XX (2017)

Episode 92, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast

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

Todd:  And I’m Todd. 

Craig:  And Todd let me pick the movie this week and I decided to go with 2017’s XX, as in “XX” for the female chromosomes. This movie is, unique in that the the movie was conceived as being an opportunity for female directors and actresses, to kinda take the forefront in the horror realm. And it’s an anthology film. And the more anthology films I watch, the more I come to realize that I think they may be one of my favorite, subgenres of horror. And this one is no exception. I I really liked this movie, and I’ll be interested to see, Todd, what you thought of it, because I liked it so much, in fact, that I watched it twice in the last 2 days. What? Wow. 

Todd:  Oh, man. 

Craig:  I watched it the day before yesterday, by myself, and, took my notes and and enjoyed it so much that when my partner and I couldn’t come up with anything to watch last night, I encouraged him to watch it with me. And and he wasn’t as excited about it as I am, but that comes as no surprise. He’s he’s not really as as big a a fan of horror, or or really a fan of horror at all. But he found things that he, liked about it too. I don’t know. I just maybe it’s just because I am a big fan of anthology horror. Maybe it’s because we don’t see, female directors in horror that often, so it’s refreshing to to get that perspective. You know, I was thinking about it, and we’ve reviewed now almost a 100 movies.   Like, I think we’re in the nineties. And going back and looking at the list, I think that only 4 of those movies that we’ve reviewed were directed by women. We’ve we’ve looked at Near Dark, Ravenous, Pet Sematary, and Spookies. As far as I know, all directed by women. But that’s it out of the nearly a 100 movies that we’ve watched. So I was excited about this, and and frankly, I I thought it paid off pretty well. What’d you think, Todd? 

Todd:  You know, I’m not as crazy about it as you are. I love anthology movies too. We’ve talked about this before. And horror anthologies are a lot of fun to watch, and they’re also usually hard to get right. It’s hard to get 4 separate stories, that kind of work together as one movie. I actually thought this one did a pretty good job of keeping a fairly similar tone and fairly similar stylistically. The movies the the segments really kind of clicked with each other. You didn’t feel like you’re watching a movie directed by 4 different people.   Does that make sense? Yeah. That I thought it really accomplished. Like most anthology films too, there’s quite a bit of variety in there, and some people think that that’s bad. Some people say that that they call it uneven because the stories are, quite frankly, just different from each other. I don’t consider that a flaw. I see that as a feature, not a bug. Right? That’s why we we we watched a movie with different stories than it is maybe to get some variety. So that didn’t bother me either.   I guess I felt most of them were fairly unsatisfying for me. I don’t know. There’s a sublime quality to the movie, if that’s maybe the right word to use. It’s very chill for most of it. It’s pretty evenly paced, and that pace is a little relaxed, with the exception of the third one, which is more different than the others. Right. And again, that’s not really a bad thing, but it just couple of the stories just didn’t really work for me. I guess, they didn’t conclude for me.   Does that make sense? 

Craig:  It does. It makes sense, and and frankly, I I can’t say that I’m really surprised to hear you say that because, I watched the movie the first time and I I found myself pausing it a lot to take a lot of notes because I thought that there were a lot of really interesting things going on visually and with the cinematography, and there were some really clever lines and things. And and when I was done watching it, I was like, oh, man. I really like this. And and so then I started looking around at reviews. And the reviews of the movie are really, really lukewarm. Like, there wasn’t a whole lot of really positive, criticism coming out about this. And and so initially, I was kinda surprised, and the more that I read the reviews, I thought, well, I can see where they’re coming from, but the things that they were being critical of, and and and some of the things that I read are the exact same things that you’re saying, that some of the entries lacked, a conclusion or or they left loose ends and that was unsatisfying for some people.   Those things didn’t bother me. I I found each of these stories to be interesting, you know, as far as content is concerned. I also found them to be visually interesting, and fun to watch. Yeah. Some of them, are left kind of open ended, but I wasn’t bothered by that. I found them to be interesting stories. The movie really is not scary. Like you said, the the third one is kind of more classic horror, and and and and I don’t have any problem with that either.   That’s that’s fine. But I was really just kind of impressed. I felt like these ladies, all of them who did the directing and and and many of them were involved in the writing, as well. I just thought that they picked really interesting stories and and and I I really enjoyed it. Of course, as is the case with most anthology movies, there’s kind of a a wrap around segment that if anything, the critics were the most kind about. It it it opens up with this imagery, and it’s all like stop motion weird stuff with it seems like it’s kind of in an old kind of Victorian maybe nursery or or child’s room or something, and it’s all this weird stuff with, like, stop motion dolls and and all this weird stuff going on. It opens the movie. It it comes in between every entry, and it closes out the movie too.   And it it was by a, I believe Chinese, I hope I’m not misspeaking, but I believe a Chinese, stop action artist who did all of this. And what I’ll say about it is that it was really, really visually stimulating. If there was any narrative to it or if there was any symbolism to it, it went over my head. But Me too. It was cool to look at. It was 

Todd:  it was stunning, and I think it it actually set a good tone for the film. Like I said, a little surreal, a little sublime. It’s not like a Craig show with the kid in the comic books. You know, it’s not Tales from the Dark Side with the kid, you know, being trapped by the witch where you’re you’re waiting for the the conclusion at the end. You’re not expecting a conclusion to this wraparound. And again, that sets a pretty good tone, I think, for the rest of the stories. You shouldn’t really expect, it’s like reading literature in a way. I thought I’ll come right out and say the first two stories I really liked.   The last 2, I wasn’t a huge fan of, although I did I won’t say that they were bad. I would just say they didn’t strike me like the first 2. And when you say they’re not, scary, you’re you’re pretty right about that. Although, I felt like a couple of them were pretty chilling. Yeah. Especially this first one called the box. Yeah. It’s so surreal and so chilling, and it it it starts with a question.   Right off the bat, there’s a family just riding the train, and there’s an odd voice over, which I’m not even sure was necessary. But anyway, there’s a woman talking, and she’s a mother. 

