The Spirit Box

Welcome back to the Feminine Critiques coverage of Fear Itself, the show that nobody else is probably ever going to cover again. On today's episode, we are talking about Rob Schmidt's The spirit Box who spookyuh and it's like October and stuff, so you know, it's finally only sense totally. Had you seen this episode before? No, I've just dropped my remote out of anger. That's how I felt about you having not watched The Spirit Box before.

Apparently I had seen the vast, vast majority of these. I think I saw like the two I said I saw, which I can't be bothered to remember what. I'm sure Eater was one, but I don't remember the other. I never like, I don't did this even air I was gonna say, I think we've rounded the corner of the episodes that never aired on NBC. Because the so Fear Itself debuted in the summertime, which I don't understand.

They got interrupted by the Olympics, which they always knew was going to happen. Like with the exception of it. No, no, no, the exception of this year and the year that the US boycotted. We've never not had the Olympics when we were supposed to have the Olympics, so odd that they would even plan that, why not hold it and wait until October and promoted during the Olympics, right, use that time when you have a million million extra eyes watching your content to say new show coming out, and and no they didn't. So I think these are the episodes that just eventually landed on like fear dot net and then on DVD and at one point this show is streaming somewhere.

It is now on the Roku channel in a very confusing order and not in a way that we'd recommend watching it. But although again you guys finally saw I posted on Facebook the hell I have to go through. I went ahead and bought the eleven dollar complete series on DVD from Amazon. There is a fancier collector's edition. I did not get that.

I got the one that's readily available. And I've said it before, but I'll say it again because it's really has affected my life. None of the episodes are labeled. They are labeled A and or disc one side A, side B. Nobody has listed out what is on which of these sides.

So I have to put every DVD in and go through the five minute menu until I get to the episode titles. So now you guys see what I go through. It's on Facebook. If you were curious anyway, how long did it has had it been taking you to find the right episode? How many times have you had to do that?

Well, it's a good kind of It's like playing the game of Clue, where it's that process of elimination, right yea. So once I realized I would have to do this, I just started writing. So I put a DVD in and like, the first disc was Spooked and Eater, and so I wrote down one a Spooked, one a Eater, so that eventually when it was time to get back to Eater, I could find it. So it was kind of like, as I would put each disc in, I would like even if it I'd put it in and it would be two episodes that weren't the episodes I was supposed to watch, but I would write down which disc they were on so that I would know going back where to look. So once I got like more than half from there, it was a little easier to grab.

And for whatever reason, the last one, two, three, four, five episodes are in order. It was Skin and Bones, Chance, Echo, Spirit Box, circle, Like, I don't know why the last five they kept in order, so thanks somebody, although really it would have been much easier if the first parts were in order. But anyway, my rant is ended clearly. We have a lot to say about this episode. Um, I loved it.

I liked it. Actually, it might be like I said, New Year's Day was probably my favorite one, and it still might be, but this is this is super high up there for me. I really really liked this episode. This episode surprised me so much because I mean, I don't think it's a great forty five minutes of TV, but it's it's solid and what is shocking about it to me? I'm watching this, I'm like, this is the We talk about this like subgenre a lot, and it's a subgenre.

I think you and I both really like that. As women in horror, we've always had to defend it's slow a party horror. Yeah, like it is. Really it is about teenage girls. It is perfectly made for teenage girls.

And it's not like not whimping out on anything. It's just very much a story about these two teenage girls what happened with them, and it's done in a perfectly acceptable Pg. Thirteen manner that I was so surprised. This is what especially Rob Schmidt, whom so m best known for Wrong Turn And then we talked about him last season Masters of Horror season two, he did, I can't remember the name of the episode Right to Die. Right to Die, that's right, last week you couldn't remember, And this is the episode that was just so it was you liked him more than I did.

I didn't like it, but it was very gory and sexy for it or not sexy, but like sex in it for the sake of being these things. It felt It felt very much of Oh, I could make whatever I want. I just made wrong turns? Why better or better? Up it?

