Sardonicast #46: The Lighthouse, Thirst (feat. David F. Sandberg)

[Music] three two one welcome to the killcount where we tally up the victims in all our favorite horror movies that was a request from the subreddit yeah it's a forget the channel name already it's not one that I usually watch oh wait here it is dead meat that meat all right as it was a request we're starting on a cast I'm Adam from your movie sucks I'm Ralph from youtube.com slash Ralph the movie maker hmm and I'm Alex from ìhe and we're joined by a very special guest to introduce yourself David I'm David F Sandberg also known as Pony Smasher online what's with that name yeah yeah I started a YouTube account when it was pretty new so I was not sure like oh what is this what am I gonna do with it is this gonna become a thing so I just yeah I didn't want to use my real name or anything so I was just like a pony smasher you don't have anything get really nice and yeah and then the YouTube channel actually took off and suddenly I was Pony Smasher for yeah and your Twitter so yeah it's funny now when it's like you get a variety article or something on Twitter and psycho at Pony smasher oh man super professional you know you know my Twitter handle right it's that the best part is when like professional legitimate businesses contact me we're like industry people like oh hey - gay - literally so yeah we event should I guess I guess we just said who you are but we didn't exactly say what you're most well-known for is not necessarily your Pony Smasher online presence but your film career yeah you've directed lights out Anabelle creation and Shazam yep all true so lights out was originally a short that you posted on YouTube yeah what was the whole process like between it becoming a big thing on YouTube versus creating a an actual feature out of it it was interesting because yeah my wife and I made this little short for an online horror competition and a couple of months after we uploaded it it went viral and all of a sudden I was getting all these emails from people in Hollywood who wanted to talk to me you know agents managers producers studios mm-hmm yeah it was almost a year-long process of talking to people and then getting you know signing with a management company and then picking agents and all that stuff it sort of was cut becoming more and more real during this time and a script was being written a deal was being made and but you know my wife and I we didn't really know if this was a real thing if it was actually gonna become something so we kept making shorts on YouTube and we had plans for making a no budget feature just the two of us because we just didn't dared trust any of all this you know like it could all just be [ __ ] exactly yeah but then a year after we actually got the call I mean first it was like nine months after they actually paid us to come to LA to meet with everyone to meet with like James Wan was gonna be a producer on it who need the studio and everything so then it was like oh yeah this is probably real and then a couple of months after that we got the call like yeah movies happening you you have to get on a plane and get over here so we just sort of locked our apartment got on a plane and and yeah we've kind of been here most of the time since the rest is history you know that's awesome yes pretty much no I mean it's every filmmakers dream and it was pretty scary as well because I'd never made a movie before yeah I mean hands-on experience really and it seems as though with each feature you've directed the user and critical scores have been higher each time each one is made well not necessarily made proportionate to the budget but they've been quite successful yeah I've been lucky in that that's awesome yeah yes yeah just waiting for that total bomb I will break me I mean not naming names but there's quite a few people in the industry that have made some bombs that still have healthy careers right so yeah and it feels kind of like I wouldn't say safe now but if like I could probably afford a bomb or something cuz I can always do it like a tiny horror movie I'm sure if someone would put up the money to do like another horror movie you know Jason so yeah it feels like I probably have a couple of chances before it's all over unless I just spectacular don't stress yourself out I mean you got it going yeah nobody yeah it was fine cuz when I was making the yawn about creation you know I was talking to one of the studio women there and yes saying like hey I kind of hope that this is gonna become a career and she was like well you were there already yeah your second movies like oh yeah but I don't want to take anything for granted you know man I bet it's really humbling for people at home to know that even industry professionals get a lot of like self doubt and questioning but like a lot of imposter syndrome like eg like Oh any day now though they'll they'll realize that it's all you know did you have any history and did you go to film school or have you always been dabbling in making her short so was it what was the lights-out moment yeah always made little short films since I was a kid and you know like on VHS and early 90s late 80s even eventually I started doing animation because it was something I could do all by myself because once you got up in your twenties it was sort of harder to get friends together to make movies because me I've had jobs and Liars so I started doing animation and in 2006 I made this little short film and uploaded to YouTube which was just like a year old or something at the time I think and it went viral in Scandinavia because it wasn't Swedish so like it didn't go outside there but that actually led to getting some attention there like I got to be on TV like oh what's it like having a viral short and and that led to some some work doing well animated like commercials and things like that so I was freelancing doing that for a few years until I felt that I mean this isn't really what I want to do like what I wanted is live action movies and genre movies yeah and I kind of realized I had nothing to show for myself like yeah I want to do horror here's animated humor I've met yeah so I needed something to show that yeah this is what I want to do and this is what I can do which is why a lot time I started making old horror shorts yeah proof of concept means means everything in terms of guessing and now I mean yeah especially now like this this bridge between YouTube and like Hollywood Entertainment you know the the gap is getting shorter and shorter I mean now the celebrities are going to YouTube instead like their old total channels and yeah and all those guys it's kind of like a symbiotic relationship at this point yeah that's what I saw living in Sweden you know I saw Betty Alvarez you know you made a short called panic attack and got to do the Evil Dead remake or oh yeah or Andy muschietti who did the short film mama and then did the feature film mama so it's like yeah I saw that happening I was like well I wonder what that's like and then I got to experience it myself a lot of youtubers becoming filmmakers there's the guy mystery guitar man he made a film recently Joe Penna yeah Joe Penna that was a really professional movie yeah it was a can yeah it muds Mickelson and it what movie was so weird yeah yeah yeah yeah that was made by a guy who you know has had like a pretty big youtube channel for a long time and his YouTube content isn't even mostly just like oh yeah hey I made a short film upload it there it was actual like more youtuber style content so it was really interesting it kind of you know when he sold that movie he couldn't really use his YouTube channel to sell it he had to go off his like talent as a filmmaker and yeah he still made it so it's great yeah you know a lot of us aspire to be in that position when our audience and and me yeah realms and films like he's like yeah well I just graduated actually oh yeah sorry but it's like we just want to like we're making YouTube videos now like crumby with no money and we just hope to be in that position one day so it's cool till I talk to someone who's in that it's direct dance very inspiring budget super like Shazam I was gonna I was gonna ask if you cuz ya our audience is filled with a bunch of film students and you know young people 20-something year olds and I'm wondering if you have any advice for young aspiring filmmakers now that you've kind of had somewhat of a success story I mean what I keep saying is just to keep creating things because I mean not only will you get better and better at it but you also don't know what people will respond to like I talked to a guy here in town who like he made this big web series like kick-started it make it several episodes and it looked like really professional and everything and he was like oh this is gonna be the thing right nothing came of it and then he and some friends did a like a little action video just for fun like a first-person perspective kind of action video put that on YouTube and that's what got him all this attention from Hollywood and got him into meetings and things like that so it's like you can't really plan for it you just have to keep creating things that you like until something clicks with people or like the right people see it so because I mean that was the thing with lights out as well like we didn't have any thought of a feature for that that was just a short which actually helped as well cuz when you get to Hollywood things are you know you're selling the rights to it so you're not gonna own it anymore and like it's never gonna turn out exactly the way you want it to so I think if lights out had been our baby like oh wait four years we want to make this feature and it's gonna be this I think that would have been very disappointing because now it was just like yeah sure take it we don't want that just haha get me you know let me direct a movie yeah whatever I'll take it you know so I think that kind of helped actually I think that's some pretty solid advice because I think it's important for people to be like realistic about their expectations and as you said you you you kind of created your YouTube channel not even understanding like if that's what you were gonna be doing really like you could have been you know you could have been a YouTube content creator instead of a professional film director right yeah now I'm kind of both because I'm still put upon my youtube channel I appreciate that you're doing that yeah that's what I've always wanted to see like I've always loved behind-the-scenes content and it's been so hard to find like because a lot of the times it's just sort of promotional like yeah everything was great on set and he's such a great actor and the end go see the movie you know like I've always wanted to know like well what's it like and that's why I've even with the shorts I was making these behind-the-scenes videos of how we made it and you know how we solved problems and things like that because that's what I want to see so yeah I'm just trying to give people what I want to see because not many way others are doing it yeah I think it's great to have like that sort of perspective - you're someone who's kind of like thrust into it and figuring it out and you know you said a lot of really interesting things about like test screenings that I appreciated you know it's like the different variables and how you know it's not necessarily make-or-break I think that that's an important thing for people to