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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: You were possessed as well.
Emily: yeah.
But uh, I got better.
Greg: Well, uh I'm glad that
you don't, you don't usually
come out of uh, possessions.
Feeling better.
Emily: Well, I mean, it depends
on how you treat your demon right?
Greg: Yeah.
Jeremy: got that pea soup
spit out and just kept going.
Emily: yeah.
Well, my demon likes pea soup, also has
a little bit of oyster crackers with it.
And so my demon did not have
the uh, compulsion to expel it.
Greg: Mm.
That'll do it.
Jeremy: Good evening and welcome to
Progressively Horrified, the podcast
where we hold horror to progressive
standards it never agreed to.
Tonight we're talking about the movie
I said I never wanted to talk about
when we first started this podcast.
That's right.
It's finally time to
talk about Hereditary.
I am your host Jeremy Whitley.
And with me tonight I have a
panel of cinephiles and cenobites.
First, they're here to challenge the
sexy werewolf, sexy, vampire binary.
My co-host Ben Khan.
Ben, how are you tonight,
Ben: Holy fuck.
Is this a better Alex
Wolff movie than old?
Jeremy: I will say I totally
forgotten that he was in both of these
movies and then I was like him up.
I was like, surely this boy has
been in some other good movies,
cuz he's quite good in this film.
And I was like, oh, okay.
what a difference a makes.
Greg: If you want a better Alex
Wolff movie than old I recommend Pig.
Jeremy: I did see that he was in Pig.
I haven't seen that yet.
And uh, the Cinnamon Roll of Cenobites,
also with us, our co-host, Emily Martin.
How are you tonight?
Emily
Emily: Mad
Jeremy: I hear you.
I'm with you.
And our guest tonight, our good friend,
writer, and comics critic, Greg Silber.
Greg, how are you?
Greg: I am doing all right, and
I, I am aware that I am the one
uh, you all should be bad at right
now because this was my idea,
Jeremy: I mean,
Emily: you helped us pull the bandaid
off and I was mad at this movie before
you had anything to do with this podcast.
It's okay.
Greg: Good.
Good.
Well,
Jeremy: yeah, I have strong feelings
about this movie, which I felt like meant
we needed to talk about at some point,
because it is much more like interesting
to talk about as far as what values it
has, what progressive stuff it addresses,
the way it talks about mental health and
the way it deals with women in this movie.
Then a lot of the movies we talk
about whether we all come down
on the same side of that or not
Emily: Yeah.
Ben: I mean, I do think this movie
does address the important issue of
teaching audiences the difference
between Ann Dowd and Margo Martindale.
So I'm glad it raised away.
I'm glad.
Look, I'm glad for anything that
raises just Ann Dowd like awareness.
Jeremy: yeah who knew they needed
a spooky Ann Dowd, you know?
And that's uh, not a thing I saw.
Ben: Oh, I honestly , any movie
could use a spooky Ann Dowd.
Jeremy: Yeah, I will say if you have
not seen this movie yet and you plan
on watching it and you're listening
to us talk about it, there's not a
ton to spoil about it because it is
kind of a weird, windy movie, but like
Ben: That's a lie.
Jeremy: it is sonically unpleasant
if that makes a difference to you.
They have taken that Hitchcock trick
of playing bees in the background
and moved it up to this level of like
constant sound of a dryer with shoes
in it going on in the background.
like, this must be what it's
like to be the master on Dr.
Who cause there's just this constant sound
of drums the whole time in the background.
Just boom, boom, boom.
Ben: it definitely captures
that, like unnerving shit.
Solo key, just vaguely.
The vibes are fucked.
Effect of the lavender town music.
When you go play Pokemon in red and blue,
Emily: Lavender time music is delightful
Ben: that song is fucking haunted.
Emily: it is what it's compared to this.
It's delightful.
Like it has a major key like hook in it.
Ben: it is the second most
horror movie element of Pokemon.
You know, second only to the part whose,
body count of children sent to the
hospital would put most slashers to shame.
Greg: yeah, I haven't played
uh, the original Pokemon since
I was about seven years old.
So, I'm going to have to look
that up after we finish recording
Emily: Yeah.
it's a total Bob.
I love it.
Ben: It's a real innovator in
like dissonant sounds like things
hitting your left and right
ears at the different beats.
It's a whole creepy thing.
Emily: Yeah.
Ben: articles about it.
Emily: All I know is that the music is
a lot less scary in a lavender town.
If you just go, oh.
Stinky.
Oh, stinky.
And then it's fine.
Jeremy: well, there's A lot of things, oh.
Stinky about hereditary.
Emily: Oh, sure, sure
Ben: oh, this movie is reason of why
smell-o-vision should never be a thing.
Emily: I mean, the vibes
by themself are rancid.
Like
this movie exudes flies.
Jeremy: I didn't quite put my finger on
it the first time I watched this movie,
but like, watching it over like the sound
bar this time and like having good sound
coming out in the fact that like, I can
hear audibly, that constant noise in
the background that's like there to set
you off and make you feel uncomfortable.
Like this movie gave me a
headache to watch for a while.
I was just like, it's like,
oh, is this a creepy scene?
it must be because it's
playing that noise in the
Ben: they're all a creepy scene.
There's no non-creepy scenes.
Jeremy: Yeah.
I mean, to Ari Aster's credit
that's what he's trying to do is,
is elicit a reaction from you.
And it certainly like, makes
me feel things, they're not
necessarily things I want to feel,
Ben: this movie has a smell and it's a
combination of paint thinner and rotting.
Grandma corpse.
Emily: Wow.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It really is.
Or like glue.
Greg: yeah, a lotta glue.
Ben: Okay, what is Annie's job?
Emily: She makes miniatures.
Ben: Is that a thing you can do?
Just make tiny things?
Jeremy: She's an artist,
she makes miniatures
Emily: Yeah.
She has a deal with the gallery.
Ben: like, at first I thought like, oh,
maybe this is miniature for a movie.
I thought, Ooh, maybe she just
makes high end dollhouses.
But I guess it's just a, gallery where
you go and you look at shit and you're
like, damn, this shit sure is tiny.
Jeremy: and she's making miniatures
of all of, all the horrible shit
that's happened in her life.
Greg: the unsung heroes of this movie,
I, I just gotta say, are the people who
I, I don't know what you call them in the
art world, the people who are paying her
to create this gallery who are being so
patient and so accommodating and so gentle
as they're like, Hey, just checking in.
Um, you know, if we need to push back
the day of the show, that's totally fine.
Emily: Yeah.
Her gallery rep is uh, pretty chill.
Ben: that gallery rep is also
an Ari Aster voice cameo.
Emily: Well, Ari Aster,
I, hope is as chill
Ben: Ari Aster supports, his
creatives uh, in universe and out.
I hope.
Jeremy: I know in Emily's Steph, we will,
we will get into this but I, I really
wanna, beyond the obvious villains of
this movie this movie really, really,
really made me hate Gabriel Byrne a lot.
Who is movie dad slash horror movie
husband who is unsupportive and
also paranoid, but also right, but
also doesn't do anything about it
Ben: It's been a while since we had
like a classic chip and Gabriel Burn.
is that real classic, like, Ugh, you've
become a real drag since our daughter
died and you started seeing ghosts.
Wish you would stop being so
haunted by our dead daughter.
Really bringing down the mood.
Jeremy: like he has the option of
supporting his wife or protecting
his son, and he chooses neither
Emily: Yeah.
And then he blames everyone
else for not doing the thing.
Ben: Just to put on my little,
like, one sentence review hat
before we get into um, the recap.
There's a lot.
I love, there's a lot to dissect.
This is definitely a deep movie with
a lot of interesting things to say.
I do think both the backbone and beating
heart of the movie is a downright Oscar
caliber performance from Tony Coll.
Greg: Absolutely.
Jeremy: yeah.
And I mean the, the kids
not to be discounted either.
They are both really fantastic.
Greg: I think everybody in this movie
is saying incredible performance,
Jeremy: yeah, that's, my one
sentence review is everything about
this movie is great and I hate it.
Greg: Well, I should establish this
before we really get into things.
The reason I recommended, recommended
doesn't feel like the right word.
I suggested we talk about this
movie, is because un ironically,
this is my favorite horror movie.
And that's not because I
Ben: I get
Greg: a,
Ben: get it.
It's great.
Greg: yeah.
And it's not, it's not because
I had a great time watching it.
But it really, to me just encapsulates
what is so powerful about horror as a
genre, or at least horror when it leans
so heavily into the raw emotion of fear.
You know, it's not a horror comedy.
This is a rather humorous movie.
This was a movie about exploring the
absolute darkest pits of the human mind
Ben: You say there's no comedy, and yet
the scene of Tony Collette defending,
making a painstaking miniature recreation
of her daughter's death scene and then
going like, I don't see any reason
why my son would be bothered by this.
It's a purely objective.
Emily: This isn't about
Ben: Just purely objective is one of
the funniest things I've ever seen.
Emily: but it's not funny.
Ha ha.
Like we, I
was, you know, there was no
Ben: Aha.
Emily: audience laugh.
Jeremy: oh.
Ben: No, no, not, not
funny haha, but still
deeply funny.
Emily: no.
Yeah.
I mean, like, I feel like there was
a humor singularity that like a naked
singularity shed all of the possible
laughter and just exists as a point
in space where you know that it's
humorous, but you cannot react to it
because it is so dense of a moment
that it is completely devoid of, of
substance because it is beyond the
definition, uh, of the universe.
Ben: I wanna add a laugh track
to this movie just to see
how fucking weird it would
Greg: Oh, well, if you go to
YouTube, someone a a a year or
so ago did cut a trailer as if
it was a quirky family comedy.
And I will send it to you guys
after we finish the discussion.
Emily: Excellent.
Hopefully we'll put, I'll put a pin
in that and hopefully we can post
that when we post the episode, because
that sounds incredibly surreal.
I might like dissociate.
It sounds so surreal,
Jeremy: that's a great lead in to
talking about the plot of this movie,
um, dissociating.
So Emily, take it.
Emily: All right, so we've got
s the director and the writer.
uh, The Stars, Tina Collette, Alex
Wolff, Millie Shapiro, Ann Dowd,
Gabriel Baron, some other people.
All right,
Jeremy: That's uh, Tony
Collette, not Tina Collette.
Emily: Tony, did I say Tina Collette?
Okay, I'm gonna redo that one.
Sorry.
I wrote Tina for, oh, cuz
I was saying Tina Horn.
Okay, so our stars are Tony Collette,
Alex Wolff, Millie Shapiro Ann
Dowd and Gabriel Byon and some
other people, but mostly them.
we begin with an obituary for.
Ellen Taper, 78.
