A Lifetime of Happiness: Movies, TV, and Video Games

Cabin in the Woods (2011)

July 14, 2021 Steve Bennet-Martin, Stephen Martin-Bennet Season 1 Episode 76
A Lifetime of Happiness: Movies, TV, and Video Games
Cabin in the Woods (2011)
Show Notes Transcript

The Steves discuss the 2011 cult classic Cabin in the Woods, along with what's making them happy and what they are watching.

  • The creative team and movies release
  • Diving into the 5 tropes/sacrifices
  • The Ritual around the world and ideas for a prequel
  • What other movies we love might be rituals?

Ending- Any music or audio clips were borrowed from the original source material.

Support the show
Steve:

Hello. Hello, returning happies and new listeners. This is Steve Bennet-Martin, and

Stephen:

this is Stephen Martin-Bennet. And welcome to a lifetime

Steve:

of happiness. The podcast where we take you on our journey through some of the movies, TV shows, and other bits of pop culture that are helping to keep us happy while hopefully bring a smile to your face along the way. And in today's

Stephen:

episode, we offer in humility and fear for the blessing piece of your eternal slumber, as it ever was.

Steve:

Yes, that's right today. We are venturing off into the cabin in the woods, the 2011, just Sweden cult, classic.

Stephen:

Yay. I love

Steve:

this movie so much. I do too. I mean, I've the reason why we chose this movie is I feel like it's the perfect mix of the traditional sense of horror and like the whole teens being murdered off one by one with this, like turning the genre on the head at the same time.

Yeah.

Stephen:

And because like, some people are involved in it and it's this meta look at different horror tropes and villains. Ugh. It's and it's so smart

Steve:

too. Yes, it is. And one thing I really loved the first time of watching it was the twists and turns, but then when you watch them back, how you see it happening all along, and so a warning for those of you who haven't watched cabin in the woods, we are going to spoil the hell out of it. You make sure that you go ahead and rewatch it real quick. We'll be here for you when you get back. And while you're doing that, they what's been making you happy.

Stephen:

So last night we went up to 10. And we went to a smash room or some people know them by rage rooms. Yes. We

Steve:

got to break a whole bunch of shit.

Stephen:

Yup. Like there were so much glassware, like it's somebody goes to, um,

Steve:

like dumpsters and, well, I

Stephen:

was, I was thinking of the, um, the Goodwill and habitat for humanity and they just get all of the dishes and everything that people have donated. And then you get to spend until you've run out of stuff, breaking them with baseball bats and axes and crowbars, or just throwing them against the wall. Or with you are successful of breaking them against your head and you are not a success was not, it would not break for the life of me. Yes.

Steve:

And so if you want her to check out a video of that will be for, to share it to our Facebook group. Uh, it was also on our happy life pod productions, Facebook page, which you can go ahead and like, if you haven't already there.

Stephen:

What about you, Darlene, what's been making you happy. Well,

Steve:

that is a small piece of a larger puzzle, the smash room in terms of my self care. That was a great way to relieve some anger and stress after a rough week at work. And in general, I've been practicing self care a lot more recently, since my sobriety I've gotten my nails done. I did the Ivy lounge. Sash coming up with brands. So a lot of the, a lot of good self care on the way. And it's really making me remember how you have to take care of yourself, especially if you're in an industry where you're taking care of other people. It's the whole like, love yourself thing, but it's also caring for

Stephen:

yourself. Absolutely self care is so important. We learned that during the pandemic that you have to take time to take care of yourself. If you were planning on taking care of anybody

Steve:

else. Exactly. Yes. And in addition to the self-care making us happy. What have we what have we been watching on TV? That's been making you happy? My

Stephen:

love. So, um, in the past couple of months we have dove headlong into Lego. Yes. And yeah. We went to the Lego store and bought some things, but we've also been watching Lego masters on Hulu it season one from last summer. It's originally on Fox season two is outright. Yeah. Will Arnett is the host and he's doing a good

Steve:

job hosting. Yes. And the different Lego challenge, has it been a lot of fun to watch

Stephen:

so much? And there's only one group that I really don't like the deuce bros. Yup. The douche bros.

