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Sisällön tarjoaa Todd Kuhns and Craig Higgins. Todd Kuhns and Craig Higgins tai sen podcast-alustan kumppani lataa ja toimittaa kaiken podcast-sisällön, mukaan lukien jaksot, grafiikat ja podcast-kuvaukset. Jos uskot jonkun käyttävän tekijänoikeudella suojattua teostasi ilman lupaasi, voit seurata tässä https://fi.player.fm/legal kuvattua prosessia.
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Adult Swim Yule Log

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Sisällön tarjoaa Todd Kuhns and Craig Higgins. Todd Kuhns and Craig Higgins tai sen podcast-alustan kumppani lataa ja toimittaa kaiken podcast-sisällön, mukaan lukien jaksot, grafiikat ja podcast-kuvaukset. Jos uskot jonkun käyttävän tekijänoikeudella suojattua teostasi ilman lupaasi, voit seurata tässä https://fi.player.fm/legal kuvattua prosessia.
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Imagine this: The TV’s on your favorite yule log stream and suddenly, you hear talking and see some legs move across the screen. That’s the concept behind this surprising oddity from Adult Swim, which manages to sneak a horror movie into a typical yule log video.

Videos of a fire blazing were never so entertaining. We just cannot tell you ANYTHING about this movie before you watch it, or it’ll spoil all the fun. All you need to know is: You MUST watch this. And then come back here and we’ll chat about this Christmas treat.

A cozy fireplace with a burning Yule Log. The words "Adult Swim Yule Log" are elegantly written across the image in yellow script, capturing the warmth and whimsy of this unique holiday feature.
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Adult Swim Yule Log (2022)

Episode 420, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast

Todd: Hello and welcome to another episode of Two Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Todd.

Craig: And I’m Craig.

Todd: Week three of Christmas, and Craig, I think we had something else in mind, and it must have been after that Await Further Instructions movie that you, I think we’re looking for something to bring us back to the lightness of, there’s something in the barn?

I was too, and then you just kind of out of the blue sent me this thing. Hey, this Adult Swim Yule Log, that looks like fun. I barely glanced at it, but it looked like it was, it said it was a comedy horror. So I was like, yeah, I’ve never heard of it. That should be great. Let’s do it. And so I was more than eager to jump on it.

Where did you find this thing?

Craig: I heard about it last year, and I don’t know a lot about Adult Swim. Is it a channel? What I know is it

Todd: like a Part of Cartoon Network. I’ve never figured that out. It’s

Craig: like a part of Cartoon Network. I think it’s like a production team. Again, like I didn’t look it up. I should have.

I think it’s a production team that does mostly animated shows. And yeah, they are connected to some network. And it’s, it’s animation for the most part for adults. And so it’s, it’s adult humor and I’ve always heard good things about it. It’s just never anything that I’ve gravitated towards, but I heard about this movie last year and I don’t remember how I, you know, I, I look at all these horror websites, so I’m sure that’s where I saw it.

And I just remember reading in the first thing that I read about it. And I want to emphasize it right now. If you have any interest, movie and you should because it’s good and it’s funny and it’s a good, it’s funny and it’s a good horror movie. So if you’re interested in a good funny holiday horror movie, stop listening right now because the fun of this movie is not knowing anything about it.

And there are so many just insane, twists and turns and surprises that you would never see coming and that is the fun of it. Is it like a cinematic masterpiece? Absolutely not.

Clip: I don’t think it’s a cinematic masterpiece, but I think that it is great.

Todd: You know what you sent me this and I read, like, a thing.

What starts as a simple Yule log feed devolves into a surrealist nightmare, and that’s about all I read. And I was like, oh, that sounds clever. And then I saw Adult Swim, and that reminded me, and the whole concept reminded me of, Oh, this must be, like, Too Many Cooks. Have you seen Too Many Cooks?

Craig: No, if I have, I don’t remember.

Todd: Dude, too many cooks came out. God, I could think it was before I came to China. Was it 2015 or 2016, something like that? It was this weird thing that came on at like 2 a. m. or like close to midnight or whatever, unannounced on the Cartoon Network or the Adult Swim time or whatever it would just, it just popped on and it starts out as a introduction.

Like it’s like the full house introduction, you know, the, the TV show full house. And the people popping in and smiling with the freeze frame while their name shows up, you know. Jim Jones as the next door neighbor and so and so is this, right? And it’s got this peppy song in the background. It takes

Clip: a lot to make a stew A pinch of salt and laughter too A scoop of kids to

Todd: And it starts out like that, but it keeps going. It’s like, how many people are in this? And then you realize, Oh, this is a joke. And then the joke goes on. It gets weirder until finally it gets so bizarre that it’s like, strange things are happening. Like the picture kind of gets weirded out, like somebody’s intercepted the transmission.

And then there’s this like sinister character that starts popping up in the background. Again, this is another thing that if you, if you want to see it, I shouldn’t spoil it for you, but it just devolves into craziness. And it ends up being like 20 minutes long, this thing you expect to end after 30 seconds goes on and on and gets more and more insane.

And I have showed it to everybody who has never seen it before. And so when I saw this and I saw, oh, it’s kind of a thing that probably was similar where it’s supposed to be just this yule log. You probably just came on and you started watching it, but then it evolved into something else. I thought, I wonder if this is by the same guy.

And it turns out it is. Casper Kelly. Mm hmm. What a great idea!

Clip: What a great idea, I wish I had thought of it. It is a great idea, right?

Craig: It’s so clever, like these, going to look for this movie, I think I found it on Max, but instead of typing in Adult Swim Yule Log, I just typed in Yule Log. Oh, big mistake.

And

Clip: there were like, Fifteen different ones!

Craig: Heck yeah, there are. Like, this is a thing! Oh, you don’t know this? I mean, I knew it was a thing, like, I knew you could get a Yule log. I didn’t, on your TV, I didn’t know that there was, like, a whole

Clip: genre.

Todd: Oh yeah, dude! Bic and I used to turn on a Yule log, I mean, like, pretty much from the beginning of December to the end.

If the television isn’t on, we’re watching something, we’ve got a Yule log video playing. Just cause it keeps things cozy and warm. It’s really nice.

Craig: It is nice. I, I’m a fan of Roku city. You’re in China, I don’t know if you know what that is. When you leave the Roku on, it just does this nice like animated cityscape.

I enjoy it.

Todd: It

Craig: pans

Todd: by, and different buildings come up. It’s nice. And it changes every now and then.

Craig: Yeah, and it’s, it’s nice. Seasonal. Yeah. Yeah.

Todd: I saw that at my parents house. I dig it.

Craig: Yeah. The Yule log stuff. It’s nice. And that’s how it starts. Like, there are so many things that I love about this movie and I couldn’t find anything about it behind the scenes, but it’s, it’s plot heavy and I don’t know how much of the plot we want to go through, but I just thought it was, it just starts.

It’s a Yule log and you’re just watching a Yule log and there’s Beautiful instrumental, good King Wenceslas music and the crackling fire. And it’s just exactly what you would expect of a Yule log. And that goes on for two minutes and 25 seconds. And you kind of maybe hear some things in the background.

Like maybe you hear a car approach or something. I don’t know, but it’s very subtle. Doing this podcast, I have learned if you really want to experience a movie, you really need to listen to it. With good headphones or earbuds. Yeah, because there’s there’s so much in the soundscape that you’ll miss Otherwise now, of course, I enjoy watching movies with my partner and part of that experience is reacting and talking and and So I don’t, I don’t want to sit with Alan, both of us in earbuds, just so that we can hear the subtleties of the soundscape.

If you’re watching it by yourself, pop in the earbuds, because there’s little sound things that are going on throughout. Yeah. So, when we finally hear something, this woman comes in and she’s on the phone. And she’s saying like, I don’t know. It was like, people are in the wrong place or something. So now I have to clean this cabin and she’s cleaning it.

I thought she was just a cleaning lady. I think she is also the landlord. It comes out later, but whatever, it doesn’t matter. But we’re only seeing this through the lens that is shooting. The fireplace. And that’s one of the things that I love about this movie is because I thought, Oh, this is going to be really interesting because we’re going to only see a movie that’s shot from this perspective.

And that doesn’t end up being the case, but when it changes, I thought that I would be disappointed, but I wasn’t because it continues to be interesting.

Clip: Yes. Oh God.

Craig: Anyway, but, so this lady’s cleaning and then somebody knocks on the door and this woman is like,

Clip: can I borrow your phone, my phone? Don’t you have a cell phone?

It, it died. This, it just ain’t my day. Oh, this, here’s my son.

Wait, what are you Now you can’t Now you What are you You can’t come in here!

Craig: And you see run across the frame, cause the camera hasn’t moved all this time. We’ve never seen anybody above the knee. You see this big, scary man chase this maid, landlady, whatever. Across the frame and then you hear that other woman’s voice say Remember to say nice things to her girls like to hear nice things

Clip: Mm hmm,

Craig: and then there’s this horrible like flashy Violent imagery over the fire that we’re looking at.

Clip: Mm hmm

Craig: And the woman stops screaming and blood sprays all over the fire and the mom says You Did that feel good? Did you get your yuckies out? Oh God,

Todd: that was so gross.

Craig: And I am thinking, what

Todd: am

Craig: I watching? But that is the magic of this movie. Yes. Because I kept feeling that over and over again. What am I watching?

And ultimately, because of that, I thought it was like a super, super fun experience.

Todd: It was. So I found an interview with the director, and he said that they were orig he his original idea was maybe we do this whole thing in like, mostly audio. Watching this Yule Log video at home one day, he was like, what would happen if like, some blurry legs just kind of walked by the Yule Log?

You know, how would people respond to that? And then he was thinking, what if we did a whole thing with mostly audio? But then he kind of thought that might not be as great. And so he ended up pitching this idea to the folks at Adult Swim. And because he was able to shoot it for such a low budget, he was able to more or less shoot it under the radar.

Like, it didn’t have to go all the way up for approvals, you know, to the top. As long as he kept it, I read in the upper six figures, he said? Mid to upper six figures? Because anything over a certain amount, you know, has to be greenlit. And and he didn’t think this would get greenlit just because it’s such a weird concept.

He originally was gonna do like Two hours of yule log video before the movie kicked in and then he realized they because they were gonna put it in this Prominent location on the time slot it came after I guess the season 6 finale of Rick and Morty which I’ve never seen But I guess it’s a really really popular TV show.

Clip: Yeah,

Todd: he was like, oh we need to shorten this up So people don’t click away So what he said that first they were gonna they tried 10 minutes and he said that felt like three years

Clip: Yeah, and

Todd: so they ended up shortening it to what two and a half and that felt about right

Clip: Yeah

Todd: That was like the genesis of this idea and all these a couple other filmmakers who do weird things like that I mean in a way this movie gets very lynchian there are parts in here that are a little bit like eraser head

Craig: Yeah,

Todd: it just gets very surreal after a point.

Craig: Yeah

Todd: And so, he got some great ideas from some other people, and, uh, it just all kind of spiraled out from this. Uh, he got an idea from his daughter for doing the whole elevator thing. Oh god, that’s great. Yeah, I don’t know if we want to walk through the whole thing. Maybe we I guess that’s What we do here, right?

But, ah, it, at some point, it does come out, and it’s clever, the way that it comes out into the big scene. You hear that the murderer and his mother or whatever, like, oh no, someone’s at the door, quick, we gotta hide the body. So they’re cleaning up, and they drag the body out, and then you hear this couple come in.

And then he kind of walks over and says something, she says, oh, there’s a camera here. And he says, oh yeah, that’s just the thing, the thing I was recording. And then he zooms out from the camera to the whole room.

Craig: Yes, yes. And so that’s our first big shift in perspective is just a zoom out so that you see the room, you know, that the fireplace is in.

And then we stay there for a very long time.

Todd: Yeah, like 20 minutes.

Craig: I felt like every I don’t know. I’m not going to put a timestamp on it, but every so often it just felt like it became a different movie. Yeah. You start out, this seems like a crazy slasher with this, these crazy, who knows who they are, but they’re weird and, and, and violent and raping and killing, and then they run and hide.

And then this couple comes in and it’s a romantic drama for the next, like 20 minutes,

Todd: at least. It’s like a, Lifetime Christmas movie or something for a little while

Craig: almost yeah Because you know, they’re they’re lounging in front of a fireplace in this rustic cabin, which looks very nice And and you know, like it’s got a bear like they’re he’s lounging on a bearskin rug and stuff This is Alex and Zoe I didn’t write down all the actors names because I didn’t recognize any of them Alex is played by Justin Miles Zoe is played by Andrea Lang if you want to see the other actors You’re gonna have to look him up because I didn’t write him down because I didn’t recognize anybody.

So Like this is a thing that he does like he films fires for these yule log videos and he’s real proud of it Yeah,

Todd: apparently he doesn’t make a killing but he makes enough to get by is what he says. Somebody actually asks him about it Oh gosh, it’s funny. I wondered about this though. Every time I turn on that yule log video.

