The Eyes of My Mother (2016)

Episode 81, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast

Todd:  Hello and welcome to another episode of 2 Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Todd.

Craig: I’m Craig.

Todd: And today with us, one of our favorite special guests. Say hi to the people, Simone. 

Simone:  Hey, guys. Good to be back. 

Todd:  We’re really happy to have Symone back with us today. Actually, she suggested this week’s film in honor of mother’s day, which by the time you hear this will have already happened. But, Simone, what movie did you choose? 

Simone:  I chose the 2016 film, The Eyes Of My Mother. And this was a movie that I had, heard had come out in the states, but of course, living abroad, I wasn’t able to see it in the theater. And I picked it up in one of our favorite little knockoff DVD stores over here, and gave it a shot. And man, oh, man, was this this is a very drastic change from the last time I was on this show talking about the fly. 

Todd:  That’s right. No Jeff Goldblum in this one for 1. Unfortunately, no. Not really many men in this one not not many characters really, actually. 

Simone:  Yeah. A small cast. 

Todd:  Yeah. Craig, I knew nothing about this movie. Did had you heard of this film before? 

Craig:  I don’t think so. I don’t think I had heard anything about it, and I just watched it. I didn’t look anything up. I didn’t know anything about it. So I didn’t know if this was a new movie, an old movie. I had no idea. And so when it started and I could tell that based on the cinematography and whatnot that it was a Todd, film, I was a little bit surprised. And I would say that that’s a good way of of describing my feelings about the movie overall.   A little bit surprised. It’s an interesting film. 

Todd:  It really is. Interesting is a good way of putting it.   Yeah. I’m glad you picked it, Simone, because we try to do all kinds of different, you know, types of movies.   Mhmm.   And I was surprised because, it was all in black and white, first of all. I I thought when it started out in black and white, for sure, we were seeing a flash back, and then pretty soon it would change. You know? But this is a pretty interesting choice nowadays for a 2016 horror film to go black and white. It it kinda shows the director is going for, like, art house. Mhmm. You know? 

Simone:  A film noir kind of thing, if you will. 

Todd:  Yeah. It’s not, you know, a lot of the horror movies now that are coming out, it seems to be, you know, we’ve talked about this before, like a genre that’s kind of revived in popularity again.   Mhmm.   But there’s so many of them getting churned out that they’re just all so commercial. You imagine that a person really wouldn’t be putting out a black and white horror film unless they really interested in more than just, like, making money.   You know what I 

Simone:  mean? And this is unconventional in the way that other horror movies of this day and age are going and that it’s not a remake, I believe. 

Todd:  Oh, yeah. It’s kind 

Simone:  of an original idea. And the black and white really works because, Craig, you had mentioned it’s modern, but when we were watching it, like, I couldn’t decide what modern era. Like, people didn’t have cell phones. The the trucks and the cars looked maybe a little old. So we were guessing maybe, like, eighties, early nineties. 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Simone:  But then because of the, like, remote location of where the set takes place in this kind of small town, that also could help with, you know, a town that’s maybe a little, bit behind in the times. Yeah. But I think black and white really works with this film because in in a lot of the scary movies, especially the remakes that we see, it relies so much on, like, blood and gore and everything’s, like, doused in the color red. But this movie was very effective and very creepy, and we know that there’s blood. We we see it happening, but I guess encased in black and white, it’s just something old timey and off. It’s very haunting. 

Todd:  It mutes the the gore and the blood quite a bit, doesn’t it? Yeah. I mean, there’s a point in this movie where there’s a big puddle of blood on the floor, and you’re not even sure if it’s blood or water. Right? So, yeah, it definitely adds a different feel. 

Craig:  And I’m glad I’m glad that you brought that up because, it it I don’t know if it’s the black and white. I’m sure that the black and white contributes to it, but it it feels almost like a period piece. Like, it it feels like you’re watching something that takes place in the past, and yet you see all these modern things. And that was one of the and in a way, it almost feels very dreamlike because throughout this whole thing I was wondering how is this happening? I mean the whole movie centers around the premise that our main character, Franchesca, is, very isolated. It feels like a period piece and yet I kept thinking throughout, why is she so isolated? How is she so isolated? Like, this is obviously taking place in modern time. You know, they drive around in cars. We’ve we only one time really get away enough from the one central farm setting to see more of civilization. But when we do see that, you know, it’s a a contemporary bar that they go to and and whatnot.   But the the whole time, this girl, it centers around the fact that she’s so alone and that that kind of maybe contributes or causes her madness. But the whole time I was thinking, doesn’t she have to pay her electric bill? Like, I mean, like, how can she be so isolated? Like, she’s got electricity, she’s got a car, like cars have to run on gasoline. Like, she has to interact with the world in some way, but we never ever see that. And so to me it felt very surreal, You know? It it it felt like a surrealist, piece to me. 

Todd:  Yeah. It’s so funny you mentioned that, Craig, because I have a big Todd note here. And Simone, you’re proof. Right? You see that?   Who’s paying 

Craig:  the electric bill? Yes. 

Todd:  Who is paying her electric bill is exactly what I wrote down. 

Simone:  I thought that maybe because they’re on this kind of isolated farmhouse that perhaps it was one of those electricity that, Yeah. Or solar panels, except this might have been a little too 

Todd:  soon for solar panels. Maybe not solar panels, but, yeah, 

Simone:  some something where they have to, like, go on a bicycle and, like, Craig out there. 

Todd:  They take us through a lot of her chores, but they really neglected the part where she generates her own electricity. 

Simone:  And how she learned how to drive and all of that stuff. It’s okay. 

Todd:  Yeah. You’re right. At at times, it also felt a little bit like, what was that? The village, m night,   Jamal. Yeah.   There was a point where I almost expected some little twist in there kind of in that vein, you know, that faded away pretty quickly. But yeah, it does have that quiet, deliberate feel. I would say, I mean, this is kind of an art house movie, really. It’s it’s not gonna be a movie for everybody. It’s gonna be a movie for people who are gonna be willing to sit down and digest it slowly. Right? 

Craig:  Yeah. And and it did it reminded me of a lot of other movies. I definitely thought of The Village because of of the isolation and it also, reminded me of I don’t know. It’s it’s a movie, Todd, that I’ve suggested either to your face or online. The Woman. I don’t even remember who did that movie, but it calls calls back, not calls back necessarily, but it reminds me of lots of other movies. But at the same time, it’s also very unique, and I appreciate that. That’s another thing, as I was watching it, I was like, Did Simone trick us? This doesn’t seem like a horror movie.   At least for the for the first 20, 30 minutes, that’s what I was thinking about. Especially in the first half hour, it really reminded me, like, of a Flannery O’Connor story or something, like, kind of southern gothic kind of stuff. With a little bit 

Todd:  of Catholic imagery Todd, you know? 

Craig:  Yeah. Yeah. So I don’t know. While it’s reminiscent of of lots of other things, or while it calls to mind lots of other things, it really is original and unique, and I I appreciate that. So thanks, Symone. 

Simone:  You’re welcome. 