Steve:

Yes. If you have, if you've watching it, you know exactly who we're talking about. And

Stephen:

we really like the couple from Bradington, he says here in Florida, there's a couple that's. Quite well. Yeah, they're

Steve:

really talented. We're about halfway through season one and we're excited to jump into season two when we're not building ourselves. Yes.

Stephen:

And I have been playing Axiom verge on switch, which has been scratching my Metroid Venia itch after and they announced Metroid dread and it's coming out this fall and I was like, oh, I need a game to play before Skyward sword comes out. And I was like, oh, I have Axiom verge. And it's definitely. Um, a high class Metroid Venia game. And so I just finished that the other day and it was fantastic. And thanks. It has the SQL coming out next year. Oh, excellent.

Steve:

Wonderful, good to hear. Yes. You know, it doesn't have a SQL coming out next year.

Stephen:

Um, that would be cabin in the woods. Yes.

Steve:

Unfortunately it ended with the whole world blowing up. So as much as everyone wants to SQL, I think we'd have to result to

Stephen:

a frequent. Yeah. And that's what we'll get into that later, but definitely there is no secret. Available for this movement,

Steve:

correct. And for, uh, for as a re as a refresher that you you'd say 2011 American horror comedy written by Josh Sweden and drew Goddard, and it's, uh, drew Goddard's directorial debut, and it was produced by wheat as well.

Stephen:

And it's jars. Um, Kristen Connolly from house of cards is doing. Chris Hemsworth.

Steve:

Yeah. I don't know where he's from. Have we seen him in any

Stephen:

before? I mean, is he one of those Hemsworth brothers? I mean, I know there's Liam. He must be

Steve:

one of the forgotten ones. Yes. He played Curt.

Stephen:

Yeah. Just kidding. We know he's Thor. Yes.

Steve:

Anna Hutchinson played, uh, or was in power Rangers, jungle fury. And she played Juul,

Stephen:

Fran Kranz from doll house as

Steve:

Martin. Jesse Williams from Grey's anatomy is Holden

Stephen:

Richard Jenkins from

Steve:

shape of water and Bradley Whitford from west we're weighing as Hadley.

Stephen:

Yes. And there was also one other person in there that you love. I love

Steve:

Amy Acker from the chemistry department. Yes.

Stephen:

And she's in most things at Joss Wheaton. She's

Steve:

amazing. Yes. And she hasn't aged like at all? No, she's one of those like celebrities that. It's just as beautiful as she was when she first strolled into paly as Fred angel. Yeah. Yes. And this movie had a budget of$30 million do babe?

Stephen:

Um, surprisingly bad.

Steve:

Yeah. It only had a box office of 66.5 million. So it barely doubled it's.

Stephen:

Yeah. Which is crazy because of how good it really truly is.

Steve:

I was going to say, and especially, I'm sure it's hopefully made more in the backend because it really has solidified itself as such a cult classic. And the movie as a refresher of the basic plot, IMD be defines as five friends, go for a break at a remote cabin where they get more than they bargained for discovering the truth behind the cabin in the woods. How'd they do, babe?

Stephen:

I honestly like, because this movie is such a spoiler-y thing. I actually am okay with that, because if you dive into it any further for somebody that hasn't seen it, it kind of be, and to ruin it all right from

Steve:

the get go. Even if you were to add in, like, as they become manipulated by a shadowy evil organization, you're still just like, huh, that's a little bit more than I need in my preview. Yeah.

Stephen:

This is one where I'm glad that they're vague and don't really get the full

Steve:

plot. Yes. Now, one little bit of extra behind the scenes while we don't normally get into the makeup and costumes of different movies, we go into the makeup effects team was actually someone that we know from our horror movies.

