The Final Girl Film Canon and ‘Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma’ With Gillian Anderson, Hannah Einbinder, and Jane Schoenbrun!

I'm Sean Fennesee and this is the Big Picture a conversation show about sex, death and everything

in between.

On today's episode we will be joined by Adam Naaman to discuss Jane Schoenbrun's new

blood-drenched, meta-slashers sexual awakening coming of age, satire romance drama film Teenage

Sex and Death at Camp Measima, then Jane returns to the show with their stars Hannah Einbinder

and Jillian Anderson for an in-depth discussion of Camp Measima, how it was made, their histories

with horror and a lot more needless to say, you will want to stick around for that discussion.

But first, let's talk about that movie with Adam.

This episode is brought to you by 20th Century Studios, The Dog Stars, only in theaters and

IMAX August 28th.

Visionary filmmaker Ridley Scott returns with a gripping post-apocalyptic thriller when

a mysterious radio transmission shatters a lone pilot's isolated existence.

He embarks on a dangerous journey in search of hope, starring Jacob Lourdy, Josh Brolin,

Margaret Kuala, Alison Janie, Guy Pierce, The Dog Stars, only in theaters and IMAX August

28th.

So, let's take a look at the tickets now.

Okay, mean pod guy, it's just me and you today, how you feeling?

I'm good, welcome, greetings from Toronto, the Toronto Blue Jays are a game and a half back

Wow, the wild card, as of this morning, I'm sure you're relentlessly paying attention

to the Blue Jays playoff, aren't you?

And, you know, A.O.D.

A lot of exciting stuff going on this year, the Red Sox tear on the cover of the ball,

the Yankees fall and back, as they always do in the late summer, you must be feeling great.

Yesterday was the first day I heard someone talk about the Blue Jays in the wild.

I was at a restaurant having dinner before the screening of a house at the end of Oak

Street and I heard someone saying, oh, the Jays are good again.

And I said, all right, it's back.

It's back, it's back.

So yeah, that's what's going on here, the Jays are back.

I wish you no good fortune as always.

I know.

Let's talk about teenage sex and death at the Camus, okay?

Sure.

Yeah.

That's a good idea.

The movie is written and directed by Jane, as I mentioned.

A lot of the crew from I saw the TV close back, cinematographer Eric Yu.

It's edited by Graham Mason, Alex G is back to provide a score.

I'll give you a very brief snapshot synopsis of the story.

We'll talk about the film somewhat in depth here.

And it's opening wider and wider around the country and in North America over the next

couple of weeks.

But, um, so basically it's a movie about a queer director making a slasher franchise

sequel reboot who becomes obsessed with casting the original film's final girl.

And that leads both of the women into a journey of sex, death and discovery.

Um, why don't we talk a little bit about slasher's before we talk specifically about this?

Do you like slasher movies, Adam?

Very much.

You know, I think that they are the, this is the psychic territory of, you know, VHS box

art and, you know, watching movies at a friend's house at night and the anxiety over whether

you should be watching this, like I very much want to versus, you know, should I?

You're kind of looking over your shoulder as you're, as you're watching it.

I mean, I know that the first couple of movies I tried to show to like a girl were horror

movies, you know, slasher, you know, movies, movies or not.

Do you know what those movies were?

Do I have to know what those movies are that you tried to show?

You know, one was a 17 hour documentary from the point of view of a pole engine, you

know, no, no, I mean, it's Halloween, right?

Yeah.

Because you, you know, you're like, it's Halloween, come over and watch Halloween.

And you don't like learn that.

There's no manual for that.

It just feels very natural.

It's scary.

It's dark.

There's a kind of, uh, there's something kind of pent up about it.

And I think also that, you know, for, for, for me and my cinepheli and Jane cinepheli,

I think are different.

Although there's some points of convergence in the movie, including some musical ones,

too.

We don't do a, we don't do a long talk about Count and Crows.

I'm, this is not a good part of it.

We shall, don't worry.

We, we shall.

I know.

But I think that, um, that's how I associate them.

And I think that there's a way that doing that kind of domesticated them or take some

of the threat out of it or fetishizes it.

But I also think that these are the themes that the movie is playing with, you know, actively.

And play, I think, is a key word here.

You know, that word gets used a lot in the script.

And I think in talking about it, that idea of play or, or playfulness, I think is, is

important.

Not that play can't be serious, right?

But this is a playful homage.

Very much so.

Very much so.

And also means using something, too.

It's playing.

It's using, it's repurposing, you know, to some extent, it's kind of like slamming, not

action figures, but maybe like funk op-ups together.

You know, in a way.

So yeah, it's an interesting thing to talk about.

But in terms of just slasher movies, do I like them?

I mean, who doesn't when they're done well?

And like pizza, even when they're not good, they're like mostly okay.

I could not have said that better myself.

I ask you that question because I wonder, do you need to love slasers to love this movie?

Or is there an entry point into this film, which is very much interested in maybe even

obsessed by the conventions and sensations that a slasher generates inside of people

like me and you?

Well, that's, I mean, it's a good question.

I think there's a lot of things that wouldn't hurt with this movie, you know, I don't think

it hurts to be generationally close to the filmmaker because not only do you get the older

frames of reference, but maybe that's your point of view on what's happened to horror

or to Hollywood or to, you know, identity politics and representation in films.

So like, you know, that helps.

I don't think you have to love them.

I do think that I know some people in my life, including my wife who are anxious about

watching because they're like, it looks like there's a lot of blood in it.

And I'm like, there is.

And it's great, but it's not scary.

And that's not meant as a, as a put down.

I do think that this is not really a scary movie, but also as a satire.

It's not like scary movie because it doesn't have, it doesn't have contempt or like just

opportunism for what it's dealing with.

It's very specific.

And this is one of these times people misuse the word academic all the time.

It's like, if you literally write about anything pop culturally in two sentences or more,

people are like, you're an academic, you know, but this movie is kind of academic, but,

but, but, but, but, but playfully so.

I think both the best thing you can say about it and maybe some of the persuasive criticism

against it is it's so academic that maybe it's cut off from those simple pleasures,

the visceral pleasures you get from slasher movies.

But then again, I think it makes those pleasures its subject.

And I liked how it did it very much.

This is going to seem like a bold comparison, but I just saw the film for a second time

yesterday and the second viewing reminded me a lot of my second viewing of the Odyssey,

which is after I got my arms around the intention and strategy of the movie and all of the

things that it was trying to accomplish.

I actually enjoyed it quite a bit more.

And I think part of it is because Jane is biting off a lot here and maybe that's some,

that's one of the reasons why it's being accused of a kind of academia and its approach

because it's just got a lot of ideas on its mind, but it's also a wildly feeling movie,

a very deep and sincere movie I felt, even though it's got a lot of gags and it's also got a lot

of high-minded ideas about deconstructing genre and also got a lot of ideas about

satirizing contemporary Hollywood.

I thought it was a very, very emotional and visceral, not in the bloody sense kind of a film.

So while I think that some of those notes make sense, I should say I think you and I both

really really love this movie and had a great time with it.

And I find it interesting because it does remind me of Jane's previous two films in only one

way, which is that I couldn't really think of another movie that I thought was exactly

like this movie.

You know, you mentioned scary movie, you mentioned Halloween.

In theory, this movie lives in between those two, but it doesn't at all.

It generates a completely different kind of feeling inside me.

Well, the arc of the films is interesting because self-induced hallucination is this

doc that deals with slender man.

I mean, that's the first real feature.

There's also work for this omnibus film co-collective unconscious, which is maybe for a deeper,

deeper dive.

But I mean, you know, self-induced hallucination, which I think is a great phrase for a lot of Jane's

films in some ways, you know, like sometimes you have a phrase from a filmmaker's career, a

title or a line of dialogue, you're like, we'll be using that one, you know, I think that

that one works.

Like that movie wasn't the head of the curve on slender man.

It was worth it was analyzing it after the fact the phenomenon and the creepy pasta.

But that movie really is, I forget what year it is.

It's like 2000 and whatever, like pre 2020 because world's fair is 2021.

But really just analyzing that idea of viral horror, creepypasta horror, creepypasta horror,

participatory horror, I mean, back rooms represents the mainstream cresting.

This phenomenon, but Jane was kind of really in on the ground floor with self-induced hallucination

and then with world's fair, which I liked at the time because it had an element of surprise

and because it was made so cheaply and ingeniously and with no recognizable actors, it had that

element, not a found footage horror, but the same thing that great found footage horror

has, which is just, this feels anonymous.

This feels found, even if I didn't believe the any that was real, it has that great urban

legend, creepypasta message form quality of like, do you believe in this stuff?

And the arc, I think that's fascinating is not just that idea of characters, of films

that are increasingly explicit in that sense of the word about, you know, gender

and transition, but also about media, where in world's fair, it's, you know, like a girl

vlogging, you know, in YouTube and then TV glows about a 90s TV show that sort of,

you know, these kids who are obsessed with watching and now we've gotten to the point where

we have a movie about a creator, right? We've gone from viewers to fans to creators.

And in that sense, Miyazma kind of subsumes the previous movies into it.

It has elements of all of them in it, but it's also different because one big difference,

and I watched TV glow the other night because my wife hadn't seen it and she really liked it.

We had an interesting time watching it. I was reading about it again, both positive and negative

reviews. That's the film that's so melancholy and so anxious and so, you know, fearful in certain

ways. Miyazma is so preoccupied with pleasure, not in an empty way, but it's very sweet, you know,

I mean, it's quite literally sort of candy coated and I don't think it throws those fears

for those anxieties away and I don't think it's impersonal. But that's the big difference

from the other work. It's not just that Miyazma is not really trying to be scary. It's not really

trying to be heavy. It's smart, but it's light. I know what you mean, not to put, not to put,

not to put down at all, but it's light. And I think that the things that's about that are serious,

it does in a very playful way or conversely the playfulness. It's kind of booby trapped at times.

Like when we get to the counting crows scene, but we'll get there. So I agree with you and I

the candy coated is particularly appealing. The TV glow, I really connected to because obviously,

I think you and I are similar in the same way as Jane and that a lot of media imprinted very

hard on us at a very young age. And then we at times transpose ourselves onto that media and then

sort of turned it into a meaningful part of our lives, if not the defining part of our professional

lives. And there's a lot of shame and guilt kind of stitched into that story. And this movie is

sort of the opposite where we do, in fact, see Chris, the Hannah Einbinder character at a very

young age, consuming media, much the same way the Justice Smith character consumes media and TV

but it's not shame, it's wonder. And those two things are kind of tied together in some ways.

And so Jane pivoting away from that and going towards this much more joyful approach until

in the story plus all of this indulgence that is happening for the characters at first with

candy and then with sex and then with this explosive core and syrupy blood as we go into the

final third of the movie is almost feels like an artist in real time getting happier.

