Teenage Sex And Death At Camp Miasma Spoiler Special (ft. Jane Schoenbrun)

0:15Welcome to another Empire Spoiler Podcast and this one is devoted to teenage sex and death. at camp miasma. That's a really important bit to add. We do not approve of teenage sex and death, as I said, on the main show. This is, of course, the new film from director Jane Schoenbrunn and stars Hannah Einbinder and Gillian Anderson, and it's fantastic. So we thought we were getting a booth to talk about it. I'm your host, Helen O 'Hara. Welcome. And today I'm joined by two of Empire's finest young indie talents. First up, we have a woman who I firmly believe would be the toast of Sundance if and when she makes her film debut there.

0:53It's Beth Webb. How are you doing? Yeah, we can call me Little Beth for this week. Little Beth. Oh, how did I miss that? That's incredible. Absolutely. And also joining us, we have the reclusive star of Empire's social media. Yeah, social media. Harry Stainer, how are you doing? I'm very good, thank you. So let's lay out our stalls. What did you think of this film? What are your opinions? Beth, let's start with you. okay I mean I'm I was biased from the from the get-go um as soon as I heard rumblings about what this film was I was on board I've been in the Jane Schoenbrunn camp of love is yeah yeah say that love and fun the antithesis of sex and death um since um their debut which is um we're all going to the world's fair they've accumulated a small but die-hard fan base i think um and so i've i've been a big fan for ages so yeah i couldn't have been more excited for this film and i think um it delivers on the promise of what they've achieved with their past movies which is like a real deep cut kind of appreciation of art and movies and music and what they can do to somebody they have this ability to save people's lives even but then with this one they've come back and it's a little goofy man, it's a little goofball you know and fun and there's food and blood and counting crows and just this incredible cacophony of all the things that they love and movie stars as well this time, not to take away from the previous cast but we've obviously got some well-known names here.

2:41Hannah Einbinder, obviously. This is her big movie role after Hacks. If you've not seen Hacks, I implore you to go and see Hacks. And Gillian Anderson too. So it's working on a bigger scale, bigger themes, lighter, darker, wonderful. All right. A lot to get unpack in there, but we'll come back to it. Harry, how about you? So similar to Beth, kind of been in the bag for Jane since World's Fair. I think TV Glow was the one where I was like, I mean, that film devastated devastated me and I think going into this film I was kind of almost like expecting that same devastation and so imagine my surprise to come up being like what a lovely film about like killing and horror films but it's it's a really sweet film at its core and I think that's what surprised me so much about this one that I missed all the like amazing stuff that's referencing slasher films I came out being like this is just like a really lovely story of someone finding someone who kind of allows them to explore a side of themselves that they haven't before so I came out just kind of like flat out loving it um saw it twice and second time you pick up on how just like Beth said like how goofy it is and how much fun it's having and how much fun it's poking I know we're going to talk about it but there is a sequence uh edited to Counting Crows that I was just like the first time I watched it I was like my head was exploding I was like what what am I seeing but it's also just like such a there's still that through line of sadness in there parts of it but it's nice to see a film from Jane that's so kind of celebratory and like joyous and he come out feeling good this time which I really liked yeah yeah I agree because I appreciated I saw the TV glow more than I loved it you know I didn't I didn't have that kind of emotional response to it maybe that you did Harry but I thought it was beautifully made and and I love Justice Smith I think he's just incredible incredible actor absolutely one of my favorites but this one i went in expecting a little bit the same expecting to be respectfully admiring of it you know it's like oh it's wonderfully made wonderfully made and instead i just had an absolute blast it's so entertaining um and i think that is you know not to take away from the fact that there are big themes and there are big ideas huge ideas in this film but it is also just such a giggle along the way um really really impressed by that okay so let's get into it now uh this is a spoiler podcast and harry you spoke to jane uh what couple of weeks ago a couple of weeks ago okay and uh and they did a spoiler section to that interview you've heard some of the interview i think already on the main podcast but here is the spoiler section so please enjoy jane schoenbrunn tv glow kind of shows the idea of like repressing something it's like this like kind of horrific thing and this is such like a tender film about like finally meeting someone who can like allows you to open up and explore those like desires within you um and i was just thinking about your career and especially those two films i'm like it's such like a rally cry against like this idea of repression and i love that and i was like why was it so important to follow up tv go which to me ends on such like a shocking note