Stephen:

Yes, it was Heather Landon camp who famously is Nancy from the nightmare, a nightmare on Elm street series. Um, she and her husband, David have a practical effects company and they're used a lot on horror films and things like that in Hollywood. And they provided all the practical effects for this movie. Yes, they

Steve:

certainly did. And the movie opens up with that first scene making you almost wonder if you sat down on the wrong movie theater, which was intentional by wheat and he actually really had to fight the execs to not start with the

Stephen:

teens. Right. Because you see. Bradley Whitford and, um, Richard Jenkins and they're at vending machines. And once talking about baby proofing their house, and you're just like, I have no idea what's going on here at all, because even in the trailers, they can't. Bradley Whitford and Richard Jenkins and Amy Acker out of the previews at all.

Steve:

Yep. Correct. And so that, that was just really interesting a choice, but certainly didn't have enough. And it does very much set up as the, another horror movie about kids being killed off in the woods. One by one, they start off like loading up in their car and you get to meet all the characters and you quickly learn. They're all pretty close to her. They look familiar. If you've seen a couple horror movies before, in some way, shape or form with their personality

Stephen:

types, they tried to specifically type cast for what you would say. In a horror movie and specifically a cabin in the woods horror.

Steve:

Yes, exactly. And then once you have the, the five heading out to the cabin in the woods, they stopped to get gas and they meet the harbinger.

Stephen:

It's like, so I grew up in West Virginia and I've seen gas stations like this, and I've seen people like this and it's all like very thinly veiled, racist. And, um, Just creepy Backwoods. You're not from around here. Scary. Like you definitely think, oh, Texas chainsaw massacre. This is not where I want to get gas or use the restroom type of thing. Yeah,

Steve:

exactly. And so the friends ignore the warning, which has part of the ritual we learn about later. But in terms of the characters or the sacrifices who stood out to you out of the five as someone that you were instantly ruined. So,

Stephen:

um, honestly it was, um, Holden who was Jesse Williams from Grey's anatomy, because it seemed different than one of the usual tropes because, um,

Steve:

because like a scholar is oftentimes like the nerdy kid or the nerdy best friend,

Stephen:

and there's a scene early in the movie. Where there at the cabin. And he sees this very dark painting on the wall and he's like, I don't want to stare at that. So he takes it down and it turns out there's a two way mirror. Yes. And, um, then he sees Dana beginning to undress and he has an internal debate, but then he lets Dana know, Hey, stop. Like and says, how are you? Here's the two way mirror thing and you don't in horror movies. You don't usually get a really good guy. Yeah. You get a, you get a good final girl, but you don't always get a good guy. And one of the things that this is, they definitely set Holden and Dana up for in the beginning. These are definitely people you can root for. Yes,

Steve:

I certainly do. And one thing I, uh, with that scene with the two-way mirror that I find is that's a very big, common trope as well in horror movies, uh, especially like the eighties, but going into even now where you always have to have like the boob shot or like the female gaze is very strong in a lot of horror movies, especially the ones directed and created by men. I mean, w what is the term for those of our listeners who might not be familiar with the female? Is w what does that mean? Yeah. Um,

Stephen:

so that's just where they make sure that you have your TMA shots so that, um, the men that are watching that probably live in their mom's basement. Can see naked women and Ogle them while they're in the theater for no plot related

Steve:

reason. Exactly. So when you start off a horror movie and the woman's butt ass naked in the shower and you're swimming yet, and you see like the camera just like slowly panning across her naked body, that's an example of the female. Yeah.

Stephen:

And they do it a lot in the, um, Friday, the 13th movies. And, um, I mean, they go out of their way in those a lot of the time.

Steve:

And one thing I like at the end of it though, and this is after they switched rooms, she has a moment where she turns the tables on him briefly where she he's undressing. Exactly. And so it always like, nowadays I realize both are wrong, but at the time I'm like, oh, okay, well you go girl. And then like the guy and like, that was creepy, but I guess that's also double standards.

