TEENAGE SEX AND DEATH AT CAMP MIASMA: The most Mark film evz? + Johnny Flynn

0:00Simon Mayo: Now, Mark, I don't know why all these trendy podcasters need to sell such tat in their online shops these days. You'd have thought the show would have been enough for them. I mean, look at this tea towel. Simon, I think that's our shop you're browsing, isn't it? Oh, so it is. Actually, those Kermode and Mayor director's chairs are very nice, and it's all incredibly slick and easy. That's probably what confused me. That's because it's powered by Shopify. Shopify is where you go to start your business. Everything you need to start selling is included and ready from day one, which means our top production team can concentrate on, well, whatever it is that they do.

0:34While Shopify does all the hard work, because Shopify handles the setup and checkout, you have more time to focus on growing your business and the tools to do it.

0:41Simon Mayo: And Shopify checkout helps more customers finish their purchase. Then when they come back, their details are already saved. One tap and they're done. Simple. With Shopify, nothing stands between your idea and a real business. So go make it one. Start your free trial at shopify.co.uk slash take. Start your free trial at shopify.co.uk slash take. From the walls of Troy to the Tower of London, from Himeji in Japan to the Maginot Line in the Second World War, we've built fortifications for millennia. I'm Dan Jones, and in my latest book, Castles, I trace 3 ,000 years of human history looking at these captivating buildings.

1:22It's an epic story of defiance, endurance and imagination. Castles, the latest book from me, Dan Jones. Available as an e-book, audio book and in hardback at all good bookshops.

1:35Simon Mayo: Before we begin, a quick reminder that you can become a Vanguard Easter and get an extra episode every Thursday. Including bonus reviews. Extra viewing suggestions. Viewing recommendations at home and in cinemas. Plus your film and non-film questions answered as best we can in questions You can get all that extra stuff via Apple Podcasts or head to extratakes.com for non-fruit-related devices. There's never been a better time to become a Vanguard Easter. Free offer now available wherever you get your podcasts. And if you're already a Vanguard Easter, we salute you.

2:23Simon Mayo: so there i was on holiday reading the exorcist and uh it was amazing so i and i and i i took a photograph and i'm not really uh very good on uh instagram i know you've been doing it for hundreds of years i'm just getting you know i'm just getting the hang of it and of all the things i did the photograph of me reading the exorcist has been seen by more people than anything else I'm trying to promote my blooming paperback black tag edition but that was seen by a few people but me reading The Exorcist looking scared was very, was much loved Well the other thing that happened was after you put that on my phone I always had to turn it off just bing bing bing bing bing bing Have you seen Simon Mayer's reading The Exorcist?

3:07Bing bing bing bing bing I'm going no he's not he's not, it's a joke just came in the thing he's not, it's just a prop it's just a thing bing bing bing bing bing Simon Mayer's reading The Exorcist

3:15Simon Mayo: Well I mean I was I read the first page and then I thought I'm going to keep this for you because it's a brand new edition. Well, thank you. It's a very good first page, incidentally. Don't you think? It's yours. Okay. What are we reviewing today then? Well, I'm really glad you asked me that, Simon. We are going to be reviewing Coyote vs Acme, which is a film we almost didn't see because the distributors tried to shelve it and write it off as a tax loss. We will be reviewing Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma. and that's one film i thought there was a we were doing a movie called teenage sex and death and also a movie called death at camp miasma i thought it was there's two movies there it's a double bill yeah it is so teenage sex and death at camp either miasma or miasma i have to say they do say it both ways uh in the film itself and we'll be reviewing and sons that's the name of the film and sons with our very special guest.

4:11Simon Mayo: And the and is an ampersand and, as opposed to just and. Yes, Johnny Flynn, one of the stars of that film. There are lots of very big stars in that film, Johnny Flynn being one of them. And in take two, what's going on there? In take two, Mutiny, which is the new film starring Jason Satham, and Stop That Train. The film that we will not be reviewing this week is a film called Spa Weekend. And let me explain how this works. okay so by the time if you're listening to this on friday after uh well if you listen to it on friday you will have noticed that there are probably reviews of spa weekend and i have no idea what those reviews are going to be like i saw spa weekend on tuesday and as i went in i was asked to sign an embargo and i said i said fine when is it until he said i don't know i said okay but it's like it opens on friday so yeah we know right so we record our show on wednesday day yes and it goes live it's 12 o 'clock thursday so it's not going to be a problem is it i'm not like i mean most of the embargoes are you know you can't do it until the beginning of the end of tuesday it'll be fine so i go in and i watch the movie which i can't tell you anything about because yesterday it was announced that the embargo would not lift until 5 a.m on friday morning which is after this show has dropped and we had an email from the distributors explaining that that meant that we couldn't review the film that i spent a couple of hours of my life watching i can't tell you what i think of the film that i spent a couple of hours of my life watching i also can't tell you whether or not the fact that the embargo has been pushed right back to the morning of release has anything to do at all with the way the distributors imagine the film might be received.

6:09I can't tell you any of that.

6:11Simon Mayo: No. Because obviously I have no opinion on Spa Weekend, which I have seen but I am not allowed to tell you about because you might be listening before 5am on Friday. Mark, we'll think about it. once the embargo has lifted and we can talk about it next week. Reminded that there are just a few tickets left for the Bristol Beacon, December the 6th, 7pm. That's where we are. Matt in Bristol. Dear which one is Mark and which one is Simon? Matt here, long-term listener and all that. My son Luca is neurodivergent and has ADHD and struggles with anxiety. Here's a few things that get to Luca. the way of the world other humans loud noises and falling to sleep things that don't get to luca the podcast for years myself and my wife tried everything to help luca sleep at night white noise music especially beethoven and mozart singing very pitchy and back scratches one evening after years of exhausting bedtime routines i tried playing the podcast which is inverted commas and wouldn't you know it instant sleep for luca your dulcet tones have done the trick that was three years ago and it's still part of our bedtime routine we even leave the pod on all night and have woken up at 4 a.m to hear you both chatting about film if you haven't got the podcast on within five seconds of luca getting into bed he will say are you putting mark and simon on we also have the questions schmestians butt dance we live in Bristol and we'll be seeing you at the beacon in December Luca is very excited to see you both he is convinced he will be the youngest audience member he normally would be petrified at the thought of a big room full of people but he couldn't be more excited tinkety-tonk and down with loud noises especially hand dryers okay that that is that is fantastic Luca we are looking forward to seeing you and how how brilliant that our ability to send you to sleep has uh has endured that is absolutely terrific but he'll be he'll be sitting there we'll walk on and he'll go and he'll be gone yeah look try not to fall asleep in the theater okay because it makes us look bad all right tell us about something that is out and groovy okay coyote versus acme and the reason this is groovy that it's out is that this is a film that we nearly didn't get to see if only there was another film this week that we actually didn't get to see anyway so oh yeah this is a an animated live action hybrid directed by dave green whose previous feature credits include earth to echo and that 2016 teenage mutant ninja turtles out of the shadows so this is the official writing credits and this are sammy birch from a story by birch jeremy slater and james gunn he james gunn apparently based on a 1990 new yorker magazine piece coyote versus acme by acme coyote versus acme pardon me by ian frazier which followed wiley coyote attempting to enlist an attorney to sue the acme corporation for repeatedly selling him faulty products now apparently there was a similar joey green series from 1982 in national lampoon that was called cliffhanger justice but this isn't connected to this so the film starts with a sort of deadpan declaration that what you're going to see is real as it as it really happened wile e coyote is trying to catch the roadrunner you know all of that that's how i don't have to explain wile e coyote everybody knows wile e coyote and roadrunner okay yeah you only choose but stop so he's trying to catch road something he does using various acme products and it's always acme like it's acme you know acme jet boots and acme anvils and all the rest of it and inevitably they blow up in his face or fall on his head or smash him with an anvil or you know it always ends up badly for him so he enlists an attorney played by will fortay um who is this very very lazy lawyer who's done some lawyering in the past doing some work representing cartoon characters here is a clip from the trailer for Coyote vs Acme.

