175. Lisa the Loved One

Were you way media side, Well, I'm just good lookin start with it. By start, I'm a hungred man. I don't call pizza. I'll gold down your house everything. I'm going out Pizza bring you to say things your Welcome to another episode of The Feminine Critique.

I'm Emily, I am Christine, and on this episode number one hundred and we are going to be talking about two movies. It's an old fashion we pair two movies that have some things in common, and without really knowing, I would say these two movies actually have a lot in common. I was shocked. I say, yeah, what are the movies we're talking about? We are talking about this year's Frankenstein and two thousand and nine's The Loved Ones.

Mm hmm, you got it. So that's what a fifteen year gap. Fifteen year yeah, which is really wild that this Loved Ones came out fifteen years ago, because that does not feel like fifteen years ago. No. I remember when I came out.

I was really trying to in my mind and I think this, this still might kind of be true. I justified it wasn't fifteen years because I don't think it came to the States fifteen years ago. Right, it had like festival releases fifteen years ago, so this is when we were both deep and like releases and reviews and screener everything movie gend this was slightly difficult to find or to get for a minute, and then when it did become available, I think I had gotten struck by like the amount of hype around it, so I was like, Eh, I'll wait till it cools off so I can go into this. I did fifteen years, So I waited fifteen years. But I guess maybe I'm kind of glad I did.

I am very fascinated to talk about loved Ones with you because I did watch it, not fifteen years ago. I looked back and I found my old review on it, which was twenty twelve, so oh wow, but still a ways back. But it definitely was like a little bit after it had been around, and I guess it must have still had like I knew going in back then that it had all of this attention towards it. And again we're saying this people at home, maybe like what the fuck is the loved Ones? Because you weren't our friends in two thousand and nine.

The Internet community that we are a part of that we were a part of was very into this movie, and this movie was very much something that was like top of mind to a lot of the people we talked to. So I got to it. I don't know if I got to it later or what, but twenty twelve is when I saw it. And back then I remember just thinking like, I don't know if I'm seeing what everybody else is seeing, and so I always yeah, I just everybody loved this movie so damn much. And I remember I watched it.

I went back because I found like my thoughts on it, so I know how I felt, which was like, oh no, this director has a lot of promise. There's some really really good things here, but overall, there was something gnawing at me that will get into when we can, when we dive in. That just kept the movie from like fully working for me, and I wondered some fifteen years later or some twelve years later, I guess I was like, I, you know, the movie came up somewhere in conversation recently, I don't remember where, and it got me thinking like I should give that movie another chance, because I'm really curious how it will play to me today. And then when we decided to do Lisa Frankenstein. I don't know why I immediately, maybe I just thought of the pink connection.

I'm like, oh, you know what, this is a good chance to rewatch Loved Ones, and I think they have so much in common outside of pink. They really do. I was very surprised, and I was I wasn't sure if you had already seen The Loved Ones. I assumed you. I didn't want to blow my cover yet to say anything of how I felt or how I feel.

So that's why it was expert pairing. I know it really was. There were a couple of times I was like, what yes, Because, as I think we said off air, I watched Lisa Frankenstein first, and then I watched I did as well. So Lisa Frankenstein is available on Peacock today the Loved Ones. When I first have this brilliant idea, The Loved Ones was on TB, which, as everybody knows, is available to everybody and it's wonderful.

And then by the time I went to watch this movie, it was no longer on tub so I had to rent it on Amazon. Yeah, I rented it as well, but it was it. I was going to say it was worth it. I don't want to spoil it yet it might have been worth it. All right, Well, why we're gonna dive, and again we'll spoil both films are going to go into detail.

We will start with the one more people have probably seen recently, which is at least the Frankenstein, and then we'll take a little quick break before we come to the loved Ones. So, Lisa Frankenstein, Yes, we'll tell now. Obviously this movie comes loaded with a lot of things. I was gonna say, this is a lot to approach. Yes, that's why I'm making you figure out where to start.

So, Lisa Frankenstein. Big deal for me personally, I am a Diablo Cody super fan. Super fan. Jennifer's Body changed my life. United States of Tara changed my life.

I think Diablo Cody is one of the most fascinating and talented screenwriters of our time. I think she speaks to a unique perspective of oursh age of femininity. Love it lover. Terrified to watch this movie because you know you don't want to be disappointed by the person you like more than anybody else in the world. And so and so directed by Zelda Williams, who is Robin Williams's daughter, also weird and interesting.

So yeah, it's like also called Lisa Frankenstein, which is like, we're finally using the funny joke about Lisa Franken frank and Frankenstein. Like, so we're merging this colorful goth thing. It's a lot to live up to MLA. Yes, it's a lot. There's a there's big promises here.

Also set in the eighties. Also, yeah, a lot of things, A lot of things, A lot of things. Oh okay, So starring Catherine Newton. So again Catherine Newton, super fan ever since that fourth Paranormal Activity movie, which she's wonderful. Yes, I say yes to Catherine Newton.

Also also Cole Sprouse. I don't know if anybody recalls the fact that I watched all of Riverdale in about two months. Oh remember nine seasons? It wasn't nine, it was maybe like six A lot to watch in the short period of time. Long seasons.

They were twenty, like twenty two episode seasons. So I love Cole Sprouse, very big fan of him. He's also thirty something years old, so it's okay for me to say that even though he played a teenager in Riverdale, and he was a child actor. Was it pet and Pete? What was his thing?

No? So him and so Cole and Dylan Sprouse were the little kid in Big Daddy. They were also Ross's kid on Friends like Oh Sweet Life of Zach and Cody. Ah, that's the one I always I don't know all of the See, I'm the youngest in my family, so a lot of the even the stuff that was like aimed at us generationally, a lot of that I didn't watch. So that's why in my head, Pete and Pete and Zach and Cody are the same thing.

Like I know, there's probably like ten year gap between the two, but I just meshed them together. So no, I totally do that because my sister was younger, so I have a little bit of that actually. Yeah, like I got a few extra years in of knowing what was happening for the kids. So so yeah, that's Lisa Frankenstein. Do you have anything to add for you?

I So it's very funny because so this movie came out and I actually wanted to see it when it came out, I wanted to see it in the theaters I was going to and then we had a crazy rainstorm, so like theaters were close was that day and this came out in February. It didn't. I don't think it bombed, but I don't think it made much money. But apparently nothing makes money anymore, so that's not even a surprise. And it was one that I'm like, all right, I'll get to it.

