Thesis

We'd m I guess for my show, it's normally just Hindi films for the most part. They're they're the language that has been covered on this show. I think primarily if it isn't English, has been Hindi or of the I guess Indian subcontinent, because I don't think I've ever covered a Spanish language film on really. Oh and not for any particular reason, not for anything that I would say is like, oh, I don't like to watch movies with subtitles. I watch everything with subtitles now because I'm going deaf, I feel like like the rest of us.

But yeah, Spanish language is not something I would normally gravitate towards, just because again I don't have that in road to it, right, Does that make sense? I guess so. I mean with Spanish language films, I mean, you're talking about so many different countries, but when it comes to like South American stuff, it's not like, you know, oh, this is the hot new film from Peru or something, right. You know, it's like, of course, Brazil has a huge feline industry. They're not speaking Spanish though, you know, Mexico has a pretty strong film industry, but Spain itself.

I mean, they've gone through so many rough times that you know, there are some classes out there like one It's a two month Blind Dead, and those types of films, all the Paul Nashy films and things. But you know, the so many spaghetti westerns were shot in Spain, but they weren't being presented to us in Spanish. But yeah, I guess it's probably only maybe over the last thirty years, probably really around the time that thesis came out, that you started to see a real resurgence, because as I was watching it, I kept trying to think of other Spanish language films from that time, because I want to say, there's one where it was about a blind girl, and then there was one about like it might have been the same movie.

She was like, there was something to do with like corpses and anatomy. In fact, it might have been called an anatomy, but I'm not sure. I just I barely remember the cover of it. Interesting, yeah, you know, we you know, because we talk about Indian films a lot on the show, and then I have Bollywood Cinema Club, and there haven't even been like American remakes of Indian that I could point to, was like, oh, that was an Indian film that's being remade in the States in English. But what's weird is like one of the first big Spanish language films being remade came out this year with that Woody Harrelson movie Champions, because that's based off of a Spanish language film aptly titled compionis yes, fucking shocker, but it was.

It was surprising because when I looked that movie up, I like watched the trailer for it, and I was like, this doesn't seem like a like an English film, this seems like a remake of something. And then yeah, it's like it's a remake of a Spanish language film. Almanabar's second film, Open Your Eyes, that was Vanilla Sky. And then I wanted to say there's another and trust me as great, great movie. I have yet to try Vanilla Sky because I have no desire why.

I can't imagine. I couldn't imagine why. It has nothing to do with the fact that it's not a great movie. Yeah it's yeah, I have seen Vanilla Sky, but yeah, yeah, I guess yeah, we never covered it. I don't know what I would have watched it for because oh, it was a Tom Cruise movie.

It was huge. Yeah, it's a Tom Cruise movie, all right, and Cameron Crowe and they're hot off the heels of Jerry McGuire. They're reteaming and they've got hot Penela Peak crews in there. And I'm trying to think there's another one that just came out a few years ago that was also a remake, but I think that was a South American film. I'm surprised that nobody's remade Time Crimes yet.

I don't know if you've seen that one. Yeah, that would have been the last any Spanish language film that I would have had. Anyone suggested me was Time Crimes, which I think I don't even think I've ever even seen. I know why, I know what it's about, but I don't think i've ever seen it. Or somebody covered it for the site a long time ago.

I adds, that's what I've heard. It came out in kind of the same time as what's that the movie about the box, the time Traveling Box one, you know what I'm talking about, where they I forget what it's called. That's that same thing where it's like a low budget time travel oh primer. Yeah, primer. That's what it is.

Yeah, the one with the box Yeah podcast. Jesus Christ speaking of movie podcast, I'm the host of the Culture Cast, Christash, You're the show that you're listening to, and I'm joined by my good friend, the host of the Projection Booth. It's not Mike White May anymore, but hey, Mike White is joining me. He's Mike White. See tom by en Tomby en um And on this episode.

If you can't tell that we're gonna be talking about a Spanish language film, we are and we're gonna be talking about nineteen ninety six is Spanish language film that you can find right now on YouTube, and I'll put the link in the description. Nineteen ninety six is Alejandro Almanabars. Tsis then that I'll boil for life Goddess Oriental number of mort Television mart Mario Fierro Contrati them is. The film was released in nineteen ninety six and it stars on A Torrent filet Martinez, Eduard Noriega and Zabia el Oriaga and an A Torrent plays Angela who is starting her titular. Tsis about a violence in cinema and in the family, and she uh, well, she stumbles upon what might be a snuff film maybe possibly.

Her friend Kima helps her find out all about the world of underground pornographic and violent film, and along the way we meet Bosco, a young man who definitely doesn't resemble Patrick Bateman in a lot of ways. But hey, it's definitely non intentional or anything, and it's all set off by the death, possibly murder of her film professor Professor Figa Rowa. So, Mike, I am going to kick it to you first. When was the first time you saw Teesus And what did you think then? And if you didn't see it before, now, what did you think watching it for this episode?

I know that I've seen the movie before. It was it did make a splash in the kind of indie film scene, probably when it came out or the next year, ninety seven, So I probably saw it ninety seven, ninety eight something like that, probably rented it, maybe on DAVD. It might have still been the VHS clinging on to that, And I didn't remember a lot about it. So watching it again now all these years later, it was basically like seeing it for the first time. I just remembered liking it and so when you asked me to be part of this, I was like, oh, yeah, I'd love to revisit that film because I can't remember it.

And I thought it was great. I had a great time watching it. I love how the movie starts in darkness, and that we have darkness, you know, what we see versus what we don't see, and her whole thing of listening to violence rather than watching the violence, and how she prepares herself to watch the violence. And then there's even a scene later on where they're in the dark completely and you just hear their voices again. It's a really nice kind of motif that we have going through this movie.

I thought it was really well made, very well written, pretty darn well acted. I thought it was really firing on all cylinders. I'm curious to hear what you thought of this one. I had never seen it. I had never heard of it.

I ended up programming this month, so I just kind of went out there and did some research and found the Spanish language movies that are I guess some people would think have any value in being watched, and that's probably a lot of them. But this is a rather narrow swath is more what I'm getting at So this is the horror movie of the month, and so I was excited for that because, again, as someone who's a fan of horror movies, I again I always know that horror and comedy are two genres in filmmaking that especially in warn international whatever the hell you want to call it film, they the perspective that they bring is often very uniquely rooted in the culture, and sometimes in comedies case, it's really hard to appreciate the comedy in non English language films because there's cultural barriers and delivery and subtitles are kind of the worst in non English language comedies that they don't help, like I mean, we've talked about it before.