10:28Simon Mayo: Have you ever sat a big stack of TNT on the road hoping to blow up your nemesis, but the detonator itself explodes? Have you ever pulled the ripcord of your parachute and only a bunch of silverware comes out? It's not your fault. Acme is evil.

10:52you're looking at the guy who is taking on the biggest corporation in the world they're suing us for every acne product acne denies all charges that is for you all i gotta do is walk out the store right now please don't this is not funny the cartoons are supposed to be funny which they are and i have to say quite often this is too so that's the plot cartoon character sues acme wants to put roadrunner in the witness box as a witness to all the suffering he's had but his reasons for wanting him in the in the box aren't just to ask him questions meanwhile the acme team led by john cena and froghorn leghorn you know the great big bird talks like that um are willing to go all the way to DC because they have got more to protect than just their reputation now the filmmakers cited Who Framed Roger Rabbit as a kind of visual inspiration which is a very very high bar and this doesn't clear that because I mean that is I mean I think we all remember seeing Who Framed Roger Rabbit for the first time and it was like it was astonishing however this is infinitely more fun than for example the Space Jam movies of course the Space jam sequel i don't really remember this but i've mentioned quite a few times that the devil's director's cut is about to come out the space jam sequel is now memorable primarily for the fact that it's got a gag about the devils in it which cineast were going warners are suppressing this movie yet they're making a gag about it in space jam anyway so the director of cozy versus acme said he wanted to honor the spirit of looney tunes and i think in large part he has done that the the the kinetic slapstick that was central to all the sort of Looney Tunes adventures is really well captured.

12:36There are plenty of laughs. There are plenty of kind of really sort of laugh out loud slapstick moments. And I, as you know, I love slapstick. It's why I love Buster Keaton. It's why I love the evil dead. It's why I love the minions. It's very, very hard to get right. And it's very easy to get wrong. If you don't believe me, look at Run For Your Wife, in which the joke about, you know, Neil Morrissey, is it Neil Morrissey? Whichever Morrissey is, sits on a cake and you know danny dice stands on a rake that's badly done slapstick and it's really really not funny but good slapstick is brilliant the thing about this is on top of the slapstick it's got a genuine sense of pathos and it's got a story that crucially can sustain itself over a movie length rather than just a cartoon short so on the pathos side there is this really surprisingly moving thing about wile coyote who is a silent movie star in this you know he just speaks only with the limited number of signs being consistently blown up and smashed down and hit on the head with anvils and yet still coming back for more and somehow he and roadrunner complete each other you know they they both their purpose is that one chases the other and that's it and there is a moving scene in the film that literally is a non-conversation between a silent character who who communicates only through signs and a bird who says only beep and beep beep it also i think there's a pretty good job of turning the Acme Corporation into this kind of thing about corporate greed, about, you know, late stage capitalism.

14:03And also there is a satire about the rank corruption of the American judicial system and how lousy Congress are. So I think it's funny. I think it's genuinely got something to say, which it very nearly didn't get to say, because back in 2023, when the film was first finished, Warners announced that they would rather write it off as a tax loss than release it that they get something like 30 million back as a tax write-off and you remember that there was other movies that got cancelled the Batgirl film it was you know finished but never got never got seen Scoob Holiday Haunt was another one so after they'd sunk it there was this huge backlash from uh Hollywood a bunch of people who'd seen the movie including people like Lord and Miller said it's really good what are they doing so then they agreed that they would allow it to be sold but the amount that they wanted for it to be sold was 70 75 million which was more than anyone was going to pay for it then there was this online campaign about free coyote versus acme and you know release coyote versus acme and then finally ketchup entertainment who are the people who put out um the day the earth blew up they picked the day the earth blew up which i reviewed last year which i kind of really enjoyed and they they got it out and now there it is and i sat there in a packed screening room and everybody laughed pretty much all the way through and there is something i mean i have to say we were kind of all sort of on board because of the underdog story of the fact that the film they tried not to release it but it's smart and it's funny and the slapstick gags it means not you know it's not world changing it's not perfect it's not who framed roger rabbit but nor is it space jam and it has more than enough good gags and good pathos and good dang moments to justify its existence and it really is quite baffling that this film had to fight to be released but other films that are out this week didn't i don't i don't to no one's surprise don't

16:03Simon Mayo: quite understand the economics whereby you can make a film and then not show it as a tax you you know, get yourself out of tax. It's a loss because what you say, the theory is you spend 70 million making a movie. If you're going to release it, you'll spend another 70 million. That'll cost you 140. You don't think you'll make that back. So you just take, I mean, it's all, what's that phrase? Voodoo economics. Okay. So coming up the box office, top 10 mutiny, which is in take two. Don't forget that. Teenage sex. That's one film. Death at Camp Iasma. That's another film. And also Sons. It's not, it's not a movie called Sons.

16:38Simon Mayo: it's and sons and also Johnny Flynn talking about that movie I think that was all very clear well done

16:52Simon Mayo: hey Mark Kermode fancy a fun quick fire quiz I thought you'd never ask great how do you protect yourself from spoilers we never watch the end of the film well a bit impractical but fine how do you protect yourself from getting wound up by noisy cinema goers There's no need. I'm a very tolerant man, as you know. How do you protect yourself from getting bored of the exorcist? It's impossible. Anyway, shall we start this fun quiz? What's more fun than being well protected? OK, is that part of the quiz? I'm doing the questions, thank you. How do you protect yourself from online scams? Ah, finally, a sensible question.

17:27Nord VPN's next-gen antivirus. Blocks, scams and phishing before they reach you. Fake texts, dodgy links, your account is locked, emails. Same app as the VPN, OneTap. the biggest protection in the game.

17:39Simon Mayo: Correct. Upgrade your online protection with an all-in-one security app. Head to nordvpn.com slash take to get an exclusive NordVPN deal plus four months extra risk-free.

18:03Simon Mayo: Box Office Top 10, Vishwanathan Sons is at number 10. Now, so this is the first and Sons movie of this week. Oh, that's true. Although this one has actually got a title before it. I haven't seen it because it wasn't press screened. It's a Tamil language romantic comedy family drama. If anyone's seen it, let us know. But this is the first of two and Sons movies this week. And Moana's at number nine. I didn't dislike it as much as everybody else apparently did, but then I just liked Moana. Tony is at number eight. this is the Anthony Bourdain drama which I went to see with Sanjeev Sanjeev and I went on a date Simon because you were absent so we went we went to see it we went to see it in a in a in a cinema in Belsize Park and I didn't know anything about Anthony Bourdain before the I mean nothing at all and so Sanjeev had to give me a quick primer before the film started I thought I thought it was okay I thought it's very good performances and it was kind of quite tactile filmmaking I don't know that it's any more than okay and it sort of doesn't surprise me that it's gone in at number eight because it's i know it's not a huge release but it was always i think a bit niche and it does end as both sandra and i laughed out loud when it does at the very very end of it because he's called tony and then he's called flaco and then at the end of it somebody says who are you and he says i'm anthony bourdain and it is like someone going i'm batman it's number 17 in america a man on this email.