Her daughter, Annie, and her
family attend the funeral.
It is unusually ominous, mostly sonically.
Does this whole movie occur in
a miniature We just don't know.
Annie's daughter.
Charlie is allergic to nuts and has the
most personality of this whole family,
even though sometimes involves upcycling.
found dead animal corpses.
That's okay though because Annie
processes her grief by recreating her
most difficult moments in life into
painstakingly detailed miniatures.
Charlie has trouble processing
the death of her grandma and
she mentions that Ellen, quote
unquote, wanted her to be a boy.
Okay.
Grandma was so normal and totally
isn't haunting Annie or her family
and leaving them haunted books.
Charlie's older brother Peter,
is studying the hero's journey,
smokes weed and is horny.
Just so you know, he also has qualities.
A week after the burial, Ellen's
grave has been desecrated and Annie's
husband is already lying about it.
Annie goes to group therapy for loss and
we find out more about a Annie's family
history of mental illness and abuse.
There's a lot of it hauntings.
Continue for Charlie, as Annie
tries convince Peter to take Charlie
to a teenager party full of loud
music, drugs, alcohol and walnuts.
Charlie doesn't want
to go, but Mom insists.
tells Charlie to eat cake at the
party whilst he distributes weed to
his crush and her friends who dropped
the Aler about Charlie's artwork.
The cake is full of nuts, and
Charlie starts going into shock.
Peter stoned tries to rush her
to the hospital in their car.
Apparently his weed was so damn good that
he forgot that he had a cell phone or
EpiPens, and he also swears in around a
deer in the road and loves Charlie's whole
head off as she's trying to get air and
hits a power pole with some occult on it.
Jeremy: Maybe my least favorite
scene in any movie I've ever
Emily: this is horrifying.
Ben: That
Jeremy: of her asphyxiating in the
back of the car while he is driving is
like, I remembered it from seeing it
before and like started like tearing
up in anticipation of this scene.
I was like,
Ben: I, I have thoughts later on
about the narrative hoops that
this party needs to jump through
in order to get us to this scene.
Emily: Yeah.
The,
Ben: Fucking nothing like a good
walnut chopping at a teen party
Emily: Yeah.
You know, I mean, they, they,
Ben: like you do.
We all just been wild and crazy.
Teenagers just chopping walnuts,
like there's no tomorrow.
Jeremy: A shop that doesn't need to exist.
Like they can tell us that the move
that the pig had nuts in they don't
need to show them cutting up walnuts.
Greg: I I thought it, it was a
pretty effective bit of foreshadowing
the first time I could say that.
Just a shot of shopping
walnuts has been scary.
Emily: I mean, every shot
in this movie is scary.
All right.
So Peter is so traumatized by his own
ineptness that he just drives home
and goes to bed, leaving his sister's
headless corpse in the backseat to
be by his parents in the morning.
It
Ben: was.
Emily: is rough.
This is where we really, this and
the power pole is really where
we start to get the theme of
weird shoot written on the wall.
So now Annie's coping mechanisms
include sleeping in Charlie's
Treehouse with ominous and
totally safe red heating lamps.
While Peter associates on the Reg Annie
destroys, decides to forte group therapy,
but instead she connects with a really
nice, totally normal lady named Joan.
Peter is now very haunted by
Charlie and Annie continues to
have trouble meeting her deadlines.
We learned that Annie Sleepwalks
uh, with the following conversation.
Joan asks, how's your
relationship with your.
Annie responds with a long story about
how she almost emulated him while
sleepwalking very normal Annie's husband.
Steve shows an emotion when he
finds her reconstructing the death
of their daughter as a miniature
complete with little bloody head.
I mean, yeah, they should call up
therapists, but spoilers they don't.
Instead they have an awkward and
upsetting family dinner full of
alternating slouching and yelling.
Annie and Peter blame each
other for Charlie's death.
Hey, at least the family is
finally communicating something.
Annie encounters Joan at not Michael's
and Joan helps Annie process grief.
Grief by showing her the very normal,
very healthy method of conducting seas.
To be fair, this seance is one of
the most unambiguous seances ever
short of a Ghostbuster's film, and
Annie is duly freaked the fuck out.
Annie starts sleepwalking again and
trips out, seeing Peter covered in ants.
Then she randomly admits that
she didn't wanna be his mother,
but she was forced to, I guess,
and, but it was, oh, it a dream.
I guess.
Annie begins to acknowledge how super
fucking haunted they are and tells
everyone in the middle of the night
to get up and we got a wiki house,
some seance shit, and Peter and
Steve were just like, okay, I guess.
And Annie's like, we
gotta do this as a family.
the seance works though.
And now we all know what we saw, though.
We're not sure if Annie properly recited
the passwords of an amicon, but at
least Peter is traumatized times 20.
But his reflection is having a good time.
And then he tries another coping method,
destroying everything in her workshop.
Everyone in this movie is taking a lot
of pills, but I have not once seen a
psychiatrist prescribing anything to these
people, but they do have a dog sad face.
Jeremy: Gabriel Burn is a psychologist.
That's his job in this movie.
Emily: Oh, I forgot.
But I didn't see him prescribe
anybody with anything or do anything.
Jeremy: yeah.
When he writes, emails, uh, later
on in the movie it is from his
professional psychologist email address.
Emily: Well, he is obviously a shitty one.
Jeremy: He's very bad.
Ben: It was G burnout, psychology, brain.
Emily: Was it?
Jeremy: No.
Ben: No.
No.
It should have been.
Emily: It really should have been.
Annie , very convincingly tells
Peter she would never hurt him.
And then she goes to uh, find Charlie's
book that is super haunted and full of
pictures of dead Peter, and she tries to
throw it on the fire, but she can't burn
the book because when it burns, she burns.
That's weird.
Annie tries to talk to
Joan about this weird shit.
But Joan is not at home.
She has left her spell about Peter
Gasp and Charlie's pigeon head doll
gasp to go harass Peter at school.
She's trying to expel him, but she
hasn't filed the necessary paperwork
with the principal, so she just yells,
I expel you, which is totally normal.
Annie decides to finally
consult a therapist.
Just kidding.
She goes through her mom's old shit
that she had this whole time and finds
her mom's cool coven scrapbook and a
demon summoning ritual highlight on
King Paimon, who is the recurring theme
of uh, this film and his sigil, which
is uh, represented in the wrong way.
Steve Finally tries to write an email to 9
1 1 while Annie discovers more of her mobs
old shit in the house, specifically her
headless body recently exhumed from the
grave and attracting flies in the attic.
Peter Gets possessed and has a
breakdown of class while they're
discussing how punishment brings wisdom
Jeremy: a nose breakdown.
Emily: He has all sorts of breakdowns.
He does a cool dance move and
then uh, slams his head on
the desk and breaks his nose.
It's weird.
Upon coming home, Annie shows
Steve the body in the attic.
Annie starts ranting about her mom
and demons, and Steve says, well,
it was you who exhumed the body.
Wasn.
Jeremy: Definitely you dug up this body
by yourself and got it home, leaving
no sign of having drug, a dead body
through my house and up the attic stairs.
Emily: he's a psychologist.
He
Jeremy: bad
Emily: a degree.
Um,
Jeremy: him on fire.
Emily: well, guess what?
Good
Ben: Oh boy.
Do we have some
Emily: some good news So Annie
begs Steve to throw the book
that burns you back in the fire.
What could go wrong?
Steve has a brain wave and is like, no.
So Annie throws the book in the fire
instead and it still emulates Steve.
Problem solved.
Peter meanwhile, wakes from his
post breakdown nap and walks
around in the dark to weird noises.
Annie's now flying around
and crawling on the walls.
Normal.
Jeremy: This shot of him waking up
and sitting up where she is just
hanging on the wall behind him.
And if you're not paying very close
attention, you just don't even see her.
There is incredible.
Emily: Yeah, you can see movement.
Ben: Oh, we want, she's like hanging
on the roof and like just, oh.
Greg: seeing that in a theater too
where you could gradually start to hear
people go, unbelievable experience.
And then when I rewatched in preparation
for the podcast was my sister, I was
watching her face the entire time during
that scene and she did not notice at.
Emily: Yeah, it's uh, I mean
this movie is made well.
Peter is still waking up though, so he
doesn't notice until after discovering
his dad's burnt corpse and uh, some random
naked people smiling at him from the
dark possessed any attacks him though.
And he runs upstairs like you do
in a horror movie and hides in the
Corps at, it's a cool plan that
aas Annie is already in there.
She's floating and sawing her
own head off with a piano wire.
Upon seeing more naked people,
Peter jumps out the window.
Ben: I mean, it was a
lot of naked old people.
I get it.
It's a lot of elderly nudity.
Emily: I mean like they shouldn't be in
their house especially where there's a
minor, there's a lot to unpack there.
I mean, I do think it's interesting
that he watches his mom's.
Floating body saw itself apart.
And he's like, huh.
Ben: That attic has the highest ceilings.
Emily: listen, that house a wish house.
Ben: my first thought when
the naked people started
showing up was oh, no ghosts.
And then as the movie kept
going, I'm like, oh, just naked
people broke into the house.
I think that's worse.
Emily: Yeah.
Well, it's my buddies.
I was watching it with this time round.
Were asking about cultus and they're
like, are there robed, cultists?
And I was like,
Jeremy: No robes.
Emily: Al, almost.
And then they're like,
Ben: I
Emily: they naked?
And I'm like, yep.
Jeremy: I think the people, the naked
old people in the attic are supposed
to be dead because they're doing
that thing that shows up throughout
the movie of like, whenever there's
like half light in a room, you can
see these like ghosts of, people.
Emily: maybe.
I mean, Joan is one of
them, so that's the thing.
That's weird.
And was one of them is like the
principal or the teacher or some shit?
Ben: I feel like if I went back,
they would all be like, you could
match them up to people that are
in the funeral at the beginning.
Emily: yeah.
Yeah.
So, Peter Ollie's out And uh, he seems
to have broken down in the flower garden.
However, the spooky ghost light that
has been haunting, everybody that
I haven't mentioned until now gets
absorbed into his body and he wakes
up as more naked Brando's watch.
He follows his mom floating
headless corpse into the treehouse
to the music of classical.
Peter finds the treehouse occupied with
prostrate, naked cultists, including the
headless corpses of his mom and grandma.
Bowing to an effigy with Charlie's head,
Joan, Crown's Peter, the Burger King, as
he is now possessed by Charlie and Paimon.
And he is like, okay, the
end, oh, and the dog dies.
Fuck that.
Jeremy: Mercifully dog
is killed off screen.
Emily: Yeah, we sort of
see a suggestion of the dog
Ben: would like to think
that dog is just sleeping.
Emily: I,
Ben: is just taking a nap.