I think What if I were the guy who had my Yulog videos up on Netflix? Like, is somebody making bank from this? YouTube especially, because that pays you by the watch. You put a three hour video up on YouTube and if people are looping it and watching it all the way through, that’s your way to potential riches.

Craig: Yeah, there’s a lot of meta commentary. Which I also, like, it hits, like, I don’t, I don’t know if this movie will stand the test of time, but for right now, all the meta commentary really hits, like, there’s, you know, meta commentary about the fact that all he does is set up a camera. An expensive camera because he’s bougie, but he sets up a camera and films fires, but he’s a content creator, you know, like, and he’s making money and he’s really proud of the fact that like, he went to like Bali or something and like filmed it.

Filmed a campfire and that became really popular. That one really hit big.

Todd: Well,

Craig: the, I know we were kind of going plot wise, but he, I don’t know. There’s a lot of stuff with them. What it comes down to is that he’s brought her there to propose to her. Yes. And he eventually does. She

Todd: doesn’t agree. Like she just, she’s not ready to say yes, but she’s not ready to say no either.

It’s like, she keeps steering the conversation other ways.

Craig: But one of my. Before you go on, one of my favorite things about this part is that while we’re seeing this, Yes. the way that the camera is framed, there is an ice bucket in the right corner. And while the people in the background are talking, this ice bucket is in the foreground.

And I thought that this was so clever because I thought this would really happen. I didn’t have to suspend my disbelief for this. The camera focused on them while they were talking and doing things. But at some point, the crazy man killer who’s hiding in the house. Peaks out from a door behind, but it’s reflected in the ice bucket and the camera refocuses.

Yeah. It pulls focus away from them and focuses on the ice bucket, and I believe that that would happen. Mm-hmm . With

Clip: if.

Craig: A good stationary camera, if the stationary camera detects motion in another place, it will readjust focus. And it was just so, and he’s not doing anything. He’s just this big hulking guy and like.

Overalls or something and a creepy like paper mask. We never see his face, but he appears to be deformed underneath it. But he’s just wearing this like paper mask of like a blonde, handsome guy.

Todd: Pleather face.

Craig: Yeah. He’s credited his pleather face.

Todd: Oh

Craig: boy. But I loved that shit. I like, I just thought there were so many clever things and it keeps doing that.

Like, so he’ll peek out. And the, the camera will refocus on him and then he’ll go back in the room that he’s in and it will refocus on them because now that’s where the motion is. So there’s

Todd: always this, like, you can’t get too wrapped up in this because you’re constantly reminded that there’s a sinister presence that could burst out and kill them at any time or one of them might walk away and, you know, get murdered and, you know, you just don’t know what’s going to happen, but it’s there until the cops show up.

And there’s a knock on the door, and they open it up, and they go over there, and you can, and the sheriff and his deputy come walking in.

Craig: They’re doing rounds because they found a body on the mountain.

Todd: And then, the cop starts talking about

Clip: Where’d you get the log? Uh, just down the road a little bit. From the tree with the rocks around it in a circle?

Yeah, I think so. Why? Is there something wrong? Mm hmm. That’s a hanging tree. They used to hang slaves on it. Oh my god. I, I, I didn’t know. I I mean, how was I supposed to know? It just was a cool looking log. And the branch I cut it off was dead, so Didn’t you see the plaque? No, I didn’t see the plaque. Did you see a plaque?

No, we, we saw no plaques, Sheriff. Oh, Diane took down that plaque, Sheriff. Yeah, she rents that place out for weddings down there. They don’t want to read about slavery. She took down the plaque? Yes, because of weddings. Well, it’s her land, but she shouldn’t have done that.

Todd: And then he goes into this lore about how that tree is a sacred tree to the Indians nearby.

And I’m like, oh my god, this is getting hilarious. So now we have

Craig: And the tree feeds on fear and the iron from all the blood spilled there.

Clip: And at this point I’m like, yesss. Like, I’m so into this.

Todd: And so he asks for a glass of water and the woman comes in and like, they’re just chatting and then he like, when she gives him the water, he dumps it on the log.

The guy’s like, what are you doing? He’s like, I really think you should stop burning that log. In fact, you should take it out and you should bury it somewhere in like a sacred way and don’t even touch it. Say a

Clip: prayer. He calls it like the Hillbilly Bermuda Triangle or something. It’s crazy.

Todd: And then the guy’s like, uh, or, I can’t remember who our main character is.

He looks at the guy and says, you really believe this stuff, don’t you? And then his deputy goes, oh yeah, ask him to tell you sometime about the aliens. So then he leaves. And I’m thinking in my head. God. God, I hope they’re going to be aliens in this movie after this, because they’ve already piled two things on.

You’ve got the killer in the house and you have an evil log,

Craig: right? Well, a cursed log, right? Like, I don’t know what’s going on here, but this is also the point where all of a sudden we start having lots of flashbacks. But the way that they do flashbacks, I love,

Clip: oh yes,

Craig: the flashbacks are set. In the same location in different time periods and the way they do it.

Todd, you’re the technician. I don’t know how to

Todd: explain this, but they like, it’s like dragging a split screen across the screen, but maybe you’ll, you’ll go all the way across, or maybe you’ll only go halfway across and while the action still going on, or

Craig: maybe that, yeah, maybe the flashback will just be a segment that travels across, but it’s, but it’s.

It’s all in the same location, so it’s just like, you’re seeing people in black and white.

Todd: Like the same cabin. Yeah.

Craig: Yeah. And it’s all in sync, like it’s all happening at the same time.

Todd: And the guy sets this up because you hear an audio when they first come into the house before we ever meet this couple.

He says something to her, to his girlfriend about, oh yeah, like this cabin’s been here since the Civil War and has hardly changed at all. And that’s what you see in the flashback. It’s like, perfectly overlaid. When the screen swipes over, so it’s just, it’s just so fun. It’s

Craig: neat. Yeah. Yeah. It’s neat and it’s fun and it’s not just one time period.

Like you see multiple time periods of different things, mostly bad things, but you don’t see those bad things from the beginning. Like you just get glimpses of like two boys in like coonskin caps playing. More. I don’t know, any other of number things, there ends up being like two or three different past plotlines.

Clip: Yes.

Craig: But they don’t start out scary and violent, they just start out kind of as establishing shots, and they go by very quickly, but then you learn more about them as they go on, and you see that lots of bad things have happened here.

Todd: Yeah, and think for a moment. of the technical wizardry required for this because the director said, he said, you know, we did not have time or the ability to go in and like do crazy editing here.

This is all one long 20 minute shot from the Yule log at the beginning until eventually We slip into more of movie mode, but until then, he’s like, we had to get all this in one take, and we had to get the timing right. These characters had to leave space, right, for these flashbacks to happen on half the screen or in front of the screen.

And so they rehearsed like crazy, these two, before they went in to do this extremely long scene where they even had to get the timings right to allow for the flashback. I mean, it’s pretty incredible. It is. This is all in one shot for so long, with these things happening.

Craig: Yes, and the acting is great. Like I really don’t have any complaints if I were to complain about anything It would just be nitpicking and eventually there’s some cgi And it looks like they didn’t have a lot of money and I don’t care probably they didn’t I don’t care It’s it’s it’s fun.

And like I get it. It’s cgi. Whatever. I Yeah, it looks like cgi fine. Whatever they worked with what they had. This is an entertaining movie and You It’s, it’s well shot. They, you know, a lot of times I talk about cinematography and mostly what I’m talking about is just if things look beautiful. In this, I think it’s very skillful cinematography in terms of style and technique.

There are just so many cool, innovative, in my opinion, I’ve never seen a movie like this.

Todd: It’s very unique.

Craig: It takes you in such different places. Again, like it feels like several different movies, but they are interwoven so well that it doesn’t seem jarring. Like, like you said, we know that those killers are there.

But we almost really forget about them because after the relationship movie, this Hallmark movie where they’re dealing with their things and he wants to propose, but she’s reticent for reasons that we don’t really know. But eventually after he proposes and she can’t decide, he’s like, you know, I know that you’ve been through a lot.

Do you maybe need to up your medication?

Clip: Right.

Craig: Which is a really difficult to say. Conversation to have with anybody and then there’s this whole debate in that part I’m trying to get to the next part but I there were things that I wanted to hit here where He wants to get married and she’s like and this seems very melodramatic, but I understand her point of view She says The planet is dying, Alex.

How do you plan for the future when there is none? And she goes on this whole thing, like, how do you bring kids into this world? And it feels very melodramatic, but I think that people are feeling these feelings, so I get it. This feels very timely. Yeah. And then he says to her, every period of time feels like the worst time when you’re in it.

And he says, pick an era. And then we get like a flashback to slavery, which we’ve already kind of established before. And then they have this whole debate about panicking about the state of the world. And I know this movie came out in 2022. And people were thinking about this then, but I think that this is something that is on people’s mind.

And I just thought that this was a very timely conversation. And it actually hit me somewhere. When he said, Everybody thinks that the time that they’re going through is the worst time.

Todd: Yeah. Yeah, it’s true.

Craig: Maybe that’s true! I think it is.

Todd: Whenever I get really, really down, I go back and I think, Now, wait a minute.

It’s not World War II. Yet, anyway. Yeah. And I imagine how scared people were, and how people thought the world was going to hell, and nothing was ever going to be the same again, and just, just this living nightmare. And so, like, that ended, and, you know. Everybody kind of recovered from that and so that these kinds of thoughts give me hope the black plague world war ii You know that kind of stuff.

Craig: Yeah, right. Yeah, right change is scary and I you know, I understand that a lot of people are You know concerned about the state of the world as am I? God, I I need to up my meds. I get it, but that actually kind of hit home for me. Like it does put some things in context. So the thing that I was trying to get to is then it turns into another movie because.

Not unlike a movie that we reviewed, I think, in the last year, Barbarian, another group of people shows up and they’re like, We booked this place too!

Clip: Yep.

Craig: And it turns out they did.

Clip: Mm hmm.

Craig: And so nobody’s really in the wrong, but they’re in this bad situation, and this other group of young people, there’s Two guys and two girls, I think, and the one, the most stonery of them all, is like, Yeah, we all took edibles to hit right when we got here, so

We’re gonna have to stay.

Todd: They’re there because they’re going to investigate lynchings and alien abductions that have been linked to the cabin for their paranormal podcast. And this one, you know, this one offended me because,

I just love, they’re really poking fun at the podcasters, and fair enough, they should be, it becomes obvious very quickly that, yeah, like, These guys have a podcast, but probably not very many people listen. And there’s certainly not making money from it yet. But, but at first the stoner dude sort of tries to pass it off as his job.

There’s so much comedy and I just loved it. Also, you know, you were saying barbarian that was obviously instantly coming to me with that mix up. The other thing I was thinking of was because we’re in the single shot for so long. And very soon it does change. But we’re in the single shot for so long that I was getting almost like alien abduction vibes.

You remember that movie?

Clip: Yeah.

Todd: Now it’s not that that was a static camera, but that was a very home movie type feeling. And I think the stuff that we’ve been talking about would have felt more melodramatic and more fake had it been shot in a more Hollywood style. Yeah, absolutely. But because it was just this one take with this static camera, like, I could buy into all this totally because, you know, people are just awkward, people have awkward conversations and all this stuff.

It was great. I loved it. I was so into it. I did too. But I was also laughing my head off at some of these people.

Craig: Yeah, but, and it feels more real because, you know, people are having conversations and whatnot and that’s fine. But the camera doesn’t go to focus completely. Tight on them. It’s just filming the whole room So you also see all the other people in the room and at you know At some points there are four or five people in the

Todd: room

Craig: And some of them are listening and some of them are not and

Todd: walking in and out of the frame

Craig: Yeah, it it feels more observational

Todd: Mm hmm.

Craig: I don’t know, you know, it’s just a style choice, but for this it really works. At some point They try to call the landlady and they hear the phone ringing because she’s the one that got killed apparently and they find her phone under The couch and then the new people who’ve arrived.

Todd: Ben, Beth, Holly, and Henry.

Craig: Yeah Here are my notes. Ben with the mustache Beth the blonde, Henry the stoner, and Holly the slut. That’s a mean thing to say. That’s a mean thing to say, but that’s what I wrote about her in my notes. She seems like a nice girl.

Todd: But it was also classic, like, you know, Friday the 13th.

Craig: Yeah, right, right, right, right.

Like these stereotypical characters. All of them.

Clip: Mhm.

Craig: But they talk about, you know, they’re doing this podcast or whatever, and they’re telling them all these things that they know, because they’ve done their research. So great. I love that. Like, you know, bring in these characters. And on the one hand, they’re a little bit douchey.

But on the other hand, they seem like fun people, you know, and they talk about, as you’ve already mentioned, how the mountain has been the site of alien objections and lynchings. And they start to tell this story about this lady named Esther Dinkins. And this is another, like, flashback, you know, like, I think it turns out that she’s abducted by aliens.

I don’t know. It was a little bit difficult to follow. But as they’re talking about all of this, somebody says enough about your podcast and I just died laughing. I just died because. I have nothing else to talk about. Like, like, I work and I do this. And so when I’m at work with my friends, I talk about the podcast a lot.