19:33Simon Mayo: Having seen an early screening of Tony, I came away very impressed. The film focuses on the summer that changed Anthony Bourdain's life showing a lost young man discovering both his talent for cooking and a sense of belonging. What I enjoyed most was watching Tony gradually find his identity through the kitchen and the eccentric community around him. The film wisely avoids turning his journey into a tidy success story. Tony is flawed, difficult and burdened by personal baggage, but you can see the beginnings of the person he will become knowing where his life ultimately leads adds poignancy without the film dwelling on it it's funny warm and moving without becoming sentimental a dominic sessa is excellent capturing both tony's arrogance and vulnerability ultimately tony feels less like a conventional biopic and more like a thoughtful coming of age story about finding your calling i think you'll like the performances dominic sessa simon is the is the main kid in the holdovers which you absolutely loved, didn't you?

20:27Yes, yes, yes, yes. As I did most people, I think.

20:31Simon Mayo: Minions and Monsters, Aha! Is it number seven and number ten in America? Fantastically still holding its own in the top ten. And again, on the subject of slapstick, I mean, now, you know, Koji vs. Acme, good slapstick, but the slapstick in the Minions is second to none. A Toy Story 5 is at number six here and over there. Yeah, ninth week in the top ten, so doing good in the box office, but I didn't like it. Paw Patrol, the dino movie, is at number four. So two dinosaur movies in the charts this week. The big one is The End of Oak Street. This is the one that isn't The End of Oak Street. This is the one that's aimed at the younger viewer.

21:07Simon Mayo: And it's nowhere in America. Number four, here number seven in the States, Cat's Eye, Wild Hearts. OK, so I knew nothing about this at all. It is apparently a love letter to the icons, E-Y-E, cons, who helped build the movement behind Cat's Eye, who are a band. And this features icons, fan videos and intimate interviews offering a close-up look at the members of the global girl group Cat's Eye. Are you familiar with the oof of Cat's Eye? I'm sad to say that I am not. I have got up to speed with one modern contemporary singer while I've been away, but I haven't got up. Who's that? Phoebe Bridges.

21:50Okay.

21:52Simon Mayo: Right. Who's great. But Cat's Eye, I need to check them out then, do I? Well, I've got no idea because I had not heard of them until they turned up in the chart. So it says, from the intense pressure of Dream Academy to chart-topping viral success, audiences experience the highs, setbacks, sacrifices and breakthrough moments that transform Cat's Eye on their path to global pop stardom. Do you know Phoebe Bridges? I've heard the name. Good? Yeah, absolutely very good. It was Child 2 who told me about them. And then I saw Jason Isbell, who I absolutely love, writing about them, and I thought, okay, time to check out the new record, and it's very, very good.

22:27Simon Mayo: Oh, fantastic. Well, that's a top tip. Phoebe Bridges, check her out. Reviews next week. Number three here, number three over there, is The End of Oak Street, new entry. Do we have any emails? We do. And if so, read them before I go, because I reviewed last week. Dear Brontosaurus and Velociraptor, Dr. Katie says, LTL and MTE and Vanguardista, I'm sure many eminently qualified paleontologists will contact you, and I just listened to a plethora of science podcasts, but I just wanted to correct Sanjeev's expectations about dinosaurs being scaly. Here we go. The prevailing view is that many dinosaurs, particularly theropods, were covered in feathers or feather-like structures, often for insulation rather than flight.

23:12Simon Mayo: Velociraptors may even have sported feathered crests. Check you out. Some spectacular fossils from China preserve detailed impressions of feathers, helping to confirm that birds are the living descendants of dinosaurs. Keep up the good work. Keep smiling. Dr. Katie. Hello, Dr. Katie. Simon from the Wirral. A major disappointment. Kicking off with half an hour of heavy-handed exposition, setting up mostly irrelevant or played out plot points. I found the choice of first on-screen casualty deeply ironic, given their career as a story and script editor, as the film felt like it could have done with more of this.

23:52Simon Mayo: Characters would peer out of the windows, frightened to be found, and then moments later be engaging in loud outdoor conversations with no urgency to take cover or hide or even be playing music from a car stereo. There were glimmers of a film I would have preferred, namely the veneer of neighbourhood civility imploding under the new threat whilst encompassing the family plot. Unfortunately, there were also too many sharks jumped. Ewan McGregor's character taking on a thing with only a thing and successfully thing undermined what could have been a good scene. Anyway, the end of Oak Street. Well, I don't know whether you listen to the show, because obviously when you're off, I don't know whether you listen.

24:29But so Sanj was the presenter last week, and Sanj and I went to see End of Oak Street together. and i quite enjoyed it um it's basically there's a suburban town a suburban small town uh is suddenly transported into an area full of dinosaurs so it's dinosaurs in suburban streets and as we came out of the screening which i quite enjoyed sanjeev said i only have one question why does this film exist and so he was quite he was quite down on it but his main his one of his criticisms of it was a film set in 1982 featured teenagers who had bow and arrows bows and arrows and he said who had a bow and arrow in 1982 and i said sanj this is a film in which a suburban town is transported into a prehistoric time in which dinosaurs are running through the streets and your problem is that one of the kids had a bow and arrow and of course if you go to the youtube page the next day after the thing went up tons in 1982 i had a bow and arrow i had a bow and arrow too i had three bow and arrows i was never without my bow and arrow and um anyway sand i know sand will be listening it was it was just the funniest thing so i then messaged sand and went just on the subject of the bow and arrows apparently i mean you can you can worry about the whole town being transported into a priest for no good reason at all they never come up with it with a good explanation of it but the bow and arrow is apparently fine and also dinosaurs had feathers

25:54Simon Mayo: maybe san should have a bow and arrow in that rucksack of his on the telly that's what i think he should definitely yes think think of the the crises you could get out of sanj if you go hang on a second uh criminal approaching me quickly in my rucksack bow and arrow ka-ching oh i've got the one with the sucker on the end of the arrow that's not the one that i wanted and if anybody can find a little toy feathered dinosaur maquette. Maybe he can put that in the bag as well. That would be good. And the reason I don't listen to any of the subs shows out of deep-seated insecurity because I'm afraid that they'll be better.

26:31Simon Mayo: That's why. Nobody's better than you, Simon. Nobody's better than you. I don't believe that. It's Sanjeev Bhaskar. Come on. The Odyssey's at number two here and it's at number two there. This week on Go Woke, Go Broke corner the odyssey is now the biggest film of all time at bfi imax ahead of avatar oppenheimer and star wars the force awakens there's a bit more odyssey correspondence in take two yeah and the number one movie here and there is spider-man brand new day here's uh ollie tetlow hello ollie who came backstage at the christmas show to say hello hi like mark i thought the film's strongest element was the relationship between peter mj ned and frank tom holland's performance felt notably more mature, particularly in the quieter emotional moments which gave the film real weight post No Way Home.

