Curry Barker

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0:43Bundling. Just another way to save with the personal price plan. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability, amount of discounts and savings, and eligibility vary by state. I knew I wanted to make something that was kind of iconic. I know I wanted the one which Willow to be iconic and and but I didn't know if it would work or not. And apparently it is. And you can only hope. And I think that this movie has moments, too. Yes. Like that that get you to say, you got it. I'll go watch this movie again if you come with me and I want to watch your.

1:22Prepare your ears, humans. Happy, sad, confused begins. Now.

1:56that episode it was a hugely important one for me and i'm so thrilled people seem to be digging it um and this one is kind of a fun flip side so the steven spielberg thing steven spielberg directing for the last 50 plus years dominating hollywood and now we have the next wave curry barker um obsession is the film it came out about a month ago and if you follow this stuff like i do and many of you probably do you know that obsession has not only been well-reviewed, people love it. This is kind of just a great, well-told, funny, smart, dark horror film. But it's also attracting this amazing audience that keeps going, keeps going back and brings in new people.

2:38The box office rose, I believe, in the first three weeks, which never happens, literally never happens. It just keeps going and going and going. And And it's a real shot in the arm to the industry and honestly pretty inspiring when we keep talking about like IP and like, oh, God, another superhero movie. And yes, I love superhero movies. You guys know that. But like to see something original, succeed, build an audience, build a young audience, prove that there are new ideas, even if it is kind of like a classically told one, is really exciting. So I'm thrilled Curry Barker joined me on the show today.

3:19He's got a bright future and this is a spoiler chat. I will say that so best to have watched obsession Don't what are you bothering with see obsession? You probably have but just make sure you see it before this conversation Okay before we get to curry quick reminders a couple events coming up very very soon In New York City, if you're hearing this hopefully in time June 16th That is Matt Smith 92nd Street Y tickets are still available I think just a few but it's gonna be great talking house of the dragon and much more and then And in about another week, we got Millie Bobby Brown coming out for Millie Bobby Brown.

3:54She's coming out for herself. But no, for Enola Holmes 3. And of course, we're going to dig into the end of Stranger Things and much more. Very excited to have her on the podcast for the very first time. Of course, all of those announcements and early access can be found on our Patreon. Patreon.com slash Happy Sad Confused. Bonus materials, early access, merch, auditive posters, all sorts of cool, fun stuff. Support us over there. It helps us make more over here. Okay, enough preamble. My only regret on this one is I couldn't catch up with Curry in person. It didn't quite line up, even though he was ironically in New York.

4:27But we did it virtually, and it was a great chat. And I just really was like, I don't know, just enthused talking to him because he's smart, he's funny, and he's got a good head on his shoulders, and he's clearly got the goods. So enjoy this conversation. Like I said, best to have seen Obsession. because what are we doing here, guys? This is a spoiler chat. Enjoy this conversation with the next big thing. It's Curry Barker. Very exciting. This is the man of the hour. We have Curry Barker on Happy, Say, Confused. Curry, it's great to meet you. Sorry it's not in person, but welcome to the podcast, man.

5:02Thanks for having me. Yeah, I'm excited to be here. Sorry it's not in person. Next time, next time. We're building the relationship from the ground up. Scale of one to 10, how crazy surreal is life at the moment for you? I mean I think it's a 10 I think it's as I don't I think it's a 10 I really don't um and this is like a sad thing to think about but I think I don't think this this is a once in a lifetime thing for for really for anybody but definitely you know once in a lifetime thing for a filmmaker's journey I think um you uh I can only ever strive to be to have this opportunity again and to have you know so it's it's um it's going to be me chasing this feeling for the rest of my life Well, let's not start from a negative place.

5:47Let's enjoy it. So what was the best case scenario in your mind for how this was all going to play out in terms of reception, commercial, critical, what it did for your career compared to where we are today? Best case scenario, and I'm not even kidding. I was thinking watching the cut of this film and the state of it. I was thinking probably, you know, we're going to get on Shudder and we're going to we're going to hopefully people will like it on Shudder and maybe it'll grow some sort of audience on Shudder that. That would that would have been best case scenario in my head. Yeah. Yeah. And like for most filmmakers, it's often like, do I get to make another one?

