Obsession: The Team Empire Take

0:15Welcome back to another Empire spoiler special and this one is for obsession because we are like totally obsessed. Oh, my God. It is directed, of course, by the disgustingly, outrageously young and talented Curry Barker. Officially the best new curry since tikka masala. And the best new Barker since Ronnie? Clive? Good. Pluto? I don't know. They're all good Barkers. 14 out of 10. I am delighted to have with me three other true obsessives to talk about this one. We have Harry Stainer. Hello. Hello. Becky Dark, how are you doing? Hello, I'm good. And Mike Munster, hello. Hello. How are you all feeling?

0:59Are you, like, obsessed? Like, totally obsessed. Completely obsessed. Completely obsessed. Unhelpfully so, yeah. I didn't have big expectations of this going in. I hadn't, I'd heard a little bit of hype about Curry Barker. I'd heard that he was really one to watch, you know, people were getting excited about him as a director. I had not, when I saw this, seen Milk and Cereal, Cereal with an S. so I was like okay well I'm sure it's good then everybody's really excited about this I'm sure it'll be good and but I was not prepared I really wasn't how about you guys I mean two of you at least are very you know plugged into horror were you were you more prepared can you be more prepared I have had this on my radar for a little while milk and cereal I really liked a couple of years ago obviously it was just on YouTube so it isn't technically quite a feature I think it's like 61 minutes or something but that is a nasty little piece of work and if there's anything I like is nasty little pieces of work so yeah the first feature from Curry Barker was very much on my radar and went in with relatively high expectations I'd heard a couple of trusted sources saying that it was gonna mess me up and I went in wanting it to do that and it really really did really really yeah how about you Mike yeah absolutely loved it I loved Milk and Cereal I remember seeing it when it when it dropped on YouTube and it became this kind of slightly viral sensation back in 2024 I think and I loved it then I sort of put it in my top 10 of the year that year and we sort of knew Curry Barker was sort of one to watch based on that film and yeah Obsession did not disappoint I think it's my favourite film of the year so far.

2:46And we watched it next to each other, Becky, didn't we? And we were both genuinely scared, right? And we watched a lot of horror films, but it is really fun. It's laugh out loud funny, and it's genuinely scary and disturbing and upsetting as well. And I love that. I love that it pulls off that mix, you know? That is an incredibly difficult thing to do. Harry, you obviously were on the main spoiler with us last week talking about this, but it is fair to say you were also in the extremely pro camp. Yeah, I was in the five-star camp with you. I absolutely adored it. I pretty much heard about, I'd seen Milk and Cereal, like you both, and then I kind of heard some good things out of South by Southwest, that it was just a gnarly time.

3:21Got invited to a screening without seeing a trailer, without kind of really knowing what the film was about, and just was completely knocked off my feet by it. I don't think I've had as anxiety-inducing experience at the cinema in quite some time. So yeah, I was completely knocked off my feet by it, and I think it's probably one of the most effective horror films I've seen in the last few years. and that's someone who watches quite a lot of horror. It feels quite hereditary-like, doesn't it? We were saying this. There's something about it that feels a bit Ariasta-esque in that sort of, it's bleak, it's dark, it's quite nasty, but it's also kind of funny and it's really scary, you know, and it's got a lot going on, I think.

3:57And that's it. It has a lot under the hood and this is something that I definitely want to dig into because I feel like it is a very, you know, there have been great young breakthrough, especially horror directors who make a splash with this kind of level of gore and this kind of level of gnarliness. But I think it's fair to say not all of them have quite as much subtext and depth to them as this does, because this really, I thought, had a lot going on under the hood as well. And that's not to say, you know, we don't always want that. Sometimes you just want the gnarly horror that's scary. But I feel like this kind of works on a number of different levels.