understand so you would you watch a few different channels on YouTube you've been around on YouTube for for a while I think there's some people in the audience and I think Ralph and Alex were curious about this - we follow each other on Twitter that's how we got this set up because you watch my content and I know you watch red letter media yeah are there any other YouTube channels that you check out any other names to throw out there yeah I mean I'm still sad that every frame of painting isn't doing videos anymore because those guys were awesome yeah they do him for Criterion now yeah but were even you gotta buy the criterion to watch their kind yeah yeah I love that sometimes watch Lindsey Ellis yeah red letter media has mentioned occasionally recently I've watched a guy called Phil Mentos that's the only one I haven't heard of yeah there was just sort of a I saw like a video he's just popped up in my feed about sort of talking about a failure of a movie or something and then I was like ooh I wonder if he's talked about you see him I remember what he said and there was a video engine sounds like oh and he actually liked it so it's like okay I'm gonna watch some more of this guy have you seen any negative reviews of your yeah yeah I mean they're everywhere there's always negative reviews but I can't think of a specific one right now but there's always some some negativity of course yeah I mean that's YouTube I mean it's the Internet it's it's yeah it's it's kind of charming the annoying thing is though you know a lot of people are they have this sort of philosophy all the sauce oh you got to tell the filmmakers what sucked about it so they can improve and it's like I am very well aware of what sucks in my movie it's like it haunts me every day so I was like so - then read about it like I I don't really care when people say oh that movie sucked because it's like well let's just taste but it's like when they point out specific things that didn't work that I know didn't work is like goddamn it's true those are the ones that hurt because it's true you know well I mean like the best way to you know ensure that you're still creating great things is to be self-critical to like as long as you're not like overly so critical to the point where it's like debilitating I guess but yeah clearly you're somewhat of an introspective person from what I gather at this point yeah I mean you yeah you always want to improve and like yes and movies just they never turn out the way you expect them to and sometimes that could actually be parts of it can actually be better than you expected it to but that's more rare when it comes to creating art like unless you have infinite resources in an infinite amount of time you know and every actor is able to work with you forever it's like there's some things that you probably just have to let go like even if you recognize that there's a flaw and some part or something that you think could have been done better there's you know sometimes you don't have to accept those things and yeah but I'm pretty good at you know once the movies out there I'm like okay that's in the past now I'm you know like I'm gonna make better things in the future like I would never want to go back and like do a special edition or so yeah yeah like no Lucas we read bastard yeah now this is a special edition yeah it's yeah I mean some people get obsessed without it there's a I don't to mention names but I when I was mixing the sound for Shazam they were telling me about this famous director who made a classic movie like 25 years ago or something and apparently he's still working on it like he's still sort of recutting it and still fixing the sound and thinks it's like well why I guess he's gonna maybe he'll release a new version so I mean that's kind of big Apocalypse Now story I guess exactly I'm working on that movie yeah yeah I've never liked there being different versions of movies because it's like yeah blade Roundy which version of my kind of watch because there's things I like about this but not about that yeah I want there to be just a definitive version yeah I hear you for sure there's some instances of films where like the the actual vision for what the director wanted the movie to be is just wildly different than what the theatrical cut wound up being so it's like it's kind of understandable if like if they get the opportunity to finally show what they wanted the film to be yeah much of a disagreement with that but yeah having like you know having way too many different versions and you know just not being able to let something go that is a bit yeah I guess they actually asked me I should Sam's like do you want to do an extended version for home video as well so there's like you know so yeah by two versions but House like no I just wanted there to be one okay and a lot of times those extended versions it feels like all they just put extra stuff in there now it's just longer yeah I mean that can be the selling point sometimes you know the Unrated cut just Shazam unrated they all die Ralph and Alex did you did you guys want to cut in with some questions here kind of in the majority there's a big question mark in my head right now that I'm very interested in that being the jump from there's a consistency between lights-out and Annabel its horror and then suddenly Shazam is in the mix which it's only completely different sort of an action comedy with the odd bit of horror thrown in there I'm wondering how did you get that gig based on your previous work the new line called me up and said hey we have this project called Shazam would you be interested in directing I visited was right after or when we were actually finishing up and about creation and I was like absolutely like I'm not sure why they thought but I think I mean part of it is that at least a new line they're very much like if they like you they want to work more with you and like you know like if you're not an [ __ ] that's just difficult all the time they're like yeah let's find something else to do together because this was a pleasant experience you know so it pays off to not be an [ __ ] I guess or if you're really talented no so it's like yeah they call me up and I was like you know I'm not gonna ask them why they want me I'm just gonna go yeah let's do it go so you're gonna do it yeah but whether any unexpected challenges of change on genres like that because obviously is very very different like style yeah not so much it was just more technical things like I'd never worked with the effects on that level and stunt action and things like that because in some ways it was going back to humour for me because like people in Sweden might may know me for my my humorous shorts you know I was actually told by people like hey you should do like a comedy or something so in some ways it was actually going back a little bit to my to my roots so yeah the challenges were all in just the scale of the movie and yet all these new things like the initial effects that are I hate shooting visual effects like it's it's cool but it's just it's really boring to shoot and it's such a long time in post of just watching the same things over and over again it's like yeah all right we have several hours of VFX reviews and the psych yeah it's not a great experience and then you know you run out of time and there are be effects shots that no more time to work on we have to put them in the movie and then people online or like oh the view pic sucks and like yeah I know like I didn't go that's perfect no more work you know pencils down but you gotta have the effects if you want to do those big movies mm-hmm I'm sure that must have been pretty intimidating from like a jumping-off point yeah because I mean I have I'm interested in visual effects myself and then for the previous two movies actually did a few shots myself where it was like well I just do it myself I'll get what I want it'll be great but you know on a movie like that it's just on such a scale in such a complexity that's just like well I'm gonna have to trust you guys like you tell me and what you need to like I'll tell you what I want the result to be and you tell me what I need to shoot well you know what elements I need and what we need to do to get that and you go off and do it and then it was working with second unit as well which was just weird like I've never had you know someone else come in and shoot parts of your movie and a lot of it was fun parts so I was like you know I had it scheduled for a big part of the shoot so that you know during the day we shall main unit and then during the night they shot second unit so I could go to that too and be like you know get very little sleep but at least I was there and could school like no that's wrong or change this or it sounds not very healthy but yeah I didn't want to just leave over big chunks of the movie to someone else was it also fairly intimidating in terms of responsibilities jumping from essentially what is your own original IP onto like Annabel creation which is now a part of like a larger franchise that didn't feel so intimidating I mean animal creation has been the best filmmaking experience I've had so far because you know lights out everything was new everything was scary and it's like if I [ __ ] this like this is my one shot at Hollywood if I [ __ ] this up means gone you know so it's like constant anxiety okay and about creation was like you know we had enough money and enough time to do the things we wanted to and it felt like okay now I know how movies are made and it was just such a pleasant experience awesome and then doing Shazam was kind of back to that everything is new and everything is crazy and psycho I have never done this before the soy wasn't always as fun but I did sort of have this thinking of like well if I [ __ ] this up this is a completely different genre or something else then it's just like oh I guess I can't do superhero movies but I can still do horror movies you know I'll get more chances at that so it felt like I had something to fall back on but it was still sort of yeah new and big and scary yeah how glad where you the the Shazam character at the time or before you start working on the movie oh the movie was coming out not that well-known of a character no compared to life is good if you get the call in there like yeah exactly if you got the call I'm like we want you to make a Batman reboot for example like there's something more limiting and intimidating in terms of what you've got all the previous cinematic interpretations whereas your Sam this is a new character to sort of explore it was that like quite fulfilling because it's your voice as the first like major way that general audiences are seeing this character ya know and that was great like yeah there's no comparison to anything before really and mm yeah introducing it to a lot of people I mean if they would have gone like hey do you want to be able to do a Batman movie like I would have said yes to that too but yeah it would have been a lot of I mean especially sort of fan expectations because I think that everyone is gonna have their own vision of what that character should be and which Shazam it was a lot less of that I mean I still got emails and things from people like this is what the movie has to be and I also saw a lot of like comets from from people who obviously wasn't familiar with at least the origins of the character because they were like oh it needs to be dark and gritty and all this is like