Ready Or Not: Here I Come (ft. Tyler Gillett & Matt Bettinelli-Olpin)

24:54Like, how can this possibly resolve? And I think that was something that once we knew that it was really about abandonment and that that was kind of the driving force of that relationship, it plotted pretty easily. And then, of course, Titus and Ursula as the foil to that, right? You have these other two siblings that are falling apart. And that relationship ends with one of them literally killing the other, you know, some moments after this big emotional reunion between grace and faith. Yeah.

25:30Chris Hewitt:I mean, there's, again, so much to dig into there. In terms of, Titus is fascinating. Because when we first meet him, he seems like the weaker part of the two. Yeah. he's a guy like you know David Cronenberg has to slap him to get him to step up and kill his dad which is again a hell of an intro but throughout the movie he becomes something that I think the Lidomas's weren't necessarily in the first movie which is a genuine threat he becomes a genuine monster as you just said can you talk about that developing him in that way so that when Grace finally snaps at the end of the movie and stabs him with Chekhov's pen.

26:18Chris Hewitt:Thank you for noticing. It is very present from the beginning. We even put a little twinkle on it the first time you see it. It gets its own close-up. The second I got it with the close-up, I was like, someone is getting stabbed with that pen. We enhance the shine on it in color. Gets its own theme tune pen. So once he stabs him with Chekhov's pen, and you want the audience to go, fucking yes. And along the way to do that, he has to do some pretty monstrous things. Can you talk about developing him in that way? I mean, I think the key to that was the fight scene with Faith. Yeah. Where it's, again, to the Lodomas' point, they're all kind of goofy, they're bad at what they're doing.

27:00Chris Hewitt:Yeah. And in this, you know, we were all really conscious of making sure that it wasn't just more of the same, that yes, there will be, like Ignacio's a horrible shot. Yeah. All that stuff. but the rocket launcher the rocket launcher the you know etc but there is there is this that the the idea that in that moment kind of end of second act that you hopefully as an audience have a very visceral reaction to that fight and go wait fuck this was supposed to be fun i don't this is like yeah rough yeah and that it it it pivots the movie in a way that all of a sudden the fun lightheartedness of it sort of takes a back seat and Titus takes a front seat as like an actual fucked up villain and I think that for us there were versions of that fight that were he went harder, there were versions that went softer and the problem with both of them was when they went too hard it got so mean that we lost the audience and we could feel it and when we went softer none of the third act worked because he wasn't a monster and you were just kind of, all right, well, just more of the same.

28:07Chris Hewitt:And so it took a long time to find that balance where ideally at the end of that fight, you feel uncomfortable with how the violence is being portrayed. Yeah. And then when he slaps and then later kills Sarah, Michelle, you go, oh fuck, what happened? Like this, they're in, how are they going to get out of this? Yeah. This is like, they are with the monster and they are trapped now. And Sean was able to ride that line of basically like goofy little brother into violent villain in such like a believable way that it becomes really visceral. And so ideally, by the time you get to that third act and Sam stabs him with Chekhov's pen, you fucking cheer.

28:50Chris Hewitt:And I think one of the moments that has happened in every screening we've been in that is awesome is that the audience has such a good reaction to that. And then when Catherine yells, fuck yeah, everybody erupts. gets the permission to do the same thing yeah yeah it's fascinating because I thought I've seen the movie twice now the first time around I thought Jesus you're actually going to kill Faith he's going to kill Faith this is this is hardcore also you're juxtaposing that with a really fun fight yes total eclipse of the heart so was that a struggle as well a tonal tightrope for you guys to walk doing that back and forth but it was also one of those things and I think we knew we knew on the page and then we knew in the edit that it was in so many ways like the distillation of what we wanted to achieve thematically yeah like i think that sequence and the cross-cutting of those two two scenes with the very very different and very different in tone but together like become something really singular i think that's our tone in a nutshell where it's it's like it's fun and it's and it's um surprising and it's risk-taking and it feels like big popcorn, but it also isn't afraid to like maybe push some buttons and like make you feel a little unsafe.

30:08I think that to us is, it always was the aim, calibrating that just right. It just was always something we took. We took a lot of time. We took it very seriously. It's a big guy on a smaller lady as well.

30:22Chris Hewitt:Yeah. And not for nothing. It's the moment... It's the moment in the story where there's an active choice made to separate, right? It's sort of these two sisters pay. They pay the price, each of them, in a different way. They pay the price for making the choice to split up. And we also love that they both sort of come to the, like, fuck, we have to reconcile. Sam gets up to chase Faith. Grace gets up to chase Faith. Faith turns around to go back to Grace. But they've already committed the cardinal sin of splitting up. and that there's a real consequence and they get caught, right? The whole sort of, the premise of hide and seek is don't get caught.

31:03There has to be a consequence when they get caught. And we would argue too, and I mean, obviously, very different violence on both sides of those, but Grace also gets the shit beat. It's brutal. There happens to be a wonderful pop song playing, but writing that line with the song

31:20Chris Hewitt:was actually what made it very, and we did this intentionally. We kind of backed ourselves into a corner, when we were pre-production because the song wasn't originally a part of it it was they were in a ballroom and as soon as we kind of saw the place we're like oh this is a wedding oh well we've got to try a song it it was we knew it was a risk yeah but we did it intentionally we were like okay but if we can't pull this off where that tone that tyler's just talking about works then we're already failing something like the movie has to be able to hold this and it was this it was this balancing act of how do we make you feel like you're having fun but also question if you're having fun yeah and so it it was really and honestly it's really a testament to the four actors in the scene of being able to commit so wholly to that where you feel katherine's scrappiness and you feel her fighting back and she has fight in her till the very end so you're you're rooting for her but i think we're really used to and trained as audiences to when a scene like that happens at that point in a movie, the hero wins.

32:23Yeah, we talked about true romance a lot. And Alabama Whirly getting the shotgun. Yeah, and having the end moment.

32:30Chris Hewitt:And that does happen with Samara, with Grace. But it doesn't happen with Faith. And so there's a really, it's disconcerting there. And you kind of go, oh, fuck, I'm on shaky ground. You know, I'm on shaky ground. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, you can see that Chuck's, he turns into a Hulk at that moment. Suddenly, you know, I imagine he's a big unit in real life. and you can absolutely feel it. His description in the script was a RIP smoke show. Fair enough. That's what people call me as well. But it does trigger a really interesting tonal shift as well. You guys have talked about it a little bit, but from that point on, then we have the film goes very dark.

33:11Chris Hewitt:And I imagine some audience members might even feel, as you said, how does she get out of this? And you have that moment with Titus killing Ursula, which, again, from things you've said, was something that was always on the docket for you from day one. I mean, that was actually, that choice was an evolution that happened when we were in prep. I mean, we were still designing and calibrating, I mean, right up until shooting, the relationship with Titus and Ursula. And, you know, as you refine things with, you know, the sisters, like you start to then realize, oh, well, now there's an opportunity to have that new thing we've discovered with that dynamic reflected back in these characters in an interesting way.

34:02And I think one of the things that we were feeling in early stages of prep was that we were missing one final turn with our villains. Like that there had to be one more, there had to be a little bit of a deeper descent, right? That we've gone to such a dark place with who Titus is. And it felt like we can just push it a little bit further. and that he needs to illustrate in a more personal way just how fucking crazy and dark and powerful he is and what he's willing to do to get the seat. And so just the full Shakespearean act of like, well, if it can only be one of us, then what do I have to do?

34:51I've got to kill dad. and you know this this his sister who in so many ways feels kind of like a mother to him he's you know the the training wheels are off and he finally in that moment becomes becomes the thing that he probably has always been inside and that you know dad and sister have been um keeping at bay maybe his entire life we talked a lot about that with sean like this idea that there's this sort of caged monster in him that they have probably kept hidden really well and helped him keep hidden. But once those two are out of the picture, he gets to be whatever the fuck he wants to be.

35:30Chris Hewitt:Yeah, because in a way, in a way, Chester almost slaps it into him at the beginning. He's buried it so much in that scene at the beginning. And it's like entitlement just distilled to its absolute most disgusting, terrifying. and will still kill his father and sister to get more. Which means Sean Atosi in this film kills David Cronenberg and Buffy, which is a hell of a thing. If you didn't hate him for beating up Catherine Newton, you gotta go watch the pit after for like a palatine. Yeah, precisely. But then after that, in that, in the act of killing Ursula, you pave the way for the triumphant reverse at the end of the movie.