You know what I mean? I don't know if I can chart that in quite such clear terms, but it does

feel like that's what's happening with Jane. Well, there's these blocks. There's creative block.

There's a social anxiety. There's romantic block. There's this kind of, you know, sexual frustration

that, you know, has to be kind of, you know, surmounted. I mean, there's a degree to which this

movie is playing a game of wish fulfillment. That plays out in a lot of the set pieces, you know,

like, common-deering the movies that you used to watch. And now you get to make them and they

can be how you want and about what you want or you project yourself inside of them or you can

kind of pilot this fictional serial killer as a way to get rid of all the people who are

frustrating you in your life or, you know, the movie star that you've been crushing on your whole

life, you know, is like inviting you into to hang out. But, you know, and we'll get there, but what's

interesting is when you say you identified with the films and so did I, it's tricky because

on the one hand, there is no shortage of movies that are made for the kind of

cinephile demographic and which flatter them and cater to them. This is the post-Tarantino

phenomenon of like, you know, critics get turned into fanboys and to greater lesser degrees,

some artists do that and a lot of hacks do that, James and artists. But also, we're kind of

imperfect people to be talking about a movie like this because the points of identification and

the points of difference are very significant. And yet, that loops back around to the fact,

I think I read an interview with Jane, I don't want to misquote. They said,

how many trans filmmakers in the United States have had the kind of releases and budgets that

I've had and it's like the only one. So there's actually a number of significant trans filmmakers

in the film making cambios and Jane is in communication not just with, you know, mainstream

slasher signifiers in top 40 alt-rock, but with that, you know, artistic community and tradition.

That's a wonderful thing that then on a mainstream film podcast or mainstream outlets,

it's being reviewed and looked at by critics for what their points of convergence are

because those points of convergence are actually in some ways and I'm saying something

that a critic Sam Brogian wrote in reverse shot. They're profoundly uncool. I kind of like how uncool

the reference points in this in this movie are they're actually not vanguard. They're not hip.

They're not elusive. They're night swimming and long December and the Friday the 13th franchise.

That's fascinating to me because that was not the language or the rhetoric around world's fair.

I guess what I'm saying is that some of the things that people are anxious about, which is here's

this independent, you know, significant American trans filmmakers making stuff that seems too

accessible to a wide audience. And I'm like that accessibility in that discourse to me is potentially

part of what's excellent about the film and excellent about its release. Also creates some elements

of, you know, territorial reception and the question of, you know, you know, who is this movie for,

who should it be for, who it's, you know, who it's supposed to be speaking to. I see it as such

an expression of an individual filmmaker and their interests, which are not always easily

compartmentalized, not always easily reconciled. That's a good thing for me. Whether that's exactly

the kind of criticism that should be being written about it, you know, I don't think I'm a perfect

audience for the film or a perfect, you know, person to be in conversation with Jane's taste.

But I like it. And the parts that's, and the parts that speak to me speak eloquently, you know.

Yeah, you're tapping into something that I thought about a lot during TV glow as well. And I

just don't think a perfect audience exists. I think any artist is going to have experiences that

we're not going to fully understand. And so in an effort to represent how they're feeling, if you can

at least create the sensation of universalizing that feeling, then you're just creating empathy for

someone who's had a different life than you. And someone who has got a different point of view

than you. And this is, I think particularly two movies in a row that really aces that does that.

And I think in many ways kind of transcends whatever narrow lane of conversation, a movie like

this might have been slotted into five years ago, 10 years ago, or if it were done a little bit

differently. And so I grew with you about the generational point. I've been thinking a lot about

Jane. I asked Jane when they were here about, there's the kind of millennial pretext and the

counting crows usage and a couple of the different aspects of it. And I think of Jane now in that same

conversation that I've been having on the show with like, Kugler, Damian Chazelle, Greta Gerwig,

like there's a handful of people who I'm like, well, these are this kind of definitional millennial

filmmakers. These are the people who they all are having different experiences. They all have

kinds of movies that they want to make or that they're in love with from the past and are trying

to iterate on. But this is kind of one more link in that chain in a really exciting way. And I think

it's interesting that they're all as funny as they are sincere too. That's like the other thing

that I really enjoy about this movie is a kind of gear shift. It's pretty regularly

from scene to scene, from Madcap, almost like Zuckerbrothers, Gags,

into pure slasher POV horror back into these kind of, this kind of like deeply sincere,

almost like Sundance coming of age tonality, you know, like it really is. And in some cases,

you might think, well, that kind of whiplash doesn't work in telling a story. But I think in this

movie, it's fantastically effective. Well, there's another movie from this year that I also like,

I mean, you made the comparison to the Odyssey. I make the comparison in a way to Maddie's secret,

the genrely film, which I really like. I mean, that's still my favorite film in the year or close to it.

And it's like you put everything in quotes, but not to belittle it or to undermine it.

Sincereity in and of itself doesn't, and you're not saying those, but you know,

sincerity is not necessarily a positive quality in movies. There are a lot of movies that are

sincerely awful or sincerely smug, you know, or sincerely confused. I think you're right that

the tone is elastic, but I mean, it's certainly not messy. And one of the things that I like about

that idea of the stuff that sort of encodes is when a high-end bender needs to give a kind of

real performance, I think some of the monologue stuff midfilm, you know, the quotes come off.

And I think that on the other hand, the quotes around that big midfilm slasher scene from the

killer's point of view, you know, whirling around with the fake blood and all of these kids being

kind of killed off. That's in quotes, but not in a, not in an ironic way. I mean, it's kind of a

stunning scene to me. That idea that you can kind of have blood and guts and camera movement

that are so obviously not of that period. People will watch that scene and say, well, that's not

how a movie from the 80s would look. And it's like the movie knows that. And one reason that it

knows that is because eventually the camera turns back around and it's not just a point of view of

the killer. It's the face of the killer. And, you know, in a way, the face of the filmmaker,

or that face of sort of control, you know, I like, I've read some reviews where people are

said, oh, it's so obvious that, you know, the Chris character is supposed to be James Schumers.

Yes, it is obvious because the directorial credit is superimposed over the first time we see

Hannah Inbinder in the film. But that doesn't mean that just because things are explicit,

it doesn't mean that it's a total one to one race or there aren't different interpretive

avenues. We're just because it's a sweet film doesn't mean that it's not tough or doesn't

mean that it's not thoughtful. I think in some ways, the tough stuff in the A-Wingating stuff is

more buried in this movie. It's so out on the surface and so raw in world's fair. It's so on the

surface in TV glow. Here, it's kind of buried under the candy a little bit. But like, that's what

candy is for you. Put razor blades in it on Halloween, you know? And I think that that's some of what

this filmmaker is very good at. Yeah, I'm glad you brought up the sort of POV big

slasher set piece in the middle of it, which is I guess the most notable scene in the movie for a

variety of reasons. So why do you think they made that decision to not replicate the feeling of

a slasher kill scene and to create something that is like a little bit more elevated, a little bit

more colorful, a little bit more, I would say, video game influenced in terms of the POV filmmaking.

You know what? It's funny. The better the filmmaker, the less inclined I am to know their

intentions. It's bad filmmakers, I think, as a critic. They're like, well, that's what they're

trying for and they didn't do it. I mean, when I see a filmmaker I like, I try and describe,

but I can't say for sure. And I thought that it's incompatible. I mean, that completely,

again, kind of anodine CG, not CGI, but computer assisted fluidity, but have no place in the

80s movie. The count or an early 90s movie, I guess. I guess we should say the Camp Me Asma series is

kind of supposed to be located more in the 90s than the the 80s, right? Or or we also see in the

opening series that it's gone through. I think it's a blur. I think it's a variety of things,

right? It is very much Friday the 13th, but it's also gone through some of the same

pieces as screaming. I know what you did last summer. Yeah, exactly. But so let's just say,

the needle drop is an oldie to us now. It also never would have been on the soundtrack of a movie

like that. Then it's saying something about distance and time that doesn't even just have to do

with horror movies, but I think it just has to do with age. It's contra-puntile use of music.

You know, it doesn't go with the killing, which is a sort of, you know, all the way back to

singing in the rain and clockwork orange or stuck in the middle with you in reservoir dogs. I mean,

it deliberately takes us out of the film within the film and almost kind of takes us out of the film

around the film or the film around the film is mutating. I think it's daring us to sort of read it

as cheap or chinsy or show off. Again, I find the way that the camera, I've only watched the movie

once, but the camera eventually whirls around and you see the killer's face underneath the mask.

And you are suddenly brought back to what this filmmaker in the film, Chris is anxious about,

which is repurposing and in the process, you know, pinkwashing, this highly problematic,

you know, transphobic slasher franchise that they grew up with and get off on, you know,

and shown Brinzone anxieties in making this movie. I think anxiety is funny. I'm sure you would agree,

you know, you're a fan of Albert Brooks, you know, you're like, you know, are a astor, you know,

Elaine May. I mean, anxiety is what's funny. So the anxiety and the humor of this movie are bound

up together in a way that I think is very familiar, but also very precise. I do not love the showbiz

satire in it. That feels like something you could get on a TV show or in other movies, you know,

with the agent and that stuff. I mean, I think it's fine. What I love is when they get to the camp

where Jillian Anderson's character was a Billy, not Billy Presley. Not Billy Presley.

There's this Billy Presley, and I'd be very different movie. You know, and the idea that this kind

of summer camp is just laid out for her now as this sort of primal scene, but then all they do is

eat chicken nuggets and watch a movie. I like how small that is, but you know, within the context

of the film, it feels very epic, you know, but it's a chamber piece, and for a lot of it, it's a

two-hander, and for a lot of it, it's almost kidding itself. It's a kind of soft core or a kind of

fantasy roleplay situation. Again, lots going on, managed, I think, very smartly.

Yeah, the movie is full of these great signposts, and some of it is briefly gratifying in that

Tarantino way that you're describing, and some of it is a little bit more heavily meaningful. I

think there's a lot of time and care put into things like watching Chris poor,

raisinets into a popcorn bucket. Which I know was at least one person's breaking point for the film.

I saw a tweet where they said, I couldn't watch the movie after that. Who would put raisinets in

popcorn? Like, it's just the worst snack mix possible. Oh, it could not disagree more. As a non-pop

corn person, that's a way to make popcorn more tolerable for me. I really, I could have,

I could have taken her left the Sarah Sherman agent stuff, but I did find that the Zoom call

was eerily accurate and good. And I'll just say I found it to be like quite acid-tinged

in terms of like some real-life comps that the film is making. And I do, I'm not sure how much

that will go over people's heads or how much they'll care about where it sits. But I do think it

also serves a really good purpose, which is that's a it's a moment of Chris being able to kind of

take a real agency in their career when they're defining how they want to make the thing that they

want in a moment when they should feel fearful that they're going to blow their chance and instead

having this moment of catharsis and realization and carrying it through and just, you know,

being weird in the way that they want to be weird, which I really, really enjoyed. And that is

a counterpoint to that real sensual and sexual and emotional experience that Chris is having with

Billy every time Chris and Billy are together and the kind of pod to do that they're having with

one another, which is such a fascinating thing. Jillian and Hannah, I'm curious like what you

thought about them. And, you know, Jillian is another one of these signposts in the film obviously.