6:31Is it enough that I get another chance, maybe a little more money or not? But do I get to do it on my own terms again? Right, right. That's that's kind of you're 100 percent right on that. And I am I was in a scenario where where I had just written my next script with Cooper and it was called Anything But Ghost. And it was something that we were really passionate about. And Jason Blum came along and this was before this was before Tiff. we're at toronto right yeah yeah and he said um hey i'll do your movie um i'll do i'll do a budget and and we were like what amazing okay we'll we'll we'll do it and so uh yeah i mean it was um you're right it was that mindset of like oh my gosh i just hope i get to do another film and and being and so i was excited when when that opportunity came around well it's it's i get why they put their money on you after seeing the film and before it kind of it sold and had everything that happened because it's undeniable.

7:31That's why we're sitting where we are today. It just, it just works movies, you know, like, like Tom Hanks, like famously said, like movies are like ones or zeros, the other work or they don't work. This movie just works. So congratulations to put it mildly on what you accomplished here. Um, we're going to rehash some of the stuff I know you've talked about ad nauseum, forgive me, but like the story behind this is, is pretty remarkable. I mean, to give a little context to folks, you make this film, word is it's about 750K, certainly under a million bucks. It goes to Toronto. You have this amazing screening there.

8:04Focus picks it up for 14, 15 million bucks. And that's really just the beginning of the story because, you know, I live and breathe this stuff. I'm looking at box office and seeing how people are receiving it. But as you know, by now, this story is insane. Like it opened great, amazing, but it built, it's been building and it is still at or near the top while with all due respect to star wars and other things others are coming and going um what are you i guess i'm telling asking like six different versions of the same question but like what do you make of how this movie is being received and why it has the stickiness it does obviously you were proud of it but what's your what's your gut telling you about why it's sticking like it is um i'm not i can't i can't really put my finger on i think i think it's got it's got a uh a catchy like like a song that has a catchiness to it and you want to keep playing that song in the car i think there's something catchy about this movie uh it's got a catchy premise um it's kind of relatable it's about it kind of it's got that that thing where you could dress up for Halloween as it it's almost these new care these new characters that people are excited about you know we've seen Freddy Krueger and Michael Myers and all these things and and but but what happens when there's a new new character and and I think Nikki Freaky Nikki is is kind of that new character and people are kind of sticking to that and uh the one wish willow is is kind of a sticky sellable item that people are really excited people are getting tattoos of it so i knew what i was doing like i knew i wanted to do that yeah but i didn't know it was gonna work you know what i mean um i knew i wanted to make something that was kind of iconic uh i know i wanted the one wish willow to be iconic and and uh but i didn't know if it would work or not and it apparently it is and um you can only hope and i think that this movie has moments too yes like that that get you to say you got it i'll go watch this movie again if you come with me and i want to see you experience that exactly yeah yeah which is all my favorite movies do that like i'm a big movie goer and i take my friends if i love a movie i'll go watch it again to go take them to see it as well so um no i think you're you're capturing you're hitting all the right points like what are what are let's let's start with this like what are the moments in the film there are a bunch but what are the ones you enjoy seeing an audience lose their um obviously major spoilers here we're now in spoiler territory everybody's seen it yeah got it yeah um i would say the you know the the the first moment i love to see is when she when she comes back to the car and and i'm like oh you know i always look out for that and then the second time is when she freaks out in the bed and she falls off the bed like that's the that's the second time and then the third time um i'm always looking forward to is uh the dinner scene which is kind of all over the internet so i feel like but but at first it wasn't so i was always looking forward to that moment yeah and then the next scene is the the there's so many i guess but the bedroom scene is super creepy i can't i can't leave the theater like sometimes i've i've been like i'm just gonna sneak in and like watch a few minutes and leave but then then i'm like well i might as well wait for the bedroom scene and see how people react to that yeah what's what's been your favorite like reaction specific kind of reaction someone saying something to the screen or the way someone's reacted in the theater i mean i saw this just the other day like a tuesday afternoon and people were talking to the screen that's the power of this movie it's it's bizarre my favorite is i think um is like it's it's it's one thing to get people to react to horror but to me my most proud reaction is when you react to bear i i like i saw this big reaction when when bear just can't get the courage to ask her to tell him how he feel tell her how he feels and she's like she's like that's it like tell me do you have feelings for me and he's like i think we're good friends and sometimes i hear a verbal no or like the audience going like dude what the hell and like that is way cooler to me that like in the first 20 minutes of this movie i was able to get like a verbal thing out of the audience of like that's that's that's so hard to do that as a writer that is that is hard because yeah you have to be an emotional connection that's not trading on a jump scare or anything it's just like connecting with a moment yeah exactly we'll be right back with more happy sad confused

