead, it works not like a charm.
Well, we we do meet long legs in
the flesh around this time, and he's introduced
in in sort of an una assuming way
he's just running an errand,
and you witness an interaction with him in
a cashier, the dis teenager that I talked
about here near the beginning of the plot
rundown. And she's used to his antics
doesn't find him
especially blood c link just wants them to
get the fuck out of her store, basically.
And again, they're kind of a lighting his
face. We see him in profile.
Driving down the road. But once he gets
into the store, there's a lot of very
careful cutting. And when we see his face,
he's doing
spooky hand stuff to
conceal it and some of that is in
the trailer.
It's not a company to buy a scare
court in the movie, unlike in the trailer.
Mh. All of this is building up to
a freak out that he has in the
car after leaving the store because the girl
is like dad that gross guys is here
again. He's being weird
and
nicholas cage
is is driving down this country lane, and
he starts drinking and going,
daddy.
It's almost this.
It's almost this heavy metal whale.
You know, Like like axle rose thing.
He's just doing this
contempt car.
Of this girl whose life, he obviously wanted
to end on the spot, care ass the
way that she tried to summon her dad
for help.
And it does the same thing that the
Buffalo bill scenes do and silence of the
lambs. Or the tooth fairy scenes do in
man hunter where it just shows you, like,
this is this guy's life. You know, this
is day in day out. This is who
this guy is. This is how he operates,
and this is how people who are made
to interact with him feel about
having to interact with him. These are not
ted bundy serial killers. U. No. Not suave.
Not not ones who pass for normal and
who even seem charming. They're the ones like,
they're the ones who when the news goes
around and interviews everyone. No 1 fails to
say,
yeah. I always thought that guy was pretty
weird.
So
Lee goes to talk to her mother at
Carter's urging, and we got the sense that
Lee has been avoiding her mother, she mentions
after it's getting the promotion to the Long
lakes case, not being able to visit for
some visit they had planned.
And I think it's around her birthday or
supposedly which is a thing that makes you
twitch a little bit in this scenario. And
when was that again? Pray.
And if a our teeth. Mh. But Carter
insists because he's noticed that long legs is
giving Lee preferential treatment.
And he's keen to know why, and he
happens to know that A911
call was placed about a home intruder or
or a tres, the day before her...
Was it her ninth birthday in the mid
seventies. Yeah. And so he thinks that Lee
might have had a brush with long legs
and in fact, this was the pro log
that we saw. I wore my long legs
today, etcetera. Yeah. So Lee goes to talk
to her mother and her mother is not
all there, but is
well, she's a hoard for 1 thing. Her
house is just littered with crap.
She's... Yeah. Right. So it's a horror house,
which I always like. I like it when
movies have a realistic amount of clutter
not something you see very often silence of
the lambs is also kind of the gold
standard for me. In that regard. I think
it's Fred Be house when Star finds the
polaroid hidden.
In the What Call of the music box.
Yeah. That that house is realistically dr in
a way that Hollywood is seldom able to
capture. This is a few degrees ramped up
from that because it is a hoard house,
but it's it's very finely detailed. And the
mother's performance also is kind of thing that
you have to
calibrate very carefully
because when characters like that are 2 out
to lunch. It can just tedious. It can
just make you feel like you're banging your
head against a wall, but she's just cog
enough
for you to feel like your time's not
being wasted. You know, Lee isn't barking up
the wrong tree here. She's trying to get
answers from this woman and you get the
sense that her mother is capable of supplying
those answers. They just need to be coached.
Because she is kind of bad.
Yeah. There's a locked door that Lee is
not able to get into. This is 1
of those moments that in hindsight, you would
think she would have a prem mission or
something, which doesn't happen. Again, her psychic abilities
are under used, but art so, I think,
and their main function is to create pre
preconditions for what happens at the end of
the movie.
She finds
picture that were of long legs and of
herself. If I remember right that were taken
that snowy day that we glimpse at the
beginning of the movie and she then. Takes
those pictures, those polaroid
to Carter and on that basis before man
enforcement
psychic damage.
Right. She sees his face
and just blacks out for a second. Basically.
Right. But they have his face now. His
glorious visit of which I'll have more to
say in a moment. Yeah. And on that
basis, they initiate a man hunt, and he
is rep recommended basically immediate hey, he's found
with apple cases.
That... Yeah.
Yeah. He's given a slap on the wrist.
Give a a stern talking to and Yeah.
The Fbi not to do it again. The
Fbi guides him in no uncertain terms.
His... Yes. He is he is apprehended with
a pair of suit suitcases full of journals
full of his rambling, which is a little
bit John doe. Yeah. And then he's in
custody and We we get a good look
at his face for the first time. And
he looks
and sounds
like
a botched face lift
philips,
I think. That's that's
what I would like in him to. It's
it it it he has... It looks like
bad filler in his lips and his cheeks.
