How Did This Get Made? - Matinee Monday: Malignant
Episode Date: October 21, 2024Paul, June, and Jason discuss the 2021 horror film directed by James Wan, Malignant. The crew gets hard to work on breaking down the big movie twist, the physicality of our villain, and the gorgeous c...inematography. After watching, they were jonesing for a sequel where our villain Gabriel gets more screen time and just gets to have fun. Jason started a new social media challenge, the #MElignant—share your photos with us! (Originally Released 10/07/2021) Tix on sale for Philly live show on Nov 16th and holiday virtual live show on Dec 12th! Go to hdtgm.com for ticket info, merch, and for more on bad movies.Order Paul’s book about his childhood: Joyful Recollections of TraumaFor extra content on Matinee Monday movies, visit Paul's YouTube page: youtube.com/paulscheerTalk bad movies on the HDTGM Discord: discord.gg/hdtgmPaul’s Discord: discord.gg/paulscheerFollow Paul’s movie recs on Letterboxd: letterboxd.com/paulscheer/Check out new HDTGM movie merch over at teepublic.com/stores/hdtgmPaul and Rob Huebel stream live on Twitch every Thursday 8-10pm EST: www.twitch.tv/friendzoneLike good movies too? Subscribe to Unspooled with Paul and Amy Nicholson: listen.earwolf.com/unspooledSubscribe to The Deep Dive with Jessica St. Clair and June Diane Raphael: www.thedeepdiveacademy.com/podcastWhere to find Paul, June, & Jason:@PaulScheer on Instagram & Twitter@Junediane on IG and @MsJuneDiane on TwitterJason is not on social mediaGet access to all the podcasts you love, music channels and radio shows with the SiriusXM App! Get 3 months free using the link: siriusxm.com/hdtgm.
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Discussion (0)
Watch out. The killer is behind you.
Literally. We saw a malignant, so you know what that means.
Now it's time for...
How did this get made?
Gonna have a good time, celebrate some failure
Not just be a hater, cause you know you wonder
How did this get made?
Let's law in the mediocrity of subpar art
Perhaps we'll find the answer to the question,
how did this get made?
Hello, people of Earth, and welcome to How Did This Get Made.
I am Tal John Shear, and we are in Scaretober.
That's right, How Did This Get Made
is attacking the world of horror films for October,
and we're starting off with a film that, day it came out everyone rushed to tell us it needed to be featured on the
show we didn't even watch it before because it was so overwhelming and boy
oh boy you picked a great one Malignant just came out it's currently on HBO Max
it's a James Wan film look Look, we're gonna say this.
If you've not seen it and you want to not be spoiled,
tune out now because I don't think there's a way
to describe this movie or talk about this movie
without the spoiler.
I'm gonna try right now to explain what's going on
without the spoiler.
There is a killer on the loose.
We don't know who it is.
There are many leads, but all signs point to
our lead actress. Is she the killer?
Only time will tell.
And I guarantee you, if you knew nothing about this film,
you are not going to guess who the killer is.
And boy, oh boy, I cannot wait to describe it
and talk to you all about it.
But let's do it with my two co-hosts.
Please welcome Jason Mandewkas and Miss June Diane Rayfield.
How are you?
Paul, I'm great.
I thought that was a valiant effort
to try and explain the movie without a spoiler.
I'm now going to explain the movie with a spoiler.
OK.
That is not entirely true.
But this movie posits the question,
what if Drop Dead Fred was a horror movie?
OK.
Yes.
And here's what I will say.
Because for a good portion of the movie,
it appears as though the killer is the imaginary friend
of the lead character Madison slash Emily.
And if you want to see that movie done better,
the Drop Dead Fred horror movie,
may I suggest Adam Egypt Mortimer's film Daniel Isn't Real,
with Patrick Schwarzenegger.
This already exists?
Oh, it's phenomenal. I love Daniel Isn't Real.
Oh, wow.
Uh, it's, that is an imaginary friend killer movie,
and it's fucking great and weird and really, really good.
But yes, you're right, this is Drop Dead Fred.
Well, not even. I mean, yeah.
But then it's not. But then it's not.
Then it's not, yeah.
Because then it's like a... then it's a quado.
It turns out to be kind of a quado.
Reverse quado.
It's so interesting because it takes so long
to get into what the movie is.
I mean, and I know horror movies, like we're waiting on the twist,
we're waiting on the twist, but this twist, it truly did feel like it happened
in the last 10 minutes of the movie.
You are watching a solid 90 minutes of a very slow paced drama about a woman who
is dealing with some PTSD from having lost a child
and her husband being brutally killed.
Her abusive husband.
Yes.
Her abusive husband, she's lost,
and I believe she's lost four children.
Yes.
In utero and her husband is abusive, he is then killed,
and she appears to be being,
because I also thought this was like,
and I'm not a big, you know, I think maybe you guys,
I'm not a big horror movie person,
so in the beginning, I thought,
oh, is this a poltergeist riff?
Is this a, you know, the villain is inside of their house,
because the house that they live in
is this kind of beautiful,
constantly being foregrounded in this menacing shot,
these establishing shots.
And I was like, oh, is this a House is the Bad Guy movie?
And then I was like, oh no, it's not that.
I was constantly trying to figure it out in that regard.
Go ahead.
There were so many establishing shots,
you're right, Jason, of houses,
different types of houses,
different like levels of houses.
Um, I mean, the thing that I, listen,
I was actually upset that the twist came so late
because the movie and what ends up,
the basic premise of the movie is that in Utero,
Emily Marissa, whatever her name is,
had a twin that didn't survive.
And so sort of instead of like that separate embryo being,
you know, taken out and aborted out of the body
was absorbed into her.
Which happens all the time.
Which is something that does happen, yeah.
Listen, we've had our own personal experience with that.
My sister. A parasitic twin. Yes. to her, which happens all the time. Listen, we've had our own personal experience with that.
My sister. A parasitic twin.
Yes, yes.
They're called vanishing twins.
It's called vanishing twin syndrome.
Where you have a twin and I think, you know, they now,
like we all might've been twins
because they've only started doing these early.
Who have you been talking to?
What do you know?
Well, well, I'll tell you.
I think one of my sisters was a twin because she had,
she had a cyst removed.
Oh boy, this gets getting to me.
And it had hair and teeth.
Yeah.
And.
That has a name.
Is that called like a, that has a,
that collection of hair and teeth has a name.
It's called like a, it's, I I wanna say it's a Beezore,
but that's a Harry Potter thing.
Those things have a name.
I'm so sorry, go ahead, June.
No, but they said to her that she probably was a twin.
I also have a family history of twins,
but it was probably a twin that was absorbed.
So there's this extra DNA that's in your body.
Now they believe also- That's called, by the way,
like Jason was saying, a dermoid cyst.
It's a sac like growth that's present at birth.
What we're talking about here is a parasitic twin
that occurs when a single embryo in utero
begins to split. A single embryo, yes.
But it doesn't complete.
And then the dominant twin develops as normal
and the extra twin does not.
The parasitic twin is somewhere between a conjoined twin and a vanishing twin,
uh, or a twin that was reabsorbed.
And it always shares the same genetic material as, uh, the viable twin,
as they were once the same embryo.
Therefore the parasitic twin is always the same gender.
Oh, I didn't know that. The parasitic twin is always the same gender. Oh, I didn't know that.
The parasitic twin is always the same gender.
Okay, that's interesting.
So this movie is flouting science in that way.
Otherwise the movie is totally right on,
but in that way it's only.
Everything about it is medically,
like they used this movie in med school to understand.
Well, that's why I think it was so dry
for that first 90 minutes,
because it really was almost like watching a documentary
about the process of giving birth.
And it was very, very dry.
Well, this was sort of my cautionary tale
to all of us, to be quite honest.