Well, Jillian Anderson is a great actor, right? Like really great. And if you watch the

House of Murr, so like that's a great actor where you watch Hannibal, you know, that's a great

actor. And then on top of that, she's also, I don't know if the internet has doubled down and made

it more apparent or if it's made it less apparent just with time, I don't, I try not to spend that much

time on these corners of the internet, but like she's a real icon. I mean, everyone will say,

this person is iconic, this person is like, no, this is like a pre-internet or early internet

kind of sexual icon for boys, for girls, for everybody. And that I asked her about this and she tried

to be modest about it, but it was like, you know, we all know. We know what you're representing.

If you were born between 1972 and 1987, we know, we all know what you are.

Yeah, I mean, that show and it's kind of fandom and the neo cult aspect to the ex files.

And the fact that it was a primetime hit, but beyond being a hit, it was, I mean, again,

it's like a TV glow kind of show in like, like Pincopake, obviously, it's a little more mainstream.

So she's being cast, but she's also being kind of deployed, you know, by the movie. But then she

also has to give a performance within that. And I think that her performance obviously has echoes

of the stage work that she's done. I wish I'd had a chance to see her in streetcar name desire. I

haven't. But I mean, this is someone with a real arsenal as an actor and a lot of technique. And

you feel kind of all of that, you feel all of that technique. It's a very grand, very flamboyant

performance. It's not just Anderson who's performing. It's the character is performing an idea of

normed Desmond. You know, I mean, one one bit I liked where people like, oh, the meetings of

the movie are too explicit. They're going to compare it in normed Desmond. And then they get there

and she's like, yeah, I know. I'm a little like normed Desmond. You know, it's like the annotation

has an annotation. No one is deserves points for getting ahead of this movie's references.

And I know for some people that insulates the movie from like real fear or real thorniness or

real kind of alienation within horror that when everything's a reference, nothing's actually

scary. I mean, again, I critic I really like wrote this, which is it's easier to think of this not

as a horror movie, but as a kind of stoner romantic comedy that is about the world of horror movies or

it's sort of, you know, a movie about you know, unblocking oneself sexually that kind of just happens

to have that as an Afridisiac or as a fetish object. She's not making, they're not making a horror

movie. They could and, you know, we're all going to the world's fair. It has some pretty good

scares in it, but I don't think it's a horror movie. But as for her, I'm Bender. I mean,

grind binder. I mean, interesting actress. I don't watch hacks. I've heard she's very good.

Obviously, the dynamic with her and Jean Smart on that show informs the casting here. She's also

extremely avertly political person. And sometimes that has no bearing on someone's performance on

the right or on the left. And sometimes it's a function of casting. To me, that's a function of the

casting here too, you know. I like watching them together. I think they're very sweet together.

I think that there's a real erotic, erotic and neurotic energy in both of those performances.

And I enjoyed them, you know, to different kind of actor than Jane's worked with previously,

or experimented a little within TV glow using actors iconography like Fred Durst is and I saw

the TV glow. And when I watched it the other night, I was just like, what an amazing idea to have

like limp biscuit as the face of kind of like, you know, paternal disapproval. Why are you watching

a girl show? And you know, TV glow does it with musicians, with Phoebe Bridgers and Caroline

Polichek. So yeah, I mean, Anderson is very well used. The two of them are very sweet on screen

together. I think they're about very fine. Well, I think that idea that you hit on about the

yet the movie not being scary, which I had also on our list of topics of discussion is fascinating

because you know, as a certified slash orologist, most of the other slash orologist I know are not

scared of these movies. They have memories of being scared of them when they were nine when they

saw them, which is a key component in this story. But no one sits down to watch Friday the 13th

part six for the fourth time worried about being scared of it. It's an emotional point of connection.

And so the movie is very, very smart about this, I think. It is. I think the movies that are in

this movie's DNA or that have come up in interviews. And again, with filmmakers, whether you like the

work or not, you're trying not to put words in their mouth. So I don't want to misquote Jane. But I

mean a movie like sleep away camp, which in some ways is kind of cheesy and dated and, you know,

capital P problematic, whatever that means. I usually don't like that word as a way to talk about

movies, but I like when people talk about that aspect of filmmaking, then I think it's fascinating.

I'm going to sleep away camp or like a great example of Nightmare on Elm Street 2, which are movies

that are maybe frightening to people or seductive to people in ways that either exceed their

makers conscious intentions or just that mix of extremity. I mean, the readings, the queer reading

of Nightmare on Elm Street 2 is very famous and very popular. I think there's a whole documentary

about it. I taught that film in a cult film course once where it's just like, is this actively

consciously an allegory for gay experience or did this, did the filmmakers miss this? You say the

same thing about Commando, frankly, you know, I think that you could. These are these are the movies

that they're not scary, but the guardrails aren't up, you know, or they feel like an unsafe space.

Yeah. So that's something that this movie is about without doing it. The only time it starts to

feel unsafe and it's conceptually my favorite thing in the movie is when, and this isn't like a

plot spoiler, but it's a talking point. So I hope people don't mind us talking about it is when

Chris is talking about how what she gets off on in these movies is that idea that you're the

lawyer and the victim at the same time and this movie is not invented that idea, but it articulates

it in a way that I quite like and she's kind of ashamed that this is how she feels that she wants

to be the victim, but it's also very sort of liberating and that's the kind of pleasure this

movie is getting at. It's a little double edged and it very clearly belongs to Jane as well as to Chris.

Yeah. That's what the whole movie is about. Yeah, I think that's perhaps the most critical

scene in the movie. This idea of accepting and letting go and also being stocked and getting

joy from that feeling of being stocked and being seen by and being seen by the camera. You

know, this is a movie that in slow motion, in slow motion, like this is a movie that's sort of like

it's not just jokes about split diopter shots and tracking shots. It's sort of like what a joy to

be seen that way, which is tricky and not everyone who's going to watch that movie is going to

feel that way. I think for people who connect to those feelings, it will be very liberating.

Yeah, I think the movies trying to have its kick and eat it too with respect to the problematism

that you're describing because there's that great moment when Billy and Chris are watching

Camp Measme together and the real is running and Chris can't help but continue to turn to Billy and

offer either details about filmmaking technique or noting moments of transphobia in the film.

And every time that happens, Billy is like shut up and like rolling her eyes at this kind of

millennial Gen Z desire to constantly be noting the referentiality or the discourse around something

as opposed to just letting it totally wash over you. And so the movie also becomes this really

interesting dialectic about what is the purpose of a movie like this? And can you enjoy it

without its externalities or is that actually a mistake to only consume culture in that way?

And I think just portraying that in general is so exciting and so so smartly done.

Well, this is now becoming again, there are some people for whom just having a movie where tropes

are mentioned in dialogue is just like a jump off the train point, you know. And some people have

sort of invoked phrases with this movie that I invoke for other movies. So I guess everyone's

palate is different, but they're like, you know, this is like epic bacon kind of humor and the,

oh my god, you know, the kind of post-Joss Weed and, you know, well, that just happens sort of stuff.

I don't actually think that has much of a corollary in the text of the movie at all,

but I think that I understand that tone. I also think that at this point, it's telling that

talented and semi-talented horror people in a lot of mediums, they're only subject to horror

movies because they're such a proliferation of them. And in some ways it's a safer space than

dealing with reality. I believe in that too. I'm about halfway through this novel by Paul

Trombley called Horror Movie. I don't know if you've read it, which is about a kid who made in high

school a horror movie with a bunch of other kids that like never got released, like only two or

three scenes ever got put on YouTube. And now a studio is trying to remake it. And it's uncanny how

close his scenes meeting with the executives are to the scenes in in miasma. I think the two

projects are completely independent of each other. My implication isn't that one takes from

the other, but they're almost identical. It's like meeting with executives in the next

week. Yeah, we want to get that 90s feeling, but like remake it now and you know make it

modern. I mean, this is the condition of a lot of modern horror making. And again, when we

talked about the Counting Crow's little death scene, you've you mentioned that the visual language

in it. I mean, it is the visual language of elevated horror or an idea of elevated horror or an

idea of an idea that elevated horror. I don't think this movie has much truck with that idea.

It doesn't come out and openly say, I hate this shit because it's kind of doing that shit.

But you'll notice it doesn't do it for the entire movie. I don't think I don't think Jane would be

caught dead making that movie. And we don't have to say what that movie is because I know you like

some of these movies. And I like some of these movies. And I think saying back rooms or obsession or

any movie is just like what's right or wrong with horror is a losing the game. It's just the movie.

It's a movie. But I do think that this movie has a certain amount. If not of skepticism, then of

weariness, it's like, I'll do this for a couple of minutes. But this is not really what I'm making.

You know, I do. It's a really interesting way to think about it. Is there anything in general that

well, one thing that he tapped into that I thought was really interesting was that feeling of like,

does this movie know what it's doing in previous horror films? And I thought about this a lot with

obsession. I rewatched obsession this week. And it was my first time seeing it since I saw it as

screening. And you know, there's a sequence near the end of the film where Nikki and Bear are sort of

fighting and bear has kind of reached his breaking point after Nikki has gone completely crazy.

And he keeps asking her to be the real Nikki. And he's screaming at her and she starts screaming at him.

And it's incredibly effective scene. And I've seen the feels like very wise about difficult

romantic relationships reaching a breaking point. And you know, Curry Barker is 26 years old.

I talked to him on the show. He's very smart and nice guy. But I was like, is this person, does

this person have enough life experience to know how sophisticated this side I'm reading this idea

as this sequence in this film? And I this is true throughout all of horror. It's true in a lot of

different genres, but it's especially true in horror movies. And you know, sleep away camp does

have a lot of sequences in that film where like, whoa, this seems this movie problematic though it

may be seems to kind of see the future about gender dynamics and a lot of other ideas that we're

going to get into in the in the next 30, 40 years of our existence. And this movie is an attempt I

think to almost like subvert that sensation by literalizing everything by announcing everything

that it's doing. And neither one nor the other is like better or worse. But I find it fascinating

that they're both like sitting next to each other as signature moments in the genre right now.

I mean, I think it is interesting too. And I'll say something about obsession which we've never

talked about on the pod. I wrote about it briefly on the ringer when I did the year mid year thing.

And I said, you know, this is the obsession is a movie the year. I mean, like kind of derogatory.

We're not necessarily complimentary. I'm not going to get you in trouble. You can like it as much

as you want. I've heard Kerry Barker on his many times as you know, he's around. We've both

watched movies for a long time. We've covered them for a long time. You and I are not exactly the same.

