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A podcast that holds horror to standards horror never agreed to. Hosts Jeremy Whitley, Ben Kahn, Emily Martin and guests watch, read, listen to, and check out movies, tv shows, comics, books, art and anything else from the horror genre and discuss it through a progressive lens. We'll talk feminism in horror, LGBTQ+ issues and representation in horror, racial and social justice in horror, disability and mental health/illness in horror, and the work of female and POC directors, writers, and creators in horror.
We're the podcast horror never agreed to take part in.
Jeremy: We talked about her when she
popped up on another episode, but uh,
Emily: Oh, my God.
Yeah.
Jeremy: is hot.
What
is, I'm not old enough to
Bronwyn: I had feels.
I had feels I would not
understand for a lot of years.
Ben: Frank Langella as
Skeletor feels like a prank?
Emily: Well, Skeletor feels like a prank.
Let's be real.
Like, the whole existence of Skeletor
Ben: cast
Jeremy: very ripped man
made of somehow skeletons.
Ben: Who would you cast as modern
Skeletor, like, who is both ripped
enough and can pull off the voice?
I refuse to, like, have a voice actor
and just a body, it must be the one
Alexis: Um, that buff d and d player,
like man G yellow or something.
Ben: Ooh, Joe Mangiello, oh.
Oh,
Alexis: he is a d and d nerd, he could
do the acting and he is gigantic.
Ben: yeah, ooh.
Bronwyn: that is an inspired casting.
Ben: pick,
Alexis: and he's comfortable
being like shirtless.
So, you know,
Ben: my, my pick was gonna be,
can we get Matt Berry on steroids.
Bronwyn: I did not see that coming.
I'm not gonna lie.
Jeremy: Okay, should we talk
about the Invisible Man?
Ben: Yes.
Bronwyn: I probably.
Jeremy: We did all watch it.
Bronwyn: Yes.
Alexis: Yes.
Jeremy: so let me jump into this.
Let me do our
intro here.
Good evening and welcome to
Progressively Horrified, the
podcast where we hold horror to
progressive standards never agreed to.
Tonight, we're kicking off our
2020 Halloween month with our
new twist on old properties.
We are talking about the remake the
2020 remake of a horror classic, full
of people screaming at empty rooms.
It's The Invisible Man.
I am your host, Jeremy Whitley,
and with me tonight I have a
panel of cinephiles and cinebytes.
First, they're here to challenge
the sexy werewolf, sexy vampire,
binary, my co host, Ben Kahn.
Ben, how are you tonight?
Ben: Hashtag Dark Universe, baby!
Let's go!
Jeremy: If they actually were gonna
build a dark universe, this would
have been the movie to start it off
Ben: I'm not gonna lie, the broad
strokes that this movie does resemble
the 2017 Mummy movie is wild.
Jeremy: Yeah, the, they chose to make
that bad mummy movie and try and launch
it off that and to try and launch it off
the bad Dracula movie, Dracula Untold.
Well, they have this one
in the chamber is wild.
And, to help us discuss that,
the cinnamon roll of Cenobites,
our co host, Emily Martin.
How are you tonight, Emily?
Emily: I mean, I have emotions.
I'm glad I still do.
I will
Ben: you up.
Emily: yeah, I will say that speaking of
universes, like, this is what would happen
if Iron Man was like, slightly worse.
Like, there was some point in the
Iron Man, in his character, there was
like a crossroads where he could have
gone, he was an Avenger, Edvenger,
that's what they are, how they are now.
And then, or,
Bronwyn: gave him a hug.
Emily: yeah, yeah, or
Jeremy: know that.
Bronwyn: Yeah, no.
Emily: Oh yeah, no, no, no, no.
Ben: John Slattery
don't got time for hugs.
Bronwyn: No, but somebody did.
Jeremy: And our guests tonight.
We have three long time
friends of the podcast here.
First, podcaster and scientist, who
I'm sure will help us out in depth on
the very deep science of this film.
Bronwyn Kelly.
Say, Bronwyn, how are you?
Bronwyn: I'm great.
Thank you.
I'm always excited to bring
the science to the movies.
Jeremy: Fantastic.
And our friend and comics
writer, Susan Beneville.
Susan, how are you?
Susan: Traumatized.
I am seriously
Jeremy: If this movie didn't traumatize
you at least a little bit, I'd be worried.
Susan: Too.
Jeremy: and finally, a podcaster,
reviewer, and all around
amazing creator, Alexis Sanchez.
Alexis, welcome back!
Alexis: Thank you.
I'm very excited to be back
and will be bringing up my
favorite movie at some point.
But this movie is, yeah, it's a trip.
Jeremy: It is a lot, and it's sort
of confusing to dive into who made
this movie, because it is written
and directed by Leigh Whannell.
who wrote and starred in Saw and
who wrote the first few movies
of the Insidious franchise.
I think he's moved on since then
because there's 20 of them now.
And it is of course based
very loosely on the H.
G.
Wells story.
And it does it has a
strong but small cast.
We have Elizabeth Moss, who is put
to incredible use in this film.
We have Aldous Hodge, who is there.
Ben: Hawkman himself!
Bronwyn: him in
Ben: We
Bronwyn: he was great.
Jeremy: was better than
Black Adam, that's for sure.
Susan: His muscles
Jeremy: yeah, we have Storm Reid.
We have Oliver Jackson Cohen as
our eponymous villain in this.
And Michael Dorman as his hapless
and very punchable brother and then,
of course, Harriet Dyer, who I think
who is the sister to Elizabeth Moss
character, who I think is going to be
the discussion of a lot of, she's going
to be the subject of a lot of friction,
I think, between us on this podcast,
because I have very strong feelings about
about her support or lack thereof in
Ben: been a while since we had a good
old fashioned chip on this podcast.
Jeremy: Oh, yeah, she's...
She has strong chip energy.
I know Susan and Bronwyn had
different feelings about her when
we were talking before the podcast.
So we will definitely get into that.
But before we go
Ben: Yeah, sister debate!
Jeremy: Yes, Sister Debate,
our new, our new segment.
Ben: Sisters, are you for or against?
Bronwyn: I am extremely pro sister.
Jeremy: anti sisters,
Susan: had muscles.
Pro sister.
Alexis: yeah.
Pro sister.
Jeremy: pro sisters in law.
I'm anti sisters.
Ben: Pro sister act the musical.
Emily: anti Sister Act the Musical.
Ben: That's fair, it was not very good.
Jeremy: I am pro sister sister.
So, you know,
Ben: Aw, classic
Jeremy: although mixed feelings
on the stars of that show.
All
Ben: Did they fuckin Stacey Dash it up?
Jeremy: Oh, only one of them.
One of them is still great.
The other one
Alexis: Yeah.
Ben: The other one got The other
The other one real Stacey Dash.
Bronwyn: Just wait, just...
Jeremy: other one has made some decisions.
Okay, so let me, jump in
and recap this real quick.
I'm gonna try and keep it fairly short so
we have plenty of time to talk about this.
Uh,
Bronwyn: HGLs.
Jeremy: so we follow this movie follows
Cecilia, Elizabeth Moss's character.
She is not a man nor
invisible but she is...
Going through an extraordinary
amount of care as we find her at
the beginning to escape from her
controlling boyfriend, Adrian.
Including drugging him, turning off
cameras and alarms, sneaking out through
the garage, and getting picked up
by her sister at a country road near
their house in the middle of the woods.
Only to nearly be foiled by her desire
to free the shot collared dog, Zeus.
And the fact that her sister, Emily,
is a somewhat self obsessed shithead.
Who can't read a room even
Bronwyn: Cannot confirm this
Jeremy: when that room is an
abandoned country road by her
sister's controlling boyfriend's
house in the middle of the night.
Ben: Audience, I I can attest that
Jeremy is describing this scene quite
Bronwyn: Nope, nope.
Failing at context.
Someone is failing to read the room here.
Jeremy: so Adrian almost snatches her
out of the car after breaking the window,
which finally gives Emily the hint that
maybe they should get out of there.
Emily will continue to be the fucking
worst throughout until she's not
anymore.
Cecilia, two, two weeks later, Cecilia
is now living with her cop friend James.
We don't know how she knows James.
They don't discuss it.
I guess they went to school
together or something.
It's a little difficult to figure out.
He has a daughter, Sydney, who is
Storm Reid, one of the, you know,
she's, she's doing a good job here.
She's used pretty sparingly.
But she's hiding from them in
an effort to hide from Adrian,
who I guess doesn't know them.
However, Emily comes over and is
kind of a dick about delivering
good news that Adrian has apparently
killed himself, and she doesn't
have to worry about that anymore.
What she,
Ben: is Emily's whole vibe.
Bronwyn: kind of need the context there.
Jeremy: what she does have to worry
about is Adrian's shitty brother,
Tom, who forces her to come to
him to get grief about getting
Adrian's money from his will.
Tom is also the worst.
More on that later.
She immediately uses the money to set
up an account for little Sydney to go
to Parsons School of Design so that
she can be taught fashion by Tim Gunn.
A worthy dream if ever there was one.
But, oh, she feels like she's being
watched and a series of weird and bad
things start happening until finally,
she passes out at a job interview and
the hospital says it's because of all
the diazepam that she's been taking.
But she hasn't been taking diazepam.
That's what she drugged Adrian with before
losing the bottle while she was escaping.
And suddenly it's showed up back in her
bathroom with a bloody fingerprint on it.
She knows for sure now that
Adrian is alive and somehow
invisible and is stalking her
without her being able to see him.
It's worth mentioning at this point
that Adrian is a noted billionaire
in the, in the field of optics.
They're very vague about
this and for good reason.
Bronwyn: Extremely good
Ben: Oh, incredibly vague.
It is just, he's just, he's rich.
He's a leader in optics.
Emily: you know, he's a shithead
because he has that house on
the coast and you know that shit
It's gonna be falling into the
ocean in the next
Jeremy: very nice house
Ben: I mean, it's some real, like,
super villain, like, oh, I'm a, like,
scientist who just, like, he's a
Susan: like to work.
Ben: he's a
Bronwyn: are all scientists supervillains?
Jeremy: That house is
Bronwyn: I
Jeremy: that it's not actually real.
It's three different houses.
They had to film three different
houses to make a house that nice.
Also this whole thing is filmed in
Australia, which is why, like, the
scene of her running through the woods
at night looks a little weird because
they're running through a Christmas
tree farm in Australia because they
can't, they don't have pines there.
Alexis: Oh wow.
Ben: Amazing.
Like, presumably, he's in charge
of a company that does optics,
Jeremy: Yeah, they do optics
Ben: includes...
Invisibility resi
Jeremy: So it's, it's not like the
kind of optics where you hire them to
make you look like you're not shitty
after you won't pay your writers.
It's the kind of optics where, where
Bronwyn: There's optics
Jeremy: where you hire them
so people won't see you.
Emily: although I'm pretty sure he's
got people who are working on that
Like I'm secretly dead campaign like
that's that's optics right there.
Ben: Like, if someone told me
they weren't optics, I'd be
like, Oh, so like, sunglasses?
Jeremy: this guy
Ben: you own Sunglass Hut?
Jeremy: this guy is what
Elon Musk thinks he is.
Down to like the super villain part of it.
Like, let's see.
He is that guy.
So
Emily: pretty sure I saw Will and
Hannibal fall off this cliff at the
end of the Hannibal series, too.
Spoilers.
But anyway, continue.
I
Jeremy: Cecilia tries to tell Emily about
this, but Emily just got a shitty email
from Cecilia saying that she's too clingy
and going through a list of her faults,
so she's going to slam the door in her
obviously distressed sister's face.