Now women are getting ultrasounds at like six weeks,
seven weeks,
seven weeks, but when we all were in utero, if you can harken back to that time,
like we weren't getting ultrasounds.
I remember it well.
You remember it well.
I remember it well.
I have so much uterine nostalgia.
I know.
Especially now, that's what kind of got me
through this whole quarantine is just, I just,
I just went back to that spot where I was like,
that was fun.
That was a great nine months.
But just in FYI, like a lot of us could be twins.
Yes, a lot of us could have malignance.
Little baby malignance.
And we would never know it.
We would never know it.
We would just be out there falling into a trance at night
and then walking and crawling backwards on all of it.
Breaking our arms.
This is what I said to Paul.
This is what I said to Paul.
Did this twin, cause at some point her sister,
who's not her biological sister,
who's her adopted sister, I don't know,
says that she, that Gabriel, her twin,
her tumor twin is caused all of these multiple miscarriages. But I thought, I thought that Gabriel wasn't activated until she smashed her head in the
wall.
Well, I think what's happening is Gabriel is still inside of her, but the smash to the
head that kind of activated it, that kind of hit the sensor off,
like that made Gabriel kind of like...
Her skull appears to be able to open
and knit itself back together at will,
depending on whether or not Gabriel wants to come out.
But what the sister says to her is at one point,
he was, like Gabriel grew stronger by feeding on your babies.
Like he was feed, that's why he's come back, Gabriel grew stronger by feeding on your babies.
Like he was feed, that's why he's come back,
is he was feeding on your babies
and that's what strengthened him.
And then the final straw,
the final straw was when her husband hit her,
the back of her head where Gabriel lives into the wall,
thus creating a rupture that allowed for Gabriel to come in and out of consciousness
or whatever.
Right, so. You can kinda hear it described
in this scene right here.
Maddie, I know you couldn't hear me.
You have to fight him.
Madison's not home.
Madison, he killed your babies.
He was the cause of your miscarriages.
He was feeding off of your fetuses
to build himself back up!
Mally, please, please, come back!
So they do lay it down, but it's such a giant premise.
And it's so late in the game.
And it's so late in the game.
And it's so, so late in the game.
And that it's-
What I couldn't figure out about this movie was,
the movie doesn't have enough plot
to sustain an hour and 50 minutes. No! You I mean? Like, it's, it's...
And I think James Wan is a really,
a very impressive filmmaker.
Like, there's a lot of, like,
there's a lot of very good tension in here.
There's a lot of very imaginative camera work.
When, like, I loved the shots that were almost,
like, they were from above inside the house
and looked like floor plans.
You were looking down at the floor plan of inside the house and looked like floor plans.
You were looking down at the floor plan of the home
and she's running up and down stairs
and in and out of rooms in a way that you're like,
this is such inventive filmmaking,
but they kept you in the dark for just too long.
Well, cause once it gets going.
Just like, oh, she's the twin, she's the bad guy all along.
Okay, we knew it. But even crazier, not, she's the twin. She's the bad guy all along. OK, we knew it.
But even crazier, not only is she the twin,
but when the twin comes out, she just reverses her body.
So it's one body, two faces.
And what I found to be, obviously, I don't
need everything to be answered.
But maybe just a little bit, I'll
say it's interesting that she broke her arms
to go backwards when she's malignant.
But then how do the arms get back to the normal,
you know, like is malignant healing bones?
Well, she also had on like a coat, like a-
Yeah, an outfit.
Like there's definitely an outfit.
One of the things that I really couldn't ever understand,
and I'm curious if you guys have a thought on this,
is it seemed like the majority of the movie,
of all of act one and half of act two,
seemed to present Gabriel or the villain, the murderer,
as a supernatural being,
a phantom, a ghost, a ghoul.
He eats electricity,
and he communicates through radio waves.
Like he is burned.
All of these supernatural elements,
and they do that thing,
which I think all modern horror movies do,
which is long black hair covering the face,
and backwards crawling
and speedy movements, uncomfortable backwards walking
and crawling.
That fight, the two fights, the two fights
in the police precinct and the jail from the 1970s
that she was, I guess they just haven't cleaned out
that jail since they arrested all those perps
from like a Sidney Lumet movie.
From all walks of life and all times.
I was like, is this like, is this a time traveler's jail?
But those...
I'll tell you what, Bob, I'm in here for having a jazz cigarette.
You know what I mean?
It felt like everybody was from like a different era.
I really was confused about that jail cell.
But that breaking of the arms, because they really show you when she
transforms into malignant, uh, like, uh, you know, that, like, I just don't get
how those arms come back.
Cause even when she goes back to being herself, she gets those arms back,
back under control.
Uh, is it, she double jointed?
Is that what they're trying to say?
I don't know.
There aren't, unfortunately,
there aren't enough reveals in this movie
to sustain the length, right?
Like, this movie, I think, would have been much more fun
at an hour 30.
Yes.
At an hour 30, and it's just because all we realized
so quickly, oh, the bad guy is killing the doctors
that tortured him
and his sister, you know?
That's the setup.
Okay, there isn't even a twist on that.
That's just what's happening.
So all we're left to wonder is who.
And it's really, it's either a supernatural being
or it's Madison slash Emily.
You know, there wasn't any misleads. There wasn't any, maybe it's this person or maybe it's Madison slash Emily. You know, there wasn't any misleads.
There wasn't any, maybe it's this person
or maybe it's that person.
The imaginary friend element, I was like,
oh, is that the twist that people are talking about?
Like that's, because everyone keeps on saying,
oh, the twist in this is pretty insane.
And I was like, the imaginary friend isn't like that.
I mean, it's bonkers, but whatever.
But I will say that.
Why are you saying, Paul, that she's turning into malignant?
I just want to call him malignant.
I don't want to call it Gabriel.
Gabriel, that's an interesting,
because I noticed that as well.
So you think that the, you think it's called malignant.
Yeah, I think it like-
The bad, the evil.
The bad guy is malignant.
Yeah, malignant.
Because the doctor said it's, you know, it is malignant. So the doctor said it is malignant.
So, you know, like Gabriel.
You're saying that as though it's like a name or something.
Did Gabriel have a naming ceremony?
Did someone name Gabriel?
Who's coming to your dinner party?
Oh, Matt and Karen, malignant.
Jeff and Kathy, malignant and his girlfriend, Emily.
You know, as I said to June, I was like,
throughout the movie I would say, oh, malignant.
Like, you know, cause I knew that malignant was,
I think that malignant is a better name than Gabriel.
And Gabriel, I, again, I just want to go back and say
that this movie opens, before we see the abuse of the husband,
it opens in this 1990s.
It's a doctor recording her captain's log for this patient.
And they show you the damage that a little maligny can do.
And, and then you're, you're, and you believe that this character is dead, but
obviously why would that seem to be in the movie that character was dead?
Um, but that was the only thing that made you believe
that there was something, like a real person
invested in it, right?
Yeah, they basically, yes, they basically established
Gabriel both by name and evil action in the opening scene
so that you believe, the mislead is,
you believe that the villain is a,
either Gabriel is still alive,
or Gabriel is now a specter or a ghost
or something that is haunting them,
or you don't know why, but you understand,
you understand definitively that Gabriel is the,
so, you know, so as an effort to kind of
throw you off the scent that Emily slash
Madison, what's her name? Right, Madison?
Yes, there is our main character is Madison Mitchell.
Her real name is, yeah, and her birth name is Emily. And to throw the scent off of her
because you're like, no, this is happening to her. She's not the villain. Because we
know Gabriel is probably what's going She's not the villain because we know Gabriel is,
Gabriel is probably what's going to be at the root here.
I mean, I will say I was pretty entranced by the main actress,
who played Emily slash Annabel Wallace.
Annabel Wallace. I just really, really loved her and spent.