I was what's the word? I was not sure how it would play, And it's funny. When I went to watch it, I thought to myself, Oh, should I see a friend and wants to watch it? And I said immediately no, because it's a lot of elements of things that for him, if it doesn't click, it's like for him insufferable. Because when you're doing eighty set and you're therefore like you're gonna pull in a lot of really like easy eighties jokes, and when you're doing like Diablo, Cody has a very particular method of like I am gonna write in a voice.

My characters are gonna speak in a voice. It is not kind of like clueless in that way where like it's not the way anybody actually speaks, but in this, in this world, it's how they speak, so you go with it. But if you don't go with it. It is very very insefferable, which I knew that would be always be what would happen with him? No, that's so interesting because that's wild that you say that.

Because Zach and I were talking about it. He didn't watch I watched The Loved Ones alone, mostly because of like scheduling, I just needed to watch it. But he expressed interest in watching this with me, and so I was like, Okay, I'll wait and we can watch it together. And he was talking about how the first time he saw Jennifer's body he really detested it. Yeah, and he said most of it was because of the dialogue, and I said, to a degree, I I this is all just to a degree, it feels a little misogynistic, at least from his perspective, because then he goes on to say, but you know, we watched it somewhat recently and I thought it was great.

And I was like, yeah, well the dialogue didn't change, you changed, so like it's it was always fine to me and you just had to catch up, my dude, And he was like, no, I get that. I think there's a lot of like heaviness and implication to the way that she chooses to make these characters talk, and I said, well, yeah, it's on purpose. They're not stupid. They say stupid things. But yet people because it's stupid things that were written by a woman coming out of often a woman's mouth, You're like, this is ignorant and bad and not good.

But it's just a different voice. And I compared it to Shakespeare, but like only in the sense that like a lot of times when you first start watching like a Shakespeare adaptation, like the for me, at least the first few, maybe even scenes, You're like, I'm having trouble following. Yeah, there's a lot, and then all of a sudden, for me at least, it clicks and I'm like, no, I get the cadence. I'm here. You have to recalibrate your ears and brain to accept I'm in a world where people talk like this and it's how they talk and eat.

Heather Is is one that another one that comes to mind because we like tried watching that years ago, and again, I love Heathers. I've seen how there's dozens of times over my lifetime, and I still will always go back to it and brand in twenty minutes in He's like I cannot do this. He's like, everybody is awful and I hate the way they talk and it's and he actually he also didn't like clueless, Like and I know, I'm not not doing this podcast a pile on my husband, who I love dearly and who respects women and all of these things. But it's very fascinating to me that, like, there is a certain it's a certain thing that you have to allow your brain to do in these movies, and it's and some people can't and it's not gonna work for them at all, and like I'm trying to think for me, that's kind of like I don't know a bad example.

But like Fast and the Furious movies, I get that they are dumb fun and that they make people happy and that's great. I just find them dumb and boring. And the chases are usually so ridiculous that there's nothing grounding anything. So I'm not interested, And I don't find the characters. For the most part, I find the most of them bland.

There are exceptions. Is it the fourth film with the fifth film where like you've got everybody in there and everybody's sexy and everybody's funny and great, like oh, oh we can work. I get it, but it took me five films to get there, and now I'm done. Like, there's certain types of movies that will work or not work. Musicals, right, you have a hard time getting into musicals.

I do not. Yeah, that was gonna be my personal contribution to this. Yeah, and so yes, fully, And what I think is interesting is for me, at least, I've been kind of static in those things that I have a harder time relating to. I think what it's interesting is for me talking to somebody who doesn't have an issue with that, who had an issue with Diablo Cody. It's really interesting talking to somebody who will admittedly say, like, no, I didn't like June Now, I didn't like the way anybody talked, and Jennifer's body was extremely greating.

The first time I watched it, I really didn't like it, and then to then watch it and be like, oh, no, totally, I get it. It's really funny. Megan Fox is really good in it. It's like, yay, you got it. You saw something like you were able to see the other direction of it.

I will never fault somebody for being like, hey, this isn't for me, because like you just said. That's like me saying to you, I can't believe you don't like that weird action movie, or you getting upset with me because I don't like musicals. Like we just don't like these things, and that's cool, But sometimes it's very clearly because of loadus something, and like it's fun to like kind of tease that out and maybe beat it a little bit and be like, hey, I came into this with ah the loved ones I would have in twenty eleven, I probably would have gone into that with some extra stuff that maybe would have hindered my enjoyment of it. And and like, I think we are always growing and changing, so it's cool to revisit stuff and maybe have a different reaction to it.

But yeah, if you aren't a fan of that. Dia Blo Cody Twang, this is another Lisa frankn Time's gonna be tough. It's it's I think it's just not gonna work for you if you can If you don't like that, it's almost like a parody of her yeah vernacular at times. Catherine Newton for real, sounds like she's doing a Megan Fox and Jennifer impression. Yeah, especially as the movie goes on, right as Lisa gets more psychotic, more kind of less moralistic, all those things it does, you could see that kind of that character kind of grow, I guess in that way.

Yeah for real. Yeah. The the thing for me that like when you know, obviously, Okay, so now it's twenty twenty four, so at this point doing the eighties is not Christine there. Eighties were like forty years ago now at this point, I know, and there is always that concern, I know, going into like an eighty set movie because you're like, all right, how easy the jokes are we gonna go for? Are we gonna you know it?

And at times they're still funny, but at other times they're just very like, oh, oh, we're doing that one. So that was in part something I was like, Okay, let's say we do this, and I think, well, we'll go with the details. But there was, like I will say there were there was there were two lines of dialogue that really stuck out to me that I'm like, I'm sorry, no, we did not say this in nineteen eighty nine. At one point when I think it's when Lisa is trying to like talk to the Frankenstein character and can't really get through him, and she says to him, what no reception? What did that mean in nineteen eighty nine?

We did? We barely even had cordless phones in nineteen eighty nine, Well, TV reception he had, Bunny ears, I don't know, we weren't using it that way, correct me. I don't, but I don't doubt that you're right to me, that doesn't sound like a thing, but like you know, I just I was just benefit of the doubting. The other one was like when somebody's like, I'm an ip, Like, I don't think we're talking about that back then, but anyway, those are Oh were we not? I really I thought that that wasn't familiar to me, that kind of what was it?

