Skin and Bones

The next episode of Fear Itself is Larry Fessenden's Skin and Bones, with a screenplay by our not so favorite team of Drew mcweeney and Rebecca Swan credited then at Scot Swan. Yeah. Oh, I am a feeling we may be on different sides of this one. Oh oh no, oh no, this could be good. You tell me what.

Um and before we get into plot. Initial impressions of Skin and Bones. Um, initial impressions, Uh, thumbs up them down. Some things were good. Okay, that's my Siskel and Ebert style review.

Some things were good. Um, thumb in the middle. No, I don't, I can't. I can't in good consciency of this, like a enthusiastic thumbs down. But I I had I didn't.

I didn't like the story and the pacing was a little not where it was at for me. It was again it was it was very one on one horror. One on one. It felt like somebody might have seen ravenous and was like, you know, what's an under explored shot on the rock like cool cannibals, thanks guys, cannible demons. I guess spoilers, cannibal demons.

Yeah, I mean this, I would have said, somebody saw wend to Go and said, I made the movie wend to Go, Why don't I also make an episode of Fear itself. That's the same kind of story. Yeah, yeah, But the good thing is for me is I really liked skin in Bowes well so CNN Bowes uh people in it, but it has Doug Jones in it mainly focus on so it is it is anything that I didn't So I will say that what Larry Fessenden did I liked. I like the way he films uh things. I like the way he I like the way he chooses to light things.

Um, this is very lit, but in like a cool I'm not hiding, I'm not trying to be scary in the dark kind of way, which I really fucking appreciate. And and Doug Jones looks haunting in this and terrifying at times. And you can say, like, oh, Doug Jones, whatever he doesn't do. No, Doug Jones really is actually very good and very cost This is a case where you watch this and realize how how talented Doug Jones is and how smart Larry Fessenden. It was an understanding I have Doug Jones.

I just need to craft what I'm doing around what he can do, and that's all I need to do. Yes, it was. That was amazing, And they're they're just weird choices with the way that they film him move, Doug Jones moving and the way he's moving and and again they don't hide how creepy he looks in like a shadow or like they don't make him popping into screen be the scare. Him existing on screen is the scare and I and I really really like that because that's something that a lot of people don't do. Yeah, And it's one of those like, on one hand, I want to say the makeup's really good.

On the other hand, I don't know how Is it just that the makeup's good or that Doug Jones knows what to do with his body and face to make to make this work the way it's supposed to do. I think I mean both, And I think that that's really great and it's really impressive and I really really appreciate that that that about this. It's also completely single set, like it's it's on this wonderful house. Yeah, it's a really nice change of scenery for you know, we've said that a lot with the different episodes that like understood like and Eater was the best example of here's our set, we're gonna make use of it. It's not quite like something you've seen before, and that's something we didn't talk about with community, but like for an episode about a community, I really wish there was any kind of visual identify or to the community.

Thank you. Yes, I told you there's like stores in a square and then walking around or so and I don't I didn't see that. I would have liked to have been some little Canadian town somewhere, but in this one where it's a ranch, so you just have that openness, you have sunset, you have horses in the background, Like it looks different and good and for knowing that you just have forty five minutes in this one set, it's just it's fine because it just gives you that refresher for forty five minutes. Yeah, so that, yes, I agree with you. The setting was good and it was used well.

I thought the house was used well. I knew the geography of the house, Like there's so many things that you can take for granted when when they're there, that when you see when you see things that where it's not there like, oh no, this is actually super good, this is super well done. For me, it was. It was the story, the story beats, and the dialogue. It was extremely wrote territory.

In my opinion, Nothing interesting or new happened except the fact that it wasn't just a cannibal man. It was like a demon went into a man and made him a cannibal. But yeah, even with all the talking, I feel like I don't understand that any better. Yeah, I didn't mind that it was such a simple story because you only have forty five minutes so and the story is very simple that this. We're on a ranch.

The dad is Doug Jones, and he's gone off hunting and hasn't come back in a few days. His brother seems to be very kind of concerned caretaking. Also something's going on, and sure enough, yes, because we find out the mother and the mother have had an affair. There's two kids, two teenage boys who are probably I guess by the end, we find out they're his kids, not Doug Jones's um. And that's it.

And that's so when Doug Jones comes back as a windigo basically um, he is hungry to eat people. Um, And there is this other element that there is this kind of resentment that probably he had in life of did my wife have are these my kids? Or are they my brother's kids? And it just with this kind of monstrous thing, he gets to kind of act out upon it. I guess.

So, you know, for um, for forty five minute uh little horror story, I didn't need much more complexity than that. But how would you have done it differently? What would you have wanted more or less of? In what direction? But you're you're completely right, because the the the the of that would be to be to try to do too much in forty five minutes and have it feels super rushed.