27:19Simon Mayo: If I were trimming runtime, I'd lose some of the Mark Ruffalo material, the themes around DNA and scientific responsibility felt underdeveloped, and the CGI heavy action occasionally pulled me out of the film, especially compared with the more grounded fight sequences. By contrast, the first person swinging sequences were exhilarating, giving a genuine sense of Spider-Man's movement through New York. The action felt more physical and immersive than in previous MCU outings. Overall, I'd call it the best Marvel film since Endgame and a very promising sign for Doomsday. TTFN, Oli Tetlow. Now, Oli, thank you very much indeed for that.

27:57Simon Mayo: TTFN, ta-ta for now. Yeah. Wasn't that Jimmy Young who did that? Was it? Back in the day? Yeah, may well have been. Jimmy Young, old Radio 2 host. Yeah. Like before Jeremy Vine did that lunchtime show. TTFM, maybe it was a wartime thing. Maybe it's even, I don't know. Anyway, Ollie, thank you very much indeed. Spider-Man, brand new days at number one. Well, it's interesting that Ollie brings up the swingy thing because in the very, very first Sam Raimi Spider-Man, the big problem for me was the swingy swingy was heftless. It was without weight. And I thought Sam Raimi over the course, I think in Spider-Man 2, he got it much better.

28:38But it is, it has always been an issue. And I know this sounds like the kid's got a bow and arrow and dinosaurs haven't got feathers. But in the middle of everything, being obsessed with whether or not the swingy swingy stuff is actually looks like it has physical gravitas to it. I understand exactly what Ollie means. And I kind of agree that in the case of this, it was much more like, okay, I'm willing to invest in that swingy swingy thing. because the other problem is that because of swingy jumpy sticky thing spider-man effectively flies nowadays i mean you know before in in the in the original comic strips he you know he he would swing from one thing to another thing but the leapy leepy is so leapy leepy that it is like fly fly rather than swingy leap and and so it's it's hard to get a get a handle on that sometimes what a great word heft is because i love heft it but it all it has more to it than weight doesn't

29:41Simon Mayo: it weight just as one thing whereas heft has that sense of substance and i'm holding hands like i'm holding two melons for i don't know or just to anything but you're trying to describe heft so it It has weight and presence. Exactly. And you feel it somehow. Yes. Yeah. Correspondence at Kermode.com. We're going to talk to Johnny Flynn in just a moment.

30:12Simon Mayo: Hello, Mark Kermode. Hello, Simon Mayo. Quick question. What's your autumn signature dish? Why are you asking? Because I suspect the answer is a takeaway. That is deeply unfair. But is it? Sometimes it's delivery. Well, perhaps it's your pans that are holding you back. Food sticking, pans burning, uneven heat. That's unusually generous of you. Gordon Ramsay uses hex clad at home and in his restaurants. You could try them. They combine the searing performance of stainless steel with the convenience of non-stick. So you get great cooking results without the usual clean-up headache. They're dishwasher safe and easy to clean.

30:51Plus, every Hexclad product comes with a lifetime warranty, so they could genuinely be the last pans you'll ever buy.

30:58Simon Mayo: Upgrade to Hexclad and make everyday cooking easier. For a limited time, listeners get 15 % off with our exclusive link at hexclad.co.uk slash take. That's H-E-X-C-L-A-D, hexclad.co.uk forward slash take. Offer excludes bundles and other items already on sale. Support the show and let them know we sent you. From the walls of Troy to the Tower of London, from Himeji in Japan to the Maginot Line in the Second World War, we've built fortifications for millennia. I'm Dan Jones, and in my latest book, Castles, I trace 3 ,000 years of human history looking at these captivating buildings. It's an epic story of defiance, endurance and imagination.

31:47castles the latest book from me dan jones available as an e-book audiobook and in hardback at all good bookshops okay our guest this week is johnny flynn uh from scene stealing performances in

32:04Simon Mayo: emma full stop uh clouds of seals maria a beast and as dickie greenleaf in netflix's ripley he's been David Bowie in Stardust. He's been Mr. Knightley opposite Anya Taylor-Joy. He now stars in And Sons, Ampersand Sons, about a reclusive literary icon who brings his estranged sons together. Well, he tries to anyway, as you're about to hear after this clip. I'm dying. I want you to come to me. I haven't been here for 20 years. I didn't think I'd ever come back. Do we hug?

32:46Simon Mayo: I know you're familiar with the story of Andy's conception. Oh, you mean the one about you having an affair and destroying mum's life and taking the baby in afterwards? All of which is true, except the story itself.

33:06We're supposed to just forget everything you ever did to us? who stole my journals for a novel that later became a smash hit.

33:16Simon Mayo: It's authenticity! That was what I was famous for! And that is a clip from And Sons. One of its stars is the great Johnny Flynn, who joins us. Hello, Johnny, how are you? Hey, I'm good. Thanks for having me. And just back from South Africa, is that right? Yeah, I've been playing Paul Simon in a film about apartheid and South Africa and music. Yeah, and it's really not... It's not about Paul Simon, but it covers the Graceland recording in that era, which is why I've got dark hair still. It's a complicated story. It is. It really is. But it means a lot to me, that album. And I was born in South Africa and we left in 1985 when Paul Simon was arriving.

33:58My parents were anti-apartheid campaigners. But, yeah, it's complicated.

34:02Simon Mayo: Yeah. Well, I look forward to that. What's that going to be called, Johnny? It's called The Road Home. You have so many projects on the go, But the newest one to reach us is, as I mentioned, And Sons. The sons in question, Noah Joop, George Mackay and yourself. The father is Bill Nighy. Introduce us to And Sons and your particular character, Richard Dyer. Yeah, I mean, I got this script and just found it so intriguing and unusual and unlike anything I'd read in terms of the balance of humour and pathos and absurdity. And, you know, and then I heard who was involved and Pablo Giopero is a wonderful, amazing, interesting director who's made some incredible sort of mysterious films, really.

34:45And I thought, well, this is going to be a really interesting combination and Sarah Polley's script is brilliant. And Bill Nighy is an old friend. He's played both my father and my father-in-law now. And his granddaughter was at school, was in my daughter's class at her primary school. so Bill and I would find ourselves waiting at the school gate occasionally. Interesting. And his daughter's an old friend. So it's funny because I feel like I'm part of his family anyway, so to play his son in this very unusual kind of family dynamic. And then, you know, Melda Staunton is one of my all-time heroes and she's just one of the best people.

35:26I mean, George Mackay and I... So, yeah, the brothers George Mackay and Noah Duke and myself and George and I were together a lot and I've known George a long time as well. We were supposed to play brothers a long time ago and we finally got to work together and we, you know, fell in love with each other, of course. And yeah, we did this, our first scene with Imelda and she got very emotional and we'd been kind of doing these quite funny, absurd scenes till then and just like hit us. And I think it's one of the most powerful scenes in the film, but she had me sort of shaking with the power of it.

36:01So, yeah, amazing actors and a brilliant story.