4:32When you get a horror film that kind of ticks all those boxes, it's incredible, isn't it? And there does seem to be a bit of a wave of these sort of new young horror filmmakers coming up you know that have previously worked in or previously made sort of youtube content and that kind of thing that danny and michael philippo who did talk to me and bring her back they started that way and and often they come from comedy too it's that you've got zach crager who came from comedy jordan peele who came from comedy and all of these people who were kind of previously making this kind of fun wacky kind of pranky type stuff seem to have amazing horror filmmaking jobs as well you know yeah it must be similar it must be a similar kind of i guess it's a similar build-up and payoff maybe as a joke i mean the structure maybe is the same but it really is impressive how just how much he can kind of keep tightening the screws in this film my god comedy comedy and horror both kind of do that as you say how it's like build up and pay off but they're also the two genres that kind of really give you a physical reaction there are films that make you cry but in terms of something that's going to make you either like laugh out loud or scream out loud it's comedy and horror and films that do get that balance right are few and far between as we've said and it's such a it's such a magical combination because it will terrify you and then give you the release of the scare and then also with the comedy you're laughing and then also you kind of get the laughter after the scares again from that kind of release of like I don't know that awkward laughter yes and so much awkwardness here so much awkwardness and to balance all of that is like I say pretty magical and I don't like these guys I don't think I have had such a physical reaction in like to a new film in as long as I can remember like it probably was hereditary in 2018 teen.

6:30Yeah, I would be the same. I was sitting next to a friend and we were sort of like almost pushing our shoulders against each other for comfort almost because especially in, for example, the car scene, you know she's going to pop up and the only question is where and when does she pop up from but you know they're in trouble. Like they are in big deep trouble in that car and you're just waiting and you don't know how much. I still wasn't expecting how much trouble they were in but you knew it was coming and even with that knowledge that certainty that it was coming it still came as a shock and it still made me jump and apparently to get the rating they actually cut some of those steering wheel it was seven head smashers yeah seven more because originally it got an NC-17 in the US so they had to cut it to get an R rating which is not like it isn't violent already like how more violent was it well i know but that's i think that's quite important about obsession is curry barker is he feels to me like an unsafe filmmaker he feels a little bit unhinged in the decisions he's making about what to put on screen and and which directions to push his characters in um and like that death specifically again the way that that whole scene was structured felt especially mean because Sarah in the car, who is the unfortunate victim of this attack played by Megan Lawless, she's this sort of sweet character and all the bear, the kind of main guy, wants is this sort of like genuine connection with somebody.

8:15She really likes him and you sort of start to think like, oh, you know, this is very dangerous because we know what's going to happen, but also this is very sweet, like she's just gotten into college. And so there's this meanness to it. And the stakes are really high because you're invested in the characters. And again, for some horror films, you don't always get that. I want to get back to that investment point in a second, but I'm really interested in calling him an unsafe filmmaker because I agree. But I think that's a really interesting thing to explore because, for example, I saw another horror movie this week, as we talk about this, called Passenger, which was good and I was scared.

8:51I am a wimp. I'm not a hardened horror watcher. But I never, past a certain point, I knew exactly where it was going and I felt like I knew exactly what was going to happen. And I was still scared because there were effective little jumps and effective little scenes even during that. But I kind of felt a sense of safety that I at no point felt during this film. Because you're kind of sitting there for long periods of the film kind of trying to think about what is the safe way out? What is the, you know, what's the kind of happy-ish ending here? Like, I feel like somebody, you know, there's going to be some bad shit that goes down, but maybe there's a way out.

9:30Because in that, you know, you've got that opening scene with Bear. You've got that sense that this is a sweet guy who really has just got it bad for this girl. And you kind of want the best for him. You feel like, he doesn't seem so bad. Nobody seems that bad here. And so you feel like in a normal, more safe filmmakers hands nobody is that bad and therefore they might get out of it semi-okay yeah you definitely feel like you have no idea where where this is going from one scene to the next and what is going to become of all these yeah actually quite nice characters all of them I mean there he does make some pretty bad decisions throughout the film awful but they are just young they're a bunch of normal young people right essentially and I think that is what adds to the horror because you do think to yourself god how is he going to get out of this what would I do to get out of this like what could you possibly do and you do get the feeling that everyone is ultimately doomed right which they are it's it's probably no surprise that he was um it was announced recently that curry barker is going to be making the new texas chainsaw massacre because that's a film that feels unsafe unhinged there's that feeling of like it's kind of funny it's kind of ultra violent you don't really trust what's going to happen it's kind of nasty all of those adjectives adjectives i would apply to obsession so he kind of seems like the right choice for that you know yeah he really does on the basis of this.