And I’m sure they are sick of it. Craig was triggered. I’m sure that they are like, enough about your f ing podcast. We get it.

Todd: Oh, it’s funny. Cause I can

Craig: only imagine how annoying it is. If I were in their shoes, I would just, I don’t know how they keep from just rolling. Their eyes like popping out of their heads from rolling so far back.

I don’t know.

Clip: Uh huh

Craig: Boy, and then we get introduced. Yeah, isaac and rosa. You should talk about isaac and rosa This is

Todd: isaac and rosa are the the in the past, right? Is this where we get that scene with the two of them?

Craig: Well again, it’s a lot of cuts, you know Like we get these backstories in 30 second increments So you don’t know who these people are, you have to put it together, but over the course of the movie you figure it out.

Todd: Isaac is very conveniently sat at a table right in front of the fire, perfectly framed for us. He is a guy, who is a slave owner, and Rosa is his slave gal. She is serving him his dinner, and they have some very pleasant conversation. I don’t remember how many flashbacks this plays out. At first, we don’t really get a sense that anything’s wrong.

I think we just, they just have some chat.

Craig: It seems very friendly.

Todd: I was thinking, oh god, this could get really cringey, right? This whole slavery thing,

Craig: you know? No, of course, of course. I, I, you know, I, I don’t know. It, it is. It’s a sensitive subject. But, I think Even in this very first one, or one of the early ones, I may be jumping ahead, but she says You know, he compliments her on the food that she’s made him and blah, blah, blah.

The

Todd: cornbread. I love it. It’s so moist.

Craig: Right. And she says

Clip: I made a quote for William. It is getting cold and it wasn’t ready when he was sold to Mr. Luther. But um, you know, he’s scared of thunder. So now he can look at this in every day’s blue skies. And he always was scared of thunder, that boy. It’s a nice blanket, Rosa.

I’d like to touch it, but I don’t want to get corn on it. It looks soft. So will you take it to him? And while you’re there, can you see how he’s doing?

Craig: I think that’s all we hear at that point. But then the movie changes again because at this point, I don’t, if it’s time for bed or something, I don’t know.

Well,

Todd: they all just decide Yeah, to go up to their various areas. Somebody goes up to shower, somebody goes into a hot tub, somebody goes to get changed. I think the other two go to their bedroom. The room’s empty, right? And the fireplace reignites on its own. And only at this point do we change from our static camera to a view from inside.

Inside the fireplace and suddenly it’s like a POV shot almost of like a demon or something kind of like Amityville 2 or whatever and it goes up the stairs and into the room where is it? Ben? Is he the guy showering? It’s classic person showering right? The shower curtain swings open and Ben looks down like what and then whack whack whack and I was like This is the log killing him, isn’t it?

The log?

Craig: Oh, I had no idea what was going on, because it’s the camera. Yeah. The camera is smashing his face. Bro, the RPOV.

Todd: Oh, I instantly thought, this has got to be the log. I was just laughing. I’m like, so the log floated out of the fireplace, went upstairs and whacked this guy in the head. Oh my God. It was brutal though.

It was very bloody.

Craig: Well, and then it’s immediate, it’s immediately confirmed. You see the log fly back into the fireplace. Oh boy. No, but I’m, I’m, I’m right there with you. Like I thought, Oh my God, that is so funny. Like this is,

Clip: this is literally a

Craig: killer Yule

Clip: log.

Craig: Oh my God. So funny. I’m

Todd: also thinking, where did the killers go?

Where did the murderers go? If they all retreated to their rooms, there can’t be that many rooms.

Craig: They’re gone for so long. I know. And where are they? I don’t know. They do come back. That was

Todd: weird.

Craig: Yeah, more goes on, like, I don’t know. They all come

Todd: back in and kind of sit around.

Craig: They’re all sitting there in front of the fire again and like talking and flirting and blah blah blah.

And now

Todd: it’s all, it’s like regular movie style at this point. We don’t have the static camera anymore. Uh huh. Yeah.

Craig: One of the new girls is flirting with the guy that proposed to his Yeah. Fiancé or whatever. Kind of silly, but the big stoner guy who happens to be Asian and it’s a joke because they say that the girl that he’s with only dates Asian guys and she’s like, no, I don’t.

But he starts seeing things. First it’s the bearskin rug moving, but then there’s a little Southern man calling to him from the pub. And when this

Clip: happened, I was.

Craig: This to me, that’s why I said, don’t listen to this. If you haven’t seen this movie, because this weird shit just comes out of nowhere,

Todd: like

Craig: what, like now there’s

Clip: a little man in the fireplace.

Todd: Because I had seen too many cooks, and I realized this connection, I was really ready for everything. I’m like, okay, this is gonna be one of those movies.

And it is, it’s also very David Lynch, where just bizarre shit happens, and you’re not sure if it’s real, or if it’s a dream, or what’s going on. Yeah, he crawls, the middleman says, come here into the fireplace. He crawls into the fireplace, through the fire, and ends up in a room. Behind the fireplace and the man’s like you must be really good at this because you didn’t get burned by the fire And it is a room that is half on flames, but it’s like cheesy CGI effects actually Yeah, and he’s like, why don’t you come sit down and I’ll serve you something

Craig: but I like it because it’s surreal.

It’s dreamland It’s

Todd: just super surreal There’s like a bartender behind a little bar there that has a the head of a deer and doesn’t even move

Clip: Yeah.

Todd: And eventually, he just says, I want What, he tries to serve him some stuff, he tries to give him something to drink, he asks for a Dr. Pepper, and he’s like, Well, I don’t have a Dr.

Pepper, but I got a nurse What was it?

Clip: Nurse Nutmeg. That’s even better than a Dr. Pepper. That’s ridiculous.

Todd: And easier to find if you know what I mean. Anyway, he says, well, let me show you something and he leads him to an elevator

Craig: yeah, but even before that like real quick out of nowhere a Second Henry pops up over the first Henry’s shoulder and it’s like don’t listen to him.

Don’t do what he says

Wild it is wild it’s entirely Surreal Anything can happen and I love that. I love it. And then you’re the fireplace becomes like an elevator, but it’s so cool.

Todd: He takes him into the elevator and it closes and there’s a little fireplace. It’s just like an opening. With a fireplace behind it and he presses a button.

It’s almost like Willy Wonka where this this elevator is sideways and up and down and it takes him into behind different fireplaces. And this was the idea that the director’s daughter gave him this idea of this elevator that could take you from fireplace to fireplace. I don’t know. Kind of like the flu network in Harry Potter or something, right?

It’s brilliant. And he goes by these different scenes looking into people’s homes and really briefly. Was, unmistakably, the guy from Too Many Cooks is one of the scenes, like this big kind of, I, I just want to say odd looking guy with a beard and everything who’s sitting there, and I was like, oh my god, there’s, I wonder if he’s gonna come into play, he never really does, but, uh, there for a brief moment I thought he was the crazy pleather face guy, but he wasn’t.

Oh. But anyway, yeah. And he takes him to one fireplace and he says, do you know who that is in there?

Craig: Cause he says it can go through time too. Yes. Yes, that’s right.

Todd: And he says to him, and this is kind of the theme, right? That you referred to earlier.

Clip: So I hear you’re the screw up of the family.

Todd: Oh,

Clip: that’s what I just heard.

Sisters are two doctors. One’s a surgeon. Yeah, but um, my parents just want me to be happy. So they’re happy you’re a drug dealer. Well, they don’t know that. I’m also a podcaster. Podcaster? Good for you. What if I told you I could wipe all the failures from your life?

Todd: Just wipe it clean. Take this magic marker and crawl through this fireplace.

That woman in there? Do you know who she is? Oh, that’s my mother. Yeah, and do you notice anything? He’s like, she’s pregnant? Is that with me? And he’s like, yep. You crawl through the fireplace, take a piece of paper from that pad next to her while she’s sleeping, write on it A and put it on the fridge and come back through.

And he’s like, well, what if I wake her up? She’ll, like, totally freak out. It’ll change everything. He’s like, well, you’re not gonna do that, right? You’re gonna be very careful. So he does. He crawls through there, writes A on the paper, sticks it on the refrigerator, crawls back through the fireplace and stands in there.

And then suddenly, he’s holding a red magic marker instead of a black one. And I don’t remember exactly what the dialogue is here.

Craig: The, well, he says, I think you did it wrong or something. And the kid is like, no, I did exactly what you said. I put a plus plus on her stomach. I mean, on, on the refrigerator.

Todd: I mean, on her stump.

What? On her stomach? With the magic marker? And he’s like, that’s not a magic marker. And he looks down, he has a bloody knife in his hand.

Craig: It’s mean.

Todd: And, yeah, his, uh, mother’s all cut up. Like he’s stabbed her. And then it cuts back out to The crowd in the living room and there’s a new Asian man in the sofa next to the woman.

He’s

Craig: replaced. He’s replaced. I felt bad for that.

Todd: It’s a devil’s bargain kind of thing.

Craig: It is. And the kid is like, but I did, I just did what you told me. And the little man, he says, well, I’d love to debate with you, but I don’t debate with people that don’t exist. And then he disappears. And like you said, he cuts back and he’s been replaced with a new Asian guy.

It’s

Todd: so sad. Yeah.

Craig: Who doesn’t even have a name because it doesn’t matter because they find the body in the shower and then the log just comes out It

Clip: goes crazy Oh my god

Craig: starts killing people crushing it crushes beth’s head It’s henry the new asian guy tries to put it out and like it flies him all around the cabin and kills him

Todd: Yeah, it’s also talking.

It’s like crying out. It’s almost like Rosa, I think. I think it’s, I think we figured, I figured out later it was like,

Craig: it’s saying weird things and I couldn’t figure it out for a while.

Todd: Mm-hmm .

Craig: But as it turns out, honestly, I don’t really understand exactly what’s happening because it’s seems in the end that the log is possessed by Rosa, but it also says things Yeah.

That. other flashbacks that have nothing to do with Rosen like at one point I wrote in my notes. Did I hear? I’m not a sodomite. And then, yeah, I did. I heard that because it comes up later, but like the log at some point is just flying around and say, I’m not a sodomite. What?

Todd: Oh, it’s hilarious.

Craig: This goes on for a long time. They try to call the police and they’re like, the sheriff was already here earlier. And they’re like, uh, we don’t have a sheriff. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So the sheriff is shady now and the log it’s flying through the window. It’s talking, it’s saying arson is another thing that it, that ends up being something else like arson, A R S O N is what I heard.

And I think that’s what you’re supposed to hear, but it, it comes up more. This part, honestly. It, it didn’t feel slow or convoluted to me, but it seems weird, like, to, to go through it point by point, because honestly, not a lot happens, just the log follows them around for a long time.

Todd: Yeah, and they hide, and

Craig: And she says, like, the sheriff was shady, I didn’t tell you before, but I saw him sprinkle something on the fire.

Yeah.

Clip: Why are you just now bringing this up? I know, right? Like, that seems so, like, weird.

Todd: But this is what, they’re stuck in the closet, right? The couple. Yeah. We get this long scene of the couple in the closet where he goes through like every horror movie in like ten minutes. I found this to be funny, almost like a parody of horror movies.

He just keeps reassuring her the way that he does. characters in horror movies reassure people, and it goes to these absurd lengths where he’s also like, by the end of it, this is going to be great because the camera’s still on and we’re going to be rich because there’s going to be a movie about this and who do you want to play you in the movie?

Craig: It’s just, it’s just, it’s going to be, it’s going to be. Theatrical, not straight to Netflix. Yes!

Todd: It’s just this absurd thing going on. In the meanwhile, the log is out scoping out the hallway and sees the vent, hears their voices and I was like, is this log really going to crawl through the vent? It sure does.

And that’s what scares them out of there. But then I think it’s when they leap out of there that they get ambushed by, finally, the murderer. And his mom, and then we get this scene. That was, I think, by far the most disgusting scene of the whole film.

Craig: Now we are back to the slasher movie that we visited briefly for one minute in the beginning.

Todd: Mm-hmm . And

Craig: we are fully.

Todd: Yeah, it’s like the log doesn’t exist anymore.

Craig: Yeah, the big, crazy, gross, disgusting guy has these two beautiful women tied up and is menacing them and is debating which of them he’s going to rape. First, it’s disgusting and like, it’s dark and gross and the mother has the guy, I don’t remember his name, tied up in another room.

This was

Todd: so nasty. Oh my

Craig: god. It’s so gross. But he’s trying to, I don’t know, talk to her. Sweet

Todd: talk her to try to kind of get her to untie him. Sweet talk

Craig: her, right. But she’s on to him. But all the while. She is eating pimento cheese off of a knife, and it’s like smeared all over her face, and like she’s kinda gross anyway, like I’m sure this actress is lovely, but they’ve uglied her up and she’s gross, and she’s got like gross hair.

teeth and stringy hair. And she’s got this like deep, weird Southern accent and everything she says is disgusting. And she’s defending her kid. And then she starts trying to seduce him. And she’s like putting pimento cheese all over his mouth. And like, she’s like, I hope you’re not offended by my pimento cheese bread.