But horror movies, on the other hand, because they operate in a different language, and sometimes they don't even need the actual spoken language. They just operate in the language of film. It's it's it's much more interesting and they can get away with more and they tend to be even more successful. So I was excited to watch it, and I think I agree with you completely. It is just it's a it's a weird movie because it's it's a horror movie, but it's it's kind of treading the line.

It reminded me more of I'm sure we'll talk about this. It reminded me of Blowout a little bit again, you know, it reminded me of I mean again, there's like there's like a not found footage, but there's this voyeuristic aspect to this movie that reminded me a little bit also of something like a videodrome or again, because it's asking questions about what a is the value of violence in media and be what are the outcomes intended or unintended of exposure to said violence through the media. And I'm not sure how successful the second part of the second part of that statement is with the movie, because I think it kind of gets to that a little later than the other stuff. And I think the movie's frontloaded with the message because when you have a killer student and a killer teacher chasing students down throughout the movie, it's you know, a little on the nose.

But again, like what they're getting at is similar to what Scream is getting at, which is, you know, the violence in the media and are the what are kind of the reasons for it? Right? And I don't know, like I think it was, it's a lot more introspective of a movie than I was expecting from a horror movie about a student who finds a snuff tape by accident. Now, Chris, don't blame the movies. Movies don't make people killers people.

Movies make killers more creative. That's right. I'm losing a lot of blood here, man, get a little zy. That's whatever reminded me of in a way. It has that again, the idea of violence in movies then becoming real, and also the violence being presented to us having an effect on us.

I mean, that's what the movie gets at. I think we should mention, though we're going to talk spoilers, which is not something I frankly mention more or less. We're always talking spoilers on both of our shows. But I want to mention spoilers because I think this is a movie that you can go track down on YouTube. It's totally worth king out, and I think it's an easy entry point if you've never seen Spanish language films to a you don't have to pay anything to watch it.

It's on YouTube. It's got subtitles that work, which is surprising given the amount of times we've watched things recently that don't. But it's free and it's a horror movie, and so like those two things, like it's a good entry point, but also like the things that happen in the movie are better received if you don't know where it's going, I feel like, especially once it gets through to the end. So spoilers from here on out, but definitely check the movie out because it's if you haven't figured it out already, it's definitely worth the watch. But let's dig into it a little bit.

So it's a movie about snuff films, right more or less, and the effects snuff films have, let's say, just violence overall. I mean, but I think there definitely is a fascination with death. I mean that the opening of the film is her on this train and you hear the announcer before you see anything again, starting in darkness, and just this whole thing like, hey, somebody threw themselves on the track. Do not look, keep your eyes straight, just keep on looking. And she wants to look, she has that need to see it.

And when the hand comes and grabs her and pulls her away, and she then has to you know, fly right and fly straight and just not pay attention to this. I think it really gets to her because I think her curiosity needs to be sated and that's so much of her and her thesis is, oh, I'm going to do a thesis about violence, you know, in the media. And I think more than anything, she just wants to be exposed to it. I think she just has this curiosity. And it's nice that it's a female character, that it's not a male character that we have here, and because we don't think of women wanting to know about the violence.

And even though that's weird, because violence happens to them way more than it happens to men. And that is really where the root of these whole snuff films are. These aren't men getting killed and tortured in these films. These are women getting killed and tortured or tortured and killed. And yeah, it's when we I don't know why they just kept a snuff tape in the school library though that seems a little odd.

Well, and it's you know, you mentioned the idea of you know, the feminine perspective on violence and being drawn to it, and you know, we talk about the male gaze on women in cinema, right because it's off I mean that's how it's normally presented. And then in something like this or in Videodrome with the Debbie Harry character, that's what it kind of reminded me of Videodrome where it has that feminine character. Again this I'm like you said, I'm totally on board with it being a woman in this movie. It needed to be the way that they're told this story. But it has that thing that Debbie Harry's character has in Video Drome where she's like ron to it and I'm going to go on vacation to Pittsburgh and I'm gonna go audition on video Drum lady.

Come on, yeah, you're those shots of the women in the chair being beaten are I mean again, it's Video Drum goes further because it's trying to do something different, but it's doing that same thing of presenting you as the audience not only watching this horrible thing, but also watching the characters watching it reacting to it. And again in this case of you know, on a Torrens character, she's just she can't look away. Every time she tries, right, she tries to drop herself away, but she just can't. That whole thing where she records the audio of the tape rather than watching it. You know, when she gets the gets the tape that her professor was watching.

We don't know what happened to the professor. Did he get so scared while he was watching this that he died? Is this the ultimate horror tape? And then she wants to see it, but you can't bring yourself to see it, And I don't love when she's turning down the contrast on the screen and then you just hear those horrific screams of the woman on the tape. And then that she makes that tape of the video, the audio version of it, and is listening to it, and oh, it's just terrible, and that is also nice that she's listening to that.

And then we have that amazing scene earlier when she and Kema or Chema are meeting and that she's listening to her music, he's listening to his music, and we have that whole like cross cutting of the music from one another. So many smart things that this movie is doing. And then to bring back the headphones later on with the screaming, well, and you mentioned the smart things that the movie doesn't mean. Alejandra amanebar just spends so much of the movie I would say flexing his stylistic choices is the way I would put it. Like he knows exactly what he want you as the audience to see, and he spends a lot of time with the lighting and the set design, just I mean, those those scenes where they're locked in that basement and the lights keep going in and out and it's just you.

You know, you have to understand that this is a debut for this filmmaker, but it doesn't feel like it. He already feels like a confident filmmaker right now, and you know, coming from Milosh Foreman Month where you know early on in his career, who's doing something like Black Peter, which again not an English language film, that you know, that same thing of like a confident filmmaker just showing you what he's interested in it. I love that there are still filmmakers out there that are willing to just be like, I'm going to do whatever the hell I want and I don't want to play by any sort of rules, because that's I mean, this is there's a lot I wouldn't say taboo stuff in this movie, but it's not for the faint of heart.