What is intuitive person? I believe, yeah, intuitive person, that kind of woo speak. I assume that was a deeply like late eighties way of like being spiritual or being like whatever that was. I feel like it's something I've heard people say, Like I'm not on TikTok, but people tell me about TikTok, and I feel like that's where I hear it. Oh wow, well I mean we are it is.

Time is just a circle. So it was in the eighties. I think maybe it did make a comeback. We're doing it now. Well, all this being said, would you like to give a quick plot and not sens of Lisa Frankenstein.

We probably should. We haven't done it in a while. I want to hear it. Yeah. Oh boy, So Lisa is first of all, I have so many questions, but let's just get onto this.

I feel like I'm gonna go on many tangents. But Lisa is a girl with a troubled past. Her mom gets axe murdered, which is really weird, and then her dad gets remarried immediately to this kind of terrible woman who has this really awesome daughter. But Lisa's really weird and goth and like not at all popular or normal seeming, and uh she something really weird happens and she there. The body of an old Victorian gentleman gets resurrected, I guess, and comes and sees her because she very Mary Shelley would visit his grave and talk to him, which is very cute, is actually and U Yeah, it's like a corpse thing and a love story and Frankenstein stuff and also the eighties.

Yeah, she and so where this is hard to talk about for some reason, Well you know why. I'll tell you why, because to me, there is a really odd progression in describing the plot and when things take a turn. Oh that's so interesting. I'm so excited to talk to you about the what do you what do you mean? Takes a turn?

Turn on this movie at any point. I never did, but there was a spot where I was like, oh, this isn't the movie I thought it was gonna be, and I wish it was that first movie I went up and down on it is what we're all saying. It starts and I'm like, okay, I'm I'm I know this. I might find like the left side of the one side of the brain being like, oh, like, can we get into it? You gotta gotta give in, gotta gotta gotta go for that language, go for the time, go for the colors, go for it.

And I could do that early on, and I was okay, I was like into it, and somethings were very funny, and I'm like, all right, cool, I'm liking Catherin Newton's great. This is good. I'm believing even her as an outcast. And then when where it turned for me was when the murder start and I'm suddenly trying to understand who Lisa is. Yeah.

So so when the murders start, is that when Carla Googino's character is murdered. Yes, yeah, so that's exactly when I was like, wait, what movie is this? So Lisa, Lisa and the creature as he's known, which is which is Cole Sprouse are like they're like they have this weird relationship and and they're like partners in crime kind of, and he's missing some parts of his body and he wants them hand ear penis you find out? So he Carla Gugino is the stepmom, and she's fucking awful and amazing in a fantastic way, one of the most so obviously she's terrible and she so she gets her come up and said they kill her spoiler. But that's not to say that's not what I expected to happen.

It's just when that happened, it turned the movie into something else, and I was like, do I is is this what I like? Do I like this anymore? I did? But it well, because Lisa is proves herself to be a psychopath. Yeah, when it happens that there is absolutely no remorse.

And I get it. She's an awful woman. She's an awful woman, and I I to speak of we're gonna talk about the loved ones. I don't mind that she is. I don't care that this girl is a murderer.

It's just that doesn't feel like what I was being set up experience exactly, because she's very much a wallflower in the beginning. She just you know, seems very shy. I doesn't really have friends. We find out, you know, her history is that, you know, her mother was randomly act murdered. We don't know why.

We never find out, like who this guy is that just randomly act murdered her mom. But like, so fucking yes, I kind of love that, And I don't know, it takes me back to like thinking through for a very long time our final girl or our final girl who returns her part two, Like it was always this whole idea of like she was, you know, good at heart, and she survived and she's been through a lot of shit, but you know, she's strong character and all that, and then that, you know, was a very simple way of looking at women. I guess in a way, Yeah, and I think a movie that I don't care for, but that I do think does one thing really interestingly. You go back to Rob Zombies Halloween too, and what he does with Laurie in that movie, where Laurie has survived the horrors of Rob Zombies Halloween, and I mean horrors in every which way because of that movie.

But when we meet Laurie and Halloween two, she is not like sad, scared, mourning Laurie. She has like a Charles Manson poster on her bedroom wall, which is a weird thing for a character to do, but also, well, you know, emotionally, surviving all of that is going to really fuck you up, and you're going to process that, and a lot of people process that very differently. And this version of Laurie instead gets angry and gets wild and parties and all this. Like that's completely believable and not even that unhealthy for somebody to handle a terrible thing like that. So there's a part of me but like, like, Okay, maybe that's what we're saying with Lisa, that this terrible thing happened.

She was in the room when it happened, clearly her and her mother. It seemed like that was the only relationship she had because her father's played by the dad from Stranger Things, playing just the same exact character in this movie. It works really well though, because, yeah, no, I think that's a smart thing to do when you are trying to establish like, Okay, I'm making a movie for a similar audience who's familiar with that, and I need to establish eighties and relationships. I'm just just played the same, same character, same exactly. Where can you borrow the clothing from that set and just bring it?

Like, will anybody know? Just do that? It's a smart way to translate this era to people that aren't really that are only familiar with it now through specific That's a really good point. Yeah, it's really smart. I actually didn't have any problems with like the eighties sishness of it.

It felt authentic to me in specific ways, but also really accessible. Yeah, so like I thought that was really cool. But yeah, that's a really interesting point, Like just plug and play as many people or things as you can into this, so like the average twenty year old can watch it and be like, yes, I understand. I agree. So Lisa kind of processing or coming through all that, I don't even like, would she still have been so eager to kill had she not watched her mother be killed in front of her.

I don't know. It's a solid point, and I don't hate I don't hate that characterization either, because you just made a really good final girl kind of thing. If you were to look at Lisa as the final girl or the survivor of that terrible slashing accident, she it is interesting to think that, oh, she's broken in a way that we didn't expect. Yeah, and that's cool. It is.

Yeah, I don't. While I was watching it, I didn't. I had a hard time. And it wasn't like, oh Lisa's mean, I don't like her. It wasn't that it was like, but we're talking now about murder, like murder that she is actively encouraging and participating in and with absolutely no remorse that it.