But like we get along, right? We kind of know the terrain. I proposed that obsession is generated

and was a strange discourse of any American movie since I started doing this. And I think about

80% of that is the moment that we're in. And only 20% of it is the movie. It's a deranged

moment. Derange isn't even a good word. I know that. But it's wild how

intense and passionate and polarized and digressive and kind of

fascinating. What people are reading into or pulling out of or projecting onto this

movie. And in a strange way, I'd say the difference between obsession and cameo. I like

can't be it may as well exponentially more, you know, like much, much more. But I do think that

obsession, having seen it now with an audience a couple times, it makes people feel unsafe. And it

is not because it is innovative. I'm going to say all the things it's not. It is not innovative. It

is not inventive. It is not original. I don't think it's particularly responsible with what it's

playing with. And it's certainly not a dissertation. You know, like James movie gets an A plus,

you know, I would say I'd say obsession is kind of incomplete. And yet,

tans are so dirty. It's really opening the can of worms. I'm not even giving it credit. I'm just

saying. I mean, I am giving it credit. That's one of the reasons why I go to movies. It's

to feel. I know. I know. So I know what you're saying. Like you're you're you're right to kind of like

couch it in in this space where we analyze things and we try to understand where they fit in the

culture and are they politically sound and all of that is true. And I think them that movie's

reaction that it is generated does feel it's highly uncommon. It's something I'll say. And

it's it's it's highly uncommon. And it it reminds me of if one movie had existed when Twitter was

out. If fatal attraction had come out when Twitter existed or if Twitter existed for fatal

attraction, it's not just the heteropestimist thing or the like, you know, the the the rom

come into slasher trope things. It's like, could you imagine if fatal attraction had existed in

Twitter era? Well, I think again, like that that's a movie also that is about

fraught gender dynamics and obsession and teenage sex and death in I can't make asthma are

about those things too in very broad and different ways. And I think that's something that we

still don't really know how to talk about. And one movie can kind of literalize the idea and

another movie can kind of super naturalize the idea. And then in either case, we feel like we

have a lot to chew on. And no one's right. That's the unique thing that I think both these movies

like brought out of me of like, Oh, I have a lot to learn. You know, like I'm still learning.

There are these movies. They just they kind of instantly belong to history. And it just

it is what it is. You know, I happen to like the Blair Witch Project very much. And I kind of like

paranormal activity like I mostly on the side of these kind of left field horror

monoweths. And also what we have to see with obsession is what will happen with Blair Witch or with

a paranormal activity, which is is it repeatable? You know, in the case of those movies, it's

sequelizable without being repeatable. Yeah. Kind of like what will what will the obsession

slop look like? What will the back rooms? What will the back rooms slop slop look like? But I do

think that measma will be I hope not a footnote. I mean, I think it's a chapter. It's not an

annotation. It's a it's a chapter in this same story. And you know, James James work is sort of

its own it's its own chapter in this moment because of course, I also can't remember a moment

where horror was this mainstream in terms of like normal people go and I say, do you have any

people in my life who would not be caught dead going horror movies? Like parents friend, I say

this about Canadian films earlier this year too horror in Canadian, but like they're just like

seeing as a normal person like my wife's parents were like, should we see obsession?

And I was like, under no circumstances, should you see obsession? But the fact that you kind of want to

you know, I love my unlaw's they go see the Odyssey, they don't go see obsession. Yeah.

It's a they're and they're and they're thinking about it. No, it's it's a really exciting time

in that respect. And it's going to produce some some lousy results, but maybe it's also going to

inspire a lot of people to make some exciting stuff. It's I want to I do want to do I want to talk

more about final girls with you and because this movie is a real final girl piece of the puzzle.

So we'll get into the final girl can and together right after this.

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Okay, Adam one thing one movie that I revisited this week in writing about final girls was

smile to did you see smile to quite like smile to okay. I thought you might I'm not I'm not as high

on it. Maybe as you are, but I there's a lot to admire about it and I do feel like obsession is

certainly grabbing quite a bit in terms of its mechanical decision making from smile to you know the

sound design the way that the camera's moving like it's taking well well very much from the original

smile. Yes, yes. Where it's just like what if person stared at camera. Would that be scary?

I guess so. And then that's true. I'll never forget being at smile with a bunch of friends.

This was my letterbox review of it and someone in the audience goes she's going to smile.

Like they were calling the finishing move at WrestleMania. Here comes she's going to smile.

This is really funny. What's your favorite professional wrestling finisher?

My favorite professional wrestling finisher. Oh, I mean the the the macho man big elbow.

Oh, no kidding. From the top row. I was the sort of kid who like I hated Hulk Hogan very much

and when I went to see a name of the thing I can imagine you hating Hulk Hogan.

Oh, it sucks. You go to the you go to the house show and make believe gardens with my dad who

did not want to be there. And I was like this guy's great. Machu Man's great and like truly

Hulk Hogan stealing his girlfriend and stuff. And I'm like I still think that that angle is better.

It's a great angle because like the Hogan's a complete creep. We can talk about this another time.

We should do a wrestling pod menu. We should rewatch pay per views from the 80s and 90s and talk

about them. I honestly would have the best time doing it. Elizabeth. No, I got a lot of macho in me.

Absolutely. Sorry. Go go on back to back to the army. My favorite finisher is the razor's edge,

which is one of the most cinematic of all finisher. One of the most cinematic of all characters.

You know, do you know the the Scarface story you must right? No, it's the Scarf

with Scott Hall supposedly auditioned to Vince McMahon. He's like, this is like Tony Montana.

I'm doing Tony Montana. He's like great. Yeah, I love it. And then after he's like, I do not

know what Scarface is. You know, the like was there then a period where he got very curious and

watched all the diploma movies. We'll never know. Sorry. Go on. I love the idea of Scott Hall

watching the Paul misapsession. That would be intriguing. Oh, yes. Okay. Final girls.

I think that there are a handful of them that are easily understood as canonical. You already

mentioned Halloween being a movie you tried to show to a girl. I think we've all tried to show

Halloween to a girl over the years. And Laurie Strode being the signature. There are a couple

that come before that that feel important. I don't really think of, you know, Carol Clover's essay

about this idea comes in the late 80s. And it's primarily focused on 70s and 80s films.

And so in that tradition, she identifies Jess Bradford from Black Christmas. She identifies

Sally Hardesty from Texas Chainsaw Massacre. She identifies Laurie Strode. I can't recall. Does

Ripley come up from Alien? I think I think in scholarship around the original essay, I think

Alien is like a lot of people's clever answer to that question. Yeah. So what do you think about that?

I mean, I think it fits. I think it's interesting that it's very interesting and light of talking

about Jane's work that in the original scripted Alien Ripley was a man. And they didn't really

change much of the character for Weaver's performance except for then when Ridley Scott has her

stripped down to her underwear at the end. A great choice, by the way, because it's about

vulnerability, right? I mean, it couldn't be more vulnerable in that moment. You know, then that

kind of, you know, pressurizes it as a final girl discussion. I mean, I love one that's one that's

echoed in teenage sex and death. Yes, it is echoed in teenage sex, although Sigourney Weaver never

like, you know, ran around. I mean, I think of Night of the Living Dead where the first girl was

also the final girl, you know, like she's the first one we see kind of running around. And that

trope of you being chased through the cemetery and losing her shoe and falling over. I mean,

can't be asked. My husband has fun with that too. And Night of the Living Dead precedes a lot of these

films. I mean, an interesting final girl. I don't think Carol Clover writes about them, but we

talked about De Palma. It's funny to think of Carrie White as a load-bearing character who is both

the monster and the final girl at the same time. I thought about asking about Carrie if you thought

Carrie fits the bill here. I mean, there's, you know, for those who don't know, final girl is a

is a trope that was developed by Carrie Clover who is an academic film scholar. And it's about the

final surviving female character in a horror film. And what attributes that character frequently has,

that character is frequently virginal, frequently sober, frequently, frequently brunette, frequently

less bodacious than some of the other female stars of the film. Frequently, frequently sober,

virginal, all these things. All these things. And like podcast listeners.

Truly. If you've been to our subreddit, you know, that's a lot of sober virgins there.

I think it's been bent a little bit over time, the trope, but it's still pretty consistent. And

one of the things that has struck me, and you can think about this through the lens of 60s and 70s

and 80s horror films. But one of the things that has struck me is just the absolute wave of them

that we've gotten in the last 10 or so years. And the way that horror films are sold so hard now.

On the female protagonist or the woman in peril in ways that are sometimes very self-aware.

And in other times that are just sort of like you're kind of stock and trade.

Run of the mill horror studio movie. And so I'm really fascinated by that. Like in the 80s,

there's of course Nancy Thompson from Nightmare. There's Angela Baker from Sleepway Camp,

which kind of flips that on its head because of the shocking reveal of that film.

There's I think Kirstie Cotton from Hellraiser, I think is a really, really good one.

And then we get into the 90s and we get Sydney Prescott and Gayle Weathers, we get. But then

it's not until the 2010s when I think things start to be turned on their head a bit.

So I don't know. Do you think of them as kind of sectioned over time?

I do. And I think one of the scenes we didn't talk about in Beas,

but it's that opening scene that shows the life cycle and the evolution of a franchise where it goes

from like exploitation, you know, to just running on fumes to that idea of rebooting and repurposing

across genres like that. This wonderful credit scene of can't be asked, but being sequilized and

merchandise and made fan friendly and turned into a cartoon and then becomes a collector's item.

And then they send them to space. I mean, that stuff's all very clever. I mean, that's the study

of pop culture is the study of cycles and you know, various surface, surface variations, variations

on a theme. I mean, there's always going to be an interesting discourse around different kinds

of aggression and vulnerability in horror movies. So our men de facto more aggressive or frightening

or frustrated than the women know, but on screen that trope has a kind of power. Our women

inherently are there more superficially vulnerable and you know, more indomitable. Is there

like an innocence or whether it's the innocence of virginity or the goodness in more recent films

of being sexually active and killing them anyway? I mean, these are archetypes. These movies

sort of play with every so often. You have one that plays with it sort of intelligently.

You know, some people have compared campy hazmat to the Joss Whedon film to cabin in the woods.

Yes. Interesting compares. And that was one that I thought a little ahead of the curve was just

popping the hood and elevating the horror, elevating it past the point of being scary,

elevating it into that realm of kind of dissertation or or or or or discourse. I mean,

that's a movie that really goes for it as I recall the final girl in that film. You see her being

like stalked and brutalized and beaten up and you see everyone watching her on their screens,

right? That's that idea of like implicating the viewer, which is what a lot of these movies like to do

Brian DePaul, we Brian DePaul, we used to do that without saying I am implicating you the viewer,

but you know, we can we can talk about that another time. Yeah. Cabin in the woods,

upon its release, I adored. And I think it was because we didn't quite have the language for

the post-screen post-post-modern, you know, horror film. And I haven't looked at that in a long time.