And this is completely opposite. He just so restrained and not that at all. It is And I had to look again to make sure this was the episode I thought it was because it was. It was very it was very it was it was good and like character centered in a really interesting, unexpected way. Yeah, so this is so I know that you didn't really like Right to Die, but like there was things about Right to Die where I felt like We've said this a million times going through all these but I felt like Rob Schmidt got the assignment.

Whether or not I like what he turned in, I don't know. Maybe everything about it wasn't to my taste. But he I felt like he understood the objective and we got like a like a zany pacy like sometimes gross thing fair and I and I was like, okay, and it felt and I might have rewind the tapes. I might have said it felt like a Tales from the Crypt or something because it was so like sticky. It had that like very come up and see right very Everybody is kind of a bad person, so they're all being punished for things that they should be punished for, but in this one has the nice try asshole ending.

Yeah, and and and I again feel like somebody got the got the objective and and knocked it out of the park. Yeah. I there's some some shit reviews on IMDb for this. I feel like, yeah, I don't. Honestly, my one critique is I wish it was a ninety minute movie.

It was. There was so fucking much here. I was expanding it, adding characters like, oh, wouldn't it be cool? I would have well, I appreciated the efficiency of storytelling. I also was like, this could be a late nineties Kevin Williamson adapted Lowest Duncan book.

This felt like totally like a like a Lowest Dunken story in that like there's this so Lois. I don't know how much of her you've read, but like not much. I was more of a for me. Christopher Pike was my jam at that era. But for those who don't know, Lowest Dunken wrote wrote I Know what you did last summer and was a peer of Aryl Stein and Christopher Pike and wrote kind of similar very you know, um young teen based horror and suspense.

Yeah, and I was definitely a Christopher Pike or fear Street person, ar el Stein Fear Street person. But so I didn't read low Stunken until I was much older. But I went on a tear of just reading those books. And there's always a or there's many times a somewhat normal thing that ends up being supernatural, or a supernatural seeming thing that ends up being innocuous and normal, like oh, this crystal ball was never a thing that you could see the future and you just you know something, but like it had big that energy because if the plot is uh Anna Kendrick, baby Anna Kendrick. Oh love it.

I love Anna Kendricks so much. UM's and she's like so tiny in between it's in between Twilight and Up in the Air. Yeah, she's like twenty four and they're like high school dude. I mean sure, why not, right? But the baby Anna Kendrick is in this and her the other female lead is actually Norah West on the Flash television show, so she's extremely famous.

Now. I did not know her her. I didn't recognize her at all, um, but I really liked her and I thought like, she's Oh, I hope she has a care I'm glad to see that she does have her career. I just didn't know a out. Yeah, she like that.

She's very popular on that good show too, which is which is great. She's phenomenal in this, and Anna Kendrick is is like a like a high school goth and it's so cute and her her bedroom is so spooky and she always wears black and she has the most stupid jewelry and it's the most beautiful, lovely thing, and every scene she has a different jewelry and I was like, whoever is styling her? Fucking yeah, because that's age like that that's I wasn't big on a fat Like I had a period like in middle school where I was really into like dressing wacky, but my high school I wasn't. But my jewelry always did like it was whatever. The cool trinket at the mall was like that was important to me.

And it's it's funny, and it felt very like, yeah, this is what's happening, and uh it's and it's it's like I wondered, almost if they're like looking at who's behind it. There's Rob Schmidt, who's very much a dude. And the screenplay is by Joe Gang Gangami Gangami, who wrote Who's Who's a dude? Who wrote um Win Chill, which I never saw um, and Stonehurst Asylum, which I know a lot of people talked about because it came out like on Netflix a few years ago. Yeah, Winchill's good.

Okay, win Chill's an Emily Blunt movie for anybody that's not staring at IMDP right now. But yeah, like I almost wondered. I was like it because this just feels so appropriately teenage girl that it really I was surprised that it didn't have a female voice on that side of it because I would have totally bought that a woman wrote or directed this for sure. And what again, this goes to prove win chill, you know, female lead again, And I thought that was great it Men can write and direct women if they give give the tiniest fuck about it and maybe like talk to a woman and that that's that's they're directing or something. I don't know, like it's doable everyone.