36:05Simon Mayo: In terms of what the story is, your dad, Bill Nighy, who's this globally successful author and a monster, it would appear, is drawing his, you and George McGuire, bringing his sons back because Noah Duke lives with him anyway. So that's basically the setup. In a big house, all the family back together, essentially, yes? Yeah, it's a sort of... It's a very unusual kind of reunion. He's got something big to tell us, which I can't reveal, otherwise it would spoil the whole film. But we... You know, it wouldn't spoil it to say that the family was split up, you know, however many years ago. And what is it that broke the family?

36:52There's an accusation of an affair. I mean, I suppose when you meet Bill's character... So he's like all the most famous novelists in the world rolled into one. He's unbelievably, he's Salman Rushdie and Martin Amis and all those people, all of their fame combined. So his family have to put up with him being everywhere and talked about as this genius. And, you know, as is often the case when you hear about the sons and daughters of very, very famous people, it's terribly hard to kind of live up to that. And the story becomes all about their parents, you know, their famous parent. And I'm a struggling writer and I'm sick to death of hearing my father's name in L.A.

37:39where I live because I left, I fled the country 18 years ago when my father had an affair. But there's a deeper truth that's revealed and it's very improbable. and we, as the sons and the audience, are asked to kind of go on this journey of whether we believe it or not and does that justify his behaviour and what has happened since then. Yeah, there's lots of kind of moral questions asked in the film, which is fun.

38:13Simon Mayo: And that reveal that you're talking about, which we will talk around, obviously, because it needs to drop as a bombshell, as indeed it does for you and George Mackay. And the audience is going to go, what? Yeah. But the great thing is that's exactly what you guys are thinking. Yeah. What was fun was Pablo likes to do, in a way, the written scene is like this thing in the middle of what he wants to do as like a long kind of improvisation. He works with improv a lot, and I've never made a film like that. And so we know the information that we need to bring in or reveal or adjust to the pivot that needs to happen in the scene.

38:53But the scenes, we would film half an hour of stuff before we got to that bit that we knew was written. And that was incredible because stuff like that where you're reacting to something, by that point, normally a take is like, you know, you don't shoot more than a maximum two pages. you know most scenes most scenes are like a quarter of a page somebody getting out of a car and walking into a house or something but we were shooting for you know I think the first take they did on Bill lasted like an hour or something and there were five cameras sometimes on everybody and everything because he want he wants a sense of deep reality Pablo um and I think you needed that because of the potential implausibility of this plot twist, which actually is not that unreal.

39:48You can believe that this thing happened, but it's just you had to land it in a deeper kind of reality of these relationships. So he just rolled and rolled and rolled, and millions of cameras bumping into each other and absolute chaos. But it was, yeah, it was brilliant.

40:04Simon Mayo: And what does your character want? because even though you and George McGuire say how much they hate their father all the time, you kind of need him as well. Neither of you have escaped his orbit. Yeah. Well, I mean, it's my belief that however messed up a relationship with your father might get, we all want to be loved by our dads. Do you know what I mean? Like, I know a lot of toxic relationships between fathers and sons, But I sense that deep down, if they walked in through that door and just held you and said, I love you, I'm sorry, I see you, I'm proud of you, you know, releasing their own egos or whatever.

40:43And for my character in particular, he just wants to be seen as his own person, as a writer that can do his own thing. And in the end, he's having to just trade on his dad because that's all that anyone's interested in. So it's a very, it's a sort of toxic situation for my character.

41:00Simon Mayo: There are powerhouse performances everywhere you look in this film, but it's a very male story, Johnny. So it's Anne's sons. Clearly this is very deliberate, but thank heavens for Imelda Staunton and Anna Christova, I think. Have I got that name right? Yes. She's wonderful. She's wonderful. Yeah. Like the assistant, like the housemaid, if that's not too condescending a term, personal assistant, whatever. But why do you think it was Anne's son? Did it have to be so male? And would it have been different if there was a sister? I know this isn't your story, it's a David Gilbert novel from a few years ago, but it is a masculine tale.

41:38It is, it is. I feel like the storytelling is consciously keeping out some of the female characters that could be there to then have those really strong totemic women, Melda's character and Anna's character. And it's as if it's a comment on, you know, if there were more women taking part in the negotiations around this stuff, it wouldn't be so battered and bruised, you know, like there'd be a softer quality to the communication. but it's these it's it is about male ego and it's about this ruthless kind of ambition really and and that wounded male ego in society that is creating all these toxic situations whether it's donald trump or elon musk or whatever you know it's it's all around us so but these are these are this is a real family and and they yeah so they hopefully elicit sympathy at the same time as being, you know, pretty unlikable at times.

42:43Simon Mayo: Tate Winslet was on the show a few months back for Goodbye June, her directorial debut, which you star as well as one of, a gathered fractured family called to a deathbed. Inan's son's Bill Nye thinks he's dying. We don't know whether he is or not, but it's sort of, there are overlapping emotions there between that. They're very different films, but overlapping emotions, Johnny, I thought. Totally. I hadn't even put that together, But that's so interesting because in that one, it really, the show is really run by the women in the family. And that was what was very nice about being in that environment, because Andrew Rise, Tony Collette, Kate and of course, Helen Mirren and myself.

43:25And then Tim Spall as the father. And really, the men are the most kind of messed up in that place. they've got the biggest journey to go on there. But everybody has their own processing and stuff in that story. But that was lovely, again, coming together to sort something out as a family, and I love working on that film.

43:47Simon Mayo: And at the start of Anne's Sons, Johnny, there are two minutes of producer credits. I just noticed it. And it made me realise that even with a movie like this, with the powerhouse cast, Bill Nighy, George McGuire, Noah Duke, Imelda Staunton and yourself and others, It's difficult to get these films made. Yeah, you're telling me. I'm about to start filming something that's been in a similar position. It's such an amazing story, amazing cast involved and brilliant director. And it's been impossible to get made. And it's, yeah, I don't know. We need to change the model, perhaps. But funding has to come from various different countries.

44:26And then something that's supposed to be set in England has to be filmed in Spain and Norway. and you know I think we need to we need to kind of look at that and create the right tax breaks in the UK certainly to have the story to have our own stories told here we've got an awful lot of studios in the UK it's brilliant a lot of American productions coming to us but I think in terms of telling our own stories I think releasing funds for that making it a bit easier would be great because I a lot of my friends as producers whose hair is falling out because they're just constantly trying to sort out bridging loans and going into huge debt on productions that it should be quite easy to get something made for three million, I suppose.

45:08Anyway.

45:08Simon Mayo: I should mention before we finish, Bean Cottage, your new album, which you've done with your sister, Lily, is, I've only heard the one track, which is the only one that's been released, but that sounds amazing. Is that November for that record? Yeah, the album's out in November and then we're playing the Royal Festival Hall on the 21st of November. So I always end up by just saying, what do we see you in next? So Anson's is the new movie, but then is it A Prayer for the Dying? Is it The Idiots? Is it Harry Potter? Yeah. You're playing Jason Isaacs, very interestingly. What do we see you in next?

45:40Do you know, I'm not quite sure. A Prayer for the Dying is a film I just love making so much. It's just taken a little bit to find the right window to kind of have its release and stuff, but it's coming out this autumn quite soon, and that was an incredible experience with John C. Reilly and myself and lots of scandinavian actors um it's about a settler community in in wisconsin in 1870 facing terrible disease and forest fires and everything and then elsinore with andrew scott which i mean is going to be at london film festival and i saw that the other day and it absolutely killed me i mean i think it's andrew's best work so that was special to work with him and then Harry Potter.