I'd be curious to know how I felt about it, but I also felt that that movie did something that a

lot of the contemporary movies are doing pretty well too, which is that that movie at times was quite

scary. You know, it was not actually it didn't turn and look at you and wink at you. And in fact,

it has this really chaotic third act that is at at times felt the way that I felt when I was 11 in

the library, like reading a book. There was a collection of monster descriptions, but it also felt

like watching a really violent and scary horror movie. And I think of that movie very closely

with your next, which is sort of like Adam Wingard's movie that just sort of feels like what if

Laurie Strode studied Jiu Jitsu before encountering Michael Myers, you know, that like what if what if

what if the final girl was stronger, tougher, and meaner than the killer, which I always I really,

really enjoy that idea. And there've been some films that like ready or not is kind of riffing on

this at this point now too. Yeah. And even though it's on there's no even though I mean the final

girl also implies that there are people killed before them, but a movie like Revenge by Crowley Fargeat,

she's like the only girl, right? She's the victim. She's killed. She's resurrected. She goes from

the victim to sort of the I mean, that one sort of code is a kind of rape revenge movie. But I mean

again, it's a movie that plays with that sort of intelligently. I mean, there's movies like,

you know, Jennifer's body isn't quite a slasher film, but you know, yeah, well, Cody's having fun

playing with those tropes. You know, you mentioned the ready or not films now that the sequel

features a my obligatory mention of David Kronenberg, good performance, but David Kronenberg is

the dying criminal patriarch in that Toronto shot film. But the final girl gets a sister in that

movie. And the other one I like, I can't remember the character name, but I liked it's it Jessica

Roth and happy death day. Yes, she's terrific. I think is is that's a very it's almost great. I put

it in the almost great category. There's things about it that don't quite work, but she's funny

because she has the existential frustration of knowing she's the final girl and having to just

psych herself up time and time again, which is like this is just going to keep happening to me.

Very funny. I think there's a few other movies in recent years too that have done it really well.

And and they're more prestigious for lack of a better word. I think Adelaide in in us is yeah,

fits the bill here very much. I think Danny in mid summer really, really fits the bill and

that both of them seem to be kind of like actively exploring what it means to be a final girl,

even though those are not pure slasher's. Naro from from pray also and for mid thunders character,

I think fits the bill well. And then I think that it kind of like it kind of gosh, what's the word

I'm looking for? It kind of like reaches the end of the road. It's like there's like a there's

like nowhere to go. The bridge is not finished with Maxine Minks and Pearl that that's where I'm like,

okay, we have kind of gotten to the conclusive point of self-referential riffing on rape revenge

and slasher films. And we can go no further. And teenage sex and death at cameyazam attempts to

kind of like rebuild the bridge. You know, it's like trying to try to finish the job.

Yeah, I mean, I remember back back in, I mean, a couple of years ago, I mean, I thought the way

that the first ex built itself this sequel or kind of prequel out of nowhere with Pearl was

pretty good. I thought it was amazing. I thought that was very efficient. Yeah, I mean, I wrote about

Maxine or whatever it was for for Ranger. I don't like that movie at all. But I mean, it is close in

some ways to something like miasma. It's not so much that its ideas are different. It's just that

little matter that sometimes matters of, you know, form and execution and style and tone, which

miasma has. And I don't think that that one does. I mean, people really like

Kato Flynn's final girl episode of Widow's Bay, which I don't know if you've watched. I have the

one where the one where she's being pursued, which is very miasma-ish too, where she's being pursued

by like, I guess within the lore of the show, it's a serial killer. But it's also just a capital S,

K serial killer stand in. And you know, all the things that happen, especially the idea of these

movies that no one helps these women. But no one believes them and that no one opens their door,

and no one lets them in, and the cops are useless. I mean, I don't love Widow's Bay, but that scene

was good. And it was priceless when the thing was lying there dead, and she just kept pointing

the gun at it for like about five minutes and all these different rooms. I thought that was

that was really funny. But yeah, I mean, miasma is obviously playing with this idea of a,

of a first of an it girl, you know, like the the touted filmmaker, and then a kind of, you know,

for the frustrated girl where it's like, you know, not virginal by choice. You know, not

not not virginal by choice. There's a block. And then the last 10, 15 minutes without being

at all scary, re-stage that the sex, the death, the chase, the catharsis, the confrontation,

the victory. But in a very different way than, you know, Texas Chainsaw Massacre. It's funny,

you mentioned that as an early final girl. You see, that's a movie where she seems to be the final

girl by default, because it's not a movie star and it's barely a character. She just happens to not

die. But when she rides away on the back of that truck at the end, that's one of the greatest

moments in any movie, not just horror movie, it means period. It's beautiful. Like that sense of

survive was unbelievable. You can't top that I don't think. I was at my childhood rep house when

I was on Long Island last week and introducing a movie, introducing a movie that we both love

Miller's Crossing. And they told me a story about running Texas Chainsaw at a midnight there,

and they had an original, they had print. And right at that exact moment when she jumps in the

back of the truck and leather faces swing the Chainsaw, the print broke. And the movie had an abrupt

ending and the lights came up too quickly and everyone was freaked out in the movie theater. And

the idea that that movie, which is 50 plus years old, has still has that power so fascinating to me.

And it does get me thinking about kind of like, where can we even go with this trope, this genre,

the idea that this is the year of obsession and back rooms and that, you know, Resident Evil is

coming out in a month. And even though it's an adaptation of a video game from a major studio,

I think there's a sense like this has a chance to be a great movie. And is Austin Abrams this

false final girl? I think so. With Resident Evil and and and and whale fall. And I haven't even

gotten into all that, which is, you know, obviously there have been quite quite a few final boys in

in recent years as well. And that that the gender dynamic there have been shifted quite a bit.

Well, the well, the greatest final boy is Bruce Campbell. Of course. Yes, Ash.

As Ash, the evil dead films because he's very macho coded, but you know, then he's not.

Yes. And I really love the way I mean, such such a wonderful actor in those movies. The way he sort of

sways between like total competence and just like shrieking cowardice. Yes.

Gift that just keeps on on giving. Can't I can't think more fondly of an actor than Bruce Campbell.

I hope he's okay. Me too. He's the best. Any any final thoughts, Adam?

We didn't talk. We we we we we we we talked with the scene as opposed to the counting crows.

Needle drop, but but I mean, I love the cover of Night Swimming at the beginning. I can't not. I

love R.A.M. It's a beautiful song. It's very well chosen because I mean, Night Swimming is very much,

you know, summertime at Camp Me Asma. That's what little death is doing.

So little death is doing. Yeah, you know, and I and we didn't even talk about the idea in the film,

which again, some people find a little little too declaratory or obvious, but like the whole in the

movie where the movies, the whole in the lake where the movies come from. Yes.

As a sort of thing about the mystery and the sort of submerged and subterranean nature of

creativity, I love how they come out of that kind of Kronenbergian slit and they're already VHS

tapes. You know, I mean, the interesting to see if Jane makes something that doesn't ultimately

not not resort. That's not right or or lean on, but like maybe something that's not purely about

the gaze of watching TV and seeing yourself on the screen. But on the other hand, you know, good

and great filmmakers repeat themselves. I mean, that's sort of what one understanding of a tourism

is. So one understanding, at least for critics, except not for filmmakers. I think at this point,

it's conscious. If they were to say, oh, I don't know I'm doing that, that I wouldn't believe.

You know, there's also I forgot to say, but the final girl thing, one of the funniest things I ever

interviewed someone about was when I talked to John Carpenter for the New Yorker. And we were talking

with the final girl and he's like, I don't know what that is. What is that? I'm like, oh, it's an

essay by Carol Clover. He's like, okay, good. Now I know what that means. And you know, moved on. I mean,

he much like almost anything. He has no, he the only thing he had a lot of interest in other than,

you know, his own movies was NBA basketball. He's great basketball fan. But I mean, a filmmaker like

Carpenter is not doing this intentionally. Jane Schumbrun's doing this very intentionally.

No question. I think Jane. Jane has a novel and then a Netflix adaptation of Black Hole coming out.

And so Black Hole is not, Black Hole is aware of of genre tropes, but it is not about genre tropes.

And so I'll be curious to see how, how much they modernize that graphic novel because it's

really old now. And I mean, I must have read it. Is it possible that it's like 20 years old?

When did it come out? It's going to be 30 years old. Yeah, I don't know if the top of my head,

but yeah, 30 years, sounds 30 years, sounds about right. So that'll be interesting, but that's

television. As far as films go, I don't know. I do feel like we're reaching a kind of endpoint

because of that progression that you talked about from a vlogging to to fandom to to creator.

Well, even with this, we even got we got the haunted podcast movie. We

charted under the Canadian haunted podcast. Yeah, some are saying this has been the haunted

podcast for many years. What, what, what if I had a podcast? Would that be, would that be

of interest? I'd tell you to be scary. That'd be real scary. Yeah, be, be, be scary. Who,

who, who, who can say what's coming? But maybe, maybe, maybe that was an elegant, elegant tease.

Wasn't that, wasn't, wasn't that, wasn't that subtle? Yeah. That's, you'll be a podcast or yet, Adam.

One, one, one day, I've been, what's the line? I've been, I've been taught by masters.

Yeah, and it was great to have you in, it was great to have you in Toronto. Yeah. Thanks for

having me. Thanks for having Amanda and Chris. What a year for Toronto. You guys are doing it.

Blue Jays back, back, game in a half back. Look at that perfect circle. We just traced with the

podcast. You'll have to learn about this when you podcast. Yeah, there's no, there's nowhere to go now.

Thank you for having me. It was a pleasure. Thanks, Adam. Okay, let's go to my conversation now with

Jane Hannah and Jillian. So happy to have Jane show and run Hannah, I'm binder and Jillian

Anderson here to talk about this film. I, you're getting this question a lot, but I do need to hear

from all three of you. The first horror film you've seen and, and whether or not it made you a

lifelong fan. I think I know the answer to the second question for you, Jane, but where did you start?

First horror film that I saw, I think technically was my grandma's copy of Abbot and Castello

meet Frankenstein. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, is that a horror movie? I think so. I watched it

like it was a horror movie as I knew that Frankenstein. I was like, oh, this guy,

and these goofballs, and they also had night of the living dead on VHS. So then I watched that,

and so it was like dipping my toes further into the water. With your grandpa and I watched it live

with your grandparents. I forget if I watched it live with them or I just like waited for them to

leave the room and grabbed, grabbed the cassette. Did you not have a lot of guardrails in terms of what

you could watch as a kid? No, I, I, I famously watched with my parents at age like I must have been

eight or nine the first episode of South Park, the first broadcast like what an aired live. I was

history. Everyone who watched it started a band. No, yeah, I was watching some nasty stuff from

a very young age. Hannah, what about you? Absolutely. I would have, I think mine is Silent Hill.