36:17Chris Hewitt:So when did that fall into place? It was those rules. It was in the design of coming up with that idea. It was like, now we have to figure out how to... That was during pre-production. That was like... What's the Swiss watch, you know, of that conclusion? And it was, again, we tried like a million different things where it was like, how do we get... We kind of knew where we needed to go and how do we get there in a really clean way. And it kind of kept moving around. but that was once that idea kind of unlocked it was like pretty clear how to get there so you know and there was there were cuts where we kind of shined a brighter light on it the first time actually it was jamie vanderbilt the producer and also labelle uh who was like recognized yeah he uh he he he really kind of pushed for us to like not not shine a light on it earlier just let it be a thing that floats by you yeah and it was a good call because it works I think really well that way you know you kind of you know it you have that information but you're not consciously thinking about it as the way she's going to use it to get out of it so that hopefully when she walks down those stairs into like the devil temple you actually feel like I don't know how she gets out of this yeah and I think as well that Grace doesn't know how she's going to get out of it And we've talked about that a lot, that she does not have that idea prior to it.

37:41It's not a premeditated.

37:42Chris Hewitt:It's a true act of sacrifice on her part when she comes out of the refrigerator and tries to save Faith. And she sticks with it all the way down. When she says, I do, she still has not quite made that choice yet. But it's a selfless, it's still a selfless act to save her sister. Yeah. Knowing that she's giving up her soul. That was one of the early pitches that I think Guy and Ryan, and I love how it is ultimately represented. because I think it's maybe a bit of an abstract, like thematically abstract idea. The idea that if the first movie was Grace fighting for her life, that the second movie is Grace fighting for her soul.

38:20That was always a concept that we really loved the sound of. And I don't think, I think it only works because of the sister. Like it's, that is that moment where she has to give up a huge piece of who she is. Yeah, totally. Yeah, to activate that. It was always just this sort of abstract concept until that moment.

38:44Chris Hewitt:Yeah. I mean, it's really fascinating. And yeah, again, going into it, I was like, there's some way she's going to turn this around, but I'm not entirely sure how. It's a really, really beautiful moment when she does. And then, of course, you have this, you know, the idea that she gets married. So she's now been married twice in the space of what? Is this less than 48 hours? she spends a little time in the hospital and then but yeah let's call it 40 hours when the lawyer says her name to you Grace McAuley like one of my favorite like a joke that you don't laugh at but it's just like oh man she's really been through yeah are you anticipating that you know should we get to say I don't know ready or not 10 that she'll have been married nine times is this the idea that if there is each one of these movies a new wedding every movie let's do the show right here kind of thing but then at the end of that obviously you have the massive fight in the in the blood pit with you guys love to explode people now I've lost count of how many people we have as well but it's a lot and then you have the big gushing geyser of blood at the end of this can you talk about about that orchestrating that massive brawl it's like a full army of darkness yeah blood yeah blood from the well.

40:05Chris Hewitt:I mean, it's very, you know, it's a lot of the conversations we had were how do we achieve something in like the third act of this movie that is not just a bigger version of what the first movie was, but satisfying in a different way. And so there were a lot of pitches, but I think the thing that really we loved about this was just the cravenness of she's given up the power she doesn't want it she knows it's you know it's literally from the devil yeah it's corrupting yes and so she throws it in the pit and then there was something just so like cathartic for us about this idea that they will all tear each other to shreds to get that fucking ring and then you know because of again this was not a giant budget movie by any stretch yeah and so we really had to figure out okay well how are we going to do that how are we going to show that we can't do the giant version of it i mean how long do we have to shoot that entire and a half hours yeah what a couple hours it wasn't even like a day it was a small part of a day holy shit it was just a stunt team just going full ham on each other yeah and a couple cameras running and you know over cranked i mean there was a period where we were like i don't even know if we can shoot down there it's all going to be implied and you know and it was like it but it was one of those things where you know we we knew we had to get there and so we kind of worked towards it and then when we did it when we got there finally and it was all fun and it was great, this is on the page there was still a missing moment, we were like fuck there's just no levity now, like we need like some levity here and that's when the idea of Varun exploding yeah the idea that they dodged the blood, they dodged the geyser and it's like oh shit our heroines are blood free if they've gotten out unscathed and then no that can't be, LaBelle's not gonna let that happen no fucking way I think the other thing to talk about really quick in the end that I think is the thing that we I think we wanted to preserve the feeling of of the first movie right I think one of the moments that that we love about the first movie and I think audiences do too is when Aunt Helene pulls the blinds open and it's clear that the sun has come up yeah and there's that big long pause where you're everyone's asking the question was it was it all bullshit Is all of this for nothing?

42:30Is the curse real? And I think we loved the indecision of that moment, right? The sort of, well, fuck, what's next? What could possibly happen next? And I think we found that in the moment where Grace gets the ring. And you're like, okay, what does this mean? like what is she gonna she has literally can can demand anything that she wants and will have it what could what would you do with that power what do we think grace is going to do with that power and the idea that she decides to give it up is just like the most surprising and the most grace thing that she could possibly do she doesn't even ask for a sandwich

43:16Chris Hewitt:i'd have had at least one sandwich and then it would have given up the power but then if you get the sandwich, are you corrupted? You're going to want another sandwich. You're going to want another sandwich. Yeah. With more butter or a little better. It's the old saying, one sandwich goes straight to the devil's heart. You mentioned right at the beginning, you mentioned Elijah as the lawyer who, I mean, I think I love this guy. I want to know what his deal is because he's incredible. You talk about Grace making a choice and giving up this power. My personal theory about the lawyer, he gives her a lovely smile at the end of the film.

43:54Chris Hewitt:I think he's been enthralled to the bail for a long, long time, and she's inadvertently freed him. That's my take on it. Oh, interesting. What's your take on that? I love that it can be interpreted that way, and that it is open to interpretation. I think our version has always been, we think he's somewhat of a timeless guy. that it's not like you got the job 20 years ago. He's probably been doing this for decades, centuries, whatever. And there's something about it where he's a bit of a chaos agent. Labelle's a chaos agent. As a proxy for Labelle, he's enjoying the chaos that is being unleashed by grace and faith.

44:39Chris Hewitt:So for us, and I think Elijah, it was very fun to just play with that idea of you're not taking sides, but clearly some people in this room are fucking assholes and some people seem like kind of nice people and so enjoy enjoy the carnival you know yeah he's surprised maybe for the first time yeah it doesn't usually go this way Grace actually does a thing that he's like yeah there actually isn't language in the bylaws about giving up the ring because no one would ever give up the fucking ring like it's great that she actually impresses him he doesn't try to go for the ring himself he just floats I think he's in a position of power.

45:15Chris Hewitt:I'm not sure he's fully human. Okay, interesting. I do have to let you guys go. But of course, this is, yes, it's a sequel. There's a two in the title. Is there? Sort of. It's only in there for a very brief second in the movie itself. There's a two in the poster, at least. But it's a very, very original idea, of course, in the first place. So, you know, does that make you guys proud in a way that the original film in the first place hit big enough over a long enough period of time as well that people clamored for a sequel? And then that must have posed challenges as well in telling the sequel to this.

45:56Chris Hewitt:Yeah, without a doubt. I mean, we were shocked and it means so much to us that people found the movie, you know, because it's not like when Ready or Not came out, it was a giant hit or anything. It was over the next couple of years. Yeah, I feel like the narrative around it has changed. Yeah. But it wasn't. It was... No, we were like, oh, man, nobody wants to see it. And then over the following years, it kind of became more beloved. And that to us was wonderful because we always loved it and we had so much fun making it. But when we went into this one, I mean, the idea that we went in with was that we can't just rest on the laurels of the first movie.

46:37Chris Hewitt:In fact, we have to actively try not to do that as much as possible and try to make this its own thing. The tone is slightly different. The performances are different. You know, ideally, you could watch it side by side and it lives in the same world, but it doesn't feel like retread. And it feels like it deepens the first movie and the mythology of the first movie and Grace's character. And so that once you've watched them both, it's for us, we always go to Terminator 2 and Aliens. We're like, those are the and Godfather 2. You know, we're not saying this is Godfather 2. Just saying those are the movies we go to for our like, what do like the best sequels do?

47:10Chris Hewitt:And they do that. They enrich the first movie and they feel different than the first movie. And so we really tried to do that. Yeah. And I think maybe with the exception of Godfather, like Terminator and Alien are like very close-ended stories. Yeah. Like they, you know, they're very satisfying in their own right. And I think that was, there's something exciting to us about entering a world, a story that, yeah, there's some things about it that are familiar because, of course, it's drafting off of the first movie. But it's a fucking blue sky. Anything's up for grabs. How do we continue this? You could do anything at all.

47:51Because we've ended it so definitively. And I think that was really, there's so much excitement in the task of that. How could it possibly continue? That to us is such a wonderful question, like a place to be at in the creative process. Even down to starting off, exactly where the last movie ended up. I think that is, we love the challenge of that. I think that excites us so much.

48:23Chris Hewitt:Those three franchises, for want of a better word, that you mentioned, Alien, Godfather, Terminator, all have two great, you know, first part and second part are fantastic. Third part doesn't always bring home the bacon, shall we say. If there were to be a Ready or Not 3, are you cognizant of that challenge and are you thinking about something? We know Guy and Ryan have an idea. But we have not heard anything. And by the way, love that we don't know. Just like we weren't sure what a sequel could be to the first one, I don't think we went into this thinking, oh, well, we should build a franchise or build a universe.