Clip:  It’s not easy spending a day in the city with 2 kids around Christmas time, even if you have taken them to a matinee and outdoor skating. I’d had to fight with them, with Danny in particular, to get them aboard the 355, back to the suburbs in time for dinner. Presents were still in his mind. 

Todd:  This little boy named Danny sees a man sitting across from him, and he has this red box that he’s holding. It looks like a wrapped up birthday package or something. And he asks him about it, and he says, oh, it’s a it’s a present for his daughter or his niece or somebody. And Danny says, can I see what’s in it? Mom’s like, Danny, don’t say that. He’s like, no. That’s okay. And he cracks the oak the box open just slightly, and Danny looks in, and he doesn’t say anything. It’s just like a bizarre kind of blankness goes across his face.   Danny. And Danny’s probably, what, I don’t know, 10 years old maybe? 

Craig:  Mhmm. Maybe 8. I don’t know. 

Todd:  8. Maybe 8 or 10. And the guy closes the box and just looks at him and then gets up and says, says, this is my stop. I need to go. So immediately, that begs this question, what the heck is in this box? And we think we’re going to find it. Right. But the problem is the next day, the family’s sitting down to dinner, and Danny’s not interested in eating. He’s just not hungry.   And then it goes Todd Monday and we’re back at the dinner table and Danny still doesn’t want to eat. And the family’s like, oh, this is strange. Why don’t you want to eat? What’s wrong? He says, oh, I’m just not hungry. Then it’s like Tuesday, and again Danny’s not eating and they are starting to get worried, the mother and the father both. And they’re talking with him, they’re asking if there’s something wrong at school, but it’s really disconcerting. And I’ll say this is a really chilling story at this point. Like, I’m kind of on the edge of my seat going, what in the world did he see in this box that for one reason or another is causing him to not eat? It’s so bizarre. It’s so strange, but it’s so kind of grounded in a reality of these parents with what could be a very real problem with your son or daughter, you know, that they’re just not eating.   Mhmm. And so their concern is genuine. They’re real, and this family is really nice. I mean, it’s they’re they’re presented as this very up upper middle class clearly by the house that they’re in and stuff. Yeah. And the food that they’re making, you know, at the table is pretty elaborate. The China that they’re eating on, at least initially, doesn’t exist in my house. But just mom, dad, Danny, and his sister, and most of the movie is just surrounds this table for the for for a good portion of it and the fact that he will not eat.   I just was really into this, but I was into it because I was questioning what is going on here? And it only gets worse from there. 

Craig:  Yeah, I mean I agree with you. I felt like it was so effective because it felt like a really real family dynamic. You know, they’re a nice family. You know, mom, dad, daughter, son, and and, you know, everything seemed pleasant, they seemed to get along really well, they have dinner every night around, the dinner table. And I have to say, you know, you said it’s like Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. You know, we keep getting these shots and and pretty much every time the the shot right after we see what day it is is the food on the table. And I tell you what, I wanna grow up in this family. The food.   The food I was drooling. I swear to Todd. Yeah. They had, like, a food artist come in and put this food. I mean, like, it looks so appetizing and and and good. Oh, man. You you can tell where my mind goes 

Todd:  with. No. That’s in my notes too, man. I felt the same way. 

Craig:  They’re having, like, ribs and pizza and, like, you know, spaghetti. It becomes all more kid friendly. It goes as it goes along because they’re trying to get this kid to eat. And it does. You know, it seems like a real problem. Like, this is something that can really happen and it doesn’t necessarily have to be anything supernatural or anything like that. This feels like it could be a real problem. But this, after a while, you know, it’s been almost a week and this kid still hasn’t eaten.   I mean, you said both parents are concerned, and they are, but it really seems like it’s the dad that really gets, super concerned. And and in fact, the dad kinda gets frustrated eventually that the mom isn’t more concerned. 

Clip:  Are you taking any of this seriously?   Of course, I am.   I’m the mother. Well, I just don’t understand it.   Understand what?   How you can eat while our children are starving.   I have to eat, don’t I? 