He's got an and.
To him, A min singh kind of camp
the, queen, kind of thing. The last shot
of the movie is him blowing the camera,
a kiss, just giving the audience a big
old sm. Well, and the other way I
thought of it is... And this is kind
of the first thing I thought of when
we encountered long legs maybe not literally the
first scene, although maybe even as early as
that,
but it's like Odds Perkins
finally
cracked
what James Wan could not and made tiny
Tim scary.
Yeah. I thought of tiny tim too. I
thought this is...
What's the... I think blood harvest is the
name of the moon where tiny Tim plays
a der killer. I thought, like, this is
this is like Philips blood harvest.
But there's a reason I thought of blood
harvest to begin with, and it is because
there's some tiny tim Dna in there. He
has that lil false set that he dips
into. Yes. As there's kind of his dominant
register that he inhabit, but then he can
also, you know, sw he hit and gh.
Yeah. Right. Usually, and and usually his delivery
is tied to what he's doing with his
posture. When he gets the most down low
in terms of the vocal arms. He is
literally s over and talking about getting down,
down,
You know. On on the dirty ground or
whatever he says.
Speaking and in Rhyme as he occasionally does.
So it's a it's a very sing song,
kind of very literal performance
in some ways. It's like, you know, if
I'm gonna talk like this, then I'm gonna
move like this, and it's, you know, it's
just something that you would see in, like,
like, like an actor who's maybe over committing
to children's theater.
Very very broad, but singular and disturbing? Yes.
So we got a a ted tech
between lee and long legs. They're in classic
mind hunter fashion seated across the table from
1 another
and she is convinced that he must have
had help. This is an idea that comes
up near the beginning of the movie where
they named drop Manson
and say that legs might have a family
might have aco might have acc,
and she's trying to get that information out
of him. The idea is bro that it
might be
Kieran and Sc because she says that she
would be all too happy to do his
bidding, but then she's revealed roundabout now to
have killed herself. She took her groups daisy
out the window.
Which I presumably was his bidding.
We don't know that for a fact.
And this whole scene is just great. It's
not a jam gum kind of performance. It
is more theatrical than that it's closer to
who is that actor, who's Buffalo Bill. He's
the guy with the fucking weird pho photograph
coming out of the side of his head
and Wild Wild West.
Great performance in any case. Part of what
makes that movie,
so just holistically wonderful for me is that
you've got Anthony Hopkins who's basically dracula, You
know. And and and then you've got you've
got the other guy whose name I wish
I could remember because he's so fucking good
in that role. And he's like,
straight out of Henry Portrait of a serial
killer. Just very salt of the earth,
very credible,
and you can kinda have your cake and
eat it too. There's a whole spectrum of
villain in that movie from, you know, very
terrestrial to ted that right. X. There it
is. It's not a Ted Levine kind of
performance. It's a lot closer to
Well, it's it's not really like anything I've
never ever seen before. But in term... But
in terms of the theatrical reality, it's a
lot closer to, like, Brad Der in 3.
Gemini killer. Yeah. And
excellent scene really gives a lot to sink
your teeth into, but she really doesn't glean
anything
valuable from him. And then in in a
moment that would have felt kinda hack or
predictable in most movies like this, but which
did catch me off guard. He says Hail
Satan.
And then smash his face into the table
repeatedly, and, basically pulp it drives his nose
into his brain, killed some size. Yeah.
Yeah. Basically... He talks about how he's a
a friend of a friend and his acc
is mister downstairs.
It's Satan. It's the devil. Well, And he
comes out and says, Hail Satan, which is
a little bit more night stalker, you know,
So we're getting sort of a a hodgepodge
of serial killers here, which is done
pretty shrewd, I think. And I like that
he just is an agent of the devil
because it spares you. I mentioned before that
facetime isn't an option for our characters mer.
Skype what have you this wouldn't have happened
anyway. But the fact that it is just
Satan's spares you, Vincent Don or whoever, sky
in to explain the gh. You know, And
how he's... He's, like, this very this niche.
It's like someone talking about a band you've
never heard of. You know, I was at
their first show and ancient sum area,
when when when they're when the Boo cult
first got off the ground all the baby
sacrifices?
It's goes. It's Zoo.
Yeah. Right. Exactly.
But no. It's just it's it's it's the
big guy. It's it's the guy, not the
guy upstairs, but the guy downstairs or.
Eu referred to, yeah. Mister Downstairs, which is...
I thought that we were all out of
good eu.
Even even like fallen has as az? Is
that right, Which is fine and and functional.
But if you can actually make me scared
of the devil,
that's a real coup, and and it gives
your movie more he, I think. Yeah. It's
an uphill battle because I don't really have
a spiritual bone in my body. Or a
super bone, but this movie does more or
less pull it off. And the the few
glimpse we get of mister Downstairs are just
pure Ba. You know, It's kind of this
horn to goat like silhouette
thing. Yeah. Very black fill up. Damn right.
