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The Substance
Manage episode 463888710 series 98583
Dive into the surreal world of “The Substance” (2024), where Demi Moore’s stunning performance takes her from Hollywood darling to grotesque visionary. With nods to The Shining and the insanity of Eraserhead, this movie punches through traditional narratives and straight into the realm of allegory.
But what exactly is it an allegory for? Join us as we dissect this bizarre, critically acclaimed Oscar nominee.
The Substance (2024)
Episode 426, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast
Todd: Hello and welcome to another episode of Two Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Todd.
Craig: And I’m Craig.
Todd: Just fresh off of a couple tribute episodes and our New Year episode, finally we’re getting around to a movie that we just decided to do. And you picked it this week, which I think was great, and, uh, you know, as always, we try to do a balance here of modern and older films, and we tend to do older films, too, just because there’s so darn many of them.
Yeah. But I know you’re you’re way up more up on the more modern films than I am, quite honestly, because I
Craig: I’m not always, but I like to be. I’m always very interested in what is coming out new and fresh, and this is something that I was Anyway, in fact, one of our friends, one of our book club friends told us she had seen this weeks and weeks ago and I was interested then and now correct me if I’m wrong, but this movie is nominated for best picture of the year at the Oscars, right?
Todd: Yeah, it’s nominated for best picture. It’s also nominated for best director and best original screenplay also. Did it win a Golden
Craig: Globe for, uh, Demi Moore, Demi Moore won a Golden Globe. I don’t remember if it won any other things, but Demi Moore won. And that’s a kind of part of the reason that I picked it too, because I’m a fan of Demi Moore, I like her and everything that she’s in and she’s been working since she was, I was going to say literally a child, I think she was in her teens, but I, I think of that as a child she’s been working forever and.
She did this movie, and I was excited that she did it, because she had a big career for a long time. You know, she was an A list actress celebrity for a long time, and then Basically, kind of what this movie is about By the way, we’re doing the substance. Sorry. We haven’t said
Todd: it yet.
Craig: If you
Todd: haven’t guessed it by now.
There are many movies we could be talking about, honestly, but yeah. And you’re right.
Craig: But basically what this movie about is she aged out, kind of, a little bit. in Hollywood. Now she’s continued to work. She’s done things here and there, but she’s not been the kind of a list celebrity that she was in the past.
And so I was really excited to see her come back to a starring role in what looked like an interesting film. And then she got a lot of acclaim for it. And I was really pleased, you know, before having seen the movie before knowing much about it at all. I mean, I, I kinda knew a little bit about it, but I was really happy to see that she was nominated and then I was happy to see that she won and her acceptance speech was
Clip: I’m just in shock right now.
Um, I’ve been doing this a long time, like over 45 years. And this is the ever won anything as an actor. Um, and I’m just so humbled and so grateful. Um, 30 years ago, I had a producer tell me that, um, I was a popcorn actress. And at that time, I made that mean that this wasn’t something that I was allowed to have.
That I could do movies that were successful, that made a lot of money, but that I couldn’t be acknowledged. And I bought in, and I believed that. And that corroded me over time to the point where I thought a few years ago that maybe this was it. Maybe I was complete, maybe I would, I’ve done what I was supposed to do.
And as I was at kind of a low point, I had this magical, bold, courageous, out of the box, absolutely bonkers script come across my desk called The Substance. And the universe told me that you’re not done.
Craig: I mean, to be a star of really popular movies that make a lot of money and are popular but are maybe not taken so seriously, or maybe you’re not taken so seriously as an actress, like, there are certainly worse things that could happen to you.
But I can only imagine that after four decades in film, being recognized for your talent, As an actress, would have to be really moving, and it seems as though it was very moving to her. And I was genuinely happy for her, like, like, like watching, yeah, as a person, like, watching that speech, I’m like, oh girl.
You deserve this.
We, as the general public, have enjoyed your talent for decades. You deserve some
Todd: f ing recognition. You take
Clip: it!
Todd: You know, having grown up with her. I mean, I’m a little young. I’m younger than she is, but you know what I mean? Like, having grown up with her. Barely. Yeah, sadly,
Craig: I mean, but that’s the thing. We’re barely younger than her.
So she was hot and young when we were really young. Yeah, exactly. She was one of our many dream girls of the eighties
Todd: and she was cool. She was the cool one. She was. And I remember sort of the metamorphosis. I mean, she was kind of one of the brat pack in a way, like she was insane, almost fire and stuff.
And then just when I was in middle school, I guess she was in ghost and that was huge. Ghost was huge and she was kind of sexy in it. And that was such a romantic story. And everyone just kind of like really fell in love with her. Can I interrupt you just briefly? I’m
Craig: sorry. Yeah. Because I read that she took this script because it reminded her of the experience of reading of the script of ghost.
She read it and she thought this could be amazing or. It could totally flop, and she was drawn to that. And, and reading that, I went back and watched Ghost again. Oh, did you? Yeah. It’s fantastic.
Todd: Is it? Okay. I
Craig: was just gonna say, I wonder if it might be a little cheesy now. It, it is. I mean, it’s a totally Our sensibilities are totally different now, but I know for a fact that you would put it on, and the beautiful orchestral score, and the romance, and the love story, and Patrick Swayze and Whoopi Goldberg, who is phenomenal in that movie.
You would melt into it exactly the same way I did. It’s so nostalgic and great and she’s fantastic in it. She is. Again, I apologize for interrupting. You were talking about her
Todd: career path. Well, I’m just thinking about like, you know the press around her, right? She used to celebrate and ghost and then I think she went on to do a few Good Men and then indecent proposal, which was a little controversial in a way.
And then Disclosure, and then she did Striptease, and by the 96, okay, when she did Striptease, this is like only 6 years after Ghost, people were already giving her shit. Because she was demanding to be paid the same as her male co stars. She was one of those. Loud women who are actually demanding, you know, this equality and won’t they just be quiet and aren’t they grateful for their careers and things?
And then when she was pregnant, you know, she did that nude vanity fair thing and that was such a huge thing. And I think even for by striptease, she had gotten breast implants and people were like, Oh, you know, look at how desperate she is striving to be relevant and who would want to work with her and stuff like that.
You know, she goes on to do G. I. Jean, which I don’t think was a huge success, but she’s shaving her hair for that, sitting in the, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s all about, you know, a woman being in a quote unquote man’s role in the military, right? Right. And so, she just got a lot of shit that a man doesn’t get.
Craig: Well, but that’s interesting to me, listening to your retrospective of her career, like, it seems to me that she, in that period that you were just talking about, she was intentionally Taking role, like, Yes, she was. People make jokes about striptease, but, and I’ve never seen it, I’ve only read about it, but, it was kind of a serious role.
Yeah, it was. And G. I. Jane, too. And I think at the time, you know, it’s not as though she went entirely unrecognized, she was very famous. I think that people appreciated her work, I just don’t think that she got the same kind of acclaim that other women of her generation were getting. Don’t get me wrong. I love Julia Roberts, but I don’t think that Julia Roberts is necessarily any better of an actress than Demi Moore.
Todd: No.
Craig: It just kind of depends on what people pick up on at the time. It’s true. And I’m so glad that people picked up on this. I swear to God. Okay, so I said to Alan, Would you have any interest in watching The Substance with me? This two and a half hour long movie? Uh, I didn’t, I didn’t know that yet. Oh, okay.
I, I, he said, yeah, how long is it?
And I looked it up and I said, oh, nevermind. You’re not going to want to watch it. It’s two, it’s almost two and a half hours. And he’s like, well, I want to see it. Like he was excited for me more too. Okay. He’s
Todd: a fan.
Craig: Yeah. And so then we were watching it. And we got, like, I don’t know, two thirds, three quarters of the way through it.
And we were just joking, like, And the nominees for Best Actress are And like And then getting, and then getting to the very, very end of the movie. And for Best Picture, The Substance, like This is a wild movie. I, I have no idea Why it has garnered the attention that it has, but I’m glad that it has because I think that it is An expertly crafted movie.
Well, it’s just insane. And it’s, it’s crazy that like the last three things we’ve done have been weird and surreal and it just so happens that this is too, like, we didn’t realize this was going to be our. Our Surrealism theme month, did we? I, I did not. You know, I’m, I’m looking at this and I’m seeing so many influences that we have recently talked about.
I mean, this movie is so informed by The Shining. It’s insane. It is. It’s crazy. Including volumes of blood. Yes. And The Shining was informed by Eraserhead so you see that in this too.
Clip: Yeah,
Craig: and I know i’m rambling but I it’s because i’m not exactly sure how to Approach it. How do you think we should approach it?
Todd: Well, I I like talking about the movie in the production even more but You’re right in a sense that it’s not a movie that is absolutely concerned about plot. They’re actually, when you kind of consider the story, there’s almost no real story. Well, there’s a story here, I guess. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t say there’s no story.
But it’s not really concerned with the story. It’s more about evoking mood. It’s more about getting into the minds of this woman or Quote unquote, women in here, some of it’s very caricature ish, you know, and deliberately. So, yes, like the way the men are portrayed in the movie as well. It, yes, you know, if you were to criticize it, you could say it’s a little bit on the nose in a lot of ways.
And a lot of points, even some lines are pretty on the nose. Is that a problem? I’m not, apparently it’s not because it’s, it’s got almost universal acclaim. And I think the rest of the movie. Makes up for it. Maybe the craft of the movie makes up for it because it is so well made and well acted.
Craig: It is so well made, but I don’t think there’s anything to make up for it.
Like, I get what you’re saying. It seems almost silly in places, but you said it’s a little on the nose. And I see why you say that, but I also think that as obvious as it seems It could be obviously applied, like, allegorically. I think that this movie is meant to be an
Todd: allegory. Of course. It’s very straightforward in one way.
Broadly speaking, it’s a straightforward allegory. It’s
Craig: definitely, right, it’s definitely an allegory about Hollywood and how Hollywood treats women. And how women view themselves. And how women view themselves, but I also, I can’t imagine that you didn’t think of this too. I thought that this was equally as much an allegory about parenthood, specifically about motherhood.
Hmm. Sacrificing your own youth and beauty for somebody else. You know
Todd: what I’m saying? I didn’t consider that before. I would have to think about that a bit. As we talk about it. But I can see what you’re saying.
Craig: That’s all I could think about. There’s birth, you know? Well, for sure. You create a whole new person.
Clip: Yeah. And
Craig: birth them out of yourself. And then you sacrifice your youth and beauty so that they can thrive. And you clean up after their messy ass and you deal with their sassy attitude. And
Todd: as you age you get a bit jealous of their and how they’re using their youth. Yeah, you know, whereas I’m sitting here deteriorating.
They’re doing these basically irresponsible things and ultimately destroying their Potential. I mean, that’s kind of what happens in this movie. Why aren’t they just grateful for it? If I could experience that, you know, I would do it all over again. You know, we all feel that way in some sense. Well, and again, we all feel that way about aging anyway.
Not necessarily about having a kid. Ooh, that’s true. That’s true. You know, you can just see anybody’s kid and feel this way.
Craig: But specifically here, Oh my god, we are totally jumping to, like, near the end of the movie, but I don’t care, it’s fine. Specifically here, there are moments where she feels so offended or hurt by the other one that she wants to end it.
But she can’t because it’s a part of her and she realizes that Do you see my parent connection here? Like she’s resentful and she’s she’s resentful and she’s jealous at the same time but at the same time that entity that she’s resentful and jealous of is An extension of her. Right. So, she can’t hate it that much, and she can’t even resent it that much.
Like, she, she still, despite being separated from it, she still feels the pride in it, and she values that. You know what I’m saying?
Todd: This is where I think the allegory kind of peels away if you try to look at it too deeply, because the movie does have this nonsensical, unrealistic aspect to it. And I did want to talk about that with you, because I’m dying for another perspective on it.
And that is that there are parts of this that really don’t make sense.
Craig: Okay, alright, wait, before I agree with you 100 percent and I think I know what you’re going to say, Okay. Just set it up real quick. Yeah, yeah. Let’s do it. Yeah. Okay. So the movie opens up with a shot of a cracked egg and it gets in an injection and then it separates into two perfect different yolks.
So there’s this drug out there. Demi Moore, Elizabeth Sparkle. She’s a Jane Fonda, but in the modern era, like it’s so surreal. Like these, yeah, I first, I thought it was supposed to be the eighties, but it’s
Todd: not so,
Craig: but it’s not, it’s modern era, but she’s like an exercise. Show host. Mm-hmm . And she’s famous or whatever, but Dennis Quaid is her disgusting, gross, oh God boss.
He’s disgusting and gross and great. I God like Dennis Quaid in this movie is like kind of how I think of Dennis Quaid now. And I hate that. I know what she mean. I’ve always loved Dennis Quain so much. He used to love him and now he, he always loved Dennis Quain. Oh, what’s
Todd: happened to this guy? So, and now he’s just this guy.
Gross. I wondered if he realized. That he’s playing, essentially, what he’s become, or
Craig: like, I mean, Oh, I hate it. Like, he’s been talking to Randy Quaid too much and now they’re both crazy. And, but let me talk about it for a second,
Todd: but real quick, since we’re there, yeah, he’s the producer. All right. And he basically thinks she’s too old for the thing.
