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and part of the Someone's Favorite Productions podcast Network. Hello there, and welcome
back to the disc Connected. I'm here with Chris Stashu, who I can't
even really announce as a part of something. Because you touch so many different
podcasts out there, we're going to break down all of them. Chris,
thanks for doing the show. Thank you for having me. It's not very
frequently that I have to worry about being on camera. Well, I'm glad
you are because you are a beautiful human and it's nice to be able to
see your face. Thank you. Likewise, Likewise, I'm not six foot
five like you, but I'm a shorter, beautiful human. Well, you're
also in a similar region of the United States, and it's nice to see
somebody that's fairly close by. Yeah, we're suffering together. You're probably suffering
less than I am. But yeah, we're like three hours away, so
that's a pretty good number compared to everybody else I work with who happens to
be exactly in the fun parts of the country. Yeah, I'd say we
suffer fairly equally. It just depends on the time of the year. I'll
suffer in August probably slightly more than you. You'll suffer in February, probably
slightly more. Yeah, that's right exactly. Yeah, when I like the
cold weather here, I'm never going to complain about the cold weather, but
yeah, sometimes it can get a bit much in the Midwest, folks.
One of the things that I definitely want to talk about because people have if
you've been watching this channel, you have not met Chris yet, we get
a lot to discuss and introduce you to because Chris, like I said,
you are prolific in the amount of podcast that you work on, but the
big one you just contributed to the physical Media Advocate, the zine that we
put out as part of this, and I want to say thank you.
It was a fantastic piece, and I think introduces people to a part of
cinema that most people don't touch on. Would you agree with that? I
would not only agree, but I would agree vociferously, because again, when
Indian cinema is mentioned, for the most part, I think everybody goes to
a slum dog millionaire, at least they used to, not anymore. Thankfully,
we're living in a post Triple R universe where Triple R made a lot
of waves in the States thanks to people like Josh Hurtado who worked directly with
SS Rajah Mouli to get it kind of up and over the line and into
the kind of public zeitgeist in a way that Triple are deserved. But I
watch a lot of Indian cinema. I watch Indian cinema every week. I
have a bi weekly so once every other week podcast called The Bollywood Cinema Club.
And yeah, no, Indian cinema takes up a lot of my time,
not just because every single one of those movies for the most part,
is at least two and a half, sometimes three hours, sometimes more than
three hours. The movie that I did the write up for in your zine
is three hours in like eleven minutes. And it's a rom com, so
you know, and I don't watch rom coms, at least not Western ones.
But Indian cinema their rom coms just they hit different, as they would
say, Well, on that note, tell us about the podcast, tell
us what you cover in it, and then we'll start talking about some of
the other podcasts. So the Bollywood Cinema Club, I've been doing it for
it'll be a year in January. I used to do and I still do
Indian movies during the year on the Culture Cast, but it's only a month.
But what's funny is I host on Spreaker, where all the shows that
I post can be found, more specifically weirdingwaymedia dot com. And I looked
at the numbers about a year ago, a year and a half ago for
the show, and a lot of the downloads were the Indian movies, and
so I was like, well, wouldn't it just makes sense to do it
as its own thing focus. Yes, Yeah, So I spent six months
recording thirty three or thirty four episodes of the show. So it's it being
every other week, that's a year's worth of content. Actually, the episode
I ran this previous week, so the week of October twelfth or thirteenth or
fifteenth, or whatever the fuck this week is, that episode was recorded in
January of this year. Wow. Right, right, So to your point
about being prolific, the way that one is prolific is by doing this every
day or more than one time the day. But the Bollywood Cinema Club is
definitely the thing that I'm the most proud of right now in terms of the
things that I am actively interested and engaged in. And so every other week
we just talk about a new or old Indian movie, not just a Bollywood
movie, because Bollywood is more a specific term for a specific kind of Indian
cinema, that being Hindi cinema. And yeah, I think you know if
you're if you've not been exposed to Indian movies, I'm not going to say
my podcast is a perfect way to get involved, but it's a step in
the right direction. I feel like if you're on Netflix and Amazon Prime,
you've probably had Indian movies suggested to you. I just don't think people are
moving on those suggestions because again, that would require you to watch something new
that you haven't seen, and that means it might not be good, which
I totally understand, because we all have not enough time to do the things
we all want to do, and the last thing anyone would want to do
is spend two and a half to three hours on a movie that's not good.
So that's more what I'm trying to do is give people insight into Indian
cinema, not just Hindi, but Telugu and Tamil, and giving them an
idea of where they can go if they want to find more things like this,
but also giving suggestions on things that are totally worth watching, because I
don't think we've really talked about anything on the show that isn't worth checking out
other than I think two movies, and Heather Drain had the misfortune of being
on both of them, unfortunately, one of them being Maha Call, which
is the nightmare on ELM Street reboot, reimagining, rip off, whatever you
want to call it. I know, and we talked about it. I
think it's fun for what it is. But if we're talking about it being
a good movie. Oh definitely not right right, but yeah, you know
Heather, Heather was on that episode, and then she was on the episode
where we talked about Circus, which has not neither one of those episodes if
you've come out yet, actually they were recorded so long ago. But that
you know, for the most part, everything that I've watched and talked about
on the show has been you know, please check it out. It is
worth while watching. You would be doing yourself a disservice by not watching it.
So I try not to watch movies that are not going to be good
either, because I want people to be able to watch an Indian movie,
enjoy it, and by enjoying it go watch other movies. I feel like
if they watch it and don't like it, that door more or less closes.
And I get it. But you know, not all Indian cinema is
boring. In Sungate ray, a lot of it is just just like the
kind of stuff that we're watching here in the States. You know, action
movies, comedies, not as many horror movies unfortunately, but I feel like
that's changing. So how does a gentleman from Nebraska just suddenly discover a love
for Indian cinema. So that's the fun part. I live in Nebraska.
I am thankfullyrases I'm not thankfully not from here. I have plenty of good
friends here. I grew up and I know you grew up. You know,
you grew up in southern California and I grew up in North Texas.
But I was born You're in California, and then my folks moved when I
was a kid. I grew up in North Texas, which when I was
going to high school was pretty ethnically diverse. Now North Texas is very ethnically
diverse, to the point where whole cities and communities are more Southeast Asian than
even Hispanic or White or anything else. Because again, North Texas has become
a very big place to move to and have a job, especially in tech
industries and other things like that. So I grew up around a fair amount
of Indian kids in high school, be it Northern Indian or Southern Indian,
and so I was exposed to their culture pretty early on, and for whatever
reason, it's something that I gravitated towards. And I remember watching my first
Indian movie Proper on my way to India in twenty eleven and I kind of
saw the movie. It was Entherron, which is Robo which stars Rajney Kant,
and it's Bicentennial Man meets the Matrix, meets the Terminator all rolled into
one. It's as insane as it sounds. It's a lot of fun.
If you've never seen it, definitely check it out. I believe it's on
Netflix or Prime Video. But I just grew up with a lot of Indian
friends and that was something that I took interest in because I had to take
interest in people and the things that they care about. And I am always
that person who's asking more questions, which puts me in a position to then
all of a sudden start caring about things I maybe didn't care about before.
So that's the long answer to a short question. It's just I grew up
around a lot of people who were Indian or Southeast Asian, and I ended
up going to India and on the plane to India, like I said,
the first time I saw an Indian movie and I kind of just fell in
love with it from there. It's it's unlike anything else in the best way,
and not every movie is going to be singing and dancing, but there's
a lot of it, and that is part of it. And that bothers
you probably don't watch Indian cinema. But also if that bothers you, the
fuck is your problem? Like that's my question. Like my friend Dustin,
who is on the show quite often, he puts it rather perfectly. He
says, Indian cinema leaves room for fun and the joy of filmmaking is still
readily apparent when you're watching the film. I don't think that's the case with
a lot of Western cinema anymore for a number of reasons, but Indian cinema
seems to have weathered that. An Indian culture has a very strong connection to
cinema as well. I mean, it's an event. That's why the movies
are so long, because you go and you want to. It's a day,
you're spending your day doing it. It's a thing that you go and
do with your family. So again, we've kind of commodified the movie going
experience in this country to the point where it's like we're just gonna go to
the movies. But in India, I mean you can. I mean again,
you can get food here in the States now, but we don't have
intermissions during movies. They have intermissions in Indian cinema. It's just it's a
different way of approaching film and it's a different cultural appreciation that I feel like
more people would be able to understand if they were watching Indian cinema, because
they really love movies over there in a way that like, I think we
like them here in the States, but they're not intrinsically part of our culture.
People like movies, but in India it's part of the culture. Everybody
watches movies in India. I can't say the same for people here. I
have run into plenty of people that say I don't know actors and I don't
watch movies. It's like, well, I mean for someone like myself or
yourself who watches a lot of physical media or just things in general, that's
a hard thing to understand, Like I don't watch a lot of movies,
Like, right, okay, so what do you do with your life?
Yeah, you're just watching a lot of TV, just watching Seinfeld and Frasier
remakes and retreads. I don't know, Like that's that's the thing for me.
Is like I always I always kind of drag the office. But it's
like Why would you go and watch The Office for the thirtieth time when you
can be watching new things that you've never scene that might push you as a
as a film watcher or allow you to appreciate a culture that, again you're
probably not having a lot of exposure to. I mentioned this on the It
Lives Inside podcast. I probably do take for granted my exposure to Indian culture
comparatively to a lot of people growing up in this country, and especially people
in the Midwest, Like I ain't seen a lot of Indian folks around these
parts, as they would say. But what's crazy is we have Indian movies
being shown at our local movie theaters. So like, maybe I'm wrong,
but don't I don't think where I live now is as conducive to appreciating Indian
cinema outside of just doing it yourself, because people here have to be convinced
to watch Indian cinema and then they love it when they watch it, so
huzzah. But yeah, no, that's long, long answer to a short
question, and I mean really got to touch on that culture point because not
to just hammer on triple R because that's what everybody wants to talk about.
For the last two years. But the big thing is it showed that people
are willing to embrace it. It showed that people and not only just the
film itself, but you know, these these videos of dancing and singing breaking
out in fucking la theaters of people that just loved the movie. And it's
not like the entire audience was all Indian and that this is something that they
were prepared for. This was people that just genuinely got overtaken by the joy
of the film. Yeah. And you know, I have spoken with some
of my Indian friends about Triple R and they like it. But my white
friends that I've talked to seem to be the ones who liked the movie more.
And it seems to like, really, I don't know, it seems
to really speak more to like the action movie saensibilities of the people that I
know, but also like the kind of epic action because that's a pretty epic
movie Triple R is. Yeah, I'm curious to see if this will be
sustained because again we've kind of seen these blips come and go, but like,
will it be sustained further into people going from Triple R to maybe Again,
my suggestion, if you've seen triple R and you want to watch something
else that's an action movie that you can see kind of the frame of reference
Western wise, but appreciate it because it's something very different. Is Patan,
which came out earlier this year, which is shah ru Khan essentially doing the
Ethan hunt Tom Cruise Mission Impossible. Think it's Mission impossible but better because sha
ru Khan is a much more charismatic actor than Tom Cruise could ever hope to
be. And Tom Cruise is a very charismatic actor, but shah ru Khan
is just Indian. If you watch an Indian movie and you're not immediately taken
aback by how fucking charismatic all of the people are, how good looking everybody
is. It's a different way of making movies. It feels like old school
Hollywood actors are venerated in a way that is not we don't do that in
this country anymore. It's and it's because of the amount of people that are
watching these movies that feel that they connect to the these actors in such a
tangible way that they're venerated. Like God's Omi tap Bachchan, who's one of
the biggest Indian actors up until the pandemic, and he's doing it again on
Saturday, will come out in front of his house and wave to his fans
and then he goes back inside of his house. That's it. And people
are there every weekend, Like nobody is doing that here. That's not a
thing. That's so not a thing that to say that out loud, which
I have to multiple people, they're like shocked and stunned that that's the thing,
Like what why because he's venerated. Because people think that amitab Bocchon is
worth idolizing, and I don't think they're wrong. I think a part of
what we've lost in the US potentially is the fact that many of these stars
are on Instagram selling its multi level marketing products. Right, Sam Friedman and
Tom Brady would love for you to lose all of your money. Yeah,
yeah, I mean that's this. I mean, that's the cynical aspect of
it. But I mean the you know, Ron Beer Kapor and all you
know SRK and a mere Khan, they're all advertising stuff in India. It's
just it's in India, you know. And they're they're involved in politics.