have you read the old comic books like talking tiger and like all this like it's goofy as hell the original comics but I guess it was that hold they just saw what came before in the DC Universe and like Walshy Sam needs to be that too but it's that's not who he is so we're gonna want to move into the light house discussion in just a couple minutes the Ralph did you have any yeah I guess you didn't really have much of it I just want to ask you a little bit about lights out like that all that stuff really fascinates me so in 2013 you made the short it was like very cheap I'm guessing it was like in your apartment yeah what was the leap or the biggest sleeps going from that to making the actual film feature film three years later technically I mean like the the crew like financing what were the biggest hurdles to get through to make that film yeah financed it says it was a studio movie it's just like yeah we want to do the movie here's just like that like they saw you're sure easy and and they would just gave you the money to make the film I mean kind of because the steps were basically a got in touch with a producer it's like he I want to do the movie blah blah blah and then he was like like we should have a big horror name as a producer on it and he was like the only people who can sell horror is James Wan or Guillermo del Toro I was like great so he sent it to James Wan and he loved the short in a second yeah I want to produce the movie we've got a writer and then James Wan was like hey I have this really good thing going on with with New Line Cinema let's take it to them and they were like James Wan producing viral short good scripts sure let's do it and and it was just sort of happening so yet the big hurdles were more sort of I guess the biggest one was just working with others mm-hmm getting used to that because when you shoot everything yourself and you edit yourself and you make everything from music to visual effects and everything and all of a sudden you're just supposed to tell other people what to do which was very new the crew was large right for a production like that so you have like 20 people run around set and you have to dictate them all yeah and I didn't even know what all the like yeah I didn't go to film school or anything like that so it's like when I was interviewing people for various positions I was basically just interviewing asking them what their job was like what is this movie do tell me okay this is how it works or like the first ad okay so buddy what do you do and not like I had to ask them like I remember when we did an early camera test and that was like a smaller version of a film set you know with everything going on and that was when I realized like like I don't know when to say action so I had to ask like the first ad like what is the sequence of like when do I actually say action cuz he's like Oh Sound speed you know roll camera blah blah blah and he had to tell me well it's basically when the the camera operator says set or ready or mm-hmm you know when the camera operator is right that's when after that you say action so it was just a crash course in and sort of how a film set works what are the procedures and who does what but then you know the actual moving the storytelling or moviemaking is you know it's very similar to when you're doing your own thing is like yeah we need an angle over here and we need this to happen it's just learning how the machine works you know yeah it sounds daunting you up to it yeah but but it was hard like I mean that was the first time my wife had seen me crying was after like a 15 hour day things had been going wrong it was just hard I came home and it was an home was half a garage in Burbank that we were renting because you know rents are [ __ ] crazy in Los Angeles so we were staying like I came home to this garage and as soon as I came into the door I just broke down like I couldn't help it it was just crying because it was just like overwhelming and it was just intense yeah yeah so it wasn't easy but it turned out okay yeah I'm glad it did I think I think it support important for people to understand you know if you if you want to be successful you have to be outside of your comfort zone you need to oh yeah you need to actually take initiative and get something done and you know oftentimes it's going to be uncomfortable it's going to be something that you're not familiar with but it's it's an absolute necessity in terms of growing yeah very much an introverted person but I have sort of thanks to making movies I've developed quite a bit but it's it's still like I still need my alone time to recharge and everything but now I've had to do press for a movie I've had to look introduce movie you know during screenings and things like that and and and stand in front of the whole studio and say things and it's it's you better you know just adapt or it's not gonna happen you know you have to do those things that really scary fascinating really sound advice I appreciate it thank you yeah yeah so I guess we're gonna move on to to the first film that we all saw a film that's fresh in theaters for everybody except I guess Europe and also Australia New Zealand and North America's got it sorry everybody the lighthouse my favorite movie of the year same here yeah I'm awesome yeah what did you what did you all think of it by the way let's try it let's try to make it not spoiler discussion and then as soon as we have something that we you know we're begging to dissect about the spoilery parts then we'll just give a warning but for now I don't want too much like everyone's saying it's the greatest movie ever made I don't want to make too much for people and put like these false expectations in their head well cuz if you're expecting something you're just it's not gonna live up to that just go see the movie and enjoy it yeah I think that's what happened to me a little bit oh yeah yeah yeah cuz I you interesting you know I didn't have a bad time like I thought it was good actually like they were because there was so much to appreciate and like I think the acting was phenomenal and like to cinematography and sound and attention to detail like I think Robert Eggers is a great director mm-hmm but it's um it kind of felt like all those the sum of all those parts didn't quite do that much to me maybe I had too much expectations because Abby was oh it was kind of like okay yeah you know it that's that's cool I kind of enjoyed that but it's yeah I'm not really sure I think I heard everyone saying like it's such a masterpiece and it's so brilliant and it's it is in some ways I guess but it just it was strange it's very interpretive because I saw that with my wife and I saw like parasite and after parasite we were talking about you know on on the way home talking about everything in the movie and and had this whole discussion and after lighthouse it was just like oh yeah yeah they were really good yeah it didn't really do much for me I I'm not sure what I've what I'm missing or if I were just expecting the wrong thing well I mean different things are gonna connect with different people so it's like you know if something if something doesn't like grab you then yeah because I read some people who were saying oh it's so tense and scary and I was like it wasn't really I mean it had other qualities yeah I didn't say I wouldn't say it was scary yeah it's more of like a psychological or you know it's it's like it's like yeah it's almost like a theater piece in ways you know very we're like out of a horror movie kind of like Eraserhead it's like a horror movie the same way eraser heads a horror movie and I actually kind of there's a lot of similarities between the two there's also like a lot of like metaphorical characters like the the mermaid in it or I guess it's not a spoiler she's in the trailer but like that's that was very similar to the lady in the radiator from like a Reese okay yeah it reminded me of that yeah yeah it's like a personification of a desire yeah and it had the whole sort of prometheus angle to which was like that last image sort of hammer home for me but it's uh yeah yeah I read some more about it afterwards as well that sort of who Willem Dafoe's character could be interpreted and ass which I didn't really pick up on but yeah I've been sort of trying to get like what am I missing here why am I not as excited about this as everyone else but I guess it's just I don't know it just didn't quite do it for me it's that thing about the these kind of vague into type of films like under the skin where you've got to really read into it you've got to really be interested to kind of read it sometimes more than actually watching it because that to me was what was going through my head after the film finish was what does that mean well like what does all of that mean and putting that together for me and how we're not really talking spoilers but you everyone has their different theories and I was talking to people after the movie that to me was what really propped up from because yeah technically I really have no criticism at all I thought it was really quite vivid like every in every way but that's really what makes it a great film to me rather than just being good was was just how much there is to read into and there's so many like theories and discussion and that's what's really alluring about the film to me and I'd love to talk about some of the theories but if we're not going to what spoilers right now I'm hold off yeah well we'll do that in a second I think I think it's also important to recognize that like you know just because a film is interpretable I think that some people kind of have this idea where it's the film's automatically great just because there's a lot of subtext or you know thematic elements and that people should automatically enjoy it just based on those merits but you know even though I'm a person that loves you know my favorite my all-time favorite movies are like super metaphorical and and interpretable I love those kinds of things but I wouldn't be as big on those films if they didn't grab me if they didn't connect with me on a personal way if I wasn't super impressed by like the overall presentation of something you know their need there needs to be elements that specifically connect with me before I go into the interpretive part of something and yeah we might as well just throw up spoiler warning and talk about some of those things spoiler everybody spoilers for the lighthouse sorry everybody in in Europe and not North America come back when you see it in six months yes this is this is a like I've seen it three times now because I well the first time I saw it was in May it can and so i've it's not like i saw him it three times in the past week or anything but i feel like it comes together more the more times you watch it like i loved it immediately otherwise i wouldn't watch it multiple times but there there's so many clever setups and connections and and parallels like well he's painting the side of the lighthouse he falls over and then he's on his back and he's got those like white splotches of paint and then that's like a perfect visual parallel to the end shot of the film where he's got like seagull [ __ ] autumn oh yeah like it's it's like this perfect little i'm just gonna say parallel for lack of a better term right now that works yeah and you know you know there's there's this idea like I know it doesn't reveal it until pretty far through the movie that Ephraim