The other thing that long legs
reveals before he pale satan's and kills himself.
He makes sort of elliptical reference to you've
captured me and now I'm free. Yeah. There'll
be a little bit of me everywhere, and
we don't really know what to make of
this. Yeah. My work is done, but it's
just the beginning. That's the vibe. Yeah. And
there's been
whiff of sulfur throughout this this movie. You
know, it just just bits and bobs of...
Brim stone. Yeah. Is there a little bit
of supernatural going on. But as you said
early on, and this holds true pretty much
up until this point, and then it's after
this where it really expands, but up to
this point, it's all stayed pretty grounded
you can pretty much explain everything.
Again, besides the kinda of weird doll stuff
and whatever. But you can still... Just like,
okay. Yeah. People are just on edge people
are feeling weird, whatever. This is all still
grounded, but it's after this where it kinda
kicks into overdrive on a supernatural
level.
Yeah. Well, and and because her apparent clair
v was dealt with so matter of fact,
the movie doesn't come to a screeching halt
so that 1 or more characters can be,
like, how is this possible? You know it's
mother of god.
There are more things in heaven and earth
har ratio blah blah blah. They just kind
of take it in stride. Yeah. These things
do happen. Although
Carter at this point does angrily storm off
angry because long legs died in captivity, and
they're not gonna be able to grill him,
but he's convinced that the acc theory was
bunk, and he also angrily
denounce any
notion of there being voodoo black magic.
At play here. But Lee gets a sympathetic
glance from a different Fed who was just
introduced and was the character who says book
of revelations.
Right. And so you think I got sort
of, like, not chi in silence of the
lambs because he's such a douche bag and
she's not, like operating at that level, but
I I did get a sort of feeling
of not outright incompetence, but, like, it is
not not a character that I expected anything
from just because her only scene involved her
flu something that the protagonist gets to kind
of smart acid correct her on. Mh. But
then she... After Carter sort of stonewall walls,
lee's attempt to keep pulling the thread this
character, who I don't know has I've ever
even given a name. Throws in their lot
with Lee, and the 2 of them go
to interview Lee's mother because Lee's mother was
present when long legs showed up that day
from the pro log, and so this is
kind of their last avenue,
and it turns out in a moment that
got this just wonderful
delicious gasp from someone sitting in the dark,
a dozen or more rose behind me. There's
a shot of this other character this Fed
sitting behind the wheel of the car in
the driveway
at Lee's mom's house and then Lee's mother
comes up behind her. It's 1 of those
shots like Carrie mom in the attic. At
the end of Carrie where she's in frame,
but you're not meant to see her right
away is just classic mis direction. Where there's
really nothing being concealed, the director just knows
that different people will notice her at different
times, which is what happened. When I heard
of the gas, I didn't know what there
was to gas about, which is funny because
kinda throughout the movie at various points at
least once
long legs makes his initial appearance at adult
lee's home in the middle of the night,
there's a sma of shots where you either
do see what appears to be or actually
is a long legs silhouette through a window
or in the background, Mh. Or you just
expect to see it. So in that sense
it's even more impressive
that Oz perkins could essentially do
that same thing
with lee's mom and pull it off like
that. Yeah.
So Lee's mom blows the fed's head off.
We see blood sp the inside of the
windshield. Lee also sees this through a window
inside the house. This is what supplies the
poster, her gasping with 1 hand on her
firearm.
Great shot. Yeah. Terrific.
And we think that Lee's mother has a
child at gunpoint in the backyard turns out
it's just another 1 of long legs dolls.
But it's 1 that looks like child lee,
very... Yeah. Pointed. So we don't know what's
going on with the dolls here, but something
supernatural
is clearly a foot
because when
lee's mom pulls the trigger. And this is
maybe the only thing in the whole movie
that left a sour taste in my mouth,
albeit a mild 1 we see this kind
of black vapor
spill out of the head of the doll.
It's the only thing that kind of sent
me rocket back to 20 24.
You know, because it's not the sort of
thing you would ever see in a nineties
movie. It's not something you would see in
the original twin peaks. It's maybe something you
would see in season 3. Mh. It's got
that kind of... It it it looks slightly
s, the black, whatever it is, spilling out
of the dolls head and out of the
back of lee's head at the moment that
the bullet passes through, and then, Lee
has has sort of an oops daisy of
her own. She collapses to the ground and
con out when she comes to... I don't
know quite how to regain you with all
of this because the mechanics of it are
a little bit convoluted.
Not excessively so. I I think that the
movie
gets very close to fa here, but it
sticks the landing.
Because
it is able to convey a lot of
information very quickly
and in a way that doesn't come up
with the works. Going into the climax. Basically,
we get a whole
exposition spiel from Lee's mother, na, I guess,
direct to us because she's not telling her
daughter. Her daughter unconscious, basically filling us in
on what her life has been the last
several decades since that meeting with long legs
out in the snow, and she was
strong armed more or less into being his
accomplished
because the alternative
was the death of her daughter.