It's just in India, you know. Again, it's hard to have an
opinion about someone that's not in your country, because you have opinions about people
in your country, so you're worried about having opinion about them first, which
is fine. Like you know, again, I understand that it's an uphill
battle to try to get people to watch movies with subtitles, but come on,
come on, come on, guys. I would think so in twenty
twenty three, but I know that that's still that is still a thing that
people will say, like, I, what's foreign films because I don't want
to read, and it's like, oh, fine, fine, fine,
but yeah, no, Indian cinema for me has become a passion and it
is something that I'm, like I said, I'm trying to foster a positive
community around understanding and appreciating it through a Western lens, which is the only
lens that I can offer, because I am not Indian. That's the one,
you know. Yeah, yeah, and it's and it's not any less
valid if it's being appreciative, not like oh this is fucking weird. Like
there's none of that on my show. The only dragging that we do is
the dragging of people that don't like to watch movies with subtitles. And again,
I don't know how else to say this, but get over yourself.
Like I'm not trying to be a dick, but if you don't watch movies
with subtitles, you've closed off so much fantastic cinema, not just Indian cinema,
but German films, Japanese films, French New Wave. Like if you
only want to watch the Office, it's your progreve. I guess. Yeah,
so that's Bollywood cinema. Bollywood Cinema. Club links for that obviously in
the description below. Please go check that out. Subscribe, listen to every
episode. Chris is amazing. Next Culture Cast. There's so many things to
promote and discuss, so I got to go through it quick. Yeah.
Culture Cast is just a movie, just another movie podcast. I've been doing
that since twenty fourteen October of twenty fourteen, so next year it'll be a
decade, niece. Yeah, it's I don't know, I uh, you're
really solid this one. Well. I enjoy I enjoy doing the show.
But it's definitely one of those things where like if we're not talking about new
movies, it's really hard to like get people excited outright because it's like,
well, we watch all kinds of different stuff, but we really do.
I mean, the culture Cast is more about highlighting things that I think and
other people think are worth checking out that maybe didn't get the appreciation initially that
one would assume. And the culture Cast is not just my baby. I
mean it is, but throughout the year, I let other people program months
because I think getting other people involved is more fun. And again, I
don't know how many people are being given an opportunity to program a month of
content that they don't have to edit, that they don't have to do anything
with, right, And I have no problem doing it. So Mike White,
who is the host of The Projection Booth, which is my favorite movie
podcast and I think the superior at least academic level movie podcast, him and
I work together. He's on my show fairly frequently. But yeah, like
movie podcasts are, if you don't like movies, you're not gonna listen.
So if you like movies, you should check out the Culture Cast, but
to a labor of love, like anything else. But I just I use
it as an opportunity to watch movies I've never seen before and you know,
getting to talk about them often with the people who pick the movies. But
you know, even more often just two people who have never seen the movie
having a conversation about it. So, but all the research has done,
it's all very well researched. I mean again, everybody who I host with
is very entertaining, yourself included. You were just on an episode of the
show where we talked about no One Will Save You. I almost butcher the
title of the movie again. But the Culture Cast, I mean again,
I don't want to just downplay it as just another movie podcast, but it
is a movie podcast that you can listen to on the internet. That's what
we all love. Culture Cast, Bollywood Cinema Club. And you've got some
others that you invest a lot of time in. Once you at least lay
the floor on those, maybe we won't go as in depth. Yeah.
So, in terms of collaborative things that I work on, I work on
a couple shows where I am essentially a host, not a host slash producer,
not editor. So Midnight Viewing, which is a night gallery podcast than
Twilight Zone eighty five. That podcast is called Dreams for Sale, did a
col check show with Mike White, and then right now we're working on a
Barney Miller's show and a Colombo show as well, which will take us,
you know, a couple more years to do, and then we have some
other irons in the fire collaborative stuff. But for the most part, everything
I do outside of the culture cast, which is like the singularly me outside
of the guests, is purely collaborative. So scary stories we tell, which
is very different from anything else I work on. It's like paranormal supernatural,
but talking about those things, not just talking about movie versions of those things.
And that's it. I mean again, like I show up on Mike's
show from time to time, I show up on other people's shows from time
to time. But I have plenty of things that keep me busy. I
want to say. It's I want to say. I'm in charge of editing,
posting, and doing all the work for two weekly shows, one bi
weekly show, and three or four monthly shows. So let's ye, yeah,
keeps it, keeps it keeps a girl busy so well. And not
to mention when you record sixty eight episodes in a month or whatever, is
that that's got Yeah, thirty three thirty three podcasts in six months is for
one show I do. I mean I was still recording everything else for everything
else, So yeah, it was a bit much, and and it burned
It burned me out in a way that I'm still trying to grapple with because
well that's the thing, you know, we we we talked about this,
you know, off air, but doing the whole podcasting thing can seem kind
of isolated and a little very working with other people. Like That's why I
say, you know, the collaborative things I work on, because for me,
I like being collaborative and working with people and working together. And that's
why I let people program months of my show, The Culture Cast, because
I mean that the way it works is if you program the month, you
also are given the opportunity to be on any episode that you want, including
all of them. So if you program an entire month, if you want
to be on every episode, that's your prerogative. So I mean, again,
I don't know who else is doing that for anybody else. It's not
like I'm some sort of you know, mother Teresa or anything. But I
understand that people are always wanting people to talk about the things that they care
about or talk about the things that they care about. And I don't know
short of starting your own show, how you could just have somebody allow you
to do that. So and have a very good point. And yeah,
I completely agree on the podcasting thing. Obviously I produce a couple as well.
And the way that podcasting is just by the nature of what you're doing.
You hardly ever interact with people other than for that initial recording. But
so many people that's all they focus on. But there's so much extra time
that goes into it just then that we'll say somewhere between forty five minutes to
two hours of time. I would say I've used this equation to explain it
to people. For every minute of content that's recorded, it's probably three minutes
to four minutes of work that needs to be done with the content, something
like one minute requires three minutes to get it where it needs to be or
what you're doing it right. Yeah, I don't know why you would do
it if you're not doing it right, which I think you would agree with.
I mean again, I don't want to be the guy who's like,
well, you should take pride in your work. But if I'm listening to
your show and I can hear like burps and farts, and shit, right,
come on, man, like people are listening to this and it's representative
of you and who you are, and like, you know, burps and
farts are fine. But if it's part of it, if it'spost, if
it's meant to make you laugh, okay, But I don't know. It
is a lone it's a lonely profession if you don't live in Las ag Angelus.
Like that's what it feels like, right, Like we know that there
are so many people that get to go podcast in a group in a room
and they're all sitting there yucking it up. I've seen theovon on TikTok as.
I'm sure many of you have. But for me, the podcasting experience
has always been what we're doing now like a digital thing. I mean we
we you and I could probably do something in person together given the proximity to
one another that which we live. But yeah, like the people that I
know, like Mike, we've never recorded together in person. I've recorded in
person with two of the people that I consider myself close with in the podcasting
world, at least in terms of people I've worked with for a while,
And it's weird to record in person with them too. It's a very weird
feeling to like look over and see the person next to you and be like,
oh, we're doing the thing here as opposed to we're doing the thing
here. Yeah. So a lot of people that don't consider this don't realize
the fact that not only not only does it create a different dynamic because now
instead of a computer screen, you're kind of like instinctually going to interact with
them, even though obviously verbally you're already going to do that. But on
top of that, it changes your workflow on everything and creates new hurdles that
you don't always have to face because you're just in a silent room. But
now if you got three people in the same room, there's a lot more
to edit. Yeah, exactly, which I do take. I probably don't
realize how much I take that for granted here as a podcaster doing everything remotely,
So yeah, I can just mute myself and it's not a problem,
which is not a thing if you're recording in a room. I guess it
could be. But yeah, there's a reason people are doing mixing and editing
for those people, because there's a lot more that needs to be done than
with people that are recording separately on separate tracks in quiet houses, far away
from one another. I love how this went into the podcast technical zone instead
of talking about I mean, you mentioned how many podcasts I work on,
so I figure mine as well. Mention some of the things that I've picked
up in case anybody listening wants some free information on how to do this well
and the other thing you kind of mentioned it. But weirding Way Media is
sort of a pretty decent sized name, especially because of Mike's involvement, and
most of that is based around you so well, and we have twenty plus
shows and I only make up, like, I only make up probably seven
of those. Yeah, I mean there are there are We have people on
the network that I've never met. I mean people on the network that are
doing shows that I've never been on, like Eighties TV Ladies, Filmentaries,
Feminine Critique. Those are just three that stand out that I've never I guess
I've been on eighties TV Ladies once. But yeah, no, I mean,
there's just there's a lot going on at weirding Way Media and new stuff
coming after the first of the year. We got two, two, three,
three new projects that are launching after the first of the year as well
podcasts, So yeah, there's always something to listen to, always something to
find it weirding way, and yeah, my fingerprints are everywhere, but I
tend to like to wipe them off so that it's less apparent how involved I
am. I get that, Okay. So we talked about establishing the love
for Indian cinema. What about just movies in general? Has that always been
a thing for you. Yeah, I was one of those kids who could
rattle off actor names from a young age. I don't know why it sticks
out to me, but I remember watching Armageddon with my parents and some family
friends, and Jason Isaacs is in that movie as like a random dude at
NASA who's working with Billy Bob Thornton, and I remember saying, oh,
that's I remember saying to my dad like, oh, that's the villain from
The Patriot, because it is. And then it, you know, obviously,
you know, it becomes Draco Malfoy's dad and Harry Potter. But I,
for whatever reason, I just think of that like Jason Isaacs specifically.
But I have always liked movies. It's one of those like core things of
my being. You can see it because this is a fucking video thing.
I mean, I have more. The decorations in my house are my house,
my wife and I own are movies and movie posters or movie art or
Mondo fucking posters that I spent way too much money on, or Mondo posters
that you can't get anymore because they're too expensive, like a Bako Bonsye posters.
So yeah, I am a movie person, like in a way that
I'm sure you are, given the amount of physical media that you own.
But yeah, movies. I don't remember what the first movie I ever saw
was. It's I don't have that memory. I remember that I saw Independence
Day in theaters. I remember I saw Apollo thirteen in theaters. I don't
know if those are early enough to be considered first movie going experiences for me,
but movies have been a part of my life since as long as I
can remember. As Henry Hill would say, so, well, most of
the time, I'm talking to two people that are already involved in physical media.
I've never asked you this. How deeply entrenched are you in physical media?
Uh? I'm on this. The Cassandra Cat, which was released by
Keno Keno over second und Run in the last year. And then I'm also
on All My Good Countrymen, which is another check new wave film. I
think that was the second run film as well. So I've been on two
commentaries, which the first commentary I recorded was in April or May of twenty
twenty, and I got to do that thanks to Mike White, and that
to me is crazy like that to me is like I've said it before and
I say it again. I could die happy having been on a physical release
of anything just too so far, but not anything that's like again or three.