Craig:  At some point, the mom who is frustrated and and nervous, walks by the little boy Danny’s room and, Danny is in there with his sister, and they’re whispering together. And the mom says, what are you talking about? And, they say, nothing. And she’s like, well, are you maybe talking about why you’re not eating? And they just don’t say anything. And it’s these moments, they’re so subtle. The kids, they don’t do much of anything and there’s no expression on their face like they’re just staring at the mom. And that in itself is unsettling. And I really liked the subtlety of this clip. And after that, the next day, now all of a sudden the daughter is not eating.   In the meantime, they’ve taken the son to a doctor and the doctor is concerned, but he doesn’t know what’s going on. And now all of a sudden the daughter’s not eating. And eventually, the dad gets so upset that he kind of has an outburst, at the mom. The 2 of them are sitting alone at the dinner table and he says, Where’s Jenny? And the mom says, She said she wasn’t hungry. And the dad just kind of loses it and says, I just don’t understand how you can eat when our children are starving. And he goes upstairs and, the mom follows a little bit after and she sees the dad talking to Danny and the dad says, Listen Danny, you know you can tell me anything, just tell me why you’re not eating. Danny whispers in his ear, and then we see the mom in bed and we see the dad come to bed and she says, What did he say? And the dad just says, Oh, nothing, and goes to sleep. And then it cuts to a scene that I did not know.   Like, I was like, Wait a second. What is what is going on here? Were you shocked by what came next? 

Todd:  Yeah. I I I thought this is making a total left turn. It’s already a weird weird segment, and, it’s it’s like a shot of the mother just smiling laying down, and it slowly pans down from her head down her Todd, and you see that half of her arm looks like it’s been cut off, like the flesh has been stripped from it, and it goes even further down. And it the same with her leg, and it’s her husband is carving a slice of her leg off, and he’s serving it to the kids at the table. She’s laid out like the meal at the table, and they’re eating it and they’re smiling. And there’s a shot of her, and she’s actually, like, smiling like she’s pleased with herself. She’s still alive. And then it switches immediately to, like, Christmas time. 

Craig:  Right. 

Todd:  And and, and we get that voice over again where the mother is basically saying, and then Christmas came. 

Clip:  I remember laughter from that Todd, plenty of laughter. Nobody’s new clothes fit, but we try them on anyway. Believe it or not, we were happy. We were more together than we had ever been. 

Todd:  Yet the whole family, except for the mom, is super gaunt. Their sockets are sunken in. They look not healthy at all. They’re opening presents, and the kid hands the mother a box that looks just like the box that was on the Craig. And it says Todd mom and it’s like this chilling moment you think, okay mom is gonna see what’s in this box, and she just kind of looks off in the distance like she remembered a question and said, oh, by the way, almost, you know, is what was it that was in that box? Do you remember on that train? And he doesn’t say anything. And then it just cuts to another I think right after that, doesn’t it cut to them in the hospital? Am I right about that? Yep. Yeah. Yep.   And she’s with Danny, and, he is dying, and it pans over. And in the next room is the girl, and she is dying, and it pans over to the next room and the husband, and he’s dying, and they all die. And we get more Right. Piece over, and she says, you know, ever since I had to go back and forth to the hospital, every time on that subway, I’m I’ve been looking for that man. I’m looking for that man trying to find him, and I’m hungry. 

Craig:  And and that’s where yeah. And and, like, it blacks out. Right? You know, she’s saying that I’ve got to find them. I feel like that’s the only way that I can be close to them again. And it cuts to black and then it says I’m hungry. I don’t know, I just found this one really haunting. It’s, it was directed by, I don’t know if I’ll pronounce this correctly, but it was directed by a lady named Jovanka Vukovic and it was based on a story by Jack Ketchum who is an author that I’m aware of. I’ve heard his name.   I’ve read some of his stuff. But I was so intrigued, by the, by this, this segment that I, I searched out the source material, the short story that it’s based on. And, it is incredibly faithful to the source material. The only difference, yeah, oh my gosh, so, so faithful. The only difference, differences I guess are instead of 2 kids there are 3. In the story the daughter is instead of twins. It that which really makes no difference whatsoever. The same thing happens.   And the only other significant difference is that the mother and father characters are gender swapped. So it’s the father who’s on the train with them and it’s the mother who’s cooking the meals and things. And and I thought that that gender swap was actually really interesting for this kind of movie. But but all of that voice over, all the narrative voice over stuff we hear, that is word for word direct taken from the source material. And I just I liked this one because it was haunting and I liked it because it left it open ended. We don’t know what was in that freaking box. You know? 

Todd:  I I think there’s a lot of really interesting things going on here. In a way, you could read the story a lot of different ways. I saw it almost as a metaphor for any time a family kind of can break down for one reason or another, or when a family member, for whatever reason, separates themselves from the rest of the group, And it’s it’s a kind of thing that can sneak in. You know, I mean, the most obvious thing would be like drug use. Right? One of the family gets in hooked into drugs and you don’t even notice it at first until it becomes a problem. But even still, it’s kind of like their own little secret. It’s not something anybody else does unless he gets the next person hooked and that, you know, this kind of thing can happen. Again, it doesn’t have to be that extreme.   It’s just like an emotional distance that can come between people. Even within families, you get, you know, secrets and you get factions, sometimes that that will break a family apart. And I saw this mother as the person who was just at her wit’s end, completely helpless, but still trying to deal with it in the best way she can. You know, it’s not a problem she can solve, so she just goes along with it the best that she can. And it’s just sad and depressing that there’s no not any more that she could do except try to enjoy the last Christmas that they had together, for example. There’s a terror of the unknown here. It’s a very haunting story. For me, it was it was the best one.   And and even the way that the food, you know, over time, it’s clear without even saying it, it’s clear that even the joy of preparing meals, they lose it completely because as as we said, the food’s really really good at the beginning, And then as it goes on, they’re getting, like, Chinese takeout, and then it’s, like, fried chicken in boxes. Nobody’s even preparing the meal anymore, at this point. Right. There are just so many nice little touches in this, and and, yeah, you can tell. It’s it’s a very literary story. It’s clear that it comes from a very literary source. 