You’ve got pimento cheese bread too. Like, Oh my God. It was so funny. She

Todd: wipes it off his lips and licks it from her fingers is disgusting Disgust by far the most gross part of the whole movie

Craig: But honestly in that moment when I was watching this I was like, this is great. Oh, yeah

Todd: 100%.

Craig: This is a great scene.

She is up and scary like he’s trying to manipulate her and she’s playing along. But it’s also obvious that she totally knows what he’s doing and she does and she calls him out on it eventually. Like she is a psycho. She is a psycho right out of the hills have eyes or any of those other movies.

Clip: Yeah.

Craig: Like it’s in the midst of this. Ridiculous film which I’ve been having so much fun with but seriously like it’s one movie to the next and this movie is Scary.

Clip: Yeah, it is

Craig: and then the aliens are

Todd: Sure enough there’s a bright light coming in it interrupts hit her interrupts pleather face and she goes to the window and sees a spaceship like a classic flying saucer land and through the door comes this alien that is sort of an amalgamation of different aliens. It’s got that classic black eyes, you know, round head look, but it’s also has all these weird pores all over his head and it’s carrying this disgusting gun.

And the director said, it looks

Craig: like a flashlight.

Todd: Yeah, it really did. I don’t think that was an accident. The director said that he had the help of this alien. Friend of his he’s an effects artist that this was all shot down in Georgia and the director is from Georgia and most of these Actors are from Georgia or North Carolina, South Carolina that this is how they were able to kind of shoot It’s so cheap, but he said that this friend of his he’s got a warehouse full of effects stuff It just he never throws anything away when a productions done with stuff.

He grabs it So he’s like the kind of guy who’s just got everything and he is game for anything and a real go getter He said he’s the kind of guy you can go to and say hey Could I have like a creature that’s just like made of eyeballs and he’s like And he’ll be like, yeah, man, I got like a thousand eyeballs in my truck there.

Let’s glue them all together. Let’s go. And it was their brainstorming that came up with this alien. And he said, this guy was totally game to cobble this thing together. And it is crazy. He’s got a giant bottle hanging off of his shoulder attached to this gun. He shoots this flashlight gun, which shoots tendrils out and goes in the eyes, nose, and mouth.

It’s crazy. of this woman, and then sucks, I guess, liquefies all of her internal organs and sucks it into this, uh, gun, which then starts to fill up this tank that he’s carrying around. And she just gets sucked down to a comical, like, Judge Doom, you know, flat, Skin person on the floor. Alex manages to get out somehow.

Craig: No, no, he gets sucked too. He

Todd: gets it too, but not completely, I guess. But he’s worse for wear. Yeah. But then, while this is happening, we get this clever stuff with a split screen. Where in the other room, while this guy is assaulting the girl with the boobs. Holly. We get a split screen of those two kids playing Cowboy and Indian.

They have a knife.

Craig: It’s because we now get the story of Isaac and Rose. That’s right. Like, she Oh, God. She had We didn’t know who the person was. I didn’t know if it was her husband. You know, sadly, and this is obviously very serious, but sadly, slave families were split up on purpose because they didn’t want them to have familial So I didn’t know if it was her husband or her, I didn’t know what it was, but it turned, he had been sold off somewhere else.

And Isaac, the white man had promised that he was going to sell him to this nice slave owner, but

Todd: instead he sold him to the bad

Craig: one, to the bad one. And she gets very angry and he kind of tries to put her in her place and says, I’m sorry about your son. And she says, it was our son, our son. And then she throws the blanket that she made over him and stabs him in the head.

And so we realize now that the log hasn’t been saying Arson, it has been saying Our Son.

Clip: Mm hmm.

Craig: Right. And so at this point, I thought, okay, the log is Rosa, but ultimately I don’t know if that is the mythology of this.

Todd: I think it’s just like a bunch of Past spirits of the yeah of the house or something the

Craig: bad.

Yeah, maybe it started with her I think it started with her because then we also see that she gets hung from that tree

Clip: Mm hmm,

Craig: and the log came from that tree So maybe it started with her but I don’t think it’s just her because we see other things too. We see some guy who’s Dressed in women’s lingerie who gets beaten by a, to death by another man.

I don’t have any idea what was going on there, but you’re right. But Rosa, the knife that she used to stab the guy, she had hidden up inside the fireplace. And when the boys were playing, it had fallen out and I don’t think they, did they do anything with it? I think they just put it back, put it back.

Clip: Yep.

Craig: And so then while these two women are being menaced by pleather face, it falls out again and she gets it.

Todd: I don’t

Craig: even remember what, what, what is she able to do with it, just cut herself free?

Todd: Yeah, she cuts herself free and she escapes. Is this the point, though, where she also sees the little man in the fireplace?

Craig: We should just jump to that. I don’t know, like, there’s more alien stuff. There’s a bunch of

Todd: shit going on, honestly.

Craig: Yeah, but, but she, but that’s important. She sees, yes, kinda while all this is going on, yes, and then she goes in there, too. And it’s the same thing. She gets tempted with something, too. I don’t remember what it was.

Like, oh, this is the, a hundred million sperm story. And for every pregnancy, there are a hundred million sperm that could have, you know, fertilized that egg. And did you ever think about if one of those other hundred million, maybe they would have done better things than you, and maybe they wouldn’t have been so miserable, blah, blah, blah.

So go stop your parents from f ing and making you. And she’s like, no.

And I don’t know, they have a funny, you know, they have kind of a funny dialogue.

Todd: Alex somehow comes in, I can’t remember how, but does he pop into the fireplace too, or?

Craig: I don’t know, she, well, I think when, when Zoe refuses the deal, she pops back out of the fireplace.

Todd: Oh, and he, no, he stabs a poker through, into the fireplace.

At one point Oh, that’s right! Yeah, the guy, like a giant poker comes into the room and pins the little guy to the wall, and she crawls out of the fireplace, and you see that Alex had poked a a poker in there, so.

Craig: Right. And she stabs Plutterface in the dick, and then in the eye, and she Alex begs her to kill him, cause he’s not looking good.

Todd: No. He, I thought he might have an alien inside of him, but I guess he didn’t.

Craig: I didn’t know what was going on with him. It doesn’t really matter. He didn’t. Ultimately.

Todd: They get chased around by the, by the log a bunch more. They get out, Holly runs into the forest.

Craig: That was so funny to me like they run out to the car and they realize they don’t have the keys and they’re like the Keys are inside and Holly’s like that.

I’m getting out of here. She just runs away

Clip: and you never see her again. No

Todd: Not like

Clip: slow clap for Holly like she must be fine. She’s fine. Holly must They should have just gone with her

Craig: they do go back in and Holly like has an accent And the log is like threatening them and she’s like, I’m going to Paul Bunyan your ass mother.

But she, she like knocks it into the refrigerator and they somehow lock it in there and then they leave. And then there’s a whole, like, they just, they’re driving, they’re trying to get away and they come to that. Tree the hanging tree or whatever and there’s like a cult of people including the fake sheriff and the deputy Like chanting around the tree.

It’s

Todd: now a satanic cult movie. Yeah

Craig: She plows through them and there’s like this ghostly naked woman in the barn. I have no idea who that was I

Todd: thought it was First that that was, uh, what’s her name? But Holly, but it’s not.

Craig: No.

Todd: Yeah. And

Craig: the guy is like, keep driving. And she’s like, I’ll keep driving until we run out of gas.

So then it cuts to the next morning and presumably they’re very far away and he’s in really bad shape, but she stops at a stoplight and they have a romantic moment where she takes out the engagement ring that he gave her and she was, you know, skeptical, but she puts it on. She’s like, yeah, I will marry you.

And then the flaming CGI log rises. up, you know, right outside her window and, and crashes into them and blows them all like, like blood, like the whole car explodes full of blood.

Clip: And

Craig: then it cuts to some weird Modern office.

Todd: Yeah, it’s like the film freezes pulls out and it’s like it was like a video playing on a computer screen or something And when it pans over it’s the same actor that was playing the slave owner

Craig: Yes, it’s isaac and rosa, but it took me a second to figure that out because they look very different They look modern.

It took me a second. I was like, why did why is that guy so familiar? But it’s isaac and rosa and rosa. Is it the boss? But what is, what are they doing?

Todd: I don’t know. He’s working on some design for something like the Armfield cotton mill lofts or something. And she’s like, Oh, that’s approval. That’s I’ll prove that now she’s his boss.

You know, it’s this kind of this role reversal.

Craig: But they’re also.

Todd: But they’re also married. Yeah. Yes. And they have a kid apparently, but, and cause you see a picture of the kid.

Craig: Yes. You see a family picture of them on his desk and the actor who plays pleather face. Is like their maintenance guy.

Todd: That’s right.

That’s right.

Craig: So it’s like this, I, I, I didn’t, I didn’t know what was going on, but then she’s like, come on, let’s go home. And he’s like, I don’t know. I’ll have to ask the boss. And she’s like, okay, we’ll go ahead and ask the boss. He’s like, well, can I go home early boss? And she’s like, yeah. And they’re smiling and they’re in love and they’re walking out and they see the pleather face guy and he’s happy too.

But then, Everything just starts burning.

Todd: Mm hmm. And suddenly they’re like back to their previous identity.

Craig: Yes. And they realize that all of this is fake and so I didn’t know if it was meant to be that they’re in hell or they’re just still the log. Like, I don’t know.

Todd: I’m not sure we’re ever gonna know.

I’m not even sure there’s a point to it.

Craig: I know. Well, no, I don’t really know about that, but I watched this movie. I woke up yesterday morning and watched this movie first thing. And then I, you know, had my whole day and chaperoned a high school dance until 1130 at night. And then I came home and I wasn’t tired.

So I watched the sequel.

Clip: I want to see it so badly.

Craig: I was a little skeptical of it in the first five, 10 minutes. And then I was like, Oh, I see what they’re doing here and it landed for me hard.

Todd: Really?

Craig: Yeah. I

Todd: read that’s a little different.

Craig: It is. It’s great. Like the, it calls back to most of the things from the first movie at some point, but it does different things too.

We’re not confined to this one cabin. And so it makes it one part horror movie. Equal part Hallmark Christmas movie. Oh, and it’s, it’s perfect. And it does really cool things cinematically. Like when it’s the horror movie it’s shot in letterbox and in really dark tones. And then when it switches to Hallmark, it’s full screen and like really bright and like fun Christmas music.

And sometimes it will do that. Split screen thing, like, where she’ll be on one half of the screen in her horror movie, and on the other half of the screen, the people are in their Hallmark movie. Oh, God. And it manages to Lampoon both these types of slasher horror movies and hallmark movies and just I think the perfect way because I think the best way to lampoon those types of things is to just be since mostly sincere You got to play it straight like like

Clip: yeah,

Craig: yeah play it straight like they lampoon themselves So you don’t have to try too hard the conventions that you’re trying to satirize are ridiculous themselves.

So just, just go a teeny, teeny step further and do it tongue in cheek. I loved it. I thought it was great. I think we should do it next Christmas. I think we should

Todd: too. I, I totally am down for that. Isn’t that, didn’t Will Ferrell also do a satirical lifetime movie horror thing called like, A Deadly Adoption or something like that?

Craig: Maybe, maybe. Where they played

Todd: it 100 percent straight to the point where I think probably people don’t realize it’s a, it’s a parody because it’s so straight, you know, I, this was the director’s very first movie, full length movie. He did a lot of writing and directing for television, a lot in the adult swim area, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, and, and he was really nervous about doing this.

And one. Odd situation to be doing your first feature because he had to do the whole thing in secret because they didn’t want anybody to know about it. And they were, you know, they were trying to keep it from the upper, the higher ups at the company as well as keep it quiet from the general public so as to not to spoil the surprise because they wanted it to be the same kind of thing like too many cooks where you would just discover it.

And I think it worked so well. I just love the surreal oddity of it. It’s just something completely unique. It’s fun all the way through. So it keeps you guessing. You get to a point where you realize the movie’s just gonna be wacky, and we’re just along for the ride, and it’s fun, and yet it still manages to be scary.

Yeah! At points. So it, uh, it just checks all those boxes. I’m so glad to hear that the sequel feeds off of that, you know, kind of continues it, instead of just trying to be something entirely new. Ugh. I loved it. Me too. And so next week, we’re gonna go and we’re gonna do something very, very mean spirited, aren’t we?

Craig: People will probably be able to figure it out just from that. That was that was a good enough tease. But yeah,

Todd: it’s the movie. We can’t help but do this year. Well, I think we’ve got it. We’ve struck a good balance, right?

Craig: Me too. I’m really glad we did this one. I’m glad that we I mean, I like all these.

Movies, but the one that we did before this was dark. The next one that we’re gonna do is dark. This one was fun Yeah, I had a really good time with

Todd: it. It really was fun. Well, that is up for week three We’ve got one more film to go this holiday season Then we go into New Year’s and a brand new year ahead of us.