I guess the thing I'm the most proud of is being on the Culchak
the Nightstalker Blue from Keno, which did come about because of well mine and
Mike's involvement with Colchac Tapes. And shout out to Amanda Reyes for getting us
that gig, who I know you've spoken with as well. So yeah,
no Colchak and then some check new wave films, but the big one is
the Colchack Blu ray for Sure, which came out last year or the year
before. So Mike and I we did the Colchac Tape show. We covered
the entire Colchak The Nightstalker run and the remake, and then I think it
was like a year later they were like, you want to do a commentary
and we were like, hell yeah, So I mean that's that was for
me was always the kind of dream and I always joked about it with Mike
and I think I said it on the Colchac tapes, like the goal for
anybody doing any of these podcasts has got to be like being involved with the
show coming back in some substantive way. I mean, Kumail nan Gianni was
on the X Files because of his X Files podcast that helped revitalize interest in
the X Files, so it's not impossible to think that could happen. I
got what I would consider to be the next best thing, which is being
part of a physical release for something I care a lot about. So yeah,
it's it's not as many as I would like, but at least I
have one that is something that I care about immensely. So the you know,
the thing I would love to be on would be like a Good Fella's
Blu ray, or or at the Freaked Blu Ray if it ever came if
a free if a version of Freaked came out, that was a Blu ray
that was a criterion. My I would I would do everything in my power
to be on that Blu ray because that, for me is that's one of
the one of the movies that I will trot out and say is my favorite
movie if I know someone might actually know it. So wow, there was
a Freaked Blu ray from Increbay that came out years ago, and now that
thing, I think eBay damn and eBay prices on that are like one sixty
something crazy. I have the DVD and I have the Blu Ray, but
I was I was hoping that some body else would pick it up because that
came out. I mean, it came out to Anchor Bay. So if
that gives you anybody, right, if it gives you any idea when that
came out, it came out so long ago that it was released by Anchor
Bay. I bought it before I went to college, so that was like
two thousand and seven, Like that's how long it's been out of print.
But I have a Mondo poster of Freaked hanging in my hallway, so and
I have on my laptop bag the Ricky Coogan pin that's essentially the poster.
So I mean again, like you know, physical media is fantastic, and
especially if you want to get involved with things that you love and being a
part of it permanently. I don't think physical media is a bad option if
you want to figure out a way to get involved with the movie making industry
in a way that is easier than being on set. I think be a
being someone who is knowledgeable about a movie and can speak to it on a
commentary is a pretty nice feather in one's cap. How how was the commentary
process for you? It didn't feel fairly natural because it was Mike how dare
you? Yes? No, I mean, here's the thing. He he
is the one who offered the opportunities to me. Well, the col check
thing was someone else offering that to us. So that's kind of the weird
one. But the other two it was essentially like like like recording an episode.
I mean we sat watched the movie at the same time and talked about
it while watching it, and I enjoyed it. I didn't do any of
the back end work, thankfully. That was, like you mentioned, Mike
White of the projection booth was doing all of that. Uh, it's different.
I have edited my own commentary once we did. I did like a
trial run on the Patreon for the Culture Cast. We did a commentary for
Possession, the Andrezawalski film, which is a real fun movie. If you've
never seen it, it's like, yeah, it's a real upper of a
movie. Every time I watch it, I walk away from it going,
man, what a fun movie that was. But we did that a couple
of years ago, I want to say, during the Pandemic. We offered
that as like a Patreon bonus, and I've thought about doing it like once
a year just for shits and giggles, because it is fun. But it
is also an exhausting kind of work that I'm not a huge fan of because
the way you have to edit a commentary is it's a pain in the ass
to put it that way, in terms of getting everything to line up and
sync up and make sure that it works and flows the way you want it
to while you're while you're watching the movie, and also not getting in the
way of the movie. And there's a lot of things that go on to
making a commentary work that you know, I'm not super privy to because again
I didn't do much of the back end work, but it was fun.
I would suggest if anybody is trying to get involved with the back end of
movie making, This is a very easy way to do it, and a
very I think economical way too. You don't really have to have a lie.
You have to have a microphone and a comp to be able to do
commentaries and something worth saying, an opinion or an idea worth contributing. Because
again, ultimately, anything that anybody does in a commentary, it is effectively
their opinion too, unless they're talking straight facts. So one of the easiest
ways to make that worthwhile is a lot of films have never literally ever had
anything analytical said about them, So take the time, do some research.
Look at something from nineteen sixty eight that has never been on Blu ray or
something, and take care of it. See if you can do some research
and enough to talk about the entire runtime. Yeah. Yeah, And that's
the other thing you don't have to like, you don't have to constantly be
jabbering either, which is the other thing that I think again, like part
of it is like letting the movie play and letting the movie do its thing.
So I enjoy commentaries. I would like to do more of them,
but I think that's what any of us would say is like I would like
to be involved in more physical releases for sure. Frankly, what I would
like is to have a company that would allow me to release things physically that
I would want to release. But I mean that's what you're doing, so
and then I mean again, you know, production company, podcast network.
Any of those terms are interchangeable with what I'm doing with everybody at weirding Way,
because I would like it to be less just podcasts and more other things,
because not saying podcasts don't have an infinite ceiling, but audio only does
have an infinite ceiling. Unfortunately, so well, and a lot of people
still just playing don't ever listen to podcasts. That's the other hard part.
I know, I know people want to watch stuff. I get it,
like I get it. I get those comments on the YouTube episodes of the
podcast that get posted on you know, automatically through spreaker, and the comments
of like where's the movie? It's like not here, obviously, like this
is a podcast episode. Nobody ever promised you. You know, we're talking,
we're going to show you the movie, we're talking about it. So
yeah, I I I don't know. Sometimes I guess the expectations are a
little off. But yeah, audio only does seem to have a little bit
of a ceiling to it, for sure, But it helps when you have
nineteen different tentacles reaching out to different show good job, right, Yeah,
yeah, well that's the thing. I mean, when you start a podcast
network, you want to find the show that is going to be the show,
and you already mentioned it. It's Mike's show. I mean, like
I said the projection booth, not to downplay the quality of my show or
the things that I work on, but I work on plenty of projects and
I bring an intensity to them that I always bring. Mike has an intensity
for a singular project, and that is that's like a nuclear warhead with a
guided laser on it, like it's going to always go exactly where you want
it to. And that's Mike's expectations. He wants to dig deep, as
far down as you can to get as much information because, like we've mentioned,
it's time and efforts that other people don't have to do. Right,
you're giving them your synthesis of it. And to Mike's credit, he doesn't
get in the way of the synthesis. He synthesizes it and then gives his
opinion, which I think is the more important thing about being a commentator on
movies or analyzing movies or critiquing movies is my feelings and the movie itself and
keeping those things separate, and in this day and age of subjectivity and objectivity's
line being essentially destroyed, being cognizant of it, I think, and I
think you would agree, is something that is important now, Like, this
is my opinion, right, but the movie is objectively not good. Also
like that those are two separate statements that can be made so well. And
I think you and I both seem to have some sort of skill in that,
because it goes back to something we talked about earlier already, which is
about that empathy. When watching some of these movies, you understand that you're
watching different cultures. You understand that you are embracing film from a different time,
from a different mindset than you are used to in those around you are
used to. And that's where things like people not watching with captions I got
a little less patients for because you're kind of showing you don't have that empathy
and you don't have the drive to engage on a larger stage than just Western
movies, right, Western movies. I'm not saying they're bad, but it
all feels very one note after a while, and when someone does something different
we applaud them. But it's few and far between where anyone is really doing
anything novel and groundbreaking anymore because everything has been done. I mean, I'm
not trying to bemoan, it's just the reality. It's true. It is
true. Well, we kind of were all leading up to this big discussion
about found footage, and this was your idea. So I got to find
out why found footage I I actually let me ask you, what is your
perception? What is your perception of other people's perception of found footage? Like,
what do you think most people hate? Okay, I would agree with
that sentiment. I don't hate it. Nah. I'm not saying it's like
my favorite thing of all time far well maybe not far from it, But
I feel like, for me, found footage is a weird thing that has
so many different directions that it can go that it's you know, at times,
gorilla filmmaking at times, cinema verity at times, it's both. At
times it's neither of those things. Yeah, but yet it's all in that
same umbrella term of found footage. I don't know what it is about found
footage. I think found footage has been something I've always kind of been into
subconsciously. And when I think back on the things that like really got me
animated back in the day, or things that I was like going out of
my way to track down a lot if it was found footage. So and
I some of the things I remember watching as a teenager that really, like
I said, really not set me off but definitely catalyzed opinions within me that
I have not really not changed, but they've only grown more complex. But
there's still the core idea started with something like a found footage movie that came
out in two thousand and seven, two thousand and eight, Yeah, a
pretty big found footage movie that came out in that span of time. So
uh yeah. I think there's a couple that most people tend to be like,
this one is pretty good, and then the rest they're like, oh,
it's a gimmick that makes it awful, and why didn't they put the
camera down? Why didn't they put the camera down? Which is a fair
fucking question, Like if you can get over the hump of why haven't you
put the camera down in the first five minutes of your found footage movie.
You're off to a pretty good start. But if you can't ever answer that
question, then the audience is just going to keep asking. Yeah, that
is true, And I think there's a lot of them, especially in the
last ten to fifteen years, that have lended pretty well to that answer.
It seems like a lot of people are making these in a way that they're
building an answer in for that question, right. It's part of the framing
device as opposed to a gimmick. And you know, I'm not going to
blame or in Pelly, but paranormal activity ushered in a wave of things that
were not as good as paranormal activity. And paranormal activity one is fine.
I like it, just fine, But I mean again, in a lot
of ways, it's like the first Saw movie, like could we just have
it be that thing? And it doesn't need to be another ten things?
Not that I'm complaining about Sauce Saw five or six, which everyone has Peter
Outerbridge and it is probably my favorite Sauce. So you have to get through
four other ones to get there. But I don't know the plot contry vanceys
and found footage seemed to be so obvious unless they're going out of their way
to deal with it. That like, it's hard to ignore how contrived found
footage can be. The worst found footage, the best found footage, Yeah,
just makes it part of it and you're not sitting there going, well,
why is it the way that it is? So I think the more
we talk about found footage, the more people will realize how much they actually
enjoy it and how much they don't hate it. But it is also a
genre that is very easy to hate. For me, found footage is the
equivalent like a found footage movies are like we WI games. Yeah, you
remember the we the Nintendo or you remember how all those games were just coming
out for the Weed that nobody had ever heard of, you know, Jerry
and Nitas, Rice's Dog Football, Like, who's playing this? Who is
this for? It's super cheap being made on a low budget, Like that's
found footage For a lot of people. Found footage is a cheap, crappy
movie that is being made cheaply because they can't afford any of the budgetary needs
to make a movie that seems interesting or has a point to it. I
remember when I was in high school talking with a friend of mine and us
being like, we should do a found footage movie. We could film it
on our phones. Yeah, I mean, that's the benefit of found footage
is you can film it on your phone. And because you're filming it on
your phone, and the expectation is this is footage from my phone. You
don't have to do anything with it. It can just be footage from your
phone. But then you watch movies that are just footage from your phone and
they're not so I mean, again, it's a little bit of column A,
a little bit of column B. I think the allusion to the Wei
games there is maybe the most apt thing I've heard about found footage, because
a lot of those they are kind of historically built on these engines. They're
basically a foundation for a game that they put a different skin on and they
call it a day, and it's super cheap to do because all the technology
is already there found footage. The shitty ones have all been that exact same
way. They put a different not even unique, like a different branch of
a genre over this this this skeleton and call it today and say it's the
exact same thing, and it fails miraculously. But a lot of people have
seen some of those shitty ones and it totally colors their opinion on all of
them. Which there's some really great ones out there there are. And you
know I mentioned oron Pelly and you know, blaming or in Pelly orin Pelly
attempted to do his own thing after Paranormal Activity, and on the Culture Cast,
you and I just talked about No One Will Save You Area fifty one
not a good movie. And again, but it's the guy who directed Paranormal
Activity, the movie that ushered in kind of the I would say second wave
found footage, third wave of found footage movies. Really even his movie wasn't
successful. So it's like it is so like found footage is ultimately lightning in
the bottle too. Like I know why Paranormal Activity was successful, But you
know, you can't just do the same gimmick over and over again. And
that's what the problem with Paranormal Activity and all those movies similar to it are.