49:08I get uncomfortable when people use the word franchise. Yeah, I think it's because I think for us, it's always the goal to make something that, whether it is a hit in the moment or people find it later, that it has staying power because there's something fun, exciting, cathartic, interesting. There's a message that resonates across its release and then well into its life after the release. And I think that that's really just working very hard to tell a singular satisfying story regardless of where you've come from and where it might go in the future.

49:52Chris Hewitt:Wait and see. We shall see. I know I've taken up far too much of your time. I'm going to throw a speed round at you real quick. Great. Okay. Okay. Very, very quick questions. Very quick answers. All right. So talking about needle drops, you start and end the movie with versions of Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow. Where did that come from? That is a very, I don't know, it'll be a slightly slower speed round. That was an idea. The song, the Amy Winehouse one was an idea actually my wife saw the Carole King show at uh Pantages okay you guys should try that song so we tried that song at the end of the first movie and fell in love with it and we're not allowed to use it because it was very expensive and we had no money but we we kind of carried a torch for it ever since and so as soon as we started talking about the second one we were like we've got to just try that song at the beginning we tried it it never changed we fucking loved it and then the the problem that we then faced was well how do we end the movie because we loved the idea of bookending it with that song and for a while we had in the carol king version which was great and it's obviously a wonderful song and we tried other versions of it but they all didn't feel right for some reason or another and so we had our friends brian fallon maddie diaz and suzy shin they got together and they recorded that version for the movie.

51:16Chris Hewitt:And so it was very much designed for the movie. And it really like, for us, it was the marching orders of like, guys, this can't, I know you're competing with Amy Winehouse. This has to feel totally different. And they knocked it out of the park. They land the emotion in such a clear way. We talked a lot about how John Hughes ends his movie. Give us that warm, two minutes of a movie writing a song. Like, oh, I just am settling, I'm settling into, I'm just settling into the end. Hold my hand out of the movie. Yeah, and I know it's going to be okay. And you've got that final shot of the two sisters and the goat.

51:49Chris Hewitt:The goat, of course. Winnie, the goat. Who can forget the goat? All right, I do have let you go. But the movie begins with Grace being arrested and blamed for several murders. And rightly so. I think more of this should happen in horror sequels, if you ask me. At the end of the film, presumably she's still a person of interest to the authorities, right? The next day does not go well. One of the lines that was scripted was, at some point, we had a run of different bantery bits that the sisters can sort of throw back and forth to each other on that walk. And one of them was, you're still hunting for murder, right?

52:28Yeah, just this sort of calling back the extreme nature of the situation that they find themselves in.

52:35Chris Hewitt:And now she's actually murdered more people now. Yeah, exactly. We might as well add a few more. In for a penny, in for a pound. Brilliant. Fantastic. Tyler, Matt, it's been an absolute pleasure. Guys, thanks so much. Such a pleasure. So good to see you in person too. Yeah, great to be real. Absolutely. Should we round off with our hearty and resounding bye, cunt? On three. One, two, three. Bye, cunt. Okay, that was Matt Batinelli open and Tyler Gillette talking about Ready or Not, Here I Come. Okay, so Beth, you were on set with this movie. I was, yeah, I was. Cool. And you lived to tell the tale.

53:09I know. I lived through it all and it was I got to see some good stuff man so I got to go out to Toronto so oh Toronto

53:18Chris Hewitt:yeah what that was Australian what was that no Toronto Toronto mate you were in Toronto yeah I have an aunt who lived in Toronto and you're also speaking Australian yeah okay great was it nice was it good yeah I'm completely sorry about that so we got the email through and I think the other sort of our other colleagues were like oh this looks quite good I could barely contain my excitement because it wasn't just me that was following the casting news right I'm on a group chat with Ben and I feel like every time someone got announced we were like is this actually happening is this actually real this is some sort of dream casting and we will get into the casting I'm sure very shortly but yes when the opportunity came out I flew at the chance to go and the main reason I wanted to go was to see Sarah Michelle Gellar acting again which was obviously much as I love this and I love this film and I'm sorry to the listeners of our most recent podcast where I spoke for about 20 minutes straight I think on this film and why I loved it I cut it down to 18 thank you so much release the web cut but yes so I saw this and I was very excited and I got to go to Toronto and I saw a little bit of Samara and Catherine handcuffed together which was really fun and Sean Hattesey and Sarah Michelle Gellar riding in a golf cart wielding, she was wielding like a dueling pistol.

54:45I got to ride in the golf cart with them for a little while, which was really fun. And then was chatting to Sarah Michelle Gellar and she wielded the dueling pistol at me and that was really funny. And she was like, get out of here, you. And I was like, are we still playing Sarah? It wasn't really. But she said she was ready for Hamilton, which was very funny. And yeah, and then just got to sit and watch Matt and Tyler direct, which is just fun. There's so much fun, which I think is something that works so well about both these movies is they're violent and vicious and pack-like, a real punch, but they're really fun as well.

55:19And a lot of their directing was like, well, which take are they having the most fun in? That was really, really important to them.

55:24Chris Hewitt:How do they direct? Because obviously, they're not brothers. I've watched, for example, the Russos direct and literally one of them will get up and without talking to each other, one of them will get up and make a note to an actor, let go and watch a take and then the take will happen and then the other one will get up without having spoken to the other one and make another note to a different actor. So they have this unspoken telepathy thing going on. Despite not being twins either, it's very freaky. Interesting. Matt and Tyler obviously are not brothers. Yeah. So how do they direct? Do they delegate to, you know, this one do the blocking and the other one does the talking?

55:57Chris Hewitt:How does that work? Well, it's interesting you say about the brothers because when I spoke to them for the feature, first of all, they have a brotherly tendency. They talk over each other all the time and are just basically, yeah, like finishing each other's sentences. Sandwiches. Sandwiches. You two. So they do have that kind of brotherly collection, but what I did see was they would go out together and then one of them would go out and chat to Samara and Catherine and then the other one would just kind of hang back and watch what was happening. It was more of the way that they did it. The rooster sounds, that sounds like some mutant behavior there.

56:34to be honest quite possibly

56:36Chris Hewitt:quite possibly who knows or maybe they were just passing each other notes and I just couldn't see it okay Anthony now it's your turn to stand up okay Joe now it's your turn to stand up alright so Beth I think you should recuse yourself from talking about this movie clearly you're in the pocket of Big Ready or Not Here I Come yeah but okay here you are so you've made the long journey from your desk which is approximately 50 yards away from the studio to come here so have at it but before we hear your thoughts on this movie the 25 minute uncensored birth web cut. Benjamin, what do you think of this movie?

57:09Do you think it's as good as the first one,

57:12Chris Hewitt:better than the first one, maybe not quite as good as the first one or quite some distance away from the first one? There are other options as well. I think this is actually as good as the first one and I think I may be a little bit alone in that feeling. I saw this the other night. I couldn't make it to any of the press screenings. so a lot of other people on the team ended up seeing this one before me and I think people were like it's fun, it's a good time it's not great or there are some slightly janky bits and so I went in with slightly lowered expectations I was always going to go out of my way to go and see Ready or Not 2, I really enjoyed the first one I think it's great I was really looking forward to this, as Beth said the casting, when it was like, oh my god Sarah Michelle Gellar's going to be in it, Elijah Wood's in it David Cronenberg's in this?

58:01Chris Hewitt:What the fuck? I was really looking forward to it. Felt slightly muted when I heard people say, oh yeah, you know, it's good. And I had so much fun with this, seeing it on the big screen in a relatively sparse cinema, sadly. It was not a big packed, roaring crowd. But I was like rolling in my seat for all of this and just had a very, very fun time. I think it fits really nicely with the first one, but maybe has the fun dial slightly cranked up. It's still gnarly. It's still very nasty in places. But I guess to skip to the end, that last shot of like, it's a cigarette in one hand and the other person's blown a pink bubblegum bubble.

58:44Chris Hewitt:That to me feels like what the film is. It's a cigarette and a bubblegum pop at the same time. And I really, really had loads of fun with it. Wow. Don't smoke, kids. It's not. No, but chew gum. No, chew it, but don't swallow it. Yeah. Don't swallow it. Okay. That's good. All right. So, Hell's Bells, we know to an extent what you thought of people listening to the regular podcast. You talked about this. Let's put it in context to the first film, though, shall we? Because Ben mentioned the first film came out in 2019. So, it's been, what, seven years now? It doesn't feel like it. It doesn't feel like it at all.

59:18It feels really immediate.