Stephen:

Right. And, um, she puts the painting back on the wall so that she's not tempted. Yes. Yes. You know, the have there's a great, interesting, and it's just funny to me. Um, so for, um, Chris Hemsworth plays Kurt and he comes in and Jules has these books in her hand and he grabs the books and he goes, where did you get the. Where did you learn this? And she goes, it's not what you think. And no, tell me, where did you learn this? She goes five. I learned it from you. Okay. I learned it from you mimicking like some of the afterschool specials and things where kids about drinking and drugs and the parents are like, where did you learn how to smoke, blah, blah, blah. And they're like, I learned it from you. And I thought that was a really, like, you could see that they have. Um, a genuine relationship, which is nice because things quickly turn at the cabin, which we'll get to, but you see at the beginning, these people acting normally. Yeah.

Steve:

And what's interesting is you get to see them as they get into the cabin in the woods de devolve in some ways to the tropes of, you know, the Virgin, the athlete, the hor, the fool and the scholar, because. As they're being more and more manipulated by the underground lab. You know, they point out how Kurt's normally like a philosophy guy who like, is really super smart and now he's just like, bro-ing out and she's not normally. And Jules is pre-med. Yeah. Jules was pre-med and like

Stephen:

Kurt was a sociology major.

Steve:

Yeah. And she just dyed her hair. Blonde. She's not normally even a natural blonde and it ends up with the stuff that they put into the blonde hair, as well as the pheromones they're releasing that help kind of make her come more controllable, but it's just, you're learning that things are not what they seem. They are not those tropes, but their behaviors are changing as we're getting more and more scenes underground of them. Tweaking

Stephen:

things. Right. And you can see some of these tropes in other movies, like scream where, um, Sid is your Virgin character. Tatum is your technically whore character. Randy's going to be your full, um, and, um, Stu I don't know where he would exactly fall in, but, um, Billy, it would be the jock or bad boy character. So like you see it in other movies, they really fill it in a lot. Um, and that's been more of a thing from the later eighties and to the nineties, because back in. The seventies and stuff, they only really carried it cared about like a final girl. Yeah. Like, um, hello. The final

Steve:

girl was always a Virgin though. Always Virgin NASC. And that's what I like about Dana Kira is they start off in the beginning talking about how she had an affair with her professor, and then he broke it off because he wouldn't leave his wife. So, you know, she's not a Virgin, but as Sigourney Weaver says later, We, we work

Stephen:

with what we've got. Yes. Which so Gorney Weaver the on like she's not even in the credits and like she plays the director of the company that's overseeing. Yeah. All of this. She does a great job. She does such a good job. I mean, Sigourney Weaver is just a brilliant, brilliant actress. Should we go ahead and say, what's going on? Yes,

Steve:

it's a ritual where I guess they don't specify how often, but I assume yearly it's yearly, yearly. They have to sacrifice five youths to the old ones so that the old world or the old gods don't rise up and destroy all of our humanity as we know it and this entire world.

Stephen:

And. The U S version of it because it's different in every country because they'll have different tropes, but you have to have the scholar, the athlete, the whore, the Virgin, and the fool. The only rules are the fool almost die first. Yes. A harbinger has, sorry, the whore must die first.

Steve:

Yes. The Hort dies first. They all have to have been worn. That they were going to die and ignore the warning by

Stephen:

the harbinger was so you have a Mordecai in this,

Steve:

and then you have the, the five who have to choose their methods of death by interacting with items in the basement.

Stephen:

Yes. And as the hor must die first and the Virgin has to be last and, but she doesn't have to die. Suffer though.

Steve:

Yes. And once the Virgin is sexually tempted, then the scholar life has expendable, but the scholars role is to sexually attempt the Virgin,

Stephen:

which it's just amazing that there are all these things that, you know, they have to, there is free will in this game. So they have to, they can push things along with the pheromones, the hairdo. The alcohol stuff like that. They are where they can drug them and make them fall into these tropes. But, um, once they transgress and they go into the bay where there are hundreds of these things, it looks like an antique shop. Like there was a conch shell, there was a music box with a ballerina. There was this weird spiky puzzle box. There was the journal. And we see later that the conch related to the Merman, the puzzle box was a soccer guy. The guy was saws on his face. The ballerina was this ballerina whose face was all teeth. And like, so at that point they must choose how they are to be tortured and killed. Yes. The corporation has no control over that. Um, and they push them towards. The choice, but the children actually have the potential to not make a choice. Yes. Because Marty's like, let's go upstairs guys. Yeah. Let's let's not do any of this. Yeah. Let's not read the book I'm drawing. And the line that reading in

Steve:

Latin, she does read in Latin though. And what did they get?