It just turns in a way that's like, oh, this is very dear. And maybe it's just that it's that I don't know that I've seen that arc of a character like that where the movie is acknowledging right and she even knows pretty quickly. She's like, oh, I'm not gonna survive this, Like we're not gonna have a happy ending. I just want to make sure we fuck before I die like it, and I love that staalistic like it's it's very believable to the time period, like in that like the world is ending goth eighties, but also now for the kids, now, I imagine there's a bit of like fuck it, get yours kind of and having like a young woman have that attitude was honestly like the main reason why this was like over the top good to me.

Yeah it was. It's really weird and as much as like I kind of felt like it was uneven, I did, Like that was my main critique of the movie. It felt uneven, and I wasn't wild about the direction, yeah, but like what it was doing, like the full package of it, Like I can't deny the power of this fucking story. Yeah. I think it's a good point about some of kind of the I think timing maybe is the word, because it does feel like you need like it needed something more like grounding in terms of like how many days is this happening?

For real? Okay? Yeah, right, because like mom goes away for a week and wait, is all of this happening over the course of three days before anybody knows she's gone like, and I think that kind of arc along with it of just not having like because you have montag you have several montages, which I'm which of course for me, of course, like it's an eighties movie, give me a trying on clothes montage and then reverse it so it's actually the creature doing trying on clothes montage. Cool, adorable, wonderful, But you have I guess she's a senior in high school, Like we should be talking about college, like we should be looking at prom, like all of these things. That would have, I think been a really easy sort of frame around things to give it just a little bit more structure that we just don't have anything.

Yeah, Yeah, that's one of the stronger I think that's one of the things that makes the opening super strong because like when we're establishing her relationship with Taffy, who is her stepsister, who is against an amazing so fucking amazing. Yeah, and what really again, what's really fun about this is you would think that this this stepsister character with this terrible, hateful mother would be this awful thing in Lisa's life, but she's like so supportive and sweet and understanding and like encouraging that it really adds this it like unexpected element to the whole story. And like when they're establishing those two characters and like how Lisa's kind of an outcast at school and she likes the boy that edits the literature mag Like I loved all that stuff and then we kind of pull it out of that reality and I missed it.

So yeah, that's a really good point. It like could have used an anchor like in the real world a little bit. Yeah, I think it would have helped, just to keep perspective straight somehow. But Taffy is so great's Eliza Soberano is the actress. Apparently she's like a huge deal in the Philippines.

Well, I can see why. She's charismatic as she yeah, oh yeah, so funny and gorgeous, like you know, and the character is supposed to be like a beauty queen and you buy it, like because she's also like gorgeous in that very eighties beauty queen way like where you completely like buy her. The way her face catches a light like she is one. And I think it also helps a lot because it makes because Lisa as a character understands that Taffy is great, like she like great, like like she understands, Oh, me and Taffy don't belong together, like I'm not hanging out with Taffy's friends who are And that's those scenes are great too. The way Taffy's friends are written is very to me, very funny, but like Lisa understands, like Taffy doesn't have to be nice to me, and she's really nice to me, and like and like don't you dare Like she says that the creature like you can't do not hurt Taffy like she will.

It's like she has this grounding of Okay, she's not a complete psychopath because she does have a connection. She understands, don't hurt Taffy even after she finds out. Well, I guess I'm trying to remember what happens when she finds out because I love this scene when she discovers Taffy and her crush are an item. Her reaction is so great because it's what I mean, because she's really going after him and saying, like, you love being cool, but you don't love cool girl, like you want to be cool cool? Yeah, you have to be a cool one, which I love that confrontation.

I love how she Oh, I guess it. Yeah, it was very It was that was that resonated, That whole speech resonated. It was fucking wild. So like, there is a part of this that is like you you're like, you're really just killing these people, but like, you know what, this is a heightened version. So yeah, kill the kill the dude that that that was actually because you're too cool, Kill the dude that grabs your your tit at a party when you're wasted.

Ye till the lady who's treating you like ship after your mom gets axe murdered. I kind of like it. Yeah, yeah, I guess maybe I just needed a better stairway to like accept that that's where we were going. I agree with one hundred percent. Once I got there, I was fine, but it was like falling off a cliff.

It was like, oh, wait, this is what we're doing. Oh yeah, wait, are we sure? Is this where we're going? Because it doesn't doesn't feel were for the character exactly. But like as much as I loved where we started and loved where we went, I guess there was just something connective tissue missing from me in the middle.

Yeah. Yeah again, yeah, And I don't know what would have done it differently, but yeah, there was something structurally I think that was just not there that needed to be to really like just make it cohesive. Yeah, for sure, And like I guess maybe that's splitting hairs. I guess, like, but while I was watching it, it didn't feel that way. While I was watching it, I felt like, oh, no, this could break my experience because there was a minute where I was fully in like almost in tears, how happy I was, how funny it was, how like excited I was, how good it was being and then it did that and I was like, oh and I could see some people maybe never getting it back, but like it really caused me to be like, am I am I enjoying this anymore?

And I don't like being taken out so much? Yeah, I wasn't. I watched this in two chunks, so watched half and then half the next day that I mean, it went fine. I do not know how it would have played differently if I'd sat down beginning to end watched it. I don't.

I don't know that it would have. Yeah, and it wasn't even I'm trying to remember. I feel like, no, it was past the mother dying because it wasn't like a specific like oh, Act one ended, No, I moved on to Act two and paused. So I do I mean I could say that much of it. I'm like, oh, well, maybe it's because I broke it up, but I don't think so.

I think there was I liked this in the end. I enjoyed it, but I occasionally fought myself watching it with am I enjoying this? No? I am, okay, we're good. Wait all that and that?

So this wasn't and I you know, I have not. I don't know that I've rewatched Jennifer's Body since it came out. If you can believe that that's so exciting, I should rewatch it. Yeah, one time I watched it twice in the same day, like one after the other. Well, it's funny because with Jennifer's Body, I remember like, it's one that the more I have thought on and this isn't even like again.

Recent years have really repositioned that movie. I think for a lot of people who were very hard on it when it came out, and when it came out, I liked it. I didn't love it, but I loved aspects of it, and it was one that like, as I have thought more on it over the years, I've been like, no, like I really like how it did this. I really like how it did that, So I should go back to that. And I wonder if all have a similar feeling with this.