Emily: I would also love to think That
Ben: is taking a nap.
Emily: it was cute.
It
Ben: He's fine.
He is a big, fat, chubby
lovey doggy, and he's fine.
Emily: So let's talk about
some points, shall we?
Greg: There are several
Jeremy: do wanna say before we get
into any like really actually relevant
points the having children, I do happen
to know that there is this cars short
called Madere in the ghost light, in
which he is followed around by a ghost
light, which turns out to be a, a lantern
that's attached to his, his toe thing.
But he runs around going,
ah, the ghost light.
And that's all I can think with the
ghost light in this movie is made
her going, ah, the ghost light.
Emily: Is that uh, your recommendation
then made her in the ghost light?
Jeremy: I will never
recommend a cars film.
let's go around the horn here and,
I, I guess everybody kind of bring
your, your, one thing you really
want to talk about to this uh, Greg.
What is the one thing about hereditary
you really want to talk about?
Greg: I, I don't know how much I
can narrow down to one thing, but
I thi I think my primary take on
this movie is that other horror
stories have done this before.
It, it's not revolutionary in that aspect.
But I've never seen a better
exploration of the relationship.
between sadness and fear I feel like,
you know, if fear is an emotion about
the future, you're concerned about what's
about to happen, what will happen someday.
Sadness and specifically grief
is being upset that something you
were afraid was going to happen
it's Such an emotional movie and
I think it's because it's not just
an intensely scary movie, but it's
a deeply, deeply sad one as well.
Ben: Yeah, Jeremy, you wanna
talk about upsetting sounds?
Tony Collette screaming in anguish,
holy fucking Tony Collette, like whale.
Jeremy: As through loves a good whale.
Like, we'll talk about it
again in two weeks when we
talk about uh, uh, mid-summer.
But like, he loves people
like just wailing and anguish.
Ben: There was a scene where
Peter is smoking with his friends
under the bleachers and he
starts having a panic attack.
And at first I thought the implication was
he's now being like attacked by a ghost.
And just like how Charlie was allergic
to nuts, he is now allergic, like
magically demonically allergic to weed.
And I thought, oh man, now this is scary.
Now this is how I can relate to.
Jeremy: the depiction of P PTs d in
that scene along with the scene in the
in the classroom where they relate it
directly to him in the car because when
he is in the car right after, like he
has the accident, he won't look back at
his sister's body to see what's happened.
So like there's just this shot of like
directly out the front window where
you're looking through his eyes and it
sort of like creeps up to seeing just
the edge of the like rear view mirror.
And then he
jerks back down.
And then there's this, like, there's this
scene later in the classroom where he is
sitting there and he is watching and it.
like he starts to drift up a little
bit and he sees the rear view
mirror jerks his head back down.
And that scene was like incredibly
evocative of, P T S D and, and
what, that feels like, how it
comes at you out of the blue?
Emily: Yeah.
Ben: So one thing with the nut allergy
and this is something I felt very
strongly and personally about because
my sister, who was three years younger
than me, has a deadly nut allergy.
and this is something where I'm like,
fucking, before any of this ghost stuff
happens, before the sleepwalking, I almost
murdered my son in our, in my sleep stuff.
That made me go like, oh, you
are a bad fucking parent, is the
multiple times they went out or
sent Charlie out without an EpiPen.
Emily: Yeah.
Ben: And you have, you have a child
with an allergy that's severe.
they do not leave the
house without an EpiPen.
Jeremy: Yeah.
The, the scene at the funeral where it
first comes up where she is eating a
chocolate bar and the dad goes, Hey,
there aren't nuts in that, right?
And she goes, no, there's not no nuts.
He's like, good cause
I don't have an EpiPen.
And then it
Ben: W
Jeremy: to like be an issue throughout.
And I was
Ben: Yeah.
Like why is the response that, why
is everyone's response not, why
the fuck don't you have an EpiPen?
Jeremy: Did you not drive here?
Ben: EpiPen?
Emily: yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Ben: How hard is it to keep a
goddamn EpiPen in your purse?
Greg: It was also a little confusing
that like they only seem to have one
EpiPen that they keep in the house.
Like, correct me if I'm wrong, but if you
have a child with such severe allergies,
don't you have multiple EpiPens?
Like just in case
like one, like one in the car,
one at home, you know, one maybe
in the kid's backpack at school.
Jeremy: Yeah, I mean, money doesn't seem
to be an issue for them, so, you know,
I, I can't see there being a
reasonable excuse for them not to,
other than
Ben: this is me yelling.
Annie as a character within the
movie, this is not me yelling at
the movie, Annie, being an ad parent
is a fundamental part of the movie.
Just want to get that clear in case you're
misinterpreting my snarky yelling right
Greg: No, she, she is canonically a bad.
Emily: There, This is one of the core
elements of this movie that makes me
so angry they talk about the hereditary
trauma, Annie was going through trauma.
She was abused by her family.
She she has a family
history of mental illness.
As, as far as we know,
Jeremy: that is one of my questions issues
with this movie, there's a long history
of, in movies mental illness projected as
horror misinterpreted as mental illness.
And this one walks a real fine line.
It like really walks right up to the line
of me going, oh no, this is fucked up.
I can't enjoy this.
they talk about her being mentally ill.
She has, she does sleepwalk, she has
several issues she does talk about
the fact that her, uh, let me see.
I wrote it down.
The, the mom had d i d but the dad had
psychosis and starved because of his
psychosis, and the brother was diagnosed
with schizophrenia and left a, a suicide
note blaming his mother for trying to
put people in him, which it is revealed
throughout the course of this movie.
It, in fact happen.
Those are not mental illnesses.
Those are things that she
caused through her witch.
Ben: I, yeah, like I don't
know about the dad or Annie
herself, but the brother suicide.
Given what we know from the movie, I
think is definitely like the mom attempted
to use the brother as the first, as a
host of Pieman and he killed himself.
To avoid that is definitely,
to me that even subtext.
Emily: Yeah.
Well and this whole thing with
like Charlie should have been a
boy and all this kind of stuff
Ben: This
demon lord is real into the gender binary.
Emily: hate that.
I hate that.
And it's not just my, like
Ben: it's okay to be sis like, you know,
look, everyone should feel like their
body matches their gender identity.
And for this demon, Lord,
his identity is male.
So look, the possession is bad,
but I do want him to be his
gender identity to match the, you
know, be comfortable in yourself.
I'm on.
I get it.
Emily: You know, if this movie was
about Paimon's, like identity and
Ben: Paimon.
Hi man.
Emily: whatever, like
it's fucking made up.
Ben: naming him like he
is a fucking digi man.
Emily: Yeah.
Pie on I choose you.
They
should have just done
that.
All they
needed is a fucking poke ball.
Ben: but, okay.
Emily: I know that's not de gman Ben.
I'm not digi illiterate,
but,
Jeremy: fetch em all.
Digman.
Emily: listen.
Okay.
I'm about to go off, so
Ben: Mon.
Emily: will.
Thanks.
Paimon, if this movie was about
Paimon and how like Paimon just
wanted to like, exist cool.
If this movie was about how some
family was trying really hard to like
invoke Paimon and their, you know,
like why they wanna evoke Paimon other
than like, I guess he's demon does,
does what Grants wishes or whatever.
Sure.
But this movie has this whole
magical text that is really hard.
to combine with the mental illness
subtext, because they seem different.
It's like when Jeremy, you had the issue
with the witch where there was this whole
thing about like, well there was a witch.
You know, there was no, there was very
little question about that, but in that
movie it was a even more like ambiguous
Jeremy: You're like, no, the goat really
is the devil, and which is Ara thing
Greg: Well,
I think the witch is a really
interesting point of comparison.
Side note I mentioned that Hereditary
is my favorite horror movie.
The Witch is my second
favorite horror movie.
But I, I think The Witch like Hereditary
is also a movie where the monster
that represents kinda all the bad
things that the movie is exploring.
In the case of the witch, just the
oppressiveness of puritanical lifestyle.
You know, you don't need the literal
devil to show up in that movie
to see, you know, just the damage
that this culture is causing.
But, it's a horror movie, so
he is there to represent that.
Ben: I think you're on the same beat.
Like, I think hereditary, there is an
argument for, doesn't maybe also engage in
that same degree of over literalization.
Does the idea of exploring her
inherited her, her it passed on,
Jeremy: inherited.
Ben: trauma, mental illness
and generational trauma.
Is those themes less properly explored?
By virtue of also being
flat out demonic, possess.
Greg: And, and my argument is no
I, I think when you're dealing with
something like mental illness or
inherited family trauma, whether or not
those feelings are literally real at a
certain point doesn't seem to matter.
If you have an abusive parent, I'd imagine
that whether or not they're literally
trying to put demons inside of you.
It kind of falls to the wayside
when it's like, okay, maybe they're
not literally like this cultist
witch, but they're abusing me.
You know?
Or the same way where it's like, I
am not dealing with the same degree
of trauma or abuse as the people in
this movie, but I am someone who,
who has depression and anxiety.
And it's like, you know, when when
I am at the lowest of the low with a
panic attack or something like that,
there's nothing you could tell me in
those moments where I'm really at my
worst, where it's like, Greg, like
the world is not actually ending.
It doesn't matter in
the world of your mind.
That's how it feels.
It
feels apocalyptic.
And I, and again, this is uh, very
much a movie about the nexus of how
it feels to be mentally ill or to
go through family trauma or all that
kind of thing, and what literally
happens when you are dealing with that
kind of thing, if that makes sense.
Ben: do think when it comes to the
generational trauma it does seem like the
main trauma was now, present day, just
now happened, trauma, very current trauma.
But what I do think the movie, just, you
know, in the DNA of Annie as a character,
what I think the movie did a good job
of depicting is that, you know, when you
come from a broken, abusive household
and you are then building your own
household, you know, in terms of cycles,
there is a degree of even when you want
to do better, and even if you do manage
to do a degree, like a degree better,
you will always be hobbled by fact that
you didn't grow up with the tools, you
don't grow up with the communication
to build like that non-abuse.
How's it like it.
It did a good job of showing how coming
from an abusive household can maybe
almost set you on like extra hard with
your own relationships because even
if you want a healthier relationship,
you don't have that model of what a
healthier relationship looks like.
Emily: Yeah.
But I feel like they did too much
of the weird demon witch shit.
Like I feel like they, with
adding any sort of demon
Jeremy: I feel like this is a landmark
occasion where Emily said, I think they
did too much of the weird demon witch.
Emily: Yeah.
Like sure I know, right?
Like I, because I'm thinking about
this movie and I think about how like,
masterfully this movie depicts how it
feels to just be an, have anxiety and
have, that dread when you're in the, in a
really bad place, whether it be anxiety or
depression or whatever, but you have that
sense of dread no matter what's going on.