Winslow is actually I forget what his real name is but the two characters have the same name and the film although not like super obviously is really kind of I guess trying to play with the idea that these might be the same person yeah yeah I got that sense too I saw it is sort of like a purgatory like the island yeah necessarily might not even exist like it is just a going in depth in someone's mind and how they can torture themselves for their past acts so yes you know anything along those kind of lines like a self-imposed exile almost yeah that's my initial interpretation yeah exactly especially because he's feeling guilt cuz he killed or did he kill words yeah that's what he said in his explanation while he was kind of spilling the beans or whatever but there's there's like there's like visual clues to suggest that it was more than what he'd he'd said vocally you know you they don't say that they're flashback sequences until you kind of have to realize it by the time that he that he says the events but like there's there's these like quick shots of him like sneaking up behind the guy and I think it's implied that that it was more of a a murderer even though you didn't really fully assent to it yeah mm-hmm there's the line where he says you know after I saw him die all I could think was that I wanted a smoke and then the moment after he kills Willem Dafoe with an axe the first thing he does is light up a cigarette and I love that little that little subtle kind of man there's so there's so many good like tie-ins and is that the right term tie-ins so many there's so many good little extra details to this film that I really I love the passage of time in it I got only have like a synecdoche New York vibe from it where every shot could have been like a week like every cut I got that vibe like especially in that opening shot when they were looking at that boat like go away I got the sense that they were like a week had gone by in between it's very nice that shot yeah I do it really makes you feel like you're going insane and puts you in the mind of Robert Pattinson character and you know that's what's so effective about it it's like a really visceral experience above all this other stuff we're talking about I love the like destruction of the environment - I like it it becomes so insane when you know the storm destroys everything and there's everything's flooded there's like water dripping from the ceiling everywhere and it's just it adds to me to the overall atmosphere so much I love that they must have been miserable to shoot oh yeah that's what I was saying about like they shot they shot a lot of it in Nova Scotia Canada and they they built like the lighthouse for the exterior shots they built like a this big structure and then for the interior shots they actually wind up doing that in a set somewhere else so that they could have more freedom with the camera yeah and there's lots of water and all that stuff you don't want to be doing that yeah out in the open I mean but like even there's certain shots where like Willem Dafoe is legit getting buried alive as he's delivering his life yeah you know that was incredible yeah yeah they're they're really giving it their all it's like he really should get an all-sky totally things it's made he was incredible sir yeah yeah I would I would say that this is probably my favorite performance of his it was insane Robert Pattinson was also great but I mean Willem Dafoe kind of steals the show in my opinion you really have to concentrate to hear what he's saying that was just like you had to really pay attention I agree with you and I was lucky enough that the first time I saw it was a can where they had both French and English subtitles underneath the film so I you know that was beneficial to my experience was having the subtitles right there and then the two other times I saw it I already knew everything that was happening and it you know it became easier to interpret but you know Robert Robert edgers Eggers I forget how to pronounce his name Hagar's he yeah like oh my it goes he he loves to do this whole like dialect kind of study with his films yeah I actually got to have a quick chat with him at TIFF and he I asked him like oh are you just gonna continue along this line of you know extremely strange kind of like period piece dialect movies he's like yeah I love it so we might be seeing another one of those because I remember that being like a criticism of the witch that people couldn't really understand everything that was being said because it's so unfamiliar that's one of my favorite aspects well made the booms yet they feel so authentic everyone talks like even if you don't understand what they're saying sometimes you're bein you really feel that he's done his homework lucky oh yeah it seems like insanely it just talked like 21st century people yeah I feel like it annoying and distracting so yeah there's tiny little details like that where you know even in even if there's a lot of movies where those aren't really put into consideration as soon as you have someone that does include that in their films and does put in that extra effort it really shows you know it really exemplifies it and makes it stand out yeah it could be one of those movies that I have to just see again because I remember when I was young I saw the Clockwork Orange the first time and I didn't like it and then I saw it again and again again and then now it's like one of my favorites you know so yeah I'm gonna have to give this another chance I think yeah there's a few movies like that honestly well see if it like sticks with you for like a year and I'm like oh I want to watch that again yes Bekka news like Enter the Void I had that it's like creeping into your mind you know there's something that's stuck there it's like oh well you should probably revisit that yeah that's how you know the movie special to me I mean like even after the first time I saw it like what really makes it a great film for me like a great experience for me is that there's so much about it that I can just visually recreate in my mind and audio-wise to like the the overall sensory experience of the film was just so unique and very memorable yeah it's it's it works it not only works so well but it's like it's it offers something that I don't get from watching another movie and so even even just like editing choices like that hard cut to the two of them with danzo's yeah the two of them dancing or like the as they leaned their heads back and they're chugging and like the entire bottle of booze and it gets into this whole like kind of crazy high energy montage that feels so you know sinister at the same time and somehow comedic it's like just just these the overall feel of the film is just something that really sticks with me and I love it so much yeah the the levity for me in particular stood out especially coming off of his previous movie the witch witch witch witch and so well but I don't yeah I don't remember you know they're being really any levity in the same way there is in this movie and it really adds to the sort of personality and makes the characters way more likeable and the contrast of when it does get really kind of dark and overbearing in contrast with the humor really really adds something to the movie that I think was not quite there in the which mm-hmm yeah it makes me want to revisit the which because when I first watched the which I was like you know what yeah there's clearly a lot of talent here but it didn't connect with me as much who knows I might you know it might not feel no I'm reviewing about it but the lighthouse on that same note though so many fights in the movie yeah that was like the most parts in a movie this good like it was that what's the next movie that has loads of farts in it and fart jokes I have to think about that one think of any how many how many fire every time you farted in the Madagascar films Alex do you have a fart count do you have it all figured out do you did you have it catalogued oh yeah but that makes a question though why this movie in terms of the appeal I it's almost unanimous in terms of just the way people are talking about the movie this isn't like liking under the skin where everyone doesn't just know about it people just seem to know about this movie we mentioned it on a previous episode about some of the front page of Reddit people are talking about the movie you know just the star power this involved it I really don't know oh he helps with the star power yeah that definitely helps sometimes it's a little a little difficult to know what will what will sell but I mean the initial trailer got posted and everybody was seemed hyped already so yeah which is nice to see cuz it's like a black and white square oh yeah with a good film that's not based on anything and it's just like yeah it's this really original groundbreaking in some ways movie yeah I think that it's really important to support these types of kind of like a typical out there movies because the more success that those films have the easier it is for those ideas to get funded not that they all have to be black and white well yeah exactly yeah you don't want everybody creating something that's trying to be the lighthouse obviously right you don't wanna try to be like let these people express themselves and make something really original and then go see it yeah hey twenty-fourth doing a pretty good job you'll get more movies like the lighthouse yeah absolutely I have they made like three of my favorite movies this year climax they mostly buy movies right like yeah already movies distribute yeah but they also do like they also find summer yeah they produce yes yeah yeah it's it's not just distribution but they yeah in the films that they that they wind up funding they seem to give a lot of creative control to the to the director which is really nice and refreshing to see any other thoughts on the lighthouse I mean I what do we think the light is oh man but that's almost like the wrong question but I mean I can give my interpreter yeah but it's a it's the thing everyone's talking about those in it what's in Marsellus Wallace's briefcase well I mean like he there's a line where Willem Dafoe says you know within the light there is salvation and if we're going to interpret the film in a way where it is this kind of like singular character dealing with his own past and the mistakes that he's made no conflict yeah internal conflict two halves of a person you know essentially arguing with each other and they can only tolerate themselves when they're drunk sort of thing if we're gonna interpret it in that way then perhaps the light is this sort of end idea of acceptance or what's what's the right word here man I'm struggling absolution yeah sure what stuff yeah cuz I mean like he also dies immediately after you know it's like this idea of like almost like justice for for the sins that he's committed if you want to say that mmhmm yeah that's why I took away from it to you yeah and he gets his liver picked up by bird yeah I'm act out Bye Birdie yummy just like Prometheus oh the one last thing I'll mention is the great shot where Robert Pattinson just nap sand just and then he snaps the seagull that's been like oh man and such a shocking moment it's so well edited and the visual effects not seen a very good as well me on site everyone like in the in the theater kind of like lift it up a little bit after that yeah they're just keeps go over the movie he like beats it