5:48Jane Schoenbrun:with something that is so celebratory here yeah i i i think it's it's a hard thing to like like i don't think of it necessarily in the terms of like like like creating a narrative of myself in in quite this way because it's it like has to be more honest than that you know um it's like, I'm not, I'm like going through the maze as I make the work. Um, and so a lot of it is just like, it, it just comes from like an honest place of, of like being in conversation with my insides and how I am like processing things, um, and experiencing things and like where I'm at in my life. But yeah, I, I, I mean, I think one thing I was aware of, like, basically once I realized I was trans was that like, if I was going to be making work through early transition, that work was going to form some kind of a, yeah, like a body of, of, of, of, yeah, like a, like a kind of like a cinematic transition timeline in some way, You know, and that we don't have a lot of examples of that.

7:11Jane Schoenbrun:You know, that is not a thing that like we've been able to have in cinema. And I do think there is something moving about that, right? About like offering up one's own development as everyone does, right? Like we watch filmmakers develop from their younger years to their older years all the time. But getting to watch a filmmaker do that from within transition, I think, is uniquely moving and something that I understood I was doing while I did it. And I guess the other thing I would say is that the end of TV Glow needed to be what it is. It really did it like, I don't view it as a hopeless ending.

7:53Jane Schoenbrun:I don't view it as a sad ending or a bad ending. I just knew that like what that film was trying to talk about, which was like half a life of hiding from oneself and feeling ashamed of oneself and apologizing for oneself doesn't heal in a scene. You know, it's not like, oh, I just recognized and saw this thing and now I'm empowered. You go right back to apologizing, even if there's maybe something like deep in your eye that's seeing something that it can't unsee. um it would have felt so wrong and untrue to like take owen to a space of like liberation in in in the runtime of tv glow um and then i remember like having finished that film and you know that film like really is like ripping oneself open uh you know he he like cuts himself open and and pours, you know, like look, looks inside his, his, his body.

9:00Jane Schoenbrun:That's how making the film felt. It was really like a, like, let me just like throw my heart out onto the screen. My insides too. Yeah. It, it, it was a lot. And, and I, and I kind of knew like the next film needs to be some kind of an exhale or some kind of like um yeah like like it needs to be in conversation with that ending and i do think like the last scene of tv glow and the first scene of of miasma absolutely are in conversation in that i was like we need to people are gonna have an expectation of what i do and we need to just see like a giant fucking geyser of blood in this first scene to like draw a line in the sand and say like yeah things have changed it's a hell of an opening and um i also wanted to speak about the ending of this one because i i thought it was going to end on the shot of them in the bed together because i was like the fantasy is like fulfilled at this point and then it ends on those two kind of just being like goofy girls in the convenience store together and i just kind of love that ending why was it important for you to show that kind of like part of the ending of them two just kind of happy and getting snacks together well then they do the um the dialogue that we've seen early in the movie right that's like how these movies always end which is like with the girl covered in blood like uh kind of ominously port portending that um he's still down at the bottom of the lake and and he'll be back and there's going to be a sequel like this, this, um, yeah, basically like I'm still a little horny, you know, it scratched an itch momentarily, but, uh, it's a great moment for both the characters.

10:49I think it's such like a nice note to end the film on. Um, I also wanted to quickly talk to you about, there is a, the first time I saw this, the glorious little death rampage, um, that kind of starts as quite joyous. And then towards the end, you make a choice and we see jack haven's face through the through the mask and it's almost kind of sad at what he's doing and i just wanted to pick your brains about like why what was what was it behind the decision of showing that because it changed the scene for me completely i was like this is so fun we've got counting crows on and then seeing jack's face i was like i feel so sad for you that you're doing this um yeah yeah um no to me that that's my favorite moment in the whole

11:36Jane Schoenbrun:movie i think um and it's what makes it all work like if it was just this like joyful goofy like carnage celebration it would be cool but like um no that there needed to be like a richness of emotion in that scene that was a little more complex than that for what i was trying to say yeah it's like maybe it's like the inverse of Owen at the end of TV Glow right it's like through the joy there is still exhaustion and that's what I see in those eyes is something really hard won yeah like literally on that day I remember saying to Jack like that's Maddie that we're seeing there it's like Maddie you know like after uh, after TV glow.