Yeah, he needs young and hot. He, yeah, he needs someone young and hot to be his, in his exercise video, which isn’t I get it. Unreasonable, you know, like, to be fair. That being said, he is the stereotypical sleazy Hollywood producer. He’s eyeing up the women around him. He’s gross. I thought, honestly, even with all the body horror in this, I honestly thought the one grossest scene in this movie that I did want to retch and almost throw up was watching him eat the shrimp.
Craig: I concur.
Todd: The body was disgusting. Oh, and the slurping sounds and the whatever. And I, I’ve read in, I’ve read in the trivia that he ate like two kilograms of shrimp making this, which also grossed me out. Like.
Craig: Everything. Oh God. It was disgusting. They have this disgusting lunch. It’s like when you see someone fart
Clip: on screen.
People just love that. I mean, that’s just the way it is. So you’ll be people are just people and I. Have to give people what they want. That’s what keeps the shareholders happy and people always ask for something new. Renewal? It’s inevitable. At 50, well It stops. What stops? What? What stops? Um, you know the um, the um, the um, the um,
Craig: Oh, George!
It’s always just him talking at her, and he’s gross, and he plays it very well. And look, folks, I may disagree with Dennis Quaid’s political views. I certainly do. But, I’m not gonna critique his acting. I’m glad that he took on this role. I think that he, much like Demi Moore, is a talented actor who doesn’t get a lot of recognition.
He works all the time. It’s true. And I appreciate that he took on this role where he’s disgusting and I hate him. Like, he’s gross. Yep. They have that disgusting lunch. I know that filmmakers do this on purpose because the, the physical act of eating is disgusting. If you’ve ever seen Girl Interrupted, the Winona Ryder movie, have you seen that?
I haven’t.
Todd: No.
Craig: There’s one character who only wants to eat in her room. When they confront her about it, she’s like, Do you prefer taking a shit? When you’re by yourself or when the supervisor is watching and they’re like obviously by ourselves And she’s like I feel the same way about eating like it’s as Disgusting going in as it is coming out and I agree I don’t like eating in front of other people like I’m very self conscious about it.
It’s
Todd: gross I honestly think that the only way that I get to can eat in front of other people is because I’m eating too And so I’m distracted enough in my own eating that I don’t notice You know, I’m looking at my own plate, I’m hearing my own sounds, I’m chatting and turning around so it’s like, otherwise it would be gross.
You know that phenomenon, and this is another thing I don’t understand, have you ever heard of mukbang? Mukbang? Mukbang? I’ve heard of it, but I don’t know what it is. It is this thing, and it, it’s a Korean word, it originated in Korea, is there are pretty girls, actually not even necessarily pretty girls, who will just set their webcam up in front of a huge table with a godly amount of food, and chat with whoever’s watching them, the streaming that they’re sending out to the world, while they eat.
All of this stuff. And it is gross. I turned it on, one, to see what all the fuss was. I couldn’t last ten Just to see what all the fuss was. I couldn’t last twenty seconds. Before you came.
Craig: No. He just put it on just to, you know, just to see what all the fuss was about. Right, right.
Todd: Oh, it’s some new internet streaming thing that guys are into. Let’s check this out. I could never be into that. No, no, it’s disgusting. You could be naked and straddling that food. I would never. Oh
Craig: boy. So, so it’s disgusting.
They have that, you, every time you talk it just brings up so many things that I want to talk about. They have that disgusting lunch, but then when she confronts him about something, she just says that one line, like what happens to a man after 50 and he can’t answer it.
Clip: Yeah.
Craig: And he makes a scene out of something.
Seeing somebody else in leaves and then I couldn’t help but notice that she focuses in on a black fly in his chardonnay And I thought that was ironic
I’ve been saving that one since last night. Oh my gosh. Oh my god. Okay. All right Okay, so then immediately after that, she gets in a car accident, an INSANE car accident, and I thought, oh, this movie is going to be different than what I thought it was. It’s ghosts. I thought it was just She’s dead. She’s dead, or, or I thought she’s going to be horribly Disfigured.
Uh, injured. Mmm. And disfigured, and that’s why she’s going to want to do this. No! That’s not true. She’s fine. She is absolutely fine after this horrible car accident. But the nurse at the place can tell that she’s sad about being old, I guess. So he gives, so he, he hands her something and is like, this changed my life, or he slips something in her pocket and she opens it up.
And it’s a flash drive with a note that says this changed my life. And it’s for the substance. And eventually she takes the substance, but what you were talking about was being naked. Do go on. And there is so much nudity in this movie. There
Todd: is.
Craig: How old is Demi Moore? She is
Todd: 62. She is
Craig: butt ass naked in this movie for a lot of it.
Todd: Yep.
Craig: And she looks Amazing. And I actually almost feel, even though I get it, I almost feel like that’s part of the message. There’s no reason for her to feel insecure about the way she looks. Right. She looks f ing amazing. Yeah. Like, to me more Looks as good, if not better, than she has ever looked. She looks amazing.
However, I do understand that one of the allegories that this could be is Despite the fact that she looks amazing. Hollywood is telling her that she’s too old.
Todd: Yeah, she doesn’t look amazing enough, or she looks different than she used to, in very minute ways. And, by the way, did you know that, uh, Margaret Qualley, who plays Sue, the younger version of her, they actually fitted her with prosthetic breasts so that they would be more perfect than her actual breasts?
Mm hmm.
Craig: I did. I saw an interview where she said, those aren’t my boobs. What did she say? It was a breastplate.
Todd: She said she, they gave me the rack of a lifetime. Just not my lifetime.
Craig: You know, sometimes I criticize these movies, not really. Cause I get it. Like I understand the audience that horror is going for sometimes. Oftentimes, it’s the male gaze, and it’s just leering. And this movie is leering, especially when Okay, so It’s about
Todd: leering, you know? It’s a movie about leering. It does leer.
Craig: It’s about that, right. Demi Moore is weary about the substance at first, and it’s all very elusive. She never talks to anybody. This is what makes it so surreal. She watches a video that tells her It just makes you a better version of your own self, but it’s very straightforward from the beginning There will be two yous and you have to share one week you the next week the other you But you have to always remember that you’re not two different people You are you are one you are one it reiterates that over and over and over again, but it’s so I don’t know what the word is, like
Todd: Illogical.
Craig: It’s illogical, and I understand that the movie is suggesting that Elizabeth, Demi Moore, is so desperate that she’ll just do anything. She gets this number from a random guy, she calls this number, they don’t give her anything identifying, they tell her to show up at This back alley where she has to duck into this weird door and go through like this trash hallway into a very clean and pristine room that has like lockers where she can pull stuff out and then it gives her instructions.
Like, it’s a whole kit. The instructions are very vague. They’re like Ikea instructions.
Todd: Yeah.
Craig: I would have
Todd: so many questions.
Craig: Oh my God. But at the same time, she has no problem with them at all. Like it’s about like sticking hoses into yourself and shit. And she’s like, Oh, okay. Like she started wrapping that rubber band around her arm.
And I was like, I turned to Alan, I was like. She has experience in this. Like, like, unless, unless you’re a nurse, or a doctor, or a heroin addict, like, how do you know how to shoot something into I
Todd: couldn’t inject myself with anything. I
Craig: can’t even look at needles, Todd. Any time there was a needle in this movie, I had to turn away.
Oh, wow. I had no problem at the end when, spoiler alert, she gets her head cut off. I had no problem. Looking at that, but I could, I, I can’t look at needles. I’ll pass out.
Clip: I have
Craig: no idea what that’s all about. Okay, but she does this and then I didn’t know how this was going to work. I knew the basic premise of the movie was that she got this substance that basically made like a duplicate of her. But I didn’t realize that she had to be birthed. Out of Demi Moore’s back.
Clip: Yeah.
Craig: And then that Demi Moore would just have that enormous. Yeah.
Todd: It’s crazy. I had no idea. It’s crazy. In her unsterile bathroom.
Craig: And she just leaves her. God, the movie is so crazy. Like,
Todd: yeah,
Craig: it drove me insane. I just had to accept that this is surrealism. Yeah. It’s not meant to be realism. I just had to accept that.
Yeah. Because the fact that they just left one another when they, when one or the other was in the other’s body, they just left them there on the floor in the bathroom for days or weeks or months at a time. It’s like a racer head. It’s like that tick baby in a racer head that just. sits on that dresser forever and nobody ever does like do they shit like Like what it’s definitely oh my god, you’re
Todd: right.
It’s definitely surreal It’s definitely we’re not meant to think about this too hard but the part that bothered me the most was if they are one and this is where I just I don’t get it. I don’t get it. Yeah, you know, you know what I’m about to say. Yeah, the older version of herself doesn’t have memory about what the younger version of herself did and vice versa.
Right. So I
Craig: was totally confused because my understanding based on the deal. Yeah, it seemed like they were going to share a consciousness. They were just going to be in different bodies from week to week.
Todd: Yes.
Craig: But that doesn’t seem to be what it is. So I don’t know if the advertising was misleading.
Clip: Right.
Craig: Or if this is supposed to be some sort of message. Because they keep reiterating, You are one. There is no she, there is no her. It’s you. And yet, they are in Opposition with one another. Yeah. So, are we to believe that they are two separate consciousnesses? Or, are we to believe
Todd: that they are one? This is where I have a hard time parsing out the message of this movie beyond just a simple, Oh, it’s an allegory about how women shouldn’t feel bad about how old they are or how young they are because they’re both problematic or something like that.
And if you Tried to change it then bad things happened anyway. I mean, like in doing this thing, which I feel like I guess for the story they sort of had to do, except they didn’t, right? She could have had them share a consciousness and the story more or less could have played out the same, because I could see where a conscious.
Elizabeth Sparkle in a younger body would want to maintain that younger body for longer and would resent going back into her old body. But even still, like in this movie, when the young Elizabeth Sparkle, you know, wakes up, it’s like, it’s like the next
Craig: day to her. But it’s not even the young Elizabeth Sparkle.
She has a new name.
Todd: She’s Sue. So she, it’s not like she’s getting recognition as Elizabeth Sparkle. It’s not like she’s revitalizing her career. No, she just sort of happens. To get the audition for the redo of the same show that Elizabeth Sparkle was on.
Craig: Listen, there are so many things about this that drive me crazy.
Like if I were given, and I wouldn’t take it now, I’m too young to take it now, but in my elderly years, if I were given the opportunity to go back and be in a younger, hotter. Version of myself, the last thing that I would do was the exact same thing. Oh, yeah, absolutely not. You’re right. You’re right.
Absolutely not. Yeah, that drove me crazy. Like I just kept thinking in my head like what this woman must really really love leotards and exercise
Todd: That’s well, that’s the way I read it was she really wanted to stick it To Randy Quaid. She needed to prove that this was wrong, right? That this was just a construct.
Like, I’m, I’m still the same person. Well,
Craig: that’s sad and pathetic, too. It is also That’s sad and pathetic, too.
Todd: Yeah, it is. But I mean, for the purposes of the allegory, it provides a contrast. It provides something for it. The movie’s saying, see, she’s the same person. She’s just younger. Except in a younger, hotter body.
And now everybody treats her differently. But she isn’t really. She is a different person now. Yeah, they’re totally different. The young Elizabeth Sparkle is out partying, bringing guys home. She’s really arrogant, and she sabotages the whole f ing
Craig: She does sabotage the whole thing, and she’s selfish and horrible, but I Again, about I feel like this is about parenting.
Right. If I’m in my 50s or whatever, and I make some kind of weird clone of myself. Am I going to expect them to not be selfish? Like that’s ridiculous. Sure. Young people are selfish.
Clip: Yeah.
Craig: And self centered. And, and it doesn’t like the, the, the whole thing is the deal is, and it’s all very medical and body horror and disgusting.
They have to switch every seven days. And during those seven days, Young one has to extract some kind of serum from Demi Moore from her spine and inject it into herself to keep herself young and youthful and they just, and, and like they have to be fed through feeding tubes while either of them is living.
The other one is just lying on a disgusting bathroom floor. With a bunch of tubes in them
Todd: and then eventually a secret room, but go on.
Craig: Yeah. A secret room, which is ridiculous.
Todd: That was the dumbest thing,
Craig: but, but then they switch. I mean, that’s, again, we’ve talked about this a bazillion times, but it reminds me very, very much of a Brian.
Ian’s, uh, yeah,
Todd: there’s no movie. Yeah, you’re right. It is very much like that.
Craig: Very much.
Todd: Or, or a David Cronenberg movie.
Craig: Yes, but even more.
Todd: Brian Yuzna.
Craig: Because it’s just insane, but it presents itself in such a way that you just, well,
Todd: it’s kind of go with it. That’s what
Craig: it
Todd: is. Yeah. And that’s fine. And we, we don’t mind that.
I don’t mind it. But when you’re analyzing it for meaning, these things do kind of matter. And so, it’s really hard for me to parse out the meaning. Honestly, like, maybe I, maybe we are on the wrong track if we try to make this about aging actresses and things like that. Maybe what you said about this being more of an allegory for a parenting is much, much more accurate.