Craig:  It’s it’s it’s rare that I have not heard even heard of of this type of movie. And so to be able to sit down and and watch it with no preconceptions, I I I enjoyed it. So I’ll be interested to see what you guys think. 

Todd:  The movie starts out with, it’s kind of a long, slow and there are a lot of these kind of shots in this movie, actually, shot from the cab of a truck. And the truck driver, it turns out, is pretty unimportant. We can’t even see him. We’re just looking out through the windshield as it comes across a pretty, pretty rural landscape. Now I will say, and I mentioned this to Simone while we were here, Craig and I are both from rural areas, and we know that when you were driving down a really long stretch of road that you you can see far off into the distance, you are not going like 30 miles an hour like this guy was doing. Right? Especially when you’re in a like a semi. But anyway, he is driving along down here and very slowly into view comes a woman in the middle of the street who it looks like she stumbles or maybe deliberately drops down kind of in front of the semi, and he stops and gets out and goes to her. And then it she he kinda bends over, looks at her, kinda walks back to his truck, and and immediately cuts away from this.   Mhmm.   So this is obviously a shot that we’re gonna be coming back to, at some point. Right. So I was always I was, you know, the whole time kind of wondering, okay. Is this the person who was in the road? Because you can never quite see   Yeah.   Who the girl is. 

Simone:  Far away. 

Todd:  So it’s a long shot. 

Craig:  Fits. Right? 

Todd:  Yeah. It’s a little bit of mystery here. But this is really setting you up pretty pretty early on for the tone of the film. It’s very quiet. It’s very slow. It’s very understated. I have to admit, like, I was waiting for that girl. Like, I thought from the distance, from the inside of this cab, we’re gonna see something really sinister happen to this guy.   Like, it was gonna jump up again. 

Craig:  I did too. I thought so. 

Todd:  Todd. And and so it did subvert my expectations a little bit and then but the whole movie plays out like this really. It it doesn’t ever really surprise you. 

Simone:  No. And that’s what I kind of like about it is that it takes a break from the traditional jump scares that we get a lot of times in in horror films. Mhmm. You know, these shots where it’s really, really quiet and then something jumps out to either scare the audience or scare the characters. And it is it is slow, but it, I think, is effective of being, like, very creepy without necessary of those jump scares. 

Todd:  Yeah. Without the yeah. That’s true. We get to a, a shot. The movie’s actually divided into 3 parts very clearly for us. 

Simone:  Chapters. 

Todd:  Chapter number 1 is mother. And, it’s this girl, young girl. Her name is Franchesca 

Simone:  Or Francesca. 

Todd:  Francisca. Right? And her mother   and I   don’t know if we ever got her mother’s name, but that was unimportant. And, she is talking with her. They’re obviously out on this kind of farm type place. Although it’s not really a farm, is it? It it must be. Oh, yeah. It’s a farm. They’ve got cattle.   Yeah.   Yeah. They’re out on a farm and she’s talking to her about some saint, and they’re picking flowers, and it seems like the mother is just completely involved in her daughter’s education, essentially, out here in the middle of nowhere. I guess she’s not going to school. 

Simone:  She must have been homeschooled. Yeah. 

Craig:  Well, and that’s part of the I think that’s part of the mystery. Portuguese. Or well, and and I don’t even know if the dad is. It’s Portuguese. Or well, and and I don’t even know if the dad is. It seems like maybe the dad is American, but the mom is the mom is Portuguese and she used to be, I guess, a surgeon in in Portugal. And she’s talking to her daughter. They they go out there.   And and you say she’s talking about some saint. I I actually thought that that scene ended up being really pivotal because she she talks about Saint Francis of Assisi, which I don’t know much about being a Catholic. I and having gone to Catholic school, I should know more. But Saint Francis of Assisi, you know, what I think about when I think about him is, like, he I think he’s the patron saint of animals. 

Todd:  Saint Francis spent many years living alone in the woods. Then one night, he saw an angel burning in the sky. And when he woke up, he had Todd better. But loneliness can do strange things to the mind. Eventually, he died of an eye condition that also would have caused psychosis. 

Craig:  It didn’t strike me as important in the moment, but that really is central to what I think the movie is about because they are so isolated. And eventually, this girl, Francisca, ends up alone on this farm. And it it it really seems like it’s the isolation that that does, drive her mad. And it may not just be the isolation, but just her lack of understanding of the real world. Because in the beginning, she’s this little girl. And like you said, her, you know, she’s talking to her mom, they’re, they’re out there feeding these cows. And then I didn’t even really understand what happened. Like, it cuts from them, like, petting and loving these cows, and then they’re in their kitchen and they have a cow head in there.   Like, were they petting the cows and then they just chopped off one of their heads? I didn’t understand what was going on. And as it turns out, it seems like the mother was really trying to impart her knowledge on her daughter. And they have this cow head and and the mom cuts out the eyes and she, like dissects the eye and and she pulls out this, what looked like a stone, like a clear stone. And, she said everything that the cow sees passes through this stone. And and that seemed like it was gonna be really important and relevant, and I expected it to come up again, but it didn’t really. I I mean, it’s it’s it’s significant that the mother was trying to impart her surgical wisdom on the daughter, but I never really understood the whole I I feel like there was supposed to be some meaning behind the eyes, especially since the title of the movie is the eyes of my mother. But, I I I never really put together what that was about. But that idea that isolation drives people crazy, while I think that that is probably true, it plays out in the movie in a way that well, I didn’t know how it was gonna play out, but it it does.   You know, eventually, you know, she she kinda ends up on her own on this farm. And and she does go crazy, but it’s it’s like insanity is subjective. Like, you know, what is what is crazy? What is insanity? You know, she’s all by herself and she’s all alone, and really all she wants, The only people she’s known are her mother and father, and she clings to their memory and and she craves companionship. And and that’s really what motivates everything that happens in the movie, and it that’s it’s subtle. You know, it’s a it’s a subtle motivation that you don’t see. It’s not like a slasher flick where there’s revenge or or some other motive behind the horrors that occur. I don’t know. This is interesting, you know.   I think that this would be interesting to analyze from a psychological perspective even though I have no knowledge in that area. 

Todd:  It’s like she craves companionship, but she doesn’t really have very good models of what that is   Mhmm.   Outside of her mother. So once she loses her mother, she’s kind of adrift and can’t find anything to replace that, I I feel. It’s very bizarre, the relationship that this family has with each other. 

Simone:  Yeah. And I think, something that I kind of noted was that it’s bizarre because once, you know, a big event in the movie happens where this man comes and visits their farm and asks to go inside. He uses the restroom, which we all know we have that feeling like, okay. This is bad. This is not good. 

Todd:  That was weird from the get go. 

Simone:  Yeah. He’s he calls himself Charlie. And he he just seems creepy. And and so he asks where’s the restroom and pulls out a gun and tells, Francisca’s mother to, you know, okay. I’m I’m trying to be polite here. Please show me where the restroom is. And it he kills her. What’s so interesting to me is how so unfazed Francisca is, and how kind of unfazed the father is.   And I think perhaps because of, Francisca’s mother’s occupation, she kind of and growing up on a farm too, has kind of become very unfazed by death, very comfortable by death. Mhmm. So we don’t see her cry. We don’t see her try and stop this man, or even she doesn’t even look scared. 