And so... And not just death, but eternal
damn nation, burning in hell.
Right. So she has become a Satan worship,
which is a a funny way to try
to get out of the lake of fire,
But I guess if you're if you're
Yeah. If you're... She she mentions
specifically awaiting the day where the beast rises
out of the water, you know, with 10
crowns and all the rest of it. And
so I guess, her thinking is that Satan
will emerge victorious that day, and that's how
she's going to avoid going to hell for
eternity. Mh. Because that's what's supposed to happen
to people who are in league with the
devil. But I guess some someone told her
different. She does turn into... Well, alright. So
it's it's very much a Wolf in Sheep
clothing, and it's been post earlier in the
movie. That whoever long legs accomplish is, it's
someone that people would trust and open their
door to. This is always an intriguing question
in movies like this. I think that in
Red Dragon, the guy revealed to work for
a company that processes home video footage, and
that's how he is able to know the
ins and outs of all of these houses.
That he breaks into. There's always... It's always
very tantalizing. Wondering how it is that they
got a point of entry in the first
place, whether they were, you know, especially if
you're not the charming Ted bundy type? You
know, like how did you get your fucking
foot in the door? And the answer is
that long legs didn't have to be present,
at any of the crime scenes, he just
made these dolls that were imbued with the
spirit of Satan. I guess that's what the
Or is supposed to appear. Maybe at how
a line influence of some kind, and he
does not deliver the dolls to people's homes
because they would tell him to get lost,
you freak.
Instead, he has lee's mom do it, and
she shows up in her none attire claims
to be an emi of the church you
won some kind of a contest.
And I talked near the beginning of the
episode about how long legs favors a certain
type of family and has a consistent mo.
Which is 1 of the pleasures of serial
killer fiction trying to find these patterns and
thinking like a profile or, pretending your will,
basically.
And in this case, he seems to have
favored
homes and communities
where people would be receptive to that kind
of knock on the door. Because I would've
told that lady to take a hike. You
know, I it's like, I'm not... Yeah. I
didn't enter my name and then. I don't
want your weird at all. Yeah. It's
thanks, but no thanks.
So that's the through line here, and the
doll is what induces
the patriarch to go all Jack Torrance.
On their loved ones, and all of this
is conveyed to us. Like I said, pretty
efficiently
for how much ground there is to cover.
And it's just convoluted enough to
risk being
information overload, but I I thought it went
down surprisingly smooth. Yeah. There's a great scene
near the beginning of the movie that we
didn't touch on. And I don't know how
I didn't see this coming because it, I
guess, because in the moment, it's just played
for laughs, and it's just kind of a
character beat. Lee is forcibly
brought to the home of her superior Carter
because he's too drunk to drive home, and
this is maybe a ga of his to
introduce Lee to his family, which he also
might be doing because He's gonna be in
the dog house
otherwise because he's coming home so late, and
so turned,
and So as long, you know, if he's
introducing his wife and daughter to his colleague,
then his wife can't blow up at adam
or tell him to sleep on the couch
or whatever. But so
so his colleague is younger and female. So...
That's true. That is a bit of a
an interesting game, but given that context. Yeah.
He's he's an interesting guy. He's a mess
contradiction. Like like I was saying earlier, how
he's the no nonsense
commanding officer, but also the comic relief character
does, you know, duality of man, whatever
to invoke another early army movie? Yes. And
so this whole scene is pretty funny.
And Lee has a moment in the daughter's
bedroom
where she clearly doesn't wanna be there. And
it emerges during this scene,
that the daughter has a birthday coming up,
and
birthdays are loaded in this movie. So I
don't know why that didn't go like,
you know, like, have sirens and alarm bells
going off in my head, but it didn't.
It's good sleigh of hand. I think because
in the moment, you likely go just wanna
get out of this awkward
coworker
pickle. Yes. And so you're not really hearing
what the daughter is saying. And then the
following scene is long legs leaving the letter
at her home and that for me gave
me that kind of
classic horror movie feeling of, like, you were
just surrounded by other people, other characters and
you were in the situation where you were
safer than you are now, and you didn't
want to be there. And so it almost
makes you feel guilty or foolish
for wanting to be alone because now you
are alone and, u, you're vulnerable.
Yeah. Like how Marion and psycho,
wants to get away from that cop that's
on her tail. And then once she's in
the shower, you're like, well, you know, I
it's it's too bad. It's too bad. You
gave them the slip. You'd be better off
if you hadn't. It's that kind of... So
my mind was distracted with all of that
stuff, and I just didn't g. That the
little girl's birthday was obviously going to supply
the movie's climax.
There's also been a lot of talk about
how there's a victim that's una unattended 4.
