Tumbbad

We're in. Hello everyone, and welcome to the Bollywood Cinema Club, a podcast where we take a look at Indian cinema from a Western perspective and give you a reason to watch it. I am still your host. Chris Statue, the host of the Culture Cast where this show spun off Frump and joining me, is a podcaster in his own right, though he works on all kinds of projects. But the one we're gonna be talking about right now is a little bit of a show called Midnight Viewing where we talk about where we talk about Rod Serling's The Night Gallery, which was a spinoff from our Dreams for Sales show.

In a lot of ways, your friend and mine, father Malone, Oh hello, thank you for having me on this new venture, this new voyage into the seas of cinema, into the seas of cinema. That well, let's just get this out of the way right at the top before we talk about tumbad your kind of experience and exposure with Indian cinema as a whole, very little, woefully deficient and on any of the Culture Cast episodes in Indian Cinema Month, I don't kind. I was scheduled to be on one, but then my schedule conflicted and I was not able to and I think that happened again the next year. So this is my first what was Do you remember what either one of those movies were? By chance?

Not at all interesting? I wonder what. I genuinely pretty curious because this is so unlike anything that I have seen in Indian cinema up until this point for myself. And I've been there for all the episodes on my show and all the episodes of this show. I've seen a lot of musicals from India.

I've seen a lot of beautiful, stirring films from India from the nineteen sixties. Um, uh, poignant films I've never I haven't seen this movie in America. No, Yeah, well that that is that is fair. But I also there's there's a huge part of this that has a cultural component to it that is so uniquely and distinctly Indian. Um.

Obviously, I mean just by well, we'll talk about we talk about it. But so that's kind of what I thought. I didn't remember if you had been on any of those episodes. So so this is our first time talking about an Indian cinema film together. Yes, and what a movie that?

What a movie that? That? I guess. I won't say I picked it because I picked it, but I mean, I just googled, you know, Indian horror films on Prime video, because that was my stipulation. If you're listening out there, I'm gonna come on, but I'll only talk about horror movies, which is which is which is fair because A not Again, when people think about foreign cinema, I don't think they think about the genres in foreign cinema.

They think about heady important foreign cinema, as if in countries like India or Poland or Germany or anywhere they make film, they weren't also just making films for entertainment purposes. Everything doesn't have to be Ingrid Bergman's The Seventh Seal. It can be something like Doom, which is a Indian cinema film that's a kind of their approximation of Fast and the Furious, or this movie, which is a Indian folk core movie. And yeah, like right, this one's gonna stick with me. I'm glad I watched this movie.

This is and right before Halloween, which we are now glutted with the same seventeen to twenty six horror movies on a loop on television and cable and everything, and it's all anyone talks about and spooky season. Let me tell you, as an old gorehound, my patience is runs thin with horror movies these days, particularly with movies that people are talking about a lot and keep trying to get me to watch. I keep hearing about the next big thing, and it's never really paying off. So this one, Holy good Lord, I loved it. It revigorates me horror wise.

So the film that Father Malone is talking about is twenty eighteens Toombad. So. It's directed by Rahai Anil Barva, based on a screenplay by matesh Shaha Adesh Prasade Rahi, A Neil Barva and a non Gandhi and it stars make sure you get this right stars so Home shot as vinak Rao a well. He starts out as a boy and becomes a man, and throughout the film we find out that his family are the keepers of Toumbad, a castle that has a deep, dark secret that he is tasked with both exploiting or not exploiting, and protecting, at least on the face of it. And the trials and tribulations of him and his family over the span of god thirty years.

Yeah, and yeah, it is a horror movie, so there are there are a lot there. It's like I said, there's a there's a secret at the core of what Toumbad is and we'll talk about it. So we will be talking spoilers before we talk about spoilers. You had never seen this movie. I had never seen this movie.

What are your initial thoughts on Toumbad? Like everything you described as like the genre that this movie falls into, it's the best of all of those. Uh. It's a movie that uh it sets up its own world and it's very realistic while being fantastical. Um.

I mean it's foreign enough for I'm sure you and me having no I have no Indian basis, like you know, as far as their their cinema goes. But but with in the sort of world of Indian cinema, I imagine this fantasy world created is distinct from anything else going on in Indian cinema. And I think it's just gorgeously realized. The movie is beautifully shot, the production is fantastic. Um.

I'm just gonna gush about this movie for however long we're talking here, Chris, because I without spoiling it, it's really scary when it wants to be scary. It's really funny when it wants to be funny. All the performances are really good, the production looks great, the effects are fucking phenomenal. Um and uh, it's not often you can tell a story with time jumps. We talk a lot about time jumps Leilan, but yeah, boy happen.

But this one is economical with it, and it has purpose, and each one feels like a chapter of a whole different story in a way, like if you if you switched these told me these were different character names and had different actors play in each of the different stories, I would believe that this was a weird anthology, and I would you know, you could piece together that it's of the same cloth, but it would function in that way. But the fact that it's the story of this boy growing up to be a man and then his child and the sort of situation that their family has found themselves in, that's definitely handled. Like I don't know this guy, this this filmmaker, Jesus good, good God, give him a huge budget and more than six years to make a movie for christing?

Do you know what the budget of this movie was? Like? What ten bucks? Six hundred thousand American dollars? What are we doing six hundred thousand?

Like, I can't. I couldn't make a movie this good with six hundred million dollars. Yeah, I'd be hard pressed. It's it's really it's yeah, yeah, I keep using the word deft, but really a sure footed Like is this this person's first movie? Like, I'll be mad at them if they so.

I had never seen it either, and I have not seen any of Rahea nil Barva's other films, which, by the way, there aren't any. So there you go. So to answer your question, Oh my god, I love this person even more. They're like the Indian Don Coscarelli, like throwing out a phantasm and then disappearing for a while. But and so where is this guy's beastmaster?

Right? Well, so that's kind of I'm in the same boat regarding this movie. It's I didn't know what to expect at all. I knew what the setup was. It's a you know, there's a castle with a secret, and I think obviously there's a lot more going on.

Right from the jump, we're introduced to this idea of the goddess of prosperity and unlimited wealth and her womb is in the earth. And that's a huge portion of this movie is setting the stage. Even if you're a Western, even if you're not a Western audience watcher, it's important to set that stage. Again, you could just say, well, you know, you know, most of the folks are gonna be watching this here in India. No, this is they They set the stage really deftly, even if you have zero frame of reference for the Indian subcontinent.

And then not only do they set everything up, definitely, they knock everything down in a way that is so impressive for a a first time filmmaker, be someone who is hewing close to the conventions and tropes of another culture's genre tropes, because it leans on genre tropes from Western horror films, but does it in a way where it feels like I've never seen them before, right, It's like it doesn't even feel like it's just the sort of recontextualizing based on like it's from a foreign land. It feels fresh. It doesn't. At no point in this movie did I think that's a shot from this movie or this is a beat from that movie or which with American horror movies, you can see the beats and you know what they are from the more famous predecessors.

You know. But what you're saying is absolutely true, Like, I could not really relate this to another thing, particularly when once we get into the second act. I mean, the first one is kind of fairy tale and could be you know, it could have been a Hansel and Gretel type story, like you know, as far as the setting and the costumes and the the the supernatural elements involved. But uh, and that's very familiar. But Jesus Christ, once we once we go, once we start really exploring the manner, uh, it gets it gets very unusual very quickly.

Yeah, So let's let's talk. Let's kind of I would say, let's just kind of talk about the act. So the first act, like you mentioned, it's Viniak and his sibling Sada Shiv, who are kind of intombad because their mother is there and she's the mistress or she's not the mistress. Their mother and the mistress are there and the mistress dies and the mom's like, we need to get out of here, and in trying to leave, worse things happen because you find out. So their mom is a mistress to the local landowner, and their grandmother is locked in a room and we don't know why.

And it's far away, right, it's not the it's not on the mannor grounds. Right, they have to travel to the grandmother's house. Yeah, And it's okay. And it's she's locked in a room because they don't want her to get out because she will try to eat you. Right, She's okay.

She is, by the way, triple locked. There's a lock on the gate that surrounds the house. Then there's a lock on the front door, and then once you go inside, there's a lock on her room. And then she shackled to the bed. And then she has a lock on her mouth.

Yes she no, not just a lock. She has knives piercing her her mouth like in a crisscross manner to keep them keep her from opening. It's when I when I saw the creature design for the grandmother, I thought immediately, and where's Heather when you need her? I thought, of, um, the what the hell? Those Dracula those vampire movies we watched earlier, the subspecies, the second one where they had that mother character who was locked up great yeah yeah, and this is like that, but a more well done version, obviously higher quality, higher production value.

It reminded me also of Grandma the Twilight Zone episode King Harlan Ellison episode the first act only yeah yeah, just being left alone with the relative who might eat you, right, And so that that entire first act is really centered around Viniyak and his sibling, his younger brothers. So a ship taking care of the grandmother who they have to feed every night, and then tell her that unless she realizes that Hostar is looking for her and goes to sleep, she'll continue to stay up. So they have to say, Grandma, go to sleep, or Hostar will find you. Right. Well, we don't understand why, we understand who Hostar is based on the intro kind of narration.