So if you enjoyed this Please share with a friend some of that holiday cheer. You can just send them straight to our website, ChainsawHorror. com, or just tell them to Google Two Guys in a Chainsaw podcast so they can find it wherever they listen to all of their podcasts. And we hope you guys are having a good, happy holiday season right now.

We will see you next week for Christmas time. Until then, I’m Todd. And I’m Craig. With Two Guys and a Chainsaw.

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Imagine this: The TV’s on your favorite yule log stream and suddenly, you hear talking and see some legs move across the screen. That’s the concept behind this surprising oddity from Adult Swim, which manages to sneak a horror movie into a typical yule log video.

Videos of a fire blazing were never so entertaining. We just cannot tell you ANYTHING about this movie before you watch it, or it’ll spoil all the fun. All you need to know is: You MUST watch this. And then come back here and we’ll chat about this Christmas treat.

A cozy fireplace with a burning Yule Log. The words "Adult Swim Yule Log" are elegantly written across the image in yellow script, capturing the warmth and whimsy of this unique holiday feature.
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Automatic Transcript

Adult Swim Yule Log (2022)

Episode 420, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast

Todd: Hello and welcome to another episode of Two Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Todd.

Craig: And I’m Craig.

Todd: Week three of Christmas, and Craig, I think we had something else in mind, and it must have been after that Await Further Instructions movie that you, I think we’re looking for something to bring us back to the lightness of, there’s something in the barn?

I was too, and then you just kind of out of the blue sent me this thing. Hey, this Adult Swim Yule Log, that looks like fun. I barely glanced at it, but it looked like it was, it said it was a comedy horror. So I was like, yeah, I’ve never heard of it. That should be great. Let’s do it. And so I was more than eager to jump on it.

Where did you find this thing?

Craig: I heard about it last year, and I don’t know a lot about Adult Swim. Is it a channel? What I know is it

Todd: like a Part of Cartoon Network. I’ve never figured that out. It’s

Craig: like a part of Cartoon Network. I think it’s like a production team. Again, like I didn’t look it up. I should have.

I think it’s a production team that does mostly animated shows. And yeah, they are connected to some network. And it’s, it’s animation for the most part for adults. And so it’s, it’s adult humor and I’ve always heard good things about it. It’s just never anything that I’ve gravitated towards, but I heard about this movie last year and I don’t remember how I, you know, I, I look at all these horror websites, so I’m sure that’s where I saw it.

And I just remember reading in the first thing that I read about it. And I want to emphasize it right now. If you have any interest, movie and you should because it’s good and it’s funny and it’s a good, it’s funny and it’s a good horror movie. So if you’re interested in a good funny holiday horror movie, stop listening right now because the fun of this movie is not knowing anything about it.

And there are so many just insane, twists and turns and surprises that you would never see coming and that is the fun of it. Is it like a cinematic masterpiece? Absolutely not.

Clip: I don’t think it’s a cinematic masterpiece, but I think that it is great.

Todd: You know what you sent me this and I read, like, a thing.

What starts as a simple Yule log feed devolves into a surrealist nightmare, and that’s about all I read. And I was like, oh, that sounds clever. And then I saw Adult Swim, and that reminded me, and the whole concept reminded me of, Oh, this must be, like, Too Many Cooks. Have you seen Too Many Cooks?

Craig: No, if I have, I don’t remember.

Todd: Dude, too many cooks came out. God, I could think it was before I came to China. Was it 2015 or 2016, something like that? It was this weird thing that came on at like 2 a. m. or like close to midnight or whatever, unannounced on the Cartoon Network or the Adult Swim time or whatever it would just, it just popped on and it starts out as a introduction.

Like it’s like the full house introduction, you know, the, the TV show full house. And the people popping in and smiling with the freeze frame while their name shows up, you know. Jim Jones as the next door neighbor and so and so is this, right? And it’s got this peppy song in the background. It takes

Clip: a lot to make a stew A pinch of salt and laughter too A scoop of kids to

Todd: And it starts out like that, but it keeps going. It’s like, how many people are in this? And then you realize, Oh, this is a joke. And then the joke goes on. It gets weirder until finally it gets so bizarre that it’s like, strange things are happening. Like the picture kind of gets weirded out, like somebody’s intercepted the transmission.

And then there’s this like sinister character that starts popping up in the background. Again, this is another thing that if you, if you want to see it, I shouldn’t spoil it for you, but it just devolves into craziness. And it ends up being like 20 minutes long, this thing you expect to end after 30 seconds goes on and on and gets more and more insane.

And I have showed it to everybody who has never seen it before. And so when I saw this and I saw, oh, it’s kind of a thing that probably was similar where it’s supposed to be just this yule log. You probably just came on and you started watching it, but then it evolved into something else. I thought, I wonder if this is by the same guy.

And it turns out it is. Casper Kelly. Mm hmm. What a great idea!

Clip: What a great idea, I wish I had thought of it. It is a great idea, right?

Craig: It’s so clever, like these, going to look for this movie, I think I found it on Max, but instead of typing in Adult Swim Yule Log, I just typed in Yule Log. Oh, big mistake.

And

Clip: there were like, Fifteen different ones!

Craig: Heck yeah, there are. Like, this is a thing! Oh, you don’t know this? I mean, I knew it was a thing, like, I knew you could get a Yule log. I didn’t, on your TV, I didn’t know that there was, like, a whole

Clip: genre.

Todd: Oh yeah, dude! Bic and I used to turn on a Yule log, I mean, like, pretty much from the beginning of December to the end.

If the television isn’t on, we’re watching something, we’ve got a Yule log video playing. Just cause it keeps things cozy and warm. It’s really nice.

Craig: It is nice. I, I’m a fan of Roku city. You’re in China, I don’t know if you know what that is. When you leave the Roku on, it just does this nice like animated cityscape.

I enjoy it.

Todd: It

Craig: pans

Todd: by, and different buildings come up. It’s nice. And it changes every now and then.

Craig: Yeah, and it’s, it’s nice. Seasonal. Yeah. Yeah.

Todd: I saw that at my parents house. I dig it.

Craig: Yeah. The Yule log stuff. It’s nice. And that’s how it starts. Like, there are so many things that I love about this movie and I couldn’t find anything about it behind the scenes, but it’s, it’s plot heavy and I don’t know how much of the plot we want to go through, but I just thought it was, it just starts.

It’s a Yule log and you’re just watching a Yule log and there’s Beautiful instrumental, good King Wenceslas music and the crackling fire. And it’s just exactly what you would expect of a Yule log. And that goes on for two minutes and 25 seconds. And you kind of maybe hear some things in the background.

Like maybe you hear a car approach or something. I don’t know, but it’s very subtle. Doing this podcast, I have learned if you really want to experience a movie, you really need to listen to it. With good headphones or earbuds. Yeah, because there’s there’s so much in the soundscape that you’ll miss Otherwise now, of course, I enjoy watching movies with my partner and part of that experience is reacting and talking and and So I don’t, I don’t want to sit with Alan, both of us in earbuds, just so that we can hear the subtleties of the soundscape.

If you’re watching it by yourself, pop in the earbuds, because there’s little sound things that are going on throughout. Yeah. So, when we finally hear something, this woman comes in and she’s on the phone. And she’s saying like, I don’t know. It was like, people are in the wrong place or something. So now I have to clean this cabin and she’s cleaning it.

I thought she was just a cleaning lady. I think she is also the landlord. It comes out later, but whatever, it doesn’t matter. But we’re only seeing this through the lens that is shooting. The fireplace. And that’s one of the things that I love about this movie is because I thought, Oh, this is going to be really interesting because we’re going to only see a movie that’s shot from this perspective.

And that doesn’t end up being the case, but when it changes, I thought that I would be disappointed, but I wasn’t because it continues to be interesting.

Clip: Yes. Oh God.

Craig: Anyway, but, so this lady’s cleaning and then somebody knocks on the door and this woman is like,

Clip: can I borrow your phone, my phone? Don’t you have a cell phone?

It, it died. This, it just ain’t my day. Oh, this, here’s my son.

Wait, what are you Now you can’t Now you What are you You can’t come in here!

Craig: And you see run across the frame, cause the camera hasn’t moved all this time. We’ve never seen anybody above the knee. You see this big, scary man chase this maid, landlady, whatever. Across the frame and then you hear that other woman’s voice say Remember to say nice things to her girls like to hear nice things

Clip: Mm hmm,

Craig: and then there’s this horrible like flashy Violent imagery over the fire that we’re looking at.

Clip: Mm hmm

Craig: And the woman stops screaming and blood sprays all over the fire and the mom says You Did that feel good? Did you get your yuckies out? Oh God,

Todd: that was so gross.

Craig: And I am thinking, what

Todd: am

Craig: I watching? But that is the magic of this movie. Yes. Because I kept feeling that over and over again. What am I watching?

And ultimately, because of that, I thought it was like a super, super fun experience.

Todd: It was. So I found an interview with the director, and he said that they were orig he his original idea was maybe we do this whole thing in like, mostly audio. Watching this Yule Log video at home one day, he was like, what would happen if like, some blurry legs just kind of walked by the Yule Log?

You know, how would people respond to that? And then he was thinking, what if we did a whole thing with mostly audio? But then he kind of thought that might not be as great. And so he ended up pitching this idea to the folks at Adult Swim. And because he was able to shoot it for such a low budget, he was able to more or less shoot it under the radar.

Like, it didn’t have to go all the way up for approvals, you know, to the top. As long as he kept it, I read in the upper six figures, he said? Mid to upper six figures? Because anything over a certain amount, you know, has to be greenlit. And and he didn’t think this would get greenlit just because it’s such a weird concept.

He originally was gonna do like Two hours of yule log video before the movie kicked in and then he realized they because they were gonna put it in this Prominent location on the time slot it came after I guess the season 6 finale of Rick and Morty which I’ve never seen But I guess it’s a really really popular TV show.

Clip: Yeah,

Todd: he was like, oh we need to shorten this up So people don’t click away So what he said that first they were gonna they tried 10 minutes and he said that felt like three years

Clip: Yeah, and

Todd: so they ended up shortening it to what two and a half and that felt about right

Clip: Yeah

Todd: That was like the genesis of this idea and all these a couple other filmmakers who do weird things like that I mean in a way this movie gets very lynchian there are parts in here that are a little bit like eraser head

Craig: Yeah,

Todd: it just gets very surreal after a point.

Craig: Yeah

Todd: And so, he got some great ideas from some other people, and, uh, it just all kind of spiraled out from this. Uh, he got an idea from his daughter for doing the whole elevator thing. Oh god, that’s great. Yeah, I don’t know if we want to walk through the whole thing. Maybe we I guess that’s What we do here, right?

But, ah, it, at some point, it does come out, and it’s clever, the way that it comes out into the big scene. You hear that the murderer and his mother or whatever, like, oh no, someone’s at the door, quick, we gotta hide the body. So they’re cleaning up, and they drag the body out, and then you hear this couple come in.

And then he kind of walks over and says something, she says, oh, there’s a camera here. And he says, oh yeah, that’s just the thing, the thing I was recording. And then he zooms out from the camera to the whole room.

Craig: Yes, yes. And so that’s our first big shift in perspective is just a zoom out so that you see the room, you know, that the fireplace is in.

And then we stay there for a very long time.

Todd: Yeah, like 20 minutes.

Craig: I felt like every I don’t know. I’m not going to put a timestamp on it, but every so often it just felt like it became a different movie. Yeah. You start out, this seems like a crazy slasher with this, these crazy, who knows who they are, but they’re weird and, and, and violent and raping and killing, and then they run and hide.

And then this couple comes in and it’s a romantic drama for the next, like 20 minutes,

Todd: at least. It’s like a, Lifetime Christmas movie or something for a little while

Craig: almost yeah Because you know, they’re they’re lounging in front of a fireplace in this rustic cabin, which looks very nice And and you know, like it’s got a bear like they’re he’s lounging on a bearskin rug and stuff This is Alex and Zoe I didn’t write down all the actors names because I didn’t recognize any of them Alex is played by Justin Miles Zoe is played by Andrea Lang if you want to see the other actors You’re gonna have to look him up because I didn’t write him down because I didn’t recognize anybody.

So Like this is a thing that he does like he films fires for these yule log videos and he’s real proud of it Yeah,

Todd: apparently he doesn’t make a killing but he makes enough to get by is what he says. Somebody actually asks him about it Oh gosh, it’s funny. I wondered about this though. Every time I turn on that yule log video.

I think What if I were the guy who had my Yulog videos up on Netflix? Like, is somebody making bank from this? YouTube especially, because that pays you by the watch. You put a three hour video up on YouTube and if people are looping it and watching it all the way through, that’s your way to potential riches.

Craig: Yeah, there’s a lot of meta commentary. Which I also, like, it hits, like, I don’t, I don’t know if this movie will stand the test of time, but for right now, all the meta commentary really hits, like, there’s, you know, meta commentary about the fact that all he does is set up a camera. An expensive camera because he’s bougie, but he sets up a camera and films fires, but he’s a content creator, you know, like, and he’s making money and he’s really proud of the fact that like, he went to like Bali or something and like filmed it.