There's a piece missing from the triangle, the
inverted triangle.
So Lee comes to gets a phone call
I guess from the devil. I don't see
yeah. I I guess, she's gotten a few
weird like,
sort of phone calls. U. That I think
usually just resolve into normal calls from people
she would expect phone calls from. But, yeah,
she gets this call and it's, like, you're
missing miss Ruby
birthday party.
And
she sort of stumbles it incidentally also, she
wakes up in the basement of her mother's
has, which was what was behind the lock
door and which we quickly
discover from looking around at all of the
and seeing how it looks
exactly the same as it has appeared in
earlier scenes This is where long legs has
been hiding all along.
Yeah, which is great in a lot of
ways, not the least of which is there's
a wonderful line of dialogue,
where right after,
long legs has been rep.
Right Lee asks where he is, and
the lady who gets her brains blown out
in the car says, he's right under your
feet. He's right under your feet, and he
was probably right under her feet. When she
was talking to her mom, half a movie
ago, just Yes chills man. Yeah. So she
lu out of the basement and answers this
phone call. And then she's
stumbling and clearly still woo from the black
cloud from the sphere, basically in her doll
do Gang head.
She's hurt down the road looking incredibly dish
she. She's driving long legs murder vehicle, which
was under a tarp in some kind of
shed on her mother's property,
and she starts screaming
not unlike the
But yeah, obviously and without that sort of
high key thing. It's just a yell, but
it reminds you of that.
Well, and that plus the fact that she
is staggering around in a way that's reminiscent
of
Jack Nicholson in the shining after he sp
his a ankle.
You know, lu with that kind of those
kind s shoulders makes you think. Is she
the new long legs? Like, is she going
to the birthday party to kill everyone there,
or is she the cavalry? You just don't
know which. And Yeah. What lives? I was
leaning more toward the former. Yeah. Up until
the scene actually plays out, because again, that
scream is not a good sign. No And
isn't. She hurdles into the driveway and lu
out of the driver's seat, and she's got
her gun out.
Mh. She knocks on the door rings the
bell or whatever. And Carter opens the door,
and he looks perfectly serene
and I was expecting 5 seconds from then,
he was gonna see that her gun. She
didn't have it up, but it was out
of a h. It was drawn.
Down by your side. I thought he was
gonna see that, billy. Yeah. Parker, what the
fuck are you doing? Yeah. Not the way
you're supposed to roll up to a kid's
birthday party.
And instead, the reason he's all Step husband,
basically,
is that Lee's mom is already there
the infested doll has already been deployed. The
miss Ruby doll. Yeah. The doll that looks
like his daughter
Yeah. And Carter and missus Carter are already
under the influence of whatever
satanic forces are play. So... Yeah. And he
needs to... He starts talking about how he
needs to go cut the cakes, and then
he's... That's the final signal.
Yeah. And he... He's
very cross at his wife
in sort of a... Very jack Torrance way.
I have to say, like, when they're driving
up to the tell and it's like, see,
it's okay. He saw it on the television.
I'm talking about it the the don party.
Yeah. Think it is. You know, just acting
like he's headed it up to here with
this har, his na wife even though she's
not doing anything to ruffle his feathers.
No other kids here, no other guests incidentally.
It's just the 5 of them, the 3
members of the family, Plus lee and lee's
mother. At 6 if you count the doll,
the devil doll. And 7, if you count
the devil. Yeah.
And mama and papa go into the kitchen,
and you get what I referred to a
million years ago as the Gallo humor laugh
line in this scene, which is when the
mother says we'll be right back, and Carter
says, no. I'll be right back. You'll still
be in the kitchen.
Yeah
of jesus,
which
true to form, we hear her stabbing her
mere seconds later.
And Lee is kind of inefficient just trying
to work up the nerve to do anything,
although she is probably fighting the dolls influence.
At this point. Anyone in that house is
under the devil's thumb to 1 degree or
another. Well, she's fighting the influence of A
doll, whether it's the destroyed 1 of her
or the new miss Ruby 1. But either
way, Yeah. She's grappling with
satanic forces.
And her mother goes full, missus Bay lock
here is revealed to be just an out
and out satan at some point during her
crime spree, she must of cracked and and
been converted
because what we see of her during the
montage showing us the whole doll delivery surface
that she's been doing. She seems shattered
emotionally and very reluctant. Yeah. And it's just
something she's doing for her daughter's sake, but
now she is a true believer, it would
seem. And we know this because she pulls
out a crooked black knife,
which def fits a, a satan nest, a
devil worship.
And goes for Lee, but gets shot in
the head, Lee sc her, and then Lee
shoots Carter.
And then Lee goes to shoot the doll,
but click click click. She's spent,
and she seems to be rooted to the
spot.
And we don't know if now she's going
to become the devil's instrument if she's gonna
harm
Ruby
We are left on a cliff hang or
final shot. Like I believe I mentioned earlier
is long legs
that could blow the camera kiss. You know,
and that's the note we go out on.