Hostar is essentially a fallen god who is obsessed with wealth, and in being obsessed with wealth, he can no longer satiate his ever growing. He was obsessed with gold, and he was obsessed with food, and he wanted both for himself, like he wanted all of it, and he stole all the gold. But before he could steal all the food, he was banished and he would never have food again, like and then he's swallowed by his mother, swallowed by right, like one of the like one of the type, right, yeah, and so and and like that's like a little myth thing, a little myth we get at the beginning. It sets the stage perfest, a little folklore for for for setting it up. Where's it gonna pay off?

And then the and then the best and the other thing that I really appreciate is they say, Okay, we're gonna save you, but nobody can worship you, and so we're gonna we're gonna erase you from history, which is why because again they are leaning on real Hindi beliefs. It's like, well, who is this god? Well, this god doesn't exist because this god's existence has been wiped from existence, so that we don't worry about people. Well, we'll find out doing what we're about to find out they're doing. So, but we find out that the residence of Tumbad, which is where the womb of Mother Earth is, worship Hostar and have built a kind of temple to him.

And so that's kind of all of that is where we're left in this first act. Because the first act doesn't really explain anything, not a goddamn which I appreciate me too, Like take your time. We've you know, when it's this interesting, When it's this interesting, you never notice. Yeah, the the rush to rush that American horror movies have taken, you know, it's it's not hard to underst stand why the sort of more heralded horror movies recently, the highbrow art movies The Vevich and The Lighthouse and you know, twenty four Are you just twenty four movies? Yeah?

Yeah, you know, but like is the Baba Duke in a twenty four movie? Because I'll put that on that list too, Like that's these are that same veins. These are four Slowburn horror movies, and like, we haven't seen Slowburn in a long time, but all four of those movies are really boring. This movie is a little bit more Slowburn, but it's never never uninterested. This movie could have been six hours long.

I would have watched it. Well. And that's the thing about this movie is because it is broken up into these acts, like you said, it feels like an anthology. And not only does it feel like an anthology, it lands those anthology beats where it doesn't tell you anything, but then it explains it way later, which again that's one of those interconnected anthologies. That's an interconnected anthology thing.

Not every anthology does it. But it's interesting because they've mentioned that they're making a sequel to this movie and where this movie kind of ends up. It doesn't need a sequel for those characters interacting with Hostar, but more characters interacting with Hostar that are different would be interesting. Oh, yes, right, which is more of an anthology. Yes, if he wants to turn this into a series that takes place in Tumbad Village from time immemorial to now and all of the different people's relationships with Hostar or other weird things, I'm all on board.

Right, But but like you said, like that anthologyness is already kind of present, and I hope that that's because again, by the end of the story, the story that's being told here has come to a logical conclusion that I don't need anymore, and there's nothing more than needs to be said. But if you want to focus on a cool character that you've designed and a cool con it's more of a cool concept less a character. Really, it's kind of a cool concept that they've designed around what Hostar is and how Hastar operates. Yeah, I think that's obviously very interesting. Oh yeah, the concept itself is fascinating.

Yeah, the I will say, you know what, execution wise, the character is also interesting. I don't want to be in a room alone with that character, but I love that characters like fantastic play. Yeah, oh yeah, you know where that character stands and exactly what he wants. And it's reminiscent of things that we have seen, you know, it's it's design. It looks I'm not gonna say it looks a little stranger things e but it kind of has that weird things turned inside out.

So it's just exposed flesh quality, right, but deeper and redder than that, so a little more sinister and less like, oh look, how gory I am like less pop culture e, less eighties vibes, e's and he seems he seems to fluctuate in color too, like maybe that's just a trick of the light and shadow. But yeah, he's a he's a scary fucking character. Man. I think we're drifting into spoilers now because we've revealed that High is an actual character in the movie when I'm gonna jump back now because we're still in at the end of act one, when we get to Act two, basically the sort of anthologiness of it. Like, for a little while, I did not realize that our lead, the little boy, was now our lead character.

So it was kind of joyous to find that out, you know, because I believe that this might just be another tale. And once it was revealed that this is the length of that character. Also, now I am going to jump back to the first act because his little brother's death is fucking horrifying. Yea, in the midst to all of the other things going on in this movie. That's really bad.

It's real dark and unexpected. But again, it it leans on something that Richard and I have talked about on the Doom episode and I've mentioned essentially on every episode we talk about it's a naturalistic way of telling a story where things can just happen. Yeah, I mean, he just falls out of a tree and dies like that, and this is a fairy tale, and he is the innocent character in here, and like everything after that moment, because the lead character has already given in the main theme of this entire thing is greed. Um, and that's what drives all of these people. And uh and uh is their sort of their their hope and their ruin.

Um. So I don't know, well, but but and that and that is why we have the character of Sada Shift dying, and that's where the right the innocence goes away. Yeah. And then when he goes away, Vineyoch goes and has to take care of the grandmother and learns about the gold and learns about why his grandmother is the way that he is or she is, And then you get the scene with him and the grandmother pursuing him through the house and is just a masterclass in actually building up and ratcheting up the tension almost to the literal final moment. Yeah.

I assumed he was going to be the This movie puts its pedigree right out there and that it's not going to uh, it's not going to go easy on you in any way, you know. So I figured every character on screen was up for grabs. So there's a genuine menace going on when Grandma gets loose, and once the shackle went on him, Oh yeah, I thought, ah, this is gonna be the mom will arrive one moment too late. Yeah. No, And that was my expectation as well, because, like you said that, the way the movie opens and the tone of that first act and the brother falling out of the tree, and again we don't know the status of the brother until the mother comes back.

After this scene, I expect I did not know where the film was going, so I figured, yeah, it was the brother that went away survived or they both die. Yeah, it's there. It's the moment when his head is sticking up through that hole and you're just like, and she's pulling, oh my god, pulling it out of her mouth, and you're just like, all right, this is how you build tension in a scene, and this is how you make me genuinely concerned for the well being of a character. Really really good. Would it Now here's a question, would it have been better had Grandma just killed him, given graven the events of the rest of his life of broken promises and giving into the greed, and you know, like like for him, probably yes, yeah, and maybe for you know, his wife and his child.

Yeah. Well, his child by the end of the movie is gonna need some help, some help in the in the therapeutic variety. Uh No, I mean for him as a character, probably, And that's the thing. I mean that, But that's what I enjoyed about this movie is there are moments in this movie where it's like the decisions of the characters come back to haunt not only the characters who make the decisions, but the characters who don't make the decision, because they kind of comes back to haunt the grandmother because I guess if she had eaten him, she would have gotten away, right, and instead instead we find out at the beginning of the second act. I don't even know how to describe what that scene looked like because I've never seen a scene like it before, a character with a tree growing out of them in the center of a room that looks so convincingly like a corpse.

I was surprised it was an actor. It was pretty great, and it like and I love that the character's reaction was like and this is when we it's revealed that this is the boy, because he's like, hey, She's like, oh, you've come back, and he's like, yeah, treeger through you, and then he just starts cackling. It's so I guess they left her. Yeah, they left her in there, and nobody fed her, but you can't die. She can't die, and she couldn't move clearly so much though that within a fifteen year period she had a sapling growing through her innards and now she just aches for the sweet caress of death.

It's when a movie shows you something that you've never seen before. Yeah, like I was thinking about, you know, I was thinking about the other day randomly crank too, when Jason Statham and Amy's Art have sex on top of an electrified fence. How can I forget? I don't know how you could because nobody else has ever done it. No, And like I think about it, it's like, why haven't people done more crazy things with cinema, Because that's what the medium affords you, is the opportunity to do insane things you could not do in real life.

So and here, here you go. You have a tree growing through an old, mummified woman on the ground. Weird, just like a strange evil Dead adjacent kind of I'm not Evil Dead Fetti Alvarez like evil dead kind of it is. Yeah. Yeah, it's in the same neighborhood as the Evil Dead.

It's better than Evil Dead, but it's in the same neighborhood. Yeah, because they're both kind of tackling the same thing in a way, like like that movie became more the Evil Dead remake is more of a metaphor for addiction, right in that case, I mean it's a little it's obvious out there and out there, but I thought kind of well handled and this one, this one we got great. Then yeah, they're both in the sort of same level of grime and willingness to go to the place that needs to do, to go to to not only fuck you up as the viewer, but like to satisfy the story. Like these aren't random bits of weirdness thrown in. You know, this isn't you know, I don't want to slag anybody off, but you know, some just it's not a stunt thing.