12:26Jane Schoenbrun:Um, you know, it's, it's, uh, it's something of like, and, and the song says this too, right. It's like, it's been a long December, um, but maybe next year will be better. Uh, there's something of like, like a hard one optimism, um, there that like the hard one needs to be part of the conversation. Um, and I just love, you know, he goes, uh, and it's one more night in Hollywood and Jack just sighs. It's yeah, it's really, it really, it flipped the whole scene for me. Cause I was like, this is so fun and you've got the blood flowing out the head and it's such like a kind of a stylish scene. And then I, I found myself like really touched.

13:09I don't know if it was the counting crows song as well. I'd never heard that counting crows. Was that always the choice for that counting crows?

13:16Jane Schoenbrun:So it was actually originally going to be night swimming by REM. So you had that at the beginning, the cover instead it got it got bumped to the beginning uh and then i was listening to i've i did know that song and i've i've loved the count and crows my whole life basically my my cousin was actually their roadie um back in the 90s uh so i like went to see them when i was like 11 or 12 and i they were like my most listened to band for a couple of years in middle school um i just loved it uh yeah i love that song and when i realized that that song could work in that scene instead it was like a brain worm it was like oh maybe it actually does have to be this um yeah something about the the the references to hollywood kind of tipped it over the edge for me because this is also very much a film that's trying to express something of the exhaustion of being a trans freak making working in hollywood is that um that sequence how because it almost looks like one shot when you've put it together i know it like swaps perspectives how did you shoot that with a lot of work like it wasn't easy no it's like the magic trick is working really really really hard with a lot of other people like we spent hundreds of hours on that scene alone and even in the script it says like now it is time for the most ambitious part of the movie.

14:41Jane Schoenbrun:Just this huge interdepartmental lift. Like I do think you can do anything in cinema. And I have a team that like, we're, we've been, we, we, we're so in lockstep with one another that like, we, we know how to do really crazy things. And then it, and it's everyone's favorite part is doing the thing that seems impossible through the magic of film language. Yeah. There are like plenty of hidden cuts. you're, you're weaving in and out of all of these different perspectives. It's like a mix of practical effects and VFX and stunt and costumes and, you know, blocking. And it, it, it was by far the most ambitious thing that any of us had ever done.

15:26Jane Schoenbrun:And it took a year also in the edit for it to like, stop looking like like a, you know, like a mood board for itself or like a rough draft and actually like flow seamlessly. And then we finally got there and it's like, Oh my God. Yeah. I, I'm very proud of it for all of the, yeah. Like to take something, I mean, it's kind of what filmmaking is, right. You like take something that's like emotionally sound in theory, and then you work for a year or more to get it to a place where it like actually exists and it just requires this like perseverance and dedication and technical uh resilience to get there was it always important for you to because when the final act is playing out a part of you thinks oh this might go the way of a traditional slasher and we see little death get defeated and obviously that doesn't play into the final fantasy but why was it important for you for little death to go back to the lake at the end because that's so purposeful in showing us the little death going back i mean i think it's that same he's like a workman you know he's working hard he's busy he's busy and he's like kind of holding his spear like um you know like a like like like a businessman would hold his briefcase he's like oh another day in the office back here we go again back to the flesh cave back to the hole at the bottom of the lake um because he he always comes back you know and again we've got decades and decades of slashers to tell us that like and thus something really changes in this world like mike myers is going to be popping back up long after we're all gone like he uh you know he's got another day at the office slashing and you know like being the the signifier of all of our like psychosexual fears and desires.