I think I will. As I was watching it and like the jokes were like hitting as hard as they were. There were a couple things that I wish I had written them down because I totally forgot but I laughed so hard at a couple things and I was like, oh, I can't wait to rewatch this, And that's a fun feeling when you're watching true, So like, no, oh, I'll be delighted by this again when I see it. That very true, Very true. I think a lot of again, like just Taffy in general on her Lyne deliveries and how she can give a how she gives advice or compliments that her insults but totally doesn't mean to have them be mean, and you know the way she's delivering them that there's nothing mean about what she is saying about how she is saying it, but it comes out wrong.

Like a lot of that was was very brilliant and was such a good marriage of a good character on paper who is cast with an actress who just really pops off the screen. Yep. And I felt like everybody kind of was there. Like again, Catherine Newton was really great. She had such deadpan, weird delivery of somethings, which so and that's something that I think is very important because and we'll talk about this when we gets the loved Ones the like, look, I was, I was a weird one high school, but you were probably you were a weird one high school.

Oh right. I was like the craft level weirdo in high school. Absolutely, see I was. I don't know, I don't I have, I don't know who. I like cinematic avatar for high school was because you have to understand, like I was, I was not goth, but I had friends who were goth.

But I was also like theater kid, academic, like band kid, like badminton champion like I was. I was, I was, I was a lot. I would have been friends with you in high school. I know that that's not like a stretch. I know we were not blowing minds, but like I was also in theater and drama club, like we would have one hundred percent been friends.

And people would have been like, why are you friends with Emily? And I'd be like, she's kind of a nerd. She she's great though. No, No, that was like my friends who were on Crewe in theater instead of like who were like all like those kids who like everyone's like, wait, you're not supposed to be friends with the actors, but they were friends with me. It's and so and but also like I was also you know, I still am like I've always been chubby, like and so whenever there is the outcast in movies, I always go back to my fat carry problem.

How it has been over fifty years now since Stephen King wrote Carrie, who is on the page overweight, that he is canon in the book Carrie has Yeah, go back and read it. Like if they talk about like she is not, she's not gigantic. But in the book Carrie does come off as plump and having bad skin. She is not. And how many fucking films now have we had?

We have had Carrie, We have had Carrie the TV show you know you know who played Carrie and the TV show Christine do you know? I don't remember? But probably no, let us let us get there. Let us get there. A good actress known for a genre film?

Is her known for? It would be a one word title film. She was also in I think one of your favorite Masters of Horrors episodes, which one is it? Laurie Petty No Carrie starring Lori Petty. I was just watching Field of Dreams.

So she's not feel the dreams. I'm sorry, leave their own, leave their own. She's very front of mine. Oh please, Well, she's front of mine for me every day. Because we named our cats Dottie and Kit after like their own I thought.

Every time they yelled one of their names, I laughed, and kids, both of their voices are completely that. So Dottie in her head has like a deep gun ofty of his like very quiet voice, and Kit is just this like scraggly, like you know, always sounds like she's got something in her throat that she was like partying the night before, and it's just like always you know, insecure, but treasu really hard. Yeah, that's those are our cats. No who I am? Okay, I'll just say it, so tell me.

Angela Bettis, Oh oh yeah, I did know that. I did know that. Everyone. Angela Bettas who probably weighs less than my left arm. Angela Bettass Carrie, she is a not just a slender woman, she is a petite woman as well, very much.

And not to say that petite women don't have their own struggles, but I think the point that you're making is that we just always keep going to very skinny carry. Perhaps perhaps maybe there's more to explore if we were to have a different body, attle bit, because you know what, we also had again, Chloe Grismrantz. Oh and on Broadway, we've had two carries and both have been skinny. So just say it. I honestly didn't even know that.

I'm surprised that more people don't make that point, because it's completely true. It's a whole different story as a chubby person myself or historically an overweight gal. Like for fucking real, my dude, Like that was my high school experience to or junior high more so, I was the big girl that got picked on, Like it's it carries a different story if it's if it's not just that she's a weirdo. Yeah, all that being said, so it's it's always something a chip on my shoulder of whenever a movie is about like the weird girl. And then you're like, all you need to do is give that girl eyeliner and she's gonna be sexy.

Like so even that, like, again, Katherine Newton is gorgeous. I believe Katherine Newton as a weirdo outcast in my movie, Like she absolute sells it. She does the thing where and again Sissy SpaceX does too. I'm not coming after her, but that there's a very much a sense of like it's not just about being like having the right body for high school. Like Catherine Newton, just as Lisa, she doesn't say the right thing she talks.

She has a weird way of speaking, she doesn't react quickly like yeah, no, if Katherine Newton was in my class, like she'd be the girl I would have to fee I would feel like I'd have to talk to you because I could tell nobody else would talk to her. Yeah, it's it's even within the movie at least one character comments on how off putting she is, And I really like that characterization of weird just like yeah, why, like because we've all known that person that's like, oh, I can't I can't believe this is what you're choosing to say right now. Right right, Like you don't have to like nobody would know you're weird if you just didn't speak or didn't wear those clothes. Like I have known those people because again, like as another weirdo, like I have often felt like I needed to be nice and like friends with with people that just didn't weren't otherwise fitting in.

And there is that sense sometimes of like you look at somebody, you're like you could pass tend to use a term that is very inappropriate this place, but you understand what I'm saying, Like no, like the I have had people express that to me before, like oh, you know, if you tried a little bit harder, you can really fit in. And it's kind of like, I don't know, my dude, maybe I don't want to try. Yeah, Like if I was looking at school, if you opened up a yearbook and I was looking at people, like it's like the people that you like wouldn't know were weird in a photo, right, or you wouldn't guess that they didn't fit in. And like Lisa as like you you know, like she really does sell it, and it's it's a lot of credit to her because that is something you have to approach knowing I can't because she's also like delivering obviously like very very stylized dialogue and it has to come out a certain way, and it has to.

And also I think again helps that you have Taffy as this very very clear polar opposite to her to make everything she says sound that much stranger. Mmmmmm, that's true. I do think. I know we're talking about this for so long, but I do think it bears mentioning that Lisa Kainda dresses like whatever at the beginning, and then once the creature shows up, he pushes her to dress like very like fancy goth and she ends up like taking a bunch of clothes from Taffy, like she doesn't even have those clothes. Well, it's like Taffy's Halloween costume that she doesn't wear anymore because she looks but she's so funny.