And then it's like, oh that was cool. It's like it's integral right. Well, And so the set, I would say the second act is the expository act of the movie. We learn we learn that there is a well intombad that at the bottom of the well is a further down hole where the which is the womb of the Goddess of Prosperity, which is where Hastar lives right in that hole, and if you touch Hastar, you become like Hastar or like yeah and like Grandma basically, right, you become like I would say, it's kind of zombies. Zombies, it's it is closer to evil dead though, right, it's right, yeah, become more demonic.

It's you, but it's an evil version of you, and you can't die. And if you can that you can be restrained though, like you know, you're not that strong, and I don't know your bad news of hastor get you. We should point out them as expository as this is. It's visually expository, that's right. One of the things I've really admired here because this wasn't just the lead character rattling these things often.

It wasn't even that we were watching him do it. We watched all his preparations for it. And then another character who like needed some money in order to secure a license, uh like, tried to try to steal his riches. Like he saw him come out of the hole with gold coins and then he went down. So our first experience going down into the hole is with an outside character, right yeah, yeah, And so it's so we're we don't even have the the reassurance of our lead when we go down.

Now we're with this totally alien character in an alien environment, and it's so weird and it's so off putting and bizarre, and when we don't even Sea has star in this scene, but we feel him and he's sort of a blur through the frame. But fuck, it was frightening. And then even scrambling up the wall in the distance, like Jesus, that was good. It wasn't like we're hiding an effect back here. It was That's all you get to see of this nightmare.

And I think you know to your point the storytelling convention that they use, where you don't understand what he's going to do. You just know that he's going to do something that the grandmother said, don't don't do this, never, don't even go to the village again. And here is and something bad's going to happen. Yeah, and you you, but you you don't understand what he's been doing until way later in the second act. But you see him going and coming with the money, understanding that he's getting the money from somewhere.

But it's a less than less than positive way of getting it, seemingly, is what we're being led to believe. We don't really understand the ramification until rog Hov goes down into the womb. And well, he goes down into the womb, but Viniak kind of tricks him. Yeah, what the what the the opium dealer? He tricks him into going down there?

Sure, but I mean to what end because it doesn't like he doesn't he doesn't get anything out of that other than well, no more debt. Well, and that's the thing. That's the thing we should kind of mention. The lead played by soham Shaw of Vinniak, the main character. He's a terrible person, yes, like through and through.

He ignores his grandmother. He ignores his mother. He's motivated solely by the greed from the hostar coins that he's getting from hospital. He's not a great person. No, But why do I like him so much?

Because he's an interesting character. He's an interesting character. He's a flawed character, and they make no apologies for his flaws. And I kind of root for him in most of the scenes, honestly, And you know it might be because it started when he was a child. Like usually that backfires when filmmakers do that, and they like they give us like a brief snippet of their childhood to like, you know, make us give a shit more and usually doesn't work.

This, for some reason, at least with me, worked made me like that guy even though he's doing all the wrong things. Um, but at the same time, what a wrong thing to do? It's just what it's not for me. It's not even like a wrong thing, like what a dangerous thing to do? It's really dangerous, Like I didn't understand how it, like I guess nobody did while they were watching the movie for the first time.

But like, so okay. So he has to climb down into the womb, which is a giant cavern, but it's actually flesh like it's all pulsating, and you know that there's there's creature more creature behind that wall, right, there's a tiny opening in the top of this of this womb that he has lowered a rope down and he has to go down into the floor where then he has to immediately draw a circle. Is he using flower or salt or something. He's using flower because it it can't flower right, right, because that's the thing that was denied. So unless it's given to it in the form of like bread, which is he makes these little men out of bread, which is ingenious.

Just the vision, the visuals alone of those are really interesting. Yeah, these these big Doughey fat men that they he has to throw it. So he has to throw it, Okay, So he draws the circle, gets into the circle, and then it's when he when he takes the food out. Right, when he has the food on him, Hastar is then motivated revealed. Yeah, so he has a tin with the with the with the with the doman and it he opens the tin.

Once that comes out, that's the dinner bell, and Hastar comes crawling out of the ceiling from from where we don't know, from the wall, I guess, Yeah, he might have emerged, we don't know. But suddenly we have Hastar, but he can't get through the circle, so he's inches away from our lead and he's very mean. Well, and that's the I mean, I like the idea of the do the little doman that they're making because it comes in thematically later because he gives one of them to his friend and his friend opens it. He's like, you know, don't open until you go down there, and he's like ah, and he opens it and it gets him, and then he comes back down and you know whatever. Again terrible character.

But I I like all these weird little rules and little kind of ideas and conventions that they're using. They've set out the ideas and then they said, all right, how do we get around them? How do we deal with what we've set up in an interesting and engaging way? In the Little Flower Circle is one the thing with the rope, and then the idea of yeah, creating the doughmen are obviously one of the biggest kind of pieces of the puzzle here. That also yields a twist later in the movie which I appreciate, which I also appreciate.

So Hastar, who was denied dough, was denied weed. Once thrown this doman can't help himself, he has to eat it. And once he's doing that, he's so distracted that the gold that he did get away with, which is still on his loincloth you can rip it open, coins fall out and he grabs hands full of coins and then and then the terror actually begins because he now has to climb that rope and get out and up through a chest and close the lid before Hastar gets him. Because once he starts climbing, the circle is invalid, right, it's horrifying the climb up, well, the whole I mean, the idea of what he's doing is just so off putting. Yeah, you're effectively going and grabbing I mean, you're grabbing coins from like any sort of the worst imaginable monster known demand, but just happens to be distracted by something simplistic.

Right, But it's still a monster out in the open. You have to like rip it off of like a pouch attached to the loincloth over its ass because you can't touch it. Right. Oh, it gives me anxiety theory about it. Well, and it is only because you know that if he doesn't do it, he's going to starve, right, I mean, he could get a job, but he could.

But isn't this more fun? This is more fun? You know what? I? Would I do this?

Would you do this? The question becomes financially how viable is this? Because we, I mean we get the sense that he they have a good life. Yeah, he's married, he's got a mistress, he's got a kid. He set up his life in a in an interesting way that he can get away with doing this while still living like a seemingly forward facing normal life.

I don't, but I think it's just too dangerous for what it is. It's way too dangerous, way too dangerous. So for what you become, it's awful. You're a slave to that whole You're a slave to that, that ritual of climbing down, and you might die when you get out. But you're also if you if you let Hastar touch you, you're a slave to him.

Yeah. I guess it's never made clear that what that is. Yeah, I mean, which I appreciate though, Like I don't need to know what that is. It's it's I know that I don't want to be that. That's right.

I like that. You know what I really like about the movie is it is very oblique about what's going on, but it's very visually instructive. So if you think about it, you can kind of figure it out. It's not that hard, and they allow you to do it. And then in a very non expository way, the rules will get mentioned, like our lead once he starts telling our son, by the way, this is the third act, when we start getting answers, right, Yeah, essentially, the last thirty minutes of the movie right, and it isn't overly explained, like it's not like we don't get the wise to it.

We just get the how it happens kind of a thing. It's like I draw a circle because he can't get it across the circle, like we've seen it already happened. We don't need to know. But it's not like he says, we use salt because back in the day of such and such, if the taster would blah blah blah blah blah blah, like we don't need any of it. We've been given in exactly the amount that we need and no more anymore would have been I don't know, would have tipped the scales in the in the in the in the bad favor.

And I think that by essentially naturalistically explaining it and not hanging lanterns on it, which is what that effectively is, it just it feels more fairy tale. It's such a fair it's for as dark and as scary, and as graphic in some of it, as weird and horrible it is to look at. Sometimes it really is a very dark fairy tale. Ye, Like the moral center of the movie is very fairy tale, very grim. Brothers right, yeah, don't don't do it.

Don't do it. Don't do it. You did it now you pay like exactly, fuck around and find out, Yeah, yeah, exactly. And that's every fairy tale, right, just pretty much. I mean, at least a lot of it.

Fuck around and find outs. Yeah, I mean really like that's what the end in a lot of ways. Hans Christian Anderson as well a way worse, I think, yeah, yeah, I mean they're all sort of yeah, they're all more morality plays, and so that alone makes this in their pantheon. But then the way that it is shot, in the way, the sort of dreamy quality of it all, Like what's funny is it's it's a period piece. So it starts in like nineteen fifteen, and then nineteen thirty and then nineteen thirty five.

No, it's like it's even further off. I think the last year is forty seven, so working back at thirty two and then you know, seventeen or something like that. It's a period piece, which the whenever we're sort of in the city scenes feel very realistic. It doesn't feel like a fair tale at all. It feels like a movie.

Said in nineteen forty seven in India, you know, right, and we even have like there are British characters in this movie. For those scenes where it feels less like it's a thing, it's more just like this is a this is a weird thing happening in the real world, less like the world is weird. It's like this is is one kind of weird thing, but the world is normal. Yeah, exactly. And that balancing act is even more impressive because ordinarily, you know, if you're going to have like a fantastical movie and a sort of hyper realistic movie, like you know, I can think of a few that can do it, like Brazil did it very well.