Stephen:

They get the Buckner's, which are the. The incest zombie redneck killer.

Steve:

Yes. They're not just zombies. As we learned from the women in the chem department, she had her money on zombies and she said, that's not fair. I had zombies too. But to which sitter center place? Yes, you had zombies, but this is zombie net, but this is zombie redneck torture family entirely separate thing. It's like the difference between the elephant and an elephant.

Stephen:

Which I don't know what an elephant seal

Steve:

is a seal and an elephant next together. Oh,

Stephen:

okay. Um, as each of the four to five die, um, the people in the corporation release the sacrificial blood, which goes downstairs towards the ancient ones. It's very much a ritual and.

Steve:

Yep. And I know you had mentioned scream. What other movies do you think we might've seen that could have been rituals to the ancient ones after kind of following these rules?

Stephen:

I think honestly the Friday of the 13th ones could definitely have been. Um, and honestly, if you look back to the original Halloween, um, her friends, um, one is kind of an idiot. One is a job. One is just focused on sex. So I think that right there that you have, um, the fool, the whore, the jock, the scholar, and Laurie is the Virgin. And Michael Myers is sacrificing them off that maybe he didn't escape from had entailed Haddonfield penitentiary for the criminally insane. Maybe he was let go so that he could. Sacrifice these children who are making the transgressions by choosing to sin where, um, and then his killing them would keep the old ones at bay. Yeah. Yes.

Steve:

And so it is a very American way to do the sacrifice because we are not the only ones who are trying every year to do the sacrifice. This happens across the world. Doesn't

Stephen:

it? It does happen across the world between. Sweden and Germany and well, the all-star country of Japan who has a perfect track record.

Steve:

Yes. But this year, I mean, they just had to yell out into anger. How hard is it to kill a bunch of nine-year-olds? Yeah, because they ended up that one is very much of the J like the Japanese horror trope, where it's a whole bunch of young girls. They're always, you know, around nine to 14, there's no harbinger necessary. And

Stephen:

school kids they're in their little school uniforms. There's a. Creepy Japanese ghost. That's terrorizing them, but the girls use the power of friendship to turn the ghost into a frog. Save the day.

Steve:

Yes. And then near the end, we also see quick flashes of other countries that had failed Swedish, uh, the Swedish countries, Sweden, Sweden. Okay. Yeah. I was like, where did the Swedish people live? Sweden? Um, they had a natural disaster using footage that was literally from the movie Dante peak,

Stephen:

which I just watched the other day. It still holds up really well. Great disaster

Steve:

movie. Yes. Uh, Argentina had a giant ape, Allah king Kong, and Madrid showed at burning Gothic castle that looked right out of resident evil. And,

Stephen:

but all of these countries failed and like the U S had only ever failed once in 1998. And it was because of the chem department. Um, Japan until this year had had a perfect track record. And so our guys in the corporation, while they're serious about their jobs, they're also very sure that they're going to be able to get the job done.

Steve:

Oh yeah. Like the, like I mentioned, they were placing bets on what they picked. There's a pool going on over how they all die or when. And so we see them get picked off one by one. The sled does die first or the whore,

Stephen:

um, Juul stuff. And what's funny is she isn't in real life, but because of the pheromones they released in the cabin and the hair dye, it brought out her inner ID and like her moon sign of her astrology. And so all of her baser instincts were right there and they even manipulate. So that they would have sex by releasing pheromones in the woods and a moon beam so that she felt it was romantic to have sex in the woods and turned up the temperature. So she wasn't cold and she would take off her clothes. I think that it

was

Steve:

just for them. I was going to say, I'm starting to also really like this idea of, for us without the murder zombies. Yeah. Um, but yes. Uh, what was your favorite death of the group?