It could be, you could be watching
Fucking My Little Pony and it still
feels like the same music from this
movie is going on in your head and
you're just like, I'm gonna die.
I'm gonna die.
And, you know, nothing good is happening.
And ev all of your worst
nightmares are coming true.
Even though none of that is
actually happening to you.
It feels like it.
Ben: Hey, fun fact for all you
comic readers out there, Jeremy
does listen to this soundtrack
when writing my Little Pony comic.
Jeremy: Yes.
The soundtrack of just horrible,
screeching and constant
drumming in the background.
Emily: I listen to that
anyway, but just as
Jeremy: that, that's just what it
Ben: It's the official
theme of Rainbow Dash.
Jeremy: Yeah.
I I can't imagine what it's like to
watch this movie while experiencing
any of the feelings that, you know,
Annie has as a character in this film.
Because this film takes the idea
that like, you feel paranoid,
you feel dread, you feel bad.
All of these things that are feelings.
Are absolutely fucking correct.
Emily: yeah.
Greg: I always give a massive
content warning when re recommending
this movie to people and, and, and
people think I'm messing around
just teasing how scary it is.
I mean, it is the scariest movie I've
ever seen, but I, like I tell people,
if you are in any kind of a bad
place emotionally, do not watch it.
The first time I saw it,
it was opening weekend.
I saw it kind of accidentally
cuz my friend and I had plans to
see solo, the Star Wars movie.
Jeremy: very
Greg: by the, yeah, and
we, yeah, we were in a
good mood.
By the time.
By the time we got there, it was sold out.
My friend was like, ah, you
wanna see a Deadpool too?
I was like, ah, alright.
Saw a Deadpool too.
And so we were both disappointed, but
we were in a pretty good mood before we
just randomly were like, ah, okay fine.
There's this new horror movie app.
Fine.
You know, it's
probably gonna be whatever.
And then I was in for the
scariest moment of my life.
Jeremy: Yeah.
this film reinforces the fact that like,
Yes, this one person that she meets at
this, you know, grief group that she turns
to and puts any sort of trust in, the only
person that she reaches out to for any
sort of help in this movie is horrible.
is working for the, the literal devil.
to get her to, put together this ritual
to, I mean, literally teaches her how to,
without knowing it, summon the devil into
her house so that this, stuff can go on.
Also, if somebody gives you something
weird and Latin to read, don't do it
unless you know what it means.
Don't do it.
Emily: You seen fucking
the army of darkness.
Jesus.
Ben: You know, so many horror movies play
with like, oh, is this horror thing real?
Is it in someone's head?
It's almost always real, but still,
it's almost always a binary choice.
And this movie takes the unique
tract of por que no los dos?.
Emily: which I feel is to its
detriment in this particular case.
Especially because of what is depicted
in terms of Charlie and how Charlie
is treated like a flawed body.
She has so much going on for her as a
character with that is NeuroD Virgin that
is dealing with dysphoria, you know, I saw
her character and I was really excited cuz
I heard this movie was about like witches.
And then she's also on the,
the fucking card for the movie.
It's her and Tony Collette.
So I was like alright, let's do it.
And she, you know, dies in act one.
and is referred to as a mistake.
And that was really upsetting to me.
That grandma kept telling her that
she should have been a boy even though
she was closest with that grandma.
But I think it was more of
like a dependency, know,
Jeremy: but like they, they have
some Laura around that, which again
is a, a place where like, okay, the
stuff that's in this movie from a
psychological mental perspective,
conflicts with the stuff that's in
it from a supernatural perspective.
Because Tony Colette says when she had
her son, she was estranged from her mom
wouldn't let her mom see the, the kid.
You know, she didn't have anything to
do with the raising of, of this kid.
And then, you know, she had reconciled to
some extent with her when she had Charlie.
And the mom, like in this is a thing
that is not given enough attention to
the movie, but is said by her and then
depicted later on in one of her little
murals, the mom ins like the grandma
insisted on breastfeeding Charlie herself.
Emily: Yeah.
Jeremy: and
like
raised her and went through
Emily: one of the miners.
Jeremy: Cuz she says
speed when she's in the like, grief thing.
And I was like, does she mean
breastfeed or does she mean bottle feed?
And then when the miniature pops up of
her mom there's the miniature of her in
bed and her mom breastfeeding the baby.
Ben: Oh,
Greg: I,
Ben: oh, oh,
Greg: that.
Wow.
Emily: yeah,
Ben: interpreted that as bottle fee too,
and I am going to continue to interpret
it that in the face of objective reality.
Jeremy: I mean, and that's some,
that's some black magic devil
bullshit kind of stuff too.
Like that is exactly the sort of thing
that, you know, shows up in those
sorts of stories is, you know, she's
suckled at the witch's teet to, you
know, become a vessel for the demon.
And like, I think that's like the
explanation for why the grandma says
she should have been a boy because he's
the only one the grandma has access to.
And the grandma knows Piman wants
a male body.
If he doesn't have the ding
dong, he's not into it.
So like, I
think that's the explanation
there, which then leads into the
psychological trauma that is directly
affected by the supernatural stuff.
Emily: Yeah.
And I don't think that, like, I
feel like it cheapens the whole, the
discussion when it is so like when
it is thus cross, like there are
ways that it doesn't cheap, you know?
I've seen it
Jeremy: I I don't know that it cheapens
it, but I do think it confuses it, like,
Ben: I do think in terms of just.
A villain for the movie Paimon.
Just, you know, wanting
a dingdong like body yep.
That's what I'm going with.
A dingdong body
Jeremy: He wants a penis, having
body, a body that has a penis,
Ben: Yeah.
Jeremy: presumably, that's
Ben: deal.
that's not as interesting a motivation as
Charlie, this very developed and already
dark impulse shown having character, you
know, haunting and wanting revenge on
like the absolute PTs d does all fuck
like brother who she blames for her death.
Emily: there's all of the supernatural
stuff in this movie really,
like it does confuse the issue.
And I think that that does
Ben: Well, there's the supernatural of
what brings Charlie back post-death.
And then there's everything
involving a hell deem a hell cult.
You know what I mean?
Like there's the ghost aspect and
then there's the, like I'm on board
for the ghost aspect and I'm a little
less on board for the hell cult
Emily: Yeah, like if it was just weird
ghost lights and like that whole bit where
she's standing in the room and then her
head falls off and it becomes a ball,
like that shit was fucking on point,
you know?
Ben: loved the head
fell off into the ball.
Loved that.
But also, you know what they do set up
the hell cold pretty early on with like
being surprised at how crowd the funeral
is, like the desecration, which when it
that finally came back, I'm like, oh yeah.
Like
Jeremy: that's a real humdinger of a.
of a lead that's led out there is like,
like the third scene of the movie, Gabriel
Burn gets that call that you only hear the
one side of which is, what do you mean?
Desecrated?
Emily: yeah.
Jeremy: And then that's not picked
up for at least half an hour.
Ben: talk about burying the lead.
It's, it is like, oh, desecrate.
I'm like, oh.
So someone did some
graffiti on a tombstone.
No fucking full on Body is gone.
Greg: If we could just back up a, a
second about, uh, the, uh, cult aspect
of the movie, to me, it is part and
parcel with the theme of the movie
or one of the themes in the movie
being, how much do you really know
about your deceased family members?
And a big part of that is who did they
know that you have no idea existed?
No idea what the nature of
their relationship was, no idea
what they may have been saying
to those people about you.
I, I mean, you know, I understand some
of this might sound kind of basic I, I
just feel like the movie would not be
making as strong a statement as it is if
you didn't have that whole aspect of, oh,
grandma was in this demonic cult with all
these people who she never talked about,
but you were a big part of their plans.
Jeremy: I gotta say Dad had a second.
Family is really mild when you compare.
Mom was in a secret demon cult and
her girlfriend from this cult is
now gaslighting you into having
your own child possessed by a demon.
that's way bigger.
Ben: so here's where I think the movie
might have a little too much going
on, it puts so much on Charlie and her
death and the effect that has on Peter
and Annie and Peter's relationship
that you don't get a ton of focus on
Annie and her mother's relationship.
Like, like what happened
with Andy's mother's?
Almost an afterthought by
the, like, once Charlie dies,
Greg: Well, I'm not sure if I agree
with that because that monologue that
she gives when she goes to the um,
group therapy for people experiencing
grief, You know, it's not just about
what we literally hear Annie saying
about all these horrible things that her
mother did and the weird uncomfortable
nature of their relationship.
You get the sense from that scene
that this was really the first time
Annie had said any of this out loud.
Be,
and, and this is, you know, we
were talking before about just how
utterly brilliant Tony Collette's
performances in this film.
I, I mean that it comes through so
clearly in her hesitation to save this
and the way that, that the information
just kind of births out of her.
In the way people sound when they tell
a secret or they're telling somebody
something that they've never perhaps
even thought to tell another human,
Jeremy: the way she's like getting
Ben: well,
Jeremy: during that speech
Greg: Yeah.
Ben: Tony Collette is tour divorce
and like, look, I'm not saying I
didn't really love the movie and
I get where you're coming from.
But Greg, you're never gonna convince
me that it didn't have a little too
much going on for it to properly tackle
Greg: No, that's, that's, that's fair.
The, the, the one thing I do fe I am
with you guys on, in terms of trying to
tackle too much, having too many themes
I, I will say, I think the gender stuff
doesn't really land the way it should
because it's not, it's never really
clear what the movie is trying to say.
I have some theories
that we can talk about.
But just that general idea of, Paimon
or Paimon preferring a male body to a
female body, you know, to be very crass
about how we use phrases like that.
It it's never really explored
the way that should be.
I will say, however
Ben: again.
Ding dong.
Haver is the appropriate scientific term.
Greg: sorry, ding Don haver that, you
know, next time I'm filling a form
and uh, they ask for my, my gender.
I'm not gonna say male.
I'm gonna say ding dong haver.
I am a straight cis ding dong.
Have.
Sorry, that was too much information.
We could cut that out.
We could cut that out.
Jeremy: No.
Greg: but, uh, what I was gonna say
before though, we were talking about
how, you know, it's kind of a tragedy
that Charlie's character dies so
quickly cuz she's so interesting.
I feel like Ari Aser was trying to
grasp at something there with the
different kind of hurdles that boys
and girls have to go through because
Charlie is creative per perhaps to a
disturbing degree at certain points.
Charlie, you know, she, she certainly
has a more uh, interesting personality
than the rest of her family in certain
respects and that's not who Paimon wants.
He wants this pothead, slacker dude
who doesn't wanna prepare for the SATs
Ben: Who does wanna prepare for the SATs?
Those are a drag.