I don't come here to just shit on male creators, like a lot of times they seem inept and like they don't give a shit, but this didn't feel like that. No, it felt like it was made by somebody who had who was listening to teenage girls. It was. So it is very um, small and childlike in a lot of ways. Um because Anna Kendrick gets, should we are we spoiling it?

Right off? Yeah, I guess yeah. I mean clearly we both recommend it. So while this is one that probably like probably one of the least watched episodes because it didn't AIRNTV and and it has a low IMDb writing and every every man that reviewed it probably hated it, but we're both saying to watch it, so people watch it and then come listen, let's talk about what actually happens in the episode. It's it's like I said, it's very easy comics.

It's very um, I don't know even now, not like, uh, it's too not are you afraid of the dark, because that's way too childlike. But there's something that's very fiercely maybe well yeah, very camp fire story ish to this. Um so Anna Kendrick and um whose name is Shelby U and her friend Becca. I can't ever say the name Shelby without immediately saying Shelby, drink your juice. It's a it's a it's a reaction.

I just can't stop it. So she'll just she'll just be Anna Kendrick. So there their besties, and it's all cute and well and good, and they decide to make an impromptu spirit board aka Buiji board out of a pizza box, which is maybe one of the best names. I love it. Yes, and and a and an old flip phone cell phone is the plan.

Chat it was and this is the thing. You know what, I hate when you pretend that you're not in modern day and I like when things are updated to current circumstances and situations. So it was cute and fun to see them do this. So they make a spirit board out of a pizza box and then the spirit board board is like, Hey, I'm a girl that you went to school with and you thought I had suicides but it was actually murder. Um, come solve my murder.

And you're like, oh, this is fucking cool, right, yeah, this is a cool setup. So um uh. Mark Pellegrino is also on this. You've seen in everything, Um, Supernatural, I don't watch that, but if he's just in stuff and and lost isn't also a name of a show, um, but he's in this, and he's a teacher at their school, and he is inappropriate with Anna Kendrick because and this was done really well like it you know, yes, anytime there's like a man teacher and a female student like there, it's so often that you go there. But it was done so well where it was you know, he's not really being like crossing a line, but clearly he's he's saying things that are not that are that are there.

She doesn't really know how to handle it. I'm like, it's it was I thought very restrained and realistic to what that's like like. And hey, I don't know. I don't know if you had you had it. I certainly did.

Like we were all teenage girls in school who had that teacher that talked to you like that and you just didn't know what to do about it. So you did exactly what Anna Kendrick day, which is just kind of be like, oh okay, y, yeah, yeah it was. It was really good. And they set up this whole thing where like, oh, Mark Pelligrino, are you being like super weird or just like a little weird because murderous weird or what he used to date her her dead mom, and he's like, you remind me so much of your mom, and you're like, so we are you being just like kind of not hey? So but but as we move forward, we we get clues of from this dead girl who Emily I believe, and yes, her name was Emily.

And here's something I loved about this. So when they're doing Luigi board and she spells her name out as the letters m Elie, which I might in high school when we used to joke about like what our rap names would be, I said mine would be the Notorious m Elie and I would write it out as initials, so I was I really liked Emily obvious I thought I thought it was. She had Italian last name, so I'm like, hey, I take this chick. Yeah, super clever Emily DeAngelo. Um, I thought that was really cute and clever and like, okay, so this is like this knows its audience and stuff and or it's intended audience.

I don't know who its audience actually ended up being no One, but yeah, so we we get all these clues and things are like getting more and more supernatural, and the spirit board tells us that Mark Pelligrino's teacher character killed this little girl, and Becca, Becca and Shelby break into his house and at one point, Becca like regurgitates a necklace of Emily's and it's really escalating out a fast. Yeah, there's some spooky things happening, and and uh, Shelby Anna Kendrick gets gets trapped in uh Mark Pellegrino's house and her cell phone rings on silent, but it vibrates and he hears it because people in horror movies never remember that vibration is hearable. Yeah, you hear that. He hears it.

You know what his character is. You're like, wait a second, I don't know how I feel about this. And then Anna Kendrick is like, oh, I am now caught in this man's house. What do I do? I need to pivot?