Craig:  Yeah. Oh, gosh. I and I I probably agree with you that that was my favorite one, but, you know, I I liked the others too for what they were. You know, the the next one is called The Birthday Party, and this one, was directed by, a musician, Saint Vincent. She has a real name, but her stage name is Saint Vincent. And I recognize that name. I’m not familiar with her music. You know, I kinda looked her up, but, this was her directorial debut.   I didn’t know that going in that this was a musician, but in hindsight it makes total sense because this whole segment, it doesn’t feel like a music video necessarily, but it has kind of the aesthetic of a music video and that it’s really bright, it’s super colorful. Like, it’s just it’s artistically, it’s kind of beautiful to look at. The colors are so bright and there was clearly a lot of thought going into what you were seeing and I appreciated that and it had a killer sound design. Doctor. It really did. Doctor. R. The sound design was amazing.   I absolutely loved it. And it’s a simple story. This woman wakes up in bed played by Melanie Lynskey. This is the only, actor in this movie that I recognized. Most people would probably recognize her. She did a long stint on 2 and a Half Men. I don’t really even care for that show, but she was hilarious on it. She also was the lead in, a a kind of horror movie.   I think it was called Heavenly Creatures. The guy who directed Lord of the Rings. Who’s that? 

Todd:  Jackson. Kate Winslet was in it too. 

Craig:  Yeah. It was one of his first movies. A Todd movie, very spooky based on a true story. But anyway, you’ll recognize this girl. She wakes up and and the premise is that it’s the day of, her it’s her daughter’s birthday and she’s going to be throwing a birthday party for her daughter’s neighborhood friends. She gets up and she’s kinda getting things ready. She gets startled by the nanny, Carla, who is this kind of, I I don’t even know how to describe her, this goth waspy kind of girl. And Carla says, will David, the little girl’s dad, be joining us and and the mom says no he’s still out on his business trip and Carla’s like well I saw his car here this morning so he must have gotten back.   And the mom’s like, No I think I would have noticed if he would have come in. And she’s kind of got this tense exchange with the nanny, but then she goes for whatever reason, I don’t know, into her husband’s office and he’s sitting there and she’s like, Oh, David. 

Todd:  Yeah. He he took too many pills, maybe mixed pills and alcohol because because, yeah, when she goes into the office, thinks he’s alive, turns his chair around, he’s slumped over, he’s got a a an empty drink glass in his hand, and later on, she picks up that bottle of pills, and she says, oh, you were so stupid or something. I I assumed that that was the case, mixing the the the the alcohol and the pills. I didn’t think it was suicide. I don’t know. It could have been. 

Craig:  Yeah. No. I didn’t get that impression either. The whole rest of the short is basically her trying to keep the husband hidden. It’s like she doesn’t want to spoil the little girl’s birthday and so it’s just kind of a series of gags really where people are almost catching her moving around the Todd. And again, it’s not scary. Like this 

Todd:  It’s comedy. 

Craig:  Comedy. Yeah. This segment on its own, I would not even classify as horror at all. No. It’s Weekend at Bernie’s. Yeah. Yeah. Kind of.   And yet, again, with the subtlety of the performances and just the interesting visual aspect of it, Todd, I really liked it. 

Todd:  Yeah. Well and it does have an odd, she makes an odd choice in that a panda, a guy dressed as a panda, comes to the door and does a birthday gram or whatever, dance and song. Yeah. Rap with a beatbox like this. 

Craig:  Well, I I wasn’t done yet. 

Clip:  I got, like, 3 more verses to go.   I’ll give you $200 for the tune. 

Craig:  Well, no. Just hit play. 

Clip:  I’m not I’m not Lucy. Okay? Lucy’s my daughter, so you don’t have to worry.   I think it’s gotta be Lucy.   You’re not listening. 300. You want 300?   There’s a down payment on the suit, and I got a thing this afternoon. I   A $1,000. A $1,000 and 2 ounces of medical marijuana for my knee surgery last year. 

Todd:  So it couldn’t have been the eighties. I don’t know. Anyway, she dresses him up in the suit, the body up in the suit. 

Craig:  The dead guy. Yeah. 

Todd:  Yeah. And is is hauling around her husband as a panda. First, just the head, but then she I guess she manages to get the whole thing in it. And, like, she decides to just set him at the other end of the table propped up, at the party. So there’s this nice slow motion sequence with music where everybody’s coming in for the party, and and, she is just slumped at the end of the table, still not dressed at all, but the rest of everything is ready. You know, it’s all in slow motion. It’s all musical. You basically see them bring out the cake.   The pan the guy, you know, panda head falls down into it, and they’re like, what? And they lift it up and take the head off, and that’s when they see Todd, dad is dead in front of all of the the guests, everybody there, and the mom is just sitting there just kinda staring off into space like, well, what’s done is done. 

Craig:  And and it cuts to it cuts to black, and you can still hear all these kids screaming in the background. It cuts to black, and then across the screen, we get the birthday party or the memory Lexi suppressed from her 7th birthday, or Lucy maybe, I don’t know. And and then it, like, it fades to black again, and then more words come up that really wasn’t her mom’s fault. Fade to black, more words. Even though her therapist says it’s probably why she fears intimacy. Like, I just thought it was really funny. And Melanie Lynskey is a beautiful woman, but she’s also, like your friend from college, you know, like she, she looks like somebody you would know, and she plays everything subtly, and she establishes at some point that the daughter is kind of having anxiety problems and she’s talking to her dead husband before she realizes he’s dead. 