Greg: Well, sure.
But the character he reminds
me of most is uh, Anthony Jr.
From The Sopranos in the, I
don't know if any of you have
watched The Sopranos, but it's.
Ben: the character.
Yeah.
Greg: Yeah, it's kind of like Tony Soprano
was cursed with having like this total
mediocre loser son in some ways to put it.
Very crassly and that's the
energy that I get from Peter.
there's nothing really special about
him, but he is going to get by to
a certain degree because he's a boy
Ben: Peter is just the most teenage boy.
Like his two introductory
moments are sleeping in and
staring at a girl's ass, like
Greg: Yeah.
Ben: two establishing character moments.
Jeremy: I mean, which honestly, who
hasn't, but you know, like I, I do
think it's one of those things where
like this movie is not prepared to talk
about pie month gender essentialism.
Um, there's this weird in between point
where it's like, okay, we could be
saying one of a couple of things here.
One being that like, you know, the
girl isn't good enough, which I
don't think is what Ari asked her
is after the other possibility.
Is this real dicey m r a sounding idea
that like is sort of sitting on the edge
of this when you start thinking about like
what is implied to have happened to Tony
Collette's brother and father, and that
like this woman, this witch is literally
just using men as disposable vessels for
this uh, This demon and has no emotional
connection whatsoever to any of the men in
her life, even the ones she's related to.
and like there's this whole sector
of m r a about men being disposable
and, you know, being sent off to wars
and thrown away and everything that
like really hits on the same note that
this ends up hitting on I don't think
it's what he meant to do, but like
once you get those details about like
what this ritual actually is and you
apply that to like, oh, this must be
what also happened to her father and
brother, I don't think I like what
this when you put it all together.
Emily: Yeah.
This movie to me is a very
beautiful, very well made, very
incredibly evocative depiction of
its falling on its own face to me.
Ben: just long as that face
isn't the decapitated fly, eaten
Charlie face on a mannequin,
Emily: mean, like, that's
part of the beauty of it.
Ben: for quite some time.
Emily: like the, that's the thing
is that it's like watching this
beautiful incr, like, it's like,
woman descending staircase by Duchamp.
You know, you have this very,
very simple monotone thing that
is depicted so beautifully.
I shouldn't say simple because
it's dread, but that's complex.
It does dread really well, and it has
this dreamlike quality that really.
underscores that, with the acting
and the, the sound design and the
editing and production all is stellar.
This story is confused as fuck.
Like, when I'm trying to figure out what's
going on, like what this movie is trying
to say, I have like a million straws in
front of me and I'm grasping at them the
witchcraft thing feels very deliberate,
and then I know all the stuff about
where they got the the source material.
Like, so Emily's demon fax Paimon is
a, is a uh, I believe a Duke of hell,
hold on, let me look at my notes.
Um,
Jeremy: in the movie,
Emily: yeah.
Greg: Don't
They say King?
He's one of the nine kings of hell,
Ben: Eight Kings of hell I believe.
Greg: kings of hell.
I, I don't know how many
kings of hell there are.
I, I was under the impression
before this that there was just
one very famous king of hell.
But I
Ben: Well, you got the cir well,
you got the nine circles of hell.
If you go the Dante and then you got
the grim wars with the 72 demon Lord.
So it, it's a whole fucking
Jeremy: well, there was the one king
and then he went mad and all the seven
kingdoms rose up to overthrow him.
And then uh, you know, there's still
one king, but there's like the king of
the north and then, you know, they're
all sort of on their own to some extent.
Emily: It's a real game of
throne situation down in hell.
Greg: man as if hell wasn't bad enough.
You gotta deal with
Ben: all, look, what happened
was John Constantine got
diagnosed with lung cancer.
so he, just started making a bunch
of deals with different devils
Jeremy: And then there's a
wall at the north end of hell
and past that is Scotland.
Um, I mean,
Emily: but there's also Michigan.
Jeremy: is what I mean.
Emily: So yes, Paimon
is a, a Duke of hell.
He is depicted as a demon, a male
demon with a woman's face rides a came.
and is Herald did by a trumpet.
But, you know, I'm going
be real with y'all.
The Aisha, a a k A, the lesser
key of Solomon is all just of
Jewish, history and folklore.
So,
Ben: Yeah, that's our shit.
Emily: yeah.
Ben: Yeah,
Greg: our reaser is Jewish.
Emily: so I mean, that's, the akok is
just basically some, some Christian
guys appropriating ancient Hebrew
texts about like gin and shit.
Now we don't also, we never see a
camel except for in the one image
of Paimon, which I think feel is
a little bit of a shorthanded,
Ben: That's a lot to put into budget.
They, they made this one on
the cheek not getting camels
onto 10 million, but under 10
Emily: he could've been swerving around
a camel, that would've been weird.
I mean, I,
Ben: That
Greg: In, in,
Ben: amazing.
I would've needed a whole,
Greg: and seeing a came.
Ben: I would've
Emily: surprised.
Ben: other movie to explain
where the fuck it came from.
Emily: Someone's tiger King outta camel
Ben: Also, someone musically
inclined make a demonology
with Emily Jingle for us to run
Emily: That's your Quinn's, that's Quinn.
Paimon I believe is also Pokemon
Paimon's, also Invention impact
and in
Ben: Paimon is
Emily: persona,
Ben: Persona.
Yeah.
That makes, I'm
Emily: yo Yugi
Ben: that Paimon isn't persona.
Emily: persona what's the other
word, Shema you know, but they
all go like, take shit out of
um, the ar goia because it's like
if you look up,
Ben: Atlas's whole deal.
Emily: yeah.
And then like if you find Colin de
Clancy's dictionary in Fornell, it has
a lot of articles about the demons of
the goia, and it has these, the really
funny images of them with like horse
faces and stuff, and they're all like
really cute and highly recommend it.
That's my recommendation.
So Paimon has they're two
dudes, hers wives, and he's
supposed to look like a girl.
And the fact that.
There was all this other shit added,
like the body shit, the fact that
Charlie being a girl was a problem
enough for Paimon, you know, and I
feel like that would've been another
conversation that would've been
less confusing and less problematic.
This movie's,
this, movie makes me angry.
Ben: I think the idea was that they
wanted, Peter from the beginning,
but Annie was like keeping him
completely away they were like,
okay, Charlie's the best we have, and
that was like, we'll just make two.
Or at what point exactly they were
like, alright, operation Dead Grandmas
steal the older brother's body.
Like I don't
know how premeditated that was.
Also question, do we interpret
that Gabriel Byrne knew it was
bullshit from the beginning?
Every single time.
Like from the start when Annie said,
I'm going to the movies, because
otherwise it bothered me so much that
he never asked what she was seeing.
Greg: I
interpreted it as, yes, he knew it was.
Jeremy: See, I did not
interpret it as that.
I I interpreted it as him having the
same detachment in that bit as he
seems to have in the entire rest of the
movie, which is like, he seems to think
that she is like dangerously dealing
with psychosis and things like that.
And she, he seems to think that she
is not trustworthy, but he doesn't
do anything to protect his son.
he also doesn't do
anything to like, help her.
This is the thing I hate most in
the movie, is like this guy is
Ben: he sucks.
Jeremy: He sucks.
Ben: Gabriel Burns fucking
useless in this movie.
But again, the movies like,
imagine you go into work, coworkers
ask, Hey, how was your weekend?
You say, good.
I went out, I saw a movie.
And they don't ask, what did you see?
Greg: Yeah.
Ben: You'd be like, the fuck is this?
I'm reporting.
You would report that person
to HR for being a psycho.
Emily: This motherfucker
is a psychologist, I guess,
Jeremy: What does he do
other than psychology?
Because he's never around and he
doesn't do anything to help her.
He doesn't do anything to help him.
He doesn't volunteer to like watch
Charlie since clearly, like Annie
doesn't wanna watch him and the, and
she doesn't want to go to this party.
Gabriel Byrne has never
even suggested in that.
Like, he's that sort of like fifties
style father that it's like, oh, I
mean, dads don't watch out for kids.
That's another thing that dads would do.
Emily: Yeah.
Ben: is like Finn Wolfhard's,
dead in Stranger Things, whose
only character trait is incredibly
negligent to his whole family
Greg: i, I thought in, in some ways he's
actually weirdly comparable to not to
get ahead of ourselves, the boyfriend
in midsummer in the way that like, he,
Ben: I will take your word for it.
Have not seen it
Greg: I, I I promise you,
I am not going to spoil it.
I promise you I won't spoil it, but just
in the way that this is a guy he who
really seems to think that just because
he has this calm demeanor and doesn't
like raise his voice, or do anything that
outwardly seems aggressive, makes him
like a virtuous person when it's like, no,
like you need to actually get aggressive
here about protecting your family.
Emily: Yeah.
Nobody in this family
communicates anything whatsoever.
Nobody says anything.
the way that everyone processes things
is incredibly personal, you know?
And not
Jeremy: very real.
Like that's not
a problem with the movie so much as
a problem with particular type of
Emily: Oh, absolutely.
And I, but I feel like, well, why the
fuck would you call the movie Hereditary?
Because this is the trauma that
this situation, like the, the
trauma seems like outside, you know?
Yeah.
There's hereditary shit going on.
But the biggest monster in this
movie is this family's inability
to communicate with each other.
and then when they finally do,
it's when everything comes to a
head and they're either yelling or
fucking going on seance, fugues,
Jeremy: I mean, that is in itself
hereditary, like the inability to
communicate because, you know, the, the
grandmother we learn didn't communicate
at all with her daughter uh, despite
being part of some seemingly all female
driven demon cult did not not ever invite
her daughter to be part of this cult.
Um,
Emily: yeah.
Greg: Rude,
Jeremy: not
not much into recruiting,
voluntarily just, you know,
Emily: yeah, when you start
thinking about the actual, like,
possibilities of the situation,
that's where things fall apart for me.
Where I'm like, these people just suck.
Like the more angry I get at these
people, the more I'm like, what the fuck?
You could have had this, you could have
a cool witch child that's like, I'm gonna
now make an effigy with a, pigeon head.
And praise
Ben: Is that a thing you want
Emily: Yes.
Ben: Jeremy, as as someone with children?
Do you encourage pigeon head effigy making
or would you maybe just recommend Legos?
Jeremy: I mean, they can draw the
pigeon head, maybe make a pigeon head
out of Legos if it's really down to it.
But yeah, not, not so much beheading
pigeons, but then I don't have
a cult that apparently drives
pigeons to kill themselves against
windows near my, my child so that
they can make this, I
Ben: I
get this is how you fucking raise the bar.
I'm watching that scene.
Creepy kid is eating chocolate
and just looking at a dead bird.
Creepy.