Filmed a campfire and that became really popular. That one really hit big.

Todd: Well,

Craig: the, I know we were kind of going plot wise, but he, I don’t know. There’s a lot of stuff with them. What it comes down to is that he’s brought her there to propose to her. Yes. And he eventually does. She

Todd: doesn’t agree. Like she just, she’s not ready to say yes, but she’s not ready to say no either.

It’s like, she keeps steering the conversation other ways.

Craig: But one of my. Before you go on, one of my favorite things about this part is that while we’re seeing this, Yes. the way that the camera is framed, there is an ice bucket in the right corner. And while the people in the background are talking, this ice bucket is in the foreground.

And I thought that this was so clever because I thought this would really happen. I didn’t have to suspend my disbelief for this. The camera focused on them while they were talking and doing things. But at some point, the crazy man killer who’s hiding in the house. Peaks out from a door behind, but it’s reflected in the ice bucket and the camera refocuses.

Yeah. It pulls focus away from them and focuses on the ice bucket, and I believe that that would happen. Mm-hmm . With

Clip: if.

Craig: A good stationary camera, if the stationary camera detects motion in another place, it will readjust focus. And it was just so, and he’s not doing anything. He’s just this big hulking guy and like.

Overalls or something and a creepy like paper mask. We never see his face, but he appears to be deformed underneath it. But he’s just wearing this like paper mask of like a blonde, handsome guy.

Todd: Pleather face.

Craig: Yeah. He’s credited his pleather face.

Todd: Oh

Craig: boy. But I loved that shit. I like, I just thought there were so many clever things and it keeps doing that.

Like, so he’ll peek out. And the, the camera will refocus on him and then he’ll go back in the room that he’s in and it will refocus on them because now that’s where the motion is. So there’s

Todd: always this, like, you can’t get too wrapped up in this because you’re constantly reminded that there’s a sinister presence that could burst out and kill them at any time or one of them might walk away and, you know, get murdered and, you know, you just don’t know what’s going to happen, but it’s there until the cops show up.

And there’s a knock on the door, and they open it up, and they go over there, and you can, and the sheriff and his deputy come walking in.

Craig: They’re doing rounds because they found a body on the mountain.

Todd: And then, the cop starts talking about

Clip: Where’d you get the log? Uh, just down the road a little bit. From the tree with the rocks around it in a circle?

Yeah, I think so. Why? Is there something wrong? Mm hmm. That’s a hanging tree. They used to hang slaves on it. Oh my god. I, I, I didn’t know. I I mean, how was I supposed to know? It just was a cool looking log. And the branch I cut it off was dead, so Didn’t you see the plaque? No, I didn’t see the plaque. Did you see a plaque?

No, we, we saw no plaques, Sheriff. Oh, Diane took down that plaque, Sheriff. Yeah, she rents that place out for weddings down there. They don’t want to read about slavery. She took down the plaque? Yes, because of weddings. Well, it’s her land, but she shouldn’t have done that.

Todd: And then he goes into this lore about how that tree is a sacred tree to the Indians nearby.

And I’m like, oh my god, this is getting hilarious. So now we have

Craig: And the tree feeds on fear and the iron from all the blood spilled there.

Clip: And at this point I’m like, yesss. Like, I’m so into this.

Todd: And so he asks for a glass of water and the woman comes in and like, they’re just chatting and then he like, when she gives him the water, he dumps it on the log.

The guy’s like, what are you doing? He’s like, I really think you should stop burning that log. In fact, you should take it out and you should bury it somewhere in like a sacred way and don’t even touch it. Say a

Clip: prayer. He calls it like the Hillbilly Bermuda Triangle or something. It’s crazy.

Todd: And then the guy’s like, uh, or, I can’t remember who our main character is.

He looks at the guy and says, you really believe this stuff, don’t you? And then his deputy goes, oh yeah, ask him to tell you sometime about the aliens. So then he leaves. And I’m thinking in my head. God. God, I hope they’re going to be aliens in this movie after this, because they’ve already piled two things on.

You’ve got the killer in the house and you have an evil log,

Craig: right? Well, a cursed log, right? Like, I don’t know what’s going on here, but this is also the point where all of a sudden we start having lots of flashbacks. But the way that they do flashbacks, I love,

Clip: oh yes,

Craig: the flashbacks are set. In the same location in different time periods and the way they do it.

Todd, you’re the technician. I don’t know how to

Todd: explain this, but they like, it’s like dragging a split screen across the screen, but maybe you’ll, you’ll go all the way across, or maybe you’ll only go halfway across and while the action still going on, or

Craig: maybe that, yeah, maybe the flashback will just be a segment that travels across, but it’s, but it’s.

It’s all in the same location, so it’s just like, you’re seeing people in black and white.

Todd: Like the same cabin. Yeah.

Craig: Yeah. And it’s all in sync, like it’s all happening at the same time.

Todd: And the guy sets this up because you hear an audio when they first come into the house before we ever meet this couple.

He says something to her, to his girlfriend about, oh yeah, like this cabin’s been here since the Civil War and has hardly changed at all. And that’s what you see in the flashback. It’s like, perfectly overlaid. When the screen swipes over, so it’s just, it’s just so fun. It’s

Craig: neat. Yeah. Yeah. It’s neat and it’s fun and it’s not just one time period.

Like you see multiple time periods of different things, mostly bad things, but you don’t see those bad things from the beginning. Like you just get glimpses of like two boys in like coonskin caps playing. More. I don’t know, any other of number things, there ends up being like two or three different past plotlines.

Clip: Yes.

Craig: But they don’t start out scary and violent, they just start out kind of as establishing shots, and they go by very quickly, but then you learn more about them as they go on, and you see that lots of bad things have happened here.

Todd: Yeah, and think for a moment. of the technical wizardry required for this because the director said, he said, you know, we did not have time or the ability to go in and like do crazy editing here.

This is all one long 20 minute shot from the Yule log at the beginning until eventually We slip into more of movie mode, but until then, he’s like, we had to get all this in one take, and we had to get the timing right. These characters had to leave space, right, for these flashbacks to happen on half the screen or in front of the screen.

And so they rehearsed like crazy, these two, before they went in to do this extremely long scene where they even had to get the timings right to allow for the flashback. I mean, it’s pretty incredible. It is. This is all in one shot for so long, with these things happening.

Craig: Yes, and the acting is great. Like I really don’t have any complaints if I were to complain about anything It would just be nitpicking and eventually there’s some cgi And it looks like they didn’t have a lot of money and I don’t care probably they didn’t I don’t care It’s it’s it’s fun.

And like I get it. It’s cgi. Whatever. I Yeah, it looks like cgi fine. Whatever they worked with what they had. This is an entertaining movie and You It’s, it’s well shot. They, you know, a lot of times I talk about cinematography and mostly what I’m talking about is just if things look beautiful. In this, I think it’s very skillful cinematography in terms of style and technique.

There are just so many cool, innovative, in my opinion, I’ve never seen a movie like this.

Todd: It’s very unique.

Craig: It takes you in such different places. Again, like it feels like several different movies, but they are interwoven so well that it doesn’t seem jarring. Like, like you said, we know that those killers are there.

But we almost really forget about them because after the relationship movie, this Hallmark movie where they’re dealing with their things and he wants to propose, but she’s reticent for reasons that we don’t really know. But eventually after he proposes and she can’t decide, he’s like, you know, I know that you’ve been through a lot.

Do you maybe need to up your medication?

Clip: Right.

Craig: Which is a really difficult to say. Conversation to have with anybody and then there’s this whole debate in that part I’m trying to get to the next part but I there were things that I wanted to hit here where He wants to get married and she’s like and this seems very melodramatic, but I understand her point of view She says The planet is dying, Alex.

How do you plan for the future when there is none? And she goes on this whole thing, like, how do you bring kids into this world? And it feels very melodramatic, but I think that people are feeling these feelings, so I get it. This feels very timely. Yeah. And then he says to her, every period of time feels like the worst time when you’re in it.

And he says, pick an era. And then we get like a flashback to slavery, which we’ve already kind of established before. And then they have this whole debate about panicking about the state of the world. And I know this movie came out in 2022. And people were thinking about this then, but I think that this is something that is on people’s mind.

And I just thought that this was a very timely conversation. And it actually hit me somewhere. When he said, Everybody thinks that the time that they’re going through is the worst time.

Todd: Yeah. Yeah, it’s true.

Craig: Maybe that’s true! I think it is.

Todd: Whenever I get really, really down, I go back and I think, Now, wait a minute.

It’s not World War II. Yet, anyway. Yeah. And I imagine how scared people were, and how people thought the world was going to hell, and nothing was ever going to be the same again, and just, just this living nightmare. And so, like, that ended, and, you know. Everybody kind of recovered from that and so that these kinds of thoughts give me hope the black plague world war ii You know that kind of stuff.

Craig: Yeah, right. Yeah, right change is scary and I you know, I understand that a lot of people are You know concerned about the state of the world as am I? God, I I need to up my meds. I get it, but that actually kind of hit home for me. Like it does put some things in context. So the thing that I was trying to get to is then it turns into another movie because.

Not unlike a movie that we reviewed, I think, in the last year, Barbarian, another group of people shows up and they’re like, We booked this place too!

Clip: Yep.

Craig: And it turns out they did.

Clip: Mm hmm.

Craig: And so nobody’s really in the wrong, but they’re in this bad situation, and this other group of young people, there’s Two guys and two girls, I think, and the one, the most stonery of them all, is like, Yeah, we all took edibles to hit right when we got here, so

We’re gonna have to stay.

Todd: They’re there because they’re going to investigate lynchings and alien abductions that have been linked to the cabin for their paranormal podcast. And this one, you know, this one offended me because,

I just love, they’re really poking fun at the podcasters, and fair enough, they should be, it becomes obvious very quickly that, yeah, like, These guys have a podcast, but probably not very many people listen. And there’s certainly not making money from it yet. But, but at first the stoner dude sort of tries to pass it off as his job.

There’s so much comedy and I just loved it. Also, you know, you were saying barbarian that was obviously instantly coming to me with that mix up. The other thing I was thinking of was because we’re in the single shot for so long. And very soon it does change. But we’re in the single shot for so long that I was getting almost like alien abduction vibes.

You remember that movie?

Clip: Yeah.

Todd: Now it’s not that that was a static camera, but that was a very home movie type feeling. And I think the stuff that we’ve been talking about would have felt more melodramatic and more fake had it been shot in a more Hollywood style. Yeah, absolutely. But because it was just this one take with this static camera, like, I could buy into all this totally because, you know, people are just awkward, people have awkward conversations and all this stuff.

It was great. I loved it. I was so into it. I did too. But I was also laughing my head off at some of these people.

Craig: Yeah, but, and it feels more real because, you know, people are having conversations and whatnot and that’s fine. But the camera doesn’t go to focus completely. Tight on them. It’s just filming the whole room So you also see all the other people in the room and at you know At some points there are four or five people in the

Todd: room

Craig: And some of them are listening and some of them are not and

Todd: walking in and out of the frame

Craig: Yeah, it it feels more observational

Todd: Mm hmm.

Craig: I don’t know, you know, it’s just a style choice, but for this it really works. At some point They try to call the landlady and they hear the phone ringing because she’s the one that got killed apparently and they find her phone under The couch and then the new people who’ve arrived.

Todd: Ben, Beth, Holly, and Henry.

Craig: Yeah Here are my notes. Ben with the mustache Beth the blonde, Henry the stoner, and Holly the slut. That’s a mean thing to say. That’s a mean thing to say, but that’s what I wrote about her in my notes. She seems like a nice girl.

Todd: But it was also classic, like, you know, Friday the 13th.

Craig: Yeah, right, right, right, right.

Like these stereotypical characters. All of them.

Clip: Mhm.

Craig: But they talk about, you know, they’re doing this podcast or whatever, and they’re telling them all these things that they know, because they’ve done their research. So great. I love that. Like, you know, bring in these characters. And on the one hand, they’re a little bit douchey.

But on the other hand, they seem like fun people, you know, and they talk about, as you’ve already mentioned, how the mountain has been the site of alien objections and lynchings. And they start to tell this story about this lady named Esther Dinkins. And this is another, like, flashback, you know, like, I think it turns out that she’s abducted by aliens.

I don’t know. It was a little bit difficult to follow. But as they’re talking about all of this, somebody says enough about your podcast and I just died laughing. I just died because. I have nothing else to talk about. Like, like, I work and I do this. And so when I’m at work with my friends, I talk about the podcast a lot.

And I’m sure they are sick of it. Craig was triggered. I’m sure that they are like, enough about your f ing podcast. We get it.

Todd: Oh, it’s funny. Cause I can

Craig: only imagine how annoying it is. If I were in their shoes, I would just, I don’t know how they keep from just rolling. Their eyes like popping out of their heads from rolling so far back.

I don’t know.