I spent most of the movie thinking about her hair and whether I could get it
and how I could get it. And I think it would be easy. I mean, it's, it's a giant black
wig. I mean, it is, she is normally a blonde. So good on her. You should be, you should
be malignant for Halloween. I mean, malignant for Halloween would be great. That's a great idea. I could be Kiko Shaw.
Wait, Paul, you think you could be Kiko Shaw?
Yeah.
Okay, cool. But there's a very...
Detective Kiko Shaw.
There's a very specific type of hair on ladies, which is like there's bangs and then there's like a sheet of hair.
A sheet. And she had, of course, course it's a wig but she had that sheet and
It's like a sheet like you can peek through
Yeah, it's it is honestly the type of hair where like another person could be hiding inside of it
Well, that's what we need and we need that we want that here. We want that to hide a face
We want that. We want that to hide a face. How did this get me?
How did this get me?
Now I will say this, there is a scene in the movie where, and if you go back and rewatch it, which I have not done, but many people told me that you can, as anything, you can do whatever you want with your time on this planet.
But there's a scene where she is talking to Gabriel and in the mirror, you see the back of her head, but it's totally fine.
There's nothing going on there. So Gabriel, this idea that Gabriel is like
literally in her head but can still use a telephone, like that was the, these are
the things that I'm having.
You want Gabriel to speak.
Yeah.
Because Gabriel does seem to have a mouth on him.
And he does talk to her, he does talk to her through different technologies,
but also inside of her head.
Like when Gabriel's taken over,
she is hearing his voice through her own hearing,
like when she is not in control of her body.
So again, what this movie has a lot of trouble with is rules.
You know, because, and I'm not for nothing,
because to define the rules would be to give away the movie.
It would be to give away the reveals.
And so they have to cost.
But I do believe they're building up for a sequel here.
So the sequel will be, the sequel is going to be
where Malignant gets Malignant on vacation.
If you're Madison, if you're Madison, right?
Madison who says she doesn't, that would be amazing,
just like speed two, cruise control.
Yeah, exactly.
Malignant.
Malignant two on a cruise.
The thing about Madison is she says
she doesn't remember anything before she was eight years old
when her sister, the scene where she's in the hospital
and her sister arrives in a princess dress,
I was like, I want more of's in the hospital and her sister arrives in a princess dress. Yes.
I was like, I want more of this in the movie.
I like that relationship.
Inexplicably, the sister is dressed for a costume party
where she plays a princess.
Like a Disney princess.
Yeah, she was coming from a birthday party.
Yeah.
I thought this sister was great.
I mean, I was very sort of taken with these actors.
She was great.
As was Maria Bello, too.
Yeah. I mean, here's the interesting thing about the sister. So early on when Emily was a child, malignant was, she was able to sort of
quell and quiet malignant once her sister was born. Right?
Well, no, no, no, no. Malignant was the whole idea? Malignant was also, Malignant was in her head as her. That's the whole idea. But her, but Malignant was,
I think this is a really like a metaphor for like,
being the youngest or being the ignored child, right?
Cause Malignant is sort of like,
trying to have her wreck her family's life
because doesn't she have the knife in her hand
when she's about to kill her parents?
And she's like, yeah, so Malignant,
Malignant is, Gabriel rather,
is trying to make her hurt the baby
because what they say is that Gabriel knows
if she is given, because remember she is talking
at the beginning about like wanting a blood relation
or wanting someone.
And so Gabriel recognizes that the new baby
is a threat to his relationship
with Madison slash Emily.
So he wants her to kill the baby, but she doesn't.
And in doing so allows for herself to have a bond
with her sister that makes Gabriel,
like Gabriel hasn't been talking to her
from eight until the head injury, right?
Like she hasn't been hearing from Gabriel.
Well, I guess Gabriel has been munching on those fetuses and...
It's just been... yeah.
Right. So I guess you're right.
And then the head trauma, the head trauma is what wakes him up.
I mean, my god, when you see this moment...
Strap him into the chair.
You've been a bad, bad boy, Gabriel.
Bad, bad boy, Gabriel. Ah!
Ah!
Ah!
Ah!
Ah!
Ah!
Ah!
Ah!
Ah!
Ah!
Ah!
Ah!
Ah!
Ah!
Ah!
Ah!
Ah!
Ah!
Ah!
Ah!
Ah!
Ah!
Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! I thought we could help him, but I was wrong.
It's time we cut out the cancer.
And then after that moment, they proceed
to show you how they cut out Gabriel.
So this was going to be my question as well.
So they operate, and they remove all of Gabriel's, like, how they cut out Gabriel. Whoa! So this was gonna be my question as well.
So they operate and they remove all of Gabriel's
like physicality, his little arms, his rib cage,
all of the stuff that's on the back of-
All the stuff that makes Gabriel Gabriel.
Yeah, all the stuff that's on, like again,
like if you've seen Total Recall, it's like a Quado scenario.
But in reverse and in the head.
Quado's in the belly, this is more in the head.
Oh, it's also like Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
when Professor Quirrell has Voldemort
on the back of his head.
And it's been in his turban the whole time
and you just haven't seen it, you know?
But that's the vibe of it.
And so they cut out the whole thing.
Wouldn't Madison's back have so much surgical scarring
that she would be like, what happened to me?
Well, didn't what I found so interesting
is when they were doing this surgery,
and I was watching, and look, I'm not gonna lie.
I was watching it through, you know, a hand over my eyes
because that kind of shit grosses me out.
I'm not into that. Like, that's not fun for me.
I don't want to see up close surgeries.
I'm not into that on TikTok. I'm not into that in a movie.
And as I'm watching it, I did see them, like, kind of like...
They couldn't cut all of Malignant out, so they just kind of pushed it together
and then just, like, closed her skull on it.
Like, like the way that you kind of pack a suitcase when it's a little bit too full,
it's like, yeah, just get in there and we're gonna get it down.
Like they just kind of pop some malignant in there
and then close that skull on top of it,
like a trunk, a packed trunk.
Yeah, close to her brain.
And that's the thing is when Gabriel comes in and out of dominance,
he is able to un...
He's able to like almost like...
Like the curtains opening.
Like a cuckoo clock.
Like her skull, her skull opens, like her hair parts
and her skull cracks open.
Gabriel's deformed face comes out.
That's what I want to say.
When he's in charge.
And then when he goes away, it's like, and the show's over.
And her skull knits back together.
Yeah, it's like, that's why they call them curtain bangs.
I want this to be, I want our shirt to be a cuckoo clock
with malignant coming out of it.
It's malignant time.
But just what I couldn't figure out was like,
and I felt like the movie wanted to have it both ways,
which was, is Gabriel corporeal or not?
Because like one of the best,
I thought one of the great like little moments
inside of early in the movie that I was like,
oh, this is what I like about James Wan.
This is why I think he's a good filmmaker
is like when the husband has been like relegated
to the downstairs and he's like,
huh, what's going on?
He's looking around and we see the hair covered,
blah, blah, blah.
And we see there's like, you know, scurrying
and malignant shows up in the background a little bit.
There's a moment where he sees malignant
sitting on the couch and then he walks over
and the couch cushion like,
un-compresses. Oh yeah.
Like the couch cushion goes from being sat on
to not sat on, right?
And it just rises like weight is coming off of it,
which I thought was such a good, tiny way to show
that there's something here moving that you can't see.
But what I couldn't figure out was,
well, isn't that make Malignant a ghost?
Isn't that a...
That's why it was a misdirect that made no fucking sense.
Yeah.
Because, and by the way...
It was a cool thing, but it didn't add up
because Malignant is just Madison. no fucking sense because and by the way... It was a cool thing but it didn't add up because
malignant is just Madison.
I mean, this is...
It's a body.
I'm gonna say...
A body that moves at quite a clip.