You could have done, you could have just
ended it right there and been like, yeah,
there's something weird about this kid.
Fucking Charlie pulls out a big pair
of scissors and just starts crying.
I'm like, oh
Greg: So I interpreted that by that point
in the movie, Charlie was already in the
process of being possessed by the demon.
Emily: I thought she was just cool,
like she was just making cool shit.
I
Jeremy: No, I
I think that's ritualistic, like she
seems not surprised by the fact that
this bird flies up and slams itself
against the window and kills itself.
And then she's like, well, let me
go collect that and make it into
an effigy as part of this ritual.
I mean, because we have several things
in there and it that's the thing to me
is it's not really clear with Charlie
where Charlie turns, because we do
see the like point where she's walking
out into the, you know, just out into
wherever the fuck it is they live and
there's somebody like burning a sigil
on the lawn and mom doesn't see this.
Mom comes out and picks her up and is
not like, why is that woman fucking
burning something into my lawn?
She's like, well, how dare you
come out here without shoes on?
Greg: Oh, I, I interpret it as
that was only seen by, by Charlie.
That, that that
Ben: Yeah.
Yeah.
Greg: kind of thing.
Ben: And also in terms of turn, I
interpret it as Charlie has been
possessed by Paimon since near birth.
That like, whatever.
So there is, and Charlie
was almost always Paimon.
Emily: That's really
Greg: I do think it's worth noting
that even though the, the a the movie
itself ended up being a real swerve if
you recall the way it was marketed in
the original trailers it was marketed
like a creepy kid movie with Charlie
being the creepy kid, the actual movie.
I would not describe that way.
Ben: I didn't know how
supernatural it was going in.
So when she just starts like pulling
out the scissors and cutting off the
pigeon heads and like taking it home,
I'm like, oh, we're getting like the
Ola homes of Hannibal Lact there.
Emily: I listen, maybe it's
my neuro divergence showing,
maybe it's my paganism showing.
Maybe it's just like the fact that I
collected dead shit when I was little.
for me there was not really anything
creepy, inherently creepy about
that other than like the fact
that this music was going on.
I mean it was unusual, but she always
seemed so sad and like that was
what, where I was involved in that
character cuz I'm like, she's sad.
But also she's doing stuff about it.
Like she's drawing about it.
She's making creatures about it,
Ben: I'm with you on the drawing, but
we started cutting heads off corpses,
Emily: she didn't kill the pigeon.
Like if if she killed the pigeon.
Yeah.
If she killed the pigeon, I'd be
like, Hmm, that's not good no,
she's upcycling like she's, she's
just like thinking, oh, okay.
You know, I'm haunted
as because of reasons.
You know, and to be fair, the reasons
that she's haunted are pretty hereditary.
Greg: I do think we should talk about
The motif of beheadings though, since
we were talking so much about the bird.
I don't know if there's like a, a real
world thing to compare this to, but you
know, after the grandmother dies, and
she's discovered in the attic, we find out
that the cultus had cut her head off then
you have this bird whose head gets cut
off there and it's like, you know, these,
this spirit of Peyman is like passing
through all these other VE vessels, and
next of course goes to Charlie, who very
memorably gets her head dropped off.
You have Annie sawing her own head
off until finally it gets to Peter.
and there's this period with all these
characters where the character who is
about to have their head chopped off
goes through this very uncomfortable
period before the demon is ultimately
going to where he wants to go.
Ben: Oh man, the piano wire decapitation
like this, like just from a pure like
blood, you know, rep and bloodshed aspect.
This movie had some great fucking
kills, like memorable, gory, creative,
the piano wire decapitation, Gabriel
Burn, going up in fire, fucking allergy
swerve, telephone, pty capitation, like
just some wild, some of the most wild
and shocking kills I've ever seen in
Greg: And you know what the the the
one kill that did not result in a
decapitation was Gabriel Byrne because
he was not a concern to Paimon, he
was not part of this whole chain of
the spirit passing from body to body.
So he, you know, he died
a completely different,
Jeremy: I, I do wonder if alex is supposed
to die when he falls out the window cuz he
falls out the window and then stays still.
Then we see the like spirit light
go into him and then he gets
up and from that point on he
Ben: so, so that's very
much what I interpret.
because, and also because before then
his eyes is very red and bloodshot.
And then after that his
eyes like white and normal.
Emily: And they also call him Charlie
Ben: Yeah.
I swear God, Gabriel Burn goes up
in flames and you can almost hear,
just hear a demon voice going glow.
Greg: Yeah,
Jeremy: Thought you
Emily: I,
Jeremy: outta it, huh?
Greg: a while ago there, there was
a prompt tweet going around who's,
uh, it was like, what's the hottest
a person has ever looked in a movie?
And I tweeted, Gabriel Burn on Fire.
Jeremy: Yeah, I, I don't like
the Gabriel Burn stuff in this
because he doesn't really feel
like a fully realized character.
Like the rest of them are
like, we don't know what he's
doing when he is not on screen.
You know, he doesn't seem to do things
or care or have hobbies or like like
his family or anything like that.
Which, which really bothers me.
You know, and I, I think we'll talk
about a little bit in a couple weeks
that I think Ari Aster has a habit
of male characters just have no
interiority With the exception of Alex.
But like, you know, in mid-summer we'll
see a lot of that too, where it's like
what's actually going on with these dudes?
But I I, I do think it's interesting.
I was going through some of the like,
uh, trivia about this movie and Emily,
you mentioned like nobody talking in this
movie, but apparently the original cut
was almost three hours and almost all that
was cut is dialogue between the family.
so at some point they talked more.
Emily: I don't know if
it would've been better
Greg: Yeah.
I think it would've really diluted the
point of this movie about family that
doesn't communicate effectively if
we saw them communicating more, even
if ineffectively and, I don't know,
you know, what that footage was like.
Emily: I figured it out.
I figured out why it's Paimon, because
Ben: us.
Emily: suddenly now that you've saved
the movie, because the real monsters
denial and Paimon comes from Egypt
Greg: Yeah, that'll do it.
Jeremy: Alicia, this is where you
Greg: Hmm.
Jeremy: s trombone in
Emily: Now the supernatural
shit has meaning.
Ben: y'all.
We're done with rec.
We're done with the recommendations.
I think we're just calling
it with that one night.
Every night, everybody.
Jeremy: You know, I think we, we've
talked quite a bit about it and
we've addressed most of our points.
Like, it's legitimately difficult to
tell whether, say this movie is feminist
because it's really difficult to
separate the suffering and perspective
of Coney Collette or Tony Collette,
which is the central perspective of
this movie from, say, the fact that
this movie is in the background about
an evil witch cult full of women that
are intentionally having their loved
Greg: Well, we do see men in the cult too.
I got, I just gotta point that out.
Jeremy: they're inactive members.
Emily: Yeah, they're window dressing.
Ben: I don't think this movie, is
feminist in a progressive politics way,
but I do think there is something to
be said for this movie, letting itself
be led and grounded by an incredibly
complex and incredibly flawed,
three-dimensional woman character dealing
with, you know, very, complicated takes
on motherhood and fears around it.
So, you know, not progressively politics
feminists, but I do give it a certain
amount of credit just for having a
character as strong as Tony Collette's.
Greg: I feel like I,
I, I can't argue with any of that, but I
will say, I think Ari Haster was trying to
be feminist and perhaps didn't quite make
the mark, but I f I feel like an attempt,
unlike some of some other horror movies
out there that just do not try at all.
You know, this is no Friday the 13th.
This is no, Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
Um,
Jeremy: Although that is the father
character that the dad, and this reminds
me of is the dad from Friday the 13th.
or not?
Friday the 13th, the, it's
the dad from Nightmare on Elm
Street that this reminds me of.
Who is a cop, who specifically does
not help at all or listen to anything
that his wife or daughter say,
Ben: Don't we also have a
useless cop dad in Halloween too.
Jeremy: it's a useless
cop, best friend's dad in
Ben: Oh, the, you know
what that reminds me of?
Like, one of my favorite lines
that Tony Claude has in the movie
is when she just straight up
says, the police can't help us.
Knowing how both horror movies
and the real worlds work.
Jeremy: Also, knowing that
there's a dead body in her attic
that she has no explanation for.
Emily: yeah,
Ben: Yeah.
Oh yeah.
That's I nay on the mysterious Corps.
Jeremy: Yeah.
Gabriel Burn.
I'm gonna call the cops to solve
this dead body in our attic problem.
Feel like I know how that's gonna go.
Ben: to be fair at least it is
objectively a movie, a body that
everyone knows was dead beforehand.
So at worst, you're looking at grave
robbing charges and not murder charges.
Emily: I'm impressed by the amount of hand
waving that went into like, the death of
the daughter and how Peter somehow like
just continued with school you know,
Greg: Yeah.
Ben: Yeah.
Peter, who is just so traumatized, should
just so be nothing but all of the therapy
Emily: Yeah, It's funny cuz I was, I was
watching this buddies and they were both
like, why is he not in jail or something?
And I'm like, they need to
press charges, you know, there's
processing and all that kinda stuff.
And they're like, I don't think
he gets a free murder pass.
And then they find out, like
they see what happened to him
and like what his family's like.
And then they were like, okay, well
maybe, okay, well maybe I can see how he
gets a free pass on this one just from
how fucked up everybody is all the time.
Ben: I'm not sure what it would've been.
I mean, I guess
Jeremy: I mean, I think it's manslaughter.
it is manslaughter and reckless driving.
Ben: There were, I guess,
mitigating fact between the
deer and the allergic reaction.
I guess you do have a certain
degree of mitigating factors.
I don't know.
Let's ask Legal Eagle
to review hereditary.
Greg: I there's an interesting aspect
of this whole thing we're talking about
that I hadn't really considered before.
Rewatching the movie with my sister.
It was her first time.
Because she was like, everyone's concerned
about like how the parents are coping.
Nobody is really checking in on
this teenager who accidentally
killed his own sister.
Because we, We just recently
saw Megan, which is a completely
different kind of horror movie.
And it's like there's a real thing in
horror movies now that I'm thinking
about it, where other characters
within the movie do not really treat
someone's death of their sibling
as like a serious thing that you
need to like, check in on them for.
Like, look, I'm not a parent.
I cannot imagine how horrible
it would be to, to lose a child.
But, you know, I'd be pretty devastated if
something happened to one of my siblings
and I would hope that people would be
like, Hey Greg, you, you doing okay?
Like, you know, if you wanna wait
to take the SATs so you can process
this you know, we'd understand.
Jeremy: Nobody ever checks in on
Lori Strode to see how she's doing
all the times her brother dies.
Emily: Yeah.
Oh, I will say this with, yes.
I will say this about the movie and
about people checking in on Peter.