Oh, sure. Yeah, I remember being so terrified. It's kind of a little girl's nightmare being

separated from your mom and sort of like in a world filled with scary creatures and goals.

Were you a gamer? No, I just, my, my, my mom showed it to me. She's just like a real horror head.

She wanted to watch it. It came out in 2006. So I must have been in like I think sixth grade or maybe

fifth grade. And I was really scared. It freaked me out. But I actually revisited it because we've

been having a lot of these kinds of conversations. And I rewatched it. I found it to be so beautiful.

I think I'm more so identified with the perspective of the mom. And it's also just like

beautiful filmmaking actually. And it looks great. And I hear that for folks who are fans of

the video game, it's a faithful adaptation. Okay. Did you stick with horror or was that not really

a genre for you growing up? Yeah, yeah, I did. I wouldn't say I was all the way in. But I think it was

one element of my media diet. Okay. Jillian, what about you?

I've now told this story so many times. I'm slightly boring myself. But I... You can lie to me if

you want to tell a new story. No, but then I get myself into a world of pain. I had a bad trip

at somebody else's house. Somebody I didn't know very well when I was very young. And

it was just some really, really strong marijuana. And they decided to put on Texas chain cell

massacre. And I couldn't get out. I couldn't... Like if I went outside, it would have been dark. And

I didn't know them real well. It was just a one-room apartment. And so it was just horrific. And

that was kind of the first and the last horror film I saw. Really? And so you don't have a

huge relationship to it. No, I watch... I can watch the gruesomest true crime stuff, but I can't watch

horror. And even when my kids watch it in other rooms, if I hear the sound or I hear something,

I need to like plug my ears. Kind of thing is the strange. I get really triggered.

That's... Maybe explains a little bit about why you haven't been in a lot of movies like this.

But I kind of wanted to ask you about that Jane too in terms of how you found these two actors.

And maybe like what they represent to audiences was that a component? And how did you figure out who

should be in the movie? Jillian made this great Instagram Twitter post recently, where you were

posting pictures of yourself from back in the day and then posting pictures of Hannah and

and how similar like the energy is. And this is like actually, I think something I was aware of

when coming up with like a pairing. Yeah, there's something like... I mean, obviously there's

something psychosexual going on in this movie in general, but like I just I had this impulse that

there's never been a pairing of like two actors who are starring in an erotic thriller of sorts.

That's been quite deranged in this style. There's just like, yeah, something about the two of them

together, just immediately. I knew it was going to be like... I think maybe because of how similar

you seem in some ways and you're very different people, knowing you well at this point, but at first

I was just like... Yeah, I felt mischievous in a way that I couldn't quite explain. I love that.

And that was exciting, but no, I was a fan of both of them. Obviously, Jillian, I grew up watching.

It was very strange meeting Jillian for the first time because yeah, I just like, I did spend

so much time with you when I was like eight years old. Really, I think probably as much as my siblings.

Yeah, I just lived in the screen obviously. And so then meeting you and feeling like,

oh, I kind of... Yeah, there's something like almost Pavlovian. And not just like,

oh, I've seen you in things, but I know you from a past life or childhood in some deep way.

And then that familiarity, like, now it's invisible to me because very quickly we just started

forming a connection as people. And yeah, and you're so different than the roles, all of the roles

I've seen you in. And that's what's so wonderful about this performance and all of the others.

But yeah, there is definitely the iconography in the film that was in my head while writing it.

And I was thinking about Jillian while writing it of like...

Yeah, like somebody who we wouldn't we see her will believe her as like this icon from like a past

life or past like franchise or something. But I think more than that, there is this like,

yeah, there are very few actors who can like make the entrance that Jillian makes in this movie.

And it has something to do, I think, with like the classical old Hollywood, like,

just like glitter or something. There is something that is like, yeah, you can't fake that and

you can't like invent that on the fly. You know, you can't cast somebody that like we've never

seen before and never seen in that way. Like there is just like this elegance that goes beyond

like elegance that becomes like the dream that we've been enjoying in this cinema for

a hundred years in just like the way Jillian inhabits space and physicality and the screen.

And I knew that. And that moment when she does enter the movie, it's like

it is asking a lot to be earned, I think. And there are very few people in the world who could earn it,

like Jillian does. And Hannah, I was a fan of through hacks, but I watched her send-up special.

I've talked about this before too. She's heard me gush about it, but she's psycho.

The way that she was like dancing with the camera in that special, I like went beyond. Yeah,

she's she's crazy. No, like she is a little crazy. Like we've spent a lot of time over the last

couple weeks in the back of like cars and random cities getting ushered to screenings. And

I'm like realizing more and more like how Gina Rollins Hannah is. Like Hannah is like,

that's crazy. And as a moon. And such a performer, but like, yeah, and like so,

like perennially caffeinated or something. And so such a natural performer, I feel like you are

most comfortable performing in a way that is like a little deranged. And I saw that in your stand-up.

And I was like, oh, I think that America needs to like learn a lot more about how to arrange

this person is. I don't know how purposeful this was, but I'm curious to hear you guys react to

this because this sort of in the text of the movie, you know, like we're being leveraged while

we're watching the movie thinking about like you as an icon of a certain kind of film and television.

And you as a person, you're basically the starring in your first feature film. You're making your

first big feature in the film. I don't know if that was an intention on your part, but how did you

think about that? Did you see yourselves and your careers and your work going into these

particular characters when you were making the movie? I mean, I understood from the standpoint of

of franchise and being in iconic space, whether that's because of, you know,

ex-files being an iconic show, certain characters that I played having iconic status.

And, you know, it's a common

relationship that fans seem to have with their particularly female stars that they're enamored of

to refer to them as being icons or, you know, mothers or whatever those words are these days.

You're getting that, yeah.

And so, so, and so, you know, not to poo, poo it or shrug it off or whatever because obviously it's a

huge, you know, it's an honor and a privilege to even be categorized in that way, but it's, it's,

um, so I, I got that aspect of it. I got the, the, the value of having someone with my

history, um, being, you know, playing Billy. And so I, I did understand that, but also, um,

you know, the, the sunset boulevard reference and even though I didn't want to play into that

too much throughout the whole thing, there were certainly aspects throughout that were fun to play

with, um, you know, not least in some of the costuming and stuff. So it was both, um,

um, but it also became part of the, uh, the joy and the fun and the comedy of it, you know, because

she's, she's so much more than that, that trope, um, and, um, and I think she, she, Billy, um, also plays

with it. You know, she, she knows the power that she has, she knows what she's doing, she knows,

so she's both very subconscious and completely not self-conscious at the same time and, and in

their lives, a kind of, uh, I naivete and an innocence with that, which I really, um,

liked. And so she feels, um, she feels much more complex than what you would expect from a character

who represented that. Right. Yeah. I feel like Chris is very self-conscious. Yeah. And, and, and,

I don't know if any of your own self-consciousness went into eating that character. Yeah. And I,

and I think to your previous question as well, like, I think the consciousness of self, like, was I,

having sort of a meta-awareness of the fact that like archetypally, I have similarities here.

I think my work was to really try to forget all of those things and really have into a completely

different frequency, like, I am so low and slow, like, Cali vibes, like, and so I was just trying to be,

like, how can I go wet, go east, free of mean, you know what I mean? Like, how can I, like,

embody this new frequency and only bring myself to it when it comes to, like, the very deep

and the emotional, when it comes to the intimate, you know, emotional truths that the film is trying

to communicate and especially via the character that I was playing. Like, I definitely think that

the only times that I brought anything from anything that was true for me in were in those, those

intimate moments. And so I think I tried my best to really forget all of those other things,

because what I really, really was committed to trying to do was to feel like a different character

and like a different person from myself, yeah. That feel like a big shift from what you've

been doing on hacks. Ors. So how do you do that? Like, you've been doing this for a while, you know,

how you're going to transform, you're thinking about a new character, but it's still, it's a relatively

big change if you're moving off of a comedy series that seemingly has elements of your own

experiences in life. Yeah. Yeah. I think, well, first of all, like, the text is so rich. And so there's

so much there for me to latch onto. Also, I spent a lot of time with Jane who, you know, imbued some

of their emotional truths into the material, but also like, I was absorbing some mannerisms and

things like that from Jane. And then also just like, honestly, I was so shocked at how

much wardrobe and costume like the frames, like the specs, putting them bangs on. I was like,

okay, new bitch in the building, you know, like I just like really all of that stuff, like,

why wearing like a long skirt and socks in those Mary Jane's and like,

three sweaters and just like, that is like such, you know, that is such a useful tool for me

to tap into kind of the discomfort and the self-consciousness and those things that affect

the physicality of the body itself. So it just, I kind of like went with it. Like, I didn't

understand that that was going to happen. I was kind of like, yeah, I need to know, I'm going to

figure out what I'm doing here. And then we did the fittings. And I was like, okay, this is

different, you know. And yeah, like the first time that I like did those fittings, I was just

starting to move around and look in the mirror and like, my body was just changing. And my,

when I was holding myself was just changing. And I started to like, yeah, just feel it. It was

super psychedelic, really cool. Jane, last time we talked, I think we spent some time talking

about tone. And I do feel like the tone of this movie is different from the previous two movies.

Like it is a very sincere, direct piece about sex and desire and some other things. But then it

is, it feels like kind of active satire at the same time. Totally. And that's really hard to pull off.

So I'm curious like how you thought about making those two things fit together. But then maybe

even more specifically how you make actors get on the wavelength to hit that tone. Yeah, it was

really scary. And something that I like knew for me was like at the absolute heart of the project. Like,

I think it's like a filmmaker's goal. At least for me is to like create a body of work that's

like representative of like the full scope of like how you experience the world and process things.

And, and especially I still think of myself as like fairly early on in what I hope is like a long

filmography. I want each film to be like surprising in some way or at least like, like even for

myself expanding the like definition of what I'm allowed to do. And I think I'm like pretty goofy

and funny, you know, like, and the first two films like obviously like those are films that came

out of really transition and their really intense. And I was like, my life was exploding around me

and I was like, I will capture the pain. And it's pure distilled form. And I didn't want to do that

again because I wasn't in a I wasn't in the same place. It would have been unnatural, you know,

or like it would have been this like mining of a well of like, um, yeah, I I think that I was

actually really scared about this. But like, it was amazing to make something that I'm prouder of

than anything I've made so far that like didn't feel depleting in that way or that like the, um,

the good art doesn't have to equal like ripping out your insides in front of the world.

Even though a lot of the art that I like seems to be of that variety. There's some

ripping out of the insides in this movie though. Sure. We did a different way. We did a little bit

of ripping out of some insides. Um, no, I was like, I want to blood guys are in the first scene.