Clip:  Lucy has been having such anxiety, and I’m just really hoping that this brings her her out of her shell. You know, her therapist says that she gets her anxiety from watching me me? Can Can you believe me? I mean, the nerve. 

Craig:  And, like, yeah. You can obviously see, like, this woman is so stressed out and is so anxious. And what I liked about it was that like she was trying so hard to save her daughter’s birthday and like she had had to dodge nosy neighbors and she had had to dodge the nanny and there just came a point where it was like she just kinda broke and didn’t know what to do and so she just set this guy up in the panda suit at the birthday party. And she’s just sitting there in her nightgown and robe with her hair disheveled while all these neighborhood kids come in in these elaborate costumes and their parents are there dressed to the nines, and she’s just kinda sitting there like, Here we go. I don’t know. I could see, you know, it’s really subtle, it’s not scary, but I don’t know. I just I enjoyed the performance. I thought the visuals were cool.   The music, the sound was excellent. Again, another good one. 

Clip:  Yeah. 

Craig:  Now the third one, again, when I was watching this with my partner, I told them, there’s gonna be one that you’re absolutely not gonna like. There’s gonna be one that you’re just gonna absolutely hate. And it was this third one. So do you wanna give this one a go? 

Todd:  Sure. It’s called Don’t Fall, and I’m still not sure why. But at any rate, it’s just for friends, hiking, out of probably college age friends hiking out at, what looks like Red Rock maybe, anywhere. There there are big rock formations and desert. We’re not actually given a place, but the place becomes an important an important thing. It’s interesting. Even the title starts out a little Quentin Tarantino esque, and I I almost felt like the whole segment had a bit of the Tarantino style flare to it, at least in their dialogue. They’re just out hiking, and one of the guys, Paul, is just a total goof off, stoner.   You know? He’s the laugh laugh a minute guy of the group. And it seems to kinda focus around Gretchen, who’s the more careful, maybe slightly mousy one, and then the more intellectual Jay, who’s got the glasses on, and and then another girl. I don’t even I didn’t even catch her name. 

Craig:  Jess, and she’s, Gretchen’s girlfriend. 

Todd:  That’s right. Gretchen’s girlfriend. And so they’re out and they’re hiking around, and they come across some petroglyphs. And they’re just caught just these shadowy figures, you know, painted as petroglyphs are. They look very old. They look almost like cave paintings in the rocks. Then, you know, it’s nighttime, and they’re camping out. And through their dialogue, we learn some very interesting things. 

Craig:  This is the best campsite around. Okay? And nobody even knows about it. 

Clip:  How’d you know about it? 

Craig:  I just know shit, man. Okay? I commune with nature, and it shows me the way. 

Clip:  It shows him the way.   Or he bribed the gas station guy at the last stop. 

Craig:  And also that. 

Clip:  What? That’s true.   Are you kidding me? Paul,   it could be like illegal for us to   be out here. This is like a historical heritage site, clearly. You know, we could get arrested for that. 

Craig:  Oh, come on. 

Clip:  What? You think they want people spray painting dicks on those ancient murals? 

Craig:  Hieroglyphs. Tetroglyphs. Hieroglyphs are Egyptian. 

Clip:  Oh my god. I hate you so much sometimes. 

Craig:  I don’t think anyone’s been up here in a really long time. 

Clip:  Maybe it’s cursed.   It’s not you think it’s cursed? 

Todd:  That, you know, obviously sets up the fact that something bad’s gonna happen. And, of course, it does. Gretchen goes inside. She’s gonna go to sleep. Then she wakes up, in the middle of the night, but she’s not in the tent. She’s been having these weird dreams that she’s in a cave with these, again, these, like, shadowy creatures from the petroglyphs are in front of her. And when she wakes up, she’s actually outdoors. So we’re not sure if she slept walked or what happened or if she’s magically transported, but either way, she gets beset by one of these creatures.   And from here on out, it’s it’s really just, and maybe this is why I didn’t really care for this one so much, it’s just your pretty standard spooky spirit or creature in the woods who slowly slaughters every quickly slaughters everybody in this case. But it has it has some nice elements. I mean, the the design of the creature is really interesting in that, it really takes the form of those petroglyphs, which when they’re when they’re painted on a cave, they look elongated by time. You know, like water is sort of washed over them, and so they’re they’d be quick, long shadows with long arms, long fingers, and things. Whereas, this creature is does become like that. It’s actually more like like Gretchen gets possessed by the creature in a sense 

Craig:  Right. 

Todd:  And transforms into it. But, yeah, she comes in. It’s pretty brutal, and I mean, it’s it’s a scary segment as these things go. You know, it comes and attacks them in the in the camper and chases them down. But, yeah, everybody dies. And, then, you know, the last shot I saw coming a mile away, which is, of the cave of the wall again, and there is a new petroglyph that looks an awful lot like the 4 of them. 