Or roll credits.
Well, I don't think it's necessarily that much
of a cliff hanger because I I believe
she says something like let's go Ruby.
And it doesn't read like she's saying this
to keep the kid calm and also trying
to convince herself that everything's okay. She seems
to believe it that she's going to be
walking out. I I guess maybe we just
read that differently. Well, she says it with
conviction. I just think it's a situation where
actions speak louder than birds, and she seems
like the spirit is willing, but the flesh
is weak. You know, I think that the
the psychic battle has yet to be the
outcome of the psychic battle has yet to
be determined because if she wanted to just
flee she would have,
she's been staring down this doll for a
half minute or so. I... Some of it
is slow mo, making it feel
longer and and and and more pregnant with
anticipation. But the you... I I got the
sense that they were not out of the
woods and that there was a chance that
the doll was going to emerge Victorious from
whatever Psychic tug of war is going on
there. Right. Well, yeah. I just She is
rooted to the spot for a long time,
but I think the amount of time after
her let's go line
before the cut to nick cage is short
enough that I don't think. That's true. It
it really necessarily says anything in that direction.
But... Yeah, So pale Satan roll credits and
more after the break.
Up out of the sea.
With 7 heads and 10 horns.
And on his Horns War 10 crowns.
On Has was written ask from his name.
What aren't you telling me?
He'll kill
and kill again.
I know you're not afraid of a little
bit of dark.
Because you are the dark.
Hello, listeners. It's Jim. Here is always during
the break to tell you some stuff you
probably already know.
Please follow us on Twitter at shock doctor's
pod on Facebook at Facebook dot com slash
shock doctor's pod
or check us out on Apple podcasts.
Podcast is also available on Spotify,
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And now back to the show.
You could
waiting
And we're back.
Matt, how about you take things off here?
Well, much like Lee Har, I don't have
anything left in the chamber. I don't think.
I've shot my shots.
I liked it a whole lot. I
like it so much that I worry that
I'll wind up cooling off on it and
come to decide that I was overly abusive.
But that's not a huge
concern. And if anything, I might revisit it
some years down the line and decide I
like it even more once I see the
whole shape of the thing, because it does
have a third act reveal that is a
little bit like hereditary. You know, I remember
that movie throwing a lot of people for
a loop with the hale payment stuff, come
and sorta of at a left field, so
it's possible.
So often in movies like this, there's a
term that I I wanna say coin, but
that's too os
for a a term that only I use,
but there's My favorite horror movies tend to
belong to what I've dubbed the cinema of
regular dread. Mh. Like, they don't look now.
Being the textbook example where a second watch
makes it more scary, not less because you
have that doomed
sense of in
hanging over it, that almost edi his rex
kind of self fulfilling prophecy
sort of thing. It's
know I just started thinking. That's the sound
of in.
I... Am. I... This is this I think
that this movie belongs pretty squarely in that
category that I've invented, and that's only I
I've, you know, put in any real stock.
Yeah. But... No. No. So maybe my opinion
of it will wave. It'll might a little
up. Michael will down, but I'm I'm very
she. I'm very taken with it, kind of
over the moon about it, and it's been
a while since I was able to say
that
about 1 of the movies we've covered. You
know, I've, like, some more than others, but
I'm often left a little bit cold. I'm
often course correcting or possibly even over reacting
to critical consensus
when rap a claim c
around this or that movie that I don't
think is all that. I turn into Anton
Ego a little bit, you know, the food
critic from Ratatouille.
Not so this time. I am lending my
voice to the choir. I think it's
first rate for all the reasons I've already
laid out.
Yeah. It's kind of remarkable how... For someone
who speaking for myself, for someone who has
gotten pretty jade about horror films and stuff
doesn't scare me like it used to and
so forth And as you said, this isn't
a movie that's the scariest thing I've ever
seen or scary all the time at every
minute. It's but it's gripping consistently. Yes. It's
tents. Yes. I felt like I was teeter
on a knife edge, basically the whole movie,
which is kind of a miracle in and
of itself.
It's just so something that I don't
experience watching
really any movies
anymore, basically ever. Yeah. I mean, the last
movie that properly
terrified me was a podcast episode, and that
was skin of a rank. And that was
just unlike anything else I'd ever seen certainly
in theaters, maybe not ever.
But but, yeah. I mean, it was still
pretty unique even in the whole swath of
cinema that I've consumed, and it was just
sort of this Avant ga limbo mood piece
that was scary because you felt like a
stranger and a strange land here, I've invoked
a lot of tropes while I've been doing
the plot run rundown, but none of them
feel
derivative. They fit like an old boot. You
know, They're just sturdy.
And snug,
and they made me feel warm and safe.
And, like, I just... I don't know. I
don't know. I mean, it's the pig and
shit thing again. I could I could roll
around in that shit for another hour, probably,
I'll spare you because this episode is already
Ga.