And it's like, this is my like line in the sand of like, um, if you are coming in expecting kind of

like a slow sad emo, uh, you know, like, uh, dourge. Uh, yeah. And then the other thing that was

really scary was like, yeah, doing something that's like, unself consciously campy. And yeah, like,

like, like, kind of like fast paced wit stilman kind of dialogue and, uh, stonery and just like

doing a lot of goofs and gags. I think you just risk like really embarrassing yourself, you know,

like, uh, like class clown who like isn't funny. That that was the fear and being in rooms for

people like are enjoying the humor of the movie or like feel that the perspective like that they

they can like go along with it and have a good time has been so gratifying because it it, yeah,

it's just a huge part of who I am. And, um, and it did feel like, uh, yeah, like freeing to, to be

myself in the movie in a way that like I hadn't before. Um, I, um, yeah, I remember really feeling

on set like, like liberated from some, some like conception of myself post TV glow of like,

oh, I'm like, I'm the like sad teen person, you know, um, or like this fear of that is the like

one hit wonder or something of like everything is defined by what that movie's tone was because it

was such a moment for me and I, uh, you know, and, and, and in general, making this movie and,

and being like, oh, I feel so free making something completely different and I'm looking at it and

I'm realizing that like I can have a long career of doing things that are surprising and different.

Like, that was a really, yeah, it was like five years of living in this reality of like,

maybe every, maybe everything will sort of be in the shadow of that.

And immediately with this one, I was like, no, I'm gonna have like a whole life and career of making

things that are completely different.

I give the simplicity of this, but how do you know you're doing it right when you're in a movie

that doesn't really have a lot of comps? Like I couldn't, like, there's not a ton of movies you can

specifically explicitly compare this to. So when you're performing,

you're obviously getting direction and you're having conversations, but I'm curious like how you

know is this two-campy? Is it not campy enough? Is it funny enough?

Such a good question. I, I mean, for me over the years, I guess partly it's been trusting

my instinct on things. I feel like there've been times where I've showed up with quite a bold

choice. I remember with great expectations many years ago, I, I hadn't really even done her voice

out loud to myself, let alone to anybody else when I've showed up on set the first day and spoke

as her in front of the camera. And it only occurred to me after the fact, like after we were

done shooting that the director could have said, what the fuck are you doing? It's just weird.

Like don't, no, no, let's try something else. And I, and I guess I've had a few instances like that

where, you know, where, where I was asking a question the other day on one of the, the things that we

were doing. And one of the things that I said that you're, I, I wouldn't have been prepared for as

a drama student was the degree to which you're so often on your own when you're trying to put all

this stuff together and work all this stuff out because so much of the time, you know, if you're

doing television or you're doing a few episodes or something or you're doing, you know, there's not

necessarily that rehearsal period with directors or there's not necessarily, you know, you really

kind of show up on the day and you're meant to, to go and, you know, I've made some pretty bold

choices over the years that may or may not have worked, but they, they could have, you know, really not.

And, but I felt like with Jane, I felt like from the moment we started talking about the project,

that even though I was, you know, in my head was keen on doing Southern, in particular Southern,

and even, you know, the, the makeup choices with the twiggy eyes and, and all the different aspects,

I could trust that they would find a way to gently tell me that it wasn't working if it was

nor whether it was too much or whether, you know, and so I felt in that instance that,

that we'd have a dialogue and real communication about it, whereas there's other things that I've done where

I'm, that that level of trust or potential collaboration wasn't necessarily there and it really was,

it felt like it was winging it a lot more, which I think is a lot of what happens these days. It's

a lot of really talented directors out there who aren't necessarily good at communicating with

actors. They may be good at the visuals and they may be good at the technical aspects, but they're not

also so knowledgeable about what is needed from every single scene, from the performers that they

know, even how to communicate that. And that's quite a rare talent in and of itself. And Jane

certainly has that where I found that. What about for you, Anna? Yeah, you know an avatar where they take

their braid and they connect it to the tree branch and then they're able to kind of just like

download the tree. Of course they do a was. Yes, I know all about it. Thank you. So that's kind of

what it's like for me. Me and Jane kind of just the tree. Yeah, of course. Yes, obviously.

The tree from Africa. Yes. Literally. It's just like that sort of like that's the connection.

It's the connection. Like the script is kind of that like connection point, but also like we just had

like a lot of deep and vulnerable conversations about the subject matter. And for me, my approach was

just to be like, what is the reality here always? Like just tapping into that. That's all I was concerned

with. I think that like seen to seen you can sort of tell as you're moving through the work on the

day, like what it's asking a few that sort of ending is far different from some of the more comedic

beats, you know, but even in the Zoom call, which like is this comedic point in the film, like

for Chris, that is dead, dead fucking serious. Like she has just had this crazy experience. She's

coming like, you know what I mean? Like for the comedy, it has to be serious. And so I'm always

approaching the work of like, what is real to this person? Like no concern for the meta sort of the,

you know, the way that it's being perceived, just like staying in the reality of the thing.

It's great to hear you say that. It's funny seeing the movie. I assume that scene comes out of

whatever water bottle tour you went on. Or the period after the first or second film.

I would, you know, I have been getting this question a lot. And one of the, I think like one of

the earliest inspirations for this idea in the movie in general of like zombie IP, right, of like

find the find the like minority creator who like pairs up to the material that like lets you

resurrect the otherwise unresurrectable franchise was after world like right after world's fair.

I was getting, I was getting like like what happens after you premiere your like tiny little

art film that sundowns and you happen to be trans is like you just get like a slew of scripts

written by cis people that like haven't been getting made about trans people and they're like,

oh, we got we get you in here. But I also got submitted the leprechaun reboot.

Fantastic. Yeah. I was so amused by this because it's like like something clicked in my brain

where I was like, I think they're sending this to me because they think that like trans will cancel out.

They're like, they're like, oh, if we got a trans director, like no one's going to dig us for

making a leprechaun move. The iris little person movie. Yeah. That is very funny.

Maybe that got me started thinking about this whole sort of like idea of like, yeah,

like plugging up their holes of like potential like cancellations on the internet or whatever

from franchises. But yeah, no, it I think it's just like I I tried to let what needs like whatever

when you're making a movie, you know, and I work on these movies before I show it to anyone for

like years often. It's like, um, you're just listening to your world, you know, and you're keeping

your antenna up and you're letting in the things that are coming in and post TV glow or during

TV glow like, yeah, there were a lot of zoom meetings and being like the trans person in the room

on those zoom meetings and dealing with the social dynamics. And I'm just, you know, like I'm sensitive.

I'm sensitive to power dynamics and to the thing that's unsaid in the room or on the zoom.

Yeah, that was like a big part of my life. It still is a big part of my life like being trans

and Hollywood and being in those spaces and being both like tokenized and also like having

some like, yeah, like otherness that that is being like commodified or whatever and participating in

that commodification and like seeing some of the worst men in the world do their thing.

Yeah, it just like it had to be in the movie because like I was a trans person trying to make

another movie in Hollywood and you know, it's like it's pretty on the nose about it, but um,

it would have felt a lot less truthful, especially, you know, especially because it's a movie

that's like trying towards liberation or that's trying towards like some ideal of like free,

queer expression, right? This is what Hannah's character is like really questing towards in the movie

is like I want to make something that is like, as she says, Beats Hollywood at its own game or is like,

yeah, like free to express itself without the shackles of those men on those zoom calls. Yeah,

and so like, in a sense, I was trying to do that and I was also very aware that like, that's not

possible entirely in this space because of like all of the other forces at play and so it just

like for the movie to feel honest to me, it needed to be a part of it. It's interesting. It's like

your confrontation with the Minotaur or something and you know, try to get past the Minotaur.

This is like a much more practical question, but I was curious about this because Janie mentioned

the geysers of blood from a practical perspective. When you're working on a scene that has a lot of

blood, you have to reset what happens? Like do you have to just change wardrobe completely?

Is the set being completely cleaned and re I've never talked to anyone about this and I feel like

it's great. No, it's a great question. So what happens? It's on the budget. Yeah, so you know how in

Avatar there's no, it's crazy. Sure. I have personally, I have sensory issues. I have like

sensitivity to certain sounds and sensations on my body, one of which is any liquid with any sort

of fabric that is like if there's water on me, let's say I'm out of the shower and I don't dry

off properly and I put like a shirt on. Oh, crawling, skin crawling, even if it's water. Okay, so I'm

coming into the situation like I'm gonna die. I'm gonna absolutely die and I'm passing away

in real time. And so basically it was crazy. I was like sticky head to toe with the like blood that

was on our faces and then there was the tube, the side sort of tubing which pumps the blood into

my mouth that I'm choking on. But it's also spilling out of my mouth and filling the beds. The bed

is is soaking up with blood like completely soaked and there's we didn't have a backup bed, I don't

think. And like that day, like they kept making these like really sloppy mistakes. I was like one

of the only times that I got so protective of you and I realized how much you're suffering. I was

like, and it is suffering. I said that bed. You were literally mom of bear. Okay, you were like

get away from my cub literally. But yeah, it was really crazy. It was really yeah, we had to time

like the blood filling up for me and then Jillian, the blood coming out of her mouth and spitting

onto my face. There's like a guy under the bed with like a pump. He's just going, oh man. And it was

it was pretty cool though, the blood they were mixing it up with a drill. Just like,

like drill into a bucket of blood. It's really crazy. So that sounds horrible. Honestly,

that doesn't sound fun at all. It's most horrible. I will say this though, I've never felt more

beautiful than when I was covered in blood. Why? I just felt like it was, I don't know how to

describe it. I just think that last split diopter shot with Jillian and I in blood is just like

glorious and liberatory. And perhaps because on some of them realizing in real time that Jane

expressed something to me about the gas station scene in the end where like they were like, you know,

like being visibly trans and moving through the world like sometimes in certain areas or in certain

settings. Like, you know, there's that cutaway to that old guy who's like, you know what I mean?

It's like sometimes people look at me like, I'm covered in blood, but like it is this moment where

the characters are just in love and they don't care. And that was so meaningful to me. And so I think

when I got into the blood, I was feeling like I was tapping into that acceptance and love and beauty

and like all of the things that I feel like Jane has like walked this hard fought path to to

tap into and feel. And perhaps I made some association between what you shared with me and how it

felt to be in the blood. Yeah, so look great. And also honey, come on.

So I assume the film was not shot in sequence, but one thing that I love about it is it does really

feel like the two of you are creating a genuinely intimate relationship over time across the movie.

I was wondering like how much time you spent together before the movie or did you talk on set? How do

you create the illusion of connecting? We had a few days before we started shooting, rehearsing,

we had a we read a couple scenes over a couple days. We chatted from time to time, but you

got a connection or you don't. I mean it's either there or it isn't. It feels like a...

You try to withhold anything when you're meeting someone early and you know what work you have to do?

Not purposefully, I don't feel like I do. I think we just both really thought a lot about

what we were going to do and like made our individual decisions about what we were going to

bring to the movie and like really did some deep and serious meditation on like how that

progression should happen and then in collaborating with Jane kind of modulating that and steering it.