It, it actually And the child
Craig: just continues to take and take and take and the parent just suffers. Suffer. But couldn’t that, I, that’s one of the reasons that I like this. And maybe it’s one of the reasons that it’s getting a lot of attention is because it could be interpreted in different ways. This obviously could be interpreted as an allegory for the way that Hollywood treats women.
The older women. Get aged out and are put out to pasture or whatever and these young women Come up no fault of their own and and of course, you know, they should have their moment too but I also feel like there’s this narrative of Women should support and bolster women. But is that happening in Hollywood?
You know, like
Todd: Yeah, for all the talk of women’s empowerment and stuff like that, are women helping each other out or are they cutthroat?
Craig: Yeah, I’ve heard God, I wish I could cite a source or even a name. But I’ve recently heard a celebrity, some woman saying this whole idea of women supporting women in Hollywood just isn’t true.
It’s a man’s world and you do what you do. Now again, that is so far from my realm of reality, I have absolutely no idea if that’s true. But, I firmly believe that women have to face struggles when it comes to aging. That men don’t, and it’s not fair, and especially in our day and age, it’s ridiculous.
Todd: Yeah.
Craig: Jennifer Lopez, Demi Moore, help me name a bazillion other women who are in their 50s or 60s who are just stunningly Shakira. Yeah. These women who are at an age that we used to think of women being old, and they’re redefining it. They’re not old.
Todd: Yeah.
Craig: They are mature and gorgeous and thriving and Owning their shit, but I think that this movie is still relevant because it’s attacking these old stereotypes that we’re clinging to But I hope that go away soon and I think it’s doing it in such a way that’s, that’s entertaining and smart.
Todd: Let’s also acknowledge that there are women who are taken seriously and have long, very distinguished careers that are not getting those careers because of their beauty. You know what I’m saying? You know, you’ve got the Betty White, you’ve got the Helen Mirrens, you have the Angela Lansbury’s, you have the God, what is probably one of the most respected women in Hollywood today?
Meryl Streep. Meryl Streep, right? Meryl Streep. Thank you. Now, I’m not saying these women aren’t beautiful,
Craig: but what I’m saying is like Exactly, but can I say that There’s a distinction. Like, if you’re not stereotypically beautiful, you can be taken seriously. But if you are stereotypically beautiful, you can’t be taken seriously.
Does that make sense? It does make sense. Now, I don’t want to say Meryl Streep is a Stunner. She’s beautiful. Like all of those women, all, actually all
Todd: the ones that you just mentioned are gorgeous. But my point I’m trying to make is like nobody is suggesting that they do exercise videos . You know what I mean?
Right, right. And I don’t think that they feel like they’ve been shunned and, you know, treated as less than human or different than a man because they haven’t been asked to do exercise videos. Right. So I think this movie would have had a, a nicer, cleaner, neater sort of. It just would have made a little more sense if the reason she was being told that she’s too old isn’t because She’s aging out of an exercise video because like I said, it kind of ultimately is gonna happen, you know Yeah,
Craig: it
Todd: is it makes
Craig: sense.
Vanna white is still doing wheel of fortune
Todd: But that’s not an exercise video. You know what I mean? It’s not i’m saying like she’s still just a prop. That’s disgusting I’m, sorry. Yeah, but you know what i’m saying what If you had made this about this woman in a game show who was being told now you’re too old to stand there and turn letters, people don’t want to look at you anymore, it’s more tragic.
But anyway, I don’t think it’s that important anyway because the idea isn’t really about the circumstance, the idea is her feelings, right? It’s how does she feel and how is she being treated. So, we can still go with that. And you talked earlier about the craft of the movie, it’s just so incredibly good and I, for the life of me, thought that there was a lot of CGI and stuff involved in this.
And then I went on to YouTube and I found a documentary, a behind the scenes thing that emphatically shows that everything, with like a couple very small, minute exceptions, was practically done. And painstakingly so. Some of these things took months. to shoot and up to 200 people working the prosthetics, which prosthetics that could only be worked once because they were destroyed as soon as they did them.
And, uh, my God, is it good. I know. And the makeup on Demi Moore when she’s old, you know, I mean, we’ve come so far. It took 5 to 9 hours for her to get in that makeup. And then they could only shoot for a little while, like a couple hours because the makeup itself would deteriorate and start coming apart.
So, like, the pressure. And the care that went into making this look good from a practical standpoint is insane.
Craig: It looks amazing and I feel like we could talk about it for
Todd: hours. We could. I think that’s one of the things that people really admire about this movie, you know, because like I said, the plot, look, I’m not knocking the plot.
I’m just saying that I don’t think it’s as Mind blowing, as it’s getting credit for.
Craig: Uh, God, but I don’t think it’s mind blowing either, but I think there are so many things to talk about, so like, She does it, and then they become two different people, and the thing that I was confused about was, I thought that they were sharing a consciousness, like, they would just swap bodies.
But that’s not what it is, and it took me a long time to figure out that that wasn’t what it is. They’re not even aware of what the other one is doing. They are two separate people. That’s why I thought that it was more of an allegory for parenthood.
Todd: I think you’re right.
Craig: Sue gets very famous. It’s hugely famous, miraculously instantly, we’ve not even talked about the cinematography of this movie, which is gorgeous, it’s stunning.
There are tributes to The Shining, the hallway from The Shining is in there, everything is shot through the fourth wall. So it looks like you’re looking at a stage. It’s very proscenium. You’re often pulled very far back from the action so that you are looking down like a long corridor or something and seeing the action at the end.
And it’s gorgeous. But ultimately, they’re not the same person and conflict arises. And the younger one, which totally makes sense, the more ambitious the young one gets, she starts to neglect the older one. Yeah. Again. There you go. Parenting. It’s true. Every time she neglects her, then Demi Moore gets older and older.
Like, first she just has an old crony witch finger, which was hilarious. Like, every time She kept poking it into the camera. Alan just kept saying, Witch finger! Well, but eventually she becomes an old, disgusting
Todd: Hunchback
Craig: Snow White witch crone!
Clip: Yeah.
Craig: When they first reveal her as an old crone, she steps into the pristine white bathroom and it’s just a shot of her disgusting foot stepping in.
It’s, it’s the crone from The Shining.
Todd: Yeah,
Craig: so much of this is the shining
Todd: you’re right I was also getting Angelica Houston and the witches a little bit too with some of it. Yeah
Craig: Yeah, especially with her like curved back. Yeah
Todd: It was really gross.
Craig: There’s so much body horror in this and it looks fantastic like all up until now Everything looks great.
And I also want to talk about how to me more goes through a physical Transformation I just rushed through it, but it actually takes place over the course of time. The witch finger is the first thing, but then the other girl, Sue, takes more out of her spine, or whatever. Yeah. And she’s got like a, like a disgusting leg in her.
face is starting to get disgusting and her hair is starting to get disgusting. And she calls the people as she does regularly and says,
Clip: yes, hi. Um, there’s been a slight misuse of the substance. A few. The extra hours were accidentally used, causing um, an alteration. So I’m just looking for the procedure to reverse it.
What has been used on one side is lost on the other side. There is no going back. No, um, I don’t know what she was thinking. And obviously, she was drunk. Remember, there is no she and you. You are one.
Craig: I think that maybe this movie got so much recognition just because it’s so odd.
Clip: But
Craig: I see why Demi Moore got a nod for this movie because she just has to do so much.
Clip: And
Craig: she just has to throw herself into it. And she does. There are so many scenes. There’s one scene where she’s Trying to accept that she’s not this beautiful young woman anymore. But there are, somebody says to her, you are, you know, the person that you are still matters. So she sets up a date with somebody who is super, super into her.
This was the saddest part of the movie to me. And the one that I related the most to.
Todd: Oh, yeah.
Craig: A guy who had bumped into her and was like, Oh my god, we went to high school together. And I’m sure you don’t remember me, but I followed your career. And to me, you’re the most beautiful woman in the world.
Todd: And
Craig: it’s very awkward.
And she gets his phone number. And then later, when she’s got like a A witch finger and she’s feeling useless, but somebody else who has been going through this process has said to her, Have you forgotten that the old you is still a person?
Todd: Ha ha ha, who can have a life.
Craig: Yeah, she tries to make a date with that guy that had complimented her, but she spins A half an hour in front of the mirror.
And when she first gets in front of the mirror, she is stunning. To me more. She looks amazing. But she, every time she sees her reflection in anything, or every time she sees a picture, of the younger version of herself, her insecurities get the better of her. Yeah. And she keeps trying to improve upon what is always stunning.
And every time she tries to improve upon it, it looks worse. And I feel like that is an allegory for Hollywood too.
Todd: Yeah.
Craig: Women in Hollywood, f ing stop! Like, you’re gorgeous, stop! I don’t feel like it’s as much a thing now as it was 10 years ago. 10 years ago, Courtney Cox was filling her face with, I don’t know what, and it looked awful.
And eventually, she realized it looked awful, and stopped doing it, and talked about it. But I feel like that’s what this movie is about too, like, you, you’re a stunningly beautiful person when you start trying to do all of this stuff to yourself, you turn yourself into a monster. I can
Todd: pull up so many examples of actresses who I was like, why did you mess with yourself like that?
Like I thought you were gorgeous. You seem to be aging great. Why did you go beyond and, and you’re right, this can be like a message, you know, don’t do it. On the other hand, who pulls the strings still, I can’t imagine the enormous pressure actresses are on either. I can’t either. You can’t be in the right, your right mind necessarily.
You just know that you’ve been told something by somebody who is in power.
Craig: I would never judge. Anybody for doing whatever they want to do to their own body. Of course, that too.
Todd: If you’re not happy with it, it’s fine. I, you
Craig: know, You
Todd: do what you want to do. I know somebody who has one of those little dark beauty marks, you know, we call them beauty marks, right?
The little mole above the lip. And I think it is the cutest thing. And she was teased relentlessly about it when she was a child. She has a very different relationship with it. She would love it to be gone. I can see that. I get it. And so I wouldn’t begrudge her, you know, if she wanted to take that off and had the money and the wherewithal to do it.
You know, that’s, that’s up to you. It’s your body. But also like, I’m like, man, I wish it didn’t happen to you. You know, I wish you could see it the way I see it and the way I think most people see it. It’s actually a really charming
Craig: part
Todd: of you.
Craig: And I’m not going to speculate, but if Demi Moore has any, has had any work done.
She looks fantastic. I can’t get over how amazing she looks and if she’s had work done, good job. You picked the right people. I’m impressed that she was willing to show that regardless of the fact that she is Stunning at her age her butt’s a little saggy who gives a shit like
Clip: yeah,
Craig: I would Todd I don’t know.
I haven’t seen you in person in a long time But can you imagine getting naked in front of a camera for all the world?
Todd: No, I
Craig: can’t imagine.
Todd: No,
Craig: I would never Have that kind of vulnerability and for her and and not just her But margaret quali. Yeah, she’s fully nude Multiple times and not only is she fully nude from the time that demi more turns into margaret quali The camera cannot stop leering At her body, that’s the whole point.
And in any other movie, I would say gross, like stop it. But in this movie, it’s the whole point. It’s the whole point. Yeah. We’re talking about standards of beauty and what we focus and emphasize on. So every time that camera leers at her beautiful body, and she’s a beautiful young woman. Um, but every time I thought I get it, they’re making a point.
This is what we do.
Todd: I love that the camera also equally forces us to leer on Demi Moore’s body. I think that’s part of the point. I love that too.
Craig: But but then of
Todd: course she gets grotesque.
Craig: Yeah, and it’s gradual and I love the gradual change and that’s why. Do I think that Demi Moore deserved an Oscar nomination for this movie?
I don’t know, but what I will say is that she was given a lot. She had a lot to play in this movie. She did. She had the insecure, young, gorgeous woman to play. And then, as she evolves into this Crone and then ultimately into this disgusting thing. She was exploring Emotional space that I would not have necessarily Expected from her.
This is Big stuff. It’s an accomplishment. Yeah, she’s really getting into it. She’s really getting emotional if you just look at it Casually like it may come off as a little bit silly But if you if you’re watching this movie and thinking about what I think that this movie is trying to do I think that Demi Moore is trying to do it, too.
She’s Working she’s working. She’s acting
Todd: and it’s And let me also say, like, as a guy who now is fortunate enough to make his living acting and know what it’s like to be in front of a camera and kind of what that takes, of course my acting is quite silly. So let’s, let’s put this all in perspective. Well, and it’s different.
It’s different. It’s different. But this is a two and a half hour long movie. It takes its time. You know, earlier you said it’s like The Shining, and that’s one of the ways it’s like The Shining. It takes its time. It lingers on faces. It gets up close to her face, to her eyes, and stays there for a while.
And in bright, stark light. It was pretty interesting. I saw that the director was talking about, and I think it was part of this, um, this documentary, they were talking about all of this very difficult prosthetic work and transformation and scenes and things that all had to happen in this bathroom, and when the director, when the, when the guys and And gals who were in charge of doing this, you know, read it on the page and were initially planning things.