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15:40You talked a little bit about wanting to create iconography, as it were, the new Freddy Krueger, the new, you know, like the creating a war that people can graft onto. I mean, I think one of the interesting things that you did is, you know, this is a very grounded film. And partially, I would imagine part of that is a creative choice. Part of it's maybe out of necessity. You had a budget, you can't, you know, have major special effects. but were you very purposeful in kind of not over explaining the magic the lore behind it was that a was that something on your mind yeah and that's something that i want to carry with me i mean as the money gets bigger and the budgets get bigger um just because you can doesn't mean you should right and just because you have enough money for that huge big car explosion now doesn't mean you should do that huge big car explosion because if it's if like i want to i I worry.

16:32I mean, I'm just going to kind of hold myself to it. I worry about as the budgets get bigger. I mean, of course, there's things that money gets me that I can. Oh, my gosh, I could do this. I could do that. But I also think that there's a lot of positive in not being not showing the face or not showing the characters or sometimes that that that the low budget filmmaking is getting creative and figuring out ways to be. an effective storyteller without using big fancy things. And that's been so helpful for me. So I just almost want to like hold onto that and like carry that with me. So you just need to kind of keep repeating that in interviews like this so that we have so many hours of tape of you saying that so you can hold yourself accountable and we can throw it in your face when you're like, you know, this one's all CGI.

17:23Yeah. Um, you know, I mean, Halloween this year is going to be special for you you know nikki's gonna be a major halloween character are you ready for that yeah i'm i'm so excited maybe like this is not confirmed at all nobody's told me this okay but like it would be cool if i don't know where you do you live in la i'm new york actually oh okay so but in la um halloween horror nights it's like a huge thing of course and it's universal and i'm like bro maybe maybe freaky nikki should have a booth at halloween horror nights are you are you a halloween horror night enthusiast do you do that i go every year yeah i go yeah what's your favorite one they've done connections oh that's anything um what they do last year that i really liked uh i mean um oh the terrifier one last year was pretty gnarly yeah yeah so now you're also in this moment as people are kind of catching up and i was late to the party i'll admit it i was late to the party that i caught up um that the broader world is is experiencing it and and filmmakers are experiencing it that steven spielberg is saying i've seen obsession and i loved it yeah did you have a heads up on that or was that just something you saw on your feed where like you see i saw it like i just saw it on my feed and was like whoa yeah yeah has he reached out yet have you reached out have you sent flowers like what's the what's the protocol when steven spielberg says you've made a great movie um the protocol is everyone and you're everyone in your family reaching out and being holy shit and um your team being like holy shit but but also just uh like no i haven't i haven't reached out he hasn't reached out um i would love to reach out um but yeah i mean i'm i'm excited to see disclosure day and I'm such a huge fan of Steven Spielberg and he's really inspirational to me.

19:31And others have reached out too. Yeah, like filmmakers, actors, you must be hearing from folks, right? Yeah, I mean, I know Paul Thomas Anderson said a lot to focus about it. Dude. Yeah. Yeah, dude, I mean, it's endless. I mean, Ari Aster, me and Ari Aster have been like texting a lot. like we're friends it feels like we're friends now it's it was just so cool zach crager i went to dinner with him and fede alvarez uh the other night and um we were just shooting the shit and talking and um feels like i'm part of this like community of directors now which is which i didn't even know existed really like i didn't know but they all kind of hang out welcome to the club you heard a spielberg talking about he like paints like figurines at guillermo del toro's house on the weekends maybe you can get in on that group yeah yeah yeah what about that i mean you know as well as i do people are also you know grouping this film with back rooms and like that that phenomenon behind that one do you know kane at all i mean you guys have a much different kind of aesthetics and approaches but you are of a similar age group etc yeah i i don't know and Personally, we met very, very, very briefly at the Back Room's premiere where that handshaking photo was taken.