Right, it does show pretty graphic violence. Well it does and it doesn't. You know, there are times where it will show things like when she is over at Chemis's place and watching, you know, the person walking up behind all of the prisoners and shooting them each one in the head. That's horrific. But they do a smart job of when to cut away from that, to cut to her face or to his face for us to gauge what are their impressions on this.

You know, you talked about that like it's the whole us watching them watching something else, you know, and you mentioned blowout, and I totally agree because of the whole school of philia thing. I mean, Brian de Palma loves to look at varrieurism and then that when we find out that Kima was shooting her looking at Bosco and just this whole thing of you know, who's looking at who and who's observing who, and putting her in that female investigator position. I thought was great that she not only is she investigating her thesis, but then she starts to investigate Bosco and getting these little clues and off and you know, how much do we trust him? How much do we trust Kimma? How much do we trust you know, the new professor that comes in to replace the old professor really really well done.

And actually another thing it kind of touched on and I get violence towards women. There was a little girl with the dragon tattooy investigative thing with the two of them Anna and Kma kind of going around looking through the cameras and all and you know, and doing the investigative groundwork. And I loved that part of the movie. I was enthralled where they're talking about, you know, the cameras and she has to go to the sony kind of distributor and she's asking them all these questions. I enjoyed this movie so much, like it's just it's a really fun movie.

And I'm kind of surprised. I'm kind of surprised it hasn't come up from anybody at any point, and like, I've never heard anybody mentioned this movie to me, which seems a little strange as well, because there are some themes in it that I feel like, again, like the things that I watch I tend to have similar themes and things that I look for, and again like this is right in that wheelhouse of just you know, violence and what is the violence ultimately serving who is it serving? Because in this movie you have the two antagonists who are again like they don't they their reasonings for why they're doing things seems to just be for one financial and the other control. So that's an interesting angle to go because i mean, again, the money part is such a it feels like always the snuff things, like it's for money.

Rich people are paying a lot of money to have you know, a homeless person murdered on camera or something, and it's like there there's that weird barrier of the it's the halves and the havenots, the halves taking advantage of the have knots, and the professor. We don't get a whole lot of sense. Maybe that's the one failing of the movie is that professor kind of is a cipher, but he doesn't need to be more than that. It's almost a red herring in a way, like yeah, because he comes in basically, you know, maybe the first little bit of the second act and just kind of shows up and gives this little speech about you know, how Americans are basically eating their lunch and they really need to look at the economics of film.

And he's really stressing more of like you're saying, the money over the art, you know, he's more about the commerce and the art. And yeah, that definitely plays out with him making money off of these tapes. Yeah, it extends to the reality of So the character of Bosco is an interesting character because again he's very like prototypical of you know, Patrick Bateman, another kind of nice looking, like well kempt serial killers. Right, he's interested it all right, yeah, yeah, Ted Bundy type right, Like, But what's interesting is the movie does a lot to speak to Angela's sexualization of him and like what does that mean for her to be drawn to someone who is possibly so violent? But she is like oversexualizing him to the point of like having effectively what dreams about him?

Oh yeah, Yeah, that dream is amazing because there's so many things going on in there with him, you know, breaking in quote unquote because he's there. He's the man of her dreams, a little like Freddy Krueger and coming in and just like when he is getting closer to her playing that game about you know, each question or each word, he'll move halfway closer. And when he's like what color my eyes? And we get that again later on in the film. I thought that was really cool.

And then yeah, that he goes down on her, which you do not expect, and then that whole thing of the camera looking at her and now she suddenly becomes the object to be looked at, even though she was the one who is doing the looking before. And then when he penetrates her with the knife, and we don't get, thank goodness, we don't get the kind of like waking up in a cold sweat type of thing, like he keeps us in suspense. It's like when she wakes up the next morning, it's like, oh, does she have a mark on her neck? Yeah? What happened?

Does she sab what's going on? Like? What part is what? You know? Was it a fake knife that has the retractable blade or whatever?

So yeah, there was a lot of things where I was like, oh, wow, okay, or like even when she walks into her house and he's there behind the door and you're like, oh shit, and then her family's like, oh, yeah, your friend Bosco's here, Come on no, and you're you're you're totally right. Those moments are the moments in the movie where the director really, like I said, he just he knows exactly what he wants and it's so I don't know, it's so refreshing to see that from a debut. I haven't seen any of his other films. I mean we were talking before we recorded that. His next film was remade into Vanilla Sky, which unfortunately I have seen.

But I know he directed a Javier Bardem film, The Sea Within I Believe, which again sounds interesting. I found that one because there's actually a shocking Indian cinema remake with her thik Roshan of All Me Wow. Yeah, where he plays a quadriplegic magician as opposed to a quadriplegic fisherman. So um. But I you know, have you seen the others because he directed that one too.

Oh okay, I can't say. I was a big fan of that one. Yeah, that's the was that Nicole Kidman, right? Yes? Yeah, yeah, where she's a ghost spoilers.

I was like, isn't that the movie that I was like a massive twist at the end, I just about it. Yeah, I just say two two hours of time. So she's a ghost? Yeah? Yeah, cool.

Steph keeps moving because there are real living people in the house. She's the ghost Wow, bum cool. I'm glad I just missed it, yeah right by. I know some people loved it was very, very atmospheric. That's great.

But the one movie that's grit, the movie that he made that I want to really check out, is called Regression with Ethan Hawk and Emma Watson and David Thulas because I liked those actress actors and actresses a lot. But there's another one. Was it was it the Gora. It's one with Rachel Weiss, and it's this whole thing of how she is figuring out all of these scientific things that basically the Christian Church is like no, no, like the way we said is the way of the world, and she's like figuring out like no, like you know, simple things like the world is actually round and all these kind of things like that were like, you know, it's not a Earth centered or even sun centered universe that there are all of these other things going on.

She kind of reminded me of a character from three Thousand Years of was it three thousand Years of Longing or three thousand Years of Solitude? The one with Tilda Swinton and Idris Elba. Interesting. Yeah, Regression is one of those satanic panic movies, isn't it. I think you're right.