is brutal yeah it doesn't feel like it slows down at all and which is crazy thing to say about a movie where there's so many monologues of just them talking but it always feels like that the tensions being raised with each new scene like everything's kind of getting more chaotic and and falling apart I think the flow of the film is just fantastic yeah love it love it very much and I give it a give it a 10 out of 10 which is not something I do but I love it well I do this more often but I about fun great movie yeah with you guys so I give it a 5 out of 5 great belt so movie place to explore almost some stuff what was the last film that we've all unanimously given 100% ratings Shazam do you would you want to assign a number David or do you not do that kind of thing it's fine if you don't it's just that we don't I mean going by your scale 6 out of 10 the meme answer I don't know I thought it was good but I didn't think it was as fantastic as most people seem to so I probably have to revisit it let's see yeah there's plenty there's plenty of people that feel that way and they'll consider you to be a breath of fresh air cuz it seems like everybody's going yeah going crazy over this movie it's good you a here because it'd just be a total circle joke people want to hear though sometimes they're mad when it's usually it's the opposite usually we're just bicker like bickering alright I guess it's time to move into the other movie that we're talking about I know this is a pretty a pretty dense episode the film recommendation Halloween kind of movie I guess a horror movie it's thirst from the director of the original old boy the awesome old boy and the handmaiden from Park chan-wook it is a vampire movie but it has a kind of a different take on vampires from what I can tell none of the characters had fangs there is more of like kind of a disease kind of element to what's going on they see the reflection yeah they can see their reflection that's true is garlic like a part no yeah there was no like garlic there was no wouldn't wooden stake or whatever yeah spoiler warning for thirst 2009 film what did you guys think I liked it I thought I really appreciated this sort of different take on the vampire movie and that it felt sort of more grounded I guess yeah I hope part of like yeah if he didn't drink blood he would you know he would get that skin disease thing or mm-hmm no I thought it was really good I thought it was a little long perhaps which is why I'd be curious to see what what the non director's cut is like I don't know how much it's it's really not that big of a I don't think it's like 13 minutes or something I mean there's a lot going on in the movie yeah it's very heavy yeah it was cool how they modernized like the vision of the vampire that just kind of become cliche and he made it into something you know very different and more grounded in science but they'll also the movies mostly a comedy or has like a goofy ER oh yeah lighter tone and they contrasted with the more horrific scenes which are fewer but then I think the comedy scenes but like it really worked I thought the blending of comedy and horror was kind of perfect and I was not expecting any anything funny that's something I find interesting with Korean movies general is that they're not afraid to put in like very eccentric elements that are sometimes quite goofy and they can put it into serious things and it yeah it works a lot yeah bong joon-ho is great with that too a lot of South Korean cinema is like this blend of of serious but also kind of goofy and I love how many South Korean movies are able to take those different elements and put them together in the same film in a way where one doesn't detract from the other because you know if you're gonna add comedic elements to something if those don't work properly you know might just wind up hurting the film or it might make people take the more serious elements less seriously - almost reminded me of Shaolin Soccer at point the body and all these crazy movements but jumping around and flying around like it really is goofier points and sometimes it does go a little bit too far for for me but no you're right it does balance the kind of eccentric but weirdly grounded premise of this interpretation of vampires really well for the most part what parts do you think went too far the the scene where they're sort of jumping around on rooftops I think it was mostly because of the visual it just looked kind of aged to me yeah the visual effects and for 2009 it was pretty good I mean yeah it was it it was strange because it wasn't it wasn't bad particularly but it was kind of distracting to me yeah especially when it was necessary yeah exactly yeah and it would have added to the kind of grounded thing that they were doing exactly kind of like that though it felt kind of beautiful of them so yeah flying around like that I think it was more about like the characters at that point - mm-hmm you know like it was kind of like a set piece so that their relationship could be explored and developed I really liked the music during was very good it's a classic sort of superhero a moment you know yeah these these characters have abilities and they're using them in some way and I like that side of me out and grab the girl and fly around on rooftops mm-hmm it's kind of like almost a trope what I really appreciate about this movie is kind of how from the get-go like the initial concept you're taking a character who you know is dedicated his life to religion apparently never even kissed a woman before now through this like transformation not only physical like he goes through an entire character transformation because of this and all of a sudden he's like oh I'm a monster you know like I'm I'm forever in this life of sin now and winds up doing a lot of things that he never would have in the first place while still retaining that idea of like okay I don't want to try to kill people I don't want to kill people unless I have to sort of thing yeah he has a very clear right and I always understood him and yeah it was nice to have a character where you actually understood their thought process like when he become when he first realizes that he needs to like consume blood to live yeah he jumps out a window I love it immediately and it was like a very like likable like oh he's he's not going to do this he knows this is wrong and then it becomes like a comedy moment after oh yeah but it was like nice to have that speaking of thought process is the scene towards the end there when he goes to that camp and he like it appears like he's about to rape a girl or something was that sort of just to get them not to see him as sort of this saviors okay so everybody was a monster yes yeah there's a there's a lot going on in this movie you know it's it's really packed and trying to do a lot of things at once but I think that you know especially yeah after multiple viewings it's a lot easier to kind of get what each sort of element is kind of going for there's some things that feel like they probably could have been cut out or like maybe a little out of place but overall nothing like to too huge in terms of like affecting my experience for the movie I guess my biggest criticism with the movie would be just how the difference between the vampirism and the Emanuel virus or whatever because it seems like it's kind of different things like he got he didn't become a vampire because he got the the virus he got it because he got a blood transfusion is like the the lesions on his face is that more to do with the manual virus or the vampirism either way it kind of cured him when he led oh yeah I wish that I wish that that was developed just a little bit more because even if even as someone who has watched this movie probably four times over the past ten years or so I guess it came out in 2009 so exactly ten years even as someone who's watched it a few times there are some aspects where it's like a little difficult to understand the like ins and outs of how everything works but still I mean as a as an opportunity for all of the scenes that follow it's really not as important I guess I kind of took it as like him being a vampire he was sort of invincible or like he had this healing power but and you know the less he was a vampire then this virus came back that's sort of how I saw it so like if he drinks blood and he you know charges up his healing powers then that will go away so it's like he's not necessary I want its I kind of wanted to know what would happen if he didn't have the Emmanuel virus like when I stopped drinking blood would he just like slowly starve to death become more human yeah I'm not really sure exactly how that would have worked that's sort of what I thought was implied anyway I just assumed that if he stopped drinking blood that would just be the end of him that was sort of the urgency to to feel things forward for me anyway mm-hmm how would you guys feel about I know I know that this director in quite a few of his movies there are some scenes that some people could theoretically interpret as being a little overly pornographic in this and old boy and the handmaiden but I guess you know growing up and seeing this movie more I've kind of come to realize that there's always kind of a kind of liberating element towards the the sexuality in his films like the the character literally like his you know never kissed a woman and an old boy the guy hasn't had a relationship for 15 years or even seeing another human being in the hand-made and you know it's a completely forbidden kind of relationship and so you know with that context I feel like it's it's justified and to have something that kind of goes a little a little further a little longer you know and when vampires that they're quite a sexual creature really intimate the way they feed yeah and they kind of you know the way they trick people to to get them in a secluded place to like it's all very you know intimate sexual in that kind of way so that bat didn't bug me at all such while and it worked definitely and it's part of the themes of the movie - is that like she wants he wants to have sex he wants to be in a relationship with someone and so he gets into this kind of abusive almost relationship with this girl who at first is you know you feel bad for her because she has a really bad life but then once she is rid of that she comes like this power-hungry monster and starts killing people and he can't control her and I enjoyed like more the metaphor of that of watching a relationship kind of spiral out of control mm-hmm yeah yeah from the moment she's introduced like she she obviously has so much character and she obviously is out of place in terms of you know her and the rest of the people that she lives with her husband with the buggers oh yeah the constant runny nose man yeah who's plateful like gross out [ __ ] - like there's dream sequences oh yeah it's out and tries to like attack them but it's like actually horrifying because you're like uh it's all psychological just remember sorry yeah for me just that coming back it's so many really good funny moments I feel like it turns into more of a true horror film as soon as the female lead starts starts going crazy and and killing everybody because every everything before that point it's really like restrained it's more about the character you know it's more about you know his his journey into this this new transformation but then after that point all hell breaks loose and there's there's