20:51And no one knew that photo was being taken. But we very briefly said hi. And we haven't talked since. And we both follow each other on Instagram. And we haven't – I want to reach out to him, I think, very soon. because I think we're both kind of like going through something very similar. And it would be nice to confide in someone in this moment and be like, dude, we're kind of both going through this together. Like, how are you feeling? You know, let's talk. But yeah, it's not – yeah, we just haven't yet. And I think he's still on his press tour and I'm still on mine. And I'm also – we're both busy.

21:31And so – Yeah. I assume you were a fan of that film as well. You were at the premiere, so you saw it, obviously. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So so in terms of like, does it feel like night and day of like how you were being perceived in the industry? Like if I talk to you a year ago and you were accomplished, look, like online and on YouTube, like millions and millions of views and, you know, certainly had accomplished a lot. But I'm wondering if that was transferring into like rooms, you know, studio meetings or agent meetings and that kind of a thing. Does it feel like things have shifted?

22:04no I mean I've had I've had I've been I've been like secretly taking some pretty I've been in like the the um traditional space secretly for like I would say two years of like taking uh meetings I I was I was even when I was developing Obsession I was developing another movie with another company kind of and like I was taking all the generals meeting with all the companies uh i mean i've just kind of been like one foot in for a while and even when obsession was finished people knew knew who i was like like people knew what i was trying to do um was that was mostly off of the chair success i would imagine like yeah yeah the chair really brought a lot and then milk and cereal brought a lot like after the chair um i i started shooting obsession but then milk and came out while i was shooting obsession i think people yeah like milk and cereal put me in the public eye for for the for the industry i know like the mainstream was thinking of me as a youtuber for sure but the industry has been thinking about me i think for a minute you know yeah um what do you what what do you think like the lessons the good lessons are to be learned of you know you you know obsession and back rooms success like they're they're they're gonna be some bad takeaways from this and they're hopefully they're we're gonna take the good takeaways what do you think the good and the bad is to be learned from these two successes you think i think people um the lesson is that gen z will show up to an original film maybe that's that's all that needs to be said like that that we will show up to a film and i think i don't think it's about um ip necessarily it's a or it's not even about you know what it's not even about being original or not being original it's about um i think we're all really hungry for good stories yeah and we're kind of um i can only speak for myself but just like a little like tired of like rush like films that feel rushed or like yeah overly produced and stuff like we want good stories um with good characters and like even even good filmmaking we miss i miss steven spielberg i miss like um like getting obsessed with the way they shot it i mean you know yeah you know that's that's the most inspiring thing that i came away from watching your movie honestly is i watched it and i was like this is a filmmaker this is and he's kind of a classic filmmaker.

24:47This isn't like, this is, these are classic techniques he's using. He's just doing it very well. He's a patient filmmaker. He's confident. He knows the shots. There's a real, there's a real surprising and exciting confidence for you being a young guy, if I could say that, for this feature. I know you have a lot of hours under your belt, but there's something still different if a, you know, a long form like this. So, I mean, it would seem to me from the outside looking and i'm not an expert on you i'll cop to that but like you clearly grew up with the classics like you've you you're you're you know obviously you're an internet youtube generation but like you also know and love you know the spielbergs the john carpenters the shamalans like all of those i would imagine yeah definitely i mean my a lot of my inspiration um is can be contemporary as well but i i just tend to really love um you know directors that um are filmmakers filmmakers um like ari aster or or um and and you know these these there are the they're the rare films that feel so uh filmmaker driven that i am drawn to but but also yeah growing up watching um indiana jones or or jaws and and uh and being like oh man like that monologue is so good and like and we don't cut and we're just it's raw performance and uh yeah i think people really i i hope that people still really because it's you don't want this art form to die i mean i don't you know and and yeah no it's no pressure it's all on you now but this is a good sign i mean it's fun so like to name drop i i literally just had spielberg on the podcast which as you can imagine was like blew my mind.