Todd:  No. She just sits down 

Simone:  and and waits at the table. And then, 

Todd:  She says I couldn’t leave her. 

Simone:  Right? Yeah. I couldn’t leave her. 

Todd:  I’m not even sure what that means in this context. You know? 

Simone:  Right. Right. So meaning, like, I can’t leave her body. She’s still in the house kind of thing. So 

Todd:  I couldn’t run and get you. Is that what she was trying to say to the dad when he comes that’s what she said to him. Maybe that’s what she was trying to say with that, but it was an odd way of phrasing it. 

Simone:  Yeah. I mean, she clearly has very poor social skills. Yeah. Having her parents only being the ones that she’s been able to talk to her whole life. So when the father does eventually come home, Charlie is in the bathroom with, the mother and and the father. At first, when I when I first watched this, I thought, okay. Maybe the dad, killed, Charlie, but he just kind of severely hurts him or knocks him out. And just very calmly to Franchesca says, like, we have to do something about him.   Like, they’re both so very casual about it. And you have to wonder, like, what is going on in this dad’s mind? Because he has to know something’s not quite right with my daughter. 

Craig:  Well, I don’t know. I mean, that’s kind that’s kinda what to me makes this a horror movie is because it’s it’s it’s just so unsettling because you don’t know what’s going on. Like, Charlie comes in. He and again, this he’s like a door to door salesman. I he’s got some kind of pamphlets or books, in his hands. And there is specifically a Flannery O’Connor story with a door to door bible salesman. So that’s kinda why I made that reference. But, it it’s it’s bizarre because you know I mean, you can tell right from the beginning that there’s something off about Charlie.   He’s just weird. Who whoever the actor was that played that played it very well because, he he’s just unsettling in in the way that he behaves. But then he he brutally, just brutally murders the mother. Yeah. I mean, and you had mentioned before how we don’t really see a lot of this on screen. Most of it is suggested. But when the dad does finally get home, he walks well, he comes into the house and he sees Francisca sitting on the chair and she says the things that you said that she said. And then he walks towards the bedroom, or excuse me, the bathroom, and, you hear these noises like these kind of grunting noises.   And I really thought that the dad was going to walk in on his wife being raped. That’s what it sounded like to me. But, that’s that’s not what it was. When he opens the bathroom door, we just get a glimpse, just a glimpse, like a second. It it appears that Charlie is just like pulverizing this woman in the bath tub. And when I say pulverizing, I don’t just mean beating. I mean, it seems like he’s like destroying her, in the bathtub. We hear the sound of an impact, but we don’t see it.   And kind of the next thing we see is him dragging, Charlie’s body on a tarp. And I I wrote in my notes, oh, okay, so the dad killed Charlie. But it turns out that that’s not true. He just he Craig him out into the barn and tied him up. And then it’s so bizarre and that the bizariety of it, I think makes it a horror movie. Like the dad doesn’t react in the way that you would expect him to react. It’s almost just like, oh, that’s a terrible thing that happened Todd. But like, not 

Simone:  like He doesn’t call the police. He doesn’t try Exactly. Like, they yeah. He knocks him out and ties him up in the shed, but there’s no logical step taken afterwards. And, I wrote Todd, like, why keep this clearly mentally ill man locked up in your shed when you have a young daughter living with you? Like, it’s just so strange the motivations and actions that these characters take. Later on that evening, they’re both sitting on the couch. He’s smoking a cigarette, and she’s, like, kinda cuddling up next to him, and they’re watching some kinda old TV. Yeah.   Yeah. TV show. And he go and you hear, Charlie yelling from the from the shed, like, Frannie. Frannie, Frannie. And he goes, we have to take care of him. So then French, Francisca goes into the shed and takes removes his eyes and removes his vocal cords, which is what I think is why at first, I thought it was the tongue, but removes the vocal cords so that he can’t make, any noise and any sound. 

Craig:  And then she comes back in and says he won’t be making any more noise. Now this is one of the things that I liked the most about this movie was because I didn’t know what was happening. Like she goes out there, she’s this little girl and this guy is chained up in there and they have this really interesting conversation. 

Todd:  Why us?   You let me in.   You’ve done this before. Why do you do it?   It feels amazing. 

Craig:  It’s like she’s caring for him. She stitches him up, like, legitimately with, like, the tool that doctors use, so she must have gotten it from her mom’s stash or whatever. She stitches up his wounds, She pulls some glass out of his face. I I guess the dad must have bashed his face with something that had glass in it because there’s glass in his face. He says, I I I guess you’re gonna kill me. And she says, why would I kill you? You’re my only friend. And that dynamic is just so bizarre and so strange. And then she goes inside and she tells the dad he won’t be, making any more noise.   And he doesn’t, and then she continues to kinda go out and visit him. And this goes on apparently for years because we the only other thing that we see in this scene is, as or in this chapter rather, is the father and daughter dancing together in the living room, and then it’s it moves on to the next chapter, which advances us years later. The second chapter is called father, and when it advances us years later, Charlie is still tied up out there. Like, it must have been it must have been what? Like 

Todd:  Like, 10 years. 

Craig:  10 years? 

Todd:  Yeah. Yeah. It’s crazy. 

Craig:  Yeah. And and that was another thing that I thought added to the surreal nature of the movie was, I didn’t understand. Symone, you said she cut out his vocal cords and she cut out his eyes. Eyes. I didn’t understand that because we didn’t see it happen on camera. So I didn’t know what was going on. I didn’t understand why. I mean, you can kind of see she puts a blindfold over his eyes, and it seems like his eyes are messed up.   So I kind of thought know, there had been that scene where they had cut out the cow’s eyes. So, I kinda figured that out, but I didn’t understand why he couldn’t talk. And it’s revealed much, much later in the film, but I didn’t pick up on it at all in this first part. And another thing that Todd me added to the surreal nature of the movie is how in the world could not only could she have kept this guy alive, but when we see him in the second chapter, the father chapter, he looks healthy. Like, he doesn’t I I would’ve expected him to look like a concentration camp victim 

Todd:  or or 

Craig:  something along those lines if he could have been alive. And now, obviously, you know, this is, I can only imagine probably independent movie where they were limited in budget and there was only so much they could do. But for me, that was very surreal that this guy had been chained out there living this miserable existence for 10 years. And he looked, except for his face, he looked virtually unchanged. I mean, he’s chained out there in underpants and white, Todd briefs, and, even like 10 years later, he’s still wearing these same briefs. And I’m like, like, I don’t know. It just, it had a very dreamlike feel to me. 

Todd:  Yeah. I actually thought it was a weakness of the film just, you know, in that it was so unbelievable as far as I was concerned. I mean, later on, she gives him this bath. This is a little bit later. She ends up giving him a bath, and you see his legs. And I said to Simone, I do not think his skin would look that nice and clean. 

Simone:  Yeah. She just, like, shave him and 

Todd:  Yeah. Right. 