Invisible Men or not this bitch
hasn't heard of email hacking.
Luckily,
Ben: definitely, I mean, would relate
to a movie starting with a woman
just leaving a tech billionaire.
Jeremy: yeah,
Bronwyn: relatable content.
Ben: He should be used to it by now.
Jeremy: luckily after she goes home and
follows us and cries on the floor for a
while, Sydney is there to comfort her.
Until Sydney gets slapped while Cecilia
is a solid five feet away from her.
But now both her and James bail and are
sure that Cecilia slapped her and they
leave her to deal with shit on her own.
That's the only real scene in this
movie that I find fault with people's
logic in, is she slapped me, she was
like way nowhere near close enough.
Bronwyn: there's some context
missing from all this.
We're gonna have to have
another recap here, folks.
Emily: want to hear what, I want to hear
your context filling in, because I think
that, you know, this is important too,
Bronwyn: I have I have context for
Emily: Okay, okay.
okay,
Jeremy: okay, so finally Cecilia has the
brilliant idea to call Adrian's phone and
see if it rings somewhere in the house.
Some people, including my wife, will
say why would Adrian keep his phone,
to which I say Adrian is a self
important prick tech billionaire,
and there's no way that he would
give up his phone number or phone.
Alexis: Yeah, power move.
Jeremy: because he's
pretending to be dead.
Emily: Yeah.
Jeremy: She finds the phone and
a knife in a bag in the attic.
She doesn't really ask many questions
about the knife and the bag in the
attic, which really she ought to.
It also has, the phone has
pictures of her sleeping.
She's pretty sure Adrian is on the
ladder going into the attic, so she
throws paint and can now see the wild
ass suit he's wearing full of a bunch of
optic doodads that make him invisible.
Apparently paint doesn't stick to
this suit, and you can wash it off
instantly by coming near water.
Because after a quick trip to the
sink, he's invisible again, and
actively attacking her in the house.
She runs outside and catches an
Uber back to their old shared home.
Susan: Left?
It is a list.
Jeremy: okay, yeah, left.
Emily: Sorry.
Bronwyn: Jeremy, you're
falling down on the job.
Jeremy: Oh, I don't know.
She pokes around in the lab and finds
an additional invisible suit, now that
she knows what he's, she's looking for,
and is carrying it around when she hears
him return and hides it in the bathroom.
Now it maneuvers him to
get back to the lift.
In the car she calls her worst sister
and gets her to meet at a Chinese
restaurant where Emily is then shitty
to the waitstaff before she tries
to shit on everything Cecilia says.
And then gets her throat slit
by an invisible Adrien, who
then sticks a knife in Cecilia's
Susan: Unless we lose
the hero of the film.
I would say it.
I had to walk away.
Bronwyn: I'm with you.
Emily: Trevor did not
deserve that, though.
Trevor
Jeremy: whatever you think
about their relationship, she is
unnecessarily mean to the poor
guy who is trying to wait on them.
Bronwyn: Yes.
Ben: he
Emily: dude is
Alexis: I mean, he also can't read the
Bronwyn: At all.
If you want to talk
Alexis: so much tension
happening there and he's
Ben: Into Chinese restaurant.
They make their profit off
of, like, fast turnover.
They're a business.
They're not there to be a meeting center.
They can rent a fucking conference room.
Or fucking WeWork.
Emily: I'm
Ben: show up to their place of business,
at least order some goddamn spring rolls.
Emily: If I'm
Jeremy: where large knives
would look more out of place.
Emily: Yeah
Jeremy: yeah, Cecilia gets shortly
thereafter arrested and committed.
And remains certain that Adrienne
is constantly there watching
her in her strangely large room
in this mental health facility.
Then she finds out from one of the
nurses at the blood lead test lady
who told her about the diazepam and
just forgot to tell her that she
was pregnant with Adrienne's baby.
Suddenly Adrienne's...
She can't get her money and neither can
Sidney if she's committed and convicted
for his sister's murder, but he can
fix it all if she's willing to have
the baby and take it back to Adrian.
He is more punchable
than ever at this point.
She refuses and swipes his very
fancy fountain pen in the process.
And then uses the pen to slit
her wrists in the shower.
Telling Adrian he can never have
the baby, he tries to stop her and
now she knows where he is and stabs
him a lot with that fucking pen
Bronwyn: Glorious.
Jeremy: a bunch of times leading to the
security guards getting involved, boy, the
security guards Adrian's suit is fucked
up enough that they can now kind of see
him but are completely ineffectual they
keep literally falling down and getting
stabbed and shot and everything else.
She manages to shoot him a few
good times as he's running away.
Adrian tells tells her that now that
she's having his baby, he's going,
he's not going to hurt her, he's
going to hurt someone else to punish
her, starting with little Sydney.
She steals a car and
races back to James house.
Climactic confrontation ensues.
Cecilia completely owns him, murders
him, only to find out that it is very
punchable Tom in the suit and not Adrian.
Now Adrian is discovered
miraculously alive and tied up
in his own basement by the cops.
He tries to pin the whole thing on Tom.
Cecilia is not buying it though, but she
does agree to meet him and talk all this
out, and she wears a wire so James can
hear the confession she's going to get out
of Adrian, but of course, Adrian is too
canny for that and won't fess up, but says
enough to just let her know for sure it
was him so that she doesn't get any ideas.
But that was never her
plan in the first place.
She leaves dinner to go pee and retrieves
the hidden suit in the bathroom and
then uses it to make it look like
Adrian slits his own throat before
discovering him dying and calling
911 and then standing just outside
of his security camera to taunt him
as he dies which is very satisfying
Bronwyn: So
Jeremy: of this film.
She then takes the suit and the dog and
basically dares James to fuck around
and find out if she's leaving the end.
Emily: bless.
Bronwyn: Well, we have so many notes.
Jeremy: So, let's talk about
Bronwyn: got everything wrong, but that's
Jeremy: about the sister here.
Susan: So, are we diving
right in on Emily?
Jeremy: Yeah, it seems everybody
has diverging opinions about Emily
here, so let's talk about Emily.
Ben: Emily podcast Emily, how are you
doing in this discussion with your
name being bandied about so much?
Emily: mean, you know, I, I'm interested
to see how the, because it looks like
there's a lot of people on Team Emily, and
I don't know if I'm on Team Emily, but,
Jeremy: will say, just for me
personally, there has never been
a not shitty Jeremy in a movie, so
I just want to put that out there.
Emily: I'm
Bronwyn: It's okay, I'm, I'm, I can't
even remember another Bronwyn, so.
Ben: I just
want to point
Jeremy: an axe, I think.
Ben: Nicholas Cage's character in National
Treasure is named Ben, so you're welcome.
Emily: just, I'm just attacked
by every single Key and Peele
joke, and I, I accept that.
I accept it.
Jeremy: So Ben, it sounds like you were
on my side on the Emily thing, yeah?
Ben: Yeah, like, I'm glad she went to
the dinner, but it was a lot of, like,
Again, like, the very first scene is being
like, her being like, God, why did you
ask me to just pick you up when you're
clearly running away in the middle of the
Bronwyn: Okay, okay, like, let's talk
about this, though, for a second, okay?
I know
Alexis: would be confused.
Bronwyn: me up on this, okay?
Can we put this in a little bit of
social context here, just for a second?
Because as a femme presenting person who
has been stalked, I'm going to tell you
that you get real isolated real fast.
Okay, it's terrifying.
It is a horrible situation in which
you are convinced that everything
is your fault and no one has ever
spoke, you, spoken to you and said
that this is your fault, but you think
everybody is going to be against you.
You think everybody's going
to blame you for this.
You are not reaching out to anybody.
The fact that she had the actual
courage to call her sister and ask her
to meet her in the middle of the night
after she clearly has had no contact
with anyone in her circle for years.
Susan: Right.
And that is a
Bronwyn: deal.
And the fact that Emily came to
her in the middle of the night.
Susan: And it's a little bit of like,
there's a little missing context that
is filled in very subtly later is.
When they're sitting at the, table,
talking a point you missed in your whole
recap, but we're basically, you know,
we find out later that that Emily has
not been, has been cut out of Cecilia's
life, like, basically imagine if your
sibling just kind of married some rich,
fancy dude, and then slowly, just like,
whatever cuts you out of your life.
And then suddenly out of nowhere.
Like, without any context, without
anything, says, hey, in the middle
of the night, come pick me up
doesn't explain anything, and you
show up, they're standing there, and
I mean, I would spend a couple of
seconds saying, hey, what the fuck?
Yeah, sure, we can go somewhere.
Just if Cecilia had just said Adrian's
going to try and come out of the woods
and try and kill me, please floor it.
I would have floored it, but she doesn't.
Bronwyn: she did.
Alexis: Yeah.
Susan: So, I think you have to sort
of take into context this idea that
Cecilia has been successfully isolated
and her family and her friends
don't have been cut off from her.
Right?
So she had from their perspective.
It's like, who is this person?
Why are you calling me?
Bronwyn: She's a completely
different person from who they knew.
Susan: Right, right.
Very much.
That's a very important point.
Like, who knows what and that goes to,
like, the whole thing with the email.
We don't know what Cecilia did
or said to Emily in the past.
We know that Emily is a little bit
cool towards her sister and I think
that represents the fact that her
sister cut her out of her life at some
point and probably not pleasantly.
Bronwyn: and they have not had an
opportunity to have any of that out
or have any kind of like reckoning
on that one or, you know, Emily has
been there for her the entire time
without ever having an opportunity to
deal with her feelings about having
had her sibling ripped away from her
Susan: right, right.
And so she delivers, you know, the sister
to the friend and she, and then there's a
Bronwyn: and again is isolated.
Yeah.
Susan: and then says again to her sister.
I don't want you to contact me.
I don't want you to see me because
I don't want them to follow.
And I think we're
supposed to believe that.
It's been some time
Jeremy: It's two weeks,
Bronwyn: Two
Susan: or
Bronwyn: Yeah.
Susan: Emily picks her up, drops her
off and then is told to go away again.
And so she comes back
and she says, no, no, no.
And.
Okay.
Cecilia's busy yelling at her and being
mean because you weren't supposed to come.
You weren't supposed to be here.
And Emily's like, look,
chill, shut up for a second.
He's dead.
Bronwyn: Yeah.
Like, and
Susan: now we can have
some kind of relationship.
Bronwyn: some of these things,
like, these people are, like, this,
we can sometimes come at these
movies and looking at it, like, we
know the rules for a horror movie.
We know who's supposed to die and who's
supposed to live and who's supposed to
act what way and all of these things, but
this isn't structured like a horror movie
and these people aren't acting the way
of people in a horror movie would act.
These are people who are acting The way
people in this situation would act like
Cecilia is acting like a traumatized
person and Emily's acting like a
sibling who has been totally isolated
has dropped her entire life to come
and help her sister and has had zero
thanks and had to deal with somebody
who's completely traumatized, which
let me tell you, emotionally draining.
Emily: Yeah,
Jeremy: Yeah,
Ben: I'm all bored with Cecilia being,
like, absolutely traumatized and all that.
Like, that Elizabeth
mob, fucking incredible.
But I, I utterly and
completely remain team.
Loved one comes running out
of a forest into the car and
says, We need to fucking go.
You fucking go.
Bronwyn: Yeah,
Ben: And then you
Jeremy: can,
ask for an explanation at the TGI Fridays,
Ben: ask.