10:46It's interesting though to me because I was reading the New Yorker profile of him, which not every young horror filmmaker gets, but his way into horror was the Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake of what, 2003 or something? He probably wasn't even born though, was he? Definitely not, but God bless him for, you know, soldiering on with the genre anyway. I was going to jump on what Mike was saying in terms of Carrie Barker feeling like an unsafe filmmaker. I feel like your allegiances between the two main characters kind of switches throughout the film because as much as Nikki is like this version of Nikki is like so evil I found myself like really hating Bear at points oh yeah more more sorry especially that scene when she's asleep and Nikki's like begging him to kill her yeah and then I was kind of like oh like you are evil for what you're doing and so like he never makes it like fully clear-cut like there is this evil version of her but also like Bear's not a great guy and I feel like you sit in this place of feeling very uncertain about both of them throughout the whole film so it's like how is this gonna for sure play out i love that so much i think the moment that solidifies the sort of bear as a villain is is not just that he isn't willing to kill nikki in that scene because that i think is understandably something you hesitate over right it's the it's the fact that he is offended that she doesn't want to be with him that's the villainous moment what's so bad about being with me exactly and she goes i've never been with you that it's very devastating for both it's xander harris energy oh yeah don't you bring him into this he has got xander energy yeah you know the kind of nice boy feels a bit sorry for himself because girls won't like girls don't like him well i mean i remember coming out the screening and we both said that it felt a bit um but which bothered and bewildered from season two of buffy like that kind of yeah yeah but that but that love spell gone wrong and and i think it is important because i mean trust me i agree bear is not a good guy for a lot of this film i agree with you hels that at the beginning he does seem quite sweet and i don't think and this is the important thing for me that he actually thinks that the one wish willow the little stick that he buys and snaps and makes the wish i don't think he thinks it's gonna work And so all of the decisions that happen after that, for me, are the ones that matter.

13:11When he calls the helpline, for example, and can just literally hear Nikki screaming in the background because she's trapped and she can't get out. And there are decisions that he could be making at that point to alleviate it. but I think he's more concerned about the consequences for him rather than what is actually happening to her. Yeah, I think there's a lot of that in it, to be sure. I think there's an element of ego very much, and sort of increasingly at that point through the film. But I think there's also just a sense of maybe, to be maybe fair to him, a sense of something like helplessness, because literally the only way he's given is kill himself.

13:57Oh, is it a terrible situation? It is a terrible situation. Yeah, of course. So I sympathize with that bit. But I was talking to someone who kind of had issues with the film around the fact that he wasn't leaving when it got weird. And he wasn't kind of trying to break it off or something. And I'm like, well, I think actually, well, first of all, she doesn't make that easy. And secondly, he's kind of grappling with his own issues there because he's kind of grappling with the fact that this is everything I ever wanted. so if I walk away from this like what does that say about me and what does that mean and I don't know if he's capable of walking away from it because I think he is caught up in the idea that this is what I wanted and so even when it gets real toxic and real awkward and real horrible he's still kind of hesitant to try and find too much of a way out because he doesn't know how much he wants it well and again I suppose that's what's so interesting about the film isn't it it's exploring that idea between love versus obsession and he thinks he's in love with her but is he even he's sort of in love with the idea of her like even when that the spell initially kind of works in his head and they have there's like a little happy montage of those two kind of making breakfast together and sleeping together it's so good something about it feels obviously very insincere and also she is not acting like the the Nikki that we saw in the first scene of the film the way her dress changes exactly what she's wearing exactly and what he's he's apparently so in love with her for who she is but he hasn't even really noticed that he's living in this kind of fantasy world with this kind of idealized version or something fantasy version of her you know so i think that's really it's really well observed that stuff i think from the beginning you kind of think bear actually does not love this girl for who she is or actually does she does he even like her or respect her for who she is you know is his name on purpose as in that you know internet meme about would you rather be lost in the woods with a man or a bear wow yeah well unfortunately in this case i'd have to go neither i'll just walk off into the woods on my own thank you very much that would seem like the right approach yeah but it i did i mean i was just checking that meme has been around since 2024 so it is it is possible and curry barker is familiar with the internet you know with the internet so i feel like he's a chronically online man i feel like he absolutely was like yeah yeah um i love that he's obviously the voice on the phone um from the one wish willow helpline um But I also loved, I think it's Viola, the shop employee at the Magic Shop, who's played by Hayley Fitzgerald, who is like, yeah, it ruins your life or whatever.