Clip: Uh huh

Craig: Boy, and then we get introduced. Yeah, isaac and rosa. You should talk about isaac and rosa This is

Todd: isaac and rosa are the the in the past, right? Is this where we get that scene with the two of them?

Craig: Well again, it’s a lot of cuts, you know Like we get these backstories in 30 second increments So you don’t know who these people are, you have to put it together, but over the course of the movie you figure it out.

Todd: Isaac is very conveniently sat at a table right in front of the fire, perfectly framed for us. He is a guy, who is a slave owner, and Rosa is his slave gal. She is serving him his dinner, and they have some very pleasant conversation. I don’t remember how many flashbacks this plays out. At first, we don’t really get a sense that anything’s wrong.

I think we just, they just have some chat.

Craig: It seems very friendly.

Todd: I was thinking, oh god, this could get really cringey, right? This whole slavery thing,

Craig: you know? No, of course, of course. I, I, you know, I, I don’t know. It, it is. It’s a sensitive subject. But, I think Even in this very first one, or one of the early ones, I may be jumping ahead, but she says You know, he compliments her on the food that she’s made him and blah, blah, blah.

The

Todd: cornbread. I love it. It’s so moist.

Craig: Right. And she says

Clip: I made a quote for William. It is getting cold and it wasn’t ready when he was sold to Mr. Luther. But um, you know, he’s scared of thunder. So now he can look at this in every day’s blue skies. And he always was scared of thunder, that boy. It’s a nice blanket, Rosa.

I’d like to touch it, but I don’t want to get corn on it. It looks soft. So will you take it to him? And while you’re there, can you see how he’s doing?

Craig: I think that’s all we hear at that point. But then the movie changes again because at this point, I don’t, if it’s time for bed or something, I don’t know.

Well,

Todd: they all just decide Yeah, to go up to their various areas. Somebody goes up to shower, somebody goes into a hot tub, somebody goes to get changed. I think the other two go to their bedroom. The room’s empty, right? And the fireplace reignites on its own. And only at this point do we change from our static camera to a view from inside.

Inside the fireplace and suddenly it’s like a POV shot almost of like a demon or something kind of like Amityville 2 or whatever and it goes up the stairs and into the room where is it? Ben? Is he the guy showering? It’s classic person showering right? The shower curtain swings open and Ben looks down like what and then whack whack whack and I was like This is the log killing him, isn’t it?

The log?

Craig: Oh, I had no idea what was going on, because it’s the camera. Yeah. The camera is smashing his face. Bro, the RPOV.

Todd: Oh, I instantly thought, this has got to be the log. I was just laughing. I’m like, so the log floated out of the fireplace, went upstairs and whacked this guy in the head. Oh my God. It was brutal though.

It was very bloody.

Craig: Well, and then it’s immediate, it’s immediately confirmed. You see the log fly back into the fireplace. Oh boy. No, but I’m, I’m, I’m right there with you. Like I thought, Oh my God, that is so funny. Like this is,

Clip: this is literally a

Craig: killer Yule

Clip: log.

Craig: Oh my God. So funny. I’m

Todd: also thinking, where did the killers go?

Where did the murderers go? If they all retreated to their rooms, there can’t be that many rooms.

Craig: They’re gone for so long. I know. And where are they? I don’t know. They do come back. That was

Todd: weird.

Craig: Yeah, more goes on, like, I don’t know. They all come

Todd: back in and kind of sit around.

Craig: They’re all sitting there in front of the fire again and like talking and flirting and blah blah blah.

And now

Todd: it’s all, it’s like regular movie style at this point. We don’t have the static camera anymore. Uh huh. Yeah.

Craig: One of the new girls is flirting with the guy that proposed to his Yeah. Fiancé or whatever. Kind of silly, but the big stoner guy who happens to be Asian and it’s a joke because they say that the girl that he’s with only dates Asian guys and she’s like, no, I don’t.

But he starts seeing things. First it’s the bearskin rug moving, but then there’s a little Southern man calling to him from the pub. And when this

Clip: happened, I was.

Craig: This to me, that’s why I said, don’t listen to this. If you haven’t seen this movie, because this weird shit just comes out of nowhere,

Todd: like

Craig: what, like now there’s

Clip: a little man in the fireplace.

Todd: Because I had seen too many cooks, and I realized this connection, I was really ready for everything. I’m like, okay, this is gonna be one of those movies.

And it is, it’s also very David Lynch, where just bizarre shit happens, and you’re not sure if it’s real, or if it’s a dream, or what’s going on. Yeah, he crawls, the middleman says, come here into the fireplace. He crawls into the fireplace, through the fire, and ends up in a room. Behind the fireplace and the man’s like you must be really good at this because you didn’t get burned by the fire And it is a room that is half on flames, but it’s like cheesy CGI effects actually Yeah, and he’s like, why don’t you come sit down and I’ll serve you something

Craig: but I like it because it’s surreal.

It’s dreamland It’s

Todd: just super surreal There’s like a bartender behind a little bar there that has a the head of a deer and doesn’t even move

Clip: Yeah.

Todd: And eventually, he just says, I want What, he tries to serve him some stuff, he tries to give him something to drink, he asks for a Dr. Pepper, and he’s like, Well, I don’t have a Dr.

Pepper, but I got a nurse What was it?

Clip: Nurse Nutmeg. That’s even better than a Dr. Pepper. That’s ridiculous.

Todd: And easier to find if you know what I mean. Anyway, he says, well, let me show you something and he leads him to an elevator

Craig: yeah, but even before that like real quick out of nowhere a Second Henry pops up over the first Henry’s shoulder and it’s like don’t listen to him.

Don’t do what he says

Wild it is wild it’s entirely Surreal Anything can happen and I love that. I love it. And then you’re the fireplace becomes like an elevator, but it’s so cool.

Todd: He takes him into the elevator and it closes and there’s a little fireplace. It’s just like an opening. With a fireplace behind it and he presses a button.

It’s almost like Willy Wonka where this this elevator is sideways and up and down and it takes him into behind different fireplaces. And this was the idea that the director’s daughter gave him this idea of this elevator that could take you from fireplace to fireplace. I don’t know. Kind of like the flu network in Harry Potter or something, right?

It’s brilliant. And he goes by these different scenes looking into people’s homes and really briefly. Was, unmistakably, the guy from Too Many Cooks is one of the scenes, like this big kind of, I, I just want to say odd looking guy with a beard and everything who’s sitting there, and I was like, oh my god, there’s, I wonder if he’s gonna come into play, he never really does, but, uh, there for a brief moment I thought he was the crazy pleather face guy, but he wasn’t.

Oh. But anyway, yeah. And he takes him to one fireplace and he says, do you know who that is in there?

Craig: Cause he says it can go through time too. Yes. Yes, that’s right.

Todd: And he says to him, and this is kind of the theme, right? That you referred to earlier.

Clip: So I hear you’re the screw up of the family.

Todd: Oh,

Clip: that’s what I just heard.

Sisters are two doctors. One’s a surgeon. Yeah, but um, my parents just want me to be happy. So they’re happy you’re a drug dealer. Well, they don’t know that. I’m also a podcaster. Podcaster? Good for you. What if I told you I could wipe all the failures from your life?

Todd: Just wipe it clean. Take this magic marker and crawl through this fireplace.

That woman in there? Do you know who she is? Oh, that’s my mother. Yeah, and do you notice anything? He’s like, she’s pregnant? Is that with me? And he’s like, yep. You crawl through the fireplace, take a piece of paper from that pad next to her while she’s sleeping, write on it A and put it on the fridge and come back through.

And he’s like, well, what if I wake her up? She’ll, like, totally freak out. It’ll change everything. He’s like, well, you’re not gonna do that, right? You’re gonna be very careful. So he does. He crawls through there, writes A on the paper, sticks it on the refrigerator, crawls back through the fireplace and stands in there.

And then suddenly, he’s holding a red magic marker instead of a black one. And I don’t remember exactly what the dialogue is here.

Craig: The, well, he says, I think you did it wrong or something. And the kid is like, no, I did exactly what you said. I put a plus plus on her stomach. I mean, on, on the refrigerator.

Todd: I mean, on her stump.

What? On her stomach? With the magic marker? And he’s like, that’s not a magic marker. And he looks down, he has a bloody knife in his hand.

Craig: It’s mean.

Todd: And, yeah, his, uh, mother’s all cut up. Like he’s stabbed her. And then it cuts back out to The crowd in the living room and there’s a new Asian man in the sofa next to the woman.

He’s

Craig: replaced. He’s replaced. I felt bad for that.

Todd: It’s a devil’s bargain kind of thing.

Craig: It is. And the kid is like, but I did, I just did what you told me. And the little man, he says, well, I’d love to debate with you, but I don’t debate with people that don’t exist. And then he disappears. And like you said, he cuts back and he’s been replaced with a new Asian guy.

It’s

Todd: so sad. Yeah.

Craig: Who doesn’t even have a name because it doesn’t matter because they find the body in the shower and then the log just comes out It

Clip: goes crazy Oh my god

Craig: starts killing people crushing it crushes beth’s head It’s henry the new asian guy tries to put it out and like it flies him all around the cabin and kills him

Todd: Yeah, it’s also talking.

It’s like crying out. It’s almost like Rosa, I think. I think it’s, I think we figured, I figured out later it was like,

Craig: it’s saying weird things and I couldn’t figure it out for a while.

Todd: Mm-hmm .

Craig: But as it turns out, honestly, I don’t really understand exactly what’s happening because it’s seems in the end that the log is possessed by Rosa, but it also says things Yeah.

That. other flashbacks that have nothing to do with Rosen like at one point I wrote in my notes. Did I hear? I’m not a sodomite. And then, yeah, I did. I heard that because it comes up later, but like the log at some point is just flying around and say, I’m not a sodomite. What?

Todd: Oh, it’s hilarious.

Craig: This goes on for a long time. They try to call the police and they’re like, the sheriff was already here earlier. And they’re like, uh, we don’t have a sheriff. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So the sheriff is shady now and the log it’s flying through the window. It’s talking, it’s saying arson is another thing that it, that ends up being something else like arson, A R S O N is what I heard.

And I think that’s what you’re supposed to hear, but it, it comes up more. This part, honestly. It, it didn’t feel slow or convoluted to me, but it seems weird, like, to, to go through it point by point, because honestly, not a lot happens, just the log follows them around for a long time.

Todd: Yeah, and they hide, and

Craig: And she says, like, the sheriff was shady, I didn’t tell you before, but I saw him sprinkle something on the fire.

Yeah.

Clip: Why are you just now bringing this up? I know, right? Like, that seems so, like, weird.

Todd: But this is what, they’re stuck in the closet, right? The couple. Yeah. We get this long scene of the couple in the closet where he goes through like every horror movie in like ten minutes. I found this to be funny, almost like a parody of horror movies.

He just keeps reassuring her the way that he does. characters in horror movies reassure people, and it goes to these absurd lengths where he’s also like, by the end of it, this is going to be great because the camera’s still on and we’re going to be rich because there’s going to be a movie about this and who do you want to play you in the movie?

Craig: It’s just, it’s just, it’s going to be, it’s going to be. Theatrical, not straight to Netflix. Yes!

Todd: It’s just this absurd thing going on. In the meanwhile, the log is out scoping out the hallway and sees the vent, hears their voices and I was like, is this log really going to crawl through the vent? It sure does.

And that’s what scares them out of there. But then I think it’s when they leap out of there that they get ambushed by, finally, the murderer. And his mom, and then we get this scene. That was, I think, by far the most disgusting scene of the whole film.

Craig: Now we are back to the slasher movie that we visited briefly for one minute in the beginning.

Todd: Mm-hmm . And

Craig: we are fully.

Todd: Yeah, it’s like the log doesn’t exist anymore.

Craig: Yeah, the big, crazy, gross, disgusting guy has these two beautiful women tied up and is menacing them and is debating which of them he’s going to rape. First, it’s disgusting and like, it’s dark and gross and the mother has the guy, I don’t remember his name, tied up in another room.

This was

Todd: so nasty. Oh my

Craig: god. It’s so gross. But he’s trying to, I don’t know, talk to her. Sweet

Todd: talk her to try to kind of get her to untie him. Sweet talk

Craig: her, right. But she’s on to him. But all the while. She is eating pimento cheese off of a knife, and it’s like smeared all over her face, and like she’s kinda gross anyway, like I’m sure this actress is lovely, but they’ve uglied her up and she’s gross, and she’s got like gross hair.

teeth and stringy hair. And she’s got this like deep, weird Southern accent and everything she says is disgusting. And she’s defending her kid. And then she starts trying to seduce him. And she’s like putting pimento cheese all over his mouth. And like, she’s like, I hope you’re not offended by my pimento cheese bread.

You’ve got pimento cheese bread too. Like, Oh my God. It was so funny. She

Todd: wipes it off his lips and licks it from her fingers is disgusting Disgust by far the most gross part of the whole movie

Craig: But honestly in that moment when I was watching this I was like, this is great. Oh, yeah

Todd: 100%.