Yeah, interesting, Yeah, I think we came across that when we were talking about Michelle Remembers Many Moons Ago and scary story. Yeah. Yeah, fucking satanic panic stuff. It's well, you know, and that would kind of make sense because there is I wouldn't say there's a satanic panic vibe to this movie, but anytime you talk about snuff, satanic panic is kind of waiting in the wings for that. I mean again, because you know where I grew up, there was there was a house in the neighborhood that was like a burned ass house, and kids talked about that's where they would go and sacrifice cats and ship as like, you're talking about kids murdering things, which is one step away from them filming it and posting it on YouTube, which is what they would be doing now.

And that's again, that's what this movie is kind of getting at, is like, Okay, this violence, who the hell is this violence for? Like who is it for? And and and if we don't know who it's for, why are we putting it out into the world Because we don't know who might be receiving it and receiving it in the worst way possible, because again, they don't get into it with the Bosco character. He's a kind of he's not a cipher per se. But because of where the movie ends up going, they can't let the cat out of the bag until essentially the last two minutes of the movie, which is perfectly fine, but it does kind of leave you wondering why is he doing what he's doing.

It's not that it's not made clear, but it would. I'm not saying we need the skeet Ulric type moment in this movie, but I do like those moments when they give the villain a moment to kind of just, you know, be a real shitthead and monologue for a second. I mean, I know, as Bondian as it is in Scream you quoted it. I think about the scene and girl with the dragon tattoo with Stell in Scars Guard, where he's kind of taunting Daniel Craig and going through all those motions, and we get it here a little bit. But because of the way the movie is, the Eduardo Noriega Bosco character is kind of just he's less a character and almost like a plot device.

Yeah, yeah, he doesn't have I mean, because I think to your point, the whole thing at the very end of the film, just to jump all the way to the end for a moment when you know the plot's been foiled, the killers have been killed, you know, have had their come uppance, and they say on the news, you know, here's all of these horrible things that have happened, and we're about to show the film itself, and I was like, what, yeah, And that just to me, it's like it's like that phone ringing at the end of the lawnmower man, Like you know somebody's going to pick up, right, you know, somebody's going to be watching that and be like, oh fuck, this is my kink. Like shit, I never knew how much this is turning me on to see a woman killed on TV.

And it's like, for fuck's sakes, met And it just feels like that's the critique that we get all the way to the end, and we're like, see, this violence really does affect us, and we really should be very careful about this, because you let this genie out of the bottle, you can never put it back in again. And I don't think that they hit that as much as they should. There's a whole. I mean, Kemma is a very interesting character because he should be the killer. You know, he's got the long scragged like Harry, he's got the glasses, the kind of raddy goatee and stuff is so Metallica dresses in black, not night breed.

He does have a night breed poser cosa no chase um on his but he also has he's wearing a shirt with Radu from Subspecies on it, which shot have to head their drain in that episode. I texted her, I was like, I can You're not going to believe this, but there's a character wearing a Subspecies T shirt and yeah, but that's the whole thing, right, It's like the Damian Eccles conversation. Right, It's like, right, they're the ones who did it, because look, they're already into this stuff. It's like, that's not how this works. Yeah, and he should be the one that is the murderer.

But yet it feels like and he's the most interesting character to me because it feels like he was flirting with it but didn't go through with it. Because when they reveal like, oh yeah he knew Bosco, he knew the professor, it's like, oh, okay, how deep do you go? And then that they keep trying to pin it's like she doubts him the most. She doubts him, way more than she doubts Bosco. That that she doubts the professor.

It's just like no, no, no, it's got to be kemma. And it's just like why's that. Well, he's got the long hair, and it's like all of those things, like I'm surprised he's not showing up to school in a black trench coat, you know, right, no, And that's and you know, I think the smart one of the smartest things about this movie is, like you mentioned the cast, I mean, Fele Martinez is I mean, obviously now you know, Goya Award winning actor multiple times over, but he is so good in this movie. Oh yeah, because he's given the role where like you mentioned, I mean, you're supposed to have a lot of doubt for this character, essentially, not from the moment you meet him. But there's kind of a moment in the movie where he goes, well I was, and it's like, finish your fucking statement.

It's like finish the statement. He's like, well, I you know, I was also filming with these cameras and it's that you know that smart moment of the filmmaker giving a pause. Character doesn't doesn't have to finish the statement for you to understand that there's no doubt in the scenario. And from that moment on up until you find out what is happening, anytime he talks again, he's saddled. Philly Martinez has saddled with this a thankless job of being the guy who's under suspicion, keeps making himself look suspicious but is ultimately not guilty at all.

And that's such a hard role to play because again, it's like the dude playing a dude disguised as another dude. You have to do several layers of hoop jumping to make it really work where you're making it clear you're not in on the joke. And he's really well cast in this movie. I mean, everybody is, but the amount of time that you spend with him and on a Torrent, their chemistry is really good and it's believed. It's rather believable too.

Oh yeah, definitely, because she really can't stand him at first, which I was like, okay, great, and they're really thrown into this as almost rivals. Their relationship reminding me a little bit of Alex Da Lee Glacia's Dia de Labestia where it's and if you haven't seen that one, I really recommend it. It's a priest who knows that the Anti Christi is coming, so he's trying to do as many evil things as he can to summon Satan so he can kill Satan. And he partners up with this heavy metal dude because he's got pentagrams, he's got all this kind of stuff. So like that uneasy relationship between the priest and the metal head, it's just like it reminded me of our two main characters in this movie.

But that's much more of a comedy. Yeah, this movie's not Oh that's movie. There's there's nary a joke to be had. And to be fair, theme became a character. Kima.

He's he's not. I mean, we've all known someone like him, but he is. He has a Nazi scopin on his jacket. I'm assuming you notice that as well, right, and again, like that was such a thing in the nineties. It feels, you know, like you know, this movie feels like again, like it lives in the same space as like a necromantic, Like the subject material is not the same, but it has that same quality to it, the filmmaking quality, and like like the it's just it was I don't know again, like he's such kind of a strange character to find sympathetic because they do a lot to make him very off putting.

Oh oh yeah yeah, and just that when he keeps like hitting on her and saying offensive things, and you're just luckily I have known a person like this or two, and you're just like the skates bluster. You know, there's probably a heart of gold, some boyer underneath there. You know. Eventually he does, you know, say okay, yeah, you can come over here and watch these films, and but then he keeps you know like, oh, hey, you're in my room kind of like there was a laugh for me. There was one big laugh for me when she knows that somebody has been in her room and she's just like oh yeah, like this was messed up, and that was messed up?