somebody in the story that now has these powers that doesn't care if they kill people that's going to be a complete psycho and then everything just spirals out of control I like how it builds up in that way yeah to me the scariest scene in the movie was towards the end with the sort of disabled alcoholic woman who's like communicating and there's like a really fun dynamic that builds and then it go it really just jumps into the the scares with the the more like running away from the vampire characters and it just the way it's executed was quite intense because of the performances they were really like they really seemed terrified and I really thought that they really feared for their life and it was just that was a great sequence I thought yeah that was intense yeah I love that sort of her revealing that they killed me like just her eyes or like scratch a mother finger and the little finger and the my jogging pieces and just that that dialogue we get from the guy whose wife or girlfriend is still learning Korean and he's like no yeah I've become I've been come pretty great at reading what people are thinking through their eyes you know if somebody looks at something for four seconds everyone else will look sort of thing just like this kind of almost borderline fourth-wall breaking a idea of like okay this is where it's going like this is you're seeing it build up and you kind of know where it's going and it's still so so fun to watch I still want to know what's gonna happen yeah yeah there's lots of strange dialogue like that which I usually just pin down to the sort of cultural difference the way they use language across the pond is always fairly different yes take that into account it was the most it was most glaring to me though in one of the sex scenes that had like almost like hentai dialogue get the voice down yeah when they were when they were going out sit next to that coma patient she said stuff like am i pervert is it supposed to feel this good that kind of things just like what I just prefer if you just didn't say anything right now who knows how much of that was like manipulation who knows how much of that was genuine character become revealed as someone who's I mean obviously not all that together but really kind of evil - yeah yeah I didn't hold it too much against it it's just you know cultural differences and all that I love that they have the fat comatose patient that he can just keep getting blood from and then line in the movie where he justifies it and he's he's like he always wanted to give food to the needy you should have heard his story about the sponge cake like that tiny little setup at the beginning lots of clever setups there's like the his blind friend who says that he wants to you know see the sunrise over the ocean before he dies and then at the end of the film that's what winds up happening - to the - movie thing as well ya know so many great little details and you know not not everything about the movie works 100% but there's just so much going into it I loved his directing style you know it's very clean and cinematography was very like complex especially during like when they were talking at the table oh yeah certain scenes the camera would be you know anything around like Hans people go like through the table thing really adds to the tension that it does well that it's yeah sort of wonders but it sort of goes to all these different setups yeah and they're so well executed and the camera feels like it's like this floating missive what sort of a mission dip it in a mission force yeah it just feels like just floating there and you're like have you guys seen the handmaiden yes yes I have I've actually never seen Oldboy two hour-long review yeah definitely watch the original holy crap it's one of the most accessible Korean films ever it's one that you can share to people that don't watch foreign language films maybe like you know what maybe there's something I'm missing here you know maybe I don't need to just only watch movies in English even more so than parasite because that poker oh yeah that one's the that one's a new one I could see parasite getting like a Best Picture nominee over it everybody loves Paris are you that makes me so frustrated I can't see it till next year ah that's the point move this week sorry that's great South Korea has really exploded in terms of their their film industry internationally well tell us it's all my cruiser yeah lot lots of great voices that you're not gonna find lots of great experiences that you're not gonna find watching you know any other kind of movie it's a very unique kind of thing this is an energy yeah you can see a lot of similarities between different directors just the South Korean felt feel that I really love and you'll see this guy pop up in every movie he feels like you have them yeah yeah there's a lot of familiar faces and a bunch of different Korean movies but you know I if they've got like a pool of talent that you know it's really great I don't know what their population is honestly so that might be a factor but you know continue what were your like favorite scenes in the movie the end yeah it's just my English accent makes me sound like I'm just always miserable yeah the scene at the end where they drive out into the - the seesaw front yeah and it was funny how she was trying to get away from this exactly yeah yeah yeah and as you sort of understand and figure out what's happening and how he's just foiling every attempt she has to try and stay alive there's something there's something comedic but also kind of dark about that because of course everyone has that fear is - it's one character who's accepted his fate and one that is just refusing to accept this which is really interesting to watch and it's yeah really talk yeah I really like the previously mentioned reveal scene when they find out that they're the killers hmm and I kind of like them you know jumping on the roots as well because I thought that was great yeah I like I like that say the same same thing yeah the the room that when they're eating and the revealed to be the killers yeah it's so intense it's such a such a great yeah so if grey cells open soon yeah very very satisfying payoffs in this movie man I love that the like there's this kind of idea especially with the main character being like a religious man there's this idea of being born again through this whole vampirism thing and you know it's it's mirrored when I guess he infects her with the vampire blood and we get that line where he says happy birthday where that there's that like subtle little setup or it's like oh I've never had a birthday just so we can get that line but it also kind of connects into the the greater ideas of of what the film is trying to go for he sees himself as like a new person he says don't call me father when yeah she calls him father mm-hmm call me dad know that reviving scene was very good brings it back working this out in front of her mother yeah yeah but there's that really interesting shot where they're kind of it's very close and they have their sort of arms held in certain way in this that weird symbiotic like blood drinking thing going on which is oh yeah creepy and disturbing you know many disturbing very memorable like disgusting yeah oh yeah just one more thing I just the there's certain like really morbid elements in this movie like when when they're having this argument and she was like oh what were you gonna do just you know keep finding comatose patients to get blood from he's like well I mean I'm just gonna you know if it comes down to it there's people that want to kill themselves that can come to me and confessional yeah and so I can help them kill themselves and if I run out of those then I'll just go in the internet and like holy crap yeah cuz it's a good person desperately trying to just yeah this need they have because he has no choice he has to do it and that's like the only way he had like compartmentalize is what he had to do you know I think that's pretty much all we have to say about it right yeah that's a good for Halloween yeah to like I didn't get as many like of the horror elements I wanted out of it I wasn't really scared or horrified as much as I was just entertained but it's still a very good movie and it's very original and technically well-made you know guys a great director I'll give it a 4 out of 5 for now I'd like to see it again I'm glad I saw the director's cut too because though from what I what I know about his style it's very specific like you storyboards everything and like in order so it's nice to see everything kind of together in that way and not trimmed up and rearranged because apparently he does not like the other cut of this movie as much yeah really okay because of that because the look of his movies is so specific yeah like even you can see like seeing transitions are very well done yeah it would go from like a source of light very purposeful something like I can't yeah very coordinated and that's kind of removed anyway sorry he did no fair - right oh yeah yeah cuz that's one of my favorite like transitions like when combing her hair and it turns into that grass or something like it's mmm beautiful yeah well I'm with you Ralph same school four stars out of five this will sit next to Let The Right One In in terms of interesting takes on sort of vampire modern sort of takes on it yeah yeah really interesting unique creative I give it a 9 out of 10 I love it I love the style love the energy it's just one of those movies that you know I'm not gonna watch it every every week but I'll be watching it every few years for sure you know it's a good it's a good one to introduce to other people it's a good October movie for sure David yeah score I don't know eight you don't have to yeah recommended six out of ten alright I guess it's I guess it's question time yeah just go into the questions then all right before we move on to the questions though if you want to leave your own for the next episode of Sardonicus head over to the Sardonicus reddit where there will be a thread that route for pin and you can ask us whatever you like today we're gonna start off with one from Don co8 and this is very this is for David specifically for mr. Samberg how much influence did you draw from Kung Fu Panda 2 in the development of Shazam came out brett has been asking this question on repeat because I have this weird obsession with Kung Fu Panda 2 I think is awesome just completely circumstantially there are loads of weird like thematic similarities between Shazam and Kung Fu Panda 2 so I was really curious if the if I'm just insane or you actually had seen the movie in there I have it may be a Henry Henry Gaiden the writer of the so what's the just thematic or he doesn't turn the main character has a very similar arc and they're in little details that are and there's sort of an ensemble cast that comes together at the end for like a kind of fight scene and there's even like a joke right but right before the like a fight of the protagonist and antagonist where the joke is is the same joke so it's like is that like a callback is that where it's not just circumstantial which you must be I had to ask AIG it's not the one where someone was saying about a joke word that we can't hear the bad guy or something yeah yeah yeah yeah is that that one oh yeah that's a joke actually came about when I was showing Henry some animatics we we've made we'd made and I'd like I'd put the two of them like