Craig: This is a great scene.

She is up and scary like he’s trying to manipulate her and she’s playing along. But it’s also obvious that she totally knows what he’s doing and she does and she calls him out on it eventually. Like she is a psycho. She is a psycho right out of the hills have eyes or any of those other movies.

Clip: Yeah.

Craig: Like it’s in the midst of this. Ridiculous film which I’ve been having so much fun with but seriously like it’s one movie to the next and this movie is Scary.

Clip: Yeah, it is

Craig: and then the aliens are

Todd: Sure enough there’s a bright light coming in it interrupts hit her interrupts pleather face and she goes to the window and sees a spaceship like a classic flying saucer land and through the door comes this alien that is sort of an amalgamation of different aliens. It’s got that classic black eyes, you know, round head look, but it’s also has all these weird pores all over his head and it’s carrying this disgusting gun.

And the director said, it looks

Craig: like a flashlight.

Todd: Yeah, it really did. I don’t think that was an accident. The director said that he had the help of this alien. Friend of his he’s an effects artist that this was all shot down in Georgia and the director is from Georgia and most of these Actors are from Georgia or North Carolina, South Carolina that this is how they were able to kind of shoot It’s so cheap, but he said that this friend of his he’s got a warehouse full of effects stuff It just he never throws anything away when a productions done with stuff.

He grabs it So he’s like the kind of guy who’s just got everything and he is game for anything and a real go getter He said he’s the kind of guy you can go to and say hey Could I have like a creature that’s just like made of eyeballs and he’s like And he’ll be like, yeah, man, I got like a thousand eyeballs in my truck there.

Let’s glue them all together. Let’s go. And it was their brainstorming that came up with this alien. And he said, this guy was totally game to cobble this thing together. And it is crazy. He’s got a giant bottle hanging off of his shoulder attached to this gun. He shoots this flashlight gun, which shoots tendrils out and goes in the eyes, nose, and mouth.

It’s crazy. of this woman, and then sucks, I guess, liquefies all of her internal organs and sucks it into this, uh, gun, which then starts to fill up this tank that he’s carrying around. And she just gets sucked down to a comical, like, Judge Doom, you know, flat, Skin person on the floor. Alex manages to get out somehow.

Craig: No, no, he gets sucked too. He

Todd: gets it too, but not completely, I guess. But he’s worse for wear. Yeah. But then, while this is happening, we get this clever stuff with a split screen. Where in the other room, while this guy is assaulting the girl with the boobs. Holly. We get a split screen of those two kids playing Cowboy and Indian.

They have a knife.

Craig: It’s because we now get the story of Isaac and Rose. That’s right. Like, she Oh, God. She had We didn’t know who the person was. I didn’t know if it was her husband. You know, sadly, and this is obviously very serious, but sadly, slave families were split up on purpose because they didn’t want them to have familial So I didn’t know if it was her husband or her, I didn’t know what it was, but it turned, he had been sold off somewhere else.

And Isaac, the white man had promised that he was going to sell him to this nice slave owner, but

Todd: instead he sold him to the bad

Craig: one, to the bad one. And she gets very angry and he kind of tries to put her in her place and says, I’m sorry about your son. And she says, it was our son, our son. And then she throws the blanket that she made over him and stabs him in the head.

And so we realize now that the log hasn’t been saying Arson, it has been saying Our Son.

Clip: Mm hmm.

Craig: Right. And so at this point, I thought, okay, the log is Rosa, but ultimately I don’t know if that is the mythology of this.

Todd: I think it’s just like a bunch of Past spirits of the yeah of the house or something the

Craig: bad.

Yeah, maybe it started with her I think it started with her because then we also see that she gets hung from that tree

Clip: Mm hmm,

Craig: and the log came from that tree So maybe it started with her but I don’t think it’s just her because we see other things too. We see some guy who’s Dressed in women’s lingerie who gets beaten by a, to death by another man.

I don’t have any idea what was going on there, but you’re right. But Rosa, the knife that she used to stab the guy, she had hidden up inside the fireplace. And when the boys were playing, it had fallen out and I don’t think they, did they do anything with it? I think they just put it back, put it back.

Clip: Yep.

Craig: And so then while these two women are being menaced by pleather face, it falls out again and she gets it.

Todd: I don’t

Craig: even remember what, what, what is she able to do with it, just cut herself free?

Todd: Yeah, she cuts herself free and she escapes. Is this the point, though, where she also sees the little man in the fireplace?

Craig: We should just jump to that. I don’t know, like, there’s more alien stuff. There’s a bunch of

Todd: shit going on, honestly.

Craig: Yeah, but, but she, but that’s important. She sees, yes, kinda while all this is going on, yes, and then she goes in there, too. And it’s the same thing. She gets tempted with something, too. I don’t remember what it was.

Like, oh, this is the, a hundred million sperm story. And for every pregnancy, there are a hundred million sperm that could have, you know, fertilized that egg. And did you ever think about if one of those other hundred million, maybe they would have done better things than you, and maybe they wouldn’t have been so miserable, blah, blah, blah.

So go stop your parents from f ing and making you. And she’s like, no.

And I don’t know, they have a funny, you know, they have kind of a funny dialogue.

Todd: Alex somehow comes in, I can’t remember how, but does he pop into the fireplace too, or?

Craig: I don’t know, she, well, I think when, when Zoe refuses the deal, she pops back out of the fireplace.

Todd: Oh, and he, no, he stabs a poker through, into the fireplace.

At one point Oh, that’s right! Yeah, the guy, like a giant poker comes into the room and pins the little guy to the wall, and she crawls out of the fireplace, and you see that Alex had poked a a poker in there, so.

Craig: Right. And she stabs Plutterface in the dick, and then in the eye, and she Alex begs her to kill him, cause he’s not looking good.

Todd: No. He, I thought he might have an alien inside of him, but I guess he didn’t.

Craig: I didn’t know what was going on with him. It doesn’t really matter. He didn’t. Ultimately.

Todd: They get chased around by the, by the log a bunch more. They get out, Holly runs into the forest.

Craig: That was so funny to me like they run out to the car and they realize they don’t have the keys and they’re like the Keys are inside and Holly’s like that.

I’m getting out of here. She just runs away

Clip: and you never see her again. No

Todd: Not like

Clip: slow clap for Holly like she must be fine. She’s fine. Holly must They should have just gone with her

Craig: they do go back in and Holly like has an accent And the log is like threatening them and she’s like, I’m going to Paul Bunyan your ass mother.

But she, she like knocks it into the refrigerator and they somehow lock it in there and then they leave. And then there’s a whole, like, they just, they’re driving, they’re trying to get away and they come to that. Tree the hanging tree or whatever and there’s like a cult of people including the fake sheriff and the deputy Like chanting around the tree.

It’s

Todd: now a satanic cult movie. Yeah

Craig: She plows through them and there’s like this ghostly naked woman in the barn. I have no idea who that was I

Todd: thought it was First that that was, uh, what’s her name? But Holly, but it’s not.

Craig: No.

Todd: Yeah. And

Craig: the guy is like, keep driving. And she’s like, I’ll keep driving until we run out of gas.

So then it cuts to the next morning and presumably they’re very far away and he’s in really bad shape, but she stops at a stoplight and they have a romantic moment where she takes out the engagement ring that he gave her and she was, you know, skeptical, but she puts it on. She’s like, yeah, I will marry you.

And then the flaming CGI log rises. up, you know, right outside her window and, and crashes into them and blows them all like, like blood, like the whole car explodes full of blood.

Clip: And

Craig: then it cuts to some weird Modern office.

Todd: Yeah, it’s like the film freezes pulls out and it’s like it was like a video playing on a computer screen or something And when it pans over it’s the same actor that was playing the slave owner

Craig: Yes, it’s isaac and rosa, but it took me a second to figure that out because they look very different They look modern.

It took me a second. I was like, why did why is that guy so familiar? But it’s isaac and rosa and rosa. Is it the boss? But what is, what are they doing?

Todd: I don’t know. He’s working on some design for something like the Armfield cotton mill lofts or something. And she’s like, Oh, that’s approval. That’s I’ll prove that now she’s his boss.

You know, it’s this kind of this role reversal.

Craig: But they’re also.

Todd: But they’re also married. Yeah. Yes. And they have a kid apparently, but, and cause you see a picture of the kid.

Craig: Yes. You see a family picture of them on his desk and the actor who plays pleather face. Is like their maintenance guy.

Todd: That’s right.

That’s right.

Craig: So it’s like this, I, I, I didn’t, I didn’t know what was going on, but then she’s like, come on, let’s go home. And he’s like, I don’t know. I’ll have to ask the boss. And she’s like, okay, we’ll go ahead and ask the boss. He’s like, well, can I go home early boss? And she’s like, yeah. And they’re smiling and they’re in love and they’re walking out and they see the pleather face guy and he’s happy too.

But then, Everything just starts burning.

Todd: Mm hmm. And suddenly they’re like back to their previous identity.

Craig: Yes. And they realize that all of this is fake and so I didn’t know if it was meant to be that they’re in hell or they’re just still the log. Like, I don’t know.

Todd: I’m not sure we’re ever gonna know.

I’m not even sure there’s a point to it.

Craig: I know. Well, no, I don’t really know about that, but I watched this movie. I woke up yesterday morning and watched this movie first thing. And then I, you know, had my whole day and chaperoned a high school dance until 1130 at night. And then I came home and I wasn’t tired.

So I watched the sequel.

Clip: I want to see it so badly.

Craig: I was a little skeptical of it in the first five, 10 minutes. And then I was like, Oh, I see what they’re doing here and it landed for me hard.

Todd: Really?

Craig: Yeah. I

Todd: read that’s a little different.

Craig: It is. It’s great. Like the, it calls back to most of the things from the first movie at some point, but it does different things too.

We’re not confined to this one cabin. And so it makes it one part horror movie. Equal part Hallmark Christmas movie. Oh, and it’s, it’s perfect. And it does really cool things cinematically. Like when it’s the horror movie it’s shot in letterbox and in really dark tones. And then when it switches to Hallmark, it’s full screen and like really bright and like fun Christmas music.

And sometimes it will do that. Split screen thing, like, where she’ll be on one half of the screen in her horror movie, and on the other half of the screen, the people are in their Hallmark movie. Oh, God. And it manages to Lampoon both these types of slasher horror movies and hallmark movies and just I think the perfect way because I think the best way to lampoon those types of things is to just be since mostly sincere You got to play it straight like like

Clip: yeah,

Craig: yeah play it straight like they lampoon themselves So you don’t have to try too hard the conventions that you’re trying to satirize are ridiculous themselves.

So just, just go a teeny, teeny step further and do it tongue in cheek. I loved it. I thought it was great. I think we should do it next Christmas. I think we should

Todd: too. I, I totally am down for that. Isn’t that, didn’t Will Ferrell also do a satirical lifetime movie horror thing called like, A Deadly Adoption or something like that?

Craig: Maybe, maybe. Where they played

Todd: it 100 percent straight to the point where I think probably people don’t realize it’s a, it’s a parody because it’s so straight, you know, I, this was the director’s very first movie, full length movie. He did a lot of writing and directing for television, a lot in the adult swim area, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, and, and he was really nervous about doing this.

And one. Odd situation to be doing your first feature because he had to do the whole thing in secret because they didn’t want anybody to know about it. And they were, you know, they were trying to keep it from the upper, the higher ups at the company as well as keep it quiet from the general public so as to not to spoil the surprise because they wanted it to be the same kind of thing like too many cooks where you would just discover it.

And I think it worked so well. I just love the surreal oddity of it. It’s just something completely unique. It’s fun all the way through. So it keeps you guessing. You get to a point where you realize the movie’s just gonna be wacky, and we’re just along for the ride, and it’s fun, and yet it still manages to be scary.

Yeah! At points. So it, uh, it just checks all those boxes. I’m so glad to hear that the sequel feeds off of that, you know, kind of continues it, instead of just trying to be something entirely new. Ugh. I loved it. Me too. And so next week, we’re gonna go and we’re gonna do something very, very mean spirited, aren’t we?

Craig: People will probably be able to figure it out just from that. That was that was a good enough tease. But yeah,

Todd: it’s the movie. We can’t help but do this year. Well, I think we’ve got it. We’ve struck a good balance, right?

Craig: Me too. I’m really glad we did this one. I’m glad that we I mean, I like all these.

Movies, but the one that we did before this was dark. The next one that we’re gonna do is dark. This one was fun Yeah, I had a really good time with

Todd: it. It really was fun. Well, that is up for week three We’ve got one more film to go this holiday season Then we go into New Year’s and a brand new year ahead of us.

So if you enjoyed this Please share with a friend some of that holiday cheer. You can just send them straight to our website, ChainsawHorror. com, or just tell them to Google Two Guys in a Chainsaw podcast so they can find it wherever they listen to all of their podcasts. And we hope you guys are having a good, happy holiday season right now.

We will see you next week for Christmas time. Until then, I’m Todd. And I’m Craig. With Two Guys and a Chainsaw.

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