Stephen:

Uh, um, I think that it was, um, Chris Hemsworth on the motorcycle and he's gonna jump the chasm because the tunnel has been. Blown and they can't get out. They are trapped in this area of the woods. And so there's a chasm and he's like, I've jumped to that far before. And Jesse Williams is like, you're going to have to jump. You know, there's a five foot differential, you're going to need a good run. And so he gets on the motorcycle. He goes back, he's on a jumps. Runs into a force field. Yes. And just the motorcycle. And he just go down and down and down and down into this giant chasm. And everyone's like what the F and they're like, Marty was right. Cause Marty had been saying, there's something wrong here. I think there's puppeteers. Somebody's playing with. And

Steve:

everyone's playing him off. Cause he's just the stoners

Stephen:

and just the stoner is a burnout. Mom and dad are going to think I'm a total burnout.

Steve:

Yeah. He thought he was on a reality show.

Stephen:

A reality TV show.

Steve:

Yeah. But, um, he ends up actually not being quite the full because he ends up actually making it. Yeah.

Stephen:

Yeah. Because, um, turns out, um, he wasn't smoking the weed. They provided, he was smoking his own and it was, um, Immunizing him against all the things they were trying to do. Like he was not falling like yep. When your moms were, when

Steve:

they were like split up, he was like, no guys, why? This

Stephen:

is not a good

Steve:

idea. He was, he was fighting them the entire way.

Stephen:

Except I did love that he was so high at one point and he was hearing voices and they were like, go outside. You should go for a walk and like, he's like, I'm not listening to any of this. I have my own power. I think I'm going to go for a

Steve:

walk. Yes. That was a very just line

Stephen:

too.

Steve:

I also think that it was really shocking when, uh, Holden died because, you know, as he was driving. Um, just all of a sudden out of the blue poof thing through the head,

Stephen:

they warned us that it was going to be there because they showed us the outset of the RV. And it had a bloody hand print on the door where we would have realized one of the Buckner's had gotten in, but we forget it because the whole time they're racing towards the tunnel, we're just focusing on them. Because we're seeing in the corporation that the tunnel hadn't blown and it's back and forth. Are they gonna make it, are they going to blow the tunnel bubble, blah, blah, blah. And so we're focused on that. We've now forgotten the bloody hand print. They did a really good job of show, but then distract.

Steve:

Yes. I want to know though the entire time that all that tunnel business was happening, what was Buckner? Just taking a dump in the bathroom.

Stephen:

Um, with how fast they were driving and things. And because he was a zombie, he probably had gotten thrown around and like, you know, they don't have great balance or anything like that. And it wasn't until they had stopped for. And then they were driving back that he was probably able to get

Steve:

up. Yeah. I just know that, cause it was interesting because they, while they some in the Buckner family, it's not like they really had freewill or whatever, either the Buckner's like they didn't have control over the Buckner's because they ended up ultimately killing, uh, people that worked for the facility

Stephen:

as well. Right. Because these night, and that was one of the things that they say. These are the stuff of nightmares. And she's quick to say that no, these are what nightmares are from. These are older than nightmares. And I love that this is, these are all of, kind of like the children of the ancient ones and they have existed for time immortal. And these are where. Our nightmares come from.

Steve:

Yeah. And I love that idea because I mean, so many times with things like vampires and werewolves and like the supernatural stuff, you know, it had to come from somewhere. And so that always makes me have that little bit of like, if it's real, I'm not going to be shocked one day. Cause it could be just something that happened so long ago. Right. And it just stuck with our culture or that, you know, might not, it might've been, you know, fantasize since then, but that it might be, have drawn on something. Right. Um, I know that even with like the vampire research, they said like there have been sex to people that like drink

Stephen:

blood. Well, I mean, um, Lucretia Borgia, who is a real person, her father was a Pope, um, which shouldn't like, you know, nowadays Pope's have to be virgins and all that. Um, but Lucretia Borgia used to, um, bathe in the blood of virgins to try to stay younger.

Steve:

Would you do that? If it worked.