46:25The first series is out soon and we're about to do the second series. And The Idiots. The Idiots is coming to Toronto and then London Film Festival. I did that last summer with Amy Le Wood and that's really exciting, playing Dostoevsky. It was very, very fun.

46:40Simon Mayo: A lot of Johnny Flynn around. No, no, no. It's extraordinary. All of them sound utterly intriguing. Anne Sons is the new movie and look out for Bean Cottage, which is the new album coming out in November. Johnny as ever a pleasure thank you very much indeed Yeah thanks so much for having me and you know say hi to Mark when you see him he's an old pal. I will do that he's part of the show he's a contributor but you know we allow him on every now Johnny thanks very much indeed. Yeah lovely to see you cheers Johnny says hi by the way Mark Yeah I heard thank you for solidly putting me in my place as a contributor.

47:17Simon Mayo: Is there anybody that we've interviewed where you go it is just you know what's what's next that list of i know of movies and tv shows that i know so being lucius malfoy is like the fourth most important thing in the list of shows that he's involved with what an extraordinary actor and and relating to a question that we got a couple of weeks ago about why do we sometimes see the interviews and see the interviewer and the interviewee um in this in this case they request a camera off which is absolutely which is absolutely fine which is why you couldn't see johnny but he did have paul simon hair so it was yes i'm intrigued to see what that graceland movie is going to be about that sounds absolutely fascinating but he's he's always i thought he was on very good form oh it's terrific i mean he was he was clearly very much enjoying talking to you and i think he's he's fired up about the film because i think the film's really kind of interesting so yeah i mean i i'm i'm just jealous of you having having all that time talking to him because i think he's such an interesting guy and a brilliant musician that's you know so shall i i apologize for the for the tree surgeon which you could hear at the beginning and then at the end he apologized for his kids who were having a big row at the background so anyway there's a lot of extraneous noise but anyway the movie i think is worth talking about okay yes so and sons as you said adapted from a david gilbert novel which i haven't read um uh by screenwriter sarah polly and director pablo tripero who also actually gets a co-writing credit now i haven't read the novel as i said but i'm a huge fan of sarah polly started out as a young actor in films like baron munchausen went on to work with atam mcgoyen and films like exotic a sweet hero after made a directorial debut with away from her for which she got a screenplay oscar nod went on to make the brilliantly constructive stories we tell which was a film that looked like a documentary but actually wasn't and it was you know it was about it was about the way in which we tell stories both to each other and in filmmaking and then of course went on to write direct women talking for which she won a screenplay oscar um as for pablo triparo probably best known for Camacho and the Klan and White Elephant.

49:17Johnny Flynn said a really interesting CV. So thumbnail plot synopsis, although you've pretty much covered this in that interview, there are certain things that we can't reveal, but there are certain things that are revealed both in the interview and the trailer. So George Mackay, Johnny Flynn, there are strange brothers, Jamie and Richard Dyer, at which point I hold up the paperback of Mark Germode's Surround Sound. Superb, but once lucid and complex, Richard Dyer. I should point out not that Richard. It's a made-up quote. That's right. Johnny Flynn in his fictional character role as Richard Dye, who is one of the most respected film academics in the world.

49:52It's just, you know, interesting that that name come up. Son of a once-celebrated author played by Bill Nye with raggedy gusto. Once celebrated, now has become a kind of drunken recluse. Many years ago, as we know from what we've just heard, their personal disaster area of a father walked out on their mother played brilliantly by Imelda Staunton and incidentally yes Imelda Staunton walks on water um after having apparently had an affair and produced a son Andy played by Noah Duke he of Quiet Place and more recently uh Hamnet the young son now lives with the father and the character who is sort of described as a housemaid because they appear to be wearing a hat but so much more than that we are told very early on so the older sons have been called to the house by their dad who insists that he's dying although that just appears to be a normal state of affairs it's nothing new um we see him early on disgracing himself at a friend's funeral which he's asked to speak he's i never go out the house i never speak in public i never write anything anymore but he's called his two sons here to tell them that he wants them to look after his youngest when he is gone as he is in the process of doing because Andy, the young son, is special.

51:11Okay? Now, this is particularly hurtful because the father never gave George Mackay's character or Johnny Flynn's character the affection or attention that they wanted, as Johnny Flynn said. It's this kind of narcissistic male thing that's going on. He compared it to a bunch of stuff which is happening in the real world right now. And it's also the fact that the father destroyed their mother's life by walking off and having this affair and producing this child, which he then thought quite blithely, well, I'll just bring the child home and we'll all raise him. That'll all be absolutely fine. It was a brilliant language.

51:45Did you actually think that was going to happen? So they both grew up in the shadow of their father and their father's genius. And they're now being told that this other kid is the special one, not them. And, you know, you will do right by it, won't you? Now, so the whole and son's title is very loaded. it was interesting you kind of focused in on the um the that it's a very male story when i heard and sons the first thing i think is like dombey and sons and so i was thinking like you know that that's the sort of literary illusion but actually you're right it is about a particularly male thing and it's although when you know i said there there is a sort of revelation that we're not going to reveal but johnny flynn talked about how it's basically it's it's on the one hand you know there's pathos and there's emotion there's drum there's also absurdity and then there is this revelation which when it is revealed causes them to gasp and laugh out loud as don't be ridiculous we're not going to take that seriously and the question always remains throughout the movie is how how well you take that revelation is it just that the father is just saying stuff in order to justify his own bad actions you hear in the trailer what so we suddenly have to forget about all these years of stuff because he says that in fact the story that was always told about him going off and having a fair and having a was only that it was only a story now on one level this is particularly interesting because of course sarah polly was drawn to this because sarah polly is very very interested in storytelling you look at women talking you look at stories we tell And watching it, it was like, fine, I can understand exactly why Sarah Polly would be drawn to this story.

53:31But the story is about a number of different things. Yes, it's about maleness. It's about the legacy of parents and children growing up in the shadow of parents. I mean, particularly Johnny Flynn's character, who is desperate to become a screenwriter, but also desperate not to be just his father's son. And yet that's not an uncomplicated thing. but it's also i think about the egotism of parenthood about i mean particularly male parenthood about what bill nye's character sees it as which is basically a desire to replicate yourself you know desire to create another another one of yourself through your children and maybe this one will be the better version of you that you could have been and it's about the way that parents can feed off their children i mean we hear in that trailer we heard johnny and saying, you stole my diaries.

54:20The things that happened to me, you stole and you used them for your fiction, which was then celebrated. I think that one of the most powerful scenes in the film is the scene in which Imelda Staunton's character, the wife who was walked out on, meets for the first time Noah Joop's character and is suddenly struck by almost this vision of seeing somebody who really reminds them of what their ex-husband was like before he became their ex-husband. So it's also about that. There's also a kind of time-traveling thing going on, which is that when you look at somebody who is now this wretched, rancid, drunk, flailing around, being abusive and obnoxious to everybody, that somewhere in all that there is this other thing going on.