It's shit like that where she's like so innocently unaware of just how like her level of perfection. Like she's like, oh, you know, Dad, if I don't get home by a certain time, he's gonna be worried. And her liter it's her, it's Lisa's literal father. And she's like no, I don't know that. Yes, what a good movie.

Yeah, there's a lot good here. Again for me, this is not like a ten. I don't know where it falls, but like it was like a yeah, I enjoyed it like with a with that kind of up speak to it. But it's definitely a recommend and I think so much of what we've said. If you're if you, if you're still listening, you know if this is going to work for you or not.

And again to go back to Jennifer's body, if if you eventually got to see the light there, then like no, no, no, give this one a go, because get there faster. But also if you know, like this is not that you just can't deal with needle drops and this kind of dialogue, then no, this just this movie was made for a lot of other people who are going to enjoy it a whole lot more and just don't take that away from them, is what I would say. Yeah, cool, anymore to say about list Frankistan, I don't think so. I will be watching it and I'm sure that I will dig into the parts that I love and maybe learned to love the parts that I didn't love so much. There you go, like like the part, and if and if you don't love the parts so much, then you just find somebody with those parts and go to a tanning bed or and just attach them again, right times, Yeah, accurate?

All right, we will take a quick break and come back to talk about the loved ones. You know what Norma calls her scary white? Do you love it? That's not my name? Doesn't anybody?

Yeah? We get it? Bright? Why don't you remember I'm carry bright? Is it any harder to see than goddamn told scatholic that?

You know? Dump it ches? Doesn't any funny thing that I can hear? I especially when I've got I'm screaming in my ear. Hi everything they mocked me and pushed me around to act.

And if I had a wish, God, I wish these stuff, the movies. I wish these sometimes tho hedred is enough control God Home. They hurt me. My must have suffering? Is love soul?

They hurt me. I could, I'd bring them off, counting their knees. I'd make them sorry for them up for teasy cat. All right, So I will spare everybody from a very bad Australian accent. As we go back to two thousand and nine.

No, that was bad. I'm sorry, I should be. I liked it. No, send me to a people colony like Australia was in a long time ago the Loved Ones. So I had seen this the laws we established twelve years ago, you had not written directed by Sean Byrne, who went on to do The Devil's Candy.

Which did you see The Devil's Candy? I did, and I liked it. Okay, I similar and I think so similar in a way that made me. I remember watching The Devil's Candy, like with the intention of writing about it, and as I was watching on a certain point, I just like stopped thinking I was gonna do that, just realizing like this one was perfectly fine. But I don't.

I'm not a metal person, Like I know this is shocking to everybody, but I'm I'm you know, I'm not what you would call a metal head. So it felt like I just like there was a disconnect to me and it, and I was like this, but I can tell this is good. I just I'm not interested in this in a certain way, Like there are things in that movie that I feel like are very much connecting to and it's not just for the music, Like, there's other aspects of that movie that I think are speaking to people who've had certain experiences or interested in certain things. And between that and this, I'm like, I feel like Sean Byrne is a very talented filmmaker and probably a very cool guy. And if I was, like somehow I ended up sitting next to him at a dinner party, very quickly, he would like, see who was sitting on the other side of him, and if they had things to talk about, Cause I feel like him and I just don't have that much in common in certain ways of interests.

But interesting, yes, yes, which might suggest a little bit of certain ways I feel about the loved Ones. But I am very curious because I would not have expected you to apply it to this movie as well as The Devil's Candy. Yeah. Oh okay, so let's again we're gonna spoil this movie just because we kind of have to in order to talk deep about it. Can you start?

I was gonna say, do you want me to synops? Yes, I do? Oki Doki. So this movie, it's a rather simple premise. There's this boy he tragically his dad died in a car accident similar to he was in the same space as his parent when his parent died.

Like, so that's he's he's not doing well. Let's just say that he has a girlfriend that he really likes, but he is not doing well. Then this very pretty yet weird girl says like, would you like to go to prom? And he's like, no, I'm going with this girl that I'm clearly in a relationship with and she's like whatever, cool, And then and her not too great dad kidnaps him and kills his dog. Spoiler, but like, you should know that if you're if you and then kidnaps him for his daughter, who he has a questionable relationship with.

Yes, and uh, torture really bad, really disturbing. I would say you were not aware. But here's the distinction I will make. This was actually almost worse for me. It wasn't graphic visually so much as just graphic like concepts that like deeply disturbed me.

So if you're not into that, maybe skip this. Yeah, and then uh, as I like to end these hilarity ensues it It is a very kind of thin. There are other things going on, but at his core, it's like, we kidnapped this kid and we're torturing him for reasons and it's gross and he's trying to get away, So like it's that. Yeah. Oh, and we've done this before with like a dozen other boys that are in the basement, which I didn't see coming.

I truly didn't. I did not see any of that that like that people under the stairs, very very upstairs. Yeah, did not see really loved And it ties some other characters into like the main story. Yeah, two others, because we find out the one of those boys is the reason Brent gets into the car accident in the opening of the film. Yep, because that boy is standing in the middle of the road and Brent swerves to miss him and then kills his father.

And that boy or I think it's that boy. I don't know if it's intended to be, but it feels like it's supposed to be, is also the brother of a girl who Brent's best friend is taking to prom yes, who is also not doing well. It was not doing well, yes, the So one of my issues with this movie then and now, and I'd forgotten it was an issue until I'm watching this. I'm like, clearly, we're in a small town, like we're near the outbat or in the outback, like it's Australia, but it seems like it's dirt roads. Cannot be a gigantic school, cannot be a gigantic town based on a lot of factors we're seeing.

How is it that there's like twelve teenage boys that have gone missing in this basement and nobody has connected the dots of oh yeah, they all talked a little of the day they disappeared. I do agree with that, and you you are not wrong. But I was really okay to just live within the confines of the story because there were You're completely valid, though, I just did not care good, which I guess is like best case scenario. Completely No, no, no, I agree if if because this is a well made film. I think this because I am of mixed opinion on it because the problems I had twelve years ago, I just came back to me immediately when I watched it.