But but there has to be a middle ground because I was so bored and there was there was no reveals. I one hundred percent knew what it was doing, and and it in it introduced characters to have them say the thinnest, basest shit and then die. Well, and yeah, we should, we should. We'd be remiss if we didn't mention the Uh you know, there's there's the kill your gaze trope, there's the kill your black guy first. There is also the kill the helpful Indigenous person who seems to show up just to do the thing, uh that's needed to help the white people and that does it was it was very like mystical mystical native yeah, and which I don't love.

And it wasn't even done interestingly like if you're if you're gonna do something, that's what I mean about it being super super tropy and like just super thin thematically, like I got it, like you're doing all this stuff, but it's not interesting or self aware. I don't know what there was, just like they were having conversations, like really long conversations about nothing. So have a more robust conversation or have more action. I don't care about these characters. And you I knew you set all of it in motion very seamlessly, so you don't need all this exposition because you literally are showing it to me.

So I mean, I don't know what I would have done. I might have had the kids be more involved, sooner, more active participants, because they were just kind of there. And that eldest boy was old. He would have been like up for protecting his mother and like, but it only comes in at the very very end, and like forcing her to cook a guy is good, but that went on really long. I really liked that scene.

But I've really started to like cooking shows. So cooking shows are very because it's because it's not just like, you know, she has to make me like she has to cook her lover, her husband's brother who has been you know, chopped it for him, and def Jones is so picky about how he wants it cooked, which I really as somebody who's we talked about this, I like food. I like to eat food that is cooked a certain way. I appreciated him being very u directive with telling his wife how to cook it. Yeah, And it's not like I had no problem with that scene.

I just really feel like most of them went Most of these setups went on too long. Fair Yeah, and and to the point where I stopped caring because I got what they were doing when at the beginning of the scene. So the rest of it was just like, okay, I gotta no more additive information, but like it was there. It was so close. And Zach made a joke was like, if you so, if you can't show like women getting beat up or show their tits, so it's just men talk.

That's that's what you swop it out. It was like interesting because there was just so much dude talking in this, and and like the indigenous gent whose name it was, like, was it like Willie Bear. I don't know, Probably it was Eddie Bear. He was like he was. It was so weird, Like they had a single set, and I feel like they were like, Okay, we have a single set.

We need to get a lot of people there so that we can have people to interact with within the story. And I feel like he barely did anything, and then the brother barely did anything, and then the kids were just kind of there, but then the wife didn't really do There was a lot of like every human being in this was really dumb. Like yeah, because Eddie Bere is like ready to shoot Doug Jones and they're like no, no, no, we don't know if he's really infected yet. Okay, fine, But then when Eddie Bear decides to like go after him, he puts his gun down and picks up a knife. So there was that The mother just constantly like when Doug Jones is like very clearly murderous saying to her like give me the gun, and she's like, well, okay, I guess I will.

You're my husband, and so there's a few decisions like that that do not you know that it as we're talking through it, I think it is. To me, it's really clear, like this is worth watching. I think this is one of the better episodes, but that is entirely because of what is done with and around Doug Jones. Yeah, I agree, Yeah, because even by the end, I think there's something real, Like I think as there is an argument that to be made that there is something interesting going on where you could watch it and say, oh, is he really a Whend Togo or is this just you know, is this his way of finally confronting the fact that his wife is cheated on him? Which is a cool concept, But I don't think it's deep enough because I think, no, it's clearly a Whend Togo.

So there's not much there. Yeah, and if you if you choose to have that internal debate, then that is something that you choose the movie didn't didn't. Yeah, guide that you could make work with it, but not it's not as deep as I think maybe an intent thought it could have been. It would have been really cool, like it just some some slight little tweaks here and there, And I think it was like this could have been like the episode, but I don't know. It just I just felt like, how would I I would have had a real hard time sitting watching it as it aired with commercials.

It felt felt like it was daring me to stay on board, like like we're gonna talk for a real long time. It gave the next thing is going to be cool, though, Like I don't want to feel that way. I want to feel being like I'm being driven towards the end, not like I'm lazily walking there. This is apparently based on a novel which I did not know, based on a true story, yes, which was based in its own Uh it's the same, um, Alexey Tolstoy. I don't know if he is.

Do you think it's Tolstoy? No, because that's uh wait, wait a minute, what's going on? IMDb is confusing you now? UM, I would feel really dumb if wait, what is Tolstoy's first name? No, Leo Tolstoy.

No, not the same one, Um, but it is the same. He is also credited for the story or the stories that inspired Black Sabbaths. Oh weird. Yeah, I gotta get to IMTP. Interesting So I'm guessing he just has a story about a Whend Togo that, for all I know, that was also used for the movie Whend Togo, which Larry fessend interacted.