Bronwyn: But you're going to
take two seconds to be like,
what the fuck is happening?
Susan: Yeah,
Emily: well, I mean, I, you know,
realistically in a situation like that,
you know, there is the consideration,
like, are we doing a crime?
Is there a crime that happened,
you know, you know, and, and,
like, I think that there.
Yeah, I think that there's some.
There's this weird, like.
This point in the dialogue where
the characters don't quite, like,
they just miss the mark when they're
trying to communicate to each other.
So, and I think that's where we're
getting this schism of, like, Team
Emily as in the Team Anti Emily.
As this, you know, because
she's, she is kind of the most,
I,
Bronwyn: She's not necessarily a likable
Emily: yeah,
Bronwyn: she's doing her best
in a really trying situation.
Emily: you know, and if she
came to the door, she came to
the house and it's like, Hi.
This guy's dead.
You haven't told me what's up yet.
I, you know, and again, like, there's
been a lot that people have learned
in the last 3 years about survival and
like, surviving a situation like that.
So, you know, this movie may
not be thinking about that.
And, you know, there's a lot of things
that are on our minds now that weren't
when this movie was being made.
And so I think that that is
also something that is like,
worth considering, certainly.
I don't like Emmeline, the character.
Alexis: No.
Emily: I don't think that she
was the worst, but she was
also, like, in that, like,
Ben: No, definitely not the
worst, especially in this movie.
Emily: Yeah.
Yeah.
Ben: Also, can we reflect that
Adrian fucking smashed through
a car window with one punch?
Holy shit.
Emily: That was some good foreshadowing
for him being able to take on,
like, twelve cops or something.
Susan: yeah, but we missed the part where
his suit is super powered, but the whole
Emily context is, I guess, because I,
I'm a little bit of an acerbic person.
I can be sarcastic.
I can be, you know, you know, to the
obnoxious waiter who keeps coming back
and is like going through the road
thing when clearly not reading the room.
I thought part of it was Emily was
adding that level of a little bit of
comedic relief with that kind of banter,
but I think going back, there's 2
scenes that we've kind of skipped over.
1 is that really made
me really love Emily.
One was the, when she's in the
lawyer's office with her sister and
the brother's saying, I'm going to
read this fucking shit and Emily
says, no, the fuck you are not.
You are not and that tough bitch that
it's maybe too mean to the waiter is
the woman who has the guts and gumption
to stand up to that little shitty
lawyer guy and say, no, you are not
going to retraumatize my sister today.
You are not and she,
she puts her foot down.
And to me, that was like the moment.
I'm like, that's your sister.
She's going to be there for you.
Yeah.
Bronwyn: Yeah.
Ben: the rest are on scene as shades
of grey, cause I'm like, Emily, I
get why you're impatient, I get why
you're short tempered, I get why the
interruptions are annoying, but also,
Taylor, you're fucking killing it,
you're doing great at your job, don't,
you're doing nothing wrong, buddy.
Bronwyn: Well, and, and both
of those things are true,
Susan: you,
Ben: But yes, yes, both are true, yes.
And thus is the cognitive
dissonance of the world.
Jeremy: yeah, I mean, I will, I will say.
To, to Susan's point the scene in
the lawyer's office where she's where
she dresses down the brother, that's
easily, like, Emily's high point.
Emily
Ben: oh yeah,
Jeremy: has a good moment there she
seems to understand how traumatized
Cecilia is there in a way that she
doesn't for the rest of the movie.
So, like, she's, it's a real, it's a real
kind of shitty sibling thing where she's
like, you can't talk to my sister that
way, I can talk to my sister that way,
Bronwyn: but I mean, also, this
movie never addresses her pain.
Not that it's, and it's not
about her, so it doesn't have to.
But there is an element there that I
think the character plays to, which I
think is a really interesting layer.
Jeremy: Yeah, I think there's
stuff there that, like, I think
Emily has good moments like that.
Also, like, the thing that irritates
me is the, like, when we're talking
about the email section, right?
Like, she was there for Yeah.
Yeah.
Even being in the room with Tom, the
brother, who she knows, like, hates
her, wants a reason to take her money
back, would also like to isolate her
in the way that Adrien has, even if she
doesn't believe that Adrien is walking
around in an invisibility suit, which,
for obvious reasons, she might not.
But to, like, if your sister comes to
your house, like, weeping at noon, and
you're like, I got an email from you
at 6am that says that you hate me, and
that, you know, All this other stuff,
and she's like, I didn't send that.
There has to be a point at which
you're like, well, it is email.
Like, it is possible for
people, for somebody to send
me an email under your account
Bronwyn: have to be right then.
Jeremy: Yeah, I don't, I don't
have to
Bronwyn: gets to be
Jeremy: in your face.
Bronwyn: I mean,
Jeremy: Yeah, but like,
Susan: she does go to the dinner, you
know, I agree that the email one, like,
and I think I was glad that they at least
showed us the text so we could read some
of the email because that didn't read
like controlling dude email that read like
something a sister would send to a sister.
Like, it's it was that kind of mean
and and again, this is a place where
in the writing of the story, maybe
if there had been a little bit more
context, around their relationship
and around the isolation of Cecilia
And how Emily felt about it, then I
think I agree with you, Jeremy, that
there's kind of a disconnect there.
And it's, it's a little plot, you know,
cover what you're going to call it
Jeremy: she's got horror
movie blinders on.
Susan: isolate, you know,
the whole thing is that we're
continuing to isolate Cecilia.
Right?
And so, yeah, we have to like, you
know, could the writers have come
up with a better way to separate
Emily and Cecilia in this point?
Yeah, probably or give us some
other reason to think the email is.
You know, is enough.
But, you know, Emily still does
show up and she still does talk
to her for about 2 seconds.
And I suspect that Emily was about to
be totally clutch in that moment, which
is why Adrian had to take her out.
Bronwyn: yeah.
Emily: yeah.
Well,
Ben: Oh yeah, I mean, look, I I think
there's, you know, you can trace
out the logic and intellectualizing,
like, the emotional responses, but...
It's a scene where, this is a
movie that has put us extremely
in Cecilia's perspective.
We like Cecilia a lot.
We are incredibly sympathetic,
especially in this heightened moment.
And this is just the moment where...
A character is really mean to
a character we really like who
is going through just the worst
Susan: Yeah,
Ben: time.
Jeremy: Yeah, except for, except for
Alicia who was angry at Cecilia the
whole time for not knowing she was
in a movie called The Invisible Man.
Emily: So,
Bronwyn: I mean, she was married to,
Jeremy: the movie's
called The Invisible Man.
Clearly, there's an invisible
guy doing these things to you.
There's footprints on the blanket.
What are you doing?
Emily: here's the thing about
Ben: Did she also watch Lord of
the Rings and be like, Why are
they not making a fellowship yet?
Don't they know that's
the title of the movie?
Jeremy: This king is taking
a long time to come back.
Emily: yeah, for real.
Ben: Love you, Lisa.
Thank you for editing this episode.
Bronwyn: you're glorious.
Emily: that's, yes.
I mean, I wasn't there, so I'm not
gonna, I have no, I have no opinion
on what Alicia said or did not say.
The other thing, like the Iron
Man thing that I said earlier, was
one of my pitches for this movie.
My made up pitches.
My other pitch was, what
if men, but invisible?
Ben: Okay, I do want to say, if this
is our alternate take on Iron Man, I...
I do not think Gwyneth Paltrow could
have pulled off Elisabeth Moss role in
Alexis: Oh, no, not
for a
Bronwyn: little.
Ben: is a very different movie
Jeremy: I, I, I will say, I
would like to see her try.
Ben: Right?
Emily: I,
Jeremy: I would, I would enjoy
Bronwyn: lot of alcohol.
I don't know that I
Jeremy: Paltrow attempt,
attempt this part.
Susan: to be honest, I'd like to
see Gwyneth Paltrow as Emily in this
Emily: yeah, yeah.
She probably could pull that off,
Jeremy: want to see her get
Bronwyn: could watch
that one scene anyway.
Susan: yeah,
Ben: brought up like, Did we interpret
that the suit is super powered?
Cause I just interpreted that as, Oh
yeah, this is Oliver Jackson Cohen
and that dude's built like a tank.
Emily: well, yes, all of the above.
Bronwyn: So, I don't
know about,
Ben: be super strength.
Cause there's also, he's also
just like, Just fucking wrecking
Bronwyn: I'm assuming that there's
gotta be some element of, of structural
super strength or, oh, Emily?
Emily: oh, I want to know what
Alexis thinks about Emily, not me.
Bronwyn: Oh, sorry.
Emily: I
Alexis: No, yeah, I mean, like, she's
clearly not, like, a likable person,
because she is abrasive and everything.
But, like, Like they said, like she's
also hasn't seen her sister and that's
such a like, I feel like immediate like
sister response to like any kind of
trauma and just like, what are you doing?
Like how did this happen?
Why?
Like, why are you just now coming to me?
And just like all these
responses that are just like.
What the fuck, but also like, yeah, I
mean she was an asshole to the waiter,
but like also read the room my dude That's
part of being a waiter Just like you
wouldn't interrupt a couple and they're
like starting a fight you can just like
Jeremy: No, nobody in this
movie can read a room, I
Alexis: yeah, so like
Emily: line there.
Alexis: she's
Bronwyn: I mean, I think that's actually
a really interesting way to maybe tagline
this movie is read the room because
Emily: Except,
Bronwyn: of that panning
to the room that's empty.
Emily: the only, yeah, the only person
in this movie who read The Room was
the nurse on the phone, who was trying
to tell Cecilia that she was pregnant,
but was like, maybe I shouldn't
tell you over the phone, but there's
Alexis: like let me tell you in person
Emily: Yeah, and then, but Cecilia,
Ben: Moss
Emily: yeah, she wasn't using her phone.
Alexis: I mean she's wonderful
it sucks that she's in a cult
Bronwyn: Oh,
Alexis: Oh, she's a Scientologist
Bronwyn: no,
Ben: Oh.
Alexis: My apologies for breaking this
Emily: No, no, the more you know.
Knowledge is power.
Bronwyn: bites the dust.
Ben: Cause so much of this movie is her
Susan: She was raised in
Ben: like just uh I guess he
comes by second generation
Scientologist, like Beck.
Does that make it better?
I honestly am not sure.
Like, I'm honestly
Emily: doesn't.
No, because this, this,
Scientology has gotten worse.
It's gotten worse and it's gotten
like more and more desperate and
probably more and more insidious as,
you know, I've, I only like learned
this from True Crime Podcast, so
if you want to know more, go to
Alexis: So, normally I wouldn't call
documentaries horror movies for reasons,
but if you want a documentary that will
freak you the hell out, it's Going Clear.
Emily: Mm
Alexis: That documentary freaks
me out every time I watch it.
I've watched it more than three
times because it's so good,
but it's like, it chills you.
Jeremy: will say.
We, we only talk about
fake crime here, so there's
Bronwyn: Yeah, right.
Jeremy: plenty, plenty of
people covering real crime.
Ben: is revealing more of the
world building of this movie.
We talked about Adrian, and just whatever
his company does as op as head of optics.
Well, apparently he is the CEO of
Cobalt, which is the evil company from
the director's previous movie, Upgrade.
Bronwyn: Ah, I watched
Ben: man and Upgrade in the same cinematic
Emily: I didn't know that.
I
Bronwyn: That is interesting.
Emily: That
Susan: Well, that explains everything.
It is a superpower suit.
Bronwyn: It could be actually.
yeah,
exactly.