I mean, it's very much not to whatever.
It's very much like the ring, like the ring, you know,
it's like she can get on all fours.
She's...
...scurrying around because like, because malignant like drops from the ceiling. Like the ring, you know, it's like she can get on all fours., is never hurt. The bullets don't go into Madison unless Malignant,
like, was catching him with his, like, little gnarled teeth.
I will say that there are some things that don't,
I mean, there's many things that don't make sense.
I will say that, uh, you know, the introduction
to this husband that you have to kill off right away
and not feel too badly about, but you also need to, like,
set in motion, uh, harden up. Like, there's a lot of things that have to kill off right away and not feel too badly about. But you also need to like set in motion, uh, harden.
Like there's a lot of things that you have to be accomplished within the first
three minutes of the movie of present day, which is she's got to lose her child.
She's got to be abused by her husband to activate malignant.
And you have to like, not like this husband, like there's so much that that you have to do and I did think there are some very funny
moments of just like
Very black and white it's like here's the husband on the bed watching UFC in the middle of the day like it
Was like on his phone
He's on his phone on his phone watching UFC and when he hits her and there's nothing funny about domestic violence
But he hits her with such force,
it was like a Fast and Furious hit.
It was like the Rock.
Well, the camera moved with it.
The camera moved with his, like, again,
it just creates an even more visceral sense of this abuse.
Because the camera moves with his shoving her into the wall
in a way that was like, whoa. It really was shocking.
I'm now thinking about these miscarriages,
and a part of me is like, maybe Gabriel was in his own way
protecting Emily from having a devil baby.
Wait, wait, you think that the baby would come out
like baby malignant?
Well, the baby's gonna share half of malignance or at least a third of malignant's DNA.
I think you could also look at it as he doesn't want her to have a baby the same way that
he didn't want her to have a sister.
Right.
Like that he wouldn't want her attention to be on something else. But again, I think what we,
like I think the understanding is it's that shove,
that the husband's shove,
and that's why-
That opens up the coup plot.
That's why they really, I think foreground it so much
and make it seem so,
cause she's continually checking the back of her head
and it's always bleeding.
Like that shove is what awakens Gabriel
That is the inciting incident. I think that brings Gabriel back to life back to reality
back to the way
To be anyway
However, do you want me however do you want me? How will you need me? Malignant.
However do you want me? However do you need me?
I'll fucking kill you.
It would have been amazing if like Bumblebee,
he talked through songs on the radio.
Instead of having a voice on the radio,
he had to use like existing songs.
And so he used, like, so like the dial goes up and down
and it's like, back to life, back to reality.
But isn't that what Bumblebee do?
He does that in the Transformers.
That is, yeah, that is Bumblebee's game.
Oh, but this is Malignant, oh sorry, sorry.
I'm saying it would have been funny
if this was, if that was Malignant's game.
You know, here's, but here's the thing
that I didn't quite understand.
How she gets rid of malignant at the end.
Oh, in the mind jail kept on saying, you kept on saying like multiple times,
Paul, like she put him in prison.
She put him in prison.
Yeah.
She put him in my prison.
Yeah.
But like, how did she do that?
And how can I do that with my negative thoughts?
Oh, wow. Okay. But like, how did she do that? And how can I do that with my negative thoughts?
Oh wow.
I mean, she basically justifies it by saying,
the mind powers that you have,
because we share a mind, I have them too.
And now I know how to use them.
You know what I mean?
Like that's the exposition that's given.
It's not good, but that's what they say.
Let's play a little bit of this mind prison scene.
Now I can do all the mind tricks you can
We share the same brain
You don't deserve your body I can use it better than you. Not anymore. You don't get to control me ever again.
It's over, Gabriel. I'm taking it all back.
My mind, my body, my everything.
Now you get to live in a world that I create.
You can't lock me in here forever.
You'll always be stuck with me.
Sooner or later I will get out.
I know. But next time, I'll be ready for you.
This scene is insane because it's the first time...
Alright, so what we see is every time that Malignant kind of comes out, or every time that she has this thing to kill, like the entire backdrop goes like,
it becomes almost like oil and water kind of rushes into the frame and the background disappears.
Like that happens a few times in the movie, and at the end Malignant's out there
doing Malignant stuff, and then all of a sudden the oil and water kind of wash over the scene.
And now they're in this mine jail,
kind of like Sherlock Holmes' like mine vault.
Memory palace.
Memory palace.
And now they're both there?
No, no, no.
Okay, so I can explain this.
So what we're talking about is what is revealed
when we get the reveal that Madison slash Emily
is also Gabriel slash Malignant,
that they share a body,
that Malignant exists on the back of her body.
So when we've seen this character killing people,
it's actually been Emily,
but Emily is trapped inside of a psychological prison.
So when Malignant takes control of her body,
she is trapped inside of her own head, right?
And so she, so let's say she's in the bathroom, right?
And what you described as it all melts away.
And now she's in the hotel room of the bad guy
that she's the doctor or is the doctor
that she's gonna kill, right?
What has happened is probably in the bathroom,
malignant takes over traps her in that room
and then malignant goes to the guy's house
and she watches from inside malignant's eyes what Malignant's doing, right?
And in the end of the movie,
she uses that trick against Malignant.
So Malignant thinks he's shot the sister
and is gonna kill the mother,
but that's just her showing him a false reality
and saying, I'm in control, I'm trapping you in a false memory
or a false idea of reality,
because I have the same psychological powers as you do,
and now I'm using them against you, basically.
Well, but Jason, the things that she saw Malignant do
were real though.
I know, that's the movies wanting to have a moment
where Malignant kills the sister and the mom
and you're like, oh no, but then they immediately undo it.
It's just, that's just stakes, I think.
It's not good.
It's not good.
The mom is still alive?
Everybody's still alive.
Yeah, the mom is still alive at the end.
The sister is still alive.
I know the sister is still alive at the end.
Even though Malignant shoots the sister.
Yeah.
They are, like when the sisters are hugging at the end,
there's a, he dollies out wide, wide, wide,
and the mom is just sitting, not the mom, sorry,
the birth mother.
Yes.
The birth mother.
Yes, yes, yes.
Not Maria, not Maria Bell, the birth mother
is sitting in her hospital bed smiling so big,
it's hilarious.
Insane trauma has just happened regardless.
And the fact that she's ending the movie like,
is so bizarre.
It's really funny.
Did you get a read on why she initially gave them up?
Them meaning malignant and?
I think if you, yeah.
It's in the video.
There's a video where the Dr. Weaver is interviewing.
She's like 15 years old and her mother says
it's an abomination and she wants to give it up.
Right.
Wow.
It's confusing.
It's confusing because the footage looks identical
to the footage of young Madison slash Emily
when she is a child, they both have essentially
the black bangs, straight black hair.
They look too similar.
So similar.
And the movie is very dark.
I mean, again, big James Bond fan,
I think Aquaman is one of my favorite DC movies,
but there is some darkness in this movie
that is unexplainable.
Like when they go into the morgue
to look at the body of the husband,
it is X-Files office dark in that, like, autopsy room.
Like, I mean, it is...
How about the fact that the sister goes
to an abandoned, like, asylum on a cliff?
She parks on the precipice of a cliffside.
And at night, she goes on the precipice of a cliffside
and at night she goes to it like the Hogwarts,
it's Hogwarts in scope and scale, it is massive.
It's like she goes to Arkham Asylum.
On the coast of Seattle.
And goes into the records room,
goes down into the records room
and immediately finds her sister's box of videotapes.
By the way.
I was like, this would be impossible.
Well, it's also hard because like, so, so the movie is so dark.
They should have kept her. She should have been dressed in a princess dress in that scene.
Absolutely.
When the mom falls out. So, so Malignant has taken the mom from her job as a tour guide in
the subway systems or some such.