16:33There were warning signs. Yeah, could not be less into it. I did feel like there might be a missing scene where he goes back on Threadit and there were people who initially had said, yeah, my wish came true, everything is great, everything is wonderful. Now maybe regretting it a bit later. I wondered if there would be a scene like that. But I was interested that in Curry Barker's interviews, he's talked about, no, no, he just made a bad wish. Like, it is possible, this is not a monkey's paw, it is theoretically possible to make a good wish on a one-wish willow. He just made a real bad wish. And I think that's interesting, because I didn't get that vibe at all.

17:10No, because I think we're so used to that monkey paw story template, aren't we? But I like that idea, actually, that actually, again, is kind of really putting the onus on Bear more than anything else, right? It's not just that he was duped, it was that he made a really bad choice with that, you know? Well, and do we kind of see that in probably my favourite actual kind of comedy moment from the film with Ian, Cooper Tomlinson's Ian at the end with the billion dollars, which the comedy there is so well observed because it's one of those classic, almost like a family guy gag where it's really funny because he wishes for a billion dollars and literally that split second, it just starts raining through the ceiling onto him, like these huge wads of cash.

17:57I thought he was going to be crushed. Yes, you think he's going to kill him or punish him in some way. And then it keeps going and you start thinking, this is a bit ridiculous actually, and then it keeps going and so it becomes funny again. And that is a good wish, right? He doesn't get crushed. I mean he doesn't get to spend it but if say he hadn't been shot through the forehead that could have been a good wish it could have been where's that billion dollars come from I suppose don't worry about it don't worry about it I think it serves as a bit of a cautionary tale for Bear mostly because I think his wish is ill advised whereas Ian's character I think because it was just like off the cuff it just kind of feels like it's going to all work out for him whereas like Bear's is such a cautionary tale of like here's what happens when you get what you want and it's really ill-advised and it kind of backfires in your face.

18:48Sad that Ian did get shot. I was a little bit like, oh, I didn't wish that in for him. But I think you're so right about how our kind of sympathies shift, obviously, so completely. And one of the things that's really scary and upsetting about the movie is Nikki, right, and that amazing Indy Navarrete performance. Because obviously she is really frightening at times and they kind of deliberately kind of make her quite sort of grotesque and abject sometimes. but also the whole time you know that the real Nikki is sort of trapped in there. It's a very get out, sunken place type vibe. The real Nikki is the victim of the film.

19:23Like whether or not you think Bear is a villain, Nikki is definitely a victim. And it's so dark, isn't it? What she's going through, what the real Nikki's going through throughout the movie. I kept thinking about where she's left at the end of the movie. Right, this is what I was about to say to Harry because you say, you know, it's so sad that Ian dies. I completely agree. And so Ian's dead, Sarah's dead Bear's dead as soon as Bear dies the wish breaks and she is just left with all of the you assume all of the knowledge of what she's been doing for the last few months and like three dead bodies on her she's going down I'm sorry no no sorry I was just going to say she's going to prison just to deal with the consequences of Bear's shitty behaviour yeah it's really sad yeah and it's like I was I was thinking like is there a way out?