Stephen:

No,

Steve:

as, as you wink heavily now,

Stephen:

what if you were one of the five archetypes now, what archetype would you fall into

Steve:

today? I think I would be the scholar, but if this was when I was youth quote-unquote college and college age, I would have been the full cause. I was always the, the silly, funny, loud. Typically drunk gay guy

Stephen:

and I probably would have been

Steve:

Juul. So yes. So my, have we grown? Cause nowadays I think we were both did the scholar.

Stephen:

Yeah. Now, um, like we had thought that Marty died early on and second even we thought Marty had died. Second turns out Marty was still alive and he comes. And because the chicken chop, the zombie into little pieces, the corporation I had started, um, celebrating because Jules was the, or Dana was the only one left and all she needed to was suffer. And she had suffered well game over. They went and they won, they had saved the world. They now were tied with Japan, with one loss each, and then they get a call on the red phone and it comes from upstairs saying. The fool is still alive. And lo and behold, he comes and saves Dana when she's about to be killed by one of the buckers they run because he had fallen into one of the great, been dragged into one of the graves and he found an area of beneath it that had an elevator. So he and Dana, um, make it down into this elevator. Where we see, as you said that he had chopped up one of the, um, Buckner's and whose hand was pretty much all that was left.

Steve:

Yes. And then they go through this labyrinth of an elevator maze. Right. It's just, it

Stephen:

goes sideways up down and, and the visuals

Steve:

are just amazing as you're seeing all of the other monsters, like, what are some of the notable things that you saw that stuck out to you? Um,

Stephen:

so the. Giant snake terrified me. Like this thing was like 50 feet tall. Um, there was the wispy Phantom. That was a lot. Um, the ballerina with teeth for a face was really crazy. I mean, there's just everything that you can think of. There were

Steve:

dragons. Yeah. Yeah. There were like, there were different versions of humans that you've seen from the horror movie, like from the purge,

Stephen:

the strangers. And you did have actual zombies, just the regular ones that the girl had voted for, um, a werewolf and there were a lot of stuff and, um, they get down into the main area. And security. Is there ready to kill? Yeah, because at that point they're like,

Steve:

fuck the rules. Yeah.

Stephen:

All they have to do is kill the fool and it's still game over and they win and everything's fine. But then the Buckner hand distracts the, um, guard guard, and they're able to beat him with their cup and get away and they go off and hide in. The control room for the elevators and there all these other guards are coming. They're trying to shoot through those Bulletproof glass, but it can only last so long and they see a purge all button.

Steve:

Yes. And of course they push it and quickly all of the horrors are unleased underground heatedly, just boom, boom, boom, boom. After a wave.

Stephen:

Yeah. And all the people that work in the corporation are just dying. These bloody awful tragic. Gory deaths.

Steve:

Yes. And I wouldn't call it tragic for some of them. Cause it was funny. Why, what was your favorite death underground? So

Stephen:

my favorite one underground is just the irony of it all is that Bradley Whitford has always just wanted to see a Merman. I mean, Kurt had his hand on the conch shell. He was just about to blow in. And the thing that ends up killing Bradley Whitford.

Steve:

Yes. And the Merman is not the mermaid Ariel. It was not, it was a very like fishy, weird thing. And as it's eating him, the blood spurting out through his blow hole, it was really gruesomely dorky as well. Like it was definitely like a goober. Yeah.

Stephen:

Like it was big and. Hi,

Steve:

my favorite was the unicorn, the murder, corn murder, corn and pale salmon with his unicorn horn. I'm like, yes, queen.

Stephen:

So Marty and Dana run into this downstairs area where they're starting to put everything together. And while they also

Steve:

got a hint, cause I'm the

Stephen:

director speaks. Yes. And she says you've seen horrible things. An army of nightmare creature. But they are nothing compared to what came before. What lies below it's our task to placate the ancient ones and it's yours to be offered up to them forgiven. And let us get it over with

Steve:

yes. And they still are fighting back and self. She confronts them face on and she, she is trying to, you know, she flat out explained since she's trying to appeal to Dana, just like kill Marty, kill him and you'll save the world.