17:24Jane Schoenbrun:Like, uh, you know, that's, that's, that's, that's the role he's playing for all of us right now. Um, and for the foreseeable future and, uh, yeah, I don't know the exhaustion of that. Uh, I think it's, again, it's like a capitalism thing. Maybe for me, it's me being like, aren't we all getting a little tired of remaking these same fucking things over and over again isn't there a better isn't isn't there a way to like have a little more magic in all of our lives than like uh you know the 18th halloween movie it's like it's addiction in some ways i was going to ask you about that in terms of because so so frequently we see stuff being remade and with i think like camp miasma and which is obviously exploring like sexuality and it's like a queer film and i think obsession is exploring stuff around like uh curry barker's obsession sorry he's exploring stuff around like toxic relationships do you think like younger audiences are gravitating towards more kind of new and different types of horror than maybe kind of the the remakes we've come to know and in some ways love and in some ways are tired of yeah probably because the people who were like actually there when halloween came out are going to be dead pretty soon so it's like all you're gonna have is like the totem of it yeah, I don't know.

18:48Jane Schoenbrun:I think it's like history repeats itself and reboots itself and remakes itself endlessly through the generations. Yeah, and the film is very aware of this or interested in this, right? And of course, it's not just trying to talk about horror franchises in its discussion here. It's like using horror franchises to talk about the way that culture and violence and misogyny and sexuality are this like fluid generation to generation thing that is like both remade and frozen in place, depending on how we build our myths and cultures and interpersonal like dynamics. Like, yeah, the world to me feels like a bad remake of the 20th century and a remake that nobody actually likes.

19:47Jane Schoenbrun:It's like critic score and audience score are rapidly dropping because when we look at the actual world around us, I think we can tell that we're living in the past a bit as a society and a culture, especially in the Western world. and yeah, maybe it's time for something new. All right. Well, that was Jane Schoenbrunn. We should get into it. I do want to say, by the way, just in case you hear any small noises in the background, we have a fourth person in the room. We have an actual teenager in the room. Our workie Elizabeth is here. Say hello, Elizabeth. Hello. Hello. We promise not to have sex or kill her during the course of this, just to put your mind at ease.

20:29Have you seen this film? are we ruining it for you? I've not seen it. Oh no. We did say beforehand. We did say beforehand. Okay, but you have been warned. All right, well, let's get into it. Harry, let's talk about that opening sequence because it's amazing and it's stuck in my head like nothing else this year. I find the opening sequence of this film so like it just locks you in. You have an amazing like recreation of a slasher film, Kill, but then followed by that, you have this beautiful sequence which kind of tells you the whole history of the Miasma franchise. scored to a cover of Night Swimming which was originally the song that was going to be in the massacre sequence later on in the film interesting but it paints such a vivid picture and you can feel all the things the love for Slashers is just there straight away they're doing Friday the 13th and they go into Halloween and then you have stuff like riffs on Freddy vs.

21:24Jason Army of Darkness in there what else was there there's even there's one that's called like Little Death in Big China and you're like okay we can feel the John Carpenter riffs coming in here we can and then you've got things like the arcade machine and then like wasn't there a lunchbox there's a lunchbox I think I messaged Beth after seeing it I was like where can we get the Camp Miasma merch because they must sell this stuff but it locks you in I feel like within a kind of a two minute sequence you just understand everything about this franchise what it is they even do like the cat there's one that's just called camp miasma and it's like here's the like like mid-2000s reboot that's like dark and gritty um and yeah i just think you are so locked into the world of what camp miasma is within like three four minutes of this film and it's just like a masterstroke of like cool i'm in this world and if you're a fan of slashes you're just there already like i know this by the back of my hand and it does feel immediately like that also gives you at a precise location on sort of Hannah's career, on Chris's career.

22:28You know exactly who she is, where she's coming from, and what stage in her career she's at. Because this is something a lot of filmmakers go through, right? Yeah, absolutely. And I think it's really interesting about amidst all of the franchise law, it's also weaving in that commentary that we as journalists are so familiar with. Every headline from Collider or Vulture hot take, or, you know, oh, this franchise is dead, but actually we've got this new reading on it and it's actually cool again. Oh, but it is really problematic. But, you know, this is, you know, constantly kind of reframing these pieces of filmmaking, these franchises, this IP.