They assumed that they were going to be in a bathroom that was kind of like maybe eerily lit. It’s going to have some shadows, maybe some wall sconces. It’s going to look like luxurious or whatever. Okay. Like we can hide some things, you know, with the light and all that. And the director was like, no, I want this to be stark white, clinical, bright light.
She said, this is basically the headspace. Of this character, you know, it’s representative of the headspace of the character and all of the most crucial scenes between the two of those people, pretty much I think all of them happened in that bathroom and so not just the prosthetics have to look good, but again, they’re exposed as actors, they are exposed and to be able to maintain and be convincing in an environment where you are so exposed is an accomplishment, the level and degree of emotion and subtlety that they have to provide.
It over a long period of time in this very exposed space, they really deserve a lot of credit for it. But ultimately it does get kind of interesting because it all comes to a head, right? They are in the bathroom, like you said earlier, they have a fight. And I believe it looks like Demi Moore’s, Demi Moore’s side of things, Elizabeth Sparkle’s side of things is going to put an end.
To her younger self once and for all
Craig: when we say she’s a crone if they had just done the procedure As it was intended. They both could have continued on as is.
Todd: Yeah,
Craig: but Sue Is a young gorgeous ambitious person and she has all of this opportunity. So she keeps stealing Extra time and when I say that I mean she’s stealing bodily Spinal apparently fluid from elizabeth until she can’t anymore until she can’t anymore It’s like black when it comes out.
Oh, it’s so great and the people that she keeps talking to on the phone like there’s Somebody is giving them this stuff. I I turned to alan at one point and said has there been any discussion of cost? Like Right. Neither Elizabeth They don’t seem to have paid anything. No, it seems to be something that should be only available to the most elite.
But it’s so elusive, like, She doesn’t know who she’s talking to. She doesn’t pay anything. She does meet I mean, she’s referred. By somebody who has used this service and then is later confronted by them who Basically tells her ha ha ha Why why would you do that to somebody like if you had done this right and it was not working out Why would you tell somebody else to do it?
Oh god. I don’t know but But ultimately, Sue keeps stealing from Elizabeth until Elizabeth turns into a disgusting, disgusting old crone with tits sticking out everywhere and Demi Moore’s face sticking out on her back and it’s disgusting. But she’s supposed to host New Year’s Eve and then I guess she goes.
Like, it’s so weird. We have left out so much. This should have been a two hour episode because there’s so much to talk about. And ultimately I really did like this movie and I’m not done. We can talk about the end. I really did like this movie, but it is weird. It reminds me of Cronenberg. It reminds me of the fly.
It reminds me of.
It’s wild because at the end,
Todd: the shunting,
Craig: just like society or the fly, it gets crazy
Todd: at the end. The younger one ends up bashing the older ones. She
Craig: ends up killing her. I mean, it’s a whole dispute and then they have a whole huge
Todd: fight scene,
Craig: cinematic fight. At one point, Sue kicks the crone, Elizabeth, across the goddamn room.
Like, all of a sudden, she can kick her across the room. It all, it drove Alan crazy. Yeah. At one point before. Demi Moore had turned into the total crone like when she was like half crone when she just had a half crone leg There was a whole scene how she couldn’t get up out of the chair. And then when she’s turned into complete Snow White witch crone she can just run around and beat bitches up
Todd: It’s a little silly.
Again, you know, it’s, it’s an allegory and this is their headspace, I guess. So we’re just supposed to ignore that. And that’s, I guess it’s fair, but you’re right. It’s a little annoying. Like you didn’t have to do it that way. You know, you could have made it a little more logical, but yeah, so she kills her.
And then of course now she realizes she’s screwed. So she tries to basically do it again by going to some leftover stuff from that very first. Injection like that kicked this whole thing off that very explicitly stated it was one use only and Injects herself and what ends up being birthed out of her is the thing Yeah, it’s a crazy amalgamation of Demi Moore just, I mean, it’s hard, it’s impossible to describe.
It’s just like the thing, it’s the thing, it’s the shunting.
Craig: Listen, give Demi Moore an Academy Award nomination for this.
Todd: Was it her in there or was it the other Demi? I don’t
Craig: know. It’s a monstrous. And her face is poking out of the back of it, just screaming. And I’m sure it wasn’t her. I’m sure she went through the excruciating process of having a mold made of her face.
But yeah, it’s just hilarious to me. Like it’s called the Monstro. Eliza Sue like It’s the two of them combined and it’s monstrous and disgusting in like a Toxic Avenger kind of way. Oh, yes. There are eyeballs and Tits and all kinds of things popping out of it. There’s an eye within an eye. That was cool.
It’s disgusting. And the whole, the whole thing is gross and it doesn’t make any sense. You have to look at it from a surreal perspective. Because that monstrous thing then goes to the New Year’s Eve party. Which I thought was supposed to be like Dick Clark’s, yeah, New Year’s Dick and Rockin Eve or whatever But all of the women had their tits out and I was like
Todd: weird This is like some public television thing and you’ve got these like cabaret dancers.
Craig: What network is this on? It was crazy And, and she just walks out, but she has glued the picture of Demi Moore’s face on her face, but still whatever. And then she starts talking and she can barely talk and the movie for me subtitled it. Did your movie subtitle it? I thought that was an intentional thing.
Like the monster is like, but the subtitles said, it’s me, it’s me, it’s me. And I feel like that’s important. Like they loved and worshiped and adored her when she was gorgeous. But now that she’s monstrous. It’s kill the monster, shoot it, burn it. Yeah. And again, I just think that that speaks to the message of the movie.
Whether you’re talking about women in Hollywood or people who are different. Ultimately, you know, we accept and celebrate certain things and we immediately go to, ah!
Todd: Yeah, we reject just as easily as we, you know, we put someone up on a pedestal and then we tear them down. Yeah. It’s kind of a vicious cycle.
It’s really terrible. But she, I don’t know, she has her revenge or she just Gives them what they’re asking for, a spectacle or whatever it is because somebody comes around and cuts her head off. And, I can’t remember exactly, did another head sprout out from that? Yes! Yeah. Yes, another
Craig: monstrous head, like, ballooned out of the hole in her neck.
And then Wait, is this when it coughs up a tit? I can’t remember. No, that’s what freaked everybody out. Like when,
when she was just talking, like when she was just trying to host new year’s and everybody was sitting in the audience, like, Oh, then like a hole opened up in her body and a Boob just like, fell out, popped out of it. It was disgusting. That’s when they all freaked out. But that,
Todd: no,
Craig: at
Todd: this point, it’s a literal fire hose of blood that just sprays over everybody.
And actually it was a fire hose.
Craig: At this point of the movie, like I’m sitting next to Alan and I know that he has been tolerating this movie for two hours and at this point I’m like, huh. Yeah. Why? How do I justify? I know. And at the, and at the end, like all I could say was, it’s nominated for best feature.
You can. Talk about it with people at work. Like, how can I justify it to him? Not because I didn’t enjoy it, because that’s not true. I did. I think it’s a little bit too
Todd: long. It’s a little long. And I think this bit at the end is a bit much. It’s
Craig: a
Todd: lot. That
Craig: spraying of the blood everywhere goes on for like five.
Todd: minutes. It’s so long. It really feels indulgent and pointless. Like we got it. I don’t know. I don’t know why I, I, I don’t know why. It changes
Craig: locations. Like they spray everybody in the theater and you get to see everybody’s face in closeup as they’re getting sprayed by the blood and then it moves. It just starts going to other places.
You know,
Todd: I was thinking about other body horror movies that just kind of go to an extreme at the end, but. But we’re better. Like, the one that I think about is The Fly. I love The Fly, the remake of The Fly with Jeff Goldblum. And I especially love the ending. And that ending makes me cry every single time.
Me too. The Fly makes me cry. Crying that this big, ugly, monstrous fly that is trying to kill and destroy these people just crawls out of that machine and the dude blows it away. And it is sad, but it is over the top. That thing is completely over the top by that point, but it makes sense for the movie and God, the emotion in that, the sadness, it’s just beautiful.
It’s so powerful. This didn’t have that kind of power to me because it was just a little. Excessive. It did at first, but then when it kept going into the big blood spraying thing, which I think was supposed to mean, I don’t know, like, here’s what you asked for, or I’m giving you everything, finally, or I don’t know what it was really supposed to symbolize specifically, but it lost a lot of its original power by going on for so long and being so crazy, I think.
Personally. I
Craig: feel, you know, yeah, I feel differently. I did think that that blood splatter scene was not excessive. It just went on too long. That’s what I’m talking about.
Todd: I’m not talking about her getting out there and her body and all that. No, I thought that was powerful too. I thought the blood splatter part kind of.
Overshadowed that and kind of ruined it.
Craig: Okay. Okay. I I’m down with that But I actually liked the ending where after that that big monstrous thing Leaves the bloodbath and then just walks outside and falls down and kind of explodes
Todd: Yeah,
Craig: so then Demi Moore’s face crawls Onto her her Hollywood star of fame.
This was great. And she envisions glitter and All of the things that she’s always wanted and that’s kind of where the movie ends. I liked it I liked it too. I understand why it’s getting attention. I think that it was beautifully made. I think that the cinematography is gorgeous. It’s, it’s beautiful to look at the way that it’s shot is awesome.
And Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley both do a great job. I’m just surprised because we’ve seen movies like this before. We’ve seen good movies where people put in. Excellent performances and the movie has been well shot, but it’s never got recognized.
Todd: Yep.
Craig: But a horror movie like this is getting recognized and is getting nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars.
That’s
Todd: wild! We, we should all be super excited about this. Yeah. It is I fully support this movie. I’m so glad that And it’s one of only five or six horror movies before this have ever been nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars. Silence of the Lambs. E1. I think it was the only one that’s won. It’s, it’s an accomplishment.
And it’s so odd to me that this movie has struck such a mainstream course. Me too. Maybe because of its messaging. Maybe because it, you know, again, Me Too. Ha ha ha ha. We’re right on the edge of the Me Too movement, right? Like that’s got to have played into it a little bit. I mean, surely that informed the production, but also the care and the craft that went into it is quite It’s hard to ignore the director.
She’s French. She, that most of this was filmed in France. She had done one other movie before this was a rape revenge movie that I’ve never heard of or seen. I’ve
Craig: seen it. Have you really? So good. Is it? Yes. And it’s really good. It’s really good. Oh, that’s cool. It’s called revenge and it’s a shutter original.
It’s really good. It’s just so.
Todd: Interesting and odd, and it’s, it’s great that a movie like this is getting this kind of attention. This just does not happen very often. And it, maybe it does also pave the way for more, you know, maybe audiences are getting more of a tolerance for this. The terrifier, who would have thought?
This movie is like a more acceptable version of that kind of over the top gore and guts and weirdness. And I think probably also paved the way for the toxic Avenger. The new Toxic Avenger movie finished shooting like, I think, two years ago. They wouldn’t distribute it. I think they were worried about the gore and how audiences would take it.
And I can’t help but imagine, I haven’t read this anywhere, but I can’t help but think that the Terrifier and this movie explicitly gave permission. Okay, you can take a chance at releasing the Toxic Avenger as gory as it might be. Yep. So it paves some way that, you know, in that direction too, and it’s really nice.
That said, like I said, a little long. Which is fine, I was into it the whole time actually. Until the very, very end. And then that was when I was like, all right, can we just get to the end now? The blood spray part that this felt like a little, a little bit much.
Craig: Oh gosh. Yeah. I that’s, that’s kind of where I stopped caring about it.
Like, okay. You should watch it. Watch this movie. Support this movie. Check it out. Support horror. I think it’s amazing that a horror movie is being nominated for best picture of the year. It’s
Todd: great.
Craig: It won’t win. I can’t imagine it will win, but that’s amazing. And I also think that Demi Moore, I’m so glad that she’s getting some recognition and she works her ass off in this movie.
She is doing all kinds of crazy shit. She has to be hot. She has to be crazy. She has to wear tons of prosthetics. I think she’s deserving of the nomination, whether she wins or not. Amen. That’s it.
Todd: Well, I hope you listeners feel the same. If you do, or if you don’t, just, uh, drop us a message at anywhere that, uh, we are online.
ChainsawHorror. com, obviously. We have a comment section on there. You can also check out our social media. All you need to do is google Two Guys in a Chainsaw Podcast and you’ll find all of that stuff there. We have a Patreon page, you can also get that through our website, a link on there. Consider subscribing!
This year, you know, we put out minisodes for our patrons. We have the complete, unedited phone calls, which are often interesting. That’ll give you a little bit of behind the scenes, uh, peek into what goes into the production of these in case you’re interested, and a little bit of personal stuff about us from time to time.
We have a book club going on up there, and lots of goodies. Just find the link to that through our website. Share this podcast with the friend, subscribe to our newsletter, which is linked on our webpage. And, uh, if you want to talk to us directly by recording an audio message that we will play here on our show, there’s a link on there as well.
Talk to us. Just click it. You don’t need any special software. Just through your web browser, record a 30 second or one minute clip for us. And it’ll go straight to us. And we’d love to hear from you in any way, shape or form that you reach out. Until next time, I am Todd. And I’m Craig. With Two Guys and a Chainsaw.