55:10And then there's this other element, this absurdist element, this what if this other thing was true that takes it into the realm of just lunatic fantasy interesting therefore that the score for it is by Cristobal Tapia de Vere now if you remember ages and ages ago uh we reviewed the girl with all the gifts and I loved that film I think you did too yeah and I really really loved the score and Cristobal Tapia de Vere probably now best known for doing the music for White Lotus and the scores are always full of strange noises noises that may be voices maybe synthesizers maybe therapy you can't quite tell what it is but somehow they inhabit this world between the acoustic world and the electronic world between the canny and the uncanny the real and the sort of and that mixture of the natural and the unnatural I think really really works and I think it particularly works for this story which is a story which on one level is a story about a dysfunctional family with a patriarchal figure who is just self-justifying but there's also this suggestion that it may be something completely other than that it may be something that makes you go what and i think one of its greatest triumphs is that it gets it manages to pull that off without you just going i'm sorry i'm not having this because as you said yourself the reaction that everyone has is what yes and then i really enjoyed it i didn't know anything about it before i went in other than that it's good as you said powerhouse cast but i thought it was really enjoyable i was really engrossed by it and very moved by i thought the scene of amelda staunton meeting the noah dupe character was absolutely

56:50Simon Mayo: devastating what did you think yeah i thought i i enjoyed it some of the reviews have been very sniffy but i don't really notice of those i need to take notice of yours and i kind of agree with you i think um the the reveal the pivot whatever you want to call it is so um oh the tree surgeon's back it's so it's just so um pulling the I mean pulling the rug out from underneath your feet is being used many times before but it's so extraordinary that I started looking up a lot of words and trying to find out what on earth he was talking about because it's you spend the rest of the movie going really what is that is he come on but as do the other characters that's the point and then there's that shot you go oh okay well you know maybe anyway so as as a kind of a pivot it's capital p i think but i think that the the genius of it is that that their reaction is yeah he's just saying that because therefore it means that we have to forget the last 20 whatever it is stories that's what tell stories it's about telling stories and he is a storyteller who has stolen stories who has told stories who hasn't written a word in years and and again i bring this back to sarah polly who i just i think sarah polly is just fantastic of course sarah polly storyteller to end all storytellers would be in it incidentally if you watch the um uh the team is it is it the industry no the studio the studio uh the series with the seth rogerton which is great the episode with sarah polly doing the wanna is absolutely amazing i wonder so bill nighy's character was like an emaciated father christmas yeah i would like him to meet uh ian mckellen in the christophers oh yeah that kind of my life used to be so much better than it is and i'm just and i hate you all everybody uh one of those kind of things that would be a good matchup but fantastic i think the only i think george mckay is always is always great it would be nice oh he's brilliant could have done with a bit more to do i don't know because i think it is genuinely an ensemble cast and i incidentally i think that what he does he's great because again he's telling a story because he is filming all of this he is he is an artist who has turned to video art to filming as a way of exploring his art so they're all telling stories and i i and i bought him completely uh so the movie is uh and sons um i'm not quite sure about i know that's the title of the book it just feels a little cumbersome anyway it works of course it does and as a as a powerhouse cast it'll be hard to beat I think come the end of the year do you think people will do you think awards might come this way I have no idea I mean we're already on the don't forget the Christophers and I think this is very much in the I mean I didn't I haven't read any other reviews but you said you've read some reviews which have been sniffy so maybe it hasn't been well received I don't know I haven't read any reviews quite right too nor should you um okay correspondence carbonamer.com let us know what you think.

1:00:11Simon Mayo: The good news is, Mark, did Sanjeev do the laughter lift, by the way? He did. That's very unfair because he's just naturally funny, as opposed to this week's edition of the laughter lift. Here we go.

1:00:25Simon Mayo: Did he start with Haymuth? Was his material written by the redactor? It was, yeah. He didn't write it himself. Okay. Mark, I witnessed an awful kerfuffle in Showbiz North London. Did you? This week, a little boy ran up to me shouting, Please help me, Simon Mayer. my dad is in a fight and I ran over with a little fella and saw two men ferociously fisticuffing which one's your dad I said I don't know that's what they're fighting about I got really annoyed with the good lady ceramicist turning doors this week Mark she had she had the temerity to suggest that Ray Manzarek was a terrible musician I'm sorry I said but we do not slam the doors in this house hey did you manage to catch the eclipse I did I did I watched it in cornwall it was fantastic i watched it through the glasses it was brilliant worst astronomical event ever one star oh i see one star one star sorry i didn't even care that was the punchline sorry sorry i watched it with i did the colander thing which was the kind of thing's amazing it was amazing it works really well in the um outdoor area in which we had gathered there was someone who put a colander on their head.

1:01:42Simon Mayo: I didn't go over and say, I'm sorry, if you look at the sun through a colander, you're still going to go blind. But anyway. On the subject of colander, can I add one joke to the laughter lift this week? It's very, very quick. Okay, here we go. Three conspiracy theorists walk into a bar. Now tell me that's just a coincidence. That is very good. You should have inserted that for next week. Save the redneck. Anyway, coming up, Mark's review of Two movies Teenage Sex and also Death at Camp Miasma on the way

1:02:23Simon Mayo: Okay so you can use our email just to tell us stuff you can also use it to send us voice notes like if you're trying to guess what Mark thought about that film at the beginning of the show, but also you can use it to send us what's on with cinematic and cinematic-adjacent business. For example, Tashi, an independent film curator. Hi, everyone. This is Tashi Petter, and I'd love to invite you all to a very special screening next week at the BFI on Sunday, the 23rd of August, at 2.30 in the afternoon. We'll be showing Lottie Reineger's The Adventures of Prince Ahmed from 1926 and as a centenary treat we will have a brand new live improvisation by Hugo Max, an incredible viola player who will be interpreting the film and drawing out some of the darker themes of this amazing work of art.

1:03:17It's widely considered the earliest surviving animation in film history and it's a really beautiful masterpiece and what an opportunity to see it on the big screen so please do join us and we look forward to seeing you there.

1:03:31Simon Mayo: uh that's that's terrific yes can i just say that was one of the films that i chose in my observer list of 25 films that is suitable for audiences of all ages and it is it's a it's a very astonishing piece of work and it was well recorded uh i think so thanks tessie uh for that uh do send in video if you can because if you have a shining face we'd like to see your shining and smiley face um take full advantage of all the technology available to you uh so here we got a double bill then which mark's gonna review teenage sex or cx as it says here and also the follow-up death at camp miasma okay so um this film which it is one film as everyone knows described on the wiki page is an american slasher film but better described i think as a wildly entertaining screen essay on the radically subversive power of horror movies i think it's kind of closer in tone to that doc series queer for fear than it is to the sort of endless 70s 80s slasher reboots and parodies that filled our screens it's written and directed by jane chanbron who's the trans non-binary director behind i saw the tv glow which you remember that we talked about um we had an awful lot of correspondence about it actually it was kind of a really interesting piece of work this i think is a major step up this was the winner of the queer of the can queer palm when it played in the uncertain regard section earlier this year we'll make the joke as always the uncertain regard section is the section which the festival regards uncertainly so stars um stand-up comedian and actor hannah einbinder who's ava daniels in hacks as chris who's a somewhat awkward queer filmmaker who made a splash at sundance with a with a film part of which was a remake of psycho as seen from the point of view of the shower curtain and of course psycho is a is a precisely it's it's it's there's a very strong comedic satirical element in all of this okay so it is a it's a comedy satire but it's also an essay about these things so um psycho is a key text in the very sort of problematic relationship that horror has had with transgender issues and you go from that to like you know dress to kill and silence of the lambs all of which feature in inverted commas trans monsters so chris has now been enlisted to reboot the camp either miasma or miasma it is said both ways in in in the film franchise which is a friday the 13th style series about murders at a summer camp whose villain is called little death okay which is very important little death like jason voorhees the kid dies ostracized for switching genders having been raised as both a boy and a girl by their parents and now has come back to stalk the camp wearing this kind of vent air vent square air vent on the head now chris knows that she's been hired to sort out the transphobic optics of the series yeah just get a you know queer indie filmmaker in to give the series a kind of right on veneer because the old ips are saleable but they're problematic however chris has their own relationship with camp miasma having seen the first one as a young kid finding it a traumatic and transformative experience and then becoming obsessed with the series and indeed with the final girl star of the first movie billy presley played by none other than gillian anderson billy has now become a recluse everyone says oh oh yeah, you know, like Gloria Swanson in Sunset Boulevard.