You cannot do the same thing and expect people to be as as engaged
as they were the first time. Paranormal Activity one is a better movie than
anything that came after it, because it was just its own thing. It
was novel, it was unique, and then they did it a million Moore
times and it stopped being novel and unique, and it just started being diminishing
returns. But one might say, because it's paranormal activity two, three,
four, five, six, and seven, I think the people that it's
being made for are the people that were already there, and they're not really
trying to get anybody new to be involved, which in and of itself is
also kind of a problem. Yeah, completely agree. Well, let's get
into a list. We decided to do a top seven. We're both gonna
go through these that are Again we're not saying these are the best necessarily,
but like seven favorites, we'll say. I'm sure you could argue many films
are better than some of the ones I'm gonna mention, But I happen to
have a handful of honorable mentions, so I'm sure we can talk about some
of those after that we both appreciate. So, as you are the guest,
let's hear what you have in at your number seven. So just want
to point this out for you, as you just kind of mentioned it.
I have. There's no order to this list. It is just seven movies
I think worth checking out. So the value of the value of these are
not determined by any number. If yours are cool, I mean, I
just I don't know. I'm I'm about the same way. Yeah yeah,
yeah, okay. So the first one I want to mention, I think
is one worth talking about, primarily because I think of the amount of influence
it would end up having on genre. Cannibal Holocaust, which I know is
a controversial pick. Like, don't get me wrong, I mean an animal
is several animals are killed in that movie for real, which, similarly to
cock Fighter, I don't think people are interested in seeing that anymore. However,
if you want to see where the found footage genre came from, Cannibal
Holocaust is a very good starting place. Is it a great movie? Is
it a movie? Like I don't know, Like what it's trying to do
is so different from some of the other movies that I'm going to be mentioning
that. I love the framing device. I love that it's a movie about
the people that found the footage of the people that were sent to the jungle.
So again, it's that found footage. The footage is literally being found,
so you have to draw conclusions immediately about the people in the footage.
But I love everything about Cannibal Holocaust other than the animal murder. But again,
I understand why they did it, because they were trying to really be
exploitative and shocking. And Ruggerio Dodado got taken to Italian court because they thought
that he actually killed the people that he made the movie with. So again,
like, I don't think you can overlook Cannibal Holocaust. I don't think
it's necessarily the most important thing to check out in twenty twenty three, but
it is where a lot of this started, and as some of the most
iconic scenes in the genre by far. And that music yeah, boom boom
boo boo, it's like seared in my memory from the first time I watched
it in two thousand and seven, around the same time I watched Solo or
one hundred and twenty Days of Sodom. So yeah, which will not be
on this list for fucking a damn, I know what a shame, right,
Yeah, Cannibal Holocaust is a it's it's good. I'm not gonna say
it's not good. I think it's well made. I think Raguiro Diodado had
better films in him that he eventually got out. But for the genre,
this is literally probably the most important. And many others will point to something
in the nineties and say that it's much more important, but no, this
is where it all starts. And without this, uh, you know,
you got to have a top of the lineage somewhere, and this is a
really great beginning. Yeah, And we should point out that there are some
other movies that are considered found footage, but they're not horror movies. And
if we're talking, I mean found footage seems to be a horror movie exclusive
thing. It's not. There are other movies that are not horror movies that
are found footage, but horror seems to be the raison detra of found footage
for sure. So what about you give lay one on me? I want
to I want to hear one of yours. Uh, one of mine seems
to finally beginning a little bit of love. I feel like it has gone
under the radar since it's the leastus. How many are we gonna have?
We need to we need to guess here, how many are we going to
have that are crossovers. You think, I'm curious here, I'm gonna say
three. Okay, but you have a list of how many technically have a
list of eleven, but I'm gonna I'm just gonna do the top seven that
I said, are these are my seven favorites? Okay, okay, but
I want to Holocaust is not on that list, so okay, I want
to hear your honorable mention as well. I'm just I think we'll probably have
three crossovers, maybe maybe very interesting. So uh yeah, this first one
quite overlooked at the beginning. I think this one sort of started to take
off because of Netflix if I remember right, which uh not the best way
to see this. I think this is a very good theater movie, and
I want to throw out as above, so below, Oh my god,
my friend, not a crossover? Good? But does that mean you hate
it? Okay? Good? No. I am actually a huge fan of
the Dowdles for a number of reasons that we will get too soon. I
am a huge fan of the Dowdles. I am a huge fan of as
above, so below. I think it's a movie that does deserve a lot
more praise than it has got. And I think if we're talking about like
a movie that has a lot to say but doesn't necessarily let what it's trying
to say get in the way of being an entertaining movie, yes, I
think it also works on that level as well. Yeah, so this one
the primary reason that I go back to this movie is one because of the
setting, and I think that is what gives this sort of some panache over
the rest of the found footage films that you would normally reach for. The
individuals that are in this movie that are filming this as a found footage movie,
they enter what is literally an open cave that people go urban exploring it.
It is an actual place that you can go see and filmed in the
catacombs in a way that is actually pretty terrifying, done in a way that
you could envision yourself through this shaky cam footage of a fan footage scenario of
you being in that situation and being scared out of your mind. And I
spent a lot of time, As you mentioned earlier, I grew up in
southern California. I grew up about five or six miles away from a literal
old mining ghost town and in the hills around there there are tons of old
silver mines that you can still go into and see the remnants of the way
that they do these And it is terrifying to be one hundred and fifty feet
deep into this mine that you can't see any light if you turn off your
flashlight. You can't see your hand in front of your face. And you
hear some scurrying and it happens because it's the frickin' desert. So you hear
a kangaroo rat, or you hear some stupid little bug, that something happens.
And this movie gets a lot of that done so well that you are
just immersed into this one. I'm so glad you mentioned this movie. This
is a movie that, yeah, I think it's gotten forgotten, but I
mean again, like the mid two thousand, the mid tens were like the
zumping ground for found footage movies, Like that's that's the thing. Like so
many of the movies that like I overlooked and had no intention of putting on
the list are from ten to twenty. Uh yeah, I mean fucking Paranormal
activity really punched everybody in the face. And two thousand, I mean two
thousand and seven is where we're we're talking here, right, because you know
two thousand and sevens paranormal activity and then what as above so below is seven
years later something like that. Yeah, smack dab in the middle of this
huge trend that is now going on of found footage coming back. And so
for me, the thing about as above so below is it's their second crack
at found footage. Yep. So I'll take this opportunity to mention one of
mine, and it's a movie that I have been a fan of since the
first time I saw it. I'll be this guy for once. I hate
doing this shit. I loved the Poughkeepsie tapes long before anybody cared about it.
I got to interview the Doubtle Brothers and Stacy Schabowski on my show six
' ten. However, many fucking years ago. It was now wow,
the three of them at the same time, after I had already done an
interview with Stacy Schabowski, and I was like, hey, I had reached
out to your husband, who is one of the Toutle brothers, and I
never heard anything back from his agent, and she was like, oh,
I'll put in the good word. So I got to speak to the three
of them Wow on the record, long before the Blu ray came out,
long before the movie even got released. So I said, I normally I
never pull that kind of card, but this is one of those movies that
I have I feel like I personally have a lot of like love for even
though it is probably of all the movies I'm going to mention the hardest one
to suggest because it is the most off putting for a number of reasons.
But I also think it's a movie that if it come out now, people
will be going fucking ape shit over. Yeah, not just like hyper ape
shit, but like people the scariest movie of the year, you know,
really what four presents Like That is the level of what I personally feel the
Poughkeepsie Tapes offers is a unsettling look at something that so many people are like,
Oh, I love the Dahmer Show, not if you actually had to
see it from the perspective of the person you know. So Poughkeepsie Tapes for
me is a big one. And if you don't know what Poughkeepsie Tapes is,
it's a found footage mockumentary kind of that uses talking heads style interviews along
with found footage to talk about a serial killer that existed in Poughkeepsie, New
York specifically supposedly not real obviously, but the movie is presenting itself as real.
And I will say very little else because it's one of those movies that
deserves to be watched. And you know, it's only been six years since
it got released on Blu ray, right, it was from two thousand and
seven, and it didn't get released on Blu Ray until twenty seventeen. And
it was like a calling card for the doubtles behind the scenes, because people
in the industry knew about it and had seen it and would like talk to
them about it, but there was no way for anyone to watch it legally.
Like the version that I saw when we did the podcast on it in
twenty fifteen was the rip that had come off of was it direct TV,
the vod direct TV rip. Yeah. So it's a movie that I don't
know you've seen it, right, This is where I'm gonna lose a car
here, So I've not seen it all the way through issue. I've had
a couple of the scenes spoiled. It has been played in like the one
hundred most shocking scenes that you'll see whatever and I've had a couple of the
scenes and it takes that power away, so I haven't like I'm trying to
give it time to completely forget what I've seen so I can go into it
fliplied. Yeah, I mean I would, Yeah, is it? Is
it? Yeah? It is a movie that we well, I would say
it would it would be better if you knew less, But I get it.
It's a It's a movie for me that like I said, I definitely
am am a huge proponent of pushing your film limits as a viewer, and
the Poughkeepsie Tapes is a very good way to push your limits as a film
viewer because it is relentless. It is a relentless movie from start to finish,
and similarly to like the best kinds of icky horror movies like a Texas
Chainsaw Massacre or a Martyrs it doesn't pull any punches and I appreciate that.
And there are a couple of scenes in that movie that, even when I
watch them them, like, you know, if I could just do this
one thing as well as they've done it, I would die a happy person.
Because there are some scenes in that movie that are so effective you forget
that these are you know, first time filmmakers essentially, Yeah, I know,
I need to watch it. It's probably about that time. It's been
some years since I've had it spoiled, so it's around. It's a goodie
and they're they're Waco TV show also fantastic. I have not seen that one.
I need to need to watch that. Yeah, okay, so this
is the first one. I'm kind of worried might be a crossover. And
kay, I'm really eager to take us back to the year of two thousand
and seven and really highlight the film of the year. Oh god, the
best film, the best found footage film of the year. I'll go that
far. I won't say the best film of the year. The acting in
this is incredible, So we probably should talk about Reck. Okay, not
not a crossover on my list. Good I've never even I've actually never even
seen it. I've seen Quarantine. It is much better than Quarantine. Jennifer
Carpenter is not a great actress, is it? Nfer? Is it?
Jennifer is the chick from Dexter? No, that sounds right. Okay,
let me see so Reck two thousand and seven the actress and this is Manuela
of Alasco, and she is genuinely amazing. She is somebody that you are
able to empathize with immediately. She plays a It is Jennifer Carpenter. She
plays a news TV reporter that is going to this apartment building. Something happens
outside and they are locked inside, essentially under quarantine in this single location.
Done in a way that they're they're going to get multiple locations out of shooting
in a single location, so you have multiple floors, you're going to different
people's apartments. This has some of the most unique shots in found footage that
you will ever find. They get jump scares out of you that are actually
terrifying because it is using the found footage format to its nearly its peak.
I would say doing the entire like handheld shaky cam. This is maybe the
peak of it for me, because it is shot in a way where you
are in a dark apartment and because your vision is obscured by somebody turning.
There's always something around every corner that can scare the hell out of you.
And it is so well acted that everything feels earnest in this movie done really
well. Won't get into too many spoilers, but if you've never seen it.
This is certainly want to seek out. I have not seen it,
and I almost feel ashamed I haven't seen it that I've only seen the American
remake, which I think probably increased the interest in the original movie more than
I don't think anybody's talking about the American remake of this movie or the sequel
to it. I forgot there was a Quarantine too. Oh terminal. Oh
my god, I forgot that Quarantine was directed by one of the Dowdle brothers.