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Manage episode 463888710 series 98583
Dive into the surreal world of “The Substance” (2024), where Demi Moore’s stunning performance takes her from Hollywood darling to grotesque visionary. With nods to The Shining and the insanity of Eraserhead, this movie punches through traditional narratives and straight into the realm of allegory.
But what exactly is it an allegory for? Join us as we dissect this bizarre, critically acclaimed Oscar nominee.
The Substance (2024)
Episode 426, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast
Todd: Hello and welcome to another episode of Two Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Todd.
Craig: And I’m Craig.
Todd: Just fresh off of a couple tribute episodes and our New Year episode, finally we’re getting around to a movie that we just decided to do. And you picked it this week, which I think was great, and, uh, you know, as always, we try to do a balance here of modern and older films, and we tend to do older films, too, just because there’s so darn many of them.
Yeah. But I know you’re you’re way up more up on the more modern films than I am, quite honestly, because I
Craig: I’m not always, but I like to be. I’m always very interested in what is coming out new and fresh, and this is something that I was Anyway, in fact, one of our friends, one of our book club friends told us she had seen this weeks and weeks ago and I was interested then and now correct me if I’m wrong, but this movie is nominated for best picture of the year at the Oscars, right?
Todd: Yeah, it’s nominated for best picture. It’s also nominated for best director and best original screenplay also. Did it win a Golden
Craig: Globe for, uh, Demi Moore, Demi Moore won a Golden Globe. I don’t remember if it won any other things, but Demi Moore won. And that’s a kind of part of the reason that I picked it too, because I’m a fan of Demi Moore, I like her and everything that she’s in and she’s been working since she was, I was going to say literally a child, I think she was in her teens, but I, I think of that as a child she’s been working forever and.
She did this movie, and I was excited that she did it, because she had a big career for a long time. You know, she was an A list actress celebrity for a long time, and then Basically, kind of what this movie is about By the way, we’re doing the substance. Sorry. We haven’t said
Todd: it yet.
Craig: If you
Todd: haven’t guessed it by now.
There are many movies we could be talking about, honestly, but yeah. And you’re right.
Craig: But basically what this movie about is she aged out, kind of, a little bit. in Hollywood. Now she’s continued to work. She’s done things here and there, but she’s not been the kind of a list celebrity that she was in the past.
And so I was really excited to see her come back to a starring role in what looked like an interesting film. And then she got a lot of acclaim for it. And I was really pleased, you know, before having seen the movie before knowing much about it at all. I mean, I, I kinda knew a little bit about it, but I was really happy to see that she was nominated and then I was happy to see that she won and her acceptance speech was
Clip: I’m just in shock right now.
Um, I’ve been doing this a long time, like over 45 years. And this is the ever won anything as an actor. Um, and I’m just so humbled and so grateful. Um, 30 years ago, I had a producer tell me that, um, I was a popcorn actress. And at that time, I made that mean that this wasn’t something that I was allowed to have.
That I could do movies that were successful, that made a lot of money, but that I couldn’t be acknowledged. And I bought in, and I believed that. And that corroded me over time to the point where I thought a few years ago that maybe this was it. Maybe I was complete, maybe I would, I’ve done what I was supposed to do.
And as I was at kind of a low point, I had this magical, bold, courageous, out of the box, absolutely bonkers script come across my desk called The Substance. And the universe told me that you’re not done.
Craig: I mean, to be a star of really popular movies that make a lot of money and are popular but are maybe not taken so seriously, or maybe you’re not taken so seriously as an actress, like, there are certainly worse things that could happen to you.
But I can only imagine that after four decades in film, being recognized for your talent, As an actress, would have to be really moving, and it seems as though it was very moving to her. And I was genuinely happy for her, like, like, like watching, yeah, as a person, like, watching that speech, I’m like, oh girl.
You deserve this.
We, as the general public, have enjoyed your talent for decades. You deserve some
Todd: f ing recognition. You take
Clip: it!
Todd: You know, having grown up with her. I mean, I’m a little young. I’m younger than she is, but you know what I mean? Like, having grown up with her. Barely. Yeah, sadly,
Craig: I mean, but that’s the thing. We’re barely younger than her.
So she was hot and young when we were really young. Yeah, exactly. She was one of our many dream girls of the eighties
Todd: and she was cool. She was the cool one. She was. And I remember sort of the metamorphosis. I mean, she was kind of one of the brat pack in a way, like she was insane, almost fire and stuff.
And then just when I was in middle school, I guess she was in ghost and that was huge. Ghost was huge and she was kind of sexy in it. And that was such a romantic story. And everyone just kind of like really fell in love with her. Can I interrupt you just briefly? I’m
Craig: sorry. Yeah. Because I read that she took this script because it reminded her of the experience of reading of the script of ghost.
She read it and she thought this could be amazing or. It could totally flop, and she was drawn to that. And, and reading that, I went back and watched Ghost again. Oh, did you? Yeah. It’s fantastic.
Todd: Is it? Okay. I
Craig: was just gonna say, I wonder if it might be a little cheesy now. It, it is. I mean, it’s a totally Our sensibilities are totally different now, but I know for a fact that you would put it on, and the beautiful orchestral score, and the romance, and the love story, and Patrick Swayze and Whoopi Goldberg, who is phenomenal in that movie.
You would melt into it exactly the same way I did. It’s so nostalgic and great and she’s fantastic in it. She is. Again, I apologize for interrupting. You were talking about her
Todd: career path. Well, I’m just thinking about like, you know the press around her, right? She used to celebrate and ghost and then I think she went on to do a few Good Men and then indecent proposal, which was a little controversial in a way.
And then Disclosure, and then she did Striptease, and by the 96, okay, when she did Striptease, this is like only 6 years after Ghost, people were already giving her shit. Because she was demanding to be paid the same as her male co stars. She was one of those. Loud women who are actually demanding, you know, this equality and won’t they just be quiet and aren’t they grateful for their careers and things?
And then when she was pregnant, you know, she did that nude vanity fair thing and that was such a huge thing. And I think even for by striptease, she had gotten breast implants and people were like, Oh, you know, look at how desperate she is striving to be relevant and who would want to work with her and stuff like that.
You know, she goes on to do G. I. Jean, which I don’t think was a huge success, but she’s shaving her hair for that, sitting in the, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s all about, you know, a woman being in a quote unquote man’s role in the military, right? Right. And so, she just got a lot of shit that a man doesn’t get.
Craig: Well, but that’s interesting to me, listening to your retrospective of her career, like, it seems to me that she, in that period that you were just talking about, she was intentionally Taking role, like, Yes, she was. People make jokes about striptease, but, and I’ve never seen it, I’ve only read about it, but, it was kind of a serious role.
Yeah, it was. And G. I. Jane, too. And I think at the time, you know, it’s not as though she went entirely unrecognized, she was very famous. I think that people appreciated her work, I just don’t think that she got the same kind of acclaim that other women of her generation were getting. Don’t get me wrong. I love Julia Roberts, but I don’t think that Julia Roberts is necessarily any better of an actress than Demi Moore.
Todd: No.
Craig: It just kind of depends on what people pick up on at the time. It’s true. And I’m so glad that people picked up on this. I swear to God. Okay, so I said to Alan, Would you have any interest in watching The Substance with me? This two and a half hour long movie? Uh, I didn’t, I didn’t know that yet. Oh, okay.
I, I, he said, yeah, how long is it?
And I looked it up and I said, oh, nevermind. You’re not going to want to watch it. It’s two, it’s almost two and a half hours. And he’s like, well, I want to see it. Like he was excited for me more too. Okay. He’s
Todd: a fan.
Craig: Yeah. And so then we were watching it. And we got, like, I don’t know, two thirds, three quarters of the way through it.
And we were just joking, like, And the nominees for Best Actress are And like And then getting, and then getting to the very, very end of the movie. And for Best Picture, The Substance, like This is a wild movie. I, I have no idea Why it has garnered the attention that it has, but I’m glad that it has because I think that it is An expertly crafted movie.
Well, it’s just insane. And it’s, it’s crazy that like the last three things we’ve done have been weird and surreal and it just so happens that this is too, like, we didn’t realize this was going to be our. Our Surrealism theme month, did we? I, I did not. You know, I’m, I’m looking at this and I’m seeing so many influences that we have recently talked about.
I mean, this movie is so informed by The Shining. It’s insane. It is. It’s crazy. Including volumes of blood. Yes. And The Shining was informed by Eraserhead so you see that in this too.
Clip: Yeah,
Craig: and I know i’m rambling but I it’s because i’m not exactly sure how to Approach it. How do you think we should approach it?
Todd: Well, I I like talking about the movie in the production even more but You’re right in a sense that it’s not a movie that is absolutely concerned about plot. They’re actually, when you kind of consider the story, there’s almost no real story. Well, there’s a story here, I guess. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t say there’s no story.
But it’s not really concerned with the story. It’s more about evoking mood. It’s more about getting into the minds of this woman or Quote unquote, women in here, some of it’s very caricature ish, you know, and deliberately. So, yes, like the way the men are portrayed in the movie as well. It, yes, you know, if you were to criticize it, you could say it’s a little bit on the nose in a lot of ways.
And a lot of points, even some lines are pretty on the nose. Is that a problem? I’m not, apparently it’s not because it’s, it’s got almost universal acclaim. And I think the rest of the movie. Makes up for it. Maybe the craft of the movie makes up for it because it is so well made and well acted.
Craig: It is so well made, but I don’t think there’s anything to make up for it.
Like, I get what you’re saying. It seems almost silly in places, but you said it’s a little on the nose. And I see why you say that, but I also think that as obvious as it seems It could be obviously applied, like, allegorically. I think that this movie is meant to be an
Todd: allegory. Of course. It’s very straightforward in one way.
Broadly speaking, it’s a straightforward allegory. It’s
Craig: definitely, right, it’s definitely an allegory about Hollywood and how Hollywood treats women. And how women view themselves. And how women view themselves, but I also, I can’t imagine that you didn’t think of this too. I thought that this was equally as much an allegory about parenthood, specifically about motherhood.
Hmm. Sacrificing your own youth and beauty for somebody else. You know
Todd: what I’m saying? I didn’t consider that before. I would have to think about that a bit. As we talk about it. But I can see what you’re saying.
Craig: That’s all I could think about. There’s birth, you know? Well, for sure. You create a whole new person.
Clip: Yeah. And
Craig: birth them out of yourself. And then you sacrifice your youth and beauty so that they can thrive. And you clean up after their messy ass and you deal with their sassy attitude. And
Todd: as you age you get a bit jealous of their and how they’re using their youth. Yeah, you know, whereas I’m sitting here deteriorating.
They’re doing these basically irresponsible things and ultimately destroying their Potential. I mean, that’s kind of what happens in this movie. Why aren’t they just grateful for it? If I could experience that, you know, I would do it all over again. You know, we all feel that way in some sense. Well, and again, we all feel that way about aging anyway.
Not necessarily about having a kid. Ooh, that’s true. That’s true. You know, you can just see anybody’s kid and feel this way.
Craig: But specifically here, Oh my god, we are totally jumping to, like, near the end of the movie, but I don’t care, it’s fine. Specifically here, there are moments where she feels so offended or hurt by the other one that she wants to end it.
But she can’t because it’s a part of her and she realizes that Do you see my parent connection here? Like she’s resentful and she’s she’s resentful and she’s jealous at the same time but at the same time that entity that she’s resentful and jealous of is An extension of her. Right. So, she can’t hate it that much, and she can’t even resent it that much.
Like, she, she still, despite being separated from it, she still feels the pride in it, and she values that. You know what I’m saying?
Todd: This is where I think the allegory kind of peels away if you try to look at it too deeply, because the movie does have this nonsensical, unrealistic aspect to it. And I did want to talk about that with you, because I’m dying for another perspective on it.
And that is that there are parts of this that really don’t make sense.
Craig: Okay, alright, wait, before I agree with you 100 percent and I think I know what you’re going to say, Okay. Just set it up real quick. Yeah, yeah. Let’s do it. Yeah. Okay. So the movie opens up with a shot of a cracked egg and it gets in an injection and then it separates into two perfect different yolks.
So there’s this drug out there. Demi Moore, Elizabeth Sparkle. She’s a Jane Fonda, but in the modern era, like it’s so surreal. Like these, yeah, I first, I thought it was supposed to be the eighties, but it’s
Todd: not so,
Craig: but it’s not, it’s modern era, but she’s like an exercise. Show host. Mm-hmm . And she’s famous or whatever, but Dennis Quaid is her disgusting, gross, oh God boss.
He’s disgusting and gross and great. I God like Dennis Quaid in this movie is like kind of how I think of Dennis Quaid now. And I hate that. I know what she mean. I’ve always loved Dennis Quain so much. He used to love him and now he, he always loved Dennis Quain. Oh, what’s
Todd: happened to this guy? So, and now he’s just this guy.
Gross. I wondered if he realized. That he’s playing, essentially, what he’s become, or
Craig: like, I mean, Oh, I hate it. Like, he’s been talking to Randy Quaid too much and now they’re both crazy. And, but let me talk about it for a second,
Todd: but real quick, since we’re there, yeah, he’s the producer. All right. And he basically thinks she’s too old for the thing.