Simone:  Insinuated that she probably cares for him more. But, like, when we see the barn or the shed that he’s sleeping in, he’s not on a mattress. He’s just lying on dirt or, like, a wood floor with the chains around his ankle. So you’d think there’d be sores all over his, like, open infections, open nastiness in there. So you’re right. That that is kind of a weakness. It is a little unrealistic, but, but, yeah, who knows? 

Craig:  See well and I I wouldn’t I wouldn’t identify it as a weakness, and and maybe it is. Maybe it was due to constraints, budgetary or whatever. But to me, it just kind of added to the surreal nature of the movie. It it it didn’t pull me out. It just left me intrigued. And, it made me wonder, you know, is am I supposed to be thinking about this in a realistic way? And, and having seen the whole thing, I almost feel like, no, you know, I, I I don’t miss the realism because what I feel like I’m supposed to be focusing on is the psychological nature of what’s going on with her. And to me, it just made it all the more confusing and strange, and I like that. Right.   Like I I I feel, I feel like if it had been more realistic, I don’t know if it would have I think it would have still had an impact, but I don’t know if it would have messed with my mind the way that it did. And and I actually like that. 

Todd:  Well, you’re right about the messing with the mind part because as you say, like, you think you know what’s happening, but then you realize it’s not quite that way. The same way in this chapter with the dad, Whereas the it starts out and dad’s dead. 

Simone:  Yeah. But you don’t know that right away. And that’s what I really like. It’s the whole subtleness of everything where she she wakes up. The 2 of them are sleeping in the same bed and you see this very frail Todd version man of her father. And he’s very stiff. And at first, Todd you think, okay, maybe he’s just really elderly and she has to help him, like, get up out of bed and maybe, like, walk him downstairs. But it’s not until later on that she says, why did you have to leave me? Why did you have to go? It’s clear after a while that she’s taking care of a corpse.   Yeah. She’s not taking care of of a person anymore. And and she’s she’s bathing her father. She gets into the bathtub and kinda has this really emotional moment, where she says, please don’t leave me alone. Why are you leaving me? 

Todd:  Yeah. And and and the interesting thing about this is that the dad as a corpse is really not much different than the dad   Yeah.   You know, as a as a living being because the dad just seems completely and utterly detached from reality anyway 

Simone:  Yeah. 

Todd:  And and lethargic. He just sits and watch TV. He doesn’t he says maybe 4 you know, we heard him say 4 lines.   Mhmm.   But even when she interacts with him, he’s just staring straight ahead. 

Craig:  That was another thing that I found really interesting about this movie because after the mother was killed and they, you know, they disposed of her, they buried her, in the forest near their house or whatever, I expected this to go to an incest place. You know, like, they’re they’re so they’re so isolated and they’re the only people around and now it’s just the father and the daughter. And there are even moments or there was a moment where the daughter was, laying in her bed and the dad came and sat at the foot of the bed and I was like, oh, shoot. I know where this is going. But it never really suggests that in any way and yet there’s still kind of this incestuous feel about it because they’re the only people that they interact with at all. So even though that there there’s no, concrete suggestion that the father abused her or took advantage of her, even after he dies when, you know, she’s caring for his body, you know, she, she, she takes the body to bed with her and she lays with the body and, and, like cuddles with it and stuff. In in the literal sense of the word, it’s not incestuous, but it almost feels a little bit that way anyway, even though it’s not a sexual thing. I don’t know.   Oh gosh, This is such a short movie. It’s only a 75 minute movie and I feel like there are so many things that you could talk about with it. And just that I guess, you know, I don’t understand that kind of isolation, but if there was only one person that you had and that you interacted with, I guess that it would be very intimate even if we’re not talking about on an ancestral or sexual level. That level of intimacy, you see it even more so, I would say, after he’s dead. You know, like the the fact that that she’s bathing him. You know, this that it’s something that I thought about. I’m like, even if there was nothing sexual going on, you know, she’s bathing him, he’s nude, she’s dressing him, she’s laying him in bed and and cuddling him. It was just all very bizarre and in a in a sense unsettling, but at the same time, you you feel for this character.   You feel for her, and and you under or at least I felt like I understood her loneliness and her desperation to cling to the last person that she had. And and she doesn’t only cling to him, she clings to her mother too. You know, she she continues to talk to her mother even though her mother isn’t there. In the grand scheme of things, I guess, really, it’s all very sad. 

Simone:  It is. 

Todd:  Yeah. And and then it goes to a very weird place too. Again, something else totally out of left field. She’s sitting in the car, and it looks like it’s taking her quite a bit of energy or thought. The camera pans in very slowly. And then the next shot is that point of view shot where it’s almost nighttime now, and she’s driving the car. And this was the first glimpse that we got that there was really an outside civilization and that they weren’t just totally completely out there. But also just communicated the difficulty that this woman had in choosing to leave the farm.   At first, I thought it was like she couldn’t drive, you know? I thought we were gonna get one of those deals, but she could clearly drive. And she pulls up to a bar. And the next scene is bringing a woman home. And at first, I was like, if are they friends? You know, what’s going on? And and very quickly, it turns out that she was bringing this woman home.   Mhmm.   You know, to have sex, because the woman made a comment about how I don’t know I don’t normally go home with with people. And that just, like, blew me away. Like, that her her first you don’t see this woman having any sexual feelings, first of all. And then I just wondered, like, what was it now that draws her to a woman when the only model she’s had is a is her is her mom and her dad. You know what   I mean?   Like, I mean you know? You know what I mean? 

Simone:  Or maybe that had nothing to do with it. Like, we’re kind of presuming that this is her maybe one of her first, like, social interactions with outside people. Because who knows how she’s getting, like, food, water, and and things to take care of herself and take care of the house. So you think maybe she goes into town every once in a while? 

Todd:  Yeah. And I well, to pay the electric bill, at least. But I thought, like, it I I kind of had this feeling that maybe she had something going with the guy in the bar. You know what I mean? I thought maybe there would be some of that happening. But when she brought the woman home, that that totally shot that out of the water for 

Simone:  me. Yeah. It did kind of come out of left field, but I 

Todd:  Because he is so accessible to her. 

Simone:  Yeah. 

Todd:  So why would she not do that yet go out and and instead find this girl at this bar? And then what happens later happen? 

Craig:  Right. Well, and that’s why I think that the movie is so interesting from a psychological perspective because it doesn’t seem like it’s about sexuality at all. I mean, yes, sexuality is involved. You know, she’s she’s craving this companionship and and perhaps part of what she’s craving is the physical intimacy that comes with that, but it doesn’t have anything to do with gender. You know, like, she she just she’s so starved for any kind of human companionship. Maybe she was drawn to this woman because this woman was approachable, you know That’s true. Who knows? But it it’s like it it doesn’t and the to to be fair, the woman that she brings home is young, and and seemingly, you know, kind of innocent. 

Todd:  I’m sorry. I’m asking so many questions. I ask a lot of questions when I’m nervous. Why are you nervous? I don’t do this very often. Do what? Go home with people. 