She does an underground Seattle tour,
which is actually a real thing.
We should all do it next time we are on tour.
Which is cool.
Is keeping her in the attic of Marissa or Melanie
or whatever her name is, her house taped up.
And she eventually falls through the floor
and into the living room.
Okay.
That falls.
But she falls.
She falls through two floors.
She must fall through two sets of floors.
Which is so crazy.
Like if you were to fall through one,
just because you've fallen through one floor
doesn't mean like you're gonna fall through all floors.
I fell through one floor as a child and
What? But I was caught.
All right.
So I mean, by the floor, very much like the money pit.
Like, yeah.
The funniest shot in any movie ever.
I thought you fell through the floor
and someone was just like, boop.
Well, we had an attic and I was always told
to stay on the beams.
You have to stay on the beams.
And there was, I'm gonna say it's asbestos,
but it wasn't asbestos.
It's like that pink fluffy stuff, whatever.
You know, insulator.
Yeah. Insulator.
And fiberglass.
Yeah. And so I slipped as I was walking
on one of those beams and my foot went
into the fiberglass pink stuff.
And my foot came right through the floor,
and then I also took, you know, a drop.
Like, you know, not, yeah.
Well, the floor was probably just sheet rock.
Yes.
You know, it was probably just, it was not like, you know,
just sheet, probably something very, you know,
not capable of holding your weight.
Well, that floor looked much sturdier.
Like, it looked like an actual floor.
It looked like someone almost, like...
Well, Malignant's been walking around up there
all the time. It looks like Malignant's hideout.
But Malignant, why does Malignant need a hideout?
Because Malignant is her. Malignant can sleep in the bed.
Like, does Malignant need time to exercise?
Like, Malignant's only been alive for a handful of days.
It's just like sometimes when you need a space
to just be yourself.
I would have loved it if there was a Peloton up there.
I would have liked it if, you know,
Malignant likes the rower and then maybe-
The hydro.
The hydro.
Malignant does the hydro.
And then maybe Emily does the mirror.
So Emily can be facing one direction doing the mirror.
And then Maligna could do the mirror.
The mirror is great.
At first, I was all about Peloton,
and if they're still advertising on the show,
I'm very much about them.
But now I'm all in the mirror.
I love both.
I don't have a mirror.
If the mirror people want to send me a mirror, I'll do it.
Yeah, man, get in the mirror. Listen, I don't have a mirror. If the mirror people want to send me a mirror, I'll do it.
Yeah, man, get in the mirror.
I'm curious.
It's amazing.
But what I loved about this movie
is every set is enormous.
Like every room is so big to allow for cameras
and lighting and so like the attic,
the attic has a revolving fan that's going around
that is eight feet in diameter.
I mean, it looks like they are in an aircraft,
an airplane hanger, you know,
Malignant's hideout.
And it's just the attic of her house.
It's just the top part of that house.
Do you think that the establishing shots of the house
are to show maybe, maybe you'll catch Malignant up there?
Like maybe Malignant, like-
I wonder.
One of the things I kept doing in this movie
was always looking in the background
to see if they were populating it
with like little things like that, and they weren't.
Well, no, they-
I was like, oh, I wish there was more little things
to pick up on, but it felt very, felt very kind of,
again, once it's on the tracks,
it felt very much on the tracks.
I was very rarely surprised until a point
when they were like, oh, it's an imaginary friend.
And I was like, oh, I guess that's it.
I guess I could have tried to figure that out.
And then they were like, oh, it's not an imaginary friend.
It's a parasitic twin.
The coolest shot in the movie,
which I've now doing my research have seen again,
is the moment where she sees the cop,
she is being reflected in the mirror and Malignant is facing the cop.
So that is a moment where you can see both faces.
Now, I imagine if I am the woman running underground Seattle,
and I am kidnapped by Malignant, and I'm now taken to a nice
house in the attic, a semi-furnished attic.
Um, if Malignant is, like, torturing me in this chair,
every time that Malignant would walk away from me,
I would see this other young girl and be like, oh, hey.
Like, now, I guess I just was wondering
how much of her is covered.
Like, can you flip it back?
They do a lot of hair over her face, I think.
Right.
But the hair would have to go backwards.
It would have to like go over the top.
Like that would be almost like a, like a,
to do that, it's like a Donald Trump kind of comb over.
Like this is like- Cause you're saying, but they do a Donald Trump kind of comb over. Like this is like.
Cause you're saying, but they do,
they do hair over Malignan's face.
Yes.
Which doesn't necessarily mean that the hair
is over Emily's face.
Cause Malignan's face is popping out from the hair.
The bangs are not giving that length.
Well, there's no bangs for Malignan.
Oh, hang on.
No, Malignan doesn't have bangs.
There are no back bangs.
I'm saying that Emily has bangs, so there's
not that much that can drop.
Back, I think back bangs might be the t-shirt.
But here's the thing.
I agree with you.
Malignant has to part the hair and crack the skull
open to be present.
But what the movie, in the early sightings of Malignant,
I think Malignant,
I think Malignant is the hair that is on the back of
Emily, Madison's head is being flipped back
over Madison's face.
So it looks like, cause in those first sightings
of Malignant. Can you do that, Jen?
I don't think you can do that.
Malignant seems to feel like it is a cousin it
or Captain Caveman style covered in hair.
I don't think that hair can, I mean, look,
I'm no expert in hair.
So don't trust me.
You guys are talking about two different things right now.
So Jason's just describing the malignant's hair,
which yes, is almost covered.
But Paul's question is,
what about her face on the other side?
I think when malignant comes out,
that hair gets pushed to cover Emily's face.
So you're thinking that, like, that door that opens
almost creates more scalp?
Like, it's like, whoo.
I'm going to take down my hair.
Let's see if we can test this.
Well, that's my issue.
Yeah.
That doesn't work, June, because you'd
have to crack your skull.
Like, remember, the skull gets cracked open.
So but even if I pulled this hair, if the lignin is popping out over here,
even if I push this all forward, my face is still going to peek through.
Right.
What if you pulled all the hair?
You're not doing any of your top hair.
But no, but you see Jason, that top hair is not gonna,
that top hair is bangs.
No, the back hair comes across.
No, you can't lift up back hair like that.
It's not like a garage door.
Like you're- Listen, I agree with you guys.
I'm not trying to disagree with you.
This is a, I think they're trying to have it both ways.
I think they're trying to hide Emily's face
as much as they can. Of course.
When Malignant is in charge, so as to not tip you off except for Paul the mirror scene
that you just described.
Now why does Malignant have a coat on?
Look at what June is doing.
Look at what June has just done.
That is Malignant.
Fuck, that's Malignant.
Oh, fuck, Paul, get out of there.
Fuck, Paul, Malignant.
I didn't like the way they perceived young children
who were coming.
Well, June, your voice has changed.
June, your voice is different.
Tune into the deep dive this week.
Jessica and I will be talking to Coolop Villisock.
I like that, June, you've proven that malignant works now
on multiple levels.
I guess I did, but I will say to your point, Paul,
it didn't look like that from the,
it didn't look like hair was going over.
And I think that's where we're getting,
you know, we're getting in the weeds now
with like training hair.
I urge all of our listeners,
here's what I'll say.
I urge all of our listeners to try and malignant yourselves
and send us the pictures to our whatever.
Malignant yourself. Hashtag pictures to our whatever Malignant yourself
Hashtag, hashtag, me lignant
Malignant me, how about yeah, me lignant
Me lignant
Me lignant
Hashtag me lignant and show us your pictures of your best malignant
See if you can get your hair to do it
And we need it to look good because we also have to remember fight scenes in here too
I don't know where the coat came from from malignant
I don't know where the knife came from, well I guess I know the knife a little I don't know where the coat came from, from malignant. I don't know where the knife came.