59:19Chris Hewitt:And the first movie when it came out was one of those kind of sleeper hits. I've seen it a number of times. is the first one. I think it's tremendous fun. What was your reaction to it? And were you excited for this as a result? Absolutely and absolutely. I love the first one. It was so surprising and it was so surprising all the way through. I mean, you kind of know she's going to survive. Like you trust in that. But everything else was delightful and surprising and kept you on your toes. And certainly when people suddenly started exploding, that was not something that I had foreseen, you know, going into that movie.

59:53And I do think that this movie loses something because that now is established as a thing that happens to these people in this universe. And it happens a fuck ton in this movie. And I think you kind of lose that element of just weird surprise. Like, oh, I didn't know those were the rules. I thought this was like everybody's hunting her slasher movie. And it's actually got this whole supernatural element that I didn't see coming in that form, you know. and I think so this one really leans into that and leans into a lot of that stuff and I sort of I wish I could have found maybe another way to surprise us in the way that did at the end of the first one

1:00:34Chris Hewitt:I mean that ending to the first one I think is one of the great endings of the last 10 years or so like that that is a comedic punchline to the whole thing a real like gooey gory punchline of like oh they're all mad they all believe they're gonna die if they don't win the game and then they all start fucking popping like blood bags is amazing I agree it doesn't have the surprise factor in this one but because that's out of the bag they can like do it all the way through the film every time it happened I was like yay pop pop pop pop great comedic beats as well where you get Elijah Woods the lawyer who may well be my favourite character in the franchise and I want to talk about that guy's deal my theory on him is very different to Matt and Tyler's theory on him by the way and they're right they directed it but I love the gag where someone's about to pop and he hides behind a podium lifts the book and just ducks the beloved book the book cannot get any blood on it but then he just hides he knows what's coming and everyone else is like okay I mean also I think they did a good job of building that in as a story element this time as well that like in the first one you just think oh it's everybody against her and all the odds are stacked against her, not really knowing that, you know, it is true what that family believes, that if they don't do it, that they are all going to die.

1:01:57Chris Hewitt:And so then in this one, to have it as part of the setup, part of the stakes, that like, oh, you know, they really want to win that game and they really want to see her gone because they will all start popping. And all the other rules they introduce of like, oh, if one of you kills the others, then Mr. LaBelle's not very happy and people are going to start popping, was a really fun, like, escalation of that. because they don't have the element of surprise but they can do other fun things with that. That's interesting. The idea that everyone seems to know what happens if you break the rules and you're going to pop is actually something that doesn't tally with the first movie.

1:02:35Chris Hewitt:Do they know exactly what's going to happen? Everyone's kind of hiding and they seem to know they're going to die immediately. Yeah, they know that Mr. Bale won't be happy. The lawyer knows because he's seen his shit before. Okay, that makes sense. But yeah, they don't know exactly in the first one. And I think that in this one, clearly not everybody is totally familiar with all the bylaws because otherwise you wouldn't have somebody trying to preempt the game at the very beginning in the hospital. Yeah. Well, he says fuck the laws. He doesn't care. Yeah, no, I get it. Kevin Durant. I also did have real queries about the wife who disappears.

1:03:11I honestly thought she'd be popping in a post-credit stick. I thought that as well.

1:03:15Chris Hewitt:It's one of the few questions I had to do a speed round at the end. I didn't get around to asking that question, but let's just assume she dies off school. I feel like she probably does because I don't think there's a loophole that allows her to just not participate. That didn't seem to be the rule at the beginning, so it would surprise me. Yeah, she's part of the family. She's gone. She hasn't thought this through. I didn't think she did, but I enjoyed her husband's, you know, being disconcerted by the whole thing. That was fun. Yes, yeah. Spineless. You know I'm always here for an eat the rich or, you know, explode the rich like pimples kind of a movie.

1:03:50Chris Hewitt:You would explode so many rich people if you could. I mean, I have a list. It's written in blood. But I don't know. I just, I kind of wanted something, some kind of escalation or something that this didn't quite give me at the end, I think. And I wanted maybe a little bit more. of the ending specifically. Like, they are still covered in a lot of very important people's blood. And while I applaud the film for having the sense to say, well, there would be consequences to that first massacre last time, she would be questioned by police, you know, etc. I have the same questions, but more so this time.

1:04:37Chris Hewitt:It's the one thing I would have done as Grace. so I know she doesn't want to do anything when she gets the ring at the end and she gains power essentially over the world the one thing I would have done because she's planning from that moment on to suddenly remove herself from the board and to throw the ring into the pit and have everyone fight each other for it the one thing I would have done as her is to pardon myself like immediately call up I'm no longer a wanted person because she'll be even more wanted now but that may be something that they they explore in Ready or Not 3. Or maybe they won't because the box office wasn't that good for this, sadly.

1:05:17Chris Hewitt:I mean, was it a given? Was it a given that they were going to make a third one? I think, I don't know that they're going to announce it. Obviously, they're going on to make The Mummy. But I think certainly the door is open for a third. And I would have liked to have seen a third at some point down the line. but you know we're not going to get into it right now because I do have other things to talk about with this movie but the box office has been disappointing over the weekend which is a real shame I want to talk about some of the key decisions that Matt and Tyler and I'm saying that not because I'm being over familiar but because Bettinelli Olbin is a difficult name to say so they make some very very key decisions along with their screenwriters who are Guy Busiek and R.

1:06:03Chris Hewitt:Christopher Murphy and James Van Der Bilt, who I didn't know was Mr. LaBelle as well, the screenwriter-producer. He is the guy who plays LaBelle in both movies. That tickled me immensely. So they've made all these key creative decisions, carrying on immediately where the last film left off, which is an interesting one, throwing Faith, the sister, into the mix. The end with another wedding, a dark wedding. Grace has now got married twice in the space of about 48 hours. Eat that, Ross Geller. But the big one, I think, is really bringing an extra complexity to the mythology of this. Did they go too far with the mythology?

1:06:50Chris Hewitt:Did they John Wick it in a way? Is it too overcomplicated or did they get the balance just right? It depends what you mean by John Wick it because I love how they've expanded the John Wick mythology. and I think this follows the path of like John Wick 2 where they establish that there is something bigger out there but without going like crazy huge on it. This was something I was slightly nervous about going into the film partly because I kind of thought, oh, you're not going to do something like even more different for this one? Like, oh, it's hide and seek again and it's just kind of like the same game but with like more people and there's more families rather than just one family.

1:07:25Chris Hewitt:Feels like a bigger but not necessarily better thing. you're like, oh, could you have changed the game up? Actually, I think it worked really well. And because they do different things with the rules and how everybody's fighting to get the seat at the table is a different dynamic to the game and to all the players involved. So in actuality, I was not disappointed by that at all. So I think it's a tricky thing to kind of bring mythology into this without bogging it down. And I think it did the right John Wickie thing of going like, we're going to give you hints of rules and a bigger thing, but we're not going to like completely Wikipedia dump on you.

1:08:07Chris Hewitt:Wikipedia dump. Okay. What? Wikipedia. Wikipedia. Oh, I'm too slow. I'm too slow. We're not going to do that and we're going to, you know, just give you little inferences and, you know, get into the fact that this doesn't really have to make sense. It is a like a fictional, cabal that rules the world and they're all in service to the devil. We all know it's a bit supernatural. We can be fun and funny with it rather than have to create something really serious that holds up to scrutiny. I will add, when I spoke to them for the feature, they wanted to wikify this. This was a goal. When they had those initial conversations with the writers, it was about how can we extend this lore and crack it.

1:08:50I'm not against the wikification of anything in any way. except real life maybe I think it's fun I think we get so many sequels that are just a retread without any sort of embroidery and I would rather them go a bit baroque with the whole thing and bring in ridiculous codes of honour and everything else because I just think it gives it an extra texture makes it more interesting I do feel like I felt the same disappointment in terms of oh it's a hide and seek again Oh, okay. And there was a different dynamic to the players. They're not cooperative in any way. They are very much against each other here, and that does make a difference.

1:09:31Chris Hewitt:And that complexity, the complication of they can't kill each other was interesting as well. And I thought that was, I liked that that played a role. But at the same time, I just wanted maybe a bit more visual distance from last time, perhaps. Like, could there have been a very different kind of fancy person house or fancy person hotel, you know? And again, maybe that's going for the same visual language as the first film. But I would have liked to have seen the sort of the visual grammar of the film change a bit. I think it was a good idea to have, oh, you have to use weapons from when your family first signed up.

1:10:12That's a silly rule, but it was fun. But that kind of goes by the wayside really fast because you've got people with sniper rifles and stuff. And I would have liked if they'd all, given that this is the high council, if they'd all been there since the fucking Middle Ages and everything was pre-Crosbow or something, I think that would have been fun. I like that.