Yeah, he needs young and hot. He, yeah, he needs someone young and hot to be his, in his exercise video, which isn’t I get it. Unreasonable, you know, like, to be fair. That being said, he is the stereotypical sleazy Hollywood producer. He’s eyeing up the women around him. He’s gross. I thought, honestly, even with all the body horror in this, I honestly thought the one grossest scene in this movie that I did want to retch and almost throw up was watching him eat the shrimp.
Craig: I concur.
Todd: The body was disgusting. Oh, and the slurping sounds and the whatever. And I, I’ve read in, I’ve read in the trivia that he ate like two kilograms of shrimp making this, which also grossed me out. Like.
Craig: Everything. Oh God. It was disgusting. They have this disgusting lunch. It’s like when you see someone fart
Clip: on screen.
People just love that. I mean, that’s just the way it is. So you’ll be people are just people and I. Have to give people what they want. That’s what keeps the shareholders happy and people always ask for something new. Renewal? It’s inevitable. At 50, well It stops. What stops? What? What stops? Um, you know the um, the um, the um, the um,
Craig: Oh, George!
It’s always just him talking at her, and he’s gross, and he plays it very well. And look, folks, I may disagree with Dennis Quaid’s political views. I certainly do. But, I’m not gonna critique his acting. I’m glad that he took on this role. I think that he, much like Demi Moore, is a talented actor who doesn’t get a lot of recognition.
He works all the time. It’s true. And I appreciate that he took on this role where he’s disgusting and I hate him. Like, he’s gross. Yep. They have that disgusting lunch. I know that filmmakers do this on purpose because the, the physical act of eating is disgusting. If you’ve ever seen Girl Interrupted, the Winona Ryder movie, have you seen that?
I haven’t.
Todd: No.
Craig: There’s one character who only wants to eat in her room. When they confront her about it, she’s like, Do you prefer taking a shit? When you’re by yourself or when the supervisor is watching and they’re like obviously by ourselves And she’s like I feel the same way about eating like it’s as Disgusting going in as it is coming out and I agree I don’t like eating in front of other people like I’m very self conscious about it.
It’s
Todd: gross I honestly think that the only way that I get to can eat in front of other people is because I’m eating too And so I’m distracted enough in my own eating that I don’t notice You know, I’m looking at my own plate, I’m hearing my own sounds, I’m chatting and turning around so it’s like, otherwise it would be gross.
You know that phenomenon, and this is another thing I don’t understand, have you ever heard of mukbang? Mukbang? Mukbang? I’ve heard of it, but I don’t know what it is. It is this thing, and it, it’s a Korean word, it originated in Korea, is there are pretty girls, actually not even necessarily pretty girls, who will just set their webcam up in front of a huge table with a godly amount of food, and chat with whoever’s watching them, the streaming that they’re sending out to the world, while they eat.
All of this stuff. And it is gross. I turned it on, one, to see what all the fuss was. I couldn’t last ten Just to see what all the fuss was. I couldn’t last twenty seconds. Before you came.
Craig: No. He just put it on just to, you know, just to see what all the fuss was about. Right, right.
Todd: Oh, it’s some new internet streaming thing that guys are into. Let’s check this out. I could never be into that. No, no, it’s disgusting. You could be naked and straddling that food. I would never. Oh
Craig: boy. So, so it’s disgusting.
They have that, you, every time you talk it just brings up so many things that I want to talk about. They have that disgusting lunch, but then when she confronts him about something, she just says that one line, like what happens to a man after 50 and he can’t answer it.
Clip: Yeah.
Craig: And he makes a scene out of something.
Seeing somebody else in leaves and then I couldn’t help but notice that she focuses in on a black fly in his chardonnay And I thought that was ironic
I’ve been saving that one since last night. Oh my gosh. Oh my god. Okay. All right Okay, so then immediately after that, she gets in a car accident, an INSANE car accident, and I thought, oh, this movie is going to be different than what I thought it was. It’s ghosts. I thought it was just She’s dead. She’s dead, or, or I thought she’s going to be horribly Disfigured.
Uh, injured. Mmm. And disfigured, and that’s why she’s going to want to do this. No! That’s not true. She’s fine. She is absolutely fine after this horrible car accident. But the nurse at the place can tell that she’s sad about being old, I guess. So he gives, so he, he hands her something and is like, this changed my life, or he slips something in her pocket and she opens it up.
And it’s a flash drive with a note that says this changed my life. And it’s for the substance. And eventually she takes the substance, but what you were talking about was being naked. Do go on. And there is so much nudity in this movie. There
Todd: is.
Craig: How old is Demi Moore? She is
Todd: 62. She is
Craig: butt ass naked in this movie for a lot of it.
Todd: Yep.
Craig: And she looks Amazing. And I actually almost feel, even though I get it, I almost feel like that’s part of the message. There’s no reason for her to feel insecure about the way she looks. Right. She looks f ing amazing. Yeah. Like, to me more Looks as good, if not better, than she has ever looked. She looks amazing.
However, I do understand that one of the allegories that this could be is Despite the fact that she looks amazing. Hollywood is telling her that she’s too old.
Todd: Yeah, she doesn’t look amazing enough, or she looks different than she used to, in very minute ways. And, by the way, did you know that, uh, Margaret Qualley, who plays Sue, the younger version of her, they actually fitted her with prosthetic breasts so that they would be more perfect than her actual breasts?
Mm hmm.
Craig: I did. I saw an interview where she said, those aren’t my boobs. What did she say? It was a breastplate.
Todd: She said she, they gave me the rack of a lifetime. Just not my lifetime.
Craig: You know, sometimes I criticize these movies, not really. Cause I get it. Like I understand the audience that horror is going for sometimes. Oftentimes, it’s the male gaze, and it’s just leering. And this movie is leering, especially when Okay, so It’s about
Todd: leering, you know? It’s a movie about leering. It does leer.
Craig: It’s about that, right. Demi Moore is weary about the substance at first, and it’s all very elusive. She never talks to anybody. This is what makes it so surreal. She watches a video that tells her It just makes you a better version of your own self, but it’s very straightforward from the beginning There will be two yous and you have to share one week you the next week the other you But you have to always remember that you’re not two different people You are you are one you are one it reiterates that over and over and over again, but it’s so I don’t know what the word is, like
Todd: Illogical.
Craig: It’s illogical, and I understand that the movie is suggesting that Elizabeth, Demi Moore, is so desperate that she’ll just do anything. She gets this number from a random guy, she calls this number, they don’t give her anything identifying, they tell her to show up at This back alley where she has to duck into this weird door and go through like this trash hallway into a very clean and pristine room that has like lockers where she can pull stuff out and then it gives her instructions.
Like, it’s a whole kit. The instructions are very vague. They’re like Ikea instructions.
Todd: Yeah.
Craig: I would have
Todd: so many questions.
Craig: Oh my God. But at the same time, she has no problem with them at all. Like it’s about like sticking hoses into yourself and shit. And she’s like, Oh, okay. Like she started wrapping that rubber band around her arm.
And I was like, I turned to Alan, I was like. She has experience in this. Like, like, unless, unless you’re a nurse, or a doctor, or a heroin addict, like, how do you know how to shoot something into I
Todd: couldn’t inject myself with anything. I
Craig: can’t even look at needles, Todd. Any time there was a needle in this movie, I had to turn away.
Oh, wow. I had no problem at the end when, spoiler alert, she gets her head cut off. I had no problem. Looking at that, but I could, I, I can’t look at needles. I’ll pass out.
Clip: I have
Craig: no idea what that’s all about. Okay, but she does this and then I didn’t know how this was going to work. I knew the basic premise of the movie was that she got this substance that basically made like a duplicate of her. But I didn’t realize that she had to be birthed. Out of Demi Moore’s back.
Clip: Yeah.
Craig: And then that Demi Moore would just have that enormous. Yeah.
Todd: It’s crazy. I had no idea. It’s crazy. In her unsterile bathroom.
Craig: And she just leaves her. God, the movie is so crazy. Like,
Todd: yeah,
Craig: it drove me insane. I just had to accept that this is surrealism. Yeah. It’s not meant to be realism. I just had to accept that.
Yeah. Because the fact that they just left one another when they, when one or the other was in the other’s body, they just left them there on the floor in the bathroom for days or weeks or months at a time. It’s like a racer head. It’s like that tick baby in a racer head that just. sits on that dresser forever and nobody ever does like do they shit like Like what it’s definitely oh my god, you’re
Todd: right.
It’s definitely surreal It’s definitely we’re not meant to think about this too hard but the part that bothered me the most was if they are one and this is where I just I don’t get it. I don’t get it. Yeah, you know, you know what I’m about to say. Yeah, the older version of herself doesn’t have memory about what the younger version of herself did and vice versa.
Right. So I
Craig: was totally confused because my understanding based on the deal. Yeah, it seemed like they were going to share a consciousness. They were just going to be in different bodies from week to week.
Todd: Yes.
Craig: But that doesn’t seem to be what it is. So I don’t know if the advertising was misleading.
Clip: Right.
Craig: Or if this is supposed to be some sort of message. Because they keep reiterating, You are one. There is no she, there is no her. It’s you. And yet, they are in Opposition with one another. Yeah. So, are we to believe that they are two separate consciousnesses? Or, are we to believe
Todd: that they are one? This is where I have a hard time parsing out the message of this movie beyond just a simple, Oh, it’s an allegory about how women shouldn’t feel bad about how old they are or how young they are because they’re both problematic or something like that.
And if you Tried to change it then bad things happened anyway. I mean, like in doing this thing, which I feel like I guess for the story they sort of had to do, except they didn’t, right? She could have had them share a consciousness and the story more or less could have played out the same, because I could see where a conscious.
Elizabeth Sparkle in a younger body would want to maintain that younger body for longer and would resent going back into her old body. But even still, like in this movie, when the young Elizabeth Sparkle, you know, wakes up, it’s like, it’s like the next
Craig: day to her. But it’s not even the young Elizabeth Sparkle.
She has a new name.
Todd: She’s Sue. So she, it’s not like she’s getting recognition as Elizabeth Sparkle. It’s not like she’s revitalizing her career. No, she just sort of happens. To get the audition for the redo of the same show that Elizabeth Sparkle was on.
Craig: Listen, there are so many things about this that drive me crazy.
Like if I were given, and I wouldn’t take it now, I’m too young to take it now, but in my elderly years, if I were given the opportunity to go back and be in a younger, hotter. Version of myself, the last thing that I would do was the exact same thing. Oh, yeah, absolutely not. You’re right. You’re right.
Absolutely not. Yeah, that drove me crazy. Like I just kept thinking in my head like what this woman must really really love leotards and exercise
Todd: That’s well, that’s the way I read it was she really wanted to stick it To Randy Quaid. She needed to prove that this was wrong, right? That this was just a construct.
Like, I’m, I’m still the same person. Well,
Craig: that’s sad and pathetic, too. It is also That’s sad and pathetic, too.
Todd: Yeah, it is. But I mean, for the purposes of the allegory, it provides a contrast. It provides something for it. The movie’s saying, see, she’s the same person. She’s just younger. Except in a younger, hotter body.
And now everybody treats her differently. But she isn’t really. She is a different person now. Yeah, they’re totally different. The young Elizabeth Sparkle is out partying, bringing guys home. She’s really arrogant, and she sabotages the whole f ing
Craig: She does sabotage the whole thing, and she’s selfish and horrible, but I Again, about I feel like this is about parenting.
Right. If I’m in my 50s or whatever, and I make some kind of weird clone of myself. Am I going to expect them to not be selfish? Like that’s ridiculous. Sure. Young people are selfish.
Clip: Yeah.
Craig: And self centered. And, and it doesn’t like the, the, the whole thing is the deal is, and it’s all very medical and body horror and disgusting.
They have to switch every seven days. And during those seven days, Young one has to extract some kind of serum from Demi Moore from her spine and inject it into herself to keep herself young and youthful and they just, and, and like they have to be fed through feeding tubes while either of them is living.
The other one is just lying on a disgusting bathroom floor. With a bunch of tubes in them
Todd: and then eventually a secret room, but go on.
Craig: Yeah. A secret room, which is ridiculous.
Todd: That was the dumbest thing,
Craig: but, but then they switch. I mean, that’s, again, we’ve talked about this a bazillion times, but it reminds me very, very much of a Brian.
Ian’s, uh, yeah,
Todd: there’s no movie. Yeah, you’re right. It is very much like that.
Craig: Very much.
Todd: Or, or a David Cronenberg movie.
Craig: Yes, but even more.
Todd: Brian Yuzna.
Craig: Because it’s just insane, but it presents itself in such a way that you just, well,
Todd: it’s kind of go with it. That’s what
Craig: it
Todd: is. Yeah. And that’s fine. And we, we don’t mind that.
I don’t mind it. But when you’re analyzing it for meaning, these things do kind of matter. And so, it’s really hard for me to parse out the meaning. Honestly, like, maybe I, maybe we are on the wrong track if we try to make this about aging actresses and things like that. Maybe what you said about this being more of an allegory for a parenting is much, much more accurate.