So she starts like hitting on him, and I thought that was just very was great yep, and Anna Kendrick is so good at that kind of performance. She's very Ana kendricky. And if you don't, if you're like I don't dig her stick, well, I question then your taste level. But also it's great, so whatever. And then so I was like, oh, Mark Pellerino because I kind of saw the twist actually is acted, but I kind of saw what was going to happen coming.

And then as it ramped up, I was like, oh, I can clearly see what they're setting up, and I like it. So I was like Mark Pelgerino, I kind of feel I kind of feel bad, but he's all like, yeah, I'm into you hitting on me, tiny little girl, and it was awful. And so when he fell down the stairs and cracked his neck, I liked it. Sure he was still a bad dude. He was still serially up women.

We didn't know that. We thought, oh, how friendly? Is he just being weird? And inappropriate because he truly does miss this woman that he once loved, and when he sees this young girl, he has conflicting, weird feelings that maybe he should tamp down better or is he a serial Uh yeah, harasser? And I don't know child rapist, but and you know what, it's the latter.

So it's okay. When his head spins halfway around um and so we all he's dead and we're all like, oh good, And we finally figured out who killed Emily. It's this teacher and then uh, it wasn't. It was Becca. Becca killed that girl and planted.

And it was so fun because there's this scene very early on where um Anna Kendricks. Her dad's Martin Donovan and he's a police officer, which I did, Like, she steals files for this this girl's you know, autopsy, and she's telling Becca, oh, you know she had this intercess them well, sleeping pills and Becca's like, yeah, I looked it up. Their sleeping pills or whatever. They don't make them anymore. And she was like, how would you get her to take sleeping pills?

And Beck was like, oh, just just dissolve it in some boothes probably, And I was like, oh, this girl's real smart. It comes around at the end that she knew because she did it. Yeah, well, and she was very smart. She was very awesome. Like I do want a movie about her as a murderer.

But but but I I for a minute, I was like, this girl is just I like how none of these tropes get to get to breathe because these are smart kids. Because like when they're at the Spirit broke Board, she thinks Anna Kendrick rightfully thinks that the Spirit board is spelling murder with initials again, and it's actually spelling mister Drake. And Becca has to say, no, it was mister Drake. Yep. And I was like, yes, this is very funny.

Yeah, and then m you know, she thinks she's gonna get away with it, and she almost does if it wasn't for that darn ghost. She gets all the way to Taiwan. Yeah, she's like, hi, Anna Kendrick, I'm in Taiwan. They don't have an extradition extradition treaty with the US. Uh, fuck you, I don't care who you tell.

This is where I live. And then legitimately terrifying ghost Emily Yeah, pops out from under the dash of the car. It was horrifying. This would have scarred me for life if I saw this as a kid. Yeah, And it's like yeah, and so it's really satisfying because you get you get an interesting story with interesting characters that are fleshed out and good performances and and that both of the girls are interesting and not not stereotypes, not like because a cheerleader and Shelby is a kind of you know, spooky nerd and their friends end and like that's treated fine, and like, you know, you you get the sense that, oh, maybe um, Becca was using Anna Kendrick a little bit, but at the same time, like it worked out like they were like they were both completely rounded out teenage girls, which is not something you often get, especially not something you often get by male writers and directors.

And you're right, this could have been expanded, Like I the more you're saying it, like you're right, because Anna Kendrick had a whole thing going on with um her dad and her mom and Becca clearly like there was more to you know, Becca, um you know, was bilingual and like traveled and rich and all this stuff and like really kind of elegant and cool, Like I do want more of Becca? Yeah? It was, Um, it was interesting and different and not what I expected, and I was yeah excited, Yeah, a really pleasant surprise. Yeah it was. It was good and it did things that I was hoping it was going to do, and then it surprised me in other places.

I I think that this is I don't know if I've been this excited. I mean, because I had seen New Year's Day, so maybe I would have been this excited if I hadn't seen it twice or three times already. But I think this is the most exciting one for me of this series. Interesting. I'm it's going to be very you know in another At some point soon we're gonna do our rankings, and I am really curious where both of ours are gonna fall, because right now I have no idea where I would really rank everything.