But I would, I was thinking
there had to be some sort of
structural upgrade of some kind.
Alexis: Yeah, cause it's made out of
glass, like, those are camera lenses.
It has to be somehow strong to be
able to protect those little lenses.
Bronwyn: and so that's what I,
Ben: How cool is
Bronwyn: that's where the
disconnect went for me, though.
Now, like, full disclosure, you
know, I, I'm a scientist and I
am a bit of a jack of all trades.
So I know a little about a lot of
different things, but Optics isn't one
of them, so, like, I read, like, physics
and quantum mechanics and stuff like
that on, like, for fun, because it's
very interesting and entertaining, but
Emily: Yes.
Bronwyn: optics is a, is a weird
one for me, but like, cameras you'd
want projectors, like, you'd want
something, like, that was projecting
light, as opposed to, like, like, that,
Alexis: so
Bronwyn: looked good, but it didn't work.
Emily: Yeah, I wasn't sure what it was
supposed to
Alexis: that people have kind of looked
at already and basically like from the
basics that I've read and seen about like
creating these type of like stuff things,
it's like Kind of a, like, TV thing, like
the cameras look at what's behind you and
what's around you and project it on the
front, so like,
Bronwyn: you're like you're seeing
Alexis: yeah, and so if you notice, like,
the little cameras have, like, these
lenses on top of them that would, like,
open and close, so, like, I feel like
it was doing the projecting thing and
also the camera thing and just, like,
a weird combination of all of that.
Ben: and just the way it looked
like eyes, that the whole thing
Alexis: Mm hmm.
Ben: in
Bronwyn: was really cool.
The problem then
Ben: Oh, I love the design.
It's so cool.
Bronwyn: technically, because of course
I have to bring the technical side to
it, is then when she's stabbing him,
which was amazing and I loved it.
She's stabbing him in the shower
with the pet, you know, and
she's got him in the shoulder a
bunch of different times, right?
So there are holes, even if she didn't
make it through the suit to actually
stab him in the shoulder, which, fair,
because who knows how thick that is.
It could be really, really thick.
There could be infrastructure.
I would assume there would be electronics,
cooling unit, the whole nine, right?
Because, like, even
cosplay gets super hot.
You have, you would have to have
some sort of cooling mechanism in
Alexis: that ice vest.
Bronwyn: presumably, she doesn't
make it through the suit.
You don't get any blood,
so whatever, right?
But, you'd be breaking those lenses.
Right.
You'd be breaking those,
the screens and whatnot.
So,
Susan: Yeah,
Bronwyn: so not only would you then,
he wouldn't be shorting out and then
you'd be invisible, not invisible.
He would just, those spots would
be incapable of projecting that
Ben: It'd be like dead pixels on a screen.
Bronwyn: pixels, exactly.
And then, also, because this
is all electronic, right?
he went out into the pouring,
pouring rain without shorting.
Like he's not grounded
Emily: That's true.
I mean, yeah, but
Ben: I thought there'd be a lot more
need to find, like, where the rain isn't.
See him by, like, the
Bronwyn: and he did and he did like
that, you know, like then he had
Ben: Yeah, he was smart.
That was a smart
plan, hiding
Bronwyn: good.
And oh my god that jump scare.
I knew he was in there Even the first
time I saw the movie I saw it in
theater and I was just like that's
where he is because that's the Only
place where the rain isn't falling
so you can't see his his like shape.
Oh, it got me every time
Ben: Question about the plot.
When he...
Jeremy: I do want to say with the
stabbing thing, I think that's very
much a rule of cool thing, right?
Like, it looks much less cool
if he's like, if you know where
he is, because there's like
eight floating hexagons in the
air, then if like,
Bronwyn: I'm
Jeremy: there's a piece of a man that's
just jumping in and out of visibility.
And that's,
Bronwyn: on your
Jeremy: I will say also,
Bronwyn: and for the love of all
that's holy, do not eat in a morgue.
Emily: Yeah, so there's
a, there's a thing,
Ben: But movies have taught
me to always eat in a morgue.
Bronwyn: Yeah,
Jeremy: the body if possible.
Bronwyn: let me show you
what Salmonella looks like.
Emily: Yeah, but so the suit, I believe
has, I mean, like, there are things
that I are forgivable, I think, with the
suit, because, like, if you could have
an invisibility suit, you can have, like.
very, very impervious lenses, like the
projection, like, if you're looking at,
like, a double screen projection and
I've seen things like oh, God, I can't
remember what it's called, but it's
the illusion where you have a TV mirror
and you, you projectors on the TV where
you have a TV and then there's a mirror
and it makes it look 3 dimensional.
Alexis: Oh, yes, yes,
Emily: I can't remember the name
of it, but, you know, there's,
there's things you can do with lens
refraction that, you know, and if
you have big, big, thick lenses.
Yeah, maybe you wouldn't short
out or you wouldn't break
the lenses with a pen, right?
Bronwyn: you have to calibrate the
direction of light in your microscope.
Daily.
Emily: Yeah, well, like, I mean, I think
that the biggest problem if we're gonna,
if we're gonna really, like, pick apart
the optic suit, the biggest problem
is that those lenses are way too big.
But again, it's a rule of cool
thing, like, I've, whatever.
Like, I think
Bronwyn: no, and you know what?
Honestly, like, it didn't knock me
out of the movie, which a lot of these
things do, and you know that, but
Emily: yeah,
Alexis: Yeah.
I was
Bronwyn: when you're thinking
about it analytically
Susan: eyeballs.
Bronwyn: yeah.
Emily: yeah, like, I think that the
suit didn't knock me out of the movie.
That was, I mean, like, the
idea, the bottom line with
Ben: was amazing.
Emily: The suit was
Ben: It looked so fucking cool.
Emily: but
it, it was, this movie so perfectly
captured what it is to be stalked and
Bronwyn: Oh my god.
Emily: and family that's happening.
Bronwyn: That was actually, like,
triggering and re traumatizing for me.
Like, her going to the mailbox,
Emily: yeah,
Bronwyn: gonna throw up.
Like, it was, that was some
next level terrifying shit.
Like, I, when she's going to the
mailbox and the jogger's coming up,
like, I am legitimately afraid of mail.
Like I can't, like I can't, you know
you'll never get me to a mailbox.
Ben: This movie's exploration
of domestic abuse gaslighting,
and stalking is top notch.
Fucking platinum tier, like,
Jeremy: I mean, on, on the text
side, I think this is how you
update a horror movie, right?
Ben: oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah.
Jeremy: the original film, which
is, again, based roughly on the H.
G.
Wells story, but the original film, like,
The Invisible Man is unquestionably bad.
Like, he is an evil person, and part of
it is about sort of his decline of, you
know, not seeing himself, being able
to do these things without being seen.
He is, A true psychopath.
And like, they, they took that and
sort of adapted it to a very current
concern, a very like real issue
that, you know, could come from that.
And like, you know, you, you
get to really sort of be in her
skin and see sort of what she's
going through in a very real way.
And it is sort of then also like a
literalizing of a feeling of like,
you know, he could be anywhere.
He could be watching you.
It's like,
Ben: really keeps the budget
down if you don't know how to
blow up any bridges or trains.
Jeremy: and I will say too, like, the,
I mean, this is sort of beside the
point of the of the like theme, but
like this movie could really lose you.
if it did a lot of green screen shit,
if it did a lot of special effects.
And the scene we're talking about in
the hallway where like, he gets, you
know, punctured a few times and he's,
he's going in and out of visibility
is one of the few special effects in
the movie, like in the VFX side, like,
Ben: how terrifying is the scene
where it's just a long, steady shot?
On a kitchen, and then you just see, like,
the flame on the burner get turned up.
Susan: Yeah.
Jeremy: the knife gets moved, the
flame on the burner gets turned up.
It's so, it's so scary.
And, and like the way they accomplish
it the directing and the cinematography
of it is sort of the second star
of the movie behind Elizabeth Moss,
because there are several points.
There's another one where she is
doing something in her room, she's
putting up trusses or something.
And the camera pans to nothing.
The camera just pans over to another
part of the room as if it's putting
something in frame that you cannot see.
And like, it doesn't
say anything about it,
Alexis: Like, so it's like that, well,
I can't remember what they're called.
They're like the outside
closets or something where
she's hanging up the clothes and
stuff.
If you look at the pole, you can see
the light, like refracting on it.
So if you really pay attention, you
could see like the little things there.
But also.
I, one thing I really appreciate
about this movie is that it, like,
the whole, like, psychological
thriller part of it was never, like,
a question of if he was abusive and
now he's doing this to her, but it was
like, no, he is 100 percent abusive.
That's not the worry.
The worry is, like, What is she
seeing and experiencing now?
Really appreciate it.
Like right off the bat, they
were like, breaks the windows,
like, no, he is actually abusive.
This is why she's leaving.
That's not like the her
losing her mind part.
Emily: yeah, yeah,
Alexis: man part that
she's losing her mind
Ben: Oh, the scene with just,
like, the blanket, where he's just
doing nothing but fucking with her
by, like, stepping on a blanket.
Bronwyn: But I love the
nods to the original.
Like kind of a concept of the Invisible
Man in a lot of the details in the
background, especially in like the
the mental hospital when things have
gotten like so pear shaped and she's
just like, I'm fucking done with this.
I just, I'm, I don't know what
we're doing here, but I'm, I'm done.
And you see In several shots along
through there, there's a little
sign in the background that says you
don't have to face yourself alone.
Emily: yeah, I saw that one.
Bronwyn: that's pretty brilliant.
Ben: One thing that really struck me in
this movie, you know, compared to a lot
of horror movies you know, especially
with, like, the kills and the violence,
was, you know, with the exception of
your classic superhero hallway fight
sequence which fuckin reveled in it.
The violence in this movie,
it can be extremely fast.
Like, the way that Adrian dies and
the way Emma dies, it's like, you can
almost like, blink, like if you were
like briefly looking away in his middle
of the conversation it's like You
could just, like, glance at your phone
for two seconds, and then it's like,
Wait, what the fuck did I just miss?
Why is, like, someone's,
like, just bleeding all over?
Like, what the fuck?
Bronwyn: But there's also a
dichotomy there too, though,
Ben: so fast.
Bronwyn: there's, like, this extreme
violence in this movie, where you
get those, like, deaths that happen
so quickly, and there's blood, and
there's, like, all the gunshots, and
the wrists bent, and, like, all the,
you know, whatevers, but then you
also get the subtle violence, right?
Like, all of the sort of casual misogyny
that's thrown throughout this whole
thing that she, that, that Cecilia
faces, like in that interview where she
passes out from the diazepam and the
interviewer comes up to her and says, Oh,
in Paris, is that where all the beautiful
Emily: Oh, yeah.
Bronwyn: how many times in my
professional life have I dealt with that?
Like, Oh, did you get your
job because you're pretty?
Like, no, I got my job because I
have 20 years of industry experience,
but thank you for infantilizing me.
Like,
Jeremy: Yeah.
Ben: People say, like, dawg, you
got your job cause you're rich.
I'm like, no!
I got my job cause of nepotism.
Bronwyn: Like everybody else.
Ben: Yeah!
I didn't earn sh I didn't earn shit!
Bronwyn: You
Emily: It's an, it's an extra, extra
bonus.
Bronwyn: a bonus, thank
Emily: Yeah.
Yeah.
Ben: god, no, the buildup of
this movie is so masterfully
done, like, Again, that it's...
Turning the heat up on, like,
fucking around with, like, breakfast.
Moving things around.