Stephen:

And, and she's like, well, maybe it's time for somebody else to take it. And Sigourney is like, no, you're not getting it. It's not that some new generation will come along. This is the end of all of humanity. There is nothing after this. This is it. And, and, and Dana's finally like, oh, are our lives worth more? Than everybody else.

Steve:

Yeah. She is robbed of the chance to decide. And when she gets bitten by a werewolf, which then leads to, you know, a fight where Sigourney gets thrown over the balcony with the line, last Buckner,

Stephen:

child, child, patients,

Steve:

Buckner. Yes. And, and whatever catharsis happened during that, she decided ultimately not to kill Marty. Yup. And do you think she would have, had she not been.

Stephen:

I think that, and because Marty saw the werewolf and didn't tell her Marty thought she was going to do it. And I think because Dana is the good person and all this, that she was going to do it to save humanity. Would you have yep. In a heartbeat too? Yeah. To save humanity. Absolutely. And honestly, This is one of those movies where it's weird because the corporation is kind of evil. Yes. And you don't usually want evil to win

Steve:

and you usually want like innocent people to be

Stephen:

murdered. Right. Usually want the teens to survive. But in this, if you root for the teens, the world ends. If you root for the evil corporation, we all get to keep living. It's a very strange dichotomy that you don't usually see. Whenever you're rooting for good versus evil on a movie because evil means life. Good means

Steve:

death. Yeah. And it kind of just like. If this was real, would you be okay with it? I'd

Stephen:

work for the company in a heartbeat?

Steve:

I was, I wasn't even gonna go that far. I was just going to be like, I wouldn't, I wouldn't lose sleep over night if I knew that somewhere in the world, this happened once a year to make us okay. But here you are just wanting to hop on payroll. That's a little bit different.

Stephen:

I mean, just think how much fun it would be to plan some of these situations. Like the cabin in the woods is a good one, like in, so if it was, um, Well, this goes into, um, something I was thinking about. And because we've said a sequel is impossible. Yes, it is because the whole world has gone. Right. But a pre-qual would be possible. And. To make it believable. We would need to have it in a different country, or we can have it be

Steve:

in 1998 or

Stephen:

whatever. We could have it be in 98 because we know that the U S fail the us fails and the kids live, or we could have it in any other country in the past, because we don't know their track records. Maybe they win sometimes maybe they lose sometimes. And so I was thinking like the UK and you do it in, um, A haunted castle type of thing. And, um,

Steve:

or like with the underground tunnels in

Stephen:

France, and I was thinking like, you've got like a banshee or like a Jack, the ripper, or even like a Lochness monster. If there's more than one thing, like you, you've got so many things, but you know, the underground tunnels and France that's, there's, there's things that could be done with prequel movies where. You and because we won't say what year it was or what their track records are. We'll never know if the corporation was successful and everybody got killed off. Or if the kids one for that one, because all that we know. In the past, the

Steve:

U

Stephen:

S has made it work and the U S had made it work in Japan, made it work. So we were fine. So I think as long as it's not Japan or the U S unless at 98, yeah. You could easily do a prequel in any other country.

Steve:

Agreed. Yes. You know what? We can also do prequels and sequels for no this podcast. You can always go back and listen to our old episodes. If you. KA listens from the beginning. We have a lot, we've been doing this now for almost 80 episodes. We have quite a huge back catalog. So that could be a great time to go back and see what you might've missed. If you're a newer listener, it's been 84 years. Yes, it has. It feels like that sometimes.

Stephen:

No, there are a lot of good episodes, like all the way back to one of my favorites clue that we did, or we have Christmas where we did. Um, you know, love actually, and then, you know, if you like the horror movies, we've done screen one and screen two, there's all kinds of good stuff to enjoy. Yes. And

Steve:

there also is plenty of stuff to look forward to the best way to get that is to make sure you're following us wherever you're listening to. So you get new episodes every Wednesday.

Yup.

Stephen:

Or you can also follow us on the socials, whether it's Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter, all at home. Life pod.

Steve:

And you can also email us with suggestions or feedback for future episodes that happy life pod@gmail.com. Oh,

Stephen:

and we can't wait to have you back here. So until next time everybody stay happy.