26:36Wow. Totally. Right. And, and we talked, actually funny you're saying this, like we talked about one-ers actually like continuous shots and his actually aren't, they're not those famous like the palm of 15 minute ones. They're really kind of like contained. They're about kind of the perspective and block exactly about blocking. And again, I'm not going to say you're Steven Spielberg, but like you're blocking, like you, there's a real, like, like how much of of what i see an obsession is on the script page like you're writing it you're editing it you're shooting it my sense is like you know pretty much exactly what you want it to be right yeah start i mean i'm i'm editing it in my head when i'm writing it so i'm thinking about i'm thinking about i'm an editor right and i think that's helpful because i'm thinking and then we're going to cut to this and then we're going to cut to that and you know it's like at the end of the day the movie's already kind of made and don't, by the way things change a lot of things change I'm not saying I have it all figured out but I'm very planned out about what I want and actually in Ghost we wanted to push that further there's some coverage-y scenes in Ghost but we wanted to focus I really wanted to do blocking and like have the care maybe the cameras still but the characters become the blocking or the blocking becomes the coverage like what starts as a wide shot has the the actor turn now it's an over the shoulder then that person walks closer now it's a close up but the camera hasn't cut but it feels like it's cut because because you know it's such dynamic blocking right and that that is kind of the spielberg thing so you alluded to a little bit of influence i'd like to dig in a little bit more give me a sense like whether it's films that you've seen more than any other film i don't know if games have influenced you stuff you grew up on youtube like can you give me a little bit of a give me the menu that that's that created curry barker that i talked to today um yeah let me think uh like what are the poster what were the posters up in your wall that 15 what's uh in heavy rotation on tv or film yeah i think um yeah what put i well i had dude i had so many i was a huge harry potter fan yeah so i had harry potter posters on the wall um and then i was a big kingsman like i really liked the kingsman movie growing up that was a big one for me um posters i mean i was a big horror guy i really liked horror um i watched a lot of horror movies um music dude i was one of those kids that would like my spotify was filled with soundtracks for movies like score yeah yeah like i would listen to i mean i would listen to hans zimmer yeah i would listen to james horner john williams yeah literally all of them and um if i if i saw spider-man or whatever and i i liked the score that was probably my life for the next two months was me just like listening to that score um it was kind of you know music is really important to me yeah um and yeah is there i mean again one of the exciting things i'm excited to talk to you at this juncture because like yes you have the other film in can and I'm excited to see that but they're also going to be new you know tools in the toolbox for you to play with and that's more budget yes but that's also like different kinds of actors and I know you all already worked with Aaron Paul and Bryce Dallas Howard who are two greats but like you know are is there a list or a people that you have in your head that you want to collaborate with right now whether it's actors musicians producers definitely definitely um Um, I mean, there's, there's people that I really look up to.

30:45Uh, I mean, kind of random, but, um, like Bill Hader is someone I've looked up to for so long. Well, that tracks. I mean, like the comedy, a filmmaker, he's doing a horror movie now, I think. I think he's, right. Yeah. And, and, um, Nathan Fielder. Great. I don't know what it is. I'm just like, I love that guy. Like I just, and I mean, obviously I want to work with, there's so many, so many actors that I'm excited to work with. I almost don't want to like go down the list of like who I do. But like, I'm inspired by the works of those two. And, you know, Tim Robinson is very interesting, funny guy.

31:40His show, The Chair Company, is insane. Yeah. Have you seen it? Yeah, of course. Yeah. Oh, it's so dope, dude. And so like just out of this world weird and. Right. Yeah. Right. Tim Robinson, I mean, Nathan Fielder, same way. Kind of it's like cilantro for people. They either love it or it's like they can't. It just doesn't work for them. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know? Well, I love it. It's right up my alley and it's... Same. Yeah. More Happy Say Confused coming up.

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32:58Bundling, just another way to save with the personal price plan. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability, amount of discounts and savings, and eligibility vary by state.

33:16So can we tease a little bit more about anything but Ghost? Because this is going to be an interesting companion piece from what I gather to Obsession. I mean, it kind of reflects a little bit of a different side of you that's already kind of out there for, again, folks that have seen your shorts. but yeah is this heavily comedic you're obviously starring in it with cooper uh but you also do bring in some you know big time hollywood movie stars so what's what can we expect from this one it's um it's different than obsession and i think like there's a lot of anxiety about it's always something i never felt and i was just you know excited about to do something different and new um but when you see this amount of success on a film you you can't help but get some sort of like you start comparing it and start asking if if it's got the same beats that work in this does it work in and so but it's not the same movie it's it's um and good like i'm glad it's not uh but it it leans more com uh comedic than obsession i'm not saying it's a full-on comedy because it's it's not but it leans full way more into the comedy because um because of the premise yeah it just it's uh by by nature it just is a funnier movie because it's it's start it's two guys that are ghost hunter con artists and they're not they're they're they're fuckers you know like they they um they mess with people and and uh so so by nature it's a funnier movie and my character is like kind of um selfish and he doesn't realize how selfish the things that he says are sometimes like someone has to kind of be like dude you realize how like selfish you sound right now and it was fun to play that character and cooper um is kind of like the more grounded um like but you can feel cooper's character kind of like pulling away from the from the job you know he doesn't want to do it anymore i don't want to spoil anything but but yeah i mean it's good i think i think it's funny like i i totally get you start to second guess yourself you're like i just had this huge success and now it's like of course everybody wants the same thing over again they want obsession to tomorrow but i think in the long run it's gonna be really great for you to kind of show everybody the world like i have a couple different tools in my tool chest and yes they're cut from the same cloth but they're i you know i can do different things yeah yeah i hope so and i hope I hope.