I don't think I knew that Quarantine is directed by John Eric Dowdell.
So we just named three Doubdle brother movies in a row. Thankfully I'm naming
Rex. So this one's just a side quest. Yeah, I guess Reck.
Quarantine is what they made after the Poughkeepsie tapes before they made Devil Interesting.
Yeah, Quarantine, so much Quarantine. I have not seen rec or
Quarantine. I have seen Reck. I have not seen, and I need
to watch it because I enjoyed Quarantine for what it is. But it's very
clearly not their idea, which is there's nothing wrong with that. But the
early or the mid two thousands was also like we're if you're talking about this
now. It's a weird kind of intersection of found footage and also like the
remake thing that was going on in the late late two thousands, early tens,
like Quarantine, Let the Right One in like so many, just like
all these movies, they're just like, oh yeah, just watch the original
one, The Crazies, the Hills Have Eyes, the Day, Yep,
yep, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Nightmare on Elm Street. We don't mention that
one. You know what. That's the saddest one for me, it really
is. That's the one that I that bums me out the most for like
so many reasons, primarily because Nightmarre on Elm Street is my favorite horror movie,
so it doesn't help. But for reck, I did want to say
there are three sequels. They are all worth watching, though none of them
live up to the passion of that first one, but they're still worth watching
absolutely, And I think like half of one of the movies loses the found
footage conceit, and if I remember, the fourth one doesn't have it at
all. So it's like it's like two and a half movies are found footage
and one and a half or not That's awesome though, because I've always I've
always wondered like, could you do that? Could you do like two found
foot movies? And then the third movie is just like a movie movie.
Yeah, So glad to know that somebody has already kind of approached that question.
I think that's the case. It's been a while since I've seen the
sequels. I mean, at some point found footage, like you know,
like Paranormal Activity. You know, we keep talking about it, but all
of those movies are found footage, every single one of them. They never
do anything else, like they use different styles of found footage camera work,
but like it's found footage, it's found footage. It's found footage. It's
never not and it will never not be because that's part of the appeal of
that franchise is the you know, found footage aspect of it. Even if
I do like insanely hampering, I do like watching them try to jump through
hoops to explain how it's still found footage. Yeah, yeah, exactly,
like when you're trying to when you're having to work harder than I don't know,
if you're having to work harder to explain to me why it's found footage
than just letting it breathe, you've already failed. So yeah, right,
I mean the conceit has to be rock solid for me to be on board
immediately, and a lot of filmmakers are really really struggle with that aspect of
it. So yeah, completely agree. All right, I think we're under
your So I'm kind of surprised that you haven't mentioned this yet, and this
might be our first crossover the movie that I think if we're talking about the
best big budget found footage movie period. As much as I have problems with
it, which I mean, I have so many problems for it for every
kind of reason. Matt Reeves and JJ abrams Cloverfield, which is like his
unpopular opinion, which is an unpopular pick, is it not? Nowadays?
It is? Especially we just talked about TJ Miller on your episode for the
Culture Cast. Yeah, and he's at the Yeah. I mean, like
I said, I have problems with it, one of them being TJ Miller's
involvement. But this is two thousand and eight TJ Miller, So this is
like t this is TJ Miller before he was even TJ Miller. This is
the first thing that he was in. I think Cloverfield is immensely successful as
a movie. I think it's immensely successful as also a piece of like war
adjacent cinema in terms of like the expectations and like maybe not war adjacent cinema,
but definitely like a weird release valve for nine to eleven and the kind
of weird post nine to eleven feelings that were around maybe still are obviously,
but the post nine to eleven feelings, especially in New York. It captures
that in a weird way, and it captures it captures something that I also
really appreciate, which is it really feels like at least in the first twenty
minutes thirty minutes up until up until one of the characters and I guess it's
been so long. That's the Mike Vogel character on the bridge, when the
bridge is collapsed. That's when the movie stops really working for me, because
all of a sudden, it starts wanting to do different things. But the
first like thirty minutes of that movie are so well done and so like well
thought out, and it puts you in. It puts you directly in a
position that you hope to never be in, which is being in a city
during an attack. This just happens to be monsters, you know what I
mean? Like that, And that's the aspect of it that I had a
hard time wrapping my head around when I was seventeen. I remember the movie
really made me angry when I was seventeen for a number of reasons. I
think the ending of the movie is a complete fucking joke. Frankly, and
like and like and like it really is just like you really are embracing found
footage all the way. But yeah, I am a defender of Cloverfield.
Even though I have immense amounts of problems with it, I cannot overlook how
important it is as a movie to the found foot genre as a whole.
Yeah, I do think this is probably either if I was ranking in importance
probably the third or fourth most important fan footage film easily, especially bringing it
to mainstream audiences in a time that they could show that it wasn't just a
film from the nineties that I'm sure one of us will talk about later.
But this is something that again has a lot of problems. This is nowhere
near my list. I actually really love this movie. I think it's great,
but it is not even like top ten or twelve. For me,
it's really it doesn't show up anywhere. Like I mean again, like I
like I've said, I am a defender of a movie that I understand is
immensely flawed. But you put it, You put it pretty succinctly. This
movie, in a lot of ways, is a turning point in American cinema
for a lot of reasons, one of them being it allowed JJ Abrams to
really flex his muscles outside of the TV sphere because pre Cloverfield he was the
TV guy and Cloverfield and you know what I feel like. And again,
some people aren't going to have a frame of reference for this. Some people
are going to turn this shit off for five minutes. The arg behind the
movie, like everything about that movie. Were you were you in the theater
seeing Transformers and seeing the trailer for Cloverfield organically like I did. Were you
one of those people I saw it in the drive in so close enough,
but you saw you had not seen or heard anything about it? Correct?
Was that not unlike anything else? Oh? Yeah, it was. It
was all hype. And that's why again, this is why I think it's
such a parallel to that film. In the nineties, that it has this
immense marketing that they honestly did pretty well with the other Cloverfield movies that aren't
found footage, but they bro no, Cloverfield Paradox is not worth even like
oh my, but the marketing, the way they hiped it up as a
hey, this is dropping tonight after this massive worldwide event. You can watch
it now. And everybody went turned it on for a couple of minutes and
then turned it off. But it was it was done in such a unique
way that other filmmakers and production companies they don't utilize stuff like that, you
know, as much as I we're gonna, you know, drag Cloverfield Paradox
for a moment, I actually think that movie's not as bad as everybody gave
it credit for being bad. I think it's just a very confused movie that's
trying to do eight million things at once. It clearly didn't affect Julius Ona's
career a whole lot, because you know, he's directing Captain America, Brave
New World Now for Marvel, so it must not have been the career killer.
And Googo and Batha Raw and like half of everybody in that movie is
still perfectly fine. I think for me Cloverfield ten Cloverfield Lane is the more
disappointing of the three because that movie shits the bed hard at the end,
like and like it it. We just talked about No One Will Save You,
and I'm actually pissed at myself for not comparing the two. Cloverfield Paradox
and No One Will Save You have an almost identical third act in terms of
how much of a turd it is and how much it undoes all of the
goodwill that the movie has been building. Ten Cloverfield Lane's worse because that movie.
I love ten Cloverfield Lanes first two thirds, like, but then everything
else is like, then the Aliens showed up Cloverfield Lanes Verst ninety. I
want to say that, yeah, it's fair. I remember getting into big
arguments with people after that movie came out about like the third act of that
movie, and me being like, it was really bad. We did need
to see the aliens and like I was willing to die on that hill,
and everybody else was like no, no, no, we had to.
It was like did you see what they looked like? They didn't look good,
they looked terrible, and oh, by the way, the movie falls
apart the moment the aliens can just die like and again it also falls because
there are aliens. It would have been more interesting if there had been nothing.
Well, and I still say they were making this movie and it was
going really well, but they didn't know how to end it, and jj
Abrams just happened to be like walking by a daily or something and went what
if they came out to aliens? And they just tacked that on at the
end. I don't think that was ever meant to be a part of it
from the beginning. Well, that's the other question, right with all of
this is what was a Cloverfield movie? What was something else that got turned
into it? It's it's like hell Raiser, Like how many of those hell
Raiser movies were hell Raiser before we just tacked the pinhead on there and said,
well, it's a hell Raiser movie. Yeah, if it was just
called Paradox, that probably would have gone from one and a half stars to
three stars in most people's minds. Imagine if you hadn't known it was a
Cloverfield movie until the like, imagine if they had done what they didn't split
Like yeah, because for me, split is like a great example not to
ruin the twist, because I don't want to ruin the twist in that movie.
The twist in that movie is so fucking wild and so insane that it
connects these two seemingly disparate things that you're like, Oh my god, I'm
glad you didn't tell me this going into this, because it makes me appreciate
it that much more. Yeah, you put Cloverfield in the title. There's
an expectation that is going to need to be met and Cloverfield paradox. Like
the end of that movie, I still cannot believe they did what, Like,
I still don't even understand what that movie is going for at the end.
But it's all starts with two thousand and eight Cloverfield, which again I
think is a movie Drew Goddard turned in a great script. I am a
fan of Matt Reeves. I think Matt Reeves does good work. I might
be a little biased given proximity to the people that I know that know him
and how effusively they speak of him, But I know, as do you,
that people involved in making Cloverfield had their hearts in the right place.
Yeah, this one is it's a good movie. It's just again not near
the top of my list, which I again I completely understand because there is
a derivation of my list where it wasn't on there at all, and I
was like, I left it on and left something else off. So what
was that thing I left off? Ryan? You're probably gonna mention it.
I probably will at some point. But what's funny is my number five and
your number five are sort of similar. Yours is doing for monster movies and
allowing found footage to come in to interrupt what was this long established genre.
And I'm gonna bring one that is from shortly after that interrupts another genre that
was taking over for people. And I want to mention twenty twelve's Chronicle ha
ha. I was wondering if the Trank, if the Trankster was going to
show up. God, the less said about Josh Trank, the better.
Am I right? Or? Am I right? Yeah? We definitely don't
need to discuss the parallels with this and Fantastic four, Fantasis for Stick for
Stick. This movie is so much better than it has any right being.
You are seeing too or is it three kids that are basically they're discovering that
they have gained superpowers through this odd event, and I am a sucker for
watching a story about humans discovering that they're the baddies basically, So like The
Mist, The Mist from two thousand and seven or whatever it is is such
a great movie because it's civilization crumbling because of humans, and Chronicle is high
school students thinking that they're amazing crumbling because they're terrible, terrible people. And
it just shows that at the heart, a lot of people are just terrible
people. And it's acted in this really earnest way when it didn't need to
be. It's fun, it's an intriguing story. It takes the idea of
a superhero story that was already a couple of years into the MCU and starting
to really proliferate all of our cinemas and just said, you know what,
there's still interesting stories to tell that are not just fucking Iron Man. And
it's really fun and really slept on in twenty twenty three. Well again,
there's a reason for that. Unfortunately, given the people involved. I mean,
again, as much as I like John Landis, it's kind of hard.
I mean, it's hard to not bring up Max Landers because Max Landis
is Uh, look, my opinions on Max Landis are probably similar to what
Max Landers's opinions are on most people. He is who he is, and
there's nothing wrong with that. But unfortunately some people don't like who he is,
which is what it is. I mean, like anything else, you're
gonna rub people the wrong way, especially if you have a lot of opinions,
or if you're very opinionated, or if you're unwilling to change your opinion.
And Max Landis, I mean, look, if my dad was John
Landis, I'd probably feel the same way about Like my opinion matters. Not
only is my opinion matter, I feel like I can convey my opinion to
you in a way that other people can't. And Max Landis is as a
track record of making some pretty interesting choices as a screenwriter. Uh. And
I haven't seen Chronicle, not because of Max Landers and not because of Josh
Frank. I just missed it. I don't know why, just kind of
under the radar. Josh Josh Frank though, did himself no favors. I
don't. I mean, I feel bad for him in a way, but
at the same time, you know, I don't know that whole thing was
star Star Wars and Boba Fett and all of that. Yeah, it's it's
unfortunate. I should check out Chronicle. It's, like I said, not
not avoiding it for any particular reason, just because you can't watch everything.