But even there sort of realism was a hyperrealism. It wasn't like we're in New York and then suddenly we're in fantasyland. It was like we're in the future and now we're in fantasyland. This is what's presenting a realistic version of the city and the inhabitants therein And also there's an old mansion. Then if you crawl into it, there's an old god in there, and if you grab his coins you can get out of there.

And that works like there's no division there matter. I know, I'm with you. I like these stories about the real world, but something weird just happens to exist, and like that that is just what it is. Weird things exist in the world. Not everything can be and needs to be explained.

Yeah. I like when a movie says, yeah, and that's the story that we're telling, is that something weird is taking place and we don't know what it is, right, or like, hey, here's the thing. There was a mother Earth and she had a kid and this is what happened, and now that's what's happening. And you go, okay, but why you don't have any reason to ask why because you have to crawl down that rope right now and deal with the monster, Like you know, why is the y is unimportant? Everything else is so skillfully handled, Like why do I care beyond that?

Like you shouldn't. And this movie doesn't give you the chance to because it because it does cover all the bases, which let's get into Act three. Holy shit, he's getting old now, getting the hard climbed down that rope. I felt once I saw him there that he had the son of fuck, Like I could abide this guy doing what he was doing when it was him, even with a wife, even with a mistress, even with whatever he had going on the actual world, that was still just him. Now he's got a little boy, so he shouldn't be doing it anyway.

But then he's getting too little to do it. And then he makes the worst decision possible, which is he starts training his child. Well, it's the family business. At that point, don't you understand If em it's the family business, it's oh my god. And that's like the opening of the third act basically opens when the flash forward it's like, hey, guess what.

Now we're in nineteen forty seven and it's a little kid like practicing on a rope. I'm like, oh, you dickhead. But that's what I mean. That's my point, like what I was saying, Like he's a terrible character, like yeah, And then it's it's really crystallized that that third act where it's like, oh, and now his kid is doing it like Jesus Christ. And I get the sense he hasn't told his son what he's actually what the stakes are, right, Oh I know he Okay, Yeah, he's kept this from everybody.

He's not allowed to tell anyone really, right, Like it's nobody you got to keep this sort of information to yourself. I guess, well, if you tell somebody, somebody else is going to go and exploit it themselves. Right, So there is that. So that's it's another greedy thing. That that's the motivation in him not telling anybody, but the idea that he's not going to tell his son even before they go do it, like what are you what?

Like they go down into it and he hasn't told him what's about to happen. He's told them what needs to happen. We need to make a doughman, We need to put it in this tin, we need to take it down. We put marbles in, by the way, that was a great idea. That was a great addition.

Put marbles in the dough and it takes them longer to eat. Like like you were saying, they don't hang lanterns on things. Here, they find out. They find better reasons and better ways to circumvent problems. They create innovations in this movie.

No, no more so than the son. Because look as terrible as our lead is for doing this to his child, that kid seems born to do it right. The kids seems ter way ahead of the down Yeah, well, and He is the reason that the third act is kind of set into the motion that it's set into, because he goes, hey, Dad, instead of just ripping the coins off or ripping the loincloth and the coins coming out, why don't you just steal the loincloth? Yeah, take all the coins, which is like an eternal amount of coins and forever coins. Yeah, I assume you just It's like it's like Santa Claus's bag.

You put your hand in, coins come out. You put your hand in, coins come out. Seen Halloween Town. Debbie Rynolds had a similar magic bag Mary Poppins, Yeah, which again like leaning on tropes that we've seen before, but doing it in an interesting way. So that kid's got a good idea, right, like, let's grab that loincloth?

How do we do it? Oh? I know? And this when the kids said it, I was like fuck, yeah, me too. I was like honestly, I was more like, how had he not thought of this?

And that way? The second thought like wait, why hasn't he done this yet? Or you know, But then I thought like, well, he does it his way. This is the way it's worked. Like he's greedy, but he's not that creating.

Oh. But what he did was make a make a child that was greedier than him. Well, and that's and that is the thing that's that I think is kind of the The interesting subtext of the movie is the story of the sins of the father being revisited on the children, or the sins of the grandmother being revisited on the mother, and then on the son, and then on his side. I appreciate the generational misgivings that they show, and how generational problems continue to get worse until somebody says enough is enough. Yeah, and I appreciate that As a millennial, I fucking appreciate that message for sure.

And I appreciate I appreciate that there are movies out there, horror movies that are tackling it in an interesting way without letting that get in the way of telling an equally interesting and innovative story. Yeah. Yeah, it's It's an incredibly moral film ultimately. And the other thing that I really liked about that is, um, you can have a character that's morally ambiguous and we still follow them even though they've been told this is the wrong thing, Like, We're still going to follow them no matter what they do. Um.

I always mentioned Travis Bickle in this case, you know, I doesn't need to be redeemed. Sometimes characters don't need to be redeemed, Like he doesn't need this guy. This is my point. This guy's character doesn't need to be redeemed. I don't think he gets a redemption, but he gives it up for the kid.

Yeah, I agreed. Yeah, well, through him, through him doing what he does, his son is redeemed. Yeah. Right, and that theoretically, yeah, I mean who knows here and tone Glass right, Yeah, I mean, well, and that's that is kind of the interesting little twist at the end of the movie that kind of lights the fire under their asses, under the ass of of Viniak and his son or pond wrong is his son? The fire that's lit is this castle.

They are they take care of it, but the seven lords, who are essentially the joint owners of it are turning it over to the Indian government. And the Indian government is probably just going to, as we have seen in movies like this before, raise the ground and build apartments effectively, or build a parking lot. They're going to build a village on top, which is obviously a problem. Twofold a no more coins to be had, and b I don't I guess who the hell knows in regards to Hostar and what that would mean for that character getting out or yeah, like what if they bulldoze that out and suddenly there's a giant hole in the earth and Hastar goes like, hey, what's going on? Everybody?

Oh look at that bakery. Excuse me, folks, or look at all those people. Yeah, like out of the way, I'm on my way to the bakery, and everyone he touches just becomes a zombie, you know, like right, exactly bad news. And more frustrating than any of that is that when he receives the news that the government is now going to demolish the place, they say, you should have just talked to us. We would have just given it to you.

But it's already signed. What can you do now? Sorry, go get that loincloth. Got to get the loincloth. Now we're in a mission.

And again I find it a little unbelievable that he didn't bring a bunch of domen down with him, But I think it's a more to the point, like you've mentioned of the filmmakers saying maybe the ways of the older generation is not necessarily the right way right or the most innovative way, or obviously it comes back to bite them in the ass in this movie. But right, well, you know, it just shows the level of greed. Like this guy like would only go this far, which is I will grab a handful of coins, and that sustains the look. By the end he opens up that safe. They've got a lot of fucking money.

All sustainable greed is again like, how how far do you classify greed? Greed is what is greed? I think greed is a subjective term. There's a very little objectivity to what greed is right, and you know, the point can be made that this is all just a metaphor for like going to work for the man every day, you know, like you know, you're giving addiction like anything, like you know, just yeah, exactly, you're putting yourself out there like in a in a deliterious fashion. But at the same time, what are the rewards, Like he's living a regular life, he's got I mean, he seems happy, he's got kids.

Well, but but to your point, I mean, he has a safe full of coins, which means he's somewhat financially responsible. Yet he continues to go down there, right, which is weird, which is but that's the greed, But that's the greed aspect, that's the addiction. He's he's as much addicted to going down there as he is to the money, clearly, right, And so just making the choice to include the child is the is his escalation of grade, because the child is like, like, it doesn't I guess it doesn't make sense that he wouldn't have said, well, if I bring down even more dough than I can, he'll be there twice as long eating and then I'll have even more time to get out or whatever. But it was a sustainable grade, right, And he only becomes desperate when he can no longer function, Like he can't climb down that rope anymore and the hole is going to get closed.

So he didn't think he needed to do more than he was doing before. And clearly, like you said, it might have been an addiction as well, Like you know, he seems to sometimes he has a good time taunting Hastar from behind the safety of that circle. So like, clearly there's a thrill to him going down and doing it. But when the kid said let's bring down two, I was like, yeah, right on man. And then when the father and they're in the circle and he takes out two, he's got one in each hand, and suddenly hast shows up and then Haster number two shows up.

I was like, oh no. And then they show the kid with the bag full of them. I'm like the ah, this has gotten out of hand, real fast, out of hand. There's a fucking army of Haster's because they brought down so many. Oh it's beautiful like that.

The way that that scene is shot, it's shot from several different angles. You see it from above, and then you see a very wide shot of them essentially standing around and it's back lit, and it's just like this is your first movie? Yeah, like fuck you. It's it's so refreshing to see a filmmaker was such a distinct vision for something and a unique vision and a unique idea for something. And this is rather high concept.

You know, you read you know about the making of this film because because he wrote it in like two thousand and eight, Yeah, it could not get any funding until two thousand and twelve, and then he made the movie for six years. I love this human being. Give this person all of the budget and anything they want to do because they've got some good ideas. Man, and I know that as soon as the movie that came out, they said, we're doing a sequel. And now it's been what four years?