sort of far apart in a city that's what sort of gave him the idea of like oh like would even be able to hear from that far away it was actually not a script it was something that came up after he saw the animals well place the Casa listen I don't know if you have to ask him if he's if he's seen it and I'm now I have to watch it follow up question I guess it's kind of similar do you agree with I know a lot of people including myself have drawn similarities between Shazam and the Raimi spider-man films in terms of I guess tone do you agree with those comparisons yeah I mean I that was an influence you know I was like I love the Raimi's spider-man movies and like his his tone and his you know feel and you know he has that sort of horror ish scene with Doctor Octopus and yeah yeah okay let's go into them we can actually all answer then just n1k asks a Halloween horror related one what is the creepiest performance from an actor that you have ever seen in a film Anthony Hopkins as Hannah Lecter that's what comes to me I know it's like an obvious one but yeah it really is like fantastic and that so much so that he's like in that movie for ten minutes and he got like a sequel I think that's basically good is it yeah yeah the first one that comes to mind for me is Javier Bardem in No Country for Old Men as Anton Chigurh very good yes so much behind that character very unpredictable very like unstable very creepy I've got an unintentional one from a film I saw recently welcome to Marwin I watched with Steve Jerome okay appointments I unintentionally let's check that but my actual answer is the the kids from hereditary oh yeah something about that really yeah really gets under my skin but they're like I can't do that noise yeah that's the one yeah that's that that to me is creepy as oh I don't know I mean those sort all very good answers I mean I probably have to go with Anton Chigurh just because yeah he's so unpredictable and like he feels yeah yeah yeah would be a completely different movie without the character and the performance yeah and I mean those parts I can watch over and over again oh yeah the gas station scene or it's like the coin flip oh yeah Thomas they call it yeah very well performance good answer cuz it's not even you wouldnt even think of it normally as a horror movie necessarily yeah yeah I guess like a horrific kind of character in performance yeah okay apologies for this name in advance but this is reddit user name PPE 0 6 7 8 3 4 ask us this how do you feel about actors who are difficult how do you feel about actors who are difficult to work with should they be allowed to call the shots in some way or was filmmaking a collaborative process and they are disrupting what should be a well-oiled machine on that notion how is it ok for directors to a harass actors ie Hitchcock or Kubrick but it's not ok for actors to be jerks to directors slash co-stars Christo the truth is that the actor is kind of in charge you don't want them to know that but I mean the thing is like if an actor refuses to do something or say something mm-hmm what are you gonna do like you just have to work around it because he's like you can't force someone to say anything so they have a lot of power yeah but yeah I don't think it's ok for for directors to the [ __ ] two actors either I think you know ideally you would all get along I'm gonna be profession not the case of course but always you just reminded me of there's a there's a couple there's a couple instances where the actors essentially over what the final cut of the film would be by intentionally giving bad performances in the variations that they didn't want so I think in the original Star Trek it was it might have been William Shatner and there was supposed to be a kiss between him and someone who wasn't of his race which was like controversial at the time and so they intentionally did terrible takes for the variation of oh yeah you're not gonna give her a kiss sort of thing just to ensure that it would be in a final product and then there's also like Sandra Oh in hard candy apparently in this variation that they shot that she didn't really like she just intentionally did it with a Texan accent just so it would be unusable like no yeah this is how I want the character to be there's those are the famous Wesley Snipes in Blade 3 refusing to open his eyes had to calm eyes opening on top of his face what about like Harrison Ford Blade Runner narration oh yeah yeah but it's interesting actually I actually met the guy who does a lot of Vin Diesel's ADR lines because apparently you have these guys who can sound like these famous people because there's their schedules are so packed so they might not be able to come in and do ADR like you know rerecord dialog and things like that so you have these other people like this white guy come in and do like Vin Diesel voices and things like that and it's like that's in the movie and like we just think we're hearing those actors but we're not you know interesting like the end the the second half of be prepared was sung by Jim Cummings in that Jeremy Irons so really depends really yeah so second half he blew out his voice and you won't get a sniff without me line and then the rest of it is just Jim Cummings oh sorry watch that now yeah I mean you can't you can't even tell it just it's like the character you know um I guess back onto the topic to the to the question it really depends on the project I guess it really depends on the relationship between director and actor because there's some people that you know will want to work together very closely and and collaborate with the same unified idea like Paul Thomas Anderson and Daniel day-lewis really you know trying to explore the character and there will be blood but there's other instances where you know it can obviously be beneficial to have different ideas I guess I guess I would still count as collaboration because at the end of the day you need to kind of agree on yeah I mean you have like Kinski and Hertzog you know doing things together and just nothing but fights and arguments and still turns into something you know it depends on the actor too because some of these actors like a Tom Cruise are producers on the movie - yeah I put like their own money into it so they have a lot more say as to the final product then there's like actors who just show up on set and like yeah they have control over their lines but that's about it yeah yeah and I guess it depends what's appropriate to the project as well like if there's a mutual agreement and relationship already founded that is based on some people just don't get along and they they argue but at the end of the day can still produce quality work whereas you know if you do have don't want to just pull Tom Cruise again but an actor of that kind of you know Brad Fame come in and then kind of walk all over anyone it's you know it's it's just not very professional because it is a collaborative process and it just it just works best when everyone's working together so it's just yeah when there's like a hierarchy to it you know all the services like a vision who movies this one thing yeah like that mummy movie Tom Cruise had a lot of influence in that and it became kind of a mess because of it it became like a weird action movie with him as the star even though he's not the mummy yeah yeah it's so it's like very weird how what these actors do sometimes we have a good one from crow guys who asks do you think that jump scares can be used positively are there any examples yeah the lighthouse had one jump scare Willem Dafoe came out yeah I mean one of my favorite jump scares is in Mulholland Drive which isn't really you know Harley I think but the hobo behind the the coffee shop I mean it I'd loved that scene it's just such a good build-up of like there's going to be something scary here and sure enough like you're prepared for something scary but you're not prepared for that that face you know mm-hmm looks great yeah in my in my opinion it would it would be that there are ways to do it properly just because a jump-scare exists doesn't mean that it's a bad movie however where it starts to become a problem is when a film is reliant on jump scares when when it's more of a excuse to try and get people startled when in reality what's being shown on screen or like the the ideas its presenting aren't really scary to begin with it shouldn't be used as a crutch yeah that's how I feel yeah cuz I think as long as you have like you're building towards them sort of setting them up I think they're fine I think sort of an example of what you were talking about it and in one of the Paranormal Activity movies there's a girl just sitting in a kitchen just reading the paper or something nothing's happening you don't hear anything then all of a sudden all the kitchen cabinets flies open it would in a big jump scare and that feels cheap because it's it nothing was happening you were just sitting there waiting for something to happen and boom you know but if it's in the right context I love jump scares yeah the the phonecall trope in so many horror movies yeah it's more like just the friend putting a hand on someone walking past a screen that's somebody that should be in the scene anyway things that things that wouldn't be scary unless you added an orchestral hit and even then it's just more startling than scary on the on the thread someone pointed out a really good one though isn't in a horror movie in Jurassic Park with the goat leg slamming down on the car right before that whole like Tyrannosaurus Rex sequence yeah I remember that that one's stuck in my mind from since I was a kid I remember shocking there's um I remember there being at least one or two good ones in the descent but that's also a film that you know the whole movie isn't jumpscares there's there's so many different yeah elements of fear that go into the movie there's like the claustrophobia there's like everything's dark you know like there's there's so many different ways of scaring people and it doesn't just do do the same thing over and over it's it's not it's it hurts the movie when it gets too repetitive and especially when you can just see jump scares coming it's like I personally felt like in the new like it Chapter two just the way that they did the jump scares in that movie I just every single time it was just predictable for me because he saw the formulas how it was happening at first and then it's like okay so they're just gonna do the oh is something there oh it's not there turn around and then jump scare and it's just like every single time it happened I was just like you know I shouldn't I shouldn't be ahead of the film in that way but yeah there's there's a lot of examples where it's done well for sure I thought that actually in the the opening scene for lights out that was a good one oh thank you which one though she just comes closer yeah it was there with the woman at the beginning which was kind of like I guess that scene was pretty similar to the original short the short film yeah yeah I thought that was effective it doesn't it doesn't feel cheap because it's like a part of the gimmick of the film and I don't mean gimmick in a negative way but it's a part of like yeah what I know but I mean that's what it is and it is sort of a popcorn horror movie where that sort of stuff is expected people want their jump scares in a movie like that you know yeah I mean it's literally like but it's interesting that it's interesting how