It, it actually And the child
Craig: just continues to take and take and take and the parent just suffers. Suffer. But couldn’t that, I, that’s one of the reasons that I like this. And maybe it’s one of the reasons that it’s getting a lot of attention is because it could be interpreted in different ways. This obviously could be interpreted as an allegory for the way that Hollywood treats women.
The older women. Get aged out and are put out to pasture or whatever and these young women Come up no fault of their own and and of course, you know, they should have their moment too but I also feel like there’s this narrative of Women should support and bolster women. But is that happening in Hollywood?
You know, like
Todd: Yeah, for all the talk of women’s empowerment and stuff like that, are women helping each other out or are they cutthroat?
Craig: Yeah, I’ve heard God, I wish I could cite a source or even a name. But I’ve recently heard a celebrity, some woman saying this whole idea of women supporting women in Hollywood just isn’t true.
It’s a man’s world and you do what you do. Now again, that is so far from my realm of reality, I have absolutely no idea if that’s true. But, I firmly believe that women have to face struggles when it comes to aging. That men don’t, and it’s not fair, and especially in our day and age, it’s ridiculous.
Todd: Yeah.
Craig: Jennifer Lopez, Demi Moore, help me name a bazillion other women who are in their 50s or 60s who are just stunningly Shakira. Yeah. These women who are at an age that we used to think of women being old, and they’re redefining it. They’re not old.
Todd: Yeah.
Craig: They are mature and gorgeous and thriving and Owning their shit, but I think that this movie is still relevant because it’s attacking these old stereotypes that we’re clinging to But I hope that go away soon and I think it’s doing it in such a way that’s, that’s entertaining and smart.
Todd: Let’s also acknowledge that there are women who are taken seriously and have long, very distinguished careers that are not getting those careers because of their beauty. You know what I’m saying? You know, you’ve got the Betty White, you’ve got the Helen Mirrens, you have the Angela Lansbury’s, you have the God, what is probably one of the most respected women in Hollywood today?
Meryl Streep. Meryl Streep, right? Meryl Streep. Thank you. Now, I’m not saying these women aren’t beautiful,
Craig: but what I’m saying is like Exactly, but can I say that There’s a distinction. Like, if you’re not stereotypically beautiful, you can be taken seriously. But if you are stereotypically beautiful, you can’t be taken seriously.
Does that make sense? It does make sense. Now, I don’t want to say Meryl Streep is a Stunner. She’s beautiful. Like all of those women, all, actually all
Todd: the ones that you just mentioned are gorgeous. But my point I’m trying to make is like nobody is suggesting that they do exercise videos . You know what I mean?
Right, right. And I don’t think that they feel like they’ve been shunned and, you know, treated as less than human or different than a man because they haven’t been asked to do exercise videos. Right. So I think this movie would have had a, a nicer, cleaner, neater sort of. It just would have made a little more sense if the reason she was being told that she’s too old isn’t because She’s aging out of an exercise video because like I said, it kind of ultimately is gonna happen, you know Yeah,
Craig: it
Todd: is it makes
Craig: sense.
Vanna white is still doing wheel of fortune
Todd: But that’s not an exercise video. You know what I mean? It’s not i’m saying like she’s still just a prop. That’s disgusting I’m, sorry. Yeah, but you know what i’m saying what If you had made this about this woman in a game show who was being told now you’re too old to stand there and turn letters, people don’t want to look at you anymore, it’s more tragic.
But anyway, I don’t think it’s that important anyway because the idea isn’t really about the circumstance, the idea is her feelings, right? It’s how does she feel and how is she being treated. So, we can still go with that. And you talked earlier about the craft of the movie, it’s just so incredibly good and I, for the life of me, thought that there was a lot of CGI and stuff involved in this.
And then I went on to YouTube and I found a documentary, a behind the scenes thing that emphatically shows that everything, with like a couple very small, minute exceptions, was practically done. And painstakingly so. Some of these things took months. to shoot and up to 200 people working the prosthetics, which prosthetics that could only be worked once because they were destroyed as soon as they did them.
And, uh, my God, is it good. I know. And the makeup on Demi Moore when she’s old, you know, I mean, we’ve come so far. It took 5 to 9 hours for her to get in that makeup. And then they could only shoot for a little while, like a couple hours because the makeup itself would deteriorate and start coming apart.
So, like, the pressure. And the care that went into making this look good from a practical standpoint is insane.
Craig: It looks amazing and I feel like we could talk about it for
Todd: hours. We could. I think that’s one of the things that people really admire about this movie, you know, because like I said, the plot, look, I’m not knocking the plot.
I’m just saying that I don’t think it’s as Mind blowing, as it’s getting credit for.
Craig: Uh, God, but I don’t think it’s mind blowing either, but I think there are so many things to talk about, so like, She does it, and then they become two different people, and the thing that I was confused about was, I thought that they were sharing a consciousness, like, they would just swap bodies.
But that’s not what it is, and it took me a long time to figure out that that wasn’t what it is. They’re not even aware of what the other one is doing. They are two separate people. That’s why I thought that it was more of an allegory for parenthood.
Todd: I think you’re right.
Craig: Sue gets very famous. It’s hugely famous, miraculously instantly, we’ve not even talked about the cinematography of this movie, which is gorgeous, it’s stunning.
There are tributes to The Shining, the hallway from The Shining is in there, everything is shot through the fourth wall. So it looks like you’re looking at a stage. It’s very proscenium. You’re often pulled very far back from the action so that you are looking down like a long corridor or something and seeing the action at the end.
And it’s gorgeous. But ultimately, they’re not the same person and conflict arises. And the younger one, which totally makes sense, the more ambitious the young one gets, she starts to neglect the older one. Yeah. Again. There you go. Parenting. It’s true. Every time she neglects her, then Demi Moore gets older and older.
Like, first she just has an old crony witch finger, which was hilarious. Like, every time She kept poking it into the camera. Alan just kept saying, Witch finger! Well, but eventually she becomes an old, disgusting
Todd: Hunchback
Craig: Snow White witch crone!
Clip: Yeah.
Craig: When they first reveal her as an old crone, she steps into the pristine white bathroom and it’s just a shot of her disgusting foot stepping in.
It’s, it’s the crone from The Shining.
Todd: Yeah,
Craig: so much of this is the shining
Todd: you’re right I was also getting Angelica Houston and the witches a little bit too with some of it. Yeah
Craig: Yeah, especially with her like curved back. Yeah
Todd: It was really gross.
Craig: There’s so much body horror in this and it looks fantastic like all up until now Everything looks great.
And I also want to talk about how to me more goes through a physical Transformation I just rushed through it, but it actually takes place over the course of time. The witch finger is the first thing, but then the other girl, Sue, takes more out of her spine, or whatever. Yeah. And she’s got like a, like a disgusting leg in her.
face is starting to get disgusting and her hair is starting to get disgusting. And she calls the people as she does regularly and says,
Clip: yes, hi. Um, there’s been a slight misuse of the substance. A few. The extra hours were accidentally used, causing um, an alteration. So I’m just looking for the procedure to reverse it.
What has been used on one side is lost on the other side. There is no going back. No, um, I don’t know what she was thinking. And obviously, she was drunk. Remember, there is no she and you. You are one.
Craig: I think that maybe this movie got so much recognition just because it’s so odd.
Clip: But
Craig: I see why Demi Moore got a nod for this movie because she just has to do so much.
Clip: And
Craig: she just has to throw herself into it. And she does. There are so many scenes. There’s one scene where she’s Trying to accept that she’s not this beautiful young woman anymore. But there are, somebody says to her, you are, you know, the person that you are still matters. So she sets up a date with somebody who is super, super into her.
This was the saddest part of the movie to me. And the one that I related the most to.
Todd: Oh, yeah.
Craig: A guy who had bumped into her and was like, Oh my god, we went to high school together. And I’m sure you don’t remember me, but I followed your career. And to me, you’re the most beautiful woman in the world.
Todd: And
Craig: it’s very awkward.
And she gets his phone number. And then later, when she’s got like a A witch finger and she’s feeling useless, but somebody else who has been going through this process has said to her, Have you forgotten that the old you is still a person?
Todd: Ha ha ha, who can have a life.
Craig: Yeah, she tries to make a date with that guy that had complimented her, but she spins A half an hour in front of the mirror.
And when she first gets in front of the mirror, she is stunning. To me more. She looks amazing. But she, every time she sees her reflection in anything, or every time she sees a picture, of the younger version of herself, her insecurities get the better of her. Yeah. And she keeps trying to improve upon what is always stunning.
And every time she tries to improve upon it, it looks worse. And I feel like that is an allegory for Hollywood too.
Todd: Yeah.
Craig: Women in Hollywood, f ing stop! Like, you’re gorgeous, stop! I don’t feel like it’s as much a thing now as it was 10 years ago. 10 years ago, Courtney Cox was filling her face with, I don’t know what, and it looked awful.
And eventually, she realized it looked awful, and stopped doing it, and talked about it. But I feel like that’s what this movie is about too, like, you, you’re a stunningly beautiful person when you start trying to do all of this stuff to yourself, you turn yourself into a monster. I can
Todd: pull up so many examples of actresses who I was like, why did you mess with yourself like that?
Like I thought you were gorgeous. You seem to be aging great. Why did you go beyond and, and you’re right, this can be like a message, you know, don’t do it. On the other hand, who pulls the strings still, I can’t imagine the enormous pressure actresses are on either. I can’t either. You can’t be in the right, your right mind necessarily.
You just know that you’ve been told something by somebody who is in power.
Craig: I would never judge. Anybody for doing whatever they want to do to their own body. Of course, that too.
Todd: If you’re not happy with it, it’s fine. I, you
Craig: know, You
Todd: do what you want to do. I know somebody who has one of those little dark beauty marks, you know, we call them beauty marks, right?
The little mole above the lip. And I think it is the cutest thing. And she was teased relentlessly about it when she was a child. She has a very different relationship with it. She would love it to be gone. I can see that. I get it. And so I wouldn’t begrudge her, you know, if she wanted to take that off and had the money and the wherewithal to do it.
You know, that’s, that’s up to you. It’s your body. But also like, I’m like, man, I wish it didn’t happen to you. You know, I wish you could see it the way I see it and the way I think most people see it. It’s actually a really charming
Craig: part
Todd: of you.
Craig: And I’m not going to speculate, but if Demi Moore has any, has had any work done.
She looks fantastic. I can’t get over how amazing she looks and if she’s had work done, good job. You picked the right people. I’m impressed that she was willing to show that regardless of the fact that she is Stunning at her age her butt’s a little saggy who gives a shit like
Clip: yeah,
Craig: I would Todd I don’t know.
I haven’t seen you in person in a long time But can you imagine getting naked in front of a camera for all the world?
Todd: No, I
Craig: can’t imagine.
Todd: No,
Craig: I would never Have that kind of vulnerability and for her and and not just her But margaret quali. Yeah, she’s fully nude Multiple times and not only is she fully nude from the time that demi more turns into margaret quali The camera cannot stop leering At her body, that’s the whole point.
And in any other movie, I would say gross, like stop it. But in this movie, it’s the whole point. It’s the whole point. Yeah. We’re talking about standards of beauty and what we focus and emphasize on. So every time that camera leers at her beautiful body, and she’s a beautiful young woman. Um, but every time I thought I get it, they’re making a point.
This is what we do.
Todd: I love that the camera also equally forces us to leer on Demi Moore’s body. I think that’s part of the point. I love that too.
Craig: But but then of
Todd: course she gets grotesque.
Craig: Yeah, and it’s gradual and I love the gradual change and that’s why. Do I think that Demi Moore deserved an Oscar nomination for this movie?
I don’t know, but what I will say is that she was given a lot. She had a lot to play in this movie. She did. She had the insecure, young, gorgeous woman to play. And then, as she evolves into this Crone and then ultimately into this disgusting thing. She was exploring Emotional space that I would not have necessarily Expected from her.
This is Big stuff. It’s an accomplishment. Yeah, she’s really getting into it. She’s really getting emotional if you just look at it Casually like it may come off as a little bit silly But if you if you’re watching this movie and thinking about what I think that this movie is trying to do I think that Demi Moore is trying to do it, too.
She’s Working she’s working. She’s acting
Todd: and it’s And let me also say, like, as a guy who now is fortunate enough to make his living acting and know what it’s like to be in front of a camera and kind of what that takes, of course my acting is quite silly. So let’s, let’s put this all in perspective. Well, and it’s different.
It’s different. It’s different. But this is a two and a half hour long movie. It takes its time. You know, earlier you said it’s like The Shining, and that’s one of the ways it’s like The Shining. It takes its time. It lingers on faces. It gets up close to her face, to her eyes, and stays there for a while.
And in bright, stark light. It was pretty interesting. I saw that the director was talking about, and I think it was part of this, um, this documentary, they were talking about all of this very difficult prosthetic work and transformation and scenes and things that all had to happen in this bathroom, and when the director, when the, when the guys and And gals who were in charge of doing this, you know, read it on the page and were initially planning things.