Four years? Yeah, so you gotta wait two more. Nobody gave this guy a huge budget. Like, where's the movie? I don't know.

It's uh, there has not been anything mentioned since December of twenty eighteen when they said Tombod will be featured, hostar will be featured, doubled du all the way. Yeah. That's like saying it'll be shot and a medium and projected to you in some way and you will watch it. Yeah, Like, oh my god, but man, that that's That's what's funny is a couple of things that they save. That moment for the last ten minutes of the movie is in an end.

Look this, you know, we talked about it before. A lot of Indian cinema tends to average be two hours plus movies an hour and forty four minutes, which is a more This seems to be more common. I mean there's no musical numbers right at all. The music is done by jessper Kid, which if you're a fan of the Hitman games. He's done a lot of video game music.

He's Danish, I believe, so good score. Yeah, well, it was interesting to see a composer like him working on a project like this. I love it, I appreciate it. I'm glad. I want more Western composers, actors, anybody to get involved and bring their unique vision to another culture that is interpreting our culture and things that we have.

Sure, why not throw them in there? Yeah? It worked, it worked here. And can I just say the cinematography, this movie's fucking gorgeous. You know how gorgeous it is.

I couldn't look away from Grandma's tone nails, that's how well shot. And those were horrendous. Ah. The visual effects in this movie, the practical effects and the visual cgi are for a six hundred thousand dollars movie, like what, yeah, are you kidding? Like we've seen big budget Hollywood CG fests where the CG looks like garbage.

This movie like, hast is a CG character if you hadn't fig that out yet, And he's great, he's great, and then there's an army of them and they're great. Yeah, no, it's it's and it's what's interesting is you make assumptions as a Westerner. Not you and I, but a lot of Westerners make assumptions that you know, you're you're watching a foreign film, and there's not gonna be cgi it's not gonna be a monster movie, it's not gonna be a horror movie. It's gonna be something serious that has it's very dry, it's not entertaining. And then you watch this and this is just a Died in the wool Folk horror movie and like you said, has great practical effects which people would not expect, has great visual effects, which again people are not expecting.

And that's because of people, not because of the movies. These movies exist, you can watch them. There's Indian horror films, there's Indian action movies, there's Indian thrillers. And then you watch something like this and you're like, oh my god, why haven't I've been watching more of these? Yeah, And now I'm actually mad at myself because the feeling I had watching this movie.

Throughout the entire flick, I kept thinking like this was this was how I felt when I was twenty years old, and like in Los Angeles working at a repertory house, like seeing foreign films all the time, Like I've I've gotten complacent in my age watching the same bullshit American movies, and we're making bullshit movies like are But it feels like sometimes I'm not even talking about like superhero movies, and I know I don't all have their place, God bless them. I just got back from seeing one, so like, I don't have any truck with that. But the state of horror in particular is a fucking problem here in America, and we need to we need to get right with the Lord. And by that I mean Satan. What is passing?

I don't know. I'm just gonna be ranting like an old man. This is a great movie. This is where horror needs to be, Like this level of commitment and attention detail and thoroughly thought out a plot and more importantly mythology. Yeah, these guys would have answers to every question you asked them, even if they said I'm not going to tell you.

They would know what they weren't telling you. Right, You don't ever get the sense of that in in Western horror movies, they will overly explain stuff and then it won't make sense or they'll break their own rules as a stinger at the end of the movie. Yeah, like, which happens all the time in horror movieses like, Oh, we killed him and we've made sure he's dead, and there he is at the end. Like in this movie. They don't make any preconceived notions about Hastar.

We don't know dick about how to kill him, how to get rid of him. We know that if he jumps through a circle of flower, he explodes. Yeah, but but he doesn't die, not dead, Oh no, running around, Yeah, he's Yeah, I don't think you can kill Hasta, right, I mean he said, God, I used that. I don't know. Sounds scary, man, It is very It's one of those creature designs where it's perfect, it's alien reminiscent, where it's like it's just it just wants it's just going to kill it.

There's nothing you can do to stop it from killing you. Oh nothing, zero, He's I don't know, I'm scary. You don't want to, Like, I'm gonna watch this movie again before hallow and honest, would it be as scary if they didn't have to go into the womb? No, but it would be a different kind of scary because we see early on in the movie that it is still scary when he's not in the womb. And that's the point of this movie, is that you can make it scary with or without having to go into the scary hole in the ground.

Yeah. I look, if you give into that grade, you might end up as his grandma. You could never die. No, you're you're a problem for everybody, unless they burned you. I guess, well, that's the question I have because it would seem at the end of the movie his friend in the wall is still like moving a little bit.

No, he's all scorched up and burned. Or was that just the Walls movie? I figured I was wondering if like burning you also was like you were just still stuck. Okay, so that was the scorch mark where his friend had been part of the wall that he threw an oil lamp on to burn up. And then when the kid sees it, it's like the wall it's like healing itself, it's like pushing out.

I was like, oh, so maybe not even lighting you on fire kills you, which is equally as awful. That would be the worst thing in the world. But that's how that's how Grandma dies. She's begging for him to burn her to death, right right, So so that's the way, that's the way to kill them. But that's not going to work with Well, that's the thing.

I mean, we don't know how. We don't know as the audience how he if there is a work? Yeah, and it shouldn't be. I like that, there isn't. I like, I love a chaotic element that cannot be killed in in a horror movie.

I'm talking about your not even a horror movie, but you know stories in general, but like a headless Horseman, like it's just out there, like we know where it came from, but what are you gonna do? Well? And that and that is what my issue with a lot of Western slashers is, Like I don't I do want a movie about the backstory of the character, but ultimately it does it does not matter. And and they said it in Scream, you know, not having a motive is scarier than having one, and it is it really is. Is Norman Baits scary yes?

But is Stu Mocker in Scream scary? Yes? Are they scary for different reasons, yes, but they're both still scary, right, But motives and not. I mean like it comes down to I guess a question of like if I guess motives allow you to avoid it, is what that's the reasoning, right, Yes, it allows you to let those characters off the hook in a way. Yeah, or sympathize and empathize with, right, And you know what this movie, I totally sympathize with our lead the entire thing, even with his horrible choices, Like it's a tragedy, is is what we're watching.

I guess, oh for sure. But it's never like I am never like, oh, you're fucking idiot, don't do that, you know, like I never don't like him for his choices, even though you know, once I don't know, man, like it seems so inevitable. That's the beauty of this movie. Like all of the actions seem like they not only have to happen for the function of the plot, but are going to happen just as an inevitability of the story. Well, and I've talked about that before, where it's like this is the only way this movie could have ended, right, and that like the way.

Yeah, even though you know there is kind of a third act twist of what does bringing multiple dough men down to the woo. Mean, there was only one way this movie was ever going to end with him becoming the human personification of greed. I guess, yeah, in order to save the sun. Yeah, that's like that had to happen in this movie, and it did, and you could have other endings, but they wouldn't Then we wouldn't be talking about this movie right now and in such glowing terms. Before we talk about the climax.

There was a scene that I found to be a little interesting where Pondu wrong Vineach's son is trying to trying to fuck his mistress. Oh yeah, like with mine, like I got cash. Now, look at this gold coin. Your can get out of here. It's so it was like it was such a interesting scene, Like I just because again, like it further reinforces like the level that which the greed that his father has has kind of infected him.

Oh my god. Yeah, Like look as soon as he gets the coin in his hand, like what is this buy me anything? Right? Because it's it's a lot of money too for those coins. Yeah, well you gotta figure out each of those coins is like solid gold, right right, Yeah, I assumes that's a lot of fucking money they were grabbing from Mastar every time they went down there.

Imagine if they again, if they've gotten the loincloth. Holy shit. Well, so they do get the loincloth, because the dad ties all little dom into himself and climbs out of the hole, bringing all the Hastars out with it. That's right. Yeah, it's a real bad That shot of him climbing with all of them on him is just Oh, it's so off.

Oh my god, I'll go up after him. You're right, it's just so Yeah, he knew it was going to happen, right, Like, that's the only way he can get out, That's the only way his son can be right. Oh, he certainly didn't know there were going to be one million hasters down there once they brought down all of those, once they agreed got the better of them. But but yeah, I assume every fail safe he put in place was so that the kid could go and not him. Which is an interesting way to write the end of the story because we don't see him come to the conclusion that he has to sacrifice himself for his son.

We just see him doing it, which is which is interesting. We don't see kind of that internal struggle. He just makes the decision, yeah, which I kind of appreciate, Like I appreciate that like lack of storytelling beat because I don't need to know his reasoning, Like it's it's kind of the only reasonable outcome. Yeah, It's like, look, this guy isn't Fagan. He's not like, you know, brutalizing his child and using him for you know, to you know, sneaking to people's houses and steel shit and anything like, Like, there's no way he should be letting this kid do it, but he is.