It was the same reaction. Yeah, because I felt them like no, like there's a there's some There's one thing that I think is he does great, which is he manages to your lead character is Brent, and we don't know much of like he's just he's a high school guy. Like he doesn't talk that much, but you can tell from the beginning like he is when Lola asks him out. He's very nice for a teenage boy to say no. The way he says no is like very like, Oh, like another boy might have been meaner about that, or might have been like less of her.

Yeah, yeah, like, but he's just very He's like, no, I'm sorry, I have a girlfriend. I'm taking her, like and just like that. Okay, so he's he's not a dick, which he's a rarity. That's just not the type of that is interesting to point out because there is never an effort to like vilify this kid, to like make you think he deserves it or no, Yeah, maybe Lola's right. Look, you can agree with Lola without anybody having to do anything else.

She's She's her own special snowflake of a character I can't wait to talk about. But there was no need to make this boy anything but empathetic, you know, yeah, and you feel because I mean, he's in a really shitty situation, but he is surrounded by characters that clearly love him. Yeah, which I think goes a long way. Like he has a very sweet relationship with his girlfriend, Him and his mother are clearly in a very frustrating place because of what's happened, but like his mother loves him and his best friend like that character and that character's little mini story where he's taking this goth girl out to the prom. And again, this girl, you know, is kind of like just sort of like on the you don't know exactly, like she just seems kind of like the bad girl.

But then you learn like, oh, no, like her brother is missing. She's still really upset about this. She's channeling this in different ways, but like the way this boy treats her is very like kind where you're like, oh, and his friend's like kind of a do fis? What are you sweet? Like?

Is there's something about that that I feel like is really kind to these characters, And I really appreciate that. Yeah, you're hitting on some stuff that I think really makes this be a real movie, not just like a tortury ex exploitation thing that we were doing in the late two thousands. Yeah, I mean we lived through it, but it is it's like this this like it's like all feels like butterfly like effect type shit, like the the like power of the terrible things that Lola and her father does and how they affect everybody in this wavefe way. But then like the empathy and the kindness that they're able to show and how that kind of radiates out as well is very like touching and like makes it be like have themes and be a story, which is so exciting it is.

And that's why for me the other thing that just kind of like gnaws at me. Oh, it's it's Lola. I don't get her. I love her. She's she's the worst she is.

Now I will say, how were there not more Halloween costumes of Lola? Because it's so easy. I know, a pink dress, paper crown, drill done. I like, look, I might, I just might? Could yeah do it?

Yes, it's she was awful. She was cartoonish. She was disgusting, uh, and I loved it. Like, why why not if we're gonna do like one of these awful exploitation, tortury things, why not have it be like an unhinged girl. And obviously there's a deep argument to be made that like she was abused and groomed and turned into this, and it's like, Okay, then I feel bad for her, But I was not presented with anything other than full agency, like she fully knew what she was doing and was into it.

Yeah, and like probably did this to her mother and relishes what's going on. I want to give in. I want her to be just pure psycho and like, isn't it fun to have like what's what's the character's name in Wolf Creek? Oh yeah, yeah, I thought of wolf Creak a bunch too. Oh yeah, And apparently like the dad was offered to John Jared, who's like, I'm not doing that again, Like I can't just always play that character, but I there's something to be said of, like imagine that character as a woman, like sure, okay, cool, And that's a little bit of Lola where it's like, yeah, she is clearly insane and she has been enabled and that's all great.

I just have a hard time reconciling the Lola from like when she asks print to the dance and you just you're introduced to her as this Carrie White esque figure, as this like oh you know low like oh that what's that girl's name? Like, oh yeah, yeah, that awkward girl. She's really quiet, and like this is who she really is, And I just I don't buy the two like, I don't. I don't know if I believe that this girl is bad and it kills me cause I want to because I think it could be awesome if I did. I that's interesting, I because so often, like male psychopaths or serial killers or whatever are presented as super like charismatic or just like that awkward, creepy guy at the bus stop or whatever, and like and then it's like, oh, they go fully mask off on hinge.

And I thought there was like an equality to that, to that almost cartoonish level of villain that she became. I was like, you know, this is good because this is what, like you've said, the Wolf Creek counterpart would do. Yeah, and they were. There was never like a backing away or like a feel bad for her because she's lonely, or her because her dad molested her. There was so much more going on there that they did not fully get into.

I don't know. It really did work for me, but again, everything you say is totally fall No. I wish I wish I got over that hump. I really do, because I think there's so much good The ending of this film, the last like ten minutes of the Car of Low Leg getting smacked by the car and then crawling that shot of her, like the way that shot is positioned, and her just get like a little dot on the bottom of the screen getting closer and it's her legs sticking the other way. I love that shit so much.

I could see why if you saw this in a festival, like watching this at midnight with a group of people, like this would be so fucking exciting and I would be cheering and I would be like, yeah, like, but I just I wish I could just get past the snagging thing of kind of like trying to reconcile. And again, as I'm saying this, I think it is like similar to how I felt a little bit about Lisa and Lisa Frickenstig, and I'm like, I don't know that I believe her going from this to this extreme so quickly because they're just takes something to do that. And I'm like trying to like look inward now and try to figure out, like do I feel that way about I'm trying to think of like a good movie that a movie that does that two men like and all.

I'm thinking of like Reanimator, a Little Shop of Horrors, but it's like, now those are progressions, they're not quite the same, like because I don't want to be, you know, feel that way of like, oh, well, it's a woman, so she needs more. She should there should be more work done to get her from this point to that point, because otherwise it feels like it's somebody slapping something on a character to make her come across this way without doing the work of me believing that the same woman could be this shy wallflower but then also, you know, be lobotomizing men in her basement. I don't know, is that is that my problem? Is the question? Well, I don't know if that's necessarily your problem at all.

But like I guess to kind of circle back to something that I hinted at, is maybe if I saw this in twenty eleven, I wouldn't have responded as positively to it. I think maybe because I do want a little bit more from my female characters. I want them to be more thoughtful. I want them to be if you're bothering to do it, do it right. Like so many peep screenwriters can't even be bothered to throw a woman with any type of substance into their script period.

So like if you're gonna do it. I want, like something good. But I think modern Christine is kind of like, yeah, yeah, just let the pretty girl kill the guy in like right, right, because I've seen men do it and we don't question it, So give me the chick doing it. That's a great point. And I think that's just kind of where I'm at, Like I've been so frustrated with modern movies that, like, when you give me anything, no matter how simplistic, I'm like, yeah, okay, I haven't seen this, this is rad.