Well, I guess I know the knife a little bit.
Oh, we know where the knife came from.
Okay, that I wanna talk about
because when they go to Dr. Weaver's house, right?
Dr. Weaver is the first, is Dr. Weaver the first death?
No, second because the first death,
I mean, the first death is the husband
not counting all the people who died in the hospital.
Sorry, you're absolutely right.
Okay, so the second death, we see Dr. Weaver
and Dr. Weaver has like a set of trophies
on her shelf.
This is crazy, I'm so glad we're
having one of these trophies.
One of which just says, excellence in surgery.
That's what the trophy, and the trophy is a sword.
Which Malignant then fashions into Malignant's weapon of choice. Now you're telling me that that sword is such a strong metal that it can be grounded into
or ground down rather into an actual blade?
Yep.
Like that is insane.
Excellence in surgery.
Like here's the thing, like, okay.
So if you're really, I don't feel like any surgeons
are getting awards in general, like trophies.
Like to me, it's like your, your.
Well, but by the way, not many surgeons are putting
a malignant back in the box.
Like this person did.
Like your trophy is just like,
whether they lived or died.
Like your legacy is in, and is in the people
and living out their lives successfully.
It is like, they're not after, I mean, that was just-
It's not like, it felt like sports trophies.
Yeah. Yeah.
The way that I'm looking about,
I'm looking up are there any awards for doctors?
And they're really like the awards that you'd be getting.
I'm sure there are like humanitarian awards.
You know, there's like doing research or some such.
But I'm gonna tell you,
a lot of them are public service award,
medical research award,
special achievement in medical science,
a medallion for scientific achievement.
So none of them are for best surgery.
None of them are just simply, you cut good, you got the appendix out.
Like, you know, you don't get like a first place for that.
That scene where Dr. Weaver's in her office
and malignant basically crank calls her.
I was like, this is hilarious.
This is like, she's like, hello.
And he's like, Dr. Weaver.
I'm like, I feel like he's about to be like,
a Baba Booey, Howard Stern's penis.
The voice of Malignant is pretty hilarious because,
by the way, I just want to ask one quick question.
I know we've malignant ourselves, but malignant has no hands.
So malignant...
No, malignant has her hands.
Right, but I guess what I'm saying is,
like, when malignant turns,
the skull is opening by what, malignant's mouth?
Or is malignant like, like, do you know that some people
can tie like a cherry stem like into a knot?
Like, does malignant have to like work its tongue to like pop the back of the skull off?
Because there's no help there to like shoot out.
Well, that's why malignant breaks her arms and wrists so that he can turn those to the forefront,
so that her arms will be usable moving backwards.
Well, but that was the second part.
And I'm assuming Malignant is using those then hands to open the curtains of the skull.
The skull curtain open. Okay.
And come out.
Because I thought that maybe it was a sort of a chin lip tongue thing where it's like...
Because I thought that maybe it was sort of a chin lip tongue thing where it's like malignant
But again, malignant only seems to be to be able to speak and interact through
Electronics or yeah, but a phone call but a phone call I mean, I guess it's technically electronics, but it was like one thing is like and they said he's eating electricity he's eating it and then he's like broadcasting
through like it's like lawnmower man it's like it's like it's like there's a
movie I remember called shocker I may have referenced it on this show before
we're like a guy's getting electrocuted and he like lives in like the in like
electric outlets all over the town but But like controlling a phone and making it ring
seems like that's like maximum overdrive level
like control of devices.
I mean, that is really next level.
That's again, that's where, and this movie traffics a lot
in supernatural things that are never quite expressed
or explained that again, I'm like, is, like also, like,
so this movie wants to have it all.
Malignant has like supernatural speed and stealth
and kind of can disappear and reappear
as if it's a specter or a ghost,
but it's also corporeal and can,
and has like the fighting style of like a ninja.
You know what I mean?
Like, Gabriel knows martial arts.
Gabriel knows like, he's an expert fighter.
And again, he's an expert fighter
using Madison's body moving backwards.
But maybe Madison is a stomach sleeper.
And so when Madison is sleeping on her stomach,
Malignant can, like, watch, you know, video tutorials
and learn about, like, karate.
Yeah. Yeah.
I did love seeing Malignant, like,
jump down those fire escapes.
So good.
Oh, the parkour stuff?
I mean, that was amazing.
Yeah.
And it was also really good, again,
I think they use the kind of unnatural body movement,
the backwards body movement, the cracking of the limbs,
the crawling on upside down crawling.
They use that to great effect.
It's so unsettling.
And then- So unsettling. Seems like a lot backwards.
Ooh. Ooh. And then when it's also so adept at physicality,
it really seems very threatening.
I just was like, well, what is this?
Is this like a... Why does Gabriel have these...
this skill set?
Why is Gabriel so good at fighting and making a sword?
And like, I almost was like, I almost wanted to see
like Madison go to like a kickboxing class.
And be like, oh, Gabriel knows because Madison knows.
By the way, I will say that the prison fight scene,
I know I probably already said it already,
and that police fight scene was not only beautifully shot,
but the choreography of the body movement there was still incredibly stilted,
but like, it wasn't just like they just...
I felt like whoever choreographed that sequence
really was conscious of making it look like someone doing it from behind.
Like, it was very, like...
It was lanky and weird, but also extremely smooth and violent.
I don't know. I never seen anything like it.
Yeah, that was pretty amazing. I gotta't know. I've never seen anything like it.
Yeah, that was pretty amazing.
I gotta say, there is a lot about this movie
that I really, really enjoyed.
Yeah, me too.
I think a lot of that is James Wan is a fantastic film.
Yes.
You know, like this movie could have been like real schlocky
and real kind of not worth the watch
because it's not, it doesn't kind of add up story-wise
and it could have been disappointing
if it was not well shot and it's not just well shot,
it's beautifully shot in a lot of ways.
Like the action sequences,
there's tons of very long interesting oners
that go from upstairs to downstairs, oners that are, that are, that are, that are go, that go from upstairs to
downstairs. Like I said before, that's that piece that takes place in an overhead shot that lays
out like the floor plan of the whole house below is fucking cool, man. There's like a lot of
beautifully done, um, choreography and geography setting of these fight scenes and these uncomfortable chases and all that stuff,
which I thought were great.
Like the cop chasing malignant out of the jail house,
into the tunnels, through the brick wall,
squeezing through small areas,
like I thought that was all great.
I will say that there were some things that were weird,
and I think there were some moments where,
I mean, obviously we talked about some of the logic of it,
but there were also some moments that I did feel like
that reveal of I'm adopted, which I'll play.
Take a listen.
Only I've been able to have a baby.
Don't do that.
This is not your fault.
It's not what I'm saying.
I wanted to know what it felt like
to have a blood connection with someone.
A biological connection.
Maddie, what are you talking about?
Mom and dad took me in when I was eight.
I don't remember anything before that.
Mom told me that my biological mother died during my birth.
Cindy, I'm adopted.
That music thing, the Pixies, Where Is My Mind?
So, which is just subtle.
Subtle, but it is, like, when that happened,
I was like, what the fuck is this movie?
Like, why do I care that she's adopted?
I don't know enough about anything here
that that makes any difference.
Right.
Yeah, it really, at that point, it means nothing to us,
you know?
But that's the movie.
Again, that's the movie telling you,
the movie being like, well, we're not set up for it,
so let's put music in to key the audience
into the fact that this is important information,
even though we haven't earned it yet.
You know, like even though we haven't earned this
as a reveal, we're gonna tell you by this music sting,
it's a reveal, trust us.
And if I'm a doctor, by the way, I'm just gonna say this.
I'm telling everybody about malignant.
I don't know why malignant was so hidden.
Like malignant, that would have been a feat of science,
right, like why were we being so coy about malignant?