Has your room in broken into? And he's sitting there on his bed and I think it's like a high angle looking down on him, and he looks around and it's just his whole room is trash, and he's just like, oh yeah, no, nobody's been in here. I love I love his apartment. Oh yeah, it's such like a nineties, mid nineties apartment. Like, oh my god, it's you know again, like the chemistry between the characters, the leads, and this reminds me a little bit also again not necessarily in the subject material, but kind of you know, what's the world and the brutality of it a little shallow grave as well, just that, like the brutality of the world surrounding these people and the depth that they have to go to to survive.

Because the on a Torrent character is has a gun pointed at her, not once, but I guess, I guess, oh no once, only once, but then she does the gun pointing the second time around. And that scene with the professor who comes out of the dark speaking of the dark to get her, that scene is just it's shocking to say the least. I mean everything about the scene where they go down into these kind of subterranean tunnels to look for these cameras and the masters, and then they get trapped her in Kima and then she wakes up and he's gone, and she's looking for him and then the professor just comes out of nowhere. I loved that interaction. And again it's it's so well shot and there's so much close ups right on top of them the entire time that it's just even though they're in they're not like in a confident or anything.

It just feels insanely claustrophobic. But it does a good job of replicating those images that she's seeing constantly of the close up violence, because again it's it's you know, the movie obviously is a movie, but it's also trying to replicate that movie that they keep showing and the close up shots of the violence. It's amazing to me that this was done three years before eight millimeter, which was such a big sensation, Oh my god, snuff and all this kind of stuff. But I think this one does it a lot better. Well, I think it's just a more compelling story.

It's a smaller scale story. I mean it is, but it isn't. There are kind of again, there are ramifications of what's going on, that this has been going on for a while and who knows who they've been selling the tapes too, And there's a lot of directions that you could go with another follow up to this or another story similar to this one. But yeah, it does kind of have that same underground nasty I mean that comes with snuff, right, like that, you know, you're meeting someone in a dark alleyway somewhere to buy a snuff film from them. You're not meeting them at the local McDonald's unless they happen to be selling you a tape of what is it in videodrome to Japanese sex, Geisha sex.

Yeah, yeah, it's you know, it's it's normally not it's normally not as graphic as snuff. But yeah, a snuff film is that they just there's a level of grime and grit and disgusting this that a snuff film brings to whatever you're talking about, even if it's a documentary, the documentary. I don't know if you've seen the snuff film documentary Snuff. I mean that that is, even though it's a documentary, it feels grimy and gross and it's like, oh, this is just a documentary and it's disgusting. I'm trying to remember when the Guinea Pig series was out, because it feels like that was happening around this time as well, oh yeah, you remember what I'm talking about, right, Yeah, And that was one where what was that, like somehow of all the people to like blow the whistle on those films.

It was fucking Charlie Sheen who thought that they were all real and was just like, oh my god, there's are stuff films. Stopped this. It was like, yes, I remember that, and he like he saw the videotape and he like reported it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, I snuff films and movies about snuff films. I don't know, I'm I find it personally interesting.

It's it's I mean again, we talked about this or Spencer Parsons and I talked about this when we did the Pokeepsie Tapes episode on Scary Stories we Tell, And I've done the Pokeepsi Tapes episode on the show as well. Like that's also snuff. That's about snuff films. I mean, that's about a collection of snuff films. Yeah, because it's a found footage documentary presented as a documentary about a serial killer.

But they found all of his tapes in his house, and so those tapes that they were finding, they then put them like this, they're putting them in the movie for the audience to see to what end we do not know, and that it's so that you can see the crimes. But it's that same thing of like the moment you introduced snuff films, everything kind of just goes sideways and trying to remember there was a really good it was a pseudo doc by JT. Petty called s A per sand m a n so basically Sandman, and he interviews real people like Bill's a Bob and some of these other like extreme filmmakers, and but then he starts to introduce like like maybe one of these people really is a killer, and you're just like what wait, what's going on?

And they just like it's a neat mix of reality and documentary and oh sorry, pseudo reality and documentary. I think it is a great job with it. It's been a while since I've seen it, probably since it's not a fantasia back in like two thousand and six, highly recommended. It's pretty darn neat and JT. Petty stuff is it's pretty cool.

He does some some very fascinating stuff. Yeah, I have to check it out. It sounds interesting. I mean, it's it's funny, you know. The director obviously knows the kind of movie that he's making, because there's definitely a scene where, you know, we mentioned the subspecies T shirt.

The chema character then has a cannibal holocaust Oh yeah shirt on like it. The director knows what this is, and I love that again he's willing to have the conversations about the violence. I guess I just wish it was more of a nuanced conversation and less kind of taking a backseat to the entertainment. I mean, the movie is very entertaining and well done, but I don't know, I guess maybe the message part of it would have gotten maybe it would have gotten in the way of the movie. It's you know, it's a longer movie too.

It's a two hour movie, so it's not like it's an hour and a half breezy. I just I wish that there had been a little bit more of the conversation about the violence, because it seems kind of compartmentalized to a couple conversations. I am one or two conversations. I do like the conversation with her and the pressor that comes to take over and he's kind of like, what are you what do you even have to say about violence. It's just going to be superficial.

And it almost feels like the filmmaker turning the mirror on himself and being like, this is just going to be a superficial horror movie and I actually don't have anything to say, which, like, I mean, again, that's clearly not the case. But you can you can kind of see that there is a little bit of you know, wink wink, nod nod to that. Yeah. Again, super smart the way that they put this, and then even ratcheting up the tension with that phone call when Keema is calling her and like he's in on it. He had it there, and when he flips on the speaker and you're just like, oh man.

And later on he's just like, who was that that called that day? And he doesn't know that it was Chemis, So he's just like, I need to close the loop and make sure that this guy gets eliminated. You need to tell me who it is. I'll give you a quick death if you tell me. Yeah, yeah, he is so Zabiel zabier Elo Riaga is so menacing in that scene because you you know that he doesn't want to have to kill her, not that he doesn't want her to die, but because he doesn't want to have to do it himself.