20:13Like, if she can stop screaming long enough and reassert her sanity, can she? Because obviously, like, you know, there's probably some evidence that Bear killed himself, right? So that's okay. And she could put Bear's hands on the gun and make it look like he killed Ian, right? That would be doable. She has those bits there. Helen, you're scaring me. I'm just saying. I was just trying to think it through. Like, I don't want her to go to prison. She's suffered enough. But then you do have Sarah. and that is a bit worrying and I feel like you know as soon as they go out to all of her friends and the people who are at the party where she goes cuckoo yeah I think she's I think she's screwed I don't think there's any way out of it the best honestly the best scenario for her is ending up in a you know in a hospital or something it's not it's not good for Nikki and that is really heartbreaking again this gets back to that unsafe ending this is a really bleak ending for everybody did you hear about the original ending oh no originally she gets the gun and shoots herself was the original ending and Curry Barker I think spoke to his dad and his dad was pretty much like it's actually worse if she lives and so and I was like oh my god I know Mr.

21:25Barker Mr. Barker also is the one that wrote the Hansel and Gretel incestuous kind of monologue that Nicky recites at the park so Curry Barker's dad wrote that yeah I knew he wrote a monologue I didn't know which one I don't know incredible but yeah apparently she was going to kill herself. And then the actress is Indie Navarette. Indie Navarette wanted to try it the other way around, which is Bear dies, she snaps out of it, screams, drops his body onto the floor, like, ugh! And Curry Barker watched it and was like, yeah, let's go with that. That's better. It is really good. Can we just talk about Indie Navarette in this?

22:01Because, I mean, you know, Curry Barker is absolutely getting credit where credit's due, but her performance makes that movie it is one of i think the i mean it's obviously early to say but i think it's one of the all-time great horror performances i completely agree with that house she is astonishing and she is so so scary the bits where she'll be oh god the way she moves and the way she'll be sort of lit and, you know, in the corner. But it's not just that. It's not the kind of post-prod stuff or the lighting or the hair and makeup, you know, being covered in all her own sick and all of that kind of thing.

22:45It's the looks in her eyes. It's the way that she moves her mouth. You mentioned a minute ago the unhinged bit at the party. The way that she does the Florence Pugh downturned mouth but turned up to 11 is incredible it's unbelievable yeah and but again the thing that she is managing to do is well she was with me was make me laugh at the same time because there are all those moments when you you do kind of know where it's going because you start to understand what how like the way that Nikki responds to things you start to learn her but then the camera will go back to her and it is always so much worse than i was expecting it to be and all of that comes from indy never right even the scene where they're at the party and it's a really funny scene but it like manages to be both like funny and terrifying at the same time and it's when you have to kiss the person to your left yeah this is it and she comes over and it's both like absolutely hilarious because you could see it coming a mile away but then also it's like terrifying because of how unnerving who she is.

23:52And the noise, like the sound design in that bit is so good. The look on her face and then the way she just sort of like planks herself down next to him and sort of like proffers him her cheek or her lips because like she's the one that wants to kiss him. It's so good. Yeah, she's genuinely terrifying and she does that thing that it's like her face is doing two things at once. Again, it reminds me of Get Out in that regard. It's like that moment when she's just waiting for him to come home all day and she's, you know, covered in like vomit and stuff at the end and she's smiling and she's grinning but she's not smiling with her eyes right it's like she's smiling with her mouth and her eyes are screaming for help almost you know and it's the opposite of a smile isn't it yeah yeah it's incredible it's up i mean it you know i don't think she probably will get awards recognition probably but it's it's just as good if not better than amy madigan in weapons last year yeah you know it's up there with lupita nyong 'o tony collette Florence Pugh, some of the best horror performances we've had over the last few years.

24:51Most of which get overlooked, which is the only reason I'm predicting she'll be overlooked. I think Amy Madigan had going for her the fact that she's been around for as long as she has been and is Amy Madigan. It was a bit of a comeback almost story. Toni Collette overlooked, Florence Pugh I think was overlooked, Lupita Nyong 'o definitely was overlooked for us. So it feels like that's the way this will go, but it shouldn't. I want Indie Navarrete to be like the next Mikey Madison. Like, come on, let's get her up on stage. That would be amazing. I just think she, I mean, I think it's so interesting that he, you know, he has this kind of, I guess, problem for a horror filmmaker, which is that his monster in his movie is objectively a very beautiful woman.