1:10:30Chris Hewitt:I like the fact that Nestor Carbonell was using a sniper rifle because what they must have signed up in the 70s or 80s or something like that. Certainly World War II or so. And of course he's incompetent. He's the worst shot in movie history. Batman Well would be appalled. Batman Well, oh, may he rest in peace. Love Batman Well. I liked, I also thought they could have pushed those characters a bit more. I kind of thought the casting that you mentioned, like the Cronenberg and the Michelle Gellar and Hattese are all brilliant. I love that we have a miniature faculty reunion in Elijah Wood and Sean Hattese, that's great.

1:11:08But I would have liked a bit more from those people because some of the families just kind of didn't make as much of an impact to me. That's it. And I think that was my main criticism in that I would have just, they did such a good job. The groundwork was so wonderfully laid with Ursula and Titus and David Cronenberg's character, Chester. And then you've obviously got Catherine coming in as well as Faith. I feel like a showdown between those two families would have been phenomenal. Yeah. And then just with a bit of extra context. I also felt like I was a bit confused by Titus's arc, or at least I didn't buy into it completely.

1:11:51Because at the beginning, it seems like he's the family punching bag. You've got his dad slapping him in the face and telling him not to be a pussy. You've got his sister bossing him around. You know, okay, I can get that he could be the worm that turned, but the idea that both of them consider him a dangerous psycho and that that's why they're essentially slapping him around the face all the time, that did not square with how he ended up and how terrified Ursula is of him by the end. And so I thought that was the biggest flaw in the writing for me. I thought that wasn't set up properly. And I liked the idea of it.

1:12:29I thought it injected a real sense of menace into the second half of the film that went far beyond just mere Satan, like whatever, dude. That was really, really scary. But it kind of came out of nowhere for me and I didn't think it was super effective.

1:12:44Chris Hewitt:Matt and Tyler talk about that in the interview. I think the answer was very, very interesting. I'm kind of with you. I think they needed maybe one more step for him to really shine in terms of his blossoming as the true threat of the movie, as the true villain of the movie. But I also quite like the idea that he is someone who, in the course of a few hours, is experiencing this awakening. But I think you're right. I think you're right in terms of the backstory about, oh, we think he's too big a threat. That's why we had to keep a close eye on him. and that maybe wasn't established as well as it might have been.

1:13:22Chris Hewitt:To your point, that completely passed me by when Helen was saying that. I was like, oh, is that a thing that he's too evil and mean, which is why they're all really mean to him? Yeah, Ursula sort of says as much. Right, yeah, I completely missed that when I watched it. You can see moments where it is peeking through when they're evacuating the complex, and he's very flamboyant at that moment. He's like, get the fuck out, get the fuck out. You can see little things that peek me through the clouds. but he's really interesting Titus and I'm really fascinated to get your take on this guys because again this is something we discussed in the in the spoiler special interview the moment when he really steps to the fore as the bad guy of the film is when he kicks the living shit out of faith oh yeah and that is a absolutely brutal beating that is juxtaposed with the comic fight set piece between Grace and Francesca set to Bonnie Tyler and you set anything to Bonnie Tyler and immediately gets points.

1:14:28Chris Hewitt:Total eclipse of the heart. Fantastic. What a banger. They talked about how that was something really difficult for them to get the balance right on. Some test audiences, they had versions that were more brutal where the beating was more brutal and they had some where it was less brutal and audiences didn't quite get the impact of it. And so they've landed where they've landed. What do you guys think about that? Because first of all, the juxtaposition between comedy and, oh my God, what the fuck is he doing, is really jarring, which is intentional. But was it too far? Or was it just right in terms of establishing Titus as a true threat to Grace, which I'll be honest, none of the Domas's in the first movie.

1:15:16Chris Hewitt:Yes, Andy McDowell is a bit more together than everyone else, but the rest of them are buffoons. Like, Henry Shurney in that movie is a buffoon. And that's part of the joy of that movie. But here, Titus is a genuine fucking planet-level threat. So, did they get that scene? Right, Beth, I'll start with you. I would say it was, perhaps given everything that we've been talking about, perhaps it was a necessary sequence to happen to get the story to where it needed to go to get to that marriage to instill that kind of terror to make um faith and grace scared enough to make that decision to marry him um because they're absolutely terrified of what he's capable of doing it's funny to see some people after watching this film and the the proposal and where and i'm sure we'll get into this more but where grace marries titus to try and kind of get through this in one piece a lot of people are like well she could have married us you know but i think the point being that everyone is now so legitimately terrified of this man that the game can only really go one way.

1:16:30And so I think it kind of needed to be that intense for it to set it off on the direction that it went in, basically.

1:16:42Chris Hewitt:Because he becomes an even bigger threat after that. He kills Buffy. Yeah, which, I mean, she's died twice, but never as upsettingly as this, to be honest. Yeah, I think it works because you have to feel like this guy is a real horrific threat. And also it grounds it in something like a bit more real. I don't think this is a film that has massively serious things on its mind for the most part. But to go, hey, do you know what? Amid all of this, the real evil is like fucking raging misogynists is, you know, a valid thing. Emphasis on raging here. Yeah. I mean, that scene is brutal. I thought she was going to die.

1:17:20Chris Hewitt:yeah the the the scene with uh with faith with katherine newton is um i think it does what it needs to do it is really hard to watch it is very brutal it's a different sort of brutality to the rest of the film my my question still i don't know how it's really personal rather than all the rest of the brutality in both films is motivated either by survival or a search for gain that's just for fun yeah and i mean he stands nothing to gain by killing her he also he's not going out of his way to kill her she probably would die if he kept going um but as you say he's just doing that for the for the hell of it and it's it's horrible i i still don't quite know how i feel about that being intercut with total eclipse of the heart which is so funny and that is a scene that again like i said literally had me rolling in my chair i was like hooting and hollering basically on my own in the speaks any world at 9 p.m the other night um so it was a weird one where it's like oh this is like the most fun sequence maybe in any of these films and it's intercut with something that is really really brutal and dark and clearly they've done that on purpose um they i guess maybe they sort of balance each other out as a sweet and sour moment maybe they needed the intercutting of of bonnie tyler to give you little breaks and bits of respite from what is one of the most upsetting scenes in the film don't know if that was completely successful for me.

1:18:44Chris Hewitt:I think if they'd gone more brutal, Jesus, I think it would have killed the movie star. Yeah, when you said there was a version that was more brutal, I was like, oh God, really? I don't think you're coming back from that. And as it was, I think that's 100 % what the thinking must have been. It must have been, we've got to leaven this slightly, we've got to dilute it or whatever with something sillier and more light-hearted almost. And it is very funny, that sequence. It is very funny. It's a great, great sequence. There's a slightly similar one in They Will Kill You coming up. But I love people who do gonzo stuff with action, you know, fights like that.

1:19:24I really do. But it is like it's such a tonal shift. And I don't think it 100 % works because I think because we live in a world where it's all too credible that somebody would do that. And people do that every day. and it's, you know, there's no supernatural element. There's no kind of crazy, impossible element. He's not using an obscure weapon from, you know, 1300 BC that makes a funny noise when it hits somebody. Do you know what I mean? There's no part of that scene that isn't horrible and isn't credible. And so... Especially because you're expecting movie convention dictates

1:20:04Chris Hewitt:that Faith is going to fight back. Yeah. she's going to get up and find a way to she's going to grab something off the floor and stab him in the whatevers you know yeah and it's also and they talked about this a little bit the same thing with the scene where he kills Ursula it's male and female violence and that is something that you know you really have to consider I think the implications of that when you're portraying it on the big screen to that extent the level of brutality yeah I mean like I said overall I did have loads of fun with this film I came out feeling like giddy with how much fun I'd had overall but it has struck me in the time since watching it that all of the real like grounded violence in it is men really brutally beating or like killing or strangling women in a way that like you know a lot of bad things happen to men in these films but they're outlandish things like getting trapped in a giant washing machine or getting stabbed through the head with an ancient sword and so it there is I don't think it's intentional or if it is intentional maybe it's in the the point they're trying to make about the the real villain in this is is uh misogyny and brutalized uh violence in that um context but that it it does kind of end up treating its male characters and its female characters differently and it's a weird one because i think they clearly love these characters they love grace, they love faith, they want you rooting for them.

1:21:38Chris Hewitt:And those characters, to an extent, have to be put through their paces. But I think there is something, I wouldn't quibble with viewers if they were like, I felt uncomfortable with the fact that a lot of that very real-world violence was all aimed at the female characters in the film. It's really interesting because it is a darker film than the first movie, which is a blackly comedic horror. and it had a serious moment. Of course it did. It's incredibly, it's a great tension engine of a film. I think this one has less tension in it because we know that Grace is going to make it to the end. We knew in the first one as well, but there is still Manchester got a lot of tension, you know, when she's down the pit and she's got the nail and she's about to put her hand in a nail or she's in the kitchen with a butler and she's trying to escape from him.