He's trying to do it in the most safe way possible. Okay, here's my quibble with the movie. They have all of that gold, right, they're living in the nice house. It's nineteen forty seven. We have split the atom.

Okay, he could have bought a winch. He could have bought a winch. Well, now that we're getting into speculative territory, Oh, he could have covered himself in flower. See, but would that have worked. I don't have a clue if you mixed it, I don't flower with water, maybe it wouldn't work.

But if you were to just jump into a pile of flower and then walk down there, with that is the circle the thing, like I think I think it's the flower that's the thing, right, I know, But that in that case, shouldn't he have run down and like drawn a huge fucking circle around the entire circumference of the womb? Oh yeah, that's fair, you know, Or wouldn't the best thing to be draw a circle around him? What he should have done is got him to the center. I don't know why we're doing this anyway, So yes, he should have gotten into the center the womb with his circle, right, thrown the dough out and as soon as Haster went into it, drawn a circle around Haster, right, and then he's trapped, right, and then you just go give me your fucking goal and I'll let you out, and then you never about it right again?

Like that for stuff that we would think of because we watched a movie and we weren't living this nightmare. Well, and it's also something that I feel like is easy to do with fairy tale stories, you know, like you can figure out eight million different ways to get around Cinderella and the matching slipper type thing. Right, there's eight million. You're like, okay, so you cut your toe off, like really, like, is anybody actually gonna believe that it fits now that you're not missing your toe right, wicked step sister, Like you know, it's that same thing where it's like you could have done this but for a fairy tale esque story, just bringing a bunch of dough men down there. It's an image thing too, right, It's like seeing all of those Yeah, it's it's a great image and it's oh it's beautiful.

Yeah. Look again, these are things that occurred to me and then immediately went away because the skill, skillfulness of this movie and you know, the outrageousness of some of its ingenuity, Like you know what am I gonna I'm gonna hold it against it now, it's this movie's up there, as far as I'm concerned, up there, up in the pantheon. Well, what's funny is it raises the question of what does a sequel to this look like? Because when you have technology, does that make hostar less intimidating? You know what I mean?

I hope there's we get will have a lot less half star? Actually that makes sense. Did we get a lot of them in this one? No? But I don't I think we got the appropriate amount of half star and I think I think sequel thinking is we need to ramp it up now because now people know.

But I think there's interesting ways to keep it intimate in scary. I agree, and that and that for me is what I would like to see is something more like this, just more of this but different different different subject or interaction with hostle, but same tone, same look, same feel. It has to ultimately be about greed again, right, I mean, because that's what this town is founded on. Like I don't know, rain, lots of rain, lots of I like that as well, where it's just like it's constantly raining. Yeah, and you know they had to, like they shot in a lot of abandoned things, which is a hallmark of any low budget flick, right, like you know how many post apocalyptic movies.

Is just in a factory that was in a down the street and I've been closed down, but all the abandoned places in here look fucking fantastic, And I can't fault it at all. Like again, like across the six hundred thousand dollars is way too little for they I'm mad at this film, like well, and I'm with you. It's it's for the story that it tells, for the visuals that it presents, and for the quality that it does, all of those things with this, anybody who makes a movie more expensive in this one and less successful has nothing to complain about. No, not only nothing to complain about, but no excuse not to like right. You know, Look, it comes down to the script.

I mean, it's a lot of things. A movie is a bullyabez ultimately in order to come out really good, but oh boy, you need a goddamn good script, and this guy had once. Yeah, and then I appreciate that the conclusion or the the final scene of this movie is it reminded me of The Fly. Yeah, right, it's that same kind of like kill me, kill me, but he doesn't say it in this movie, and he doesn't say it in The Fly either, which I appreciate. It's like the ability to die has been taken away from you, so you're having to figure out a way to convince somebody else to do it, who may or may not be or want to be complicit in having to kill you.

Right, And the only person who will really do it for you is the person you love right right, or the only person you should expect to do it for you, your family. It's got to be someone you love or family, right, And I did not know what to expect once he got out of the womb and he sees his father, I did not know what to expect. So frightening. It's awful. It's just gross, like just a gross character design.

Yeah. Yeah, it's like it's it's not fun. These aren't the fun undead fun. Oh, these are like the it looks like it is uncomfortable, miserable and awful to be that way you're in. Yeah, absolutely, that's that's that's rare that you see that there's torment behind these demons.

They're always either sort of cackling and happy or like, you know, just zombified undead stupification. But yeah, these people seem to be having trouble with their with their present immortality, right because they can talk. I mean his grandmother talks to him without trying to kill him. Yeah, and like they just want to eat, right, They'll eat anything, They'll eat anybody, Like they'll eat you. Yeah.

Oh I don't know this movie raw, Oh my god, Like where's worse? Like being up above ground with with these people like the children of Haster or being in the womb with Haster himself. Well, the question it is, I guess Hastor eats you in the womb. Yeah, all right, yeah, so they're all part of that's part of the part and parcel with the Haster religion. Yeah, you're gonna start eating people.

Could you maybe like take a tent down and you know, like some food and stuff and like hang out with Haster for a while, Like you know, he be's growling at you and like snarling the entire time and swiping at you. But you know, you can get to know Haster. Would you want to what'd you want to? Kind of would like I would be a little worried about I mean no, because you could sleep down there. You wouldn't gonna get you as long as you don't roll out of that circle.

So fair circle of salts not good enough. Circle of flour. On the other hand, that just right, I like, I like that even then it's a twist of that expectation. Like we've seen the salt circle a million times, one billion times to watch Supernatural and you'll see it in every episode. Yeah, and how effective could it honestly be?

It's here, It's pretty effective, apparently. Flower on the other hand. I like that idea. I got bags of that stuff in the house. And I like when his h I like when he comes home to his wife in the second act, he's like, why are you selling all the flower?

Yeah, it's like, I don't understand flower for sale? What's the problem? There there were and they were you know what, as kind of pitch dark as this movie is, because it's pretty pitch black in a lot of ways, it's still had some minor moments of levity. Yeah, I know that, Like the it works because we like these people and like, you know, as heavy as we're making the movie sound, like, their personal interactions are light and fun, and you know, like the genuine sort of emotion and the regard between these characters. And there are moments of levity, particularly between the father and son.

I thought, like, you know, as hard ass as he is, they seem to have a good time together, and that that kid as smart as a whip too. That what a good performance. Can we point out that all three children in this movie are fucking more? I mean there are more, but the two playing young what's his name and his little brother? Yeah, like those kids are great.

And then the kid playing his son is great, like, oh, I'm with you again. We kind of always have an issue with precocious child actors, and that being it's a constant thing that we have to worry about, at least in Western cinema. Is like, oh god, this kid's just going to be a problem and distract from the role. But yeah, no, Mohammed Samad just what a what a great what a great role for him? Is that the son?

Yeah, yeah, okay, because that kid, go, that's a real performance we get out of him. This isn't just one note like I'm precocious or I'm thoughtful or this kid starts pretty innocent and very very quickly that that greed sort of overtakes to the point where he's like maybe he's an order and mom around and she slaps him in the fucking face, you know, which is such a great thing. It's like, go do your chores, don't need to know women like like that's an arc and by the end, like he's devastat. I don't know, good performance. I just keep saying this movie is good.

Well, it's because it is. Again, I didn't know what to expect going into it and so surprised. I'm sure. Well, and the title and the kind of synopsis I think doing a very good job at kind of giving you an idea what this movie is going to be about, but not giving away all of the big, important, impactful story beats. You read the description to me and I thought we were going to get another creaky old house like haunted mansion movie with you know, now with an Indian flare.

Boy, oh boy, we did not get that, not at all. No. And what's funny is this is the first proper Indian horror movie I have seen. Let's keep doing this, like, you know, the thing is, I'm worried that like this is an outlier like this is this was nobody had seen anything like this in India. And then and like, you know, like maybe let's take a look at what's been going on in India for the previous the four years since this movie came out, Like in the wake of this movie, like I'd like to know what their imitators look like.

You know, there's got to be some right, Who's who's the Indian Roger Carman. He's got to be over there. Well, And that's the funny part, you know, I always I always mentioned kind of towards the end of these episodes like where you can find the movie. You can find this on Prime Video for the low low price of zero free, thank god. But watch it now, and it looked beautiful like this.

Yeah, plenty of Indian cinema, both on Prime and on Netflix, but the critical response in India to the film was overwhelmingly positive good unsurprisingly. Yeah, it actually made some waves. It made some waves here. It was covered by dread Central, Bloody Disgusting, and Film school Rejects. Good on all.

Yeah, and I'm I feel sad that I've been waiting this long to dive headlong into into Indian horror. Well, and I haven't seen again, I haven't seen a lot of Indian horrors the first one, so I can't speak to all of it. But I know that there are Indian versions of American horror films obviously, like there is a Nightmare in Elm Street. I believe that's is that No Song Harsh is the Indian version of Silence and Lamps. I don't know how good it wants.