35:47And I mean, it's it's got some shocks. It's definitely it's but I don't want to say anything else, but it's still it's still. Yeah. Speaking of things you can't talk about, I know like you I don't even know if you've written one word of Texas Chainsaw Massacre yet. Have you written one word yet? No. Besides the title? No, nothing. No. Can you just tell me like the process of getting that? Like, did you go in with a pitch? Like, did you go into A24 and say this is my take on it or what happened? No, no, I just, I just, um, I wanted to do it. I had, I had expressed some sort of, uh, um, like desire to do it.

36:25And, uh, my team called me and said, they want to give it to you. And I was like, what? That simple. Yeah. That simple. Um, I, I, I have a take on it and I'm really, here's the thing. I wouldn't be doing it if I didn't have a really cool take on it. And if I didn't think I could do something different, I mean, I don't want to say different because it's not. It's still going to be about people on a road trip. But I'm just going to like lean into things in a way that's way more raw and fucked up than not in the original. The original already does that. But I guess I'm going to lean into the original is what I'm going to do.

37:07you know and um you're not going to go into that that that trope that sadly i think hollywood did too much was just like to explain the villain and like he's okay like he was just a damaged kid it's okay like yeah he was just misunderstood yeah i mean if he is misunderstood fine but that's not what the movies should be about right that's not interesting yeah yeah yeah i mean he probably is misunderstood but like he's also killing people so but we can't really kind of mutt that much socks are yeah yeah so are you gonna play leatherface as cooper is indy who gets to play leatherface indy's gonna play leatherface i mean right why not let's backtrack to the film because we have we didn't dig in enough i feel like on some scenes and performances we mentioned indy i mean there are a couple pride products of this film indy is a star like indy is an absolute mega watt star i can't imagine what's going to come to her now um so you cast her you you had confidence but like are there a few sequences moments in the film that stand out to you where she took your breath away where she elevated the material yeah i mean um i definitely remember the the scene in the in the uh the scene that has just gone viral because it was a clip that we posted of her at the the um restaurant i was sitting in a booth um watching it on the monitor it was probably like her second take and it's the one in the movie but it was i was i specifically remember looking at the monitor and i said action and she just she said no and she held it for this and i'm thinking i'm like hold it hold it hold it like and then she says no and i'm like oh my god this is good this is good please please like let's let's make this like because sometimes it's like half the takes good we're like the back half of the take is good but it was a take and i was like come on hold it hold it like follow through with me follow through with me and then she like no no and she got up and i was like oh my gosh and it was like wow that was great but you know what i mean there was no denying it like it was just great an iconic moment is born amazing what's the what there's a lot of fucked up stuff in this movie what's most fucked up to you what do you take the most pride in like what what's like you know people getting their faces bashed into a steering wheel dead eating dead cats like i love it all but what's like give me your ranking what's what do you find the most fucked up i mean i first of all i think it's it's so super fucked up that she like tricks bear into getting rid of the body with her but then takes it home and like to use it against him like and and undresses her places her in the kitchen and uses it as a manipulation tactic.