1:22:23Chris Hewitt:Those are great moments of tension. That doesn't really exist in this movie. It's a different beast. it's a broader bigger beast they expand the world they expand the the playing board on which they are um but it's also intentionally a darker film as well and that brings us to the the climax because the climax is really interesting what did you guys make of the end you know where we think that grace has been beaten but we also know she's got something up her sleeve did you people who are usually much more clued up in films and further ahead of films than I am. Did you figure out what she was going to do and what did you make of when she did it and Titus got his comeuppance fire, as we called it in the interview, Chekhov's pen.

1:23:09Well, I didn't. I didn't see it coming at all, but you two are smarter than me, so I'm sure you did. No, I was sitting there going, she's got to get out of this somehow. With a single bound, she was free. I mean, it wasn't a million miles off that. If you could have stabbed him in the neck, why didn't you stab him in the neck like a few scenes ago. But maybe it was just waiting for the perfect moment of distraction. And then, of course, the opportunity to, in one fell swoop, which I did really appreciate, get rid of everybody else with the throwing of the ring in the pit. That was cool.

1:23:39Chris Hewitt:Because I was, my little gasp at that moment was when they both said, I do. And I was like, oh, they're actually married. They're actually married now. What the fuck's going to happen? But then, obviously, she did that so that she had the control to burn it all down. If she stabs him earlier, she's got no way out. Exactly. She needs that to happen in order to put a stop to the whole thing. So I thought it worked really neatly. I don't know if maybe the... Do I get a sense among people that the third act is not massively loved on this film? Because I really liked the wedding stuff. I liked that it came back to a wedding and a dark, satanic wedding as a way of bringing the whole thing to a close.

1:24:20Chris Hewitt:but also again deepening the mythology of like we're not going to over explain everything but in the bottom of this giant ass house we've got a big satanic big old temple ritual sacrifice place oh my god I felt so genuinely queasy because of the goat pits in this film like I watched so much horror stuff and I'm largely probably worryingly desensitized to so much gore but something about the goats and all the flies was really like gipping me it was horrible it was really horrible when they're all like jumping into the pit and like it must smell horrific it was like it was in smell-o-vision and that's not because that's no comment on Cineworld speak nice cinema generally nice people but yeah really I just liked that whole set up I was like oh this is great we're ending it on a wedding she's going out through a wedding but she's all dressed in black and satanic and I don't know I thought it was really neat I genuinely commend into that ending going I don't know what's her what's the card she's got up her sleeve what's the ace up her sleeve I don't it's very good yeah very very good at sort of not revealing that hand until the last minute I just I just would have more questions for the lawyer like a sort of we're done here or whatever it is that she very briefly says I would like to nail that guy's feet to the floor and go no seriously what are we looking at here do we need to worry about anything are the police going to be after us what's the situation who does the goat belong to where should I leave the goat is it okay on the golf course and also what's your fucking deal Mr.

1:25:56Chris Hewitt:Lawyer what's your name that was one of the John Wickiest elements of this that's like Elijah Wood is the lawyer he's not complicit in all of this because he doesn't pop so he has a role to play he understands it all exists but he's not in service to Mr. LeBail in that way he's not after the power he just somehow exists he's the only one who doesn't go for the ring he doesn't go for the ring he has no interest in the ring whatsoever I mean a bit of Frodo still in there he's not interested in the ring it never even fucking occurred to me I can't believe that it ended with him falling backwards and then the ring flies in the air and it happens to fall on his finger oh my god I can't carry that but I can carry you I can carry you into the fucking goat pit so my thing about the lawyer my reading on him is I've seen the film twice now at the end he gives her that little enigmatic smile.

1:26:49Chris Hewitt:And for me, that smile was of a man who's like, you know what? I've been working for this shit company for a hundred, maybe even 200 years. Yeah, lawyers typically live a really long time. Because of all the money. And he's like, thank you for freeing me from my earthly prison. Now I can go around and have fun. And they were like, no, no, no. He's up to his eyeballs. He's up to his eyeballs. A hundred percent. Chris, your faith in humanity has surprised me for the first time ever. Now, that guy is probably worse than any of them. He has not blinked a single eyelid at any amount of carnage that we've seen at any point.

1:27:29Because he's seen it all before.

1:27:29Chris Hewitt:He's inured to it. Yes. But he wants out, Helen. Because he's been... No, he doesn't. I can reach him. He's been at the center of it all. You can see. You can fix him. I can fix him. No, really, you can't. No, wow, okay. I felt a level of like, do you know what fair play to you Grace that was the sort of note of it it's a game recognised game kind of a nod if anything but like that guy is absolutely not looking for a way out he's very happy with the deal he has yeah also he's just everyone that plays that game is so stupid yeah everyone is so fucking dumb that enters into that game just like dumb rich people and then suddenly there's someone with an ounce of scrappiness and like smarts they all need him he's protected but no one's out to kill him it's like win, win, win.

1:28:19Yeah.

1:28:19Chris Hewitt:Yeah. Great character. How much money do you think he makes? How much does he pull down a year? I think he's like beyond money. Yeah. I think he's such an enigma. Again, that is why it feels like John Wick because like the concierge and the sommelier, like who are these guys? What lives do they lead? But I don't want to know at the same time. I don't want to know those inner lives. I like that they just exist as part of the mythology of all this. I feel like we haven't talked much about the grace and faith relationship, which to me is not only the heart of the film, one of the reasons why I enjoyed it so much, and is the thing in the absence of, oh, we're playing a different game this time, or oh, we're on a desert island instead of a big spooky house.

1:29:11Chris Hewitt:The sister dynamic is the Terminator 2 level up, he's the good guy this time thing of like samara weaving so great in these films so outstanding but pair her with katherine newton two scream queens together two scream queens the like radio silence verse coming together their whole dynamic um both in the comedy and the the kind of bickering but also in the emotional stakes of like it is about these two sisters trying to work out their relationship in the midst of all this going on was it all completely worked for me it was one of the reasons why i enjoyed the film as much as i did i also really like that it gave um grace a really really good reason to go through it all because she very understandably and consistently is like fuck all y 'all i'm i have want no part of this i'm out nobody told me this was in the rules no I will not participate and you needed some kind of leverage to make her do it frankly and I like that the film had enough self-knowledge to know that that character was not going to go in it just like just threaten her with death alright fine like what at this point do your best you know that's not going to be enough you have to threaten her with something else and the only way to do that is to give her someone she cares about absolutely Beth what did you make of that central sibling relationship at last Ant-Man's daughter is together with the Red Skull's niece wait what is that is that canon?

1:30:50Chris Hewitt:no you made that up she's Hugo Weaving's niece in real life is she? is she? no way I love that I had no idea obviously she's Australian she's not Kiwi yeah she's Australian Toronto like your mate in Toronto for all. Lovely bit of Tim Hortons, mate. She is so good in this film, but sometimes when she's angry, she does go Australian. No, she doesn't. No, she doesn't. There's definitely some full-blown Australians. Catherine Newton as well is Castiel's daughter as well in Supernatural, I'm just saying. Okay. Just important that you understand that. Is Castiel in like a Mr. LeBail sort of situation?

1:31:29No, quite the opposite. He's an angel, although technically she's the daughter of his vessel and the angel then just occupied her dad.

1:31:37Chris Hewitt:Oh, I knew somebody thought that happened to. Yeah. So Grace and Faith were not originally part of the sequel. They weren't originally in the script. It was something that Matt and Tyler pitched after they worked with Catherine and Abigail. And I think we cover this in the magazine. After they worked with her, they were like, she's got to work with Samara. And actually straight off the back of Abigail went and wrote a pilot about the two of them and so all of that is you can see all of that working in this relationship you can see two directors who have worked with them both who who bring out something really interesting in them both i think their collaborations with both of those actors is really really interesting and really well suited and so you can see that those this new part has kind of been brought in from a place of love and care and understanding of that actor and having previously worked with Samara on Ready or Not and knowing and understanding her and they're both little weirdos, you know.

1:32:35They're both so good at action and horror but have that weird edge to them which also just makes them so unique and so intensely watchable and it just works. They just zip off each other. I really like the dynamic where they're thrown back together in the hospital. Really good choice, I think, as well, picking straight up off the back of the first film And I really loved where she's being brought back to life with the zappers. I don't know the medical term.

1:33:03Chris Hewitt:That's the medical term, yeah. With the zappers. Hit her with the zappers, boys. Hit her with the down zappers. And every time she zaps, you see flashes back to the first room. Defibrillators. Thank you. Zappers, Helen. Sorry, sorry. I'm not trained in medicine, okay? Don't just call them the Franks. These are specifically, you can get defibrillators that do give you flashbacks when they're used on you. Oh. I don't think they've got them in the NHS yet. They're the Dewey Cox's, aren't they? They just have a flashback for your whole life. If she were in Star Wars, she'd be in a flashback to Tank, but they don't have that, so they have to have the Franks, Sappers.

1:33:38I think it was a really smart way of integrating the past story into the current. And then, yeah, so when Faith comes in and Grace is like, oh my God, all this stuff happened to me. She doesn't say, I don't believe you. She says, you're definitely going to prison. And I think that was such a nice touch, right?