Craig:  So not that I’ve never done it before, just I’ve never done it very often. I just got the sense that she was so starved for companionship that she just clung to whatever, you know, she’s like a leech, you know, whatever she can eat easily grab onto, that’s what she gets. And this other girl is clearly trying to make connection and asking questions and stuff and she asks, you know, did you live here with your mother and father? Yes, I did. You know, what happened to them? And she says, my mother was murdered. And that disturbs the other girl, but she tries to comfort Francisca and Francisca takes the comfort, but then she says what happens, what happened to your father? And Francisca says, I killed him. And the other girl obviously reacts in a surprised and shocked way and then Francisca tries to play it off like, Oh, I’m sorry. That wasn’t funny. Like she tries to play it off like it was a joke.   But again, that was something that I didn’t even understand and I still don’t understand. Did she kill him? And if so, why? Did you guys understand that at all? 

Simone:  I think maybe she was trying to make a joke, but just she was so incredibly socially awkward that it didn’t didn’t come across. 

Todd:  Oh, so   you thought it really was a joke? It wasn’t like she’s playing it off? 

Simone:  I don’t think so because of the way that she was emotionally so attached to her father and almost going through that grieving phase in the beginning being angry, like, why are you leaving me? Please don’t leave me alone. But, again, because the movie hides so much of the actual killings, mutilations, things like that, we don’t see the eye removal surgery. We don’t see vocal cord. We don’t even see when she eventually kills this girl that she brings home. We don’t see that. 

Todd:  Right.   And it 

Simone:  goes back to that thing in the beginning where you’re talking about black and white of, like, is she cleaning up blood, or is that just water on the floor? 

Todd:  Mhmm. 

Simone:  But we kind of just put 22 together that she presumably kills this girl. So I I don’t think she killed her dad. I think she just was awkward. 

Todd:  Or she was doing it to see how the girl would react maybe. 

Simone:  To see how she would react because we see the father in the bathtub, and Todd doesn’t look like there are visible wounds. So unless she, like, suffocated him or it’s getting really deep. 

Todd:  Yeah. This honestly this was a scene that I rolled my eyes at, the whole conversation between the 2 girls. I thought it was, trying too hard. I didn’t like the writing. I thought it was very trite. I thought that their they’re I could have predicted every word that they were going to say to each other. You know, I’ve seen this in so many other movies. And the fact that the filmmaker was drawing this out so long to try to make all these words seem very significant was just super transparent to me.   I got really impatient in this scene, actually. I think it’s one of the weakest scenes in the whole movie. 

Craig:  Oh, man. I I’ve gotta just totally disagree with you on that one. I thought that this was one of the most tense I thought that this was one of the most tense scenes in the movie because I didn’t know, you know, I I mean, I guess I knew it wasn’t going to end well, but I I didn’t know what her objective was. I, you know, I didn’t know what her end game was. You know, she brought this girl home and and at at one point, she leans in and tries to this is after she’s already freaked the girl out. She leans in and kisses her, and, like, it seems like she’s looking for, you know, physical affection. Eventually, like Simone said, we don’t see her kill her, but she does. She kills her because the girl tries to leave.   And I thought that that was really effective, not only in, you know, the the scariness of, okay, she’s willing to murder people, at random. But this girl is, I thought, you know, kind of a reflection of what Francisca might have been had she been a normal person, like had she lived out there. You know, she’s kind of dewy eyed and innocent and, naive. And and when this girl tries to escape, the first thing that she tries to do is call her mom. Like, that was a she’s like, I’m just gonna call my mom and have her come pick me up. And and that, you know, resonated with me. Like, Francisca can’t call her mom. And it’s bizarre because obviously she is looking for affection and physical affection because after she kills this girl and she doesn’t get what she needs from her, she goes out to the barn and gets Charlie and brings him back into the house, and bathes him, and then presumably has sex with him.   Again, we don’t we don’t see it. All we see is she bathes him, she puts him on the bed, and then she strips naked in front of him, and she Todd approach him and then it it cuts and it cuts to the next scene. So we don’t know exactly what happened, but I presume that she had sex with him. There’s all these shots of her in her bed, and she’s always reaching out to the other side as somebody who has slept in the same bed with somebody for almost 20 years. I know that feeling, you know, you’re, you’re asleep, you’re half asleep, but you reach over and you realize that there’s either somebody there or there’s not somebody there. And if there’s not somebody there, that’s troubling. Uh-huh. And that that keeps happening to her.   Like like, she desperately just wants somebody to be there beside her, with her. And as it turns out, you know, Charlie has has tried to escape, and and she wakes up and and sees that he’s not there, feels that he’s not there, and, she goes out looking for him and eventually finds him. But, that that that whole scene with the girl, it didn’t it didn’t bother me at all. I I thought that it really illuminated her psychology, you know, that she is just so longing for companionship. It’s driven her crazy. 

Todd:  Well, I liked the idea of the scene. I just didn’t think it played out very well. That was just my feeling. Fair enough. Fair enough. Yeah. 

Simone:  And in the beginning of the movie, when we see a young Francisca with her mom and she’s talking about the saint, she also says, I think a really important line, which is loneliness does strange things to the mind, which, I mean, obviously, we know by now that Francisca is a wackadoo. 

Todd:  And she Yep. Yep. 

Simone:  Is very lonely and is willing to, go to those extreme lengths for that companionship because she doesn’t know any other way. She doesn’t know how to connect to people. She doesn’t know Right. How to properly behave around people. And that even for someone like Charlie who has technically been her companion, we’re assuming, for 10 ish years or so, He tries to escape and even though he’s a bad guy because he’s murdered people 

Craig:  Yeah. 

Simone:  We feel bad for him. 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Simone:  We’re like, go, Charlie. Go. So he’s trying to, like, struggle up that hill. 

Todd:  Unbelievably. 

Simone:  Unbelievably, you think, like, what’s left of his what what is left of his muscle tissue at that point. But he doesn’t get very far to when we see this really kind of interesting shot from out the camp, kitchen window. And we see a Francesca looking out, and she she grabs something. And we see that she’s holding a knife in her hand and goes up to Charlie and and stabs him slowly. Yeah. 

Craig:  Slowly. Yes. Slowly. Oh my gosh. I think that was my favorite scene of the movie when she’s standing at the kitchen window and she’s seeing him struggling, up this, this hill. And then the camera doesn’t move. She moves. She moves out of frame and she goes outside, and we see her approaching him.   And it’s a long shot, like, it takes her a while to get to him. And when she finally gets to him, you know, we can’t see exactly what’s going on. It’s almost like she embraces him, and they go to the ground, and then they go down, I guess, their knees or or to the ground somehow, but she’s still embracing him, like lovingly embracing him. And then she’s stabbing him. And we don’t see it because we can only see them from about the shoulders up, but we can hear it. And like you said, it’s it’s slow. 

Todd:  Yeah, thing, penetration thing. Yeah. Definitely. 

Craig:  And Yeah. It was weird. 

Todd:  The rhythm of it. 