25:34And he finds ways, and she finds ways to make that, to weaponize that basically and to just make it absolutely fucking terrifying. That bit in the bedroom at first, where she's just standing in the darkness and you can't even see her. That was my favourite bit of the film. I'm so unnerving. I still haven't recovered, but it was my favourite bit. When she's got the bars of flowers in front of her face and she just won't move them. Okay, I think that should have been the poster. I think the poster for this film is a problem. I think the title isn't great. The title is a bit generic. I get where they went with it, but I find it a bit generic.

26:08But the poster is two kind of fatal attractions actiony, middle-of-the-road thriller-y. Which one? The one where he's in the car and she's in the background? No, where you can just see it's like half of her face. The one that's been all over London has been half of her face sort of lying up in bed. It's like her watching you sleep. Yeah. I just think that's too generic. And if they'd had something like the flowers in front of the face, I think it would have worked better. Also, none of the style of this film is in that poster. This has so much going for it and I feel like a generic poster like that does nothing in terms of selling what it actually is.

26:37I agree. But then also, maybe that's part of the fun and surprise and shock as well. Yeah, you go in expecting one thing and you get very much something else. Yeah, I bet it's really shocked people who have gone to see it. But it's already making loads of money, right? And my friend went to see it yesterday and she said that people clapped at the end. People applauded it and it was a packed out, sold out cinema as well. It's just a regular... Yeah, just like normies. Yeah, just normies, exactly. Us weirdos. But I think his lighting is really clever too. I think the use of kind of shadow and darkness, it's very sort of it's quite murky looking the whole film but in a really good way and the way that Nikki is often shadowed but sometimes you'll just see like two little glints in her eyes I don't like her eyes oh the glints in the eyes were amazing very scary very scary the one thing I also really loved is how he frames a lot of the film there's so many scenes are shot really wide yeah and even the scenes I spoke about this in the review we did on the podcast where like even the scenes when she's not in it it feels like you're waiting for her because it's shot so wide and you're just looking and like it follows.

27:40Yeah. Yeah. Kind of like looking in the background, waiting for her to appear. So like you said with that car scene, you know she's going to appear. You're just waiting for it and the anticipation is unbearable and I think he does that so well. There's a moment in the video store where he does it as well where she's just like staring at him and it cuts away and back to bear and away and back to bear and it's like you're waiting for like something to kick off. Yeah. And it's just really effective. Like you just, pure anxiety for the whole film even when I wasn't meant to be anxious. Yes. So much anxiety the whole way through.

28:07There's an amazing scene, isn't there, and Ian and Bear are talking in the shop where they work together and you can just see her out of focus just watching them both in the background. You know, she's always lurking. It's amazing. I did wonder how a music shop in a small town, question mark, in 2026 was affording four members of staff, if I'm honest. Well, to be fair, it's Sarah's dad. Sarah's dad, okay. I feel like they're probably doing him a favour slash the other way round. Okay, yeah. It makes a certain amount of sense. But also Sarah's dad. Oh, I know. Like he was so nice and he was so excited about her going to college.

28:46And like these are the kinds of, I don't know, sort of also-round characters that you don't need to include. And actually horror films sometimes don't because they're focusing so much on the fodder, on like the teen victims that you might get, you know, I don't know, mum and dad kind of having a little hug on the driveway as they pull off to the cabin for the summer or whatever. But that's about it. But that is about it. And there's so much heart, actually, in these relatively brief moments between other characters, be that Sarah and Bear or Sarah and her dad, etc. And again, that is where the dread comes from because it's not just the dread for what is going to happen to the literal victims, but you know their families and stuff like literally when Sarah meets her end I was like Sarah's dad and played by Andy Richter yes which was nice it goes back to what you were saying Becky about the film feeling quite mean right and I mean that as a compliment because I think that is what you want for a horror film and it's true like a lot of horror films about teenagers slashers that kind of thing you don't often get to know these characters as well as you should I think you know let alone yeah like you say finding meeting their family members and stuff but even just even just caring as much as we do about all of these characters makes those scenes hit even harder don't they but it's done in quite an economical way which i think is really because it is still mostly about the central four i mean he's in what two scenes maybe three i think two um and then beyond that you have yes some other bodies at the party most of whom don't say a word maybe get one or two lines each uh the two magic shop employees who we meet at various points and that's kind of it like it is quite focused it is quite contained um i think he's again maybe just because he's you know come from a very low budget like basically shoestring background he has focused the money where he needed it so there's clearly been a little bit of post-processing on some of the gore and some of the particularly grotesque nicky moments yeah the kind of uncanny movements where she'll be going backwards or she'll be moving very quickly or something like that.