1:33:57Chris Hewitt:And to have the Kevin Durant stuff, also, like, just instantly my new favorite. Like, hey, that guy's here. Proxima Caesar is here. Everything is great. I mean, his introduction... Did you recognize him? Not shown, like, snorting me. That's your reference? Yeah, it's Proxima Caesar. He goes a bit Proxima Caesar when he's, like, stalking them around the hospital. He's going a bit, like, animalistic. He's kind of going... Who is Proxima Caesar? From Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes. He's the bad ape in the recent... Not Bad Ape, because Bad Ape's on War of the Planet. Sorry, I'm getting confused.

1:34:29Chris Hewitt:Someone sat there and quickly. Not the flashback ones, we don't have time. Obviously, he was in Abigail, he's great in Abigail. So again, Radio Silence verse, it's all happening. His character introduction, not snorting a line of coke, but like a mini mountain of coke, and being like, let's fucking go, was really fun. And to use that as a narrative device, so we don't have to go ages of faith going, oh I don't believe you oh you're crazy blah blah blah no like they're both in the hospital let's have somebody pop all over them and so then we've instantly not in that way we've instantly got a level playing field of like everybody knows what's happening we don't have to do a long labored torch thing of like oh no you are crazy we can just fucking get on with it I really appreciate that it also dealt with one of your perennial concerns Chris which is so many lone survivors of horror movies would instantly be suspect for everything that's happened.

1:35:25Oh, they'd go to prison for a long time. So many of them would be in prison, especially all of these supernatural horror movies, not with Sam and Dean, the other kind of supernatural, would be straight to prison for you.

1:35:36Chris Hewitt:Yes, do not pass. Jail, jail. Go directly to jail. Also, the straight to hospital thing, I thought that tracking shot, again, like picking up literally with Grace at the end of the film, sitting on the steps, and then she passes out, but you keep on her with that tracking shot into the ambulance, all the way to the hospital, was really clean. Again, I'd seen some criticisms of this saying the setup for the story is really janky. And I thought it was so smooth. I thought it was really cleverly well done to continue the story in the way that they do. Janky in what way? I don't know. It was Mike Munser on the evolution of horror.

1:36:12Chris Hewitt:Mike? The first act is like a total mess and it doesn't make any sense. Let's get him in here. But it's stupid and doesn't make sense. And I was like, I thought... If he says his name three times in the mirror, he'll appear. Or is that Beetlejuice? Five times. five times I think it's Bloody Mary with the mirror I think that's Bloody Mary alright so that opening shot I thought that they had recreated the last shot of the first movie but they don't there's a stitch so that is archive footage from the first film because I was like when I interviewed him for the regular pod I was like guys well done recreate that shot and we didn't but there's there's obviously a moment where a blend into the shot of Samara on the steps and then that yes sort of Scorsese mean streets where the camera is tethered to her sequence I thought was really really great yeah some really really nice bits of visual invention just very very quickly going back to Grace and Faith did you think that Faith was somewhat sidelined towards the end of the movie it's one of the things I would have liked to see about the movie and I realise it's Grace's story ultimately and that Grace is the one who should give Titus his comeuppance and she should be the one to pull ace out of her bloodied wedding gown.

1:37:23Chris Hewitt:I get that. But Faith is relegated to interested bystander by that point. She kicks him into the pit, right? Faith is the one who kicks him into the pit. If I'm remembering rightly. So Grace stabs him in the neck, dangles him over the pit. But I think it was Faith who kicked him in? I got the impression they almost did that together as a sort of reassertion of power over him. I felt exactly the same way I thought there was going to be some kind of and maybe this is too trite that there would have been some communication through whatever sisterly bond they have that would have established something that then pays off in those last moments I thought there would be a bit more trust is the wrong word collaboration maybe between them in that last fight I kind of agree with that Faith x Grace it's a collab The new empire I think I saw this the same week as Project Hail Mary so it was a really great week for characters called Grace I'm going to say but I appreciate the faith and grace thing I like that they kept the theme also if you've got a Buffy then you're going to need a faith exactly five by five yeah you gotta have faith ooh you gotta have faith you gotta have faith the faith the faith I'm going to answer that really nice shot of them walking off as you said yeah I liked your summation Ben cigarette and bubble gum I think the first one is a bit more like all cigarette, less bubblegum.

1:38:53Chris Hewitt:I think this one, sensibility-wise, has a bit more bubblegum. But again, wouldn't it be, I don't know, strategically wise to go into the giant hotel, find some, I don't know, unbloodied clothes, and perhaps a shower before going into the rest of the world? Nah, get the fuck out of there. There might be more Satanists around. Just leave. Just leave. I mean, it's not like they're going fast. Do you know what I mean? If there's still Satanists around, they're still in trouble. They're also very identifiable as things stand. Might be less identifiable in clothes not entirely soaked in blood. No one's after them now apart from the police and the feds and the government.

1:39:34Chris Hewitt:And that's it. Right. The Satanists are like, okay, we're done. You're cool. Mr. LeBail is like, yeah, you're fine. Your slate is clean. Off you go. So I don't think they've got anything to worry about apart from being arrested and going to prison for the rest of their lives. I'm just happy the goat's okay. Yeah, just for that goat. Yes, yeah. Three goats, isn't it, really? Yeah. That's not the disparaging, I mean, they're the greatest of all time. Greatest of all time. Oh, dear God. Abigail and Lisa Frankenstein and Freaky. And it was Quantumania? I mean, yeah. Not really. It's a fun movie. It's fine.

1:40:11Chris Hewitt:It's not terrible. Blockers. Oh, my God, Blockers. The Blockers cast. the young blockers cast I'm just proud of them I'm so proud of them who else is in blockers? Geraldine Wernathan Geraldine Wernathan from Toronto also Bloody Aussie from Toronto from Bloody Toronto mate and we always have to do this Ben we have to look at the third one oh shame on you shame on you she's really good she's so good man Gideon Alden Adlin Pamela Adlin's daughter and Odessa Azion Azion's sister sister Gideon Adlin that's the one that's that's exciting that's exciting well done well done them two of them made it to the MCU which is of course what every actor aspires to so let's wrap this bad boy up Beth what did you was there a sequence that you really liked was there a sequence that you thought was very funny was there a character that we haven't talked about that stood out for you um god I should have been more prepared for this I did like I obviously love the toilet clips of the heart.

1:41:19What was something else that really made me laugh? Oh my God, come back to me because I had one and it's gone.

1:41:24Chris Hewitt:Well, it was kind of like the spine of my interview with Matt and Tyler was high cunt by cunt. And we haven't really talked about that. And, you know, I like to see that word being used in this correct context by Americans because they've butchered twat. Oh yeah, they can't say that at all. What is twat? Leave twat alone. but you know hands off usually hands off cunt but in this case you handled oh no so many poorly jokes

1:41:54but that was

1:41:56Chris Hewitt:a really fun scene but the relationship as well that Francesca the idea that she's her she's the ex fiance of insert character name here for really or not well I think we all remember his name very well there's no need to Alex okay Mr. LaBelle I've got it I've got one. I love when Grace and Ursula are fighting. I love to see Ursula in combat mode. She stakes her at one point. And as Buffy purists, there was just something so thrilling about seeing Sarah Michelle get her back in action. So she does a Buffy-style staking, does she? Yeah, she does. More in the shoulder. Oh, yes. But they literally do the shot from the ground up of her raising the peg.

1:42:41I didn't get that. It's not Mr. Pointy, but you can pretend it. You can pretend it. And a bit of fun colour from speaking with Samara. They both had loads of poutine that day, and so their breath smelled of poutine while they were, like, resting with each other.

1:42:56Chris Hewitt:Poutine? What's poutine? Oh, are you joking? From Toronto. From bloody Toronto, mate. From bloody Toronto, mate. Just like cheese chips and gravy, but kind of like curds instead of the cheese. I've been to Toronto several times, mate, and I've never seen it or heard of it. Oh, you have genuinely missed out. but that's a big Canadian dish. It's a big Canadian dish. And they've had loads of it on the day they were fighting. Just blowing poutine into each other's faces. Oh my God, that sounds horrific. We all have to go to Toronto right now. Just to eat poutine. I'm just saying. I'm still living in such a like Buffy cancellation funk.

1:43:31Chris Hewitt:Oh, okay. It's really not okay. Mine just had Sarah Michelle Gellar's feeling. I know, man. I'd seen some people say that they were slightly disappointed with Sarah Michelle Gellar's role in this. I think that's maybe people being disappointed by how she goes out, which I can see people feeling that way because it is, again, in service of the brother character. It's, you know, setting him up as the ultimate evil and horrible, violent misogynist and all of these things. It's sad to see that character go out that way. But I had sort of inferred from people saying, like, oh, she deserved better in the film, that she wasn't going to be in it much, that she was going to get killed off really quickly, which, again, shout out to David Cronenberg.