Craig:  And and it seemed yes. And and it seemed almost loving in the way that she was doing it. And when she was finished, I mean, she stabs him multiple times. And and when he finally and he he’s alive through most of it. You can hear him breathing and and reacting. And then finally when, he dies and she’s still holding him in this embrace, she says, you were right. It does feel amazing. Like, it’s so perverse, but I thought that they, that the filmmakers did it in such a way, in such an effective way, like it, it feels like a really intimate moment, and oh man, I just thought it was really effective. 

Simone:  Right. And she’s also like kinda she kisses his shoulder, kind of caresses him as she’s holding like his dead weight against her Todd. And I I wonder why she kills him so slowly if as if she feels betrayed, that he tries to escape from her. Just like how the stranger not stranger. Well, stranger, that she brings to her house after she visits the local bar and she tries to escape, she gets very offended. Like, no. No. No.   Let let me drive you. Let me take you home. Please don’t leave me. Please don’t go. And then she sees this man, Charlie, that she’s been bathing, feeding, taking care of in a strange way these past years who tries to leave her and she just kills him slowly out of spite. But yet it’s also confusing as to why she would do that and not just chain him back up if she was so lonely. 

Craig:  Right. You you know, an idea Agreed. 

Todd:  An idea has just come to me. It puzzled me, like I said earlier, why, she this guy being available to her for so long, I just assumed that there had always that there had developed some kind of sexual something there to at least fulfill her needs. But it clear it seems to imply, especially, you know, how significant admit you know, the scene when she, you know, undresses in front of him that this is the first time that this has happened. I wonder if there what if if you couldn’t read that maybe there was some incestuousness going on between the the father and the daughter because it’s not until, you know, he’s gone that she starts reaching out for these intimate relationships. And why wouldn’t she reach out to to char Charlie first? It might be because at that point, you know, up until now, she’s been kind of a mother figure for him. Mhmm. She’s been taking care of him like you take care of her. You know, her doll.   Even as an adult, she’s got that doll that figures prominently in in shots or in the background and stuff. And there’s even a shot of when she’s older and we see that she’s still taking care of Charlie, that her his her dolls are sitting around him. Like he’s like another one of her dolls. Mhmm. You know, like a like a girl. She’s still very much a child in a way, taking care of a doll, like play mothering. Mhmm. And so maybe it’s not until she is unsuccessful with the woman that she then kind of resigns herself to try it with Charlie.   And then when he also rejects her, you know, she has to take care of it. But she does it in a way that, like a tough love kinda way, you know, like a really sick Right. Tough love way. I don’t know. 

Craig:  At the same time, I feel like that’s kind of why the movie is interesting from a psychological perspective because, I don’t know, whether or not you wanna read into it that there is anything incestuous going on with her dad. I I kinda didn’t get the sense that there was. But if a person, any person, male or female, was so entirely isolated, like what happens when those desires start to emerge? Like, where do you channel that energy? Maybe maybe it would have been channeled to her father had he been around longer, or maybe it was if you wanna go along with that, I don’t know. But when she’s in when she’s completely alone and she’s so desperate, if she’s having these natural human desires for intimacy, you know, how is that where do you where do you get that outlet? And and and finally, you know, she she finds it with with Charlie. I don’t know, I just I just think that’s kind of fascinating, that that that concept of complete and total isolation. And throughout, you know, she’s still trying to connect with her mom. After, she kills, Charlie, she cuts up and I guess maybe burns up part of her dad, and she says, what am I going to do? I can’t be alone anymore. And and she, you know, while she’s out there she falls asleep in the woods and she wakes up and she comes stumbling out of the woods onto the highway and I thought, oh, here we are, we’re back at the beginning.   Yeah. 

Todd:  She’s true. 

Craig:  She is gonna be the woman. Yeah. She’s the woman who is stumbling along the road. And it turns out that that’s not true and it really surprised me. She gets picked up by a pickup truck, not a semi truck, but a pickup truck. And that’s when the screen goes to black again and we get the, chapter 3 family. And it turns out that she has been picked up by this woman who we don’t know, and, this woman has an infant child. And as soon as I saw that, as soon as it cuts that, I I thought, oh, no.   Oh, no. This is not going to not going to turn out well. 

Simone:  Yeah. 

Todd:  And it’s just so weird because I don’t know. It seemed like when they were driving along the street that I saw other houses passing behind them. Yeah. 

Craig:  Yeah. Yeah. And that was, that’s something again that I thought was so weird. Like, the woman who was in the truck, like they’re driving along and, of course, Francisca is fascinated with the baby, but the woman is like, You’re just right up here, right? And what it made me think was they must live in this small town where they know that this crazy lady lives. Doctor. 

Todd:  Yeah. Doctor. 

Craig:  Like, Oh, you’re the crazy lady that lives over there. I mean, I can drive you home. Like, oh, man. It it it’s weird. It’s it’s weird, but I like it. 

Todd:  Yep. Yep. She’s got I mean, you know what’s coming a mile away. You can definitely see it coming, especially with the the title family. 

Simone:  Yeah. And I think this this last 15 minutes of the movie was probably the most gut wrenching for me. 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Craig:  Yes. Yes. 

Simone:  Not it’s it’s not losing the mom, not losing the dad, but what she does to this young mother, to Yeah. Fran Francisca takes the baby. She she asks when when the, mother is getting ready to drop her off at the house, she goes Do you think 

Todd:  I could just hold Antonio? I’m sorry. We really have to get going. Please Caleb? Just for a little bit? Okay. Okay. Let’s do a quick, a quick one. Yes, of course. Of course, we can. Come on now, guy.   Yeah. We made a new friend today. Look at that. She’s gonna just hold you. Mhmm. It’s okay. It’s okay. Okay.   So you just wanna hold his head up. There you go. Alright, baby. Okay. Good job, baby. He likes his little one. His little What are you? Sing. What are you doing? 

Simone:  No. And so Francisca runs into the house, with the baby quick enough you know, quick enough to run upstairs. So the mom must have really, like, struggled with 

Todd:  With that seat belt. 

Craig:  Trying to get out. And I 

Simone:  don’t mean to laugh about it because it is really sad. 

Todd:  Sad. It did look a little goofy though. 

Simone:  It did. And, and I’m not a mother, but you have to imagine like the state of panic that’s going through your mind. It’s like, oh my Todd. My baby. My baby. My baby. And so she runs upstairs. Her baby is laying on the bed and 

Todd:  Screaming the whole time. 

Simone:  Screaming, Craig, and, Francisca comes up behind her, stabs her in the back. And and the mother is alive, but crawling on the floor saying, you know, please don’t hurt my baby. Don’t hurt my baby. And, 

Todd:  Takes her a long time to die. 

Simone:  She doesn’t die. 

Craig:  Oh, that’s right. She 

Todd:  doesn’t die. You’re right. 