31:01But he hasn't sort of just thrown money at any problem in this. It's very kind of self-contained. It's super low budget. I think it was less than a million dollars. It was, yeah. $7.50, I think. Yeah. Which is insane actually, isn't it? Yeah. It looks like it costs more. Agreed. It feels like it has a much bigger budget than it has. I agree. Yeah, definitely. I think, again, smart use of, you know, a creepy inherited house which we've seen recently in what was the podcast horror? was it? Yes. Undertone. Undertone. I was about to say auto-tune and that's wrong. But yeah, Undertone again just felt like, I believe this is somebody's granny's house and they have inherited it, yes.

31:39In the same way, I believe that's his granny's house and he has inherited it and he's a 20-something guy so he has not gone out and redecorated particularly. He is just like holding on. Exactly. That feels quite accurate as well. A boy of his early 20s wouldn't have bothered redecorating. I've just got a house to live in. I live in the house. But again, doesn't that show that it's made by someone like Curry Barker rather than, you know... He gets it. He gets it. He lives that. I mean, probably not now. I expect he's got somewhere that's slightly... Probably. He's got a fresh paint job on it. Apparently, he still shares a flat with Cooper Tomlinson, but they now don't share a bedroom.

32:15Because they have a little bit more money. Good for them. And I do love the fact that he's still asking his dad for advice. Yeah, certainly. And I think it's his brother involved as well. Like, it's very much a family affair. but I think all of that that production design of that house and everything is true that sets up the kind of just how sad Bear is that again quite shocking sad moment when we sort of smash cut to the dead cat on the floor and that's sort of how we're introduced to Bear's home life right and he's just like sitting sobbing in the dark because his cat has eaten his dead grandmother's medication and you're like god you know this boy is not in a good place at the beginning of the film is he he's really not and a little like reanimator, Stuart Gordon's reanimator, you get an incredible cat line that made most of the audience laugh out loud, which is something like, Nikki, I'm very upset we don't eat the cats.

33:07Yes, yes. Oh, I was like, why is he taking the lunch she's made him? I'm so horrified by what the lunch is going to be. I didn't know it was going to be the cat, but I knew it was going to be horrible. I thought it was maybe going to be his hair or something. It was going to be bad. It was going to be bad. It's another thing that makes the film feel immediately quite unsafe. Even in horror films, it's quite rare to kill off children or animals that graphically on screen. That shot of that dead cat is pretty disturbing. I went to a big sort of fancy screening of this and they had, you know, drinks and they were giving out T-shirts.

33:42Well, they were giving out cuddly toy cats, actually, before the film. And I got one for my small niece or nephew. and then I decided that I didn't really want to give it to my small niece because it seemed like bad juju. Yeah. Did you guys get sent? I got sent a one wish willow, a little... Mine was made of chocolate. So I wished for caramel and I got caramel and all as well. Oh, well, there you go. That's it. Keep the wish simple. I like that. Keep it safe and simple. Yes, I thought that was safe. I haven't done it. I haven't done it. What are you going to wish for? I don't know. I'm going to...

34:12I'll get back to you guys on that. Very small and simple, yeah. Exactly. I would like to have a nice day. not so good that it can never be matched. Not too good. Not too good. Not too good. I don't want it to ruin me forever. Yeah. But I would like to have a nice day. These wishes need specificity. They need boundaries, guys. So many boundaries. Oh, God. What was the most horrifying part for you guys? It's, well, it depends because obviously the most horrifying part, if you're talking gore, is the bit in the car. Yeah. But if we're talking like uncanny terror rather than horror, it's Nikki in the corner.