39:58And that, I mean, like to make him go through, she knew what she was doing. Like to make him go through the heartbreakingness of getting rid of a dead body, but then not even doing that and like being like, just kidding, I'm actually going to keep it and use it against you. That's pretty underrated fucked up. Like I don't heard anyone talking about that. that speaks to the other fucked upness in the film that that got kind of like yeah we'll forget that one but you're right now that you say it yes well i'm trying yeah and and obviously i'm purposely trying to think of things that people haven't i haven't heard people talk about right but like um another one is like that um i had another one like well i mean i'll say one that people obviously talk about i mean the whole the moment when you hear her inside still we hear her saying kill me in that yeah that that is a collective moment in the audience where you're like it's just a gasp like oh my oh my gosh she's still there she knows what's happening totally totally and that's that's i mean it's so fucked up and it and also like the fact that she was just standing there while he was at work for how long is a shift eight hours um plus the car ride home and at nine hours um she was just standing there that's a long time for a human being to stand um like there's things that you don't even really really think about what she had to do and what she was doing you know right where it seems like you have a thing about head trauma i don't want to put you on the couch but there's like i've seen i saw i was watching the chair this obviously what's like what do you think about is that something that's a lingering fear of like blunt force trauma to the head maybe so yeah i i think so um i can't even deny that accusation it's true i have i i feel like it's a common it's kind of common um and even just horror in general but yeah it's kind of common for me specifically so yeah the the creation of that that car sequence of sarah's death is that i know that was kind of the ratings board issue right that's the one part you had to trim down a little bit to get the R.

42:21Is that true? Yeah. Yeah. So again, like what I think you really accomplished very well in this is like you build to that. Like there are some horrific imagery and, and escalate, but it's an escalation. You don't go full on gore until that, that is that, that's like, that's calculated too. I would imagine in the screenwriting, like we're going to, we'll get there. And then when we get there, we're going to go all the way. Yeah. And that's kind of, I think that proves to, I think what that should prove is that horror movies don't need a ton of deaths. They just need effective deaths. Like you can watch a slasher where each character gets killed off one by one.

43:05And, and I actually, and it can be effective. Like, I'm not going to bash that. That's literally what Texas Chainsaw is. So, um, but like you, but it has to be, you have to be like emotionally invested in the characters and you have to like care about them dying. And so. Yeah. By that time we've invested in Sarah too. Like we were like, we, that's why, yes, it's horrific, but it's horrific also because we care about her. Yeah. And we and we care like even if we we've even if we've accepted that bear is a bad guy at this point in the movie. You still care about his journey because you've just been your care.

43:42Maybe isn't even the right word. It's just you're invested. Right. I heard you say how like the entire film except for like one thing is is is in his perspective like you are with him. You're so that's the power of film as you well know. Right. Like you, whether they're kind of like sketchy or not, if you ride with them, you're with them. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Same thing with like Joker. Like you don't write. It's not that you care. You care about him. You've just invested in this guy. And you're like, you care about, you want to see him succeed because you're invested, not because you care about his well-being, really.

44:21I don't know. Right. No, that makes sense. So we alluded to this earlier. we talked a little bit about the lore but like did you like have you taken the time to kind of like write down a mini bible about like the one wish willow and the rules of this universe or are you doing that now does it matter still especially as people want to make more in this in this universe um i haven't really i i haven't like i mean i do have some rules i think in my notes somewhere that are like but they're so simple it's like um you know you make a wish the only way to break it to die um there's no takesy backsies you know um uh there's i think there's a certain amount of rules on the back of the box i think one of them is like you can't wish for someone to come back to life which i might retcon that i don't know like i'm not gonna it's so little on the box i might just be like that never happened don't look don't read the box um i don't know i made too many rules almost like that i'm like but i wasn't thinking i was just like what could i fill the back of this box with that's kind of interesting and right so where are you at like i know you're still riding this out and you've got the next film but like there must be conversations and people urging you to say like we need to do more with this so are how protective are you of the ip now and what and what and what what do you want to what do you want to do with it i i want to do a sequel and then I want to do a show there's a lot to do be done and and here's the thing if there wasn't anything to be done I would be the number one guy advocating to never make a feed never make a sequel and I think I can understand that for like certain films where it's like look this was the story and there's nothing left to be said I have a lot of respect for that when when filmmakers come forward and be like, look, I know there's a lot of money in it, but we're not doing a sequel because X, Y, and Z.

46:18This just happens to be a premise where there's a lot more to be done. Because it's not really a sequel. It's just a new guy or girl with a one wish willow. And what did she wish for? And how did that mess up her life? And there's so many stories to be told. Right. Right. But not not. And your predilection is not to do anything with the the surviving characters, as it were. It's more to just the premise that can be applied to other situations. Yeah, I have zero interest. And I mean, honestly, you could you could you could make it take place in the same world. Like you could make you could maybe have like Easter eggs that like they they went to.