Then it's like, sabotaging
a job interview.
And, god, like, it just, it just
created this inescapable oppressive
atmosphere that fucked with me so much.
Emily: Yeah.
Alexis.
Alexis: thing I really, really loved was
It's very much a horror trope, but like
the sound of the cameras, that clicking
sound throughout the movie, that like
anxiety inducing, like clicking sound,
like where you knew he was there and The
fact that it just like reminded me of
like the scores for like Jason when he's
like coming up behind someone and you know
someone's about to die because you hear
that music and like with that clicking
sound you just it's so anxiety inducing
because like you can't see shit, but you
know, he's there, you know, and it's oh,
Ben: Anytime they shift to
like the POV view, and you know
like, Oh shit, we're seeing what
Alexis: classic, like, killer point of
Ben: Ugh.
Jeremy: the first creepy thing that they
do in this movie is there's the scene
where like she is partying with her friend
and his friend's daughter and you're
watching them have a great time and then
the POV shifts to down the hall watching
them and I wonder how many people watching
this are like wait what and how many don't
realize it but it makes you uncomfortable
whether like you know why or not and it
does that so many times with like The way
it shifts where the camera is focused or
the way it you know, this movie spends so
much time pointing a camera at like empty
benches and couches and stuff like that.
And like, the result is not
that you're like boring.
The result is that
you're like, what is it?
Is there something there?
Am I, I'm gonna miss it.
I'm gonna miss it if I don't look at it.
Ben: There
Bronwyn: muscle is tense.
Susan: Yeah,
Ben: much of this movie where
Susan: this, all of that works.
Sorry.
Sorry about that.
All of that works because
Elizabeth Moss is so freaking good.
Emily: yeah,
Susan: There's that one scene where she's
on the ground and she's staring at the
door and I swear to God looking at that
empty door and it's like she sees him
and I see him and I know he's right there
and I think, I think if you had somebody
else was not that fine an actress in that
role, I think a lot of those empty space
shots would have fallen flat because she
believes it because she sells it so hard
Jeremy: in the world as good at
Susan: together so well.
Jeremy: as she is.
Ben: This movie honestly relies on
Elizabeth Moss being able to act
like she can kill a wall with a look.
Alexis: Yeah.
Emily: you know, I find it interesting
that so many, there are these, I've
seen these actors who are like part
of Scientology and they're always like
trying to escape something in these
Alexis: Yep.
Because subconsciously they know
that they are not actually infected
Ben: Is Brie Larson a scientist?
Alexis: 1950s world.
So, you
Ben: Cause she was in
that 21 Cloverfield movie.
Emily: Maybe, Juliette Lewis I thought was
a Scientologist, I don't know if she's,
if she's currently, what the status of
that is, but it's a hard one to I will say
Ben: I know Leia Romani
is most definitely not a
Alexis: she's a superhero.
Oh my gosh.
Ben: yes she is.
Bronwyn: I don't understand it at all.
Ben: She is the true Queen of Queens.
Jeremy: What I do want to talk about,
and I mean, it's tangentially related to
that, but also tangentially related to
a lot of our conversation around they,
them, is this movie does not talk down to
this woman about violence at any point.
It doesn't be like.
No, you should spare him.
That's the right thing to do.
when she kills the brother Michael,
Michael Dorman, she comes in and he's
attacking the Sydney and she is like,
she has the fire extinguisher ready.
She's like, get down, hits him,
shoots him three times in the
chest, like as soon as he's visible.
Ben: that was so satisfying.
Him
Emily: all of that?
Ben: towards her, but
just like, bleeding out.
I'm like, yeah.
Now that's the catharsis I want
for, like, I come to horror movies
Emily: big, big same.
Well, and, and I, you know, that,
like, that whole time she was probably,
like, on some kind of drug because
she was in the, the institution.
Alexis: Oh yeah.
Emily: Like, you know, that was
adrenaline and, you know, adrenaline.
Versus drugs, like, those things that
are actually ways that are unpredictable.
Sure.
Whatever.
Like, that's never something
that's very rarely something that
I give a shit about in movies.
Susan: Right.
Emily: But you know, but the fact
that, like, you know, that she was
working against not just, you know,
whatever the doctors gave her,
but just this whole paradigm of
reality that she was dealing with.
I had turned down for what?
Cued when she was having dinner
with the dude at the end.
My roommate was there and I was
like, I was just so ready to see this
dude, like, get his dick stomped in.
I was almost sad that he didn't, like,
he wasn't in pain longer, but it's better
for her if he wasn't, because then he
wouldn't, he can't talk or anything.
So I, but there's a lot of these, there's
a lot of, the catharsis is so good,
the and you really, really, I mean,
you earned it, like, she earned it, you
Bronwyn: Oh, yeah.
Emily: the shit she goes through.
And just the thriller aspect of
this movie and the way that it's
shot and everything is so good.
And her, like, with her performance.
It's like Hitchcock, but I like it better.
Jeremy: But it
Bronwyn: I think one of the things I
thought was so interesting about how,
like, that sort of arc of the story
went was, you know, from the whole kind
of scene in the, in the hospital where
you have, you know, the invisible man
coming in and like, You know, she's
stabbing him, and he's going through
all of the, security people, and she's
shooting at him, and she's chasing him,
and she takes him out, and they go to
the house, and everything like that,
and then it turns out to be the brother,
but I thought it was really interesting,
because up until that point in the
movie, Adrian had been so meticulous.
You know, there were no witnesses.
There was no nothing.
It was all very focused entirely
down on Cecilia, but in the
hospital, there were witnesses,
you know, he didn't kill everybody.
It was sloppier.
It was, you know, and I
even wrote it in my notes.
I was like, Oh, this is getting sloppy.
You know, he's just, he's, you
know, and then it's the brother.
And I'm like, Oh, right.
I forgot about that.
I mean, because like, you can see
he's not, he is the jellyfish version,
you know, or he's being set up as,
Susan: hesitate to kill.
You see him hesitate to kill.
Bronwyn: Yeah, right?
Like, so it's just really interesting to
see that kind of like, even that attention
to detail at the moviemaking level, right?
Emily: Yeah.
And commitment to the world
Bronwyn: Yeah,
Emily: that they've built.
Although you could, you could
believe that it was Adrienne doing
that because, you know, when she
started like trying to harm herself
Alexis: Yeah.
That's what I was thinking like, because I
think he says surprise to her when they're
by the car, and that's an Adrian line.
Jeremy: Honestly, we don't know if it's
Alexis: So I'm not sure.
I
feel like maybe he sent him to the house.
Bronwyn: Is Adrian in the hospital?
He's still setting up his brother,
Emily: Yeah.
Oh yeah.
Bronwyn: So he can be acting that way
to be setting up his brother, right?
So,
Emily: Yeah.
Alexis: yeah.
One other thing is the fact that
she is so competent and so smart
throughout the whole thing.
Like, just like...
From the beginning when she suspects
something's happening and she puts the
coffee grounds and like grabs a knife and
it's just like talking to him Like just
that like she's so smart about how she
does this and like the rain because she
knows if the rain hits him She's gonna
be able to see him like she's paying
attention to that but just throughout
the whole movie I like really appreciated
like how smart she was about this even
with like house and terrified she was.
She was still
on top of it.
Bronwyn: Yeah,
Emily: Yeah,
Susan: Although she wasn't even
honored a bit with that fire.
Just saying.
Yeah.
Bronwyn: The part when she was up
in the attic too, though, when she
doesn't just like take a picture or
send the phone stuff to herself in
an email or send the phone stuff to
Everyone she knows in an email, you
know, or like something, anything,
you know, that kind of drove me nuts.
I'm like, you have been so focused
on the details, but then having
said that, she was super traumatized
and she did know he was coming up.
So yeah, 6 of 1,
Ben: I wanna say, like, she probably
didn't have time to just, like,
snap a selfie, and I guess maybe on
that Uber ride back, she could've
been, like, going on Instagram and
been like, Fuckin told ya, look
at this invisibility suit I found!
Bronwyn: am right.
Ben: Also, what a fuckin
champ that Uber driver was!
He went all the way to
some fuckin laboratory
mansion, with, like, that man,
like, six stars to that driver.
Emily: Yeah,
Jeremy: in New South Wales, California.
Yeah,
Emily: Vincent Beach.
I didn't know that there
were cliffs over there.
Susan: don't you
Jeremy: cause none of it's
actually filmed in California.
It's filmed in
Emily: I remember, well yeah, there was
that like, last time I was there, I saw
that big house that was like, on a cliff,
Jeremy: The Iron Man house?
Alexis: Yeah, the
Bronwyn: ha.
Alexis: house.
Bronwyn: Okay, so let's go back
to that scene though where Sidney
gets slapped and you guys were all
like, okay, let's make that work.
Okay.
So the only way that works,
cause obviously it doesn't.
Right?
Because Cecilia is too far away.
But, you have a very
emotional scene, right?
And then you have somebody get slapped.
Have you ever been slapped?
Emily: yes,
Jeremy: Yeah.
Bronwyn: It's something,
it's, it's shocking.
Emily: yeah,
Bronwyn: It's shocking.
You're not expecting it.
You're, especially when it's like coming
from somebody you trust and something
like that, you know, she goes down.
She's not seeing, she's
not thinking clearly.
And then she looks up and there is
literally no one else in the room.
Ben: Yeah, no, I'm with
you, I'm with you on
Susan: She got up when she got here.
Ben: No, Cecilia
Bronwyn: Sydney obviously thinks
Cecilia hits her, you know,
Alexis: yeah,
Ben: that, that didn't bother me.
Emily: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah,
Ben: that,
Jeremy: And it just bothers me
on a, from a staging standpoint.
And that like, In the
movie, it could have looked,
Bronwyn: very clear to us that there
was no way that Cecilia could have
Alexis: yeah,
Bronwyn: It had to be staged that way.
Emily: the way that Adrian is
fucking with her is so specific.
To make her sound crazy, like,
literally, like, he is manipulating the
Bronwyn: He is the ultimate
gaslight gatekeep girl boss.
Alexis: Oh, Ultimate Gaslighter,
he literally pretended to be dead.
Like, there's no gaslighting
Jeremy: some Professor
Ben: man Count of Monte Cristo'd himself!
Bronwyn: Right?
Jeremy: I was gonna go with
Charles Xavier, but you know?
Susan: My wife watched about
ten minutes of the film.
It was like the five minutes
before, or, no, it was like...
9 or 10 minutes before Sydney gets
slapped, and she's just sitting there.
She doesn't love these kind of movies
and she's just getting stressed out
and Sydney gets slapped and James comes
in and immediately whisks Sydney away
and my wife just got him and said,
Patriarchy and walked out of the room.
Just got in the
Alexis: I mean, I kind of appreciated
that his first concern was his daughter.
It was like, You know,
Susan: room and had a
conversation like, what the fuck?
You know, like, you just
Alexis: I don't know, if, if my kid said,
hey, this person hit me, I'd be like,
okay, let's get you out.
We'll ask questions.
Like, I don't know, for me,
I'd be like, let's divide
this.
Who knows what's happening.
Emily: I would definitely not leave a
person, I mean, like, whether or not
Sydney was hit by Cecilia, because,
like, I think everybody kind of knows
that Cecilia is so severely traumatized.
That, you know, like, this is
something that could also be.
Bronwyn: Like D.
I.
D.
or,
Emily: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So, so when this happens I feel
like the, the James's reaction is
more reasonable than say, like,
the sister's reaction to the email.
But, you know, the sister's reaction
to the email is a believable
worst case scenario, certainly.