34:57Of the bedroom. Corner of the bedroom. And her in the shadows, you just hear her voice. She comes out. She sort of skitters back in. Then you look again and she's gone and you don't know where she's gone. And then she's hiding behind a vase for what feels like 10 minutes. Yeah, I mean, it would be those two. And the other thing as well, actually, that really scared me about the film is the sound design, too. He does a lot with sound, I think, to make up maybe for the lack of budget, right? And things happen off screen or on the other side of doors. And her voice that goes almost kind of shrill to the point of demonic at times, you know?

35:29And again, I think there's something quite smart about that. Like, the word shrill is quite gendered, isn't it? I think and she makes what feels like deliberately very screechy shrill noises and but but in a really inhuman distorted nightmarish way you know and again it's that idea of like I don't know that kind of uh I don't know the sort of quote-unquote needy girlfriend but turned up to like a million you know well this is something that really stood out for me because I felt like this should be apart from the gore which I admit might be a little flaw in my plans and Harry's heard this already i almost feel that this should be required viewing for people in their teens and 20s getting into a relationship it's like here is a whole list of what not to do like i think we would all be better off if everybody watched this film and sat down and talked it through and then went on to live their lives and get into relationships because it is all that stuff about you know if your girlfriend is screaming and threatening to kill herself or threatening to harm herself if you don't do what she wants that is a form of abuse you know if or if either of you are doing that um if if one of you is screaming when the other says something they don't like that is bad we do not do that that is not healthy you know if you're setting all these boundaries for each other and making these demands of each other that is not a good thing there is so much kind of just realistic but turned up to 11 toxic behavior in this film that i genuinely think it has a sort of almost and I'm not saying this is why they made it, like informative role.

37:03It's not didactic about it. It's not sort of laying out as lessons, but I feel like you recognize, even if you just read lots of Reddit Ask Me Anythings or Am I the Assholes? Like you will recognize a lot of toxic behavior in this film. And I think that's really fascinating. Like we said, you know, when she's begging for help and he's going, oh, so you don't want to be with me, that's narcissism, right? It is. so it's just it's a really really rich text i think in in the way that all of that horrible behavior is used and i think i think there is a danger of a film like this to feel like it is punishing a character like nikki or demonizing a character like nikki and what i was really quite gratified by was that it doesn't do that and I think you can interpret the decisions that Bear is making in different ways but I don't think at any point the film is saying that Nikki is the bad guy even though she is the source of the horror she's not the villain and I think that is so important to make that unquestionable actually in the film and I do think that Barker does that yeah I think it rides that line so well of making you feel like very mixed on both of them throughout the whole thing and I think it's really smart to be honest with you because there is a version of this that isn't as intelligent as that I think there is a version of this that is quite like simple and I feel like you come out of it feeling like I felt quite messy inside about everyone in the film and I don't feel like there's many horror films where I come out feeling that kind of like conflicted about everyone yeah you almost want bear to be more villainous or to be a better person one way or the other and he's kind of belongs in this sort of murky middle ground where you kind of go oh you're not a very good guy but also at the same time i kind of feel for you and you are didn't you didn't know what you're getting into and you're right everything everything is quite nuanced in this movie everything is quite gray area which is really interesting yeah except for i would agree with um becky nicky is the victim completely yeah what the what another thing i thought was really interesting was the friend's reaction to their relationship so ian and sarah pretty quickly are both quite in a nice way judgmental or certainly they're skeptical of the relationship they have heard enough from each of these two to know that this comes out of nowhere really certainly on her part and i think they see the way they're suddenly acting around each other and are like, guys, are you sure?

39:46But, and I think, I thought that was really interesting because it kind of feels like it's a Gen Z thing of, again, being quite hip to unhealthiness in relationships in a way that maybe it wasn't talked about so much 10, 15, 20, 30 years ago, whatever. And I think they're much more on the lookout for unhealthy behavior in their friends than maybe older people would have been. You know, they would have just been like, oh, it's romance. In the same way that all the rom-coms made in the 90s now look extremely dodgy, this feels like it's evolved in that sense. They are aware that this doesn't look quite right, guys.