They assumed that they were going to be in a bathroom that was kind of like maybe eerily lit. It’s going to have some shadows, maybe some wall sconces. It’s going to look like luxurious or whatever. Okay. Like we can hide some things, you know, with the light and all that. And the director was like, no, I want this to be stark white, clinical, bright light.
She said, this is basically the headspace. Of this character, you know, it’s representative of the headspace of the character and all of the most crucial scenes between the two of those people, pretty much I think all of them happened in that bathroom and so not just the prosthetics have to look good, but again, they’re exposed as actors, they are exposed and to be able to maintain and be convincing in an environment where you are so exposed is an accomplishment, the level and degree of emotion and subtlety that they have to provide.
It over a long period of time in this very exposed space, they really deserve a lot of credit for it. But ultimately it does get kind of interesting because it all comes to a head, right? They are in the bathroom, like you said earlier, they have a fight. And I believe it looks like Demi Moore’s, Demi Moore’s side of things, Elizabeth Sparkle’s side of things is going to put an end.
To her younger self once and for all
Craig: when we say she’s a crone if they had just done the procedure As it was intended. They both could have continued on as is.
Todd: Yeah,
Craig: but Sue Is a young gorgeous ambitious person and she has all of this opportunity. So she keeps stealing Extra time and when I say that I mean she’s stealing bodily Spinal apparently fluid from elizabeth until she can’t anymore until she can’t anymore It’s like black when it comes out.
Oh, it’s so great and the people that she keeps talking to on the phone like there’s Somebody is giving them this stuff. I I turned to alan at one point and said has there been any discussion of cost? Like Right. Neither Elizabeth They don’t seem to have paid anything. No, it seems to be something that should be only available to the most elite.
But it’s so elusive, like, She doesn’t know who she’s talking to. She doesn’t pay anything. She does meet I mean, she’s referred. By somebody who has used this service and then is later confronted by them who Basically tells her ha ha ha Why why would you do that to somebody like if you had done this right and it was not working out Why would you tell somebody else to do it?
Oh god. I don’t know but But ultimately, Sue keeps stealing from Elizabeth until Elizabeth turns into a disgusting, disgusting old crone with tits sticking out everywhere and Demi Moore’s face sticking out on her back and it’s disgusting. But she’s supposed to host New Year’s Eve and then I guess she goes.
Like, it’s so weird. We have left out so much. This should have been a two hour episode because there’s so much to talk about. And ultimately I really did like this movie and I’m not done. We can talk about the end. I really did like this movie, but it is weird. It reminds me of Cronenberg. It reminds me of the fly.
It reminds me of.
It’s wild because at the end,
Todd: the shunting,
Craig: just like society or the fly, it gets crazy
Todd: at the end. The younger one ends up bashing the older ones. She
Craig: ends up killing her. I mean, it’s a whole dispute and then they have a whole huge
Todd: fight scene,
Craig: cinematic fight. At one point, Sue kicks the crone, Elizabeth, across the goddamn room.
Like, all of a sudden, she can kick her across the room. It all, it drove Alan crazy. Yeah. At one point before. Demi Moore had turned into the total crone like when she was like half crone when she just had a half crone leg There was a whole scene how she couldn’t get up out of the chair. And then when she’s turned into complete Snow White witch crone she can just run around and beat bitches up
Todd: It’s a little silly.
Again, you know, it’s, it’s an allegory and this is their headspace, I guess. So we’re just supposed to ignore that. And that’s, I guess it’s fair, but you’re right. It’s a little annoying. Like you didn’t have to do it that way. You know, you could have made it a little more logical, but yeah, so she kills her.
And then of course now she realizes she’s screwed. So she tries to basically do it again by going to some leftover stuff from that very first. Injection like that kicked this whole thing off that very explicitly stated it was one use only and Injects herself and what ends up being birthed out of her is the thing Yeah, it’s a crazy amalgamation of Demi Moore just, I mean, it’s hard, it’s impossible to describe.
It’s just like the thing, it’s the thing, it’s the shunting.
Craig: Listen, give Demi Moore an Academy Award nomination for this.
Todd: Was it her in there or was it the other Demi? I don’t
Craig: know. It’s a monstrous. And her face is poking out of the back of it, just screaming. And I’m sure it wasn’t her. I’m sure she went through the excruciating process of having a mold made of her face.
But yeah, it’s just hilarious to me. Like it’s called the Monstro. Eliza Sue like It’s the two of them combined and it’s monstrous and disgusting in like a Toxic Avenger kind of way. Oh, yes. There are eyeballs and Tits and all kinds of things popping out of it. There’s an eye within an eye. That was cool.
It’s disgusting. And the whole, the whole thing is gross and it doesn’t make any sense. You have to look at it from a surreal perspective. Because that monstrous thing then goes to the New Year’s Eve party. Which I thought was supposed to be like Dick Clark’s, yeah, New Year’s Dick and Rockin Eve or whatever But all of the women had their tits out and I was like
Todd: weird This is like some public television thing and you’ve got these like cabaret dancers.
Craig: What network is this on? It was crazy And, and she just walks out, but she has glued the picture of Demi Moore’s face on her face, but still whatever. And then she starts talking and she can barely talk and the movie for me subtitled it. Did your movie subtitle it? I thought that was an intentional thing.
Like the monster is like, but the subtitles said, it’s me, it’s me, it’s me. And I feel like that’s important. Like they loved and worshiped and adored her when she was gorgeous. But now that she’s monstrous. It’s kill the monster, shoot it, burn it. Yeah. And again, I just think that that speaks to the message of the movie.
Whether you’re talking about women in Hollywood or people who are different. Ultimately, you know, we accept and celebrate certain things and we immediately go to, ah!
Todd: Yeah, we reject just as easily as we, you know, we put someone up on a pedestal and then we tear them down. Yeah. It’s kind of a vicious cycle.
It’s really terrible. But she, I don’t know, she has her revenge or she just Gives them what they’re asking for, a spectacle or whatever it is because somebody comes around and cuts her head off. And, I can’t remember exactly, did another head sprout out from that? Yes! Yeah. Yes, another
Craig: monstrous head, like, ballooned out of the hole in her neck.
And then Wait, is this when it coughs up a tit? I can’t remember. No, that’s what freaked everybody out. Like when,
when she was just talking, like when she was just trying to host new year’s and everybody was sitting in the audience, like, Oh, then like a hole opened up in her body and a Boob just like, fell out, popped out of it. It was disgusting. That’s when they all freaked out. But that,
Todd: no,
Craig: at
Todd: this point, it’s a literal fire hose of blood that just sprays over everybody.
And actually it was a fire hose.
Craig: At this point of the movie, like I’m sitting next to Alan and I know that he has been tolerating this movie for two hours and at this point I’m like, huh. Yeah. Why? How do I justify? I know. And at the, and at the end, like all I could say was, it’s nominated for best feature.
You can. Talk about it with people at work. Like, how can I justify it to him? Not because I didn’t enjoy it, because that’s not true. I did. I think it’s a little bit too
Todd: long. It’s a little long. And I think this bit at the end is a bit much. It’s
Craig: a
Todd: lot. That
Craig: spraying of the blood everywhere goes on for like five.
Todd: minutes. It’s so long. It really feels indulgent and pointless. Like we got it. I don’t know. I don’t know why I, I, I don’t know why. It changes
Craig: locations. Like they spray everybody in the theater and you get to see everybody’s face in closeup as they’re getting sprayed by the blood and then it moves. It just starts going to other places.
You know,
Todd: I was thinking about other body horror movies that just kind of go to an extreme at the end, but. But we’re better. Like, the one that I think about is The Fly. I love The Fly, the remake of The Fly with Jeff Goldblum. And I especially love the ending. And that ending makes me cry every single time.
Me too. The Fly makes me cry. Crying that this big, ugly, monstrous fly that is trying to kill and destroy these people just crawls out of that machine and the dude blows it away. And it is sad, but it is over the top. That thing is completely over the top by that point, but it makes sense for the movie and God, the emotion in that, the sadness, it’s just beautiful.
It’s so powerful. This didn’t have that kind of power to me because it was just a little. Excessive. It did at first, but then when it kept going into the big blood spraying thing, which I think was supposed to mean, I don’t know, like, here’s what you asked for, or I’m giving you everything, finally, or I don’t know what it was really supposed to symbolize specifically, but it lost a lot of its original power by going on for so long and being so crazy, I think.
Personally. I
Craig: feel, you know, yeah, I feel differently. I did think that that blood splatter scene was not excessive. It just went on too long. That’s what I’m talking about.
Todd: I’m not talking about her getting out there and her body and all that. No, I thought that was powerful too. I thought the blood splatter part kind of.
Overshadowed that and kind of ruined it.
Craig: Okay. Okay. I I’m down with that But I actually liked the ending where after that that big monstrous thing Leaves the bloodbath and then just walks outside and falls down and kind of explodes
Todd: Yeah,
Craig: so then Demi Moore’s face crawls Onto her her Hollywood star of fame.
This was great. And she envisions glitter and All of the things that she’s always wanted and that’s kind of where the movie ends. I liked it I liked it too. I understand why it’s getting attention. I think that it was beautifully made. I think that the cinematography is gorgeous. It’s, it’s beautiful to look at the way that it’s shot is awesome.
And Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley both do a great job. I’m just surprised because we’ve seen movies like this before. We’ve seen good movies where people put in. Excellent performances and the movie has been well shot, but it’s never got recognized.
Todd: Yep.
Craig: But a horror movie like this is getting recognized and is getting nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars.
That’s
Todd: wild! We, we should all be super excited about this. Yeah. It is I fully support this movie. I’m so glad that And it’s one of only five or six horror movies before this have ever been nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars. Silence of the Lambs. E1. I think it was the only one that’s won. It’s, it’s an accomplishment.
And it’s so odd to me that this movie has struck such a mainstream course. Me too. Maybe because of its messaging. Maybe because it, you know, again, Me Too. Ha ha ha ha. We’re right on the edge of the Me Too movement, right? Like that’s got to have played into it a little bit. I mean, surely that informed the production, but also the care and the craft that went into it is quite It’s hard to ignore the director.
She’s French. She, that most of this was filmed in France. She had done one other movie before this was a rape revenge movie that I’ve never heard of or seen. I’ve
Craig: seen it. Have you really? So good. Is it? Yes. And it’s really good. It’s really good. Oh, that’s cool. It’s called revenge and it’s a shutter original.
It’s really good. It’s just so.
Todd: Interesting and odd, and it’s, it’s great that a movie like this is getting this kind of attention. This just does not happen very often. And it, maybe it does also pave the way for more, you know, maybe audiences are getting more of a tolerance for this. The terrifier, who would have thought?
This movie is like a more acceptable version of that kind of over the top gore and guts and weirdness. And I think probably also paved the way for the toxic Avenger. The new Toxic Avenger movie finished shooting like, I think, two years ago. They wouldn’t distribute it. I think they were worried about the gore and how audiences would take it.
And I can’t help but imagine, I haven’t read this anywhere, but I can’t help but think that the Terrifier and this movie explicitly gave permission. Okay, you can take a chance at releasing the Toxic Avenger as gory as it might be. Yep. So it paves some way that, you know, in that direction too, and it’s really nice.
That said, like I said, a little long. Which is fine, I was into it the whole time actually. Until the very, very end. And then that was when I was like, all right, can we just get to the end now? The blood spray part that this felt like a little, a little bit much.
Craig: Oh gosh. Yeah. I that’s, that’s kind of where I stopped caring about it.
Like, okay. You should watch it. Watch this movie. Support this movie. Check it out. Support horror. I think it’s amazing that a horror movie is being nominated for best picture of the year. It’s
Todd: great.
Craig: It won’t win. I can’t imagine it will win, but that’s amazing. And I also think that Demi Moore, I’m so glad that she’s getting some recognition and she works her ass off in this movie.
She is doing all kinds of crazy shit. She has to be hot. She has to be crazy. She has to wear tons of prosthetics. I think she’s deserving of the nomination, whether she wins or not. Amen. That’s it.
Todd: Well, I hope you listeners feel the same. If you do, or if you don’t, just, uh, drop us a message at anywhere that, uh, we are online.
ChainsawHorror. com, obviously. We have a comment section on there. You can also check out our social media. All you need to do is google Two Guys in a Chainsaw Podcast and you’ll find all of that stuff there. We have a Patreon page, you can also get that through our website, a link on there. Consider subscribing!
This year, you know, we put out minisodes for our patrons. We have the complete, unedited phone calls, which are often interesting. That’ll give you a little bit of behind the scenes, uh, peek into what goes into the production of these in case you’re interested, and a little bit of personal stuff about us from time to time.
We have a book club going on up there, and lots of goodies. Just find the link to that through our website. Share this podcast with the friend, subscribe to our newsletter, which is linked on our webpage. And, uh, if you want to talk to us directly by recording an audio message that we will play here on our show, there’s a link on there as well.
Talk to us. Just click it. You don’t need any special software. Just through your web browser, record a 30 second or one minute clip for us. And it’ll go straight to us. And we’d love to hear from you in any way, shape or form that you reach out. Until next time, I am Todd. And I’m Craig. With Two Guys and a Chainsaw.
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