Let's do it. Yeah, and like, yeah, you're right, because I keep wanting to say, like, but in American Psycho, he's fully charming and then he turns and kills people really bad, but he is quite frankly like he's a very outward narcissis. And from what we see from Lola, she just does seem to be like a quiet girl. Yeah, and which is which is I get what you're saying, a bigger leap from going to be a quiet girl to a murderer. But I believe she has that in her.

I'm glad you do. I love talking to you. I love talking here to you. You're my favorite person. I love talking about movies.

This was a good double feature suggestion. That's a good double feature suggestion. Look at us. I know, you know, we don't put an out episodes often, but when we do, people we make them very hitch. That's right.

Yeah, Well you have anything else about about the Loved Ones? I think not that much. I think I think it is interesting that this is so short, and I I you know that I always appreciate a movie that, especially a horror movie like this, that should be like get in, like there shouldn't be a lot of downtime in a movie like this, especially because it is like the course of six hours, right, this is a one night film. Oh, which again it really works. It's tight.

Yeah, And yet there's a part of me that I'm like, well, if your movie was only eighty minutes, you could have done somehow. You could have squeezed in three more minutes for me to for me to get from Lola at school to Lola. No. I get that, but I do feel like personally there was a bit of a build every time she seemed to be more into something, and it would surprise me, like how willing or how like excited she was to be awful, And I and I felt like that for me was a sort of escalation. That's fair, that's that's a very good point, because at first it does you do kind of left to wonder, especially the way they film her putting on her dress and her dad like hearing at her.

You kind of do wonder like how present is she? Like how much of this is? And then as it goes and she's delightedly taking part in it, it's kind of like, oh no, she's fully fucked up, Like I don't know. It's so, I'm gonna go google your article that you or your blog post that you originally wrote about it. I'm curious.

I want to read and think on it and think on twenty twelve era me. Yeah, yeah, I love her. I loved her back then and I love her now. Yeah. Yeah, shatter moments.

Yeah, it's it is still. Yeah. I still wish I could like this movie more. And I wonder if maybe in another twelve movie, twelve years, I'll all finally shake it and be like, okay, no, I see it now, I'm good. I'll put a calendar note, put a calendar note, and twelve years for us to do this again, all right.

In twenty thirty six, when we will be in our fifties, Uh, will that be the girl? That be the year? It might be? Because I do and I do want to say, like, if you have not seen The Loved Ones, seek it out, go find it because it it is a really interesting remnant of that era, because it feels in style of that era of independent Australian horror on the heels of Wolf Creek, on the heels I saw like all of the things happening in horror at this point. And yet also like right when remakes are huge, so here's a movie that is not a remake.

That again is probably one of the reasons why a lot of our community really really dove into it. It very much comes from that era, but you can see where it is I think a cut above a lot of what else came out then. Like it is well made, it is well acted. Most of these like the kind of movie like I feel like a lot of times when I look at movies from this era of this genre, when you go to the IMDb, like most of the actors like don't have pictures type thing, like no, these are all working actors primarily in Australia. They're great, Like this is a young cast that like is given enough where there everybody is a character.

The goth girl that gets taken to the prom is there is a world in her, like I would take a movie about her just dealing with her trauma. Like, there's a lot of good here, and it's scary and it's funny. It's a good like. I don't you wouldn't call this a horror comedy, but boy does it have a lot of like very uncomfortable awkward laughs to be found here. Yeah, it's strangely like fun like, but like, I think a lot of that maybe is because of the pacing.

The pacing is really yeah, just like, yeah, you're moving through the night very rapidly. So maybe that form of momentum makes it feel extra watchable. Yep. And that's the best way that these types of single night things can be. That that feeling of like rushing towards something is just really exciting.

Yeah, and it doesn't. I mean, there's certainly movies that you can like call to mind, like we said, people under the Stairs. There is certainly a Texast chainsaw element to the Dinner Party, but this feels very original, and I think Devil's Candy does too. Like, yeah, this is a filmmaker who has his own eye, who clearly watched a lot of the movies we did, but is not repeating things like his shots feel fresh. Is the way he's staging a lot of this.

It feels like, oh, this is new, Like I want him to make more movies because I I know eventually he's gonna find the subject matter that will work for me, and I'm gonna be like, see, I knew he had an m to really please me all along. I knew exactly I was there. Fully, I definitely was super impressed with it because, like you said, it's not it does kind of have a classic this time period story or like like thrust and even that like it wraps up as the sun is rising on this desolate stretch of it feels like so many things, but like manages to definitely be its own things, and time has proven that that's still very true. Be completely. I am now watching this from the future, and it still feels in that time period, things still didn't feel like this.

This still feels slashing good. Yeah that's cool. Yeah good time. Yeah. Worth four dollars rental on Amazon Prime.

Absolutely, here you go have my four dollars there you go. All right, Well that was the loved ones. I don't know that we have any idea what we're gonna do next. Nope, well we'll talk. We'll talk, We'll talk off Mike and surprise all of you with whatever that may be.

In the meantime, Christine, where can people find you? Where can they buy your books? You have had some interesting writing in places recently, have you not? I don't know. You can just google my name, which is Christine make Peace, and that's the easiest way to find stuff.

Yeah, I'm not doing much these days. I get it. I get it. Similar Yeah, all right, Well you can find my stuff at dadly dollshouse dot com. And if you want to engage in any way, maybe you can find us on Instagram at Feminine Underscore Critique Underscore Podcast, sure I think, yeah, that's where we are, or on Facebook at the Feminine Critique group.

Yeah. Yeah. We just keep lamenting the lack of ability to have long conversations with all of you, but know that we appreciate to you. If you have listened to us, just talk about how great each other is. Yeah, that's true, and you're great too.

Everybody that's right, all right. So with that being said, we hope you put on your best paper crown and plug in your drill and make sure it charges before you have your dinner. Goodbye. I wanna be loved by you, just you, nobody else but you. I wanna be loved by you alone.

Who do I wanna be kissed by you, just you, nobody else but you. I wanna be kissed by you alone. I couldn't aspire to anything high than to feel the desire to make you my own father father, But they don't do. I wanna be loved by you, just you, nobody else but you.