So I don't know. I know that makes me sad to think that maybe all the interesting things came from somewhere else. So what was so? Was all that was added? The really pouring dialogue?

Oh no, did you see When to Go a long? Yeah? Same, it's not a long time ago, but like I don't remember it is. Yeah. I can't even say if I liked it because I kind of dumped it out of my brain.

It came out in two thousand and one. I feel like I watched it on DVD in like two thousand and three, and that was yeah, years ago. People. Um, I remember um because it's the the Attractive Man from the Daughter of the Dead remake, and I remember seeing his butt and that being pleasant. But that's that's all.

I oh, yeah, yeah, or fiber as I assume his the correct German pronunciation would be I mean probably um, but yeah to end again, there's a part of me that looks at this project and says, look, Larry Fessenden is a little bit, you know, a little Roger Quarminy, like he's a guy that is used to making making something with a little with a little bit, and was asked to do an episode of the show, said what's my budget? What's my time frame? Okay, that's really limited? Wow, you have really because from what we know of this, like the budgets weren't huge, and I think the filming schedule was really short for all this. So I do think he looked at like, what can I do in two weeks of filming?

Let me called up Jones? What can I do with him? You know what? What if I just kind of remake When to Go in forty three minutes and that's kind of what you got. So there's something kind of smart about that decision, even if it's a little bit less inspired as a final product.

Yeah, I would like to look at When to Go? Now, how kind of curious to revisit it? Haven't? Yeah, how similar or what or if they're they are even similar? I don't know.

I wanted to like it because I immediately was like, I like the setting and I like what Doug Jones is doing. But but that for me wasn't enough to push through almost forty five minutes. Yeah, but again, like you said there, I think that it's worth watching because it is only forty five, like forty something. It's not a huge it's a commitment and it does and it does give you stuff. Even if I think, um, you're I was more on board with it than you were.

But even if I think you were, at your level of saying, and they're writing is not that good, the story is not that good, it's still like it's Doug Jones doing what Doug Jones is great at doing and what nobody else can do quite like he can for sure. And and I know it's easy to say things like oh, he's such a great look at what an amazing talent he but like I like when I can actually see that on screen, Like yeah, when you can see him face, I always feel that like he's somebody that doesn't get to like, you know, when you see him in normal mode, like that's I get happy because I'm like, oh, that's what he looks like. I forget that sometimes, yeah, because it's not just physical stuff. He's he's like a good actor.

He's an absentia too, Yes, Mike Flannagan movie, Like I like seeing him actually acting things. And I mean it's great what del Toro has done and you know, making him you know, his body guy and he builds characters on movement and stuff. But it's cool when he yeah, it gets to be character with a face. Yeah, because then I think you really get to appear. If nothing else, this leaves you with such an appreciation for what he can do, and it's it's both the weird body stuff but also like nobody's also a good actor and we forget that sometimes.

Yeah, I mean it was an interesting, interesting uh entry. Yeah. I mean for me, this is ranking pretty high, like when we do our final ranks, this will probably be nearer the top um. But again I can also completely look back and say, but yeah, it's not ambitious and it doesn't do anything new. It just does what it's trying to do.

I think pretty well. M h, all right, well that was given boons. When next we meet, you know what's up on the docket. I don't, I do. UM.

I am very excited. The next episode is something with Bite, which I believe is directed by Oh oh fuck motherfucker. Yeah. I just thought, why why world? This is so twenty twenty, Like I know that the show came out in two thousand and eight.

But giving me something directed by ernest Or Dickerson and then telling me that it was written by Max Landis, Fuck you, fuck you world, Why how and why would you do that to me? It's disappointing because now there's no way it's going to be good. Like I don't make the rules again, like Brandon Routh is super hot, I don't make those rules. Max Landis is a terrible writer. I don't make those rules either.

Yeah, all right, Well on that disappointing notes that put us open a bad mood. Um, Now there's there's good things going on in the world, right like um um um, nope, um, I'll get something. There's drama in the figure skating world. That's that's something that that's key to me going. So that's good.

Yeah, I'll take You'll take what I can get. Drag Grace Holland, right, we do. I've not watched it, but sure, yeah, I bet that's that's Yeah. Um, I figured out how to keep my cat from being constipated. That's that's been a great that's a wind part of the year.

So yeah, you know, we gotta gotta find what we can. Yeah, I'm sure you've you've got some new like gluten free vegan recipes you've tried or something. Maybe. Yeah, I've baked a zucchini bread. So that's something that sounds lovely.

Yeah. So well, we'll get through this, everybody, We will together. Bye until next week. Bye bye o. No one makes it yummy like you do.

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