You know, right, it's worth it, I promise. So for me,
I will mention another movie that I think again it kind of toes the
line, Uh it's you know, I will say it's a horror movie and
it has found footage parts. The way it's filmed, I think isn't found
footage, it's cinema verite. But there's part the part to the movie that
are the most off putting are the found footage parts. Henry Portrait of a
Serial k is it found footage? I would call it? But yeah,
but you get what I'm getting at though, because the way it's filmed,
there's a scene, the one of the more effective scenes in the movie is
found footage. And yeah, I understand that this might be a little bit
of a cheat, but I don't think it's a cheat because the parts of
the movie that are really putting people off to it are the found footage parts,
right right, Yeah, this one is a masterpiece. And if somebody
has not seen the Aero video four K that they released to this that it
makes it even more troubling. It feels just seedy to watch it. I'm
a fan of it, but it's a movie that I used to hate.
I had a visceral reaction the first time I watched it because it's it's about
as nihilistic a movie as you can get, and Michael Rooker just burns the
screen down. Baby, If that's your first fucking role in a movie,
my god, do you need to do anything else other than therapy? Yeah?
And you know what's what's crazy is And I think we did an episode
on Henry Portrait of a serial Killer either end of last year earlier this year
on the Culture Cast. I think I said it there and I'll say it
here. Isn't it crazy? Michael Rooker is in Marvel too, isn't it?
It's that's yonde everybody like. That's still hard for me to wrap my
head around because the first time I saw Henry was so long before Guardians.
There's no way you could have convinced me he would be in a Marvel movie.
But so James gunn goes, so does everybody who works for him or
with him so Henry Portrait of a Serial Killer, though definitely not for the
Faint of Heart. Very similar to the Poughkeepsie tapes, but more narratively driven.
And again it's not all found footage, but the part of the movie
with the found footage is so off putting, and I've gotta assume it's the
part of the movie where most people are turning it off. Oh yeah,
that have like wandered into it or saw it somewhere that like, Yeah,
but it's definitely worth a watch. For me, it's one worth checking out
and I go back to it once a year. It definitely feels, similarly
to The Exorcist, like they captured something on film that feels a little bit
more true to life and real than they may have been intending. But that,
for me is what works. That's for me is what makes the movie
so good, is that it does feel like they kind of captured reality a
little bit. Yeah. Yeah, that movie is done authentically to a degree
that most movies could only dream of, right short of actually murdering people.
And I'm sure people who saw that movie when it came out were like,
uh, is this guy actually killing people? Because it seems again like Michael
Rooker at that age in that movie looks just there have been fewer people perfectly
cast for a kind of role like that for sure. Bingo, I'm going
to totally switch our tone around because it feels like we need it coming from
that. I'm going to take us all the way to twenty fourteen and talk
about probably the funniest on footage movie ever, What We Do in the Shadows.
Never seen it? Wow, I've never seen the movie, but I
love the show. I've heard divisive things. Half people think that the show
is like Leagues better. I still think the movie is quite a bit better.
But Tayka y t Jermaine Clement. They direct this together. They also
wrote it together, and this movie has some of the most quotable lines in
modern film history. It is so damn funny. You get the individuals that
came together to create some of the best TV show some of the best TV
shows over the last When did Five of the Concords come out? It was
a few years before this, so they weren't like massively popular. Side of
the Conchords came out when I was in high school, so it's been like
two thousand and six or seven. Because I remember watching being in the computer
lab as a senior and watching Hipopopotamus on the computer and thinking it was like
the funniest thing that you say, Yeah, because it is. I mean,
Fly the Concords was seven to nine. Okay, So that led into
them developing a little more behind the scenes, and then a couple of years
later teaming up with Taika and creating this in a way that melds the horror
genre and all of the tropes that are with it with classical vampire stories that
have not been told this way in a long long time. And it is
beautiful to look at. It is wonderfully acted, it is funny in every
single scene. It is just an insane story that obviously inspired an entire TV
show that has been able to go on for like four or five seasons now.
It's it's a masterpiece. Yeah, it's incredible. I can't speak to
the movie, but I can speak to the show. The show is Look,
I have to assume the movie set a pretty good base for the show
to rest. And from what you just said and other people that I've spoken
to and listened to talking about it, uh yeah, I love the show.
I mean the show, I mean, look, the movie doesn't have
Matt Barry in it, so it automatically is one peg lower just because it
doesn't have Matt Barry. I appreciate that. But Jermaine Clement tagawhite t T
I'm sure make up for it. But Matt, I mean, for me,
Laslow Cravensworth is one of the great TV characters that has ever been created.
And I mean, look, Matt Berry is such a weird dude and
such an idiosyncratic human being that there's only one person that could play that role,
and they found him, and uh, yeah, you know, the
show is quotable, so I've got to assume the movie is the same way.
Extremely extremely Yeah, Matt got Matt Barry should just be in everything,
right, oh yeah, you know. And and kvon Novak as well,
someone who I had seen in literally nothing else. He's yeah, he's Oh
my god, he's hilarious. Everything about that is fantastic. Harvey geehan,
I mean we could go on. That's that's a found footage TV show.
I guess more of a mockumentary, right, yeah, it's a monumentary.
Yeah, I h no, good, good pick, good pick, yeah,
great pick didn't make my list though, no, no crossovers yet,
what's going on? You only have three left. I don't think we're gonna
have three, I know. So my next one is uh, and I'm
gonna I will leave the one that I want to really highlight last. So
not my favorite, but one I think less people have seen this one for
me. I covered it a long time ago on the show. Got to
speak to the director Patrick Bryce again. Those things just being upfront and honest
and not it doesn't color my judgment on it at all, frankly, because
I think you know what I'm going to mention now that I mentioned Patrick Bryce.
Twenty fourteen's creep Is is genuinely one of the scarier movies I think I've
ever seen, beca because it speaks to a thing that people like, the
the craigslisting of the mid the you know, like m for ming and stuff
like that. Yeah, the casual encounterness of the Internet in the mid two
thousands to early tens. Like look, Craigslist is essentially a shell of its
former self now because they've gotten rid of so many of the things that allowed
people to meet. For whatever reason, I will add, for whatever m
for m reason, I always think of Horrible Bosses. When I think of
M for M, we are men seeking a man seven hundred and fifty dollars
to murder three people. You didn't think that was too cheap. So it
does speak to a time and a place that I think, you know,
now with the advent of things like Tinder and Grinder and other like sex meet
sexual meet up apps, this story kind of maybe is a little bit hollower
than it used to be in terms of like, yeah, you would never
just go meet some fucking dude at his fucking house. But man, if
that if that movie is like doesn't hit the way that it used to,
like, I'd be surprised. But like anybody who watches it now, I
feel like it's gonna feel the same way I did when I first watch it,
which was how did you make Mark Duplace seem like such a fucking monster?
Because like he again, at the time when that movie came out,
the only thing I had seen him in was The League. Yeah, and
it's like, oh, it's the guy from the League. Oh and he's
a complete fucking psychopath in this movie. I don't know. I love that
movie. The less you know about that movie, the better. It's a
it's a it's a wild movie. Have you seen it? Uh? Creep
twenty fourteen is on my list. This is our first match and I'm gonna
I'm gonna move my order around. This might be my favorite found footage movie
of all time. Creep. Yeah, I oh love this fucking movie.
And the main reason primarily is because of Mark Duplas. He is unhinged in
this in so many ways that you are just not ready for. One of
the better endings on any of these movies, for sure, has some of
the most iconic imagery and found footage as well, like the stupid fucking mask
and the eating of mask. The mask is really wearing. All the energy
comes from that fucking mask. Now, the eating of pancakes is so nonchalantly,
the walking by the little creek that they're next to. There are so
many things that happen in this movie that genuinely got under my skin. And
because it's Mark Duplas and it is delivered by somebody that you've seen. The
goofy as hell that you've seen in some of the better mumblecore movies out there
that you've seen now be unhinged in other movies as well, even this year
he was on Celebrity fucking Jeopardy. Like to have Mark Duplas be this type
of a character makes this movie nearly a ten out of ten for me.
I think Mark Duplas, as good as he is in front of the camera,
has has a mind for the business in a way that like, you
know, I love people that are a double or triple threat. And Mark
Duplaus and obviously his brother, I mean the Duplas brothers. I think in
general they are they're two smart cookies, and you know, I think for
me, people like them in the industry are a godsend to help us get
out of the ruts that we constantly find ourselves in with genres. Because Creep
for me, when it came out, ushered in like some weirdo other movies
that came afterwards that were again these like really boiled, pared down found footage
movies, Like it's the most found footagey found footage movie on this list.
I think between the two of ours, because it's just it's just a dude.
It's two dudes in a camera yep, and done in a way where
it's not in one location. They you know, are our main protagonist.
I guess if you kind of want to call him that he shows up at
home after he's done working for the guy turns on his camera again to say,
something weird is happening. Let's talk about it, and so you get
that awkward. We are literally just cataloging events. And that's that's why it's
actually found footage right right, and the video journaling aspect of it is so
I don't know that made it feel so unique. It makes me want to
rewatch it. I haven't probably seen it since it came out, and that's
that's the impact that it made on me, similarly to yourself, that it's
still something that I'm thinking about almost ten years later. And again I got
to speak to Patrick Brice a decade ago. That matters nothing to my enjoyment
of the movie. It's just again like it's just weird to me because the
movie's been out for almost a decade. Now. Yeah, how do you
feel about the sequel? I never saw the sequel. It's worth it.
It's not as good, it's not a ten out of ten, but it's
it's pretty it's much better than you would think. And I I sincerely hope
that after what's been eight years since the sequel came out. They're supposedly trying
to make a third one, and it was going to be a believed trilogy
of at one point. I hope they can get there because it deserves a
final nail in that coffin. Yeah. I mean, look, you got
two of the three movies. Don't pull a Giermo del Tora and leave us
hanging right, please, Dale Harber is not my hell Boy. I still
it still freaks me out to think about that there's no third hell Boy movie
because it's just part of Germo del Toro's ever growing list of unrealized projects on
Wikipedia. No. Yeah, unfortunately, there's a lot of those. Ye,
so I will say that was my number three, so we can jump
to your number two since that was literally going to be my number one.
My number two would be another thing that Again, it's it is found footage,
but it's a little different. It's not just you know, a guy
with a camera did cover this on my show while ago. Definitely something I
just watched last week. I watched it at least once a year during October,
probably two or three other times outside of that. It's something that made
a lot of waves. It was hard to find for the longest time.
Now I believe it's on shutter. It is from the nineties. It is
not the Blair Witch Project. It is ghost Watch. Ah yeah, I
fucking love ghost Watch. If you've never seen ghost Watch, I'm not gonna
say anymore other than it is a recreation. It is a mockumentary style recreation
of a ghost investigation on the British Broadcasting channel in the mid nineties. But
it took place in the nineties. But they're trying to make it seem like
it's real, but it's not. The funny thing about it is because of
when it was played, because the people watching it didn't catch the beginning.
It orson Wells did itself and people thought it was real. And boy,
if I had been watching it in ninety two on Halloween and not knowing it
wasn't real, I would have been fucking mortified. Uh. It not only
has Michael Parkinson and Sarah Green and Mike Smith and Craig Charles, all the
people who were on the show that this show is taking place on, so
they're doing all of the set dressing correctly all and it all just comes together
in a way that is hard to describe, but It is so amazing when
you watch it. I don't know how. It's just one of those things
that works on every level, and by the end of it, you're just
like, man, somebody made this and like it did exactly what it was
supposed to perfectly. Frankly, like, I'm not saying it's good that someone
died while watching it, but it definitely helped the mastique. It helped the
mystique of this thing right kind of become I mean it, you know,
it was never replayed on the BBC, Like, you know, it got
played one time and that was it. The BBC never wanted to show it
again because of what happened. So yeah, it's a I don't know.