But James you know, also, like,
he could have returned quicker.
Alexis: Yeah.
Emily: but it's really hard, like,
that's another thing is about, like,
the complexity of the relationship with
a sister, there's also the complexity
of how do people deal with someone who
is having a mental breakdown or, you
know, like, cause you hear about it,
you never know what to do about it,
Bronwyn: No, and they're in your space and
she's been in his space for a long time
now like and getting crazier and crazier
and crazier and like he's doing his best
to support her and he's been like and
like this is coming out of nowhere, right?
You know, he's been living his life.
He's been, you know, having a, you
know, single dad a thon with his
daughter and they've been having
obviously a very successful life.
They're both happy and
well adjusted and you know,
Jeremy: we'll say, he does have
to keep up the movie trend of,
Susan: my teenage daughter.
Which I did not understand
the whole sharing the bed with
the teenage daughter thing.
I thought that was a little odd.
Bronwyn: yeah.
I
Jeremy: I
Ben: Uh, yeah,
Jeremy: bet
Alexis: had her own room.
I'm pretty sure she had her own room.
It was just like
Emily: that was, I think, a one
off thing when, like, people
Alexis: Yeah,
Emily: feeling great about
Alexis: cuz it was that not the
night that they had a girl's night.
Emily: Yeah,
Susan: They were about to
go do the girl's night.
I don't know.
It was like, I think they showed it twice.
There was an early one where the
blanket gets pulled off and then there's
another scene of them sleeping together
on a different day and I was like,
strange to me, but I didn't love James.
I'll just be up front
Jeremy: Well, I mean, he has
to keep the, the horror movie
trend of cops being the worst.
Like, cops being absolutely useless.
Alexis: the worst?
Emily: he
Jeremy: He is absolutely useless as a
cop, or as a friend in this case, like
he, you know, he's not a protector
in any way, he doesn't, he like,
he shows up after the guy has like,
already been shot multiple times, like,
Bronwyn: he's a soft place to land,
Jeremy: yeah,
I mean
Bronwyn: Sometimes you need a soft place
Emily: He is that.
He
Bronwyn: He's not the worst, I would
Jeremy: I mean he, I would not say
there's anything soft about that
Bronwyn: he's, he's definitely middling.
Ben: Muscles on muscles!
Emily: the female gaze in this movie,
like every dude that comes through,
like Trevor and James, like every
dude that you see that's like not evil
Bronwyn: I know.
I was gonna lay money on that
this movie was made by a woman,
and I was very surprised.
Jeremy: James
Emily: I was
Jeremy: I don't want to shame
anybody, but very provocatively
for a police officer, he has like,
tight pants and a tight shirt,
Alexis: he's a handsome, handsome
Bronwyn: gonna say, if you have Aldous
Hodge, you have to dress him like that.
Jeremy: he's like, I'm
gonna go solve crimes.
I can't walk too fast, though,
because my pants aren't tight,
Ben: I honestly, when the When I, when
they saw the badge, my first thought
wasn't like, my first thought was like, oh
no, he's a cop, but then my second thought
was like, well maybe he's a stripper cop,
Emily: thinking that he was
like a receptionist cop.
Like he was,
Ben: but the pants
are, I'm like, those pants are so
tight, them got, they gotta be rip
Bronwyn: I was gonna, yeah, stripper cop
would have made a lot of sense, actually.
Emily: So I guess whoever was,
whoever's doing this, the costumes
on this movie, it was like, looked
at these actors and they're, they're
like, okay shrink, shrink, shrink,
Alexis: Yeah
Jeremy: I, I do like the detail of,
like, apparently a, a thing with Michael
Dorman, the brother, is that, like, every,
everything about him is supposed to feel
like it doesn't fit quite right, so they
put him in a suit that's, like, two sizes
too small for him which is, like why he's
the one character in this, you're like,
what the fuck is wrong with this guy?
I
Alexis: yeah, he's not
tailored property properly.
He doesn't know what he's doing.
Jeremy: Yeah, and I mean, that guy's
not, that guy's not poorly built.
He was in the show Patriot on which,
what, Starz Showtime or something?
Where he's, you know, a fairly
buff action hero y kind of guy.
So like, you know, he's just, he is very
much leaning into this very punchable
character that he's playing in this movie.
And in a way that's usually
reserved for people who are X
Game, Game of Thrones stars.
Ben: Ew.
Susan: I love the jellyfish line.
Alexis: Oh
Bronwyn: line was spectacular.
Ben: Oh my god, that was so good.
I thought she was also gonna throw
in, after no spine, I thought
she was gonna say no brains too,
just for like, extra insult.
Emily: because jellyfish do have a brain.
Ben: Do they?
I thought
Emily: I think it's,
Ben: have brains.
Emily: I'm pretty sure they have
brains, some of them have brains.
I think it's like the same as their
heart or something, I don't know.
They're like inside out.
Bronwyn: I think they wear
their brains on their tummy.
So.
Ben: are their
Alexis: should know nothing about
ocean life, it is terrifying.
Ben: yo, their brains are their
hearts and that is why jellyfish
are the most emotionally
balanced creatures in the ocean.
Susan: There you go.
There you go.
Emily: Yeah.
Ben: You ever seen a jellyfish
not just be chill and flowing?
Knows what's up.
Head and heart, same deal.
Bronwyn: you haven't been stung by
jellyfish on the beach in the east coast.
Jeremy: Yeah.
Ben: Yeah, but they're not going out
and doing that on their own, they're
just flowing by and if you flow by them,
they're just gonna do their stingy stings.
Alexis: just getting dragged in by storms.
Bronwyn: Yeah.
Ben: Yeah!
Jeremy: My dude, this food is really big.
Ah, no, it's not stopping.
Yeah, that's, that's
Bronwyn: Call the rest of the fleet.
Jeremy: that's how they roll.
I wanna shout out as we're like winding
down on this, the beginning of this
movie, both like the opening credits and
just the way we're sort of dropped into
the middle of this circumstance and you
just sort of figure out what's going on.
Yeah.
By the way, Elizabeth Moss is acting.
But like the opening credits, I, this is
one of the only like real special effects,
digital special effects in the movie
where the, water is rushing up onto the
rocks and as it splashes, you can see the
title and then it disappears again, is
like, that's like, that's good usage of
Alexis: so inspired.
Emily: Yeah.
Bronwyn: this is how you
make a monster movie.
This,
Emily: Yeah.
Bronwyn: this was a monster movie.
Alexis: yeah, absolutely.
Jeremy: Yeah.
Susan: It's so funny though, like
the references back to HG Wells,
because in preparation for watching
the movie, I actually listened to
the original Invisible Man again,
and there's nothing in connection.
Other than the title, there's nothing
that connects this film with that book.
I mean, other than the concept of some
Bronwyn: yeah.
Susan: guy, you know,
turns himself invisible.
I mean, it's a completely different
story and what's funny is it's so like
the thing that about this movie that
was so good was, you know, kind of like
how present it is, you know, like that.
I'm sure that people back when
they read the invisible man
thought, oh, this is really scary.
It's hysterical.
Like the guy says, I'm the invisible man.
I'm invisible.
I'm an invisible man like 20, 000 times.
They call me the invisible
man throughout the thing.
And it's a really interesting
commentary on society.
And it's actually very good.
And so this, you know, like I was thinking
about How they used it, how they use this
film to comment on our society, right?
And the use of, like, the, all of
the video, all of the, you know, the,
she's under surveillance all the time.
Her wife, before that was
being under surveillance.
And then this way that, you know, she.
When you think about it of her as,
like, this woman who's been isolated,
she has become invisible to the, at
the beginning of the movie, right?
She is an invisible woman, right?
She is, nobody sees her.
Nobody knows anything about her.
She is lost to the world.
Right?
And then she kind of comes back in this.
And then, you know, she finds
her power again, it becoming
invisible and using that
Ben: this...
Susan: so good,
Ben: Oh, I love it.
The ending of this movie, like,
should just be, like, a big
poster where it's just the Lucille
Bluth Arrested Development.
Good for her,
Alexis: Yeah, seriously.
Emily: Yeah.
Bronwyn: Okay, but shout out to
Zeus, because that poor dog has
the biggest abandonment issues.
Ben: Oh my god, did this invisible
motherfucker abandon his dog?
I know the guy's...
One of the worst vi This guy is
legitimately like, while just being
non existent for most of the movie,
invisible, like, is one of the most
terrifying villains I've ever encountered.
Bronwyn: like, she, okay, so she
sets the dog free at the beginning,
Alexis: Mm
Emily: Yeah,
Bronwyn: but doesn't take him with her.
But then she comes back to the house,
and Zeus is mysteriously there,
Susan: He doesn't take him with her.
Bronwyn: take him with her.
And she comes back to the house
again, and Zeus saves her ass.
Ben: the first two times, she
is running away from the house.
Emily: that's true.
Bronwyn: there's a big ass dog.
You take the big ass dog,
Emily: I mean, I, if I was her after
that, I'd be like, I would buy, I
would adopt, like, seven big ass dogs.
Alexis: Yeah,
Ben: the dog was extremely helpful in
sniffing out where Adrian was during the
Emily: an owner of the big ass dog,
Jeremy, do you want to chime in?
Jeremy: That dog's definitely
chipped so like, you can't take
him with you if you're trying to
hide from the person who owns him
Susan: the only way
Jeremy: but yeah, like,
Susan: Yeah, good point, fine.
She's feeding him!
Was Adrian living in the house?
I assume so.
Bronwyn: Maybe, yeah,
Jeremy: Adrian leaves presumably
at the, like, at the end of the
two weeks when he frames him,
when he pretends that he's dead.
and goes and lives at her house in her
attic, or at James's house in her attic.
And as far as we know, does not
leave, does not go back to the house
to help the dog, to feed the dog.
I don't know, maybe shitty brother
Tom is, is popping in to feed the
dog, being a dog of sorts himself.
So like, you know, we, as far as we
know, nobody is looking after and
feeding that dog, despite the fact
that he has retrieved the dog and
put him back in the house because he
won't let go of anybody or anything.
He has to be in control
of all of this stuff.
Yeah, I think, that works,
that detail works really well.
And I think the, to Susan's point, I think
it's interesting that like it is sort
of, based on the book, but not really.
And then, you know, you have the James
Whale movie in between, which is also sort
of based on the book more so than this,
but also, That's where I think this takes
a lot of its inspiration is the James
Whale movie, which is much more you know,
about, about what a horrible sociopath
this man becomes when he is invisible.
Bronwyn: Conceptually, like, it's
just, can we use invisibility as a
tool to reflect on our society, right?
Susan: Yeah.
Jeremy: you know, he was hired by
Universal Studios to write a monster
movie under a thing that they own,
which is the name The Invisible Man.
So that's what it's called.
It could have been called Hollow
Man, but that movie sucks.
Emily: That's a different one.
Bronwyn: Yeah.
Emily: I don't know if it would
have the same, like, I don't
know, I don't think it would
Jeremy: doesn't have the gravitas.
Emily: yeah.
yeah.
Jeremy: Once you've seen Invisible
Kevin Bacon fondle a woman
Bronwyn: Yeah.
Jeremy: that, I don't know how many
people have seen Hollow Man, but
that one stuck with me because they
definitely do a whole, like, visual
effects thing of a man, of an invisible
man feeling up a woman's boob in that
movie, and that is not necessary.