Yeah, like I would assume there are books and publications
and all sorts of, you know, studies on malignant.
Well, it seemed to me,
and I don't know what you guys felt like,
the framing of both the doctors in that first scene
where it takes place in the past,
the first scene with Gabriel, and then when the sister goes to the kind of Arkham Asylum
evil kind of place, I think you're meant to believe
these are not good doctors.
Like this is shady or this is like bad.
These are bad people doing bad experiments on kids, maybe?
Yeah.
You know, something like that, that maybe like,
oh, this is work that is not for public consumption
or is about evil or, I don't know.
I was trying to figure that out because I was like,
is this, are these doctors kind of, are they,
did they have nefarious intent?
And is that why Gabriel is now taking them out?
Or I don't know, you know?
I mean, it's like,
it's that thing where I was like,
clearly Malignant is part of Madison's house,
because it appears in the house so often
that I was like, oh, why don't you just leave the house?
But again, because the movie is so long, she stays there so often that I was like, oh, why don't you just leave the house? But again, because the movie is so long,
she stays there so long that you're like,
get out of the house.
But because you don't realize yet she is malignant,
she just seems to be operating
so against her own best interests
that you're just like, I don't understand
why she doesn't just go to a hotel or whatever.
Maybe because of- Or live with her sister. Well, her sister has a very small studio.
I mean, she's just doing princess parties.
She doesn't have a room for her.
I wish.
Yeah.
I wish that sister and the sister and the cop
have a real will-they-won't thing.
I love that.
And then the cop's associate is also like very kind of in love,
unrequited in love with him.
Which is-
But she gives a shit.
Like I wanna see that partnership.
I like that partnership.
No, not the partner.
I'm sorry, not the partner.
The girl with the glasses who's always like-
Oh, right, yes.
Who the partner refers to as Miss Lonely Hearts, I think.
She's like very into the detective
and he's not returning her affection.
Like I felt like all the police dynamics were,
they were pretty funny.
But again, like the police station is like from a TV show.
The police station is out of a Batman comic book.
I mean, it's-
Yes, four to ceiling windows
that are like three stories high.
I was like, what is this?
And whoever is the commissioner
is basically on a real ecological kick.
Like, guys, turn off the lights at night.
If we're not, use your desk lamps only.
We're not going to be...
Our carbon footprint needs to be small.
I will say that also, the idea that...
And I guess this is the question I want to ask you,
because maybe I don't understand it still.
Now, does malignant become malignant and then go, I'm going to the underground tour
or does she go to the underground tour and then become malignant?
Like, because I'm thinking about malignant, like trying to get downtown.
Like how does malignant drive a car?
How does malignant get into this thing?
Like how does like malignant has to do a lot of things to get into an apartment building.
Like, that apartment building that that guy lives in,
maybe she's climbing up the fire escape,
but she may have walked in the front door.
I don't know. I guess that's my question.
And does, um, uh, Madison slash Malignant
do all of that backwards?
That's what I'm thinking. Like, that's the question I'm asking.
Is Malignant walking backwards?
Because here's the thing we now know.
Here's the thing we now know from the end of the movie.
Her Malignant outfit is in the attic, right?
So she's getting dressed at home
and then going out and committing these crimes, right?
So now my assumption is she's turning into Malignant at home.
She puts on the outfit and then she leaves.
But that means she's turning into malignant at home. She puts on the outfit and then she leaves. But that means she's walking backwards
to like the silver cup apartment.
That's a long walk.
Which is, they really don't show any of that travel.
Cause malignant walking around in the street,
you're gonna call the cops.
You're gonna call the cops.
Backwards driving a Prius to the apartments would be very funny to me. I hate stick shifts.
The stupid electric car needs a charge. Oh does this have a two? Damn it my easy
charge is not working god damn it. But now but there is something funny too
about where did the jacket was just maybe in the attic like is that a
like an attic jacket? Wait doesn't Does malignant steal that jacket from somebody?
Oh. No.
Like a little token, a little talisman?
Like with a trophy?
Like when's the first time we see the jacket?
Cause I feel like the malignant like gets,
finds the jacket and puts it on at one point.
Yeah.
But maybe I'm wrong.
I don't know.
It doesn't, maybe that's OK.
I really, I'm like, I don't know.
Like, it was really, I just wanted to jump back.
I just wanted to jump back to the cops again,
because the cop, the detective does
have a wise cracking partner who, when they do
a sketch of Malignant, she says, so I'm putting out
a bolo on Sloth from the Goonies?
Yes.
Genuine laugh.
I got a genuine laugh from me, very funny.
I mean, there's a lot to like,
and I do believe that, to me this is all about the sequel
because now once we're in on it,
I'm all on board with this idea.
I don't know, I just really like it and I want to see more of these like...
I like that Malignant has like a full personality.
I don't think we understand why it has a personality
because it seems like it was killed very early before these things would happen.
But I guess there is this time in the Mind Jail,
I think that Malignant is in the Mind Jail the entire time before she's activated.
And I call her a she because I want to be truthful to the genetic material issue.
So, uh, Malignant is in the mind jail and that's where Malignant could be learning or training or just getting a little bit of an attitude.
Interesting for sequel to see if actually like Madison could use Malignant's powers for good.
Like if Madison was called upon to have to fight
some sort of greater evil and had to actually enlist
to this part of herself and wake up Malignant
in like a sweat lodge.
Yeah, why not use Gabriel's powers for good?
You know? Because Gabriel, as it's told to us,
Gabriel makes her stronger.
Gabriel makes her, like, faster.
Like, somehow Gabriel is able to give her supernatural powers.
Right? He's, you know, that seems to be true.
Like, he lifts heavy objects and throws them.
Like, and then when we understand that that's her
She's doing that so she must be she must have some sort of like this would be a character in a comic book that would be
Like that would present first as the villain and then would be brought in and be like well if you can keep your demon under control
You can use it for good. Yeah, that's malignant. What do you want, you piece of fuck?
It's basically, well, you know what it is,
it's kind of a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
It's kind of an Incredible Hulk scenario.
Yeah.
Or it's Two-Face, yeah.
And I mean, look, I just want more of this.
My name is Paris.
Your fake mother gave you the name Madison. Your shitty marriage gave you the name Madison.
Your shitty marriage gave you the name Mitchell.
But you'll always be Emily to me.
Who are you?
You know who I am.
Even if they say I'm only in your head.
I don't know what you're talking about.
You let them tell you I wasn't real.
That I was just a voice and you believed them.
Now I am going to make them pay for what they did.
One by one.
Gabriel, no!
Because I think that also what we're not getting a lot of is the fun of Malignant. I think we need more of that humor,
more of that like kind of saucy.
I like that.
I like Malignant working for the good people now
in the sequel,
taking down a serial killer or something like that.
I want it.
More Malignant.
More Malignant, less Madison?
Yeah.
I'm all on board.
Like I would love it if,
I would love it if the detective in Malignant 2
shows up at Madison's house and like,
she's living a normal life.
And he's like, I'm so sorry, but we need Gabriel.
We've got a situation, we need Gabriel.
The only person who can fix, help us is Gabriel.
And because, you know, like this,
one of the scenes that I really liked actually was the hypnosis scene,
where they come and they hypnotize Madison
to try and get her to uncover her repressed memories,
which is successful, but I'm like,
oh, I wonder if you could, I wonder if the future
of this series is a world in which Madison
can access malignant at will.
You know, kind of like the Incredible Hulk,
like you wouldn't like me when I get angry.
Like you wouldn't like me when Gabriel comes out
and then Gabriel comes out and kicks ass.
I don't know, if that's where they're going,
that could be interesting.
It's not like there's gonna be more malignants, right?
This can't be like a thing.
Although there's a lot of files,
that doctor has a lot of files.
I mean, there's a lot of...
There's a lot of those VHS tapes.