But it's just impeccable,
and it feels like a throwback to a
lot of things that I hold in very
high regard indeed, but it it puts its
own spin on it. And it it and
a lot of the things that it reminded
me of things I enjoy very much. I
think that it
outperform. I mean, I like it. More the
nexus assist 3, what else I think I
like it more than season 1 of true
detective. I don't like it as much as
silence of the Lambs, but it is an
extremely good company regardless.
Don't like it quite as much as 7,
but those are the 2 or all timers.
Those are, yeah. Though those 2 are on
Mount Olympus. They're the Apex. And this movie
is is really not that far behind in
the grand scheme of things. So I'm I'm
sm basically.
Yeah. We don't have time. I don't think
and my phone is going to die shortly.
We don't have time to talk about everything
that Oz perkins does that generates that feeling
of nonstop tension. 1 thing that I wanna
highlight
is what he does with doorways.
There are often, open doors when Lee is
going over the note upon which the ink
is still wet, there is an open door
behind her. She's in like a study or
something at home. And you get this sense
that at any moment, a long legs might
step into that door. Well, particularly because he's
already been in the house
that night? Yes. The ink is still wet.
So
are we sure he left?
Yeah. Right. Exactly. We... She has not established
that to my satisfaction.
I can't believe she's established it to her
satisfaction.
Yeah. Right. So like, that doorway
is invested with a great deal of suspense.
There's also when they're going through the camera
farmhouse barn. There's a shot after they open
the door, and they they both go through
at Leigh Carter, the camera lingers on the
open doorway that they left behind them. For
a long time in a way that just
creates a sense of... I don't know of
a better word than vulnerability.
You know, just like... In in in that
kind of cla
in Buffalo bills basement kind of way where
you gotta watch your 6. You gotta, like,
check all the corners because the threat could
come from any direction. There's that training montage,
somewhere in the middle of that movie where
she and a bunch of other cadet cassettes
are in a gym of some kind. And
she fails some kind of trial. You know,
what was your mistake, Star? I didn't check
my blah blah blah. And he goes, that's
why your dead. You know, and then that
comes into play. And almost an miraculous dread
kind of way of foreshadowing kinda really just
a fancy sc term for foreshadowing.
Yeah. But I'm prone to be more high
fa about things
that I... Well, you... You are the doctor
Manhattan whole film. The shock doctor Manhattan And,
to you.
Does that make me... Am I the shock
doctor fives or or will 1 of us
supposed to be
a buy back, buy back.
Yeah. I'm I'm good with that.
I've got the Galaxy brain thing, and I
guess You're obsessed with revenge
in some ind
way. We we can We can add that
to the lore. It's not too late.
Yeah. Hundred and 78 episodes in where Jesus.
We have Lauren now. Didn't realize we were
closer to 200 than 100. Oh, yeah. By
a long shot.
We just did the the Halloween triple feature.
I thought.
Well, you've been in Pittsburgh for almost 2
years, and we did that well before you
left. So... Right. You are
Christ.
Performances as you might expect, And as we've
kind of alluded to, generally are all pretty
great Nick cage, obviously, as the title character
is kind of the headline liner in terms
of the fireworks
performance wise. But it's not him just like,
it's not the cage rage you'd expect. It's
not him going big.
The way that he usually does. He he
is big. The closest he gets is when
he does the mummy
daddy
thing. Even there,
it's got a weirder twist on it, then
he usually... And that's using the comparative
weirder. Yeah. Again, grading on a gauge is
kinda crazy. Yeah. But if the word you
would use for a lot of his performances
the first word to leap to the end
of your tongue is un unchanged. But this
makes all of his other un unchanged performances
look relatively...
If not s, then
those are un hinge. This has never had
a hinge.
Hinge less. Yeah.
A hinge
No. He is. He's he's un
from reality as we know it.
Yeah. Mike and rose terrific I think I
and probably, we have been fans of hers
for the last 10 years ever since it
follows.
We did watcher not too long ago, Probably
better part of a year ago now, but
thought she was great in that, and she's...
Yeah. I don't think ever been better
than she is in this film. Yeah. I'm
blatantly realizing because she's such a scream queen,
but she's been under my radar when I
watched watch her, I'm sure I praised her
for, but I... I'm certain I didn't refer
to her by name. I'm sure that I've
seen her in a bunch of stuff and
really not realized it was the same person,
and not because she's a chameleon just because
it wasn't a name or a screen persona
that I had latched onto to really until
today. But, yeah. She's excellent.
Very. Again, like I said, it's a Clarice
Star crossed with Robert Gray smith. This very
sort of brittle weirdo, but not, again, un
hinge or hinge list sort of performance. It's
very controlled, very cramped in a way, but
it's very good. Well, on the 1 thing
that it doesn't do that it could have
and a lot of other filmmakers I think
would have done to make it feel more
like cla star, more like sounds of the
lambs. And especially because it's a period peak
and this is why I think it would
have been a mistake to go in this
direction or potentially a distraction.