It's from like the early two thousands, but I don't know how good. I don't know how good it is. But like you said, I think obviously this movie benefits from modern filmmaking conventions as well, high quality cameras, high quality filmmaking techniques, high quality CGI like that. You know that's the other thing, Like it's a slick look at movie too. What would where would you put this against American cinema, Like, say, if they were to make this in a Western horror studio, where to make this?

You think this is a closer to A twenty four, You think this is a bloom House thing. It feels a twenty four for me if those are but like less pretentious, Right, there's got to be a middle ground between blum House and A twenty four that the you know, the the land of David Cronenberg's and John Carpenter's and George and you know, the pantheon, the giants, if you will, who were interested in the more cerebral aspects of horror, but not despite the horror itself. That those guys always understood that these movies are supposed to be scary, and you're supposed to jump a few times and then maybe go home and not trust anyone ever again. But like the A twenty four leans too hard in the you're going to go home and not trust anybody anymore and less interested in actually fucking scaring you.

These are scare shows, folks. Well, and that's I mean, that's the thing about this movie. It is still a you know again, whether or not something scares you anymore. I mean, we live in a rather scary reality in and of itself. I think this movie does a good job at ratcheting up the tension and making you really concerned and care about the characters.

And the conclusion of this movie is very bleak, which I do appreciate. I really appreciate a bleak ending in a horror movie. It's not a necessity. I will disagree with former co host of Mind Eric to my grave that horror movies do not need to have a a dark or bleak ending. That's not a requirement of the genre, but not at all.

Does not have a bleak ending. They fly away in a helicopter, right, I mean, the world is overrun by zombies and they'll ultimately come to a bad end. But it doesn't end because them the original ending, which is Peter shooting himself and France standing up into the blades of a helicopter. You know, like that's the ending that Eric was talking about, right, that's and that, you know, the missed traffics, the missed traffics in that. But I appreciate a suitably dark and bleak ending, and this movie has a dark, bleak but somewhat hopeful ending ultimately.

Yeah, yes, I mean maybe that cycle is broken now, you know, maybe they're gonna they're gonna maybe they're gonna doze it over and put up some apartments and everything will be fine within those apartments. Yeah right, there's a TV series. He's right there, Haster apartments. That's the question. Like what happens next, Like the land is being taken over?

Like I hope, I hope it's great, you know, yeah, faith so far Just what a scary setting, the fact you have to go so far down, to go so far down, like yeah, yeah, right, it is. It is a journey down and then you have to then you get to the rope. This is not a Captain in the Woods thing where you accidentally anger the beast like you're doing this intentionally. This is a choice. This is a willful choice on your part to put yourself down in the domain of Haster because he can't get out, he can't get out, no, and he's taunting haster there, so he's really he's really taunting him.

He you know, Vinioch gets what he deserves more than what he deserves. I mean, I don't think he deserves to be lit on fire by his son. But at the same time, that is the premonition that his grandmother has and his mother has is don't go back, or something bad will happen. Yeah, I had hoped that he had just been killed. Honestly, when he popped back up like I was, that that hurt a little.

It's I mean, it's brutal to have to watch one character light his father on fire. What. Yeah, it's not particularly pleasant in any stretch of the imagination. God, I wants to too many horror movies that didn't really affect me. Wow, I do.

I do really hope that I can see a kind of a shift in Western horror to something closer to this where it can be fun and still look nice. It doesn't You don't have to sacrifice one for the other and look nice, be entertaining, and be scary. It doesn't have to just be it looks nice like a twenty four is lamb which was, oh my god, so unentertaining and unfun. But it was a beautiful movie shot in Iceland on the field. It's like, whatever, who can't a twenty four movies look gorgeous?

There's like the movies they well, yeah, but that, but that's a choice. That's a concerted effort on their part to make beautiful, stunning horror movies, visually stunning horror movies. Right, but you know you can make all the all the frescoes you want. It doesn't doesn't mean a thing if it ain't got that sting, doesn't mean anything if it's not moving. Yeah, moving pictures.

Yeah, we haven't talked about so humb shot at all, honestly, because it doesn't even feel like a performance. It just feels like a role that he's inhabiting for six years. For six years he played that part and for six years evidently kept that hair and that facial hair because of the role, because they never knew when they were going to be filming. Can you emit? That's fucking dedication.

And he's great, he's he's just if it were a lesser actor, I guarantee you the problems I had with the character would have been magnified and I would have found myself saying like this is a terrible person. I don't know why I'm continuing to root for them because he's so charming in his way, you know. Oh yeah, well that's the thing. He's like We've kind of mentioned he's a deeply flawed character, but the role and the performer are so charismatic that you can't help but root for him, even when you know he's again ostensibly putting his son in front of a gun anytime they go down to the cave, he's putting himself in harm's way at any point. Yeah, he allows you to see yourself in him rather than just standing apart and judging the actions of the character, which is great, should be in every movie.

Really well, and I agree with you. It's It's interesting though, because again, like the character that he's playing in an American film, the sacrifice that he made, he might not have had to pay for it at the end. In the American version of the film, the child would have gone off on his own, had would have figured out what his father is doing and then set off to do it, and then the climax would be the father going down and saving him. He wouldn't have he wouldn't have trained the kid. Yeah, yeah, I know, it would have been a much less interesting movie.

Yep, it would be a big rescue at the end and then the only and then a sacrifice, as opposed to you've gone too far man. Yeah, now you have no choice but to sacrifice yourself. It's the only time you're going to have another this is the only chance you have to redeem either yourself or your family, or at very least as a dad. Just save your kid, right and that, and I the moment you realize that that's the decision that has to be made, as you realize that, like the stakes in this movie have been elevated and the director has succeeded in elevating it to the last logical conclusion, which is the fun of the finale of this movie. And it's just you don't get that very often in horror movies anymore.

You just don't. And I'm talking about Nope, no, I'm not. I mean that movie. That movie's climax was pretty atypical for a horror movie movie. But that was also a typical because they made the decision for it to be a typical Yeah, yeah, I mean, yeah, I'm not.

But this movie is, this movie is is pretty is a better movie than that movie. This is a better movie than all of Jordan Peel's movies. I think it's more surprising. I don't know Jordan Peele was. It was pretty surprising that the comedy guy suddenly like was was swinging hard and like and landing landing the blows.

Because I like his movies a lot. Us is a little diffy, but um, that's not because he doesn't know how to create tension and scares and good characters. But I just think this movie, the movie we watched, it just hits me on a purer horror level than those other movies. And maybe it's because it's a it's a fairy tale, and it's asking less of you in a way, but it certainly by going that simple you uh you, you shed a lot of potential plot and or other problems that can crop up in a screenplay which you know, Well, it's it's like going to a restaurant and they only do one thing, but they do that one thing really well, so you don't care that they only do that one thing, right, This movie does all kinds of different things really well.

But ostensibly it does a horror fairy tale better than I've seen most horror fairy tales done, and that in and of itself is a massive success, because that's not an easy thing to do well on its own. How many American full horror fairy tales have we seen that are good? Very few? Yeah, if any, very few have been as satisfying, because I'm now racking my brain to think of the American horror fairy tale movie previous to this flick that was of the same caliber, and it's not. This movie is solid beginning to end, and every other attempt that it will falter in some way that I didn't find any problems with us, other than he should have bought a winch, like I mean, hey, I think, yeah, that's the little crack.

There is the kind of fifty years on and you haven't changed like you would have, like at least known. I'm old now and something could assist me. And certainly there seemed to be these new electric winches that all those army people were so fond of in the past five years. Or a rope ladder, a rope ladder, oh my god, ropes with two ropes with ropes in between. That's weird.

How about you can't you can't you have to do it alone, right, you can't have an assistance, But you're just gonna go with winch. I mean, does a rope ladder require an assistant? No, A winch doesn't either, A rope doesn't. Yeah, it's that's that for me. Is just that's the one.

Yeah, Like, but but I don't care. I don't care. The movie is so good, Like, yeah, the movie is good enough. It doesn't matter. It's an afterthought.

You know, this is well, you know how they could have done it? Like, but because because we want to know how we would have done it to prevent us from right, I just know, how would I have done this? So I don't die? Here's the that's what we learned from this movie. How could I be greedy without getting caught?

Right? Oh my god, we're terribles. I if I knew that this was a thing in the world, I'm not sure I would go down into that hole. I'm not sure I would either. I mean I think right now maybe, but five years from now maybe not.

If I had a winchea, yeah, there you go, Like, yeah, there you go. I would. I'd bring a winch, and I think I'd be okay, I would do it, definitely, and if the movie, if they if they said it in the future, it would be an elevator, like a hermetically sealed elevator. You know, hast has to eat the thing. He has to, right because if he doesn't, like like that's the thing, Like I would be worried the whole time, Like maybe he doesn't need though, like maybe he'll go like I'm going to save this part for later and turn around.