Craig:  Yeah. Okay. Alright. So first, I’ll tell you why I was disappointed with segment. The reason that I was disappointed with this segment was because when it began, I thought that it was gonna be something totally different, especially because of the title. Yeah. And they they start out, they climb up this huge rock formation and they’re standing right on the edge of it. And, like, a couple of them are goofing around.   Like, what I expected was somebody was gonna fall off this thing, you know? And and like there’s this cool there’s this cool title sequence where, like, we see them and then the camera pulls back and then it kinda pulls back into the title so it frames them and it says, Don’t fall. And I’m thinking, Okay. You know, somebody’s gonna be goofing around. They’re gonna fall. It’s gonna be kind of a survivalist kind of thing. And that scares the crap out of me. I am terrified of heights and I have been to those type of places, when I when my sister and brother-in-law lived in huge rock formation and I’m following him and I’m like, this is awesome. And then I get halfway up and I look back and we’re so high up, I froze.   Like, I was mortified. So, I’m terrified of that kind of thing and I thought that this was going to play on that kind of fear. And so I was disappointed that it didn’t. But what I will say, what I liked about this movie, I say all the time when we’re talking about horror movies, I liked the movie, I liked the premise, it was too long. They could have cut it down and just had the most essential elements, and then I would have enjoyed it. And that’s what I liked about this movie. I felt like this was an idea that they could have tried to stretch to an hour and 20 minutes and it would have been pointless. Like, I I I got enough of who these characters were. 

Todd:  Yeah. You didn’t need to know more because it didn’t matter. It’s kind of like the Friday 13th. It’s like a lot of these slasher movies where the the characters are really pretty pointless. Yeah. Their backgrounds, we don’t need to know them, and they were fairly well drawn for as short as the movie was, I thought, but, yeah, you’re right. Cut it down to the bare essentials. It’s a monster bit.   Let’s just see the monster. 

Craig:  I appreciated that. You know? Like, I I I can’t fault them for, you know, doing what they did here because I complain about it all the time in these types of movies, especially these types of monster movies where it doesn’t really matter. We don’t really care about the characters like you said. You know, just get to the cool part. Get to the monsters. Get to the killing. And they did that, and they nailed it all in about 15 minutes. Yeah.   And it it it it wasn’t my favorite. In fact, it was probably my least favorite of the 4, but I didn’t not like it. I thought that it was pretty good 

Todd:  for what it was. It’s not highly original, but it’s pretty standard fare for the 

Clip:  especially for an anthology movie like this, and it had kind of the Twilight Zone 

Todd:  y ending where especially for an anthology movie like this, and it had kind of the Twilight Zone y ending 

Clip:  where they’re added to the petroglyph. 

Todd:  So, yeah, it fits the bill. Yeah. Not not bad. And then the last, 

Craig:  short was Her Only Living Son, and you said that these last two were not your favorites. What do you think of this one? 

Todd:  Well, this one, I think we could pretty quickly sum up as Rosemary’s baby grows up. Right? 

Craig:  Yep. Yeah. 

Todd:  That’s like somebody was sitting around and thinking like, what? I wonder what would I mean, what I wonder what happened after Rosemary’s baby. Did she keep the kid? Did they go on the run? And this answers that question. 

Craig:  Yeah. And I didn’t know that of course going in, you know, after I had seen it I read more about it and that was how it was described. It’s like a reimagining of what happens after Rosemary’s baby. And that’s how it starts out. You’ve got this woman, it’s all in tight close ups so you can’t really see, you know, it’s mostly just eyes. She’s talking to this doctor. 

Clip:  So you believe me, doctor? You actually believe me?   I believe people have agendas. This crazy world, I swear.   I’ll go somewhere. They’ll never ever find me. Or little Andy or Jenny.   Godspeed to you, missus.   No. She’s gone. 

Craig:  And then it cuts to 18 years later, and it’s this mom with this 18 year old son. He’s about like, it’s the day before his birthday. He’s about to turn 18. And I didn’t know, like I said already, going in that, that’s what the kind of the premise was. But as a premise, I thought that it it played out really well. 

Todd:  Yeah. It did. And I think this segment, I I did like a little better than the one that preceded it. I I didn’t see it so much as a horror movie just as more like another interesting, fascinating character study about this mother. That’s why I think the first two and this fourth one really tie in well together as really focusing around the mother and the the trials and tribulations she’s going with this difficulty in her family. It makes the third one even more of an outlier, quite frankly. 

Craig:  But Yeah. It does. 

Todd:  But, yeah, that was what I thought was most interesting about this. I didn’t know what it was either going in, and then I thought, oh, he’s like a werewolf or something. They’re talking about his dad, and she’s got an excuse for why his dad isn’t there, that he went to Hollywood. He’s like an actor and he’s just banging actresses left and right and didn’t never left him and never cared about him. But of course later on we realized that his dad is Satan. But Yeah. Right. In the meantime, I’m thinking, oh, well, maybe his dad is a werewolf, because at some point, you find out that the mailman who’s been kind of, kinda trying to ask this this homely, homely mother out.   This woman is like like Sissy Spacek back from, like, 

Craig:  Carrie. Right. Right. 

Clip:  Todd 

Craig:  Tony Collette, kinda. 

Todd:  Yeah. Just very, very doubty, and you do feel sorry for her. And, again, I I got the same kind of feelings about this is that she is really doing her best in an unwinnable situation, kind of like in the box and in the birthday party. 

Craig:  Mhmm. 