23:07And that's kind of woven into it as well. It's galaxy brain, right? It's just like walking around in Jane's brain and being so aware of the cultural reception of these things as well as the raw matter. It's just amazing. And the sense that it is kind of filmmaking on a more difficult level. So, you know, Chris in this film is, yes, she is a fan of the franchise. She is working to bring it back. That's all cool. But also she's trying to do so in a way that isn't exploitative and isn't sexist and is considerate of where we are as a people and is forward thinking and is enlightened in some way. And it's so much more to think about and more to kind of stress over than the original filmmakers who were just like, how can we get as many tits and as much blood in this as possible?

24:02I mean, to some degree, right? At that point, that was how you made your mark. That's how you made your money. Whereas she has, you know, maybe higher ambitions, but also like far, far greater pressures in order to try and do something that will be accepted by her peers in the way that that might have been accepted by the filmmakers' peers at the time, you know? Yeah, yeah. And it's funny that it's like woke, right? They trundle out woke so much in this, which is a word I personally loathe at this stage, but I think is very much a Hollywood buzzword still, and there's such a tongue-in-cheek treatment of the Hollywood execs.

24:37I absolutely love Sarah Sherman as Chris's agent, who is this kind of caricature of a Hollywood agent, and that's just a nice little aside for this that doesn't overshadow anything. Yeah. Their meetings are maybe the funniest things in the film. Was it the Hail Satan when they go into the squash club? I was like pissing myself. I was like, where did this come from? I feel like they've been in those meetings, haven't they? Oh, yeah. I mean, 100%. And I think it's worth mentioning as well, they've been very open about the fact that despite so i guess to talk about their body of work a little bit um they've got these massive fans like scorsese you really loved world's fair emma stone produced um i saw the tv glow they've got these big hollywood heavyweights backing them but so many passed on this film so a24 passed really the only studio that took this film was maybe so there is this extra layer i think to sitting through those exact films and things and i guess us knowing as well that so many people passed on this film and so it's an extra, yeah, a kind of extra layer of satire, I guess which is really interesting That's fascinating to me because this feels like a more commercial, question mark, concept, if anything I would say it's the most accessible film, it's like the most fun but going back to what you said, Helen, I think it's interesting also that people passed on this because I think it's doing the horror remake thing but it's also trying to reckon with the idea of like how do you remake something in 2026 or 2025 um because like jane has cited sleepaway camp which has like some quite controversial stuff around trans characters in at the end and it's like how do you remake a property

26:27Jane Schoenbrun:that has all this like kind of like stuff kind of tied to it and i think the film actually does quite a good job of trying to like reckon with that within it yeah i agree so yeah bizarre that they would sort of hesitate over this. Yeah, it was movie and Plan B were the companies to kind of come through, which is, yeah, crazy. But at least, I will say, I'm so glad that we are here and talking about this film. I'm so glad we were able to run a feature on it because, respectfully, I think they really fluffed the release of I Saw the TV Glow Over Here. I don't think studios really knew what to do with it.

27:01And we just, we didn't get a proper UK release. So I guess, yeah, it's annoying so many people pass, but I'm so glad we're here talking about this film and celebrating this film. Absolutely. So we've talked a little bit about the kind of love of film that goes through this, I mean, in terms of just the horror montage at the start, but it goes much deeper than that, doesn't it? So let's talk about the Billy character for a little bit because I feel like she's got a little bit of the Norma Desmond's going on there. She's very sort of old Hollywood coded rather than 70s starlet coded in a way that I think really works.

27:32And then you've even got the kind of filmmaking techniques, the split diopters and stuff like this. so funny so so funny but um you know what did you think about that sort of like deeper hollywood lore as well i love billy as a character because you the film sets her up at multiple points to almost be like norma desmond she has that evil like cackling laugh and you're almost like initially like you're going to the strange house in the cabin and there's this movie and you're almost a little bit suspicious of her and so the reveal that there's that really sweet scene when uh chris is leaving like she's like trying to leave she's like i won't stay anymore and billy's like no no like stay and is also saying like i don't want to know about your films i want to know about you so underneath all this like kind of initial like oh what's going on here should we be suspicious for she's like the most tender character in the film and even when she's talking about her experience of like we're working on the first miasma film and there's a tenderness to that experience and real openness to the experience that she goes to work on that and i feel like within like 50 minutes of the film, you're just in love with Gillian Anderson as that character because there's just a sweetness to her.