Right yes you oh you're asking does he have to eat it? And it's entire right like once given does he has to consume it till its end and then he can come get you. Because that's a great fairytale thing. I totally right, that's I mean again, like that's like your hairy tail things where you can like pick it apart easily, but like most of the time it's like all right, like your bread rice on the ground and a vampire has to pick up every bit of rice or the bread or bread crumbs on the ground help you find your way back. Like yeah, like it right, But I'm just saying, if you were to make the offer to me today, Hey, there's a hole in your backyard.

If you climb down and do these things, you'll be okay, but you know there's an iffy moment when you step out of that circle. We're not sure if he has to eat the whole thing, and I'd be like, well that's the deal breaker. Well that's the other question. Is by stepping out, dre you not making yourself a more interesting target for him to eat? Right, Well, say turns around and he's like, I'm gonna get it, so he might he has to finish the thing.

Then you're okay, but like, how can we ever really know? You would bring somebody else down? And oh that's horrible. It's great to tales from the crypt territory. I know, all of a sudden, you're inserting yourself in and then you're going to be the one to eat.

I could just find some horrible person and test some of these theories out, Like here, take these two loaves and go down. Oh my god, there's two of them down there, now, got it? Like you're watching with binoculars. Oh yeah, well I notice you're pulling the rope back up. Yep, sure I am.

It's totally normal. This is what we do every time. I notice you're closing the door. Now, yeah, Well they hired to both asters for me. God, Yeah, this is um Well, I think that this kind of like discussion after the fact is also what makes this movie fun because like, what we're talking about is not really poking holes.

It's just a what if positive by an interesting movie. We're building on this movie. We're not tearing anything down like it's it invites uh speculation, and that's wonderful. Yeah. No, this this was again just a pick on Amazon Prime Video that we could have picked anything else.

There were plenty of other horror movies, Indian horror movies on Prime video, but this one just ye your directorial debut, like fuck you, good God in Heaven, good good for you, really like good for you, but also like good luck this up. I hope he has been in the interim from first writing the script in two thousand and eight. I hope he's been writing since then other things, different ideas, I mean, maybe within the same universe, but like, oh man, like please please be of quality continuing on because I'm I'm I'm one in this director's favor. I'm with you. No, I'm one hundred percent with you, and I would love to see more of what this director has.

I would like to see more of so humbshot and stuff. Have not seen him in a lot of stuff, but this was kind of his big breakout role was Tumbad. So yeah, this is Yeah. I was not expecting a movie. I was expecting a good movie, but you know, I wasn't expecting a movie where I want to tell a bunch of other people I know, like, you got you have to watch this, not just the suggestion, but like do yourself a favor and go sit down and watch it.

Yeah, yeah, I know. I want to shout this one from the rooftops. I'll wait till this episode comes out, but then and I am going to tell everyone it was It's one of the better horror movies I've seen in the last twenty years. Never mind Indian horror, right exactly, Remember mind Indian cinema at all. Like, I feel really good about horror right now, and I've felt bad about it for a long time, including going back and just rewatching the same fucking things over and over again.

You know. Then everyone seems to be belaboring, like we need another Michael Myers movie. Well, what's funny is we're you know, we're constantly being bombarded with more of something that we've seen before. Maybe not the movie, but oh another like you said, another Michael Myers, another Freddy Krueger, blah blah blah. It's like it's it's exciting and interesting and fun to see a new creature design that we've never seen before.

Yeah, that's interesting and exciting and creepy and scary in a self contained little story. It doesn't the world was not going to end at the end of this story. This is very personalized and wonderful as far as you know, you have to have good characters in your horror movies that we love, or your horror movie false apart. This movie does that, you know, Like it isn't just fodder for the horrors to happen, Like the horrors occur because we love these people and you feel it at the end of the movie when they make the decision, when his son makes the decision to light him on fire, it's not a decision made lightly and it's not supposed to be and you understand the weight behind it and its decision made lightly and nope, really just goes up in flames.

Oh and you know what, I'm glad that they also held back on the makeup at the end of the movie, because they really could have overdid it with how gross he looked, and it was like turning but not turned right. And the early scenes of this movie made me worry that this was just going to be a gross out filmmaker because that there is a lot of loving close ups of of goo and oozing and grossness. She takes us blades out of her mouth and he's been covered in blood. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, So I was wondering the same thing. I was like Jesus Christ, like is this this is this?

Like yeah, we're getting an Eli Roth kind of thing, like please don't and then no, and then like, I won't say it achieved gory elegance, but it's certainly achieved the level of restraint by the end that was necessarily, like you said, like they could have gone crazy wacky on Dad and they didn't. They gave us m a appropriately frightening makeup but not overdone, and also like vaguely like empathetic, like you're meeting a little empathy. You can see the man in there and not just a crazy demon. Yeah or what or whatever that or whatever it is now, yeah jeez. Final final final thoughts on Tombod the Malone h massively surprised, play isn't really surprised.

Definitely going to start watching more Indian films. I feel like we just started at the top, though, We're gonna be working our way down from here to all the movies we expected to see an Indian horror. And that's fine, because when you have a lead in like this, like how can you go wrong? Like my final thought is, I'm going to tell everyone to watch this movie. Go watch this movie.

Don't even listen to me. I should have said this at the beginning. Turn this up and go watch the movie. Yeah, no, I'm with you. You know again, it's easy to find an Amazon Prime video.

It's not hard to get into. I think it does a good enough job of kind of again easing you as a Western audience into a world you're unfamiliar with, in a period and a time you're unfamiliar with, but still giving you enough to be able to say, Okay, I kind of understand that, or I recognize that, or at least this makes sense to me the way that they've explained it, and then it kind of pushes the issue and further builds on it to this kind of logical, horrifying conclusion, but I'm with you. I had no idea what to expect, and it was one of the best, like I said, one of the best horror movies I've seen in a long time, like forever at all even really yeah, yeah, so yeah, I've got I'm going back years and years the last movie that that that I woke up the next day and was immediately on my mind, you know.

And the other the other thing about this movie is I feel like it's so uh also tied in culturally that like to make it, there's not like a possibility of like a sequel, sequel remake type thing, like an American remake. Jeez, oh no, they could do it. I could do it in ten seconds. Man, you just said it in the Old South. That's it.

That's it. You know, you just you know, you make it. You could you you would it be voodoo, sure, right, that's yeah, But it just wouldn't have the impact. It wouldn't know because you know, I don't know a lot of a lot of what makes the movie really good is the air of mystery to it. And like I'm sure this is a myth that might be in India, but I'm sure it wasn't on anyone's mind when he made this movie fully created whole clause.

Okay, there we go. That's even better. Good for him. Holy fuck, I love I know, I know. It's just wow.

Right, It's just it's so good. It's so good. This is one of those movies that is so good you wish you had made it. Yeah, it's a it's an envy movie, you know, like it's it's so good you're envious, like I couldn't have made the movie. Like so, I I can't be envious of it.

Like this is a it's it's a gem. It's informed by life decisions that you and I do not and cannot ever share. And that's what and that's what makes it. That's what makes it so interesting and exciting as a Western filmgoer. Ultimately, we're still Western filmgoers.

Here is experiencing Indian culture. One of the many ways to do it is through art and film, and so you know, yeah, if this is what's coming back to us horror film wise, fuck, that's great. Like I'm more interested in what's going on in the rest of the world. Now I'm with you, So when you're not here talking Indian horror movies with me, or Indian cinema in general, Father Malone, where could people find you? Well, As you mentioned at the top, we do a show called Midnight Viewing the Night Gallery podcast with our pal Mike White.

You can also everything I do is over at weirding Way Media, folks, including Dark Destinations to Half our radio drama right and Produce and Wolf and Raisin, the Benecheck podcast I do with my buddy Hpe, both in video and audio format. Yeah that's yeah, that's an odd one, but you can listen to it if you want to. Just listen to it. As for this show, Bollywood Cinemaclub dot com, Bollywood Cinema Club on all social media, but social media sucks. Weirding Way Media is where all the other shows, like Father Malone said, are that I work on, including the original show that this show spun off from, the Culture Cast where we talk about just movies, not any particular kind, but monthly themed.

So that's where you can go and find that. As for this show, like I said, all those other places, but iTunes rate and review the show. It's going to be the easiest best way to get involved in a non monetary way, Father Malon, Thank you so much for joining me. Neither one of us knew what to expect, and beyond pleasantly surprised. Yeah, man, I'm again.

I'm nervous about the future because it can't get We're not going to get better than this. But you know that's it's like we you know, we just stumbled onto Citizen Kane, Like what do we do now? Well, you and I have the rare ability to watch the best thing first and then nothing else ever lives up to it. So I hope this is not that that was the whole chronicles from the cryptobaccle. But hey, you know, man, man, you know what like horror is a slippery, weird genre.

I think it can go in lots of different directions. There's stuff to be mine from even the worst of them. So let's let's keep let's let's keep going and uh yeah, well, we'll catch you on the next episode.