Everybody, I'm pretty sure
everybody in the background of
that movie was part of the cult,
cuz I know the teacher was there.
So I think that's why nobody was like,
really, you know, everyone was like,
all right, things are going to plan.
He's traumatized.
Okay.
Hopefully we can, just crush the
soul so utterly that we can overwrite
it with something else, which is
like, you know, as a thing in a
horror movie about possession.
Sure.
As a meaningful conversation
about mental illness.
Oof.
I have a lot of opinions about this movie
and I've said some of them and we do
not have the time and space for all of
them, and that I'm at peace with that.
And that's fine because, you know,
I'd probably repeat myself anyway.
Jeremy: There's a lot of ways in which
this movie reminds me of us talking
about David Kronenberg movies and there
being points where it's like, I know
what the theme of this movie is, but
also I think maybe David Kronenberg
is going through something that he is
trying to work through, which is, is
Ben: Oh yeah.
Jeremy: this movie feels
with Ari Astra as well.
Like
there's something going on with Ari
Emily: Yeah.
I hope Ari, big ups, hope you're okay.
I'll check in on you.
I'll ask you if you're okay.
I'm not
Ben: I,
Emily: to make you a demon.
Ben: I, hope Ari Aster has a professional
that he's talked to about his mother,
Greg: well, I, I, I I also hope, because
this is something else I noticed in,
in my, this was my third viewing of
the movie because for some god forsaken
reason in the beginning of the pandemic,
I chose to rewatch this movie as well
it's not just that Annie and these other
characters like actively are not getting
support from the people around them.
It's like Annie specifically is
not depicted as having friends.
She has no,
Ben: No, Annie does not
Greg: and, and so in terms of the whole
mental health aspect of the movie, that's
something I find really fascinating.
It's the horror of having
something terrible happen to
you and having nobody to talk to
about it, including your family.
And so, you know, maybe you turn to
just the, literally the first lady you
meet at a group therapy session who
reaches out to you and invites you to
her home for coffee and a casual sales.
Emily: Yeah.
Jeremy: Yeah, I think.
I think, you know, Alex has shown as, as
having some like stoner friends early on,
but
like by the time he gets to where
like he's seeing and hearing
things like there's nobody sitting
with him at that lunch table.
Like, you know, they have abandoned him.
Greg: Yeah.
None of these characters have
people they could talk to.
And I think I, I think
that's very intentional.
Uh, in terms the movie, it's the
horror of feeling isolated in your.
Emily: Yeah.
that's valid.
And that's, you know, that's
something worth talking about.
I do think that this is objectively
a really well made film.
I think that, you know, talking
about it as much as I'm angry
about it is really good.
And I, I think that this
movie is worth seeing because.
It is.
So are you okay, Jeremy
Jeremy: Yeah, I was, I was just holding
on to like the point, the point in
this movie where it unsettled me and
also became incredibly interesting
to me is approximately 30 seconds in.
Where it zooms in on the dollhouse
and you zoom into the one room in
the dollhouse, and then the dad walks
in, like walks into the room in the
Dollhouse and it's the, the movie, like,
I was like, that's fucking incredible,
Emily: yeah.
That was really super well done.
Like, there's so much good
shit going on in this movie.
It's just, it denies me so many
things that I want personally.
Objectively, this is a
fantastically made film.
I wish the the writing
was better at the end.
Greg: I before, before we wrap up, and
I don't know how close we are to that,
I do just wanna tell a quick story just
to illustrate how that scary this movie
was to me the first time I saw it.
So , I was living in Brooklyn at the
time, but I was visiting my parents
in New Jersey again, you know, had
plans to see a movie with a friend.
And uh, you know, we had kind that
awkward moment at the end where,
you know, we just saw something
that gave us psychological damage.
Like, like I, I'm not saying traumatized,
but like, we were more than just scared
and we had to be just go into our separate
cars and be like, okay, have a good night.
And, And so I am, I'm
driving home late at night.
I have the music on very loud
because if the music's loud
enough, the demons can't hurt me.
and I suddenly got this feeling of fear
so intense that literally like two minutes
from my parents' house, I had to pull over
into a 7-Eleven and just like buy, like a,
chips or something so I could be in light.
And not.
You know, any of the, however many
kings of hell there are get to me.
Like that's how intense the fear was.
And then I got back to my parents' house
and I was in, um, my childhood bedroom
or closest thing to it because we moved
when I was a senior in high school.
That's a whole other story.
And I just sat there motionless, like
upright, like, I don't mean like I was
crying asleep and I couldn't sleep.
I mean, I sat there with the lights
on, fully clothed, upright on my bed,
just kind of thinking about life for
what felt like two hours contemplating
things.
Jeremy: to go skip some rocks
across a pond somewhere.
Huh?
Greg: Yeah.
Like
That
is the
Emily: image of like looking at
the sand and looking up and just.
Greg: like, and we could break down
all, all the the themes of the movie
and what does right, and what does wrong
in terms of what it has to say about
these scenes, but like on just this raw,
primal level, it hit me in this way.
That made me really stop to think about.
Why did this movie scare me?
What in my life do I consider,
what do I really fear?
And not just in a horror
movie way, but in a life way.
And again, that's why this is my
favorite horror movie because it
great horror makes you almost go
through this kind of exorcism.
And I did not come up with the idea.
I think we, Craven said something
like that where, you know, you, you
come out of it feeling like you've
learned something about yourself.
Emily: Yeah.
That's incredibly profound, honestly.
And I think that that is why I consider
it a objectively fantastic film.
Like when I first saw this
movie, I was more preoccupied
with how upset it made me feel.
Jeremy: Yeah, I, it's, it's really
interesting to me because the movie
that I've seen that I feel like this
is the most, like both in, in how it
makes me feel at points and the way
it's constructed and, and how well
it's put together is the Babadook.
But I have such profoundly
different reactions to those two.
The Babadook is a movie that like, I
could go on for hours about how much
I love and how, how perfect it is.
And Hereditary is a movie that I
aggressively dislike despite like,
knowing that it's masterful, knowing
that it's really well made and that
my apprehension for it and my dislike
of it is the sign that it's well made
is the sign that it's a good movie.
In the way that every drama and
writing teacher I ever had is like,
yeah, it provokes a feeling in
you and that means it's important.
Emily: Mm-hmm.
Jeremy: a good thing.
Ben: Nobody knows what it means,
but it makes you feel things.
Jeremy: that, that's my other note
because my other note is the place
where I think these two things depart
from me is Will Ferrell saying is
Will Ferrell saying nobody knows
what it means, but it's provocative.
It gets the people going.
Like is that's where I feel like
Ari asked or hit with this is
like nobody knows what it means.
We don't know what the,
what the actual story is.
The plot happens entirely
off screen in this movie.
It's all vibes.
Um, but like nobody knows what
it's about, but it's provocative.
it gets the people going.
Makes you think
Greg: Yeah.
Emily: how I feel about
David Lynch sometimes.
Jeremy: that said the one other thing
I wanna say is uh, despite every
chance it could have, and seems like
it should have this movie has nothing
to say about queer people at all.
And
it occurs in Utah and has exactly the
number of black people you'd expect in it.
There's, there's very
little non-white people.
There are a couple of black
people in the background at
the party, and that's about it.
So like as far as any other progressive
politics, that's as far as they go.
Ben: I mean, I feel like the most
diversity we have is Alex Wolff is tan.
Emily: Yeah.
Jeremy: Alex Wolff,
Emily: did those jeans come from though?
Greg: well, well, well, he,
well, I know he's Jewish too.
Like Ari Aser,
uh, that does not play
into the movie at all,
but
Ben: Jewish boy.
Greg: yeah.
Jeremy: So the question remains, would we
recommend people go check this movie out?
Ben: watching this movie once.
Greg: It, it makes sure you
are in a healthy state of mind.
Maybe make sure that, that you
have someone to talk to afterwards.
you, you know, there, there's absolutely
no shame in waiting to watch this movie
or maybe never watching this movie at all.
If you don't think you can handle it.
I mean that sincerely.
But you are in for a unforgettable.
And if you're like me, literally life
changing experience, if you do feel
brave enough to take this journey,
Emily: Just hold onto your butts.
Greg: yeah.
Jeremy: I would say w what I would say
about this movie is the scene of Charlie's
death and the scene at the party leading
up to that are some of the most, for me,
traumatic moments I've seen put on film.
They are so difficult to watch and so
hard to get out of your head afterwards.
That like, yeah, I, from an
artistic standpoint, that's good.
That means they did a good job.
This girl is acting her
absolute ass off in this scene.
Greg: Oh my God.
And she's trying so hard to just be
a good sister and not bother people
for so long until she literally can't
Jeremy: Yeah.
Greg: anything.
Jeremy: Yeah.
It's so heartbreaking.
And then it ends in such a like,
abrupt fashion, which I didn't talk
about this yet, but like, literally
the first time I watched this movie,
I was like, what just happened?
Like, I don't understand
what just happened.
I have to go back and watch this scene
again cause I don't like, there's no way,
what I thought just happened happened.
And the real trick of this movie
is if you give it another minute,
you'll see that it did happen because
they, they talk about it's, this
was in the top five of shutter's,
hundreds scariest moments in movies.
Um, yeah.
yeah.
This where like he, cuz the scene
where she dies, he then goes back and
like lays down on the bed and you hear
the reaction of Tony Collette finding
the body without actually seeing it.
And then it
her insect infested head on the roadside.
And it's like, you don't
think they're gonna show it.
You think that they've just glossed over
this and they're, they're gonna like do
a discretion shot, which is the of that.
it is,
Greg: and
and, and yet at,
Jeremy: for it anymore.
Greg: and yet at the same time, one of
the things I think makes this movie as
brilliant as it is, is that it doesn't
pull punches, but it's not cheap.
It's not exploitative, you
know, this isn't torture porn.
This isn't saw or, or anything
like, like, like that where the
point is the gore and the shock.
It, it, it, there's almost like a
mathematical perfection to the way that
it dolls out these shocking moments
and then just you to sit with them.
Jeremy: I am.
I was not nearly as
bothered as, what is it saw to where the
girl is crawling around trying to find
something in a pit full of rusty needles.
Like I was not as bothered by that,
as I was by watching this girl like
suffocate in the backseat of this car.
Greg: I, I, yeah, I, I, I mean, I've
only seen the first saw movie and, you
know, that I, that's my only point of
comparison with the torture porn genre
because I actively avoid that genre.
But
Jeremy: no.
Greg: saying.
Jeremy: Yeah, so like I, you know,
I do think it's a very well made
movie and if you're listening to this
and it sounds like you can bear it,
then it's definitely worth watching.
But as Scar would say, be prepared,
Emily: Yes.