If you've never seen it, it's definitely worth checking out. Is this something
that you have an opinion on? Did this make your list in any form
or fashion? It did not make my list, But I really do like
ghost Watch. It lives in that same pantheon as the last broadcast. To
me, it's sort of similar, Like the last broadcast has always been called
the lesser Blair Witch because it came right before it. But the way these
two feel, I don't know, there's something about that period of the nineties.
They feel very similar to me. Ghost Watch is a lot of fun.
A lot of the British anachronisms that they use through this makes it feel
a little more authentic. And it's just a good watch. It's solid good
time. I mean, yeah, they if you have the person who hosts
a show hosting your show, like it's I don't know, like it just
it works. It just it works better. It's so much fun. I
think everything about it is fun and it goes places you wouldn't expect, and
it is scary and it doesn't seem like it's going to be. It really
holds back. It practices so much restraint, and for me, I'm a
fan of practicing restraint with found footage because it allows the idea to breathe.
And hey, it's based off the Nfield Poltergeist, which is a fantastic case
that would the then get chronicled and adapted in the Conjuring two, which Conjuring
one and two. As far as I'm concerned, I'm pretty much modern horror
classics. So no, ghost Watch. Ghost Watch is up there. It's
not what my number one is, but it's definitely one of those movies that
like I mention every spooky season to people I know who haven't seen it,
and I'm like, please watch this because I know you will enjoy it,
which sadly is most people. Yeah, yeah, it's true. And again,
like I mentioned, I did do an episode on it on my show
where I got to speak to Steven Volk who wrote it, and Leslie Manning
who directed it, and that was again, it's immensely fun to be able
to talk to the people who work on these things and get to kind of
listen to their stories. But I don't know, it's I always felt on
the Culture Cast that it's my job to shine a light on things that aren't
getting highlighted. And Ghostwatch, I mean, it's finally getting the credit that
it deserves. It got on Shutter, it got right before I started doing
the podcast. It had a documentary that came out, ghost Watch Behind the
Curtains, and I think they even did like a live seance to mimic the
ghost Watch thing at some point in the last like five to six years.
So ghost Watch is definitely up there for me. It's a good one.
Different but good. Well it's probably time. I'm just gonna go there.
And at number two, I should probably talk about the Blair Witch Project,
so I gonna say, like I've been waiting for you to mention it.
So this is obviously like one of those few seminal films, this is the
probably the second most impactful in the entire genre for me, this one.
We talked about the marketing behind this being just incredible earlier, and I don't
think much of anything will be able to hit this again because we don't have
that sort of a society anymore. We don't have a word about society.
Everything has to be online and social media will blow it up immediately. This
took the country by storm, and that is a lot when you consider that
this came out in what is arguably one of the two or three greatest film
y'res ever, and the fact that a book was written about it right,
the fact that it still has that legacy, and it's a horror movie that's
found footage without an actual villain attached to it. There's nobody that you can
market. There's no Blair Witch mask that you can buy for Halloween to keep
it in the zeitgeist. That Tod McFarlane and McFarlane movie Maniacs tride exactly the
fact that that is still here and still this giant legacy shows how important this
movie was at that time. Really good scares, really cheaply made and done
in a way that feels great. But what's funny, if you take even
three steps back from the movie, nothing happens. There's nothing scary about this
movie. It's just the fact that you immerse yourself in that, and it's
oddly that sort of experience makes it that much more terrifying. I didn't put
blair Witch on my list because I figured one of us was going to have
to. Yeah, but I mean, yeah, you cannot overstate how important
this movie is for a lot of things. It ushered in a lot of
stuff. It unfortunately created a lot of crappy stuff also, but the best
things often do. I mean, Star Wars came out, and then look
at all the stuff that came out after Star Wars, Marvel, look at
all the things that came after Marvel. Like it's it is what it is.
When you're this successful, and especially when you're this successful organically, when
you're doing something that people are not expecting could even be a thing, blair
Witch still works. Blair Witch is a very boring movie and you put it,
you put it sucinctly like it's a boring movie. If you take a
step back from what the movie is doing so successfully, it's poor thing happens,
which is why. And I want to mention this because you opened this
box, so I now I'm going to take the box and rip it apart.
Twenty sixteen's blair Witch is without a doubt, one of the worst horror
movies I have ever seen. And it's not just the direction that I have
an issue with. It's not just the story, but it's the lack of
understanding of what made the movie you're remaking so good to begin with. Yeah,
and this is also coming at a time where Christoph Waltz isn't Blowfeld and
at a cumber Batch isn't con And oh, by the way, this movie
called The Woods is blair Witch. Like we're we're still in that weird time
of like we can't tell people the truth about what we're making because that will
somehow, I don't know, I don't know what people's assumption was, but
that movie would have been better if it had just been called The Woods and
it had nothing to do with blair Witch, absolutely, but the fact that
it had a blair Witch like. That movie is just it's not even found
foot I don't care if they call it found footage. It's such a contrivance
Throughout that movie. There's drones, there's go pros, and it seems like
a contrivance. I don't know. That's if we're talking blair Witch sequels,
blair Witch two, Book of Shadows. The Berlinger Cut is a better movie.
It's a movie worth watching. It's just a fan edit, though,
so I can't really I can't really say go out and watch a fan edit
of a movie, because a fan edit is not I'm not saying it's bad,
but you know what I mean. It's like that's never been the way
it was intended to be seen. So we're a movie that's mostly been buried
too. Yeah. Yeah, I think the biggest problem with mentioning blair Witch
is the fact that the sequel does not get any love. Because the sequel's
really good. It just got destroyed in the editing booth, like in a
way that's really unless you've seen the Berlinger cut, it's really hard to see
what the movie could have Like, what the movie could have been is really
hard to parse out when you watch the original version of it movie. But
the original blair Witch is a classic period the end, and nineteen ninety nine
was a hard year to come out in for movies. Yeah. Yeah,
Again, marketing like that can never take place again. So that's just one
of the biggest things that yet but yet Cloverfield, but yet Cloverfield, though
they did it differently and it's done in a way that took everybody by storm.
Again. Yeah, I'd love to see it. Yeah, I am
a fan of blair Witch. But no, it did not make my list
because yeah, I just like I said, I figured it would make one
of our lists. So well, let's see if we even match two.
What's your final pick? My final pick came out in twenty thirteen. Again,
I mean the coincidence of the three that I'm talking about having been covered
on my show. It's only because I rarely cover things I like on my
show, and these are things that I can be like, oh yeah,
I like this a lot, and so I covered it. And it's a
horror movie twenty thirteen's WNUF Halloween Special. Does that make your list at all?
I don't think of it as found footage, even though you could argue
it is. I mean, doesn't the framing device of the movie essentially get
firm it's found footage in a way. Yes, I have a VHS on
my shelf here with WNUF written on it. I found it on eBay?
Does that count? I do? I have a Blu ray that I found
in my shopping car. Actually have one of those VHS's that they did nice.
Yeah, I got it off eBay for twenty bucks, like a long
time ago. But I get what you're getting at. I disagree though,
because the framing device. But I will concede you have a point. And
if you're looking for something that is more found footage directly, this might not
be the best option. But this is something that, similarly to ghost Watch,
it's not just found footage, which allows it to breathe more and be
a more interesting narra being told as opposed to just a person with a camera
walking around. Agreed, agreed fully. And the lessons said about it though,
I mean lesson said about what it is the better. It's a imagine
you found at a garage sale, a Halloween special from the late eighties,
and that's what this is. And I love that it's led to inspiring some
other things there's a sequel for that one. I've got this box next me.
This is he BGBTV, which is basically WNUF but from the nineties,
and that just recently came out. Not even heard of this? What the
fuck? Yeah, it's I literally just got it, so I've not watched
it yet, but it's supposed to be pretty great. There was another one
that just came out fairly recently from Dead Vision Productions I think that was last
year, that is essentially like a WNUF anthology type film, and it's really
fun. Just the style that they're going for is great. It's nostalgic in
a way that shouldn't be nostalgic. Says it's modern. It is done in
a way that shows reverence for time period and yeah it that's another one that,
honestly, the legacy from that is kind of marketing through horror fans in
a very almost Blair which way, because it's very word of mouth, like
have you heard or seen WNUF? Because it's great. Not enough people have
seen it. This is one of those things that every time I mention it,
like what what is it called? I've never heard of this? And
it's a shame. I mean, I get why it hasn't been because it's
literally about as small a budget movie as humanly possible. It's about as micro
budget a movie as possible. But it ends up working in spite of that,
because that's the point with this. And I also will understand that this
will not work for a large group of people because it is not culturally relevant
to certain people. None of the experiences that are shared in WNUF have a
level of cultural relativity to a certain group of people. But that's not why
the movie. The movie wasn't being made for them. The movie was literally
being made for or it was made for the people who will understand what you're
going for. You're not going to get anybody else, which is a failing
of the movie I can appreciate, but it's also a strength of the movie
because you've committed to it so hard that the only people that are going to
be imminently interested are the people who understand the source material. So it's hard.
I mean it's hard because it's hard to sell someone on something where it's
like remember those specials from the eighties. Oh right, you're like in your
mid twenties, So no, you don't, And it's not like I do
either. It's just I understand what they were going for, and I understand
what Chris La Martina was expecting the audience to have a reference point of.
So it's not really scary. It's not very much a horror movie. It's
a lot more of a vibe movie. But I enjoy it and I will
never miss an opportunity to sing its praises. And it's an incredible pick for
October because it's a very Halloween. Yeah, I haven't seen the sequel.
I can't speak to the sequel. I want to watch it. The sequel
is you have to buy it directly from Chris La Martine. For now,
I have a feeling it'll get a bigger release eventually, I hope. So
I just haven't I haven't taken the plunge yet. I've heard it's good.
I have heard that it is good though, So final pick for mine is
not WNUF. So we're only gonna end up with one crossover, which is
aw I'm sure pretty impressive. Mine is probably not one that most people have
heard of. Once again, I'm going to go with a twenty eighteen pick,
and I have to shoot out there that the best horror for modern filmmakers.
I think is mostly coming out of South Korea. Okay, I'm gonna
go with gonjiam Hanted Asylum Okay, Okay. Gonjiam Handed Asylum is a movie
about a web series where people are live streaming, which is sort of turning
into this genre onto itself. There's a handful that have been made in the
last few years that not all of them are bad. Some of them are
bad, but not all of them. This one has some of the best
scares on my list, though. It is made in a way that is
taking that Asian kind of Folkhore like what is slightly under the surface in this
culture and making it a part of it, but done in such a subversive
way that you're just not ready for. Some of the scares that they put
out there pretty well acted, some not great cgi but I think that overall,
if you're going to try out something from a different country that is not
just a Western film, this is a really great one to grab onto for
fan footage, and it's done really well for when it came out. I
actually covered this last year at the suggestion of a friend of mine, Josh
Bragg of The Haunting Season. He and I covered it about a year ago,
not to the day, but October of last year. I enjoyed it
immensely. Didn't make my list, primarily because I haven't had enough experience with
it in the long term. I've seen it once, but I enjoyed it.
I was actually hoping you were gonna say, one cut of the Dead
it's a great one too. Which is another good one? What is that
one? Is that one Korean? Or is that one that's Japanese? Yeah,
that one is fantastic for different reasons. Does something a little different gong
jump. I'm actually having a hard time remembering it, only because October of
every year feels just like a bombardment things, you know. I feel like
I watch more movies in October, outside of the podcast movies, than I
do any other time of the year because it's just like I want to be
watching horror movies kind of. I mean again, I watch horror movies throughout
the year, just like you do, but like something about October. I'd
rather watch Halloween movies than horror movies in October, saying but Halloween movies are
hard to come by too, right, Like good ones, at least good
ones other than like practical magic and hocus Pocus, and I'm not kidding.