I just think like the end product of this thing is like everybody having the same idea of what the

movie is and how that obviously and how that hinges so much upon what happens between us. I think

we just like... I think it was helpful that we started pretty much at the beginning though in the

film. I think that whenever one can do that it can only be helpful because so often you know

your first day is your death day or your divorce day or that's been my experience. But also

one thing I didn't realize beforehand how much I would need to walk a fine line between...

you know I didn't want to be a predator. I didn't want to be creepy. I didn't want to make the

first move. I didn't want to be too maternal. You know all those things that and there were so many

scenes and opportunities to go one way or the other in that wouldn't have been beneficial to their

journey together and I suddenly realized that it was something that I really needed. It needed a

lot of thought and care and I hadn't anticipated that quite so much. I mean I think I brought it up

at some point particularly in regards to our first kiss and you know not even necessarily even

wanting to lean in but allowing her to take her you know to really be in her power at that moment and

be the the seducer and you know and so I think because because we were able to start at the very

beginning of our relationship there's a certain point where I'm kind of in the clear in a sense

because we fall quite quickly after the you know after the first intimacy scenes after the

scene where I put the we're smoking the joint and stuff it feels like from that point on it was

safe to fall in love in a way or you say to show that that I'm equally smitten and stuff so it was

you know it was but yeah and yeah and for me it was I got to know both of you guys individually

in the lead up to it and but no it wasn't until two or three days before production that we did

the first rehearsals altogether and seeing you both like read like we just read through a bunch of

times those those early scenes where you're meeting each other and and I I remember just being like

oh this is the movie because it's like it's it's the accent that Jillian is doing and it's

the like strangeness of the way that you're like playing each other a little bit at the beginning

there but it's just like yeah the disconnect and yeah it's a very specific energy that you enter

with that like I had a fuzzy picture of in my mind but it was like only until I I saw you both

together that like what the chemistry actually was started to reveal itself and then you're like

yeah I also am glad we shot in the order we did because then it like you you let one thing

inspire the other like I remember that first day when we were shooting the like you guys getting

ready to eat dinner together and I was talking about this the other night to Jillian like the

I feel like something opened up for me with the movie when I saw her like patting the chicken

you know she's like putting so much chicken on this platter and then she kind of is giving

this very elegant caring pat and Eric was like we got to get it close up for that chicken pat

and I was like totally agree but I was like yeah there's like a freak there's a weird kid energy

to the film and the way they fall in love that I think is like very queer and like there's something

of like equality in it too right it's like you're you're looking for these signals in each other that

your like game to just be like freaky you know and to do these like sort of um yeah like like

like these mating rituals of like eating chicken or like enjoying dipping sauce or being like go get

scared in my room like just like do like like matching each other's freak in this way that yeah but

what I didn't realize until after I started talking about it and you know for these interviews is

is that those scenes couldn't have been played like um four play scenes the way that they worked

was playing them straight up for what they um uh you know they were it's an eating dinner scene

even though there's a particular way that Jane wanted me to say do you like dipping sauce and

it's a presenter and they had it in their head for me in terms of what worked was the juxtaposition

between Billy's um uh Billy's naivete and innocence which I keep coming back to you know which leads to

you know Mickey did that you know and the juxtaposition between that and Hannah's

anxiety and nervousness and and um diet tribe and etc that those two the two

um rhythms of that and and speed of their of how they exist in the world are the tension that

actually makes their they're coming together more alive and more interesting in a way and

and I think had I been playing too much um you know that that it was a seduction I think that

some of that might have been lost and I didn't I don't think I even realized that until after the

back totally Hannah did you feel like in the same way we're talking about maybe some of your experiences

mapped being seduced and being asked to be in such intimate settings in your first big movie did

you bring some of those same anxieties any of this experience you know what um I think I felt so

much anxiety leading up and then I think genuinely when we got to the island and Jane and I did our

first rehearsal I had so much relief and after Jillian and I did the scene work together it was like

total relief like I just felt like okay this is like I feel that the thing is working and it's here

um I think that uh that really just was my work to keep up that anxiety and to just maintain that

frequency um for sure I think like the intimate scenes the thing is that like just I don't know

like I said Jane and I did so much talking about um what we had to portray there but also the ways in

which the thing that's being portrayed is true for us both um and it was through that that I felt

genuinely like walking in confident to portray something that is incredibly familiar to me so

yeah I don't I don't know that I was actually feeling any of that I think it was kind of

all of all of a sudden acting baby

well the minute the minute Hannah walked out you know naked but for her underwear um

in uh from the bathroom there was such she was completely spellbinding like she came out with such

confidence and was radiating um a sexiness and assuridence and and it's like you couldn't take

you couldn't take your eyes off you guys are recording you got this yeah the cameras are recording

send the video over yeah I'm like you're at it's time yeah I was completely bold over I'm trying not

to say anything she was like I want to talk to her it is like the buddy love and the nutty professor

thing where you're like oh wow there's like there's a transformational yeah yeah um who's more

embarrassed me or you right now I have to ask you school acceptance man I accept yeah

millennial question for you I need to hear you talk about uh the counting crow's needle drop

I think I'm being in your question the the exegesis on this

uh my my second cousin was their guitar tech oh wow what a connection

you dropping us now yeah yeah yeah and so I went to see them when I was like 11 years old and

and and went backstage and got their autograph on like a on a glossy you know like on a

on a promotional photo and uh can you recreate Derrick's facial expression in that glossy um

how to get get in the get in the uh hair chair for those dreads

I love the counting crow's yeah I mean they're in rotation I had a big breakup in 2024

I was like finish I was getting ready to like start really like making this movie and I wrote

the script for night swimming another millennial banger maybe that's a gen X banger we share it yeah

yeah I'll claim it too and uh and I would yeah I go for whatever reason like during this break up

I reached for um recovering the satellites the second counting crow's record um which I'd always

liked whenever as much as August and everything after and I was just listening to it and I was in

Spain at a festival and it's just sitting at coffee shops in Spain like really angsty listening to

that record and it felt like really good in its way um and then like something about long

December just like got stuck in there where I was like oh my god I think this might be a better choice

than night swimming and night swimming it's like my favorite song so I was like that's crazy

I think it was um it's just it is a perfect song uh but it's also yeah it's like a song about like

this year has been really long and really shitty and like maybe next year is going to be better

this kind of like hard one triumphant resilient kind of like becoming uh that is what that scene is

about and in many ways is what the movie is about but without that song and that tone and those

na na na's uh you know it's like it's all about the contrast between seeing like these geysers of blood

and heads flying into the air and and that and that kind of like piano vibe um yeah and I

somebody put me in touch with with with Adam Dürtson we texted a little bit and he said I've

always wanted long December to be part of a killer water

I don't think he's you literally got one though I don't know if he's a senior yet but I mean

no I mean I love the counting crew I could go deep on the counting crews besides you want to talk

about it you let me know I produced a documentary about them so I know all of it yeah I did yeah

I've seen it yeah yeah complicated movie um amazing career fascinating guy uh I think he like

well can I say one last thing about the counting please do of course well like I also like like my

band when I was like 15 was bright eyes like I loved bright eyes um and I think there's like a lineage

of like people that was like embarrassing to like if you were a boy uh I think that this was

sort of the vibe for counting crews was like they got they got like post nirvana um kind of like

a lot of lack for not being like masculine or being like whiny or being like uh like to pretty boy

or something I think that has a lot to do with gender you know or I think that like there's like

an earnestness and like an emotional forthrightness in that music and in brightest music that like

is wonderful and I felt really embarrassed to like it during the years that I was growing up and

liking it and uh yeah deserving of some reclamation okay last last couple things here I'm curious

will you make any more horror movies now that you've made one and you're you're now part of the

lineage of this history of film and and you used in your first starring role will you make more I'm

curious like because scream queen and final girl these are these are also iconic delineations

in in movie and TV history so I'm curious how you feel about them now having made this um I

I had actually tried for a while Jason Bloom I'd met him a couple times and we tried to make um

a couple different things over the years so I haven't been against it um also you know

obviously a good portion of the x-balls was um horror adjacent um and so uh I feel like it's in my

bones even though it's not something um that I've been able to absorb um as a viewer um I've

been offered stuff over the years and and sometimes um depending on what it is sometimes it feels

so dark I just don't know if I can put myself in that place um and um but I'm not I'd burst to it

is it's more of the of the right thing coming along and it was important to me that that that this

had um it's so much more than than just that and has so much depth and and humor obviously that and

and so uh this feels like a definite um first in a sense if I was going to have a firstness

would be the perfect first and um but so I'm not I'm not first one okay what about you Hannah

oh yeah yeah I'm totally blinded up yeah well I don't know I'm like yeah I'm kind of genre

agnostic like I just like good shit no matter what it is makes sense okay we end every episode of

the show by asking filmmakers what's the last great thing they have seen um you're not prepared for

this but no I'm happy to talk about the last great thing I've seen okay we want to go first Jan you

want to go first uh yeah the other night like I've got it ahead blew it out I got to LA um I had a

night off I looked and saw what was playing at the regal and they were playing end of eve angelian

oh yeah uh and so I got myself an extra large icy and I planted down and um that food that

fucking movie is so amazing that's like one of the great films um and at the end of that movie the

last line is just disgusting somebody says disgusting and that just like put me in the exact right

mindset for this press tour week just disgusting I could go um I saw a film called Bouchera

um it's an animated uh sapphic furry trilingual french maroccan

and very like small intimate family drama dramedy perhaps it's funny it's an animation style I've

never seen um it's really cool there is this like yeah the visual world is like so intricate and

like vivid and thought out in the style of the voiceover is incredibly casual as if there's

no script um and it's super it was super moving and sweet and romantic and um funny and it was

unlike anything I've ever seen where did you see it? Lemley Lemley in the theater okay cool yeah

generally what about you um that the very very last film I saw was the invite um yeah what did

you like about it Olivia Wilde's latest film and I thought it was fantastic um I I find

you're such a confident uh filmmaker and um uh and the complexity of the relationships and

you know it's it's on quite a consistent pitch throughout and yet you don't feel like you're

participating in in in the screen fast and like in it's it has a lot of

undulations and all the characters are such are so well played by all the actors and Ed

Norton and Penelope Cruz are just so phenomenal and watchable and um I just thought it was fantastic

another movie that kind of glides between tone pretty comfortably in the same way as your movie

hey this was really nice Jane Hannah Jillian thank you so much for coming in thank you thank you

thank you thanks to Jane Hannah and Jillian thanks to Adam thanks to our producer Jack Sanders

for his work on today's episode thanks to Lucas Kavanaugh for his production support next week

we're going to Oak Street all the way to the end of it CR and Mallory Rubin will

join me to discuss the new dinosaur thriller we'll see you then