Todd:  That was the most interesting part for me. So the mailman, it turns out, is who’s been coming on to her is he’s just been watching them. He’s one of the cult, you know, that’s followed to watch him, and he says, his father’s going to call him home, very is coming soon to to call him home. And again, I was still thinking werewolf because the son, he’s like he’s like nailing he’s doing terribly bizarre things. He yanks a girl’s fingernails off at school. There’s 

Craig:  a very 

Todd:  odd sequence that later you know why, at the school. Actually, I thought this was a pretty interesting scene where she’s called into the principal’s office. 

Clip:  She had to go to the emergency room. Her hands were bleeding so badly.   I just don’t understand why he would do something.   Because I felt like it. That’s what he told Stacy.   He’s just never been a violent or Craig.   I hear the stories. I hear about the things he makes the other kids do all in the name of being in the cool clique.   Missus Withers, what about Andy’s side of the story? I mean, who’s to say he wasn’t provoked at some point?   Are you suggesting that this is Stacy’s fault?   Conflicts like these between hot headed teenagers.   Stacy is on her way to being valedictorian at this school. I would hardly call her.   Are often very complicated situations. It’s just not as black and white as you’re describing it.   I’m at a loss. He should be suspended from school or expelled. 

Craig:  That scene, I thought, it really unsettled me because, you know, working in a high school, I deal with this kind of stuff all the time. But the fact that the the son, Andy, had obviously been the aggressor. He had obviously done something wrong, and yet the administration was clearly protecting him, when there was absolutely no justification for protecting him at all. And then the mother leaves. And, of course, Andy and his mom are white and the this mother of the other student is black. I was thinking maybe it was racial tension in a small town or something like that. But at the same time, you know, I was like, oh my, how could this possibly happen? And like you said, when the other mother leaves, the principal who’s a woman says, oh, I’m so sorry you had to witness that. And Cora, the mom’s like, so you’re not gonna punish him? And the principal just shakes her head no.   And the mom is like, you’ve got to do something, otherwise, he’ll never learn. And the principal just kind of looks at this other person in the room who I assume is a teacher sliley and then she says to the mom, Andy is special. Every once in a while, we come across somebody who is special and who’s going to change the world. We’re here to protect him. Help us protect what makes him special. And at that moment, I knew something was up, you know? Like Yeah. This kid has some influence over them or something in some way. But it turns out, you know, that just like you said, just like in Rosemary’s Baby, there’s this cult of people who appear to be normal people who are trying to usher in the antichrist.   And the mom says at at at one point, it’s towards the end, several bad things have happened. You know, it kinda just seems and that’s one of the things that I liked about this movie. It just it it seems like a mother dealing with a kid who’s going through a rebellious streak, but you come to find that it’s clearly more than that. You know, he comes home with blood all over him. You know, we don’t know what has happened. But at some point, she goes in his room and she’s looking around and she pulls this box out from under his bed, and it’s got all these weird, I don’t even know how to describe it, clippings of some sort. And he comes home and she hides in his closet and she catches him trimming these like claws that are growing out of his feet and things. And then there’s this whole confrontation in the kitchen which I just found to be, from a dramatic perspective, really interesting.   And I thought that these actors did a good job of playing the real sentiment of a mother and son, the the way that they played it, played out really real. Like, she wants to protect her kid. 

Clip:  Look at me. 

Craig:  Some lady came up to me today, called me by my name. Never seen her before in my life. 

Clip:  Andy, look at me. 

Craig:  She said she knows my father. Said he’s been waiting for me for a long time. 

Clip:  Andy, I am your mother, and I demand that you look at me. 

Craig:  She said I was his only living son. Whose son, mom? You told me dad was remarried and living in Hollywood with kids of his own. 

Clip:  He is. He’s had 3 wives since I left him.   What does 

Craig:  she mean, mom? 

Clip:  I don’t know. She’s crazy.   What’s 

Craig:  she mean, mom? 

Clip:  What she said means nothing. You are my son. Do you hear me? We have not lived in town after town running from people like this for no reason. They’re evil. They have an agenda. Don’t listen to those words. You’re special. You are. 

Craig:  You always More than that, mom. Sometimes I just wanna hurt you. And there’s just this great scene where she says, your dad has never been here. You know, he wasn’t here through the chicken pox. He wasn’t here through the blah blah blah, whatever. You know, all the things that kids go through. Now that you’re grown and I’ve done all the heavy lifting, now he wants to claim you. But he doesn’t get to do that.   He doesn’t get to make the decision. You get to make the decision. And it’s this weird standoff, where it’s like you you can see this kid going through this internal struggle, and and ultimately it appears that he makes the decision that he does not want to go the way of his father. Even though at some point, at one point in this, I feel like it’s important and I miss it, He told his mother that he wanted him her to kneel to him, and then that she had to crawl to him. It was this weird power struggle thing, but eventually after she, you know, gives this impassioned plea, I did all the hard work. I was here for you. I protected you against all these people. You’re mine and you can make the decision to stay with me and then you can just kind of see in his face and it’s very subtle that he makes the decision to be with her and they embrace while all this weird Craig stuff is going on around them like Satan is present or whatever.   And and then it it ends, I I guess, tragically. I I didn’t even really know how to make out the ending. 

Todd:  They’re both just dead on the floor. Did he kill her and she killed him or, did I didn’t understand it either. That was why I thought it was kind of unsatisfying. I felt like it was kind of a cop out, to be fair. This again is another segment that could have stretched on for a whole movie, and there’s really, in this case anyway, there is a movie’s worth of material there. I mean, we’ve seen 

Craig:  Yeah. 