Emily: No, there's a couple, there's,
yeah, I've seen a couple of those movies
that have an invisible, like, a visible
hand on the, on a boob, and I'm like,
Bronwyn: No, the, the one thing this movie
is amazing in a lot of ways, and I really
liked a lot of the attention and detail,
and I really liked the attention to, sort
of, as I said, the dichotomy between the
small and large violences and everything
like that, but I especially liked the fact
that it was not gratuitous in that sense.
Like, this was very female gaze.
As opposed to male gays, which you get a
lot in monster and horror movies, right?
Like,
Ben: like I said, that
there is no sexual assault.
It is...
Entirely in the realm of, which is, you
know, violence and incredible, really
psychological assault in a way that,
like, I've never really seen this.
Bronwyn: it's gendered
violence, but it's not sexual.
Emily: Well, not on screen.
Bronwyn: Yes,
Alexis: I'm not on the screen.
Emily: But
Bronwyn: it is implied.
Yeah.
Emily: Yeah, it's very much
implied and also like the whole
you know, having the baby.
And also,
Ben: Ugh, not unlike a xenomorph.
Emily: well,
that's
Jeremy: was secretly on, she was
secretly on pill, on the pill, and
that he was switching out her pills.
To make sure that, you know, she could
get pregnant, even though she was,
Bronwyn: What a violation.
Upon violation, upon violation.
Oh
Ben: Ugh, oh,
Jeremy: Yeah, Adrienne's, without
question, the fucking worst.
Bronwyn: Yes.
Ben: think what's...
I think what makes it so
terrifying, feels so real, and
so inescapable is the pettiness.
Like, I feel like this would be less
scary if it was like, an invisible demon.
Who's like, I'm a demon from hell
doing demon haunting you things.
That like, it is, that it is just...
A human being who very much
exemplifies the worst of what
humans are capable of, or would be
capable with, invisibility suits.
Emily: Yeah.
Ben: Like, that it is just like,
this is what a sociopathic narcissist
is willing to do to terrorize
and get back a ex girlfriend who
has insulted his sense of self.
Bronwyn: I think the invisibility
suit here just works to show kind
of as a physical thing as a thing
in a movie, a prop in a movie.
It just works to show the,
what humans are capable of when
they do not have consequences.
Right?
Which is effectively what we see, you
know, today with, in our society with
things like, you know, millionaires
and billionaires and blah, blah,
blah, but also, you know, like the
patriarchy and, you know, like cishet
white guys and like, you know, just
anybody with that power dynamic who
is willing to take advantage of it.
Emily: Yeah.
Well, I mean, this is, these are things,
he's doing things with the suit that
he would be doing anyway, but just
less, like, insidious in terms of,
like, just making somebody look crazy.
Bronwyn: That happens all
the time without a suit.
Emily: Yeah.
Yeah.
So I feel like it's, I think it was cool
because the suit was sort of secondary,
like the invisibility, the invisible, the
titular invisible man was secondary to
the fact that it wasn't just this guy, it
was a guy taking advantage of the system.
And that's, that was like the real
horror of the situation is, and
you could, that was what hit me.
And I think that's the most
traumatizing thing about the movie.
Is that he is taking advantage of the
system to, in such a way to perfectly
make her look insane and, you know,
you see the situation through her eyes,
but you also see the context of that.
And how fucked she is, you know, just
from being in the situation when.
The, like, the dude is doing
things bad and people have seen
the dude do things bad and they
just don't want to be involved.
Right.
Like,
Bronwyn: step of the way,
you know, it's not her
Emily: yeah,
Bronwyn: and you still
can't figure out a way
Emily: yeah, like,
Bronwyn: work around this.
Like,
Emily: yeah, like, I'm, you know, I was
working around like, okay, well, she
would, her end game is to prove that he
has this suit and that he exists, you
know, and like, on, on when he's going
through the hall of the cops, I could
believe it was still him because he's
such a narcissist that, you know, that
was how, like, extreme things could
get, but he could also, you know, there
are people through narcissists out
there, Just look at Elon Musk's fucking
Twitter, and I won't call it X, it's
fucking Twitter, and like, the kind of
shit he says on there that everybody
sees, you know, he's not, talking about,
like, going into a visibility suit,
gaslighting people, at least not the
invisibility suit part, but like, the
shit that he does in plain da I mean,
anyway you know, and I think, like, I have
a lot of emotions about it but I think
it's smart.
I think it's smart.
I think it's just, I think it was a
really cool move for the adaptation,
and I also think that it's what you
said, Bronwyn, about the invisible
woman, like how she's, you know,
Bronwyn: Susan.
Yeah.
Emily: to her friends and family and
She, and I'm sure that she was the
object, like, there was a lot of drama
there, but you know, no matter who
she is and no matter who she's, like,
with, the, she's gonna have to deal
with that kind of obscurity, like,
these are things that the Invisible
Man in, like, a previous Invisible Man
movie, these would be things that would
be sort of, like, a minor offense.
You know, we would be seeing these
things kind of sort of hinted at like,
you know, Kevin Bacon fondling a tit
because at that point it was comedy.
Like, you know, the assault
of a woman was comedy.
Ben: Fuckin Revenge of the Nerds, anyone?
Emily: yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Like fucking 16 candles.
Like,
Bronwyn: Yeah, exactly.
Emily: you know, and that's, you
know, within my lifetime, you know,
so like the I think this was a really
smart thing for the movie to focus on.
And I think that it.
Executed a lot of these ideas
and concepts in a smart way.
Bronwyn: Yeah.
Emily: And, you know, even with Emily
being a source of contention that's,
Emily's actually, Emily's don't, I
don't, I haven't known a lot of Emily's
that have been sources of contention.
I'm sure I've been sources of contention
for people, but that's because I
am a very opinionated about anime.
Bronwyn: You're delightful.
Emily: Thank you.
Susan: All Emilies kick
ass and are the best.
Emily: Oh, thank you.
Thank you very much.
So you yeah Also,
Jeremy: Yeah, yeah, so I feel like we've
discussed quite a bit sort of sideways the
ways in which this movie is is feminist.
It does deal quite a bit with class as it
relates to their relationship and the ways
in which people of a higher class can sort
of cut you off from the rest of the world.
I, I think the only, the way, the only
way it doesn't do anything particularly,
well, it doesn't do anything particularly
meaningful in the question of queer
relationships or LGBTQ people at all.
But it's, you know, it's already
juggling a lot at that point and
it does at least have Black people.
Black people do exist in this world
uh, even if, the only representation
they have is a, a bad police officer.
Bronwyn: I mean, Storm
Reid was really cute.
I liked her.
Jeremy: yeah, Storm Breed's
Susan: dog had some gumption.
I
Bronwyn: Yeah,
Susan: you know,
Bronwyn: she kicked ass
with the pepper spray.
That was pretty cool.
I liked that.
Susan: and the
Ben: how do okay, we're talkin
about the suit, I'm glad you
brought up the pepper spray.
Cuz, the pen doesn't go fully
go through the suit, but the
pepper spray did seem to go fully
Jeremy: I mean, he has to be able
to breathe, so there has to be some
sort of, of passage through there.
Bronwyn: that's a good point.
Yep.
And pepper spray is extreme.
Ben: You know what, I'm gonna go on
Susan: this project too
much, it's not going to work.
Ben: I'm gonna go on the record and say
this point I brought up Doesn't matter.
Bronwyn: nice.
Emily: yeah, because if
Susan: I thought it was good.
Emily: yeah, anyone who sprays pepper
spray in a movie, when they spray
something, pepper spray at somebody,
that still means it's in the air.
So everybody within like a 20
foot radius of that pepper spray
is going to have a real bad time.
Bronwyn: Yeah.
Anybody who's done any canning
of any spicy, you know,
salsa or anything like that.
Emily: anyone to cut an onion,
Yeah.
Like,
Bronwyn: Yeah.
Emily: I would love to see one of these
movies where someone, like, pepper sprays
somebody, and then they come away, and
then, you know, and they're like, They're
like, I'm so happy that you're alive.
Are you okay?
Are you, you're upset?
Uh, And they're like,
no, no, no, I'm fine.
Just fucking pepper
Jeremy: pepper spray in
an enclosed environment.
Bronwyn: capsaicin is not a good time.
Emily: Yeah.
Susan: Spray it and then run through it.
Emily: Yeah.
Yeah.
That's why whenever you are
attacked, if you're gonna be pepper
sprayed, spray it, throw it, run it.
Scan.
with if you're mugged for
anything, you throw it.
don't give it, you throw it.
Bronwyn: That's a good idea.
Emily: Yeah.
Bronwyn: There you go.
Emily: If you disarm somebody with a
knife, if you don't keep it, you throw it.
Bronwyn: And if you don't know
how to use a knife, don't keep it.
You're so much more likely
to get chopped, sliced.
Yeah.
It's not gonna, it's not
gonna be a good time.
Don't do that.
No.
Emily: Definitely want to, like, if
you get a weapon and you don't know
how to do it, throw it as far as you
can in the opposite direction and run.
Anyway, these
Jeremy: so we don't recommend Knives,
but do we recommend this movie?
Bronwyn: Yeah.
Ben: Aw, fuck yes, this Look, whenever
we get around to our new Next Rankings
episode, I feel pretty confident saying
this is gonna find a home in the top ten.
Emily: Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
This
Bronwyn: is so good.
Susan: Yeah.
Jeremy: is, it is definitely up there.
I think there's really like, Leigh
Whannell has only really directed
like two movies before this.
Like the second or third Insidious
movie, and then Upgrade, and I think,
like, I mean, he's written lots of
stuff, he's written lots of Saw and
Insidious and whatever, but, like,
this, I think, is a great exhibition
of, like, what a good director he is,
Bronwyn: Yeah.
Emily: Yeah, absolutely.
Also, I like the boire.
There was some good boire in this movie.
At first I was like, is this
Denis Villeneuve or whatever?
But no, it's, it's just good use of boire.
It's the soundtrack because at
the beginning it's like, boire.
You know, I'm always into that.
Like, whenever a movie starts
going, boire, I'm like, hey,
Bronwyn: Amazing.
I love that.
That's an incredible use of onomatopoeia.
Thank you.
Emily: Thank you.
Susan: it.
Jeremy: and Christopher
Nolan loves that stuff,
Emily: oh yeah,
Christopher, that's.
Jeremy: Michael Bay's a big goirer, oh,
Emily: Michael Bay is, he
overuses it because there's
too much other shit going on.
Like you can't have the boar and
like have a bunch of explosions
cause you don't notice the boar,
Bronwyn: This is a perfect
Ben: you must always be spinning
the camera, too, in Michael Bay.
Always spinning!
Emily: Yeah.
Jeremy: Michael Bay, Michael Bay,
there's a lot of, like, goires that are,
like, actually part of the movie, you
know, they're like narrative bars, the
sound that various Transformers make.
And
Emily: yeah.
Which is an abusive boar.
Jeremy: yeah, unless it's a very, very
large laser, it shouldn't make that sound.
Emily: Yeah.
Or a Gundam.
If you have a Gundam, but
Bronwyn: I mean,
Emily: a boar every so often.
Jeremy: Yeah.
Emily: Gundam is not always boar, why
Bronwyn: no, but
Emily: should you?
Jeremy: now we don't recommend
Michael Bay, but what do we want to
recommend for people who are looking
to enjoy this, enjoy some more films
after what they've watched here?
Ben: Oh, jeez, well, I mean, if
you wanna see more Elizabeth Moss
and gendered violence, I mean, you
got six seasons of Handmaid's Tale.
Emily: And Mad Men.
Jeremy: Who doesn't need more
gendered violence after this?