I mean, this one definitely ranks very high for me. Yeah. It I'm trying to remember the name of the one from Masters of Horror Child, not fair Hair Child. Yeah, maybe it was it fair Jold. Yeah, it probably was.

So, Yes, this is to me feel similar in like tone and everything else to that one. I this was definitely my fair hair Child of this series, I can think, yeah, yeah, and it makes me kind of rethink rab Schmitt and think like, I don't know what else, what else can you do that you haven't done? Yea, it was just so competently done and just really restrained, and like I said, there was so like some of these little Boy, we might be talking about it with the next episode. Some of these feel so thin and so like inefficient and just so I don't know what you're what is this story and why are you telling it? If if you only have forty minutes and you can't tell this story in forty minutes, why are you doing this?

This one felt like, oh yeah, you got you got forty minutes worth of material to show me, and you're gonna slam it into my face. Thank you. It's interesting I'm looking at rab Schmant's filmography because he hasn't made much and after like I mean, Wrong Term was kind of a big breakout for him, but he didn't. He did Alphabet Killer, which we talked about before, is kind of it, kind of it done and it might have been a disappointment, I don't know, But after that he actually he moved to TV and the thing that he's worked the longest on it is a show called Your Worst Nightmare, which is on UM like it's it's a crime show that's all like, you know, a real event with reenactments and people talking. And it's just so interesting that that's where he went, because I think for most filmmakers it's the reverse.

They kind of start there and then go into film m But I mean, in a way, I like this. This is probably the best thing I've seen that he's done, and the format is so particular and limiting, and yet maybe that's something that's good for him as a as a filmmaker. Yeah, very fascinating. I don't know, all right, well, I definitely enjoyed it same same and uh, I I don't know. I wouldn't have ever suspected I thought that there was going to be something in this to make me go, yeah, I just just think to look forward to this at all and then once it because I'm like a Rob Schmidt not not a guy I love.

I've never heard anybody talking about this episode. And then and then as soon as Anna Kendrick showed up, I was like, oh Anna Kendricks, like, well, at least at least that's gonna be watchable exactly because you get a lot of mileage of just how naturally charismatic and likable shit is. Um. She is one of my go to's when I am reading and casting a book. Um, anytime it is a young woman who is like supposed to just you know, like where she's not overly physically described, like ninety percent of the time, in my mind, I'm like, Okay, that'll be Anna Kendrick.

It's either Anna Kendrick Lauren Ambrose circa sixteen under era, like one of the two of them. Always Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah, she's very she's very likable, and it's nice to see her being likable. And it's nice that she did one of these and she they gave her something to do like she Actually, there's just so many fucking setups in this I would like to talk to somebody about about expanding the script. There's so many setups like that, the swimming stuff, in the locker room stuff.

We didn't even talk about that. That is like a whole section of scenes in this movie. I'm writing in my head it is it is very I know what you did last summer, ESK. There's just so many like of that era of horror that you can pull out. It would be very satisfying to see a movie of this story.

Agreed. Agreed. I'm very surprised to say it, but yeah, completely, yeah, So there you go. All right, Well, everybody, I loved it. Ten out of ten.

You heard it here first, everyone, get get to it. Get your spirit box on. When next we meet, we're gonna be talking about echoes, echoes, echoes, echoes, echoes. Wait, Fritzie, what man, how are you doing here? Jesus, and you'd be discussing stopping the show.

And I just thought how disappointed all the kids would be. See I'm a child. I think I'll save the speech. Rummy, she's fucked. I'm ready, and the goddamn show must go on.

So let's get cracking, shall we. I'll drink bad hears to the girls who just watch. Aren't they the best? When they get depressed? It's a bottle of scotch plus a little jest, another chance to disapprove another brilliant singer, another reason not to move, another Vodkast singer.

I'll drink to that. So here's to the girls on the go. Everybody tries look into their eyes and you'll see what they know. Everybody die a toughs to that invincible lunch. The dinosaurs surviving brunch like hearing for the ladies to lunch.

Everybody right, Brie, brye rye, Bye bye,