28:36And she manages to open up this side to Chris that is clearly in there, but she hasn't been able to tap into before. And I just thought, I find it weirdly very moving. I was so suspicious of her for longer than 15 minutes. Really? There's this scene where she's talking to, or appears to be talking to someone in the next room, right? And you're like, oh, someone's up here. Is she haunted? Is she possessed? I think there's also a jump scare where you see Little Death and Gillian Anderson's by the door and she does this evil witch cackle. And you're like, where did this come from? So yeah, I like how the film is playing with that trope though.

29:13Yeah, and it is playing and it is playful ultimately. And you look back and you're like, oh, okay, everything was fine. But there is that sense of like, is this a psychological game? Is she like leading Chris on and trying to completely destabilize her? is this going to be one of those sort of eldritch horror driving her mad kind of you know scenarios I genuinely I hadn't I had carefully not read any reviews before I went into this I went into it as blind as I could and and I really really didn't know for a really long time which way any of that was going to go and I thought that was incredibly effective filmmaking and didn't take away from the fact that she's so wickedly entertaining oh my god every line read every single line read is just as you say there's that tenderness I like to describe her character as kind of a sex doula as the film kind of unravels like guiding um Chris through this journey but until then while the mask is up a little bit and she's just so so wickedly funny um gorgeous seeing Gillian Anderson in this um role also I feel like such a natural extension of what we've seen in some of the like recent highlights of her career namely sex education her role in that as the sex therapist and sex education and then she actually released books about um pleasure and then to sort of step into this role and become a real nurturer who's had this um been on this real journey herself i think is just fascinating and there is that little meta nod of like she has her incredibly passionate fan base from the x-files who are not a million miles away let's be honest from slasher movie fans.

30:48So it kind of feels like that's all kind of playing into it as well. The fact that she serves fried chicken is also hilarious to me. Now, I don't know if that's meant to be a Killer Joe reference or something like that, which is what I always think of when I think of disturbing fried chicken in films. But just, there's something so incongruous about it. You just don't expect that woman to get a bucket of KFC. And then the way it's shot as well. It's so sexual and you're like, fried chicken looks really good. kudos to the sound designer as well because the crunch coming off that chicken is delightful ties into what you said of like i think we spoke about it after and you were like there are parts of this that are just like kind of stonery of like them two just like hanging out and i feel like the chicken scene around the table has that but when they're like smoking a joint and they're just being like goofy gals like chatting about stuff and i'm like this is just this is just really delightful to see these two performers just like bounce off each other so well and yeah like you said, have Billie kind of slowly open up Chris to this more sexual side of herself.

31:50Yeah. Yeah, because that is what it sort of turns out to be about, right? In terms of where the film goes, what the sort of denouement is, is really like getting her off. Which is, again, not what I expected this film to be about. Yeah. It's like the final shot of the film is literally Chris repeating the line from the film, and it's kind of like the repeating the line from Camp Miasma and it's kind of the gist of it is, I'm still a little horny. It's like, well, the note that this film ends on. I'm like, what a perfect note to end the film on. And it does obviously make sense. I mean, I thought the little death thing was a joke.

32:27So little death, putti more is French for orgasm, basically. And I thought that was just a ha-ha funny joke. I didn't realize that was the theme of the film. Well done. Well done to me. But yeah, I mean, how did that, did that surprise you the first time you saw it? Is that where you saw this going the whole time? No. I think we can comfortably say none of us saw this film going in the direction that any of us thought it was in the most delightful way. In the most delightful way. That nobody could. Much as I couldn't have guessed the end of I Saw the TV Glow. I think no one can quite pinpoint Jane Schombra's mind and I think we are all like the better for it because it's just such a joy to be so surprised by these things.