He's like, he's, you know, the hands off man. He's just the I'm just going to profit off of this. I don't actually want to get my hands dirty here, right, He's the man behind the curtain the whole time. But is it implied that he kills the professor or the professor just dies because Kima presents the tape to Angela and he's like, I saw this, and there he is. But is that it is implied that he kills him because again, like the professor was old.

They say that like a couple of times, like he was old. But they do say that he had an asthma attack and he was having problems breathing down there, So I wouldn't be surprised if it was natural causes or maybe the violence in the tape actually did kill him, right, which I mean that was that was more kind of what I was curious if that was your tape, because I was I kind of was leaning on like the violence was so intense and upsetting that while they didn't kill him, kill him, he died because he was unable to, you know, keep it together I guess without losing his mind. You know, it's very you know, the it's very esque in a little bit, like the tape has this kind of you know, again, we watched the people watching it, so we're less interested.

And even what's on the tape, I'm kind of surprised that they show it, even yeah, I was very surprised, right like it would it would have been a choice to never show it and just have the audio, because you know, again, like and obviously the reason that they show it is because towards the end of the movie, what is on the tape ends up mattering. If she had never looked at the tape, she would not have known where she was because Kima goes, you know, the garage, Go look at the garage. It's the same place. And what's interesting is because she looked at the footage and she looked at the snuff film, she knew that he was the killer. So what does that have to say about the violence in the movie and the way the character has to tacitly not want to watch the violence.

But at the same time, if not watching the violence, the character would not make it to the final reel. So again, it's just interesting. I don't know what the directors trying to say, is what I'm getting at again. I do like that we start with the one victim, and that when I can't, I guess it must be Kima recognizes her and says, oh, yeah, she was in her class a few years ago. But then we kind of learned like, oh yeah, no, he knew more than what he's letting on.

It's a really nice game that the director's playing as far, and the writer. The screenwriter does a great job as well, and Matteo Gill and he would work together quite a few times, I think. But yeah, I think he does a great job of reveal and withhold and reveal and withhold and just give us these little pieces of information a lot of times, just enough to make us switch our suspicions. It really did remind me a lot of the storytelling conventions that scream uses right where it's like, oh, you know you're you know, you're coming through that door and the killer just ran out the other door. Well you're here, so and well the Q must be the killer then because you were there, and like there there's a there's a little bit of that here with the Chema character, with the the battery that she finds that goes on the camera and she's like, oh, it must be him.

I love those those storytelling devices because they tend to work when they're done right. And the director really, similarly to Wes Craven, understands how to really nail those moments, and I think to your point, they work really well in kind of momentarily diverting the audience's attention so the director can keep doing his stuff in the background. With the Bosco character, who again, is it interesting character. It's just there is an interesting story from his point of view that we just don't get to see because we have to we have to assume that he's on her side throughout. It's I mean again, it's it's similar to you know, some of the other things that I mentioned, like and grow with the dragon tattoo or anything else where.

It's like that character, we don't know that they're the killer, and so because we don't know that they're the killer, we may get a moment where we get to learn their reasonings and their motivations. But in this movie, I don't ever get a sense of why Bosco is doing what he's doing other than just because he likes it maybe, Yeah, that's what it feels like. It feels like he's one of these guys where I'm good looking and I can get any girl that I want, and I can throw them away by killing them whenever I want to too, right, which I mean again, like that in and of itself is pretty compelling. And that moment that he has with her at the end of the movie where he's pointing the gun at her and he's like, you know, I'm gonna beat you up and then I'm gonna start cutting your body parts off, and it's like this is really upsetting and chilling shit.

And he's just rattling it off, like he's ordering a fucking burger down at McDonald's and I'm going to cut off your head hand and put it on your head. Oh yeah, he's like, you know, like a coronette, and it's like, fuck, dude, you're fucked up. Like and again, it's just I wish that there had been a little bit more of them. And again I'm complaining about there not being enough in a two hour and four minute movie, but I don't know. Those are the kinds of things that in these kinds of movies.

That's the moment that you use as the storyteller to crystallize everything, and they kind of push it to the again, it comes out of nowhere where it's like news flash and you're like, what the fuck is going on? Movie? I appreciate it because it I mean again, it makes sense and it kind of amplifies what they're getting at. But instead of giving the villain that moment, they kind of give that moment to a character we haven't seen before. And I kind of wish they had left it with the characters that we've spent the last two hours with because I think it would have had a little bit more impact if they had.

I really like Eduardo Noriega and to look at his filmography and just see that he's the main bad guy in the Devil's Backbone own and some of the other roles that he's shown up. He is the Tom Cruise role in Open Your Eyes, and he does such a better job at it, you know, just the way that he looks. I'd buy it a lot better. Um. Yeah, he's really um an interesting character, an interesting actor.

I should say. Devil's Backbone is a great movie, such a good movie to me, that's like one of the best del Toro films, you know like that. To me, it's like Throno's Devil's Backbone and Pant's Labyrinth are like this great trilogy of horror. I agree. I do have a very soft spot for the original hell Boy.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah one, yeah, well the second one. Okay. I won't go off into a whole thing about, um, what I think del Toro should do with his career. So because I you know, Garmo, if you're listening, just give me a call by we'll talk. I mean, there are there if there's a list of projects that you haven't completed on Wikipedia for you, Yeah, got a lot of what's the word, got a lot of rods in the rods in the water, got a lot of hooks in the hooks on the net, whatever the hell.

It is like some things are going to get through. But there's a lot of unrealized Giermo del Toro projects. Oh yeah, he's up there with like Darren Aronovski. When Aronovski hit with Pie and Requiem for a Dream and stuff, it was just like, oh cool, he's going to direct this and this and this and this and that, and it's like whoa, you know, like remember that remake of robol Cop that was supposed to come out twenty years before that shitty remake of robo Cop. Darren Aronovsky was supposed to do that.

It's like, oh okay, or he was supposed to do a Lone Wolf and Cub remake. It's like, what, Like, I don't know, why is all these remakes. It's like Aaronovsky shouldn't be doing remakes. Guys, remember when he was going to direct Batman begins, Oh yeah, Batman year zero, I think is what it was even cold then, like directly to the title of the Yea comic book, Yeah, I remember that and reading that and being like, whoa, that's crazy. That never happened either.