Simone:  And that’s and that’s the most terrible part. It’s even worse because that’s when we realized that Francisca takes the eyes and the vocal cords because the worst scene of this movie is when the mom tries to scream and yell, and she just can’t. There’s no sound. There’s nothing there, and it’s just awful because she knows that her baby is there somewhere and there’s nothing she can do. And then time goes by, we’re assuming maybe 5 years or so old enough that, the the baby is now a young boy, maybe 5, 6 years old. And he sees what he thinks is his mom, go to the barn every so often. And Francisca doesn’t take care of this mother that she kidnapped, I suppose, in the same way that she takes care of Charlie. No.   She doesn’t bathe her. She just 

Todd:  feed her to the mouth. You know, she doesn’t spoon feed her, basically. 

Simone:  Just tosses her buckets every every now and again. 

Todd:  Yeah. And 

Craig:  Well, that was kindness for a stranger now has been mutilated and held captive in these terrible conditions for what must have been years years. And the suggestion that I got was that despite all of this mutilation, I can’t imagine how anybody could hold on to any scrap of humanity living in those conditions. But the suggestion that I got was that she held onto the love of her child. Like that’s what, what kept her going. And it seemed like any time somebody came in, whether it was Francisca or eventually it was the little boy who they named I think Antonio, It’s as though she was clinging to this hope that she might be reunited with her child. And that was just, oh, just gut wrenching for me. And, eventually, once Antonio is old enough, he though he has been forbidden from looking in the barn, he does go out there and he sees her. And at first, he thinks she’s a monster.   And I thought that the filmmakers did a really good job of making her like a monster. Like when he goes out there, he hears he hears some strange noises and then this this woman who’s chained up and disfigured emerges from the shadows. Like, you can’t see her at all, and then she emerges from the shadows, and she’s just making these guttural kind of growling noises. And and she looks monstrous and he thinks she’s a monster and he runs away and hides and says, It’s just a nightmare. It’s just a nightmare. It’s just a nightmare. But apparently he realizes it’s not just a nightmare, and he confronts Francisca and says, who is that in the barn? And Francisca says, what? I thought I told you not. I thought I told you 

Todd:  not to go in the barn. 

Craig:  And it doesn’t linger on this very much and I appreciated that. This kid being innocent, being young, there’s just something that tells him apparently that this is not right, that there shouldn’t be somebody locked up in the barn. And he goes in the night and and freeze her. 

Todd:  He doesn’t share the same genetics, I guess. Exactly.   Family. That’s the first that’s the first thing.   Yeah. He frees her, you know, kinda runs out. I guess he unhooks her chains or something and runs out, and this woman, stumbles out. I I thought for sure that, Francisca was gonna find her or notice the noise or whatnot, but this woman does get away and it horrifies Francisca when she finds out. She goes out and then digs up her mother. 

Simone:  Happy Mother’s Day. 

Todd:  Yeah. Happy Mother’s Day, everybody. This is the whole point of the episode. 

Simone:  And she’s, like, she’s not completely decomposed, but we see her, like, cradling a skull and, you know, there’s still, like, clothes on the body and stuff. And she’s just, like, what do I do now? And, 

Craig:  oh. And it’s 

Todd:  it’s what She’s 

Craig:  still, like, seeking food for the night. 

Todd:  I wish you could meet Antonio. 

Simone:  Yeah. We’re the perfect family. And, oh my goodness. But it’s interesting that she’s still seeking, like, guidance and approval from 

Todd:  Her mother. 

Simone:  From her mom. Yeah. 

Todd:  And, it all wraps up pretty quickly from here. 

Simone:  Yeah. 

Todd:  She basically, I guess, puts her back in the ground, shovels a few more piles of dirt over her. And as she’s walking back to the house, it’s nighttime, she sees 3 cars pulling up to the, to the house. And honestly, again, another place where this movie really subverted my expectations. She runs inside, grabs Antonio and a knife, and cowers in a corner. 

Simone:  Mhmm. 

Todd:  And, you know, says, please don’t hurt my baby. Don’t hurt my baby or something. And then the next shot is this overhead shot of the house with the police there. And we don’t see them drag her out, I don’t think, or anything like that. But I think the implication is that it’s over for her. You know? 

Craig:  Mhmm. Well, and and We 

Simone:  now learn that the mother who was kidnapped, Antonio’s mother, is the woman in chains and she Yes. 

Todd:  Oh, yes. Sorry. 

Simone:  Down in front of 

Todd:  of the   Skip that part. 

Simone:  Of the truck and and she’s rescued. So somehow manages without a voice to convey, what had happened to her. And I was I was talking about this or thinking about this, how, like, if if you’re held captive, you in order to keep going, you have to give yourself some kind of affirmation or confirmation that, like, one day I will get out of this. So, like, okay. I’m on this street. The house was on this road and this street So that if I’m ever rescued, I can, like, tell people where my son is or where I was found or where I came from 

Todd:  and stuff 

Simone:  like that. So she must have 

Todd:  Memorized that. 

Simone:  Memorized everything, found a way to tell people. 

Craig:  I totally understand what you’re saying. At the same time, my thought was how, just how, how could you at that at that point after being held for that long, how could you hold on to any shred of humanity? I mean, after being treated worse than an animal for that long, how could you maintain any kind of consciousness or or humanity? But I tell myself in my mind, not being a parent, if you were a parent and you thought that there was some shred of hope that you could, rescue your child, maybe you could hold on to that. But, yeah, that end was really interesting. You know, Franchesca, when the police arrived, you know, she’s coming out of the woods having visited her mother, and and she sees the cops coming. And she runs in and she wakes him up, and she says to him, and this to me, you know, Franchesca’s not a good person. It’s hard to blame her for her situation, but you can’t just kill people and steal their babies. Like that’s just not how it works. So, you know, but but I found myself feeling sympathy for her and she runs up and she wakes him up and and he’s like, what’s wrong? He’s scared obviously because she’s panicking and she says, there’s nothing wrong.   But no matter what you learn, don’t let it change the way that you feel about me. And and even when he had found her, found the the real mother in the barn, when when Franchesca had been talking to him, she said, Everything I do, I do for you. Every I would do anything to keep us together. And you believe her, like as horrible as the things that she has done are, I felt bad for her, you know, she just wanted this companionship. And then you see, you don’t even really see the cops come in, you hear them, and you see Francesca and Antonio huddled together. And then like Todd said, it cuts to that aerial shot of the house with the cop cars outside. I heard a gunshot. Did you hear a gunshot? Yeah.   No. I I think I heard a I’m pretty sure I heard a gunshot. And and on Wikipedia, which is the penultimate of all sources 

Todd:  Leave the source. 

Craig:  The plot, the description says that the police kill her. Now I I think that they are jumping to conclusions there. I think that that, is is very much left up left up to the interpretation of the viewer. But regardless of what happens, the ending feels tragic. I mean, it’s it’s nothing works out for anyone, you know? Poor Francisca, whatever happens to her can’t be good. Antonio, this poor kid, you know, has lost his mother, has lost any sense of normalcy. That poor mother, though she has been rescued, you know, what kind of life can she live now after what she’s been through? I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s a tragic ending and, and it ends so abruptly and I liked that. I liked that it ended so abruptly.   That was, you know, it was, it was kind of a gut punch like, like, we don’t get to know what happens. 

Simone:  Yeah. Will Antonio be reunited with his mom and 

Craig:  Right. 