33:10I think as well it's like I think it shares something with TV Glow where I feel like TV Glow is about like, like hiding a part of yourself and not having a part. And that's the terror of if, if I don't show this side of myself, the horror that comes from that. This is like, what I wasn't expected from this. And I kind of mentioned this at the beginning was like, this is like a celebratory kind of look at when you do find someone who can allow you to kind of explore that side of yourself, like all the great things that can come from it. So I feel like it's speaking with TV Glow in a sense, but this is so much more of just like I think I came out just being like I wasn't expecting this to be like so enjoyable and so like celebratory as a film yeah and because it is different because it's not just or maybe it just sounds reductive but it's not about identity in the way that TB Glow was for example it's more about like this side of everyone's identity whatever whether you're cis or trans or anything else you are you're still figuring out sex you're still figuring out what pleasure looks like what intimacy looks like all of these things so it's about a different side a different struggle I guess to be a full person or to reach your relationship potential maybe in the world I don't know if that's the right way of putting it no I think that's well and I did a couple of interviews with Jane for this for the magazine and they said that they really fought to keep teenage in the title because because they're trans and this film is them kind of post-transition and being they said themselves they feel like a complete person now and they're now experiencing things that a lot of people would have experienced as a teenager so this is all about their kind of sexual journey and their awakening which has happened later in life because they've transitioned later in life and I think that's really joyful you know to start back to what is expected to go through adolescence and it can happen at any time you know it's never too late absolutely there's an interesting thing as well that the way we're not going to get too into discussing the mechanics of sex but the way that that Billy kind of unlocks Chris in this respect is through film right and that's an interesting extra wrinkle maybe to this, that this is the only way that Chris can sort of experience the world and understand the world.

35:36Some would say a lot of us in this job and this profession are maybe coming at the world the same way and sort of filtering our understanding of things through film. And I think it's something that helps a lot of people and it can be a really positive thing. You know, by watching a lot of films, you get to experience a lot of lives that you would never yourself actually get the chance to lead. He gets to experience different perspectives on life, different kind of heroes that you hopefully identify with, that kind of thing. But maybe there's a sense here that it can also be a little bit crippling that that has been sort of holding Chris back from full experience.

36:12Does that seem right? Yeah, I'd say so. I also would say it's like Chris mentions really early on talking about Camp Miasma. She's like, that film is literally like my sexual awakening. And the film harkens back to her watching it on the TV at the end of the film. and then you have um billy while they're watching the film talk about the experience and her kind of first sexual experience being during the filming of the original film and it's like that that film has kind of like tied these two women together but what the kind of like the sweet thing that comes out of that is that um chris has kind of had this side of herself that she's not explored and she kind of knows it's there and she's finally met someone who can kind of relate to that experience of having like that sexual awakening while making slash watching a horror film don't know where I was going with the rest of that there's definitely a parallel there you're right yeah I just thought that was like quite like the first time I watched it I didn't pick up on that at all and the second time I watched it I was like oh these two women have had this kind of like vastly different but the thing that's kind of tying their sexual awakening together is horror films and a very specific horror film so in that case the buckets of blood sort of exploding upwards from all the kills and we should really talk about little death yeah and the kills as well um it's it's more a visual representation of something that's going on maybe physically or emotionally what an incredible creation as well with the air vent and i'm anticipating a lot of halloween costumes of um of him um but yeah what a fascinating creation and the lore behind him as well um which is in itself kind of a story of transition it's jack haven who they were in um i saw the tv glow and it's about um how their character turns into little death and oh my god just to go through the layers of what happens with little death and how it relates to this film is just i'm almost like spacing out because it's so intense but just on a surface level aesthetically incredible and the kills as well i've um i actually did an interview for our issue just coming out with the guy who created the head amazing and um we were talking about some kind of prototypes past designs and apparently little death was gonna have a hook like a fisherman's hook but jane really wanted the spear so that um i love the spear love the spear because he can stab and he can lift it's the lift was the really fun bit um there so i i think that's um just just phenomenal you've never seen anything like it it's absolutely brilliant and the killing sequence it's so strangely romantic it's kind of like you're watching a killing spree but through someone else's perspective not really the victim not really sometimes little death but it feels almost like little death's like the hero of the situation rather than a stone cold killer it kind of goes from kind of a bit celebratory and a bit like this is like an awesome killing sequence and then there's the bit in the sequence where the middle of the air vent it like fades away and you see jack's eyes yeah and it it almost becomes like a little bit sad and chatting in the interview with jane they were saying like it's because like riffing on the idea of like horror sequels slasher sequels it's like another day in the office i've got to do this again and it's like they're so he's so used to doing this yeah little death of like coming up he's at the bottom of the lake and he's having to do it again yeah and so that part to them was like really important to have that in the scene because it is a celebratory sequence but it's also like we're bringing him we're bringing a little death back once again to do the big killing spree yeah oh boy oh boy yeah we gotta go do some murder oh oh i've also got to say kudos to eva victor is the kind of stoner comic relief um they were amazing in sorry baby and if you've not maybe go and see it but with like the mohawk and the bong just fantastic and like kind of the comic relief of those sequences there so so good yeah yeah it's a very good I mean I kind of think of it as being a film about two people but there is actually that great supporting cast because of those kind of recreations of the Cat Miasma films which are so fun also just bang on like if you've ever watched a slasher film you're like all these characters I've seen before and I think that in that slaughter sequence when they're like, I think Little Death decapitates Eva Victor's character and then Zach Cherry's character gets like gutted and you're just like, oh, this is fantastic.