Well, I mean again, the thing, I mean, the thing that you and I could definitely empathize with with del Toro is the Hobbit stuff. I mean again, that was the kind of the big boondoggle of boondoggles. So yeah, I thought about del Toro when I was watching this movie, because again, like, this is not the kind of movie that del Toro would make. He makes very very atmospheric horror movies, and this is, um it's atmospheric in a different way from what del Toro does. Del Toro is very like Victorian, but like like a he's very Gothic.

I mean that was a Crimson peak stuff like that. You know, I like what he brings, but I actually really like what the director of this film kind of does in as a counterpoint to what other directors are doing at the time, because you know this, you know, this comes out five years before Devil's Backbone, right, and this is so different. But again it is operating under Again, there are parts of Spain Spanish culture that we as Americans may not know about, and there was all kinds of very brutal violence and all kinds of fucked up shit happening in Spain for a very long time that again we as Americans just aren't educated about. And again, in a lot of ways, there's a little bit of a Serbian film in this movie as well, where it's commenting on the Yes, we want to look away from the violence and keep our heads in the sand about it, but we can't help but look at the violence because we're being shown it every day or it's essentially inherently part of our culture.

And it kind of the end of the movie kind of gets to that point and I don't know, Like, I think that's an interesting conversation to continue, because I don't think violence in the movies is that thing that you know, you mentioned in Scream where it's like, you know, violence, you know, it's it's it's ever present and people are being motivated by it. I don't think it's that, but I think there's an interesting conversation we had around it. I think this movie is interested in kind of sparking that conversation, and I think it does a good job of it. I think that this movie is entertaining but also is engaging with you as an audience. I just think it's maybe a little on the nose.

Those last couple shots where they're walking down the hallways in the hospital and all the people are staring up at the TVs. That's meant to be funny, right, it has to be. That part made me laugh. That's the only part, because it's like, no way they would be showing the snuff fill on ABC News, Like, well, I guess the question is would they? Because you know, they showed nine to eleven constantly people jumping out of buildings.

They've never shown like a beheading on CNN, have they? No? You had to go out to oh god, what was the name of that site? Had to go out due I'm trying to remember because I remember when Daniel Pearl was it was beheaded and it was like, I can't like what was it rotten or something like that? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah for that, And somebody at my work was it was about to watch that, and as they started, I had to turn away because I made the mistake.

I watched that bud Dwire footage, sure, and that scarred me for life, Like I can still picture it in my head and I don't want to have pictured that. I really regret that I ever watched that jeezuise, Yeah, I only know. I mean, I don't know. How were we talking about this bud Dwire thing we just talked about? This?

Was this not a Barney Miller episode? Do we talk about bud Dwire? Barney Miller? You talked about bud Dwire because I brought up the hey Man nice shot thing. Oh no, no, that was not me.

It must be your other friend, No, Spencer Parsons. Maybe I guess it must be Spencer. Yeah. I know, like when that song came out, I, like a lot of other people thought it was all about Kurt Cobain, and then it was like, no, no, about Budwire. It's like, really, I still think it's about Kirk Kobaby.

It's weird that it's about Budwire. Filter was just a fan of Budwire. Someone's great. Yeah, I just I you know, you mentioned how kind of over the top and kind of maybe tongue in cheek and unrealistic it is to be showing the snuff film. But maybe it's not.

I mean, in this day and age, like maybe it was a little more prescient than it would have hoped it was going to be by having them show an actual snuff film on the five o'clock news. I mean, they do say that, you know, these images may be disturbing, right one. I wondered too, like because this is Spain, and because they just had all these years of Franco, you know, who died in what seventy six and geah, they're still feeling the repercussions twenty years later. You know, these people that are our heroes were being born around the time that Franco was dying, but yet his system was still in place for a long time. It took a while to dismantle it.

Yeah, maybe they're they're talking about, you know, that they can never escape from that. Plus my original point was what would they show during Franco's reign. Was it like, hey, we're going to execute political prisoners on TV tonight, right, well, and I mean the title of the movie is Thesis, which I mean again double meaning, right, the thesis of the movie is the movie we're watching. So yeah, I wondered that myself, given like you mentioned, you know, Franco and his regime and kind of the fascism that was going on in the country and unescapable fascism. So yeah, you know, Serbian film kind of had that same message of you know, the the inescapable brutality of just existing in the country at the time and going about your daily life and seeing because again there are people at Ukraine right now that are going about their daily lives not normally but semi pseudo normally, but seeing violence taking place on the news in their own country.

And again it's like this is for a certain generation of people in this country, this will be an inescapable part of their life that they will have to contend with. And and maybe that's why Angela has such a hard time looking away. It's because you've been conditioned to watch and to look away as to reject it. But again she rejects it, but at the same time she can't help but be enthralled by it. And I think that just like her, I am the same way.

I don't think any I mean again, I spent better part of my last weekend watching a James Bond movies, and those are just violence for violence's sake. What does that way? You know? Again, what does that even mean anymore? You know, somebody describe the Bond movies to me over the weekend as potato chips, and it's like, you know, many people get killed in these movies.

It's a lot of bullet holes with potato chips. Like it's a yeah, but again, like it's a desensitization thing, And what does it mean to be so desensitized to the violence but at the same time be so drawn to it? Because we all know that the kind of violence in this movie is deplorable? But Angela just can't help herself at any point? Can't she help herself?

Keep your eyes shut, Marianne, don't back, they'll look back. Yeah. Yeah, it's Lot's Wife all over again, right, A lot made it out of the city just fine, and for the rest of his life his kids would say, can you pass mom, Dad? This food's kind of blame, I mean again, And I wonder what the director is getting at by having the salvation that she finds come through the fact that she had to watch it, because again, that's the question. If the character doesn't watch the tape and she's only listening to it, she never would have known about the red stripe, which again, imagery being what it is, the red stripe on white on the white tiling.

I mean again, it's just the amount of imagery and symbolism in the movie that they kind of hint at but don't really get into. I don't know. I appreciate that the movie ends up being more entertaining than it is kind of deep, but it does have those moments that it touches on, which I think end up enriching an already fantastic movie. Anything else, I don't think. So I think this is a great discussion.