many people I've heard from now here in Hollywood where it's like oh yeah we did a variation of that lights-out gag in in this film I was working on like the director showed us the short films like we got to do something like that it's like oh really so it's it's inspired a lot of people which i think is great now but when it first went viral there was like this Indian movie that just ripped it off completely and I was like what the hell like here I am in Sweden broke trying to make movies and they're stealing my stuff why don't you know I could direct the movie for them just you know let me do that but now I just see this oh that's that's flattering I was gonna say in film school there are at least two people who made like exact copies of lights out like yeah that's like the same exact concept yeah wait worse it's being done just now you're inspiring tons of young artists which is which is great yeah that must have when you just when you thought of that concept that must have been a I cannot believe no one has done it like this before yeah and I mean variations of it there's an x-files episode called darkness falls where you don't I think that's the other way around or like they don't kill you unless you're in the dark but you they're still there in the light or something but I mean variations of it have been done mm-hmm yeah I guess like the weeping angels and Doctor Who as well so similar ideas where they're like similar mechanics yeah it's just that light aspect then it's interesting to me let's do this one I've just for David from newald face what kind of professional experience to people who write scripts for Hollywood films typically have are they typically literature majors accomplished novelists etc it seems to be all kinds of things really I mean some start out as assistants and just work their way up I guess or so I'm not entirely sure but it seems that people come from all over and they have all sort of different stories not sure I'm the right person to answer that perspective more than anything yeah they have it rough in Hollywood though the writers human or yeah I think they do well like I hear a lot about how like their scripts are taken by Studios and re purposed and rewritten and you know I can imagine that's kind of disheartening yeah yeah it have your work messed with in that way and a lot of them yeah like it and and moved on yeah you play as part of selling it - yeah I'm just a writer's medium there yeah exactly writer is the boss yeah while on movies it's often the director and the director can go I know I don't let's change this and let's do it yeah and you know there's that story of like if you get fired off of your movie that you're writing that's a good thing because that means the movies getting made because they're taking in a new writer to just do some fixes before they go and shoot it you know so that happens a lot and sometimes people they get fired from their own movie another writer comes in and does a pass and then they get hired again on their own movie and it gets made so it's it's it's strange oh yeah sometimes it's a good thing yeah you know to have that many voices in it when you're selling your work you can't you can't get too attached to how it's gonna turn out in the final project ya know it was interesting when I first got the script for Shazam it had like a list of like 10 writers like with William Goldman and all these like famous names because they've been trying to make a movie of that for over a decade mm-hm and just had all these writers do different takes on it or whatever so so the script I read had all these names but then of course it goes through arbitration when once the movie gets made and they see that no no only these two writers actually wrote this version of these all those other names get taken off that's crazy to think about - all the scripts that just never got made oh yeah even for the same film or just all these different movies that never happened and with some things that happen a decade later like Gemini man okay let's end on this one speaking of it chapter 2 little wolf 9 asks this what do you gorgeous boys feel is the best TV slash film adaptation of Stephen King's novels have a lot to choose from shining sea I was gonna choose the shining but family here read The Shining bit was very different yeah [ __ ] you to the novel in ways it is the part where they drive by the wreckage of the car from the novel yeah it's like an extra little leg yeah I don't care about your book Stephen got mad and tried to make his own made-for-tv version or he's like this is the truth writing you have the non horror ones like like Shawshank Redemption yes great you know but I've always had to salt I haven't seen it in very long time so this might not hold up but I always had a soft spot for needful things max once you know mm-hmm I haven't seen I've never seen that needful things yeah it's pretty close but sort of a 90 guy who opens up a shop with what everything you you want in it but he doesn't charge for it like instead like hey I'll give you this if you just do me a favor oh yeah that sort of gets this whole time I've seen variations of it and like maybe like a Simpsons Treehouse of Terror parody sort of thing probably yeah hmm let's see I'm just going through the list here if we're gonna talk about like the horror ones I kind of like the mist I know that oh yeah a few people that and even in my memory like I watched it again for the 2007 list thing that I'm just finishing up now in my memory it was always kind of like you know half ironic enjoyment you know it's like kind of bad or something right and then I found out that the version I've been watching the entire time was not the the intended version that originally Frank there but wanted the film to be in black and white and so on the collector's edition two disc blu-ray on the second disc you can actually watch the black and white version and it completely changes the experience of the movie it's like so more clear what it's going for the effects look better it's so much more atmospheric I was gonna say like wow I think well it was shot in color and then they remote yeah shopping but like did they light it like they were going to make it black and white I don't they knew they were going to do that I would have to look it up I don't know exactly how far into the private areas that they decided because it's like the studio just put it in color after all that exactly because it doesn't it looks so much better yeah I doubt the studio will go like I mean this dude II would probably say right up front that no you can't shoot it in black yeah maybe that's a shame because like I think that's that's like the only thing that really takes me out of that movie is the visual yeah you some of the effects and the senate ography but like the story was really great and the acting was great too it's so depressing though that I haven't rewatched it and forever very dark mature it completely transforms the movie and it turns it into like I mean there's like an intro on the the Blu ray by Frank Darabont too and he's saying like yeah this is like a this is like a homage or homage or homage how everyone pronounces to like mid-1960s pre color horror films and it's it becomes so much more clear in its presentation when you see it in black and white it's like oh wow this is what I was trying to go for this entire time it works so much better it's so weird yeah cuz in the main character like a painter or something you like paints posters or something I remember me yes I'm like that yeah the story ins yeah yeah yeah speaking of bottle movies I really like I've seen it for a long time but misery I like that something quite frightening about the obsessive sort of fan that takes it a step too far and I remember there being quite a memorable ending to that huh I'm I'm ashamed to say that I haven't seen it yet I love Kathy Bates misery's great I know it's it's something that I should have seen by this point that I just haven't just been sitting on my on my list for a while yeah it's awesome from memory I've seen many parodies obviously yeah it's a very pop culture film cool I guess I guess that's it's the end so I guess Alex it's your turn for the recommendation for next episode right yes I catch up um I want to talk about a 1991 film I've been meaning to watch for a long time David Cronenberg's Naked Lunch awesome was always been an interesting looking for me have you guys seen it no I saw I was so young and I saw parts of it my brother was watching it and it always looks very intriguing so I know I know what it is like like there's definitely yeah it's thing is visually in my mind that I have not forgotten but yeah I would love to talk about the whole sim okay okay brilliant 91 Cronenberg Naked Lunch and I think it's pretty easy to get out of pretty easy saying because we always have this issue of yeah people like trying to find copies this is one I'm pretty sure it's just on iTunes I think it's on criterion 2 even better yeah alright anybody listening if you don't want to be spoiled for Naked Lunch we're gonna have a spoiler discussion on that next episode so watch it between now and then which will be two weeks from now theoretically even earlier if you decide to support us on patreon calm slash sardonic cast or sardonic ascom sign up for premium it's two dollars a month to get these episodes early as they're edited also we got merch check out the merch christmas is coming out soon christmas is coming up soon the movie christmas it's coming out get your gifts gifts you want to you want to support us you want to be charitable and also if you want to support our lovely guests go buy his films lights out Anabelle creation Shazam check out his youtube channel tony smasher where he has a lot of insightful observations about the industry and filmmaking and that's also your twitter handle - anything else you want to plug your promote no that's about it yeah I'm on Twitter and Instagram whatever yeah awesome thank you so much we really appreciate you coming on the show yeah thank you for coming on dude yeah got me to see thirst yeah boy I'm glad you enjoyed it yeah yeah thank you for listening everybody but I I everybody

Channel: Sardonicast

Views: 135,082

Rating: 4.948173 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: GDiZzicN71w

Length: 99min 36sec (5976 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 04 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/BigCballer]

Holy shit, I didn’t think Adum would take my request for the intro. Thanks!

[u/AdrenalinDragon]

David F. Sandberg seems like a cool guy. I'll be checking out his future content for sure!

[u/SevEpx]

Thanks for including thumbnail!

[u/DamChaz]

Yeah I mean guys don’t get me wrong, The Lighthouse is a masterpiece as well.

But Parasite... boy oh boy. Wait till they talk about that one. It would also be cool if they talked about Memories of Murder the same episode but perhaps it’s better to just wait till there’s a more accessible and easy way to watch/buy it, like an official blu ray or something.

Awesome episode btw, David was a great guest!

[u/somemoronnamedtom]

Now I want Robert Eggers as a guest.

[u/TheOfficeIntern8910]

Somehow they managed to top the creepiest looking guest face.

[u/BigBossMan538]

Adum would be a merman and Ralph would be a seagull

[u/MangScoos]

They should get the rlm guys on that would be incredible.

[u/ThisGuyLikesMovies]

Prepare to have many beans spilled!