40:45It's so violent. Wow. Wow. Cheering for Death. Can you tell I enjoyed this film? I did have worries about Little Death's just neck strength because, you know, for all its iconic nature and I totally agree, it looks amazing. The vent does not look light or comfortable to wear. and especially coming out of the water in that thing must be an absolute nightmare. Yeah, a testament to the effects team and all the practical effects. I'm sure you've seen on social media or people have seen on social media how they filmed the cinema scene with the, I forget the technical terms, but this sort of hand-painted layers.

41:26Just stunning. All of the kind of exterior scenes on that camera it's snowing are just so beautiful. So beautiful. It's a really effective use of just that one location as well, that you don't need to go crazy. You don't need to travel all around the world. You can be very, very grounded in one place and still give this kind of epic feel. Yeah. What about, I mean, look, let's just talk about some of James' criticisms of the film recently. So we talked about this yesterday, and he thought this film was, oh, Harry's rolling up his sleeves. He's rolling, and rightly so. I did friends of him earlier.

42:02you guys weren't here yesterday and I kind of want to give you right of reply and then he doesn't get any right of reply to you because that's the way it works but he was kind of saying look this is just made for letterboxd users this is kind of pretentious the phrase up its own arse may have been used and he just didn't get on board with this at all now I will agree that there is a very high percentage of film critics are Jane Schoenberg fans. I don't necessarily think that is a bad thing. Yeah. But definitely there is something about their work and something about their references that we as a species, apart from James, very much embrace.

42:45But, you know, do you see any of that? Or are you just like, no, James, you're wrong. Get a grip. Well, my short answer to that is I don't have Letterboxd and I loved it. I don't either. So there we go. Shit, I can't make that defense. but I was actually thinking about this because he's not the only member of the team who said this after seeing the film Alex Godfrey who then countered it later on partly because I got so cross with him by saying that actually he hadn't stopped thinking about this film after he watched it I will counter that by saying I think Jane Shombrin's films so often speak to people who at some stage or perhaps a large portion of their life has felt a stronger connection with the thing that they're watching rather than their own lives.

43:29Actually, I spoke to them for I Saw the TV Glow, and they spoke about how they were more moved and excited by the prom episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer than their own prom. And I think because of that and because of how they approach their work and art in their work, it inevitably speaks to people who have felt like that in their time. And I'm sure a lot of those people are on Letterboxd because of how they consume films, how they consume TV, how they respond to it. I mean, you alluded to it earlier, you know, the way that we sometimes make sense of things through movies and Letterboxd is now a massive platform that is an extension of that.

44:07So take that, James. Yeah. Yeah, you show them. I think, yeah, it's just if you've ever connected with a piece of film or an art or a sequence or a character more than something in reality, I think this work will speak to you. I just think as well it's doing kind of what it says on the tin. It is literally doing all the slasher stuff. It's not doing Scream. It's not pure satire. But it's riffing on the idea of people who love slasher films and have grown up with slasher films will see so much of that within this. I think it's just taking that and doing something completely new with it and kind of reckoning with the idea of when we're remaking these things, when we're remaking things that have some quite controversial ideas in them.