I'm glad that I rewatched this one because yeah, like I said, it was like seeing it again for the first time. So I'll ask you the final thoughts, though you kind of already gave them. Yeah, I guess I did. But yeah, like Chris said, it's free out on YouTube right now, track it down or if you got to buy a DVD of it. I don't know if it's out on Blu Ray, I would hope, But you know, this was also it's kind of interesting because this was nineteen ninety six here in the States.

It was that boom of all these independent films, and you forget about other countries having their movements and independent films and these kind of things at the same time. I mean, this was kind of a golden age for us when we were able to see things from other countries that we hadn't really seen before, as well as pushing the envelope of some of the films here in the States, you know, seeing things because we've gotten kind of old and krusty during the late parts of the eighties into the early night you know, we had it's like how many times can you remake? Lethal Weapon? Was basically what was going on with a lot of cinema, and then here we are with like, okay, like like it or dislike it, but like help fiction and these kind of movies really help blow the lid off of what was the norm and really helped pave the way for a lot of other films that you normally wouldn't have been able to see, that wouldn't have gotten green light.

People were taking chances, and this was a very chancey film. I honestly, you kind of put it best, like, I'm surprised that I haven't had this mention to me in that same conversation of like indie films from the nineties, because it feels I mean, even though it is Spanish language, it does have that exact feel like so many Mirramax things that were coming out in the nineties. And this is distributed by Universal, so there you go, they're getting in on it. But yeah, it's it's just it lives in a certain time and place, but the subject matter that it's talking about is maybe a little five years too early, you know, like like once everybody got to watch a snuff film for twenty four hours straight, and then some with nine to eleven, it felt like the conversation about snuff films became different, and this movie comes out five years before that.

Yeah. Yeah, it's funny because we were just having a conversation. I don't know what this says about my generation. Maybe your generation does the same thing. But there's a bunch of us having drinks and smoking cigars the other night, and the conversation turned to where were you on nine to eleven and just a lot of nine to eleven talk, and we started to talk about all the little dots that we saw coming out of the towers and then realizing that those were people.

Yeah, we were watching all these people die, and like again, like that's where the conversation about snuff films kind of takes a weird turn, because I mean again, you watch the Supruter film just once. That's a snuff film, and that's oh yeah, go watch any of those JFK documentaries. How many times are they going to play that fucking thing over and over back into the least Oliver Stone would cream himself so many times? Like and it's just again, it's it's a weird because whenever we talk snuff normally, it's what this movie's presenting, where it's a videotape found by somebody who then is trying to figure out where it came from. Is it real?

If it's real, what does that mean? But snuff films in real life are much more historically driven and tied to these historical moments in time, and we kind of lose sight of the fact that they are snuff films and they kind of just become historical documents or artifacts that you can kind of look at from a distance. But you have to remember, at a moment in time, someone died to make this and unwillingly, I mean even in the case of this movie, and all the characters that Bosco kills are unwillingly murdered, but they're not watching his ship on the nine o'clock news. No matter what this movie says, it's not happening in our reality. The fucking freaked out reality of this movie, on the other hand, is the real is a more hilarious reality than our own.

Because Yeah, the biggest laugh for me was the end. And yeah, no, I'm with you, I'm glad I wants this movie. I'm glad you and I got to talk about it again. It opens up some avenues for some other things, some other movies that we've talked about that you can check out if you're interested in watching more snuff film stuff, which may say something about you if you're interested in that more than it does us. So, but yeah, On that note, let's take a break.

I'm a player preview for the next film of Spanish Language Month. In Tita's kitchen, ordinary spices become a recipe for passion. In the magical movie, Critics are falling in love with Like Water for Chocolate, an instant classic, erotic and delectable, scrumptious, sensual, and visually alluring. Two thumbs up, way up, Prepare for a treat the extraordinary new film by acclaimed director Alfonso Rao, Like Water for Chocolate, rated R, now playing at select theaters. It's right on the next film of Spanish Language Month.

We're going to be taking a look at nineteen ninety two's Como Agua Like Water for Chocolate. Yeah, another realism, another nineties Spanish language movie, except this one is distributed by Mirrormax. So I saw that at the theater. Man that was how big that movie was, And that was the power of Mirrormax, even at that time, getting that sucker hyped up enough that everybody was coming to see it. I'm I'm looking forward to it.

I'm going to be joined by Susan Lambert HadAM of the eighties TV Ladies podcast and father Malone of Noise Junkies and Night Gallery Midnight Viewing. That's what it's called. And yeah, until then, where can people find you, Mike and the things that you work on. You can always find me over at weird Ingwaymedia dot com where you can find the main show that I work on, Projection Booth Podcast, which is also available at Projection boothpodcast dot com. But you can hear all kinds of other things that we do.

Chris to tell the folks at home what they can hear. Oh my god. You can hear ranking on Bass, you can hear Twisted and Uncorked. You can hear a Noise Junkies and the Feminine Critique and the Film Enturies podcast which is hosted by Jamie Benning. And he just put a book out about the Return of the Jedi, a movie that is a Star Wars movie that features little Teddy Bears.

But you know what, his book goes into details that I'm sure if you are a fan of Star Wars you will be interested in. You can find all that and more of it Weirdingwaymedia dot com. As for this show, you can find this show at culturecast dot com. But I want to take an opportunity to plug the Patreon which is different now. There are three tiers that you can get in on, Completionist, Double Feature Guru, and Director's Chair.

Completionist gives you access to all the monthly bonus episodes that cannot be found anywhere else other than Patreon dot com, slash culturecast. Double Feature Guru allows you twice a year two program movies that we get to talk about, and hey, if you're really nice, I may even let you pick outa talk about it if they're available. And Director's Chair means you get to program an entire month of movies, including the Patreon bonus episode, that's like five or six movies. And if you're looking for us to talk about some things that we're probably never going to talk about otherwise, where that's where you would go to do that. As for me, you can find me there and that's it.

Folks, go there, do that and join in the conversation. If you want to buy, you know, like sharing, rating, reviewing on iTunes, Spotify or wherever you get the show. Mike, thank you so much for joining me. Thank you, Chris, thanks for inviting me on this month. And I'm really excited to hear the rest of your Spanish language collections.

Well, thank you. No, it's always it's always fun to just you know me and you record. We don't we don't do our own shows, just the two of us very often, but we do other things. But it's nice to just talk movies for once. Weird.

Yeah, well we'll catch on the next episode, folks. No