1:07:05In fact, even dresses like Gloria Swanson in Sunset Boulevard. Total recluse. Weirder still, Billy Presley now lives in the deserted summer camp that was the set of the first film. And Chris, our filmmaker, has become absolutely obsessed by the idea of getting inside something that she saw in Billy Presley's eye during that first film. Here is a clip from teenage sex and death at Camp Miasma.

1:07:38I feel like there's about to be a jump scare.

1:07:53Hi. I'm Billy Presley.

1:08:01You must be the writer-director.

1:08:07Simon Mayo: Yeah, hi. You came out of nowhere. I didn't know you were in here. I'm sorry. I saw you and I wanted to scare you. It's only fair, right? You've already seen me. I love Gillian Anderson. And that's a great, that's a great, you know, reclusive star performance. Anyway, the movie gets pitched. Billy Presley says, I think your problem is that your approach is too academic, because the thing is that Little Death is real. And there is a hole at the bottom of the lake where the movies come from. Now, as a, as a youngster, Sean Brown was a fan of like Nightmare on Elm Street, you know, buffy and the x-files and uh wrote fan fiction was really kind of really invested in all that stuff and they once likened teenage sex and death at cat miasma to being like portrait of a lady set in a friday the 13th sequel which i think is a brilliant description because portrait of a lady on fire pardon me portrait of a lady on fire not portrait of a lady portrait of a lady on fire um is a film about it's a story about looking it's a story about somebody painting a picture without the without the subject knowing that that's what they're doing so it's about looking and to be looked at nurse and it's a story about the female gaze it's a queer story about the female gaze and and about how object and subject are the same thing teenage sex and death account that miasma also reminded me a lot of Prano Bailey Bond's sensor, which you remember I absolutely raved about when it came out, in which a young woman who is working at the BBFC classifying video nasties is drawn into the world of the video nasty, in which they find this whole kind of weirdly nurturing environment in the middle of these kind of, you know, apparently really rancid nasty horror movies.

1:10:10And I think Bones, Both that film and this film have got a kind of shared fetishy sensibility about the physicality of VHS and the physicality of film. You remember I once said there was something a bit sort of kinky about lacing up a projector, that there was something about the sprockets and the things. You remember I said that and you said...

1:10:30Simon Mayo: I think you're the only person that gets excited by a sprocket. No, I'm not, because there is a scene in this film in which literally a reel of film and its sprockets is fondled in a way that I understood entirely. Yes, exactly. And also, it's no surprise to know that as far as the VHS stuff is concerned, there is at least one scene which directly references David Cronenberg's Videodrome, which again is the fleshiness of VHS. It will come as no surprise to you, Simon, to know that I loved this. I loved this film. Not just because it celebrates the kind of, the often, well, sometimes inadvertently transgressive power of horror, but because it does so in a way which is both highbrow, but also brilliantly lowbrow.

1:11:13I mean, I remember when we were making the documentary Scream and Scream again for Channel 4 years and years ago, we went to Camp Noby Bosco, which is the place where they filmed Friday the 13th, you know, the Camp Blood of Friday the 13th. And there is something about, and for all the problems with the Friday the 13th movies, you know, they're absolutely the sex and death thing. You know, you have sex, you get killed, you smoke dope, you get killed, blah, blah, blah. They're those morality tells. But there is something that was genuinely thrilling and subversive about them. And of course, Little Death, right?

1:11:41The monster here is called Little Death. What does Little Death mean, Simon? Le Petit Maw. Precisely. Yes. It's orgasmic. It is. And there is a reason why so much of the bloodletting in this, and actually in the kind of almost parodic horror movies, is, you know, huge spurting fountains of fluid. Oh, really? And actually very, very early on, the Gillian Anderson character tells um the filmmaker you know you're you're complicating it these films are they're about flesh and fluids and i thought that if this was something that the film kind of engaged with in a way that was really for me really thrilling because it was like i was just you wanted to go yeah yes yes it's also it's really entertaining it's got some great needle drops it's got a genuinely authentic retro feel that put me in mind there was a movie called antrum the deadliest film ever made which i reviewed a few years ago maybe even during lockdown which i thought had that kind of that real you know tactile feel to it both the lead performances are great i think jillian anderson is just having great fun hannah einbinder is brilliant in the role and i i literally sat there thinking okay i could i'm enjoying this so much it's it's it's so full of ideas it's yeah i just thought it was terrific i can guarantee you that you would not enjoy it as much as i did and i do understand that part of what's going on is that this is literally playing to to to a home crowd me but i also think that there's much more when it finished a colleague of mine turned to me and said what do you think and i went i loved it and they went yeah thought so were your senses working over time?

1:13:29They were. My senses were working over time. I had one, two, three, four, five senses working over time.

1:13:36Simon Mayo: Demonic, it sounds like you are going straight to hell. That's it for this week. This has been a Sony Music Entertainment production. This week's team, Jen, Eric, Josh, Heather. The producer was Don. The redactor was Simon Poole. In take two, we're directing you to the Overflow car park. More chat about current releases. And if you've enjoyed what you've heard so far, there is plenty more. and even if you haven't enjoyed it and you think it's dreadful there's still plenty more waiting for you over on take two such as five question film club questions three questions your majesty sorry thank you we're asked who would be the worst dinner party guest in terms of table banners from the history of cinema interesting question okay don't forget people of bristol and beyond we'll be at the bristle beacon on december the 6th tickets are on sale via the link in the show notes you can get both takes ad free just search co-moder may a patron and join the church mark What is your film of the week?

1:14:26Simon Mayo: As if there is, you know, which is a shame for Anne Sons because I think you've been... No, so here's... I'm going to square that circle. This show is co-presented by you and me. My film of the week is Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma. And your film of the week... Is the only film of these that I've seen, which is Anne Sons. But I think even if I had seen Teenage Sex... And Death. I would probably have enjoyed Anne Sons more. And I think that's right. I absolutely think that's the case. Okay. Well, that seems remarkably balanced. It doesn't it? You wait till we get to Three Questions Film Club in which I'm going to overturn the popular vote.

1:15:05Simon Mayo: Again, again, there'll be another siege. And Sean Penn will make a movie about you, starring Bradley Cooper as you. Anyway, another take has appeared alongside this one. Thank you. We'll talk to you soon.

1:15:24Thank you.