Silence of the Lambs is really strong.
In the way that it depicts the Fbi's
sexism. There's that great shot of her on
the elevator with all of the other cadet
who all have a head or more of
height on her. Yeah. And she's often just
kinda, you know, the local yoke cops kinda
looked down their noses at her, and
there's nothing but a faint trace of that
in this movie. You can maybe read it
into her interactions with the
guy that she's partnered with who almost immediately
gets capped because he volunteers to go knock
on doors and says you wait in the
car. Basically, and he doesn't take her hunch
seriously, although you can really hardly fault him
for that because it is irregular.
Yeah. But other than that, it doesn't really
sexism does not color any of her other
interactions, and I think it would have been
tempting to do that, but because this is
a movie set 30 some years in the
past, it might have had a little bit
of a mad men's season 1 kind of,
like, look how backward these people were kind
of thing. Rather than just feeling kind of
organic the way that it does and silence
of the lambs. Yeah. I mean, I think
that it, and I it wouldn't have been
bad might have been a little distracting.
Might... It might have just felt
archaeological is not the right word, But it
might it might have felt a little bit
more like, the film was ex, like, oh,
like, look... Look you're digging through the strat?
To show you like... Is that what you
were looking for? Well, no. Because I am
thinking of, like, like, like a dig site,
like Oz perkins ex,
and look, this is how things used to
be in the Clinton years, you know, with
his gl mug. On the wall. And logical?
Maybe. Yeah. That's... That that'll do
any a word, you know, just open the
dictionary.
Good to...
Yeah. Just from ar work on down, you
can not even adjectives anymore just all a
words.
So so I Don't know. Might have just
felt a little preach because it... It's a
period piece and maybe a little hole than
now for that reason. But then again, maybe
not. It's just something I was struck by
because she is such a cla But that's
really not a feature of the movie at
all. And it was a pretty prominent feature
of silence.
Yeah. And unless we forget Blair underwood, who
plays Carter is very good as is Alicia
Wit, who plays lee's mom, all 4 of
I guess what you might call the main
characters, the primary. Members of the cast, they're
all really top notch. Mh.
Yeah. Strong marks across the board, High marks.
So in terms of recommendations, I don't have
any real specific ones. I mean, throw a
dart anywhere in the duration of this episode,
and you'll probably find a commend recommendation. I
mean, we've invoked the big name, silence of
the Lambs, 7, Matt, you've mentioned cure, cure
is great. Mh. Assist 3. Ex assist 3
fallen.
Mh.
Don't look now in the
Dread. Duh, it's catching on. I there's twice
as many people have now invoked it.
Mind hunter on the Tv show, end of
things, x files, twin peaks, true original and
return, true detective, particularly season 1. The list
kinda goes on and on and the fact
that we're
invoking
almost exclusively
stuff that's kind of economically
regarded. Yeah. In this genre in the sort
of grimy crime procedural
vein just goes to show that this is
this is what we think of this movie
and we're not just throwing out like, oh,
yeah. Go watch Copycat cat, which... By the
way, we both like, But it's K brand
stuff. We're talking about by comparison. No. Yeah.
And copy cat. It has not been touched
by... It doesn't have that demonic touch to
it. No.
My gut is telling me to recommend a
good devil doll
movie. Okay. But I don't know that I
mean, I invoke talking Tina, the Twilight zone
episode at some point. There is a movie
called Devil doll from the mid sixties that
is a s good time, but I'm not
not really that
invested in that recommendation. I I sign off
on the whole canon, the whole serial killer
cannon, that Jim ran down.
Including Copycat,
which is, you know, sort of ancillary, but
is invited to my birthday party.
Which is not on the fourteenth. No. Thank
god. There has to be a better devil
doll movie
than Devil Doll.
And I'm not... I'm trying... I'm... What the
problem I'm running into is that the dolls
in this movie are not animate. They just
exert an evil influence, but they sit there
and mind their business. You know, they keep
their hands to themselves. It's not like a
child's play.
Thing at all. And there's not a lot
of horror movies in that vein because we
want our killer dolls to get up off
their little porcelain Ke and actually do something
crack heads.
Bye. I can't shake the feeling that there's
a good 1 that's escaping me.
Well, devil all it is then. This episode
is long enough.
I'm at J Dc.
And I'm Jim Smith
and we are the shock doctors.
We'll see you later.
As always, we have some acknowledgement
Our music was composed by Will Connor.
Audio over the bumper was taken from long
legs, official trailer in theaters July twelfth,
uploaded by Neon.
All rights reserved.
Our next episode will be up on Sunday,
August fourth, and we will be getting back
around to Russell Crowe latest battle with demons
in the ex.
See you then.