Todd:  Yeah. Will the will the power finally go out at the at the phone house? And and what’s, you know, what what has she been hauling in and out of the freezer this whole time? She’s got body parts going in and out of the fridge. I was a little unclear on that that little detail. I mean, were we supposed to believe she was feeding, Charlie with with the the pieces of her dad or and the pieces of and she doesn’t kill enough people for this to be kind of like a regular thing. But are we just supposed to imagine that she’s treating the people as she treats the cows? 

Craig:  And- Well, and that’s another thing. And I think that I like it about this movie even though in the moment it was kind of frustrating. You know, the whole thing with how does she live out there, you know, how does this farm sustain with the electricity and blah blah blah, etcetera, etcetera. Unbelievable. When when she, okay, so Charlie was this transient guy who went around killing people, probably would go unnoticed that he went missing. But when the girl that she killed went missing, wouldn’t anybody have noticed? Wouldn’t there have been an investigation? Wouldn’t somebody have seen her? When when this woman who clearly apparently lives in her community, when this woman and her child go missing, wouldn’t there have been some investigation? Wouldn’t there have been some uproar? And and she was never investigated? Like Todd ever just even came and knocked on her door and said have you seen like there are so many things that went unanswered. Even when when she went to get Charlie for their rendezvous, like, she was cuddling him in the barn and it looked like he had a big hole in his back. I couldn’t tell if that was supposed to be just like like a bed sore or if she had done something to him.   Like there were all of these things that were unanswered, and in the moment, I was frustrated. I wanted to know. But now, having seen the whole thing, that intrigue I think was effective. You know, it it made me wonder and it leaves me thinking, and if that’s what they were trying to do, I applaud it. If they were plot holes, then whatever. But it it left it left me, confused and interested, and I actually ended up appreciating that in the end. 

Todd:  Yeah. What you say there really kinda sums up my feeling about the movie. I I really enjoy it a lot more talking about it. I really do. 

Craig:  Me too. Me too. And we’ve talked about it for almost as long as 

Todd:  the movie. I know. 

Simone:  I know. We’re really dissecting it. 

Todd:  It’s true. It’s true. You can just watch the movie and get your own opinion instead listen   to us jabbering. But for sure, I mean, I have to say, I felt like there were parts that were a little trite. I felt that there were parts that were long for the sake of just being long. I know that there was a point to it. I know that the filmmaker was trying to establish a sense of, you know, it makes it creepier to make it feel like it’s kind of normal. It makes it creepier to show this scene go on for so long that it almost looks pedestrian. You know, that these horrible things are happening, but it’s just more day to day stuff. You know, she goes out and and and and she’s as a girl, she’s feeding the cows.   And then the next shot, she’s in there feeding, you know, the guy just like, you know, she’s it’s another chore for her to do during the day. I got it. I got it a long time ago. You know, I was looking for just maybe a little bit more to happen. And I don’t think I needed to see so much of this domestic stuff playing out for so long. I I was able to sit through it and enjoy it this time, you know, because I was in the mood for it, sitting and chilling. But I can’t say that if I had sat down and watched this movie when I was really in the mood for something else, or even when I was just the slightest bit more impatient for for, you know, the plot to move along, that I wouldn’t have been a little more bored and frustrated. Todd again, I probably would have come to the same place though by the end of it.   I probably would talk about it with you guys, and then I would appreciate it a lot more. But I can’t say that while I watched it, I was, you know, a 100% behind the movie and, like, entertained. You know what I mean? 

Simone:  Yeah. You had asked me, like, did you watch this movie before and just like it so much that you bought the DVD of it, or have you not heard of it previously and or not watched it previously and bought it? And and it’s not a movie that I want to keep in my collection. What you decide to do with the DVD is up to you. 

Todd:  She’s bestowing it upon me on her way out of China. 

Simone:  Because the cover is really creepy, and every now and again, it would, like, poke through behind the other DVDs on my shelf. I’m like, I don’t wanna see that. 

Todd:  You’re, like, push it back. 

Simone:  I had to put it in 

Todd:  a drawer 

Simone:  because I didn’t want it, like, sitting around. And this is I’m glad we reviewed this movie because it is one of those movies that kind of leaves you feeling very unsettled, just with the imagery, the plot, and, just the the general story and what Francesca as a character goes through. But, yeah, it’s not like a movie that I would typically have in my collection. I tend to get the classics and the slashers and things like that. So I don’t know if I’ll ever go back and be like, I’m really in the mood to watch this movie because it is slow and it is it’s not for everyone, but it is it is a horror movie that makes you think in different ways than other horror movies would. 

Craig:  Like, this messes with your mind. 

Simone:  Exactly. I don’t watch Friday 13th this way. Yeah. With a critical lens or anything like that. 

Todd:  True. 

Craig:  Yeah. We, we reviewed The Witch, sometime last year, and and that movie got a lot of criticism for being kind of slow and kind of being a slow burn. I really liked it, and and I think that I as I was watching this movie, it it was only 75 minutes longer or so. It felt longer because it’s such a slow burn. But ultimately, I’m glad to have watched it. And I think that I would watch it again because especially after all the things that we’ve talked about, I feel like I could look at it in a variety of perspectives. And, I don’t know. I I just feel like it’s there’s something smart about it.   There’s something unique and original and smart about it. And I feel like I could watch it again and watching it for a second time. I feel like maybe I would see more and get more out of it. This isn’t one that I probably would have picked up on my own. So again, Simone, thank you, for for recommending this because I I doubt very much that I ever would have just chosen to watch this. But, I’m left feeling intrigued, by it and and and I enjoyed the experience overall. I would recommend it. 

Todd:  Yes. Thank you, Simone. Good good call. 

Simone:  It’s good to switch things up every now and again. 

Craig:  It is. 

Simone:  And it was also important for me to pick a film this time that didn’t center around an attractive male lead because believe it or not, on the last two times that I’ve guest on this podcast, I’ve talked very heav heavily about, some actors, and that’s not 

Todd:  Some actors. 

Simone:  Jekyll Blimp. And that’s not why I always watch movies, believe it or not. That’s I like like listening back to those episodes. I’m like, wow. Oh my god. I sound like such a girly girl. 

Todd:  Yeah. And and Simone is not a girly girl. Well, I guess she has her moments. 

Craig:  We we’ll just leave it 

Todd:  at that. Well, thank you, Simone, for picking this and for the theme. Happy Mother’s Day, everybody. 

Simone:  Happy Mother’s Day. 

Todd:  Happy Mother’s Day.   Hey. Don’t just get your kids by normal means. Don’t steal others. 

Simone:  Hug your mothers extra tightly this weekend, but don’t dig them up out of the grave. 

Todd:  That’s right. Exactly. Well, thank you again for   listening to another episode. If you enjoyed this, please share it   with a friend. And you can find us on Google Play, iTunes, and Stitcher, anywhere your favorite podcasts are sold. You can also find us on Facebook. If you, go to our page there, you can like us. You can leave a comment, and you can also let us know what you thought of our very long assessment of this bill. Very long. Until Craig