Bronwyn: Me.
Emily: I'm good.
Jeremy: You hit your limit
Ben: Uh, if you want something...
wildly different I recommend Barbie.
Bronwyn: Seconded.
Can confirm.
Jeremy: Sorry, did you say Ken
Emily: I haven't.
Ben: Kahn, confirm.
Bronwyn: I did.
Thank you.
Yes,
Jeremy: Ken.
Bronwyn: because I am can up.
Jeremy: Ken confirm.
Emily: but we're not being paid enough.
Bronwyn: That's true.
Jeremy: Nobody is.
That's why Ken's on strike.
Emily: Bless him.
Jeremy: Okay.
So, Ben recommends Barbie.
Emily, what do you have to recommend
Emily: I was going to say yellow
jackets if you want to have
more of this.
Jeremy: more of this?
Emily: just this except with less, like,
Specifically, I mean, there's a lot
going on in yellow jackets, but it's
a lot more empowering for the ladies.
And this has nothing to do with
this movie, but I just recently
rediscovered an animated program that
may have come from across the sea.
it's called Princess Jellyfish.
So when she was talking about
jellyfish, this reminded me of her.
But it's really cute and wholesome
and it's like incredibly, like, it's
about a girl who's trying to find
herself and she she becomes a fashion
designer with a guy who is going
through the steps of a transition.
You know, I haven't seen that there's
like a couple live action versions
of it that I haven't seen, but the
version that I saw is like from 2014
and so I'm really interested to see
how the story handles trans issues.
But anyway, also feminists.
And very wholesome, so it's a good
chaser for something like this.
Available on Funimation and
Bronwyn: excellent.
Jeremy: Bronwyn, do you
have anything to recommend?
Bronwyn: I'm shocking everyone.
I'm sure I will recommend a book.
Jeremy: Not a
Bronwyn: I.
I think that if you want sort of
similar vibes Iron Widow, by Shirin J.
Zhao, that is just oh my god, as
far as I'm concerned, that should
be required reading in high school.
Like, that is, it just is freaking
spectacular, but the rage in that
is Glorious, and often cathartic,
and deeply relatable content, and,
Emily: yeah,
Bronwyn: but also sci fi,
and exciting, and Gundams.
So,
Jeremy: If you enjoyed the end
of this film, I think you will
very much enjoy Iron Widow.
Bronwyn: oh, oh yeah, uh huh, uh huh,
uh huh, I cannot recommend it enough,
like, oh my god, all of the stars.
If you want a palette cleanse well,
my, my personal comfort genre is,
because I am Canadian and queer as
fuck, Gay hockey romance novels, so I
have a huge list if anybody wants one.
Alexis: Okay.
Jeremy: A huge list.
All right.
Susan, what about you?
Susan: Well, let's see, I think if you
want to go further on the Elizabeth
Moss front, I think top of the lake.
That's where I saw her 1st and
that was a freaking amazing show.
Currently, what we just finished
watching Dark winds the 2nd season,
which is really freaking good.
And the 2nd season has a pretty
awesome psychopathic murderer guy.
So, you know, if you want your good
Aryan looking dude, getting the
crap kicked out of him a couple
of times, that's the one for you.
But it's actually a very
well produced series.
I don't know if anybody else is
watching it, but it's really well done.
Bronwyn: Nice.
Jeremy: Fantastic.
And Alexis, what about you?
Alexis: I am gonna second Yellowjackets
because it is absolutely incredible and
I am obsessed with this like one face
scene that they have in the second season
and I feel like everyone should watch it.
And then...
Just because I've been obsessed with
the show as a chaser to all of this
just fun, fun horror is a series
called Vampires Die in No Time.
It's on Funimation.
It is just a feel good show about
this vampire that lives with a
vampire hunter and it is perfect
and everyone should watch it.
Vampires Die in No Time.
Draw a Luke, Funimation, or Crunchyroll.
Drawluk is the vampire, and he is
purple, and he has a Transylvanian accent
Bronwyn: Nice.
Alexis: in the dubbed
version, and it is perfection.
So yeah, watch Yellowjackets,
chase it with the vampires.
Emily: does he sound like, Griffin
McElroy doing like three, like the
triple Draculas up here, or a drople
Alexis: little bit, a little bit,
and it's great, and he looks like
the Count, so it's fantastic.
Emily: Ah!
Well, it's purple!
Alexis: Yeah,
Bronwyn: I, I just, you know, the
thing that got me into yellow jackets
was I saw a tweet about soccer.
I love soccer.
And now we have, to have a gender
neutral soccer show because we have,
found out what happens when men play
soccer with Ted Lasso, and it's crying.
And we found out what happens
when women play soccer, and it's
yellow jackets, and it's murder.
So, no, we need gender neutral soccer.
Alexis: that in between.
It's also just such a gay show.
I love everything about it.
Bronwyn: Right?
Emily: Yeah.
Justice for Coach.
Bronwyn: Justice for Coach.
Jeremy: yeah, I, I just finished
watching the third season of Ted Lasso
and that's, it's that one is solidly
good all the way through, really.
But that's not that's neither here
or there with what I'm recommending
because I did want to keep on the
trend of recommending things that
people in this movie have also done.
If you like Storm Reed and you have not
watched The Last of Us, she is in one
extraordinary episode of The Last of Us.
There's a couple of single extraordinary
episodes of The Last of Us.
I just can't recommend that show enough.
The game is, is good, but the movie
takes the best parts, or the show
takes the best parts of the game and
really ups, ups the ante on them a bit.
So she's great in that.
If you want a little more Oliver
Jackson Cohen, you'd want to see him
suffer in a way that makes you sad.
The haunting shows of
Ben: Oh, yes, he's so good in
Jeremy: Hunting of Hill House and Hunting
of Bly Manor, especially Hill House.
That one is a rough one for him.
He goes through some shit in that show.
So, yeah, you gotta
check those out for sure.
And the one thing that I have been
reading this week, I took my kids to
the library last week and got a couple
of books of my own, and have been
reading the graphic novel collection
of a comic called What If We Were which
is A fantastic, like, webcomic style
story about two female friends who are
who play this game called What If We
Were, where one of them comes up with a
scenario and they sort of take that to the
furthest extreme of what they would do.
And it's, it is sort of a slice of
life thing with a lot of, like, journal
entries and, and stuff from their lives
and there's a little, you know, romance
subplot with one of the girls and her.
The girl she has a crush on.
So like that's, that is really fantastic.
And I believe it's up for
some awards this award season.
So, definitely worth checking out as well.
It's that's a good one.
Also Canadian.
So, you know.
Bronwyn: Yay!
Alexis: hmm.
Mm hmm.
Jeremy: believe that one is right
up your alley, especially Bronwyn.
I think everybody on this, this
group would really like that.
Emily: It looks cute.
It's heck.
Like, I'm looking it up right now.
Jeremy: yeah, it's, it's very cute.
Very fun to read.
It's an easy read.
I've gone straight from that
to On a Sunbeam, which is
not quite as easy to read.
And very long.
So, that's the recommendations
from all of us.
Before we wrap this up, why don't
we let people know where we can
find out more about you guys, where
they can follow you online and find
out more about what you're doing.
Bronwyn, do you want to start?
Bronwyn: You can pretty much find me on
all the things social at shinybabybee,
the dying heap that is Twitter,
Instagram, Blue Sky, all the things.
And you can find me on ThirstyOnToon.
We're in the Talking Comics feed.
You can occasionally find me on Talking
Comics itself, haranguing all of the guys.
So,
Jeremy: They gotta be
harangued occasionally.
Bronwyn: I think so.
I think it's an important function.
Emily: hit Bronwyn up for
that list of gay hockey.
Bronwyn: Oh, it's so long.
I, I have read probably hundreds.
Jeremy: I'm curious how the gender
breaks down on those, really, the gay
hockey books and how many of them are
female gay hockey stories and how many
of them are male gay hockey stories.
Bronwyn: I mean, it's
probably like a 90 10.
Alexis: Mm
Jeremy: Hmm.
Bronwyn: Yeah, but like, it's 90 10
fictional and it's the other 90 10 in
real life because hockey is the gateway
to the queer community in my life.
Emily: Thing.
Jeremy: don't know of any queer women
that like hockey or lacrosse or rugby.
Susan, what about you?
Where can people catch up with you online?
Susan: Good gosh, I don't
even know these days.
You know, mostly I'm over on
my Substack these days, that's
where I'm posting the most.
So, you can find me, Susan
Benville at Substack, or the name
of my Substack is Swirling Words.
Posting some webcomics up there, and
also some personal essays, and just
definitely writing about writing.
Which is a lot easier than
actually just writing.
So, that's what I'm up to.
Jeremy: Fantastic.
And Alexis, what about you?
Alexis: Yeah, so you can find me on
Twitter, Instagram, other things.
It's LANEXGEEKS.
That's pretty much...
the spot.
And if you want to actually
follow me personally, which
there's not much going on, it's
Rexis92 on all the things as well.
Jeremy: Fantastic.
And Emily, where can
people follow you online?
Emily: I am at Megamoth on
Twitter, Blue Sky, Tumblr, Patreon.
megamoth.
net and mega underscore moth on Instagram.
Jeremy: Word.
And Ben, what about yourself?
Ben: Yeah, you can always
find me at benkahncomics.
com.
Find me on...
Still on Twitter, at BenTheKahn, and
definitely sign up for my newsletter
Pros and Con, on SubstackOf, which
just monthly newsletter about news
updates, new announcements, and
some little looks at old books, so,
check it out, that'll be coming out
monthly, until I, for, I get too tired.
Bronwyn: and Kahn, I just,
Emily: Yes, it's, it's
really good, I have to tell
Susan: Yeah, that is good.
Ben: Thank ya.
Jeremy: It's very good.
As for me, you can find me at jroom58
on Twitter and Instagram and at
JeremyWhitley on BlueSky and Tumblr.
Also my website, jeremywhitley.
com it's desperately in need of an update.
But, in lieu of updating it you can
check out this November, the second book
of School for Extraterrestrial Girls is
coming out with me and Jamie Noguchi, and
then in February, I have The Cold Ever
After coming out from Titan with me and
Megan Wong, and even as we speak, The
miniseries I did called The Unicorn of
Odd, which is a my little ponies retelling
of the wizard of Oz is coming out and will
be through the end of the year, so you
can definitely check that out as well.
Some good old, old
fashioned my little pony.
Fun.
As for the podcast itself,
it's progressively horrified,
doist fm and prog horror pod.
on Twitter.
And we'd love to hear from you.
We would love for you to rate
and review the podcast wherever
you're listening to it right now.
Giving us five stars helps us
find more people, which helps us
make more podcasts, which really
benefits you if you think about it.
Bronwyn: I like it.
Jeremy: again to all of
our guests for joining us.
Bronwyn, Susan, Alexis,
it's been a great time.
We're so glad to get to
watch this movie with you.
Bronwyn: Yay, thank you
so much for having us.
Ben: for coming on, y'all.
Susan: I'm slightly less traumatized.
Bronwyn: Exactly.
Emily: We
are not sponsors, we are
not sponsored by Lyft.
Bronwyn: Anyway, fair.
Although, Lyft, us a call.
Emily: Yeah, I mean,
Jeremy: we are not, but could
be sponsored by Lyft, you know.
Emily: yeah.
Jeremy: Join us next week as we are
continuing our, our new spin on old
stuff by following a particular film that
Emily chose for her birthday this year.
We will be talking about a Shin Godzilla.
See you then until next time.
Stay horrified.