1:44:10Chris Hewitt:I was like, hey, there he is. Oh, there he was. Oh, they got him because he was there for two hours. But the Sarah Michelle Gellar thing, she's so good. She's so good and she gets bits of really good exposition. She gets to kind of set a lot of this up, but she also gets some action stuff and she gets the Buffy shots. And it was so good to see her on screen. It's the same way they used her in Scream 2, right? It's the same thing where, you know, you expect certain things of Sarah Michelle Gellar because she's Buffy. And ultimately, if you don't get that in any other role, and there's no reason you should in every other role because she's not a slayer in those roles, then it works better.

1:44:53She does slay in many different senses. But I thought that worked better for her that, you know, just to kind of, again, subvert your expectation a little bit. and also in that moment where she's killed off like yes she she is a villain she's established as part of this thing but you clearly see that she has her limit she has her limit and there's

1:45:13Chris Hewitt:a sense of like oh she's kind of on grace's side now because she hates her brother so much so like yes still a baddie but like a little element of redemption which again works with the fact that then she is killed off because it's like oh you're not so bad after all and and we as the audience want to like you because you are Buffy Summers so we're already kind of going to be a bit on your side and so as horrible as it is it works again just to like set up him as the big big bad yeah anything else Hells Bells favourite bit I very much enjoyed the quote unquote accidental stabbing that led to that family blowing up that was fun killing a Batman well yes yes and I also I can't condone that.

1:45:59No, well, I know, but at the same time, it was pretty well done.

1:46:03Chris Hewitt:Batman win. Never not funny. Never not funny. And I also enjoyed Rocket Launchers. Rocket Launchers is great. Rocket Launchers, yes. Firing the wrong way was an incredible gag. Yes. Incredible. I enjoyed Grace tooling up as well, getting the shotgun, and she dispatches Francesca really summarily, just boom, boom. Summarally. Summarally. Very good, sorry. I thought of another three words, washing machine death. Yes, yes. I was going to say, we need to talk about the washing machine, because that was really, really, really funny, until they let him out, and he was so melty and gooey. And I was like, this is disgusting, and I'm loving it.

1:46:41My big issue with that scene was that they didn't go back and pick up his machete. I was so annoyed about that. I'm like, you don't have this many weapons at this point. Pick up the machete that he just dropped around the corner. It's a big knife. It will help you. this is obviously my enormous skill in gaming I guess coming into play

1:47:02Chris Hewitt:you like to loot is that no I have no idea that's a good point yeah a shorter movie and then they used the machete to butch everyone that was one of my favorite moments I had to watch Machine Fight it was tremendous and I've seen some blank faces every time I said Batman well in case for people who don't know including two of the people in this room yes there was a really obscure one season show yeah about 25 years ago Nesta Carbonell, he first came to my attention. He's brilliant. And he starred as Batman Well, who was a Hispanic Batman in the live action, the first live action adaptation of The Tick, which ran for nine episodes back in, I think, 2001.

1:47:44Chris Hewitt:I star Patrick Warburton in possibly the best casting of all time as The Tick. I have this on DVD. I will lend it to you. It is region one. You will laugh your ass off. It is brilliant. See, to me, it's just Richard Alpert from Lost, although you almost don't recognize him because he doesn't have his guyliner on, which is the most defining factor of that character. Not the, was it Attorney General or the Mayor? He's the Mayor of Gotham in Dark Knight and Dark Knight Rises as well. See, that's what I thought you were talking about. He's Batman well, and he was in Batman. Yeah, I thought it was a joke that was like 12 Liz Dane by now about Batman.

1:48:19Chris Hewitt:He's also... It would be a bit racist if we were like, oh there's a Hispanic man he must be Batman well I thought he'd maybe fallen in a well or he played Batman like well at some point yeah I can say it's probably just one of their decades old that's taken on a new life form so that's the back story to that can I offer one last moment of course you can the big pop from the pits because all the pops were funny the big pop from the pits and then when you realise that everybody leaping into the pit it was also going to pop. And, you know, you get a little warm-up, you get an initial like, but then you get a big of blood from it.

1:49:00Chris Hewitt:Yes. And bits flying out, bits out of the pit. Oh, just keep popping people. It's really fun. And it was a shame not to, not to spoil Abigail, but there's possibly a moment in Abigail where somebody also goes pop. Yeah. And that was the moment in the screening where somebody legitimately threw up. Oh my God. these guys have exploded a lot of people I can't wait to see what they do with the mummy but no Rachel Weisz Evie why unless if it's Maria Bello Evie no shade maybe first scene they just pop Maria Bello Rachel Weisz walks into plays and they just continue about their business I don't want to pop Maria Bello I like Maria Bello a lot I've interviewed her she was lovely but she had no business getting between those two people.

1:49:54None.

1:49:54Chris Hewitt:We mean no business getting between those people. It was Rachel Weisz's choice. I know. She popped, if anything, she pre-popped when she chose not to star in the Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. She chose not, at least so. It's so bad. Yes, it was a bad film and we just don't recognize it and also they were asking her to play the mother of a 21-year-old, which, no. No, no. Hard pass. Well, all this talk of the fact that they're doing The Mummy next brings me on to very, very quickly, the fact that this hasn't done well at the box office. So it opened in the States at the weekend to$9 million. That ain't good, folks.

1:50:29Chris Hewitt:I think Abigail made more. I need to double check that, but I'm pretty sure Abigail made more. What happened? Because this was a sequel that people seem to be anticipating. The movie, the first movie over the last six or seven years ago, now it's in Disney Plus, more accessible. It seemed to be really getting some traction. So what happened? I think the first one still a bit of a cult favorite. I don't think it necessarily broke out in that way. It has been seven years. It's been seven years. That's quite a long time. And honestly, I know they're really different films with quite different audiences, but Project Hail Mary is everywhere.

1:51:04Chris Hewitt:And I know they brought this out to kind of avoid the They Will Kill You clash to very seemingly similar films. but I think going toe-to-toe with Project Hail Mary which is just hoovering up screens and hoovering up all the conversation was just not a great move sadly I get that it seemed like counter-programming like a sort of hipper, edgier, horror-ier that's a word alternative to Project Hail Mary but it's just been a juggernaut it isn't even a juggernaut in terms of box office but so few people are going to the cinema these days that if anybody was going this weekend, all their friends were telling them, go see Project Hail Mary.

1:51:47Do you know what I mean? So I just think it wasn't as cool timing as I think they hoped for. And I actually think, as it turns out, the audiences are not that different. Because it's cool, it's hip, it's funny, it's unexpected, it's charming. All the things that these films are too. Apart from the bloody and gory and deathy.

1:52:08Chris Hewitt:Okay. I think I get it. Beth? All I'll say is it's just really fucking hard to get people to go to the movies now and I think it has been such a curse I don't know what those studios were thinking with Ready or Not 2 and They Will Kill You coming out initially that same weekend so you can tell why they've brought it forward to try and avoid it it just, I don't know it's just a baffling situation I hope it goes, listen, Ready or Not was a massive word of mouth hit, hopefully this will grow to be that as well, maybe people will be going to see it in a couple of years and quoting every single word of it like they were with the first film.

1:52:42Maybe they'll be getting tattoos of Faith. Like they're getting tattoos of Samara Weavings. So, yeah. Hopefully it just grows with time with the right horror fan base.

1:52:55Chris Hewitt:Maybe they just couldn't find the screen which would be ironic. Maybe they just closed their eyes counted to ten and said, here I come, ready or not and they just couldn't find the screen. I think that's what happened. That's fine. Right. You think that the cinemas of the world are hiding from them. and they're just not good at seeking them out. Yeah. Okay. That's a great theory, Chris. Thanks. Have you written it down? I've absolutely written it down on my invisible typewriter. Fantastic. Well, on that note, I think that is it for longer than expected, but a very fun spoiler special for Ready or Not.

1:53:27Chris Hewitt:Here I come. Thanks to Ziver for subscribing and more spoiler specials coming your way. Don't ask me what. They're going to be good. They're going to be good. Goodbye and thank you to Beth Webb. Goodbye. She was in the pocket of this movie, but she hid it well. A real shill. A real shill for small indie horror films. How many pockets does a wedding dress usually have? Actually, mine had pockets. Did yours have pockets? Oh, yeah. What did you keep in there? Taffy? My hands, but I don't know. All right. Goodbye from Ben Traffist. Did your wedding dress have pockets, Ben? My wedding dress? you had suit pockets I had a suit with many pockets as most suits tend to do you think you are Joseph is amazing technicoloured dream coat get out goodbye Helen toodaloo goodbye and it's goodbye from me I'm off to find a lawyer I can save him I can reach him I can fix him I know it I can't carry him but I can carry him anyway thanks for listening see you next time bye bye

1:54:36Thank you.