I'm not kidding. I was being serious. If anyone thinks I'm being a
dismissive man, I'm not. I enjoy both of those movies immensely. So
I just reference Practical Magic on my show literally like last week. So yeah,
completely get it. But like, but there was this like weird thing
of like, oh, you only like hocus Pocus because your wife makes you
watch it. It's like, nah, a good movie, and so is
Practical Magic. And I'm also a huge fan of Griffin Dunn, so it's
gonna be hard for me to not sing the praises of mister after Hours himself.
The hocus Pocus sequel, though not very good in my opinion, it
was a sequel. The sequel, the sequel misunderstood what made the original so
good. Yeah, yeah, no amount of Hennah Waddingham from Ted last it
was going to be able to save your movie, which I saw hocus Pocus
too before I saw Ted Lasso, so I didn't have any frame of reference
for who she was as an actress. And then I rewatched and I was
like, oh, that's weird. Same, Yeah, that's yeah, it's
gong jum Haunted a Asylum. Huh, that's a good pick. I would
not have I wouldn't have even thought of it. That didn't even cross my
mind. That's a good one. I think it's definitely under sen and one
that deserves a lot more attention. And again a lot of people don't seek
out South Korean films, but I think they are doing the best in the
horror genre right now, like maybe by far. Yeah, I would agree.
I mean they're they're pushing the envelope and they're doing things that are,
yeah, less expected than VHS nineteen ninety four, VHS eighty five, or
how many VHS movies there are. And I remember when it was just the
first one. God that it's a franchise now is insane to me. Yeah,
it's pretty weird. Twenty twelve is the first VHS movie, good Lord
and heav they're still making them. I know there's one one came out what
this year, rightly a couple of weeks ago, I think, yeah,
on shutter. So what are some of your honorable mentions? And then I'll
I'll give you some things that are movies that I would say are avoid avoid
These found footage movies, not because I don't think they're good, but I
think they're just a bad example of the genre. Interesting. So I had
four. One of them was Cannibell Holocaust, one that a lot of people
scoff at because they don't like the film, but I actually really like it
for how subversive it is the Last Exorcism. It's not like a really well
acted movie other than our main character. But I love the idea of a
priest telling you up front, this is all a lie and this is how
I fake it, and then going through this whole like rediscovering the fact that,
holy shit, this one's actually real. Unfortunately, the last forty five
seconds of the movie is god awful and it ruins everything that comes before it.
But the acting for our main character is just amazing. I have never
seen it, but I have heard good things it is until the ending.
Yeah, oh, I have heard about the ending. The other one I
want to compare to Gonjion that I just brought up is dead Stream, which
I just showed this in my show last night. This is a a media
book from Germany for the film that just came out. I believe it was
last year or the year before, and it's the same thing. It's a
guy doing a live stream that normally he fakes stuff, and he goes into
this this house and suddenly this is not fake at all. And it's done
in a way where there's an unlikable lead. You're you're kind of supposed to
hate him, which usually makes it a pretty rough movie to fall in love
with, and this one pulls it off immaculately, really well made. Love
That movie. Last One is probably one that any other day of the week,
I would have put this on my list, and I'm shocked that it's
not in my top seven. It just didn't feel right at the moment.
Hell House LLC. Oh Man, yeah, yeah, fuck man, how
did that not make my list? I? Oh my god, Yes,
this movie is a damn near masterpiece. It is. Yeah, that first
one is such a fucking yeah. That is something. I covered Hell Hell's
LLC on my show and had the opportunity to speak to Stephen Cognetti, and
I remember heaping praise on him then, and I will heap praise on the
movie now. That movie is like a That first movie is so good.
It's so so good. It pisses me off that I didn't put it on
my own list. Frankly, Yeah, I love least movie too. It
is, yeah, centered around haunts, which is another big popular thing right
now. So super good movie, really good creepy scenes, some of the
better scares in the genre. And yeah, fun movie. What did you
think of the sequels. I've not seen the third one. The second one
was very who hume, it just not great. I think the third one
has its I think the third one is better than the second. I think,
you know, obviously, the first movie was so good, and the
first movie is kind of just its own thing. But I know, Steve
Stephen Cognetti said in an interview, like, this is not its own thing.
It's meant to be in a three part thing. I like. I
like the second and third well enough. I don't think they spoil how good
the first movie is. But man, I want just stop what we're doing.
We'll just pause this, you and I can watch it and then we'll
just talk about it because I haven't watched it in so long. No that
God, damn it. I'm bummed at myself for not bringing that one up,
because that is a Yeah. That's another one of those ones where it's
like I can't help but wonder, like why more people haven't seen it.
Maybe maybe we'll have to rewatch it record again in like sixty days. Yeah,
I I I Man, what a bummer. I can't believe I missed
that one. Like I don't know, like that was That was what twenty
twenty fourteen, twenty fifteen, somewhere around there, which is a lot of
my picts are right around that time. Yeah, that was like the first
year I had started doing podcasting. So yeah, yeah, yep, man,
that's a good one. I'm surprised things that I'm surprised you didn't mention.
And I feel like instead of doing the things to avoid just I would
say more things that I would add to this the bigger conversation. The Sacrament,
it's okay. I think I enjoyed it because it's different. It's not
just you know, I mean like it's I'm not saying it's amazing, but
I'm also not like not saying you should avoid it like the plague. Wow,
I'm a fan of the Sacrament in terms of it doing something different.
I think the Gallows is a lot better than it has any right to be,
right, Okay, Like I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks
that that. But yeah, the first one was I didn't even realize there
was a sequel unfortunately. Yeah, right, it's probably for the best.
Also a horror movie that made money, so of course there's the right.
I'm a huge fan of Apollo eighteen. Uh yeah, better than I expected.
What's his name? Lloyd Owen is now one of the leads in The
Lord of the Rings TV show, which is super weird to like watch that
be like, oh my god, that's that I who I interviewed like a
decade ago about a movie that was already out for like seven years at the
time. I like Apollo eighteen a lot. I think it's again, it's
unique in the sense of what it is. Gonzala Lopez Diego has not done
anything else as good as that. Unfortunately. You also mentioned movies with unlikable
protagonists. I think Grave Encounters stands out in terms of, like, yeah,
as a movie about like someone who you definitely don't like being put in
a situation that they kind of deserve. Yeah, I mean there's so many
There are so many good ones, but there are more just mediocre ones than
anything else. Yeah, and it seems like, you know, the classic
Dante's Peak type of situation where a movie was coming out, so people hustle
to put out another movie that was inferior to that one. A lot of
that has happened with found footage. So there are some of these movies that
have come out around the same time. Is something else And because of that,
the bad movie has colored the interpretation for a lot of people for some
of these better movies, and so they dismiss anything in the genre. It's
it's worth much more than that, Yeah, I mean, and you know
again, like the level, like the cheapness, you know, the cost
effectiveness of making these movies does I guess put some people off because again it's
like, oh, look at how cheap this movie looks. Oh it's like
okay, fine, Like if that's where you're coming at this from, you're
not gonna have a good time. So you know, that's the other thing,
Like you have to really be willing to work with the movie to get
where the movie wants to take you. And I understand that that's hard with
found footage because sometimes the movie does everything in its power to not make it
easy to follow why they're doing and like, why don't you just put the
camera down and run. Just put the camera down and run. Just put
the camera down and run. And like, if the movie can't explain why
they haven't done that, you're gonna have a hard time with the movie.
Yeah, And like I said at the beginning, I think a lot of
these more modern films they're baking in an answer to that, which does help,
right, Not everything is Barry Levinson's The Bay, which is like,
I can't I can't even believe he made that movie. I don't know what
universe he I. Yeah, that's a weird one for me. The Bay
is like, I don't like, it's such a good idea. What the
little what the fuck are those things called the little things underneath your tongue?
And yeah, whatever whatever. Sometimes sometimes, like you said, sometimes what
happens in the industry and what happens in the genre dictates the way people react.
And The Bay is a reaction to Cloverfield, like, you know,
oh, let's get a let's get a prestige director to do a found footage
movie. Oh it's not good exactly. For every Dante's Peak, there's going
to be a volcano. And for a lot of these the volcano somehow it
Loomed larger, even though it's the vastly inferior film. So if you are
just missing some of these, I mean even not just the fourteen that we
listed or the eighteen that we ended up talking about, there's a lot out
there that even though they didn't make this list, they're still worth the time.
I mean, people worked really hard on a lot of these. Yeah.
Yeah, And again, some of these were done at such a low
budget that when they make as much money as they do, everybody just goes
WHOA right, Yeah. And that's the thing about found footage is it allows
you to make a movie for cheap that has the opportunity to be immensely financially
successful, which is why paranormal activity is a thing. And we haven't even
talked about a much, right, right, other than like the first one's
fine. One other movie I would mention, and it's from a director who
is more known as a actor less a director, and it's we haven't mentioned
any of these kinds, so I feel like it's worth mentioning Willow Creek,
which is a bigfoot footage movie, and it's also a movie about Bigfoot taking
forest brides, which is only Bobcat really only Bobcats could go. I mean,
that's the subtext of the movie. Best I can tell is Bigfoot taking
female hikers and fucking them in the woods, which I think is what Bobcat
is going for in that movie and many Bigfoot movies. Yeah, but Willow
Creek is fun. I mean, the legend of Boggie Creek is a more
mockumentary than found footage. But again, mockumentary and found footage are kind of
same heads of a different heads of the same point or as I'm concerned.
So a lot of good ones, a lot of bad ones, more to
come. I'm sure this has been a lot of fun. Chris. Thanks
taking the time to do it. Thank you for having me. Love conversations
like this. Everybody needs to describe a Subscribe to the seventeen podcast. I'll
be linking below and give Chris some of your time. And if you want
to hear more from Chris other than the podcast, Like I said, check
out the most recent Physical Media Advocate. Chris has his first column in there,
and it's pretty damn great. It's all about Indian cinema, So I'm
chuing very close to brand here. I love that I volunteered to be on
an episode of that and you're like really. I mean most of the time
I have to like convince people because they're like, oh, I've never seen
an Indian movie. It's like, okay, well you set the bar in
the right spot, so well, thank you again. I hope everybody likes
this. And uh, well we'll have to be talking about Hell House LLC
pretty soon, I guess. So yeah, we'll have to re embark.
Well, what we'll have to do is we have to watch Hell Hell House
LLC. And then you need to watch we have to just do all three
all okay, yeah, I mean at this point, because you haven't you
haven't seen them so and it's been I think I've seen all of them one
time. Man, I just Steve Cognetti, would you like to join us
as well. I'm sure it's been a while since. I know. He
hasn't done anything else, has he. I mean, it's I think it's
those. I mean, those are three pretty good movies. So don't ever
do it. If you don't ever do anything else, just don't go and
make a don't go and make a Blair Witch sequel. On that note,
thanks for watching. We'll see y'all next time, have a good one.
Thank you for listening to The Disconnected podcast. There's one big thing that you
could do to help the show, and that is to leave a rating and
review on the podcast service of your choice. Thank you. I am Adam
Lundy, co host of They Live by Film, a podcast dedicated to bringing
you film discussion and interviews from around the world. Every week, my co
hosts Chris Haskell, Zach Bryant, and I discuss a wide range of films,
from monumental classics like Vertigo and the Rules of the Game to the craziest,
shchluckiest movies ever made like Deathbed and everything in between. We are also
lucky enough to have sat down with some of the biggest players in the boutique
blu ray and film restoration game. If this is your thing, then come
hang out with us every Thursday at seven pm Eastern wherever you normally stream your
podcasts, and now as part of the Someone's Favorite Productions podcast network,