Jeremy: So what what are
our recommendations for
people coming out of this?
What should people check out?
Greg, do you have a
recommendation for people?
Greg: You know, I, if I may, I'm actually
going to recommend not a movie, but a
book and a book without pictures at that.
Yeah, I know,
right?
But it's a book you've heard
of it's called The Shining.
And I am specifically recommending the
book and not, and not the movie
because um, the Stanley Cooper movie
is great for what is, it's a very,
very scary, surreal horror movie.
I can't deny that.
But it's easy to see why Stephen King
was furious with it, because, uh, a
really essential aspect of, of the book
that is basically absent from the movie,
unless you really wanna give credit,
like a whole lot of credit to things
that are left unsaid and un shown is
the theme of the breakdown of a family.
Um, and specifically uh, the
breakdown of a family due to abuse
in the case of The Shining abuse
born largely out of alcoholism.
you know, the thing that, so
hard to explain to people who
have only seen the movie when I'm
trying to convince to read the.
is, in the movie they go to this
ho haunted hotel and Jack the
character pretty much immediately
goes insane and starts trying
to kill his family in the book.
And this is why I don't think it
could be adapted, because prose is
the medium of the inner monologue.
We spend about a third of that story
in Jack's head where he starts out
as a mostly decent man, and gradually
over the course of the book starts
to lose his mind and turn on his
family and become this monster.
And it's so much scarier because
we see that gradual transformation.
I, I mean there's certain things
in, in horror that just will
always hit certain people.
And for me it's the idea of
people you love turning on you.
And hereditary obviously
does that incredibly.
So if that's something that speaks to you
you know, I know Stephen King doesn't need
like my help you know, getting exposure.
But it
really.
Jeremy: Hill's dad?
Greg: It really is that
underappreciated book.
Oh, yeah.
Joe Hill's dead.
Jeremy: He
Ben: I mean, it's really not a
surprise why Stephen King doesn't
like the Stanley Kubrick movie.
The whole book is Stephen King's
way of writing, a Selfer character
going, I'm not an unforgivable
monster because of my addictions.
And Kubrick went, what if we change it?
So it's a movie about how you
actually are an unforgivable
monster because of your addictions.
Greg: Yeah.
And also you've always, like,
you've basically always been
an unforgivable monster.
You're not fighting this at all.
like, the moment a ghost
offers you alcohol,
Ben: Like, gee, i,
Jeremy: you have ghost alcohol and
ghost sex, and then you're crazy.
Ben: wonder why Stephen King
has some complicated feelings
Jeremy: Yeah,
Greg: you know, not to brag, but I
don't, I don't personally drink much.
I don't have a drinking problem.
I'm drinking a whitelaw right now.
uh, So if a ghost bartender offered me
a drink, I might be inclined to take it.
But, you know, I know my limits
of how much ghost alcohol I
can consume before going crazy
Jeremy: yeah, yeah.
I mean, when there's the ghost,
you always ask for proof, right?
Um,
Greg: Oh.
Jeremy: Emily, what do you recommend?
Emily: Possess the spirits um, the witch,
Greg: Yeah,
Emily: I'd recommend the witch.
And you know, if you like movies
that make you feel like everything
is a really bad dream, you know, you
could try that David Lynch shit out.
it's not for everyone, but
Jeremy doesn't like it.
It's fine.
You're valid, Jeremy.
Jeremy: I've wondered about that.
Emily: Don't listen to anything they say.
You're totally valid.
Even if you don't like non-linear
stories, which I don't think you don't
like non-linear, it just depends.
Jeremy: Oh, linear.
Your stories are fine.
As long as I can put 'em
back together when I'm done.
Emily: Anyway.
Yeah.
So those are my Rex
Jeremy: All right, Ben, what have you got?
Ben: Gonna make it short
and sweet and easy.
If you want another movie about a
complicated and fraught mother-daughter
relationship, check out Greta Gerwig.
Ladybird,
Emily: Oh,
Greg: movie it's own way.
Very scary, but not in
the way that her scary.
Jeremy: yes.
Ben: Less demon Colson.
Ladybird,
Emily: Well it is, it does
play take place in Sacramento,
Jeremy: The
Ben: said less.
Not.
No.
demon cols.
Jeremy: demon culture are
more offscreen than this even.
Emily: yeah,
Jeremy: I mean, have you
ever been to Sacramento?
Um, it's no wonder uh,
no, I'm talking to them.
that's more of a audience question.
Um, What I wanted to recommend
uh, was the 2022 movie Hellbender.
it is
a,
Greg: of this one.
Jeremy: it is a very much related
kind of, in that it is made largely
by a mom, a dad, and a daughter.
Um, And it is a movie directed by the
dad and starring the mom and daughter
and their other daughter as well, who is
playing a neighbor kid that is about this
mom and this daughter who live out in the
wilderness and have their own like, death
metal band that they uh, play together.
And they uh, have a great relationship.
But it slowly becomes clear to the
daughter that the mom is keeping her out
there and keeping her away from people.
Not because she, in fact, is sick
as she's been told that she is, but
the, because she has some creepy,
magical powers that the mom has been
trying to protect other people from
and keep her from knowing about.
it is in a lot of ways similar to
the relationship between like the
grandma and the kids in, in this movie.
Except the mom is like, nah,
you probably shouldn't know
about and do all this stuff.
Because when you get in, when you get
really into the magic, bad things happen.
And the daughter is much more
determined to uh, let bad things happen.
It's really good.
It's a really small movie, but
like, I, I think packs a punch.
it's on Shutter.
That's where I discovered
it this last year.
it was a movie I hadn't really heard
anything about, but it was one of
the like top rated horror movies
on Rotten Tomatoes this last year.
So I checked it out and it was uh,
toward the top of my list for 2022.
Greg: Well, I never heard of
it before, but I'm definitely
gonna be checking that out.
It sounds really really fascinating.
I do have one other very important,
uh, recommendation to give
to people, if you don't mind.
Uh, and that is the concept of therapy.
Emily: Yes,
Greg: therapy.
Jeremy: I thought, is it therapy?
Greg: Yeah.
Yeah.
It, no, it's, it's therapy.
Find a good therapist.
Ben: Recommendation
Greg: Not every therapist is
going to be right for you.
You know, it is a bit of a
process, but it's worth it.
It, it, it's really a miracle of modern
medicine that once a week you could just
sit down and tell this professional what
is wrong with your brain and they help
you make your brain better and make life
feel more navigatable, if that's a word.
So, um, uh, yeah, I'm, I'd go so far as
to say uh, before you watch Hereditary,
may- maybe first find a good therapist.
Jeremy: Whatever David Cronenberg
tells you, they will not make you
grow a womb outside of your body
that produces evil troll children.
Greg: No, nor will they convince you that
you're secretly a serial killer to cover
up for their own serial killer crimes.
And then you have to escape to
this weird mutant underground.
And uh, I don't remember much else
of what happens in night breed.
Emily: Yeah.
Jeremy: I mean, that's about it.
Yeah.
I mean, if you want to, if you
wanna run away to a cool mutant
underground, by all means.
Yeah.
don't don't believe that.
That's a therapist thing.
Emily: Inclusive Inclusive therapists.com.
For real though.
Greg: Yeah.
Jeremy: Absolutely.
Good.
Good recommendation.
On that note Greg, can you tell people
uh, where they can find you online and
uh, learn more about what you're up to?
Greg: Uh, I am still
regrettably on Twitter.
At Greg Silber.
I have a hive account that I started and
I haven't really done much with it because
I heard that that's its own dumpster fire.
You could also find me on
Instagram at Greg Silber.
And even though I am still on a
freelancing hiatus you could find
my writing all over the internet.
Not all over the internet.
The comics internet fine.
but, uh, yeah, if, if you search
Gregory Paul Silber not just Greg
Silber, because that's gonna bring you
to the marine biologist, no relation.
But there's a whole backlog of uh, Gregory
Paul Silber written content that you could
read, including uh, if you like horror,
my four page mini comic with Jonah Newman
that I'm currently working on sequel
to called Benny Beck Vampire Killer,
about a Jewish vampire hunter who kills
Nazi vampires with the help of a golem.
Emily: I'm making gestures.
Yes.
Greg: Thank you.
Thank you.
Jeremy: As for the rest of
us, you can find Emily at Mega
Moth on Twitter, mega_moth on
Instagram and at megamoth.net.
Ben is on Twitter at Ben the Con and
on their website at benkahncomics.com
where you can pick up all of their
books, including the pre-order link to
Elle Campbell wins their weekend, their
debut middle grade novel from Scholastic.
And finally, for me, you can find me
on Twitter and Instagram jrome58 and
on my website at jeremywhitley.com
where you can check out everything I
write, including pre-ordering the just
announced middle grades graphic novel,
the Dog Knight from me, Bre Indigo, and
Melissa Capriglione coming this May.
Emily: So stoked!
Jeremy: Check that out.
Order that.
Greg: Looks amazing, Jeremy.
I gotta say.
Ben: Yes.
Oh, I'm so excited.
It's gonna be awesome.
Jeremy: it is a book that I
was excited about, like from
the time I came up with it.
And every like, bit of it that's been
added to it, including like the, you
know, the artists and everything on
I have just made it that much better.
So I'm, I'm super excited for us to
actually get to share it with the world
because it has been in development
since before the pandemic started, so
it's it's about time it got out there.
And of course, once you finish
pre-ordering all of our books you
can find the podcast on Patreon,
progressively horrified on our website
at progressively horrified transistor
fm and on Twitter, ProgHorrorPod.
Where are you?
We would love to hear from you.
You can leave reviews, give us five stars
and it'll help us uh, reach new folks
out there and, and find new listeners.
And thank you again to
Greg for joining us.
This was a Ball.
This is much more fun than watching
Hereditary by myself and then
not talking about it for days.
Emily: Yes,
Greg: Yes.
Well that's the theme.
You have to, you know, whether
it's a scary movie or you know,
the death of a loved one, you've
gotta talk about it with people.
That's how you cope.
Emily: yes.
Communicate, make art about it.
Just make sure that the animals
are dead first by natural causes.
Jeremy: Yeah.
Maybe don't make, traumatizing dioramas
of it that you're, your son will see after
after he's just done this horrible thing.
But aside from that, you know,
uh, you can make dioramas about
watching Hereditary if you like.
I'm
Emily: you can make dioramas
about anything you want.
Just, you know, you have to take
responsibility for your art if you're
gonna be sharing it with an audience.
Jeremy: Absolutely.
Emily: Um,
Jeremy: Emily, what was that?
Emily: I don't remember
Jeremy: All right, and thank you as
always to Ben and Emily for joining me.
Thank you to all of us for joining us,
and until next time, stay horrified.