Todd:  All the variations already, but the fact that this is from a fee the female’s perspective, the mother’s perspective, very much like Rosemary’s Baby, this would have Right. It makes it interesting. It makes it really interesting, and it’s much better than this could have it could’ve easily been from the teenager’s perspective, and it would’ve been another one of those, you know, what’s happening to me? I’m going through puberty kind of deals. Right. By not being that and by by really focusing on the mother, it saved this segment for me even though I just felt like, yeah, it was such a cop out quick ending. 

Craig:  I just didn’t really understand it. Like, they’re standing there embracing one another. It appears that he’s made the choice of you, mom. And then you just see lots of flashing lights and like the camera swirling around them and like some like distorting special effects you know, like stretching their faces out, not physically, but like with light and stuff. And then you hear snapping, like bones snapping, and the kid starts to spit blood out of his mouth, I really couldn’t tell what was happening. It’s it’s almost like they hugged each other to death. Like, they squeezed the life out of each other. 

Clip:  Yeah. 

Craig:  And I didn’t know if that was what it was supposed to be. Like, they’re like, they were holding to each other so strongly, like, that was the only thing that they could do, and their only salvation lay in death, or if Satan who was apparently in the room with them even though we don’t see him, somehow, you know, killed them. But it, it was a tragic image after we get all this, you know, flashy lights, you know, crazy stuff going on, and then it just cuts to bright daylight and then laying on the floor in an embrace, in a pool of blood. And it, and it was, you know, I’m still confused. I really don’t know what happened, but that image, that last image of them in an embrace, in death, I don’t know. I I I felt, that was nice. At least they were together. 

Clip:  Yeah. 

Craig:  And I just again, as is the case with many of these, I just felt like the the performances were really strong. I mean, even the teenage kid, you know, he didn’t have much to do, but he felt real. Like, I I felt the emotions from him. The mother, you know, she was mousy and as a character we were supposed to believe that she was kind of weak, but in the end when she delivers this speech about how she had been there, she had been the one who had been protecting him all this year, all these years. You see the strength in her and I just saw that, I just felt that the performance was so strong. I just ended up thinking, Man, for this 20 minute short, I just felt like it was really good and for the most part maybe with the exception of the third one which still I enjoyed. I just didn’t think that maybe it had the artistic strength of the other ones. I just I walked away from this thinking, man, that was a good movie. 

Todd:  Yeah. I’d say more than horror stories, these are character studies. You know? They really are. Mhmm. The first one, the second one, and the fourth one. And, you know, you’re very complimentary toward the acting and, you know, the writing, and I completely agree with you even in the third one. I’ll even lump that one in here to say that I don’t it’s very rare that we see a horror film, much less a horror anthology film, that has such well drawn characters who feel real, who are written real, who are acted real, who do things in the real way, you know, like real life. This this movie has that going for it, and maybe that’s, you know, why you like it so much.   Again, I I didn’t dislike it. I thought that it really gripped me at the beginning, and it really kinda let me go about halfway through, unfortunately. Gripped me again toward the end, but just that last that last segment was just so unsatisfying the way it ended. I know there’s some beauty in it, Sure. I get what you’re saying. I really do. But I was just hoping that it it had a better plan for where to go. You know? Sure.   Yeah. 

Craig:  Fair enough. 

Todd:  Yeah. At least with, like, rosemary’s baby, you know, there’s there’s just that endearing question through the whole film, like, is this really happening, or is this all in her mind? And the kind of the shock of the ending is that no, this this insanely ridiculous thing really did happen. You know, that’s like 

Clip:  that’s 

Todd:  a pretty satisfying ending. It as crazy as it is, this just didn’t have that for me. 

Craig:  And and like I said at the beginning, a lot of people feel the way that you feel, and and and I get that. I I don’t know. You know? Maybe it was maybe it just hit me at the right time. I don’t know. I I I think it has a lot to do with the fact that I’m just the again, the more anthology horror films I see, it just seems like the more I like them. And, I would really like to see this go on. You know? Like, there you there’s the VHS anthology series. I don’t know if you’ve seen any of them.   I’ve seen them all. The first one was pretty darn good. The first one was pretty darn good. They’ve not the second and third one, I would say were not quite as Todd. But I I I would I love this idea. I love the idea of bringing women to the forefront, of a genre where they have really largely not been there. And it’s clear, it’s evident that there are talented women out there who can really tell interesting and engaging stories through a variety of styles and and just to to give these women a platform and to give them an opportunity. I love the idea, I who knows if there will be a second installment of this, but any of these women, who who directed this, I would be interested in seeing what they do next because, I I thought that all of their efforts were admirable. 

Todd:  Yeah. I agree. 

Craig:  Alright. Well, thank you for joining us for another episode of 2 Guys in a Chainsaw. You enjoy this episode. We’ve got a whole bunch of back episodes. You can find us on Facebook. You can find us on Itunes or Stitcher. Please let us know what you thought of this episode. If you’ve seen this movie, weigh in on what you thought.   And if you have any suggestions for things that we should watch out for in the future, let us know. I do wanna give a shout out to our friend Jordan who was the first to, introduce me to this movie and and recommend it. Thank you, Jordan. Until next time. I’m Craig And I’m Todd. With 2 Guys and a Chainsaw.