There's a lot of malignance across the world.
I'll tell you one thing that Molly sent me right here,
that James Wan actually wrote a book, a limited series back in 2011 for Boom,
called Malignant Man. Di man diagnosed with terminal cancer.
Alan Gates is resigned to die until he learns that his tumor is a parasite with
a new lease on life and incredible other worldly powers.
Alan must fight against an evil army buried beneath society's skin, all
while unlocking the secrets of his forgotten past.
So one is all about like this.
The cancer, like the cancer, good guy, bad guy. It's his forgotten past. So one is all about like this, the cancer,
like the cancer good guy, bad guy, it's his own thing.
I'm, look, Malignant Man might be our sequel.
We might have like maybe a malignant wedding.
I mean, it's a real body horror story
about like how your body can betray you,
how your body can be working against you.
Like that's really interesting that,
in perhaps an original consideration of this idea,
that the parasitic twin or the tumor is cancerous.
It is something that is killing the host.
What about bipolar person, bipolar disorder?
I mean, it's a metaphor.
There's so much here to unpack.
And obviously we did like this movie.
And I have to say, a lot of people have been talking
about this movie, and it walks this fine line
of being completely insane, but really kind of fun to watch.
And if you would have shut the movie off before the reveal,
I would have said it was garbage and trash.
But because maybe the silvering was worth it, I don't know.
But...
And just to remember, if you're going
to be submitting your photos,
it is hashtag me-lignant.
Me-lignant.
And it's your hair over your face trying to prove
that you could be malignant.
But remember, it's front malignant.
You have to be...
I bet there's gonna be a lot of malignance for Halloween this year.
June, I'm gonna already tell you...
I bet there's gonna be a lot of malignance.
On the Discord, people are already talking
that you would make a great malignant for Halloween.
People said if you just had a dark wig on,
you would be a great malignant.
Wow, that's nice to hear. Wow.
Yeah, so that's already been happening on the Discord.
That happened a little while ago.
That was before we even announced
that we're doing this movie. I would love, June,
I would like for you to, okay,
now I'm gonna say hashtag June for malignant two.
Ooh. Like, I want you
in this sequel. Oh, God Like I want you in this sequel.
I want you in this sequel.
Would you do a movie like this?
Would you be able to do a movie like this?
Happily, in fact I was so,
I told you I was so taken with this actress
and I just thought she was so good
and so interesting and beautiful to look at.
I would be honored to step into her shoes.
I thought she was great.
If you like her this much.
I thought she was great,
but I would have loved this movie more if you were.
Thanks, Jason.
Yeah, and by the way, June, I'm your biggest fan
and I'm gonna tell you that I think
you would have done a great job.
And I think what you would have done better,
and I'm not saying that there's not much to do here better,
but I'm saying what you would have done better
was I would have seen you be more afraid of Malignant.
I didn't feel like we really got to see her.
I mean, it's hard to come face to face when you are, when it's on the back of your face.
But like, I feel like we didn't, I didn't ever find her to be completely,
she seemed more shell shocked than frightened.
And I would like to, I think you would have been able to deliver some of that.
And by the way, just so you know, Annabelle Wallace is, uh, is in a lot of things
and she very much is in the James Wan camp, uh, as she has been in, uh, you know, uh, Annabelle.
And, uh, so, you know, this is a chance for her to really kind of, you know, shine a little bit louder
and, uh, or brighter, I should say, not louder, louder.
Yeah, I do think it's a tall order to have your acting partner, you know,
in the back of your head.
It is, it is very hard.
And it's also very hard to,
you also have to modulate what you're doing
so that you don't give away the secrets.
You know what I mean?
Like if she'd done her performance differently,
it would have told you kind of what was going on.
She didn't tip it.
And that's the hard thing.
Like you, and that's why my complaint is really, it's have told you kind of what was going on. She didn't tip it. And that's the hard thing. Like you, you, and that's why my complaint is really,
it's just too long.
Like if this movie had been shorter,
it would have been so much more fun.
Horror movies are the best at 90 minutes, people.
I mean, it like, this is the length literally
of The Exorcist.
Like in The Exorcist, like also a slow moving movie,
but that is to build a pace.
A different thing.
What I would have loved genuinely,
although now that you've told me that it already exists,
cause when it revealed that when the cop says,
so this is your imaginary friend, the killer is,
wait, you're saying the killer is your imaginary friend?
I was like, oh, this is why we're doing this movie.
This is horror movie Drop Dead Fred,
which I was so excited about.
Well, again, if you want that, go watch Daniel Isn't Real.
I think you'll like it.
You'll really, really enjoy it.
And that's not a spoiler, because it's right out
in the front, as we say it.
By the way, we did talk about the detective,
that female detective, the Miss Lonely Hearts.
That is the co-writer of the film and James Wan's wife.
So this is half of her brainchild as well.
Obviously, there are people out there
that are even more enthusiastic than we are.
It is now time for a second opinion.
Alright, so here are just two quick reviews reviews Because right now the movie just came out. So we're on IMDB. We're looking at the reviews so far
it's getting about a six point three out of ten stars, but I think the people who get it really get it and
this one from
Juggle your Jeep says ten out of ten
Me and my friend went in to watch this unrivaled masterpiece together and came out with eight pack abs from nonstop laughing.
Astonishing hilarious.
James Wan, you absolute genius.
10 out of 10 cured my depression.
Uh, and then this one is pretty much all in caps.
It's written by Kaizen and deep.
And it goes like this.
This is my first review on IMDB.
I only came here to tell you this. You guys have goes like this. This is my first review on IMDb. I only came here to
tell you this. You guys have to watch this. I was blown away by the climax. Honestly,
the first hour and 30 minutes were straight up a ripoff of Insidious, a movie with no
real scares, which I'm sure is why some people gave it low ratings and I'm not gonna lie.
I was bored as heck. I felt like I wasted a bunch of time. And then the climax started to happen with a huge revelation,
which felt like it was new to the horror genre.
It instantly changed the story.
I am mind blown right now.
I give it 10 out of 10.
Take it.
There are not many horror movies that are this innovative.
This will probably be the best horror movie this year,
or maybe for years to come.
Very innovative, loved it.
James Wan is awesome. Ten out of ten.
And there you go. I mean, all the other reviews are essentially...
I texted a friend who's a horror movie person,
and I said, hey, I'm supposed to watch Malignant for the show.
I'm sure you've seen it already. What did you think?
And they were basically like, my favorite movie of the year.
I was like, what?
So I was, I, because I fully was expecting like,
oh, you're gonna have a blast. It's perfect.
And, and, and they were instead like, no, it's awesome.
I loved it. And I, so then I watched it
kind of inside of that. And being like, oh, it's awesome. I loved it. And so then I watched it kind of inside of that
and being like, oh, I think this is good filmmaking
and I think there's a campiness to it that is intentional.
Not necessarily winky,
but I think it's knowing what they're doing.
You know what I mean?
It's informed filmmaking, you know,
even with the misleads and like the little bits of humor
here and there and stuff like that.
Like that's the stuff that made it good.
To me, this is the perfect title to this get made movie.
Fun to watch, lots to talk about,
but not a slog to get through.
And I feel like-
That's what I mean.
Yeah, and that is- If it had been too serious, it would have been a slog to get through. And I feel like, I mean... That's what I mean. If it had been too serious, it would have been a slog.
If it had been too like...
Without this reveal, we would have been in trouble.
Yeah.
Without both of the reveals, you know?
Without, you know, first the imaginary friend reveal
and then the parasitic twin reveal.
Like, both of those are like, wait, what?
Wait, what?
I'm all there.
So I guess, June, would you recommend people watch this?
Oh, yeah, I thought I really did enjoy it.
It was, I thought it was fun.
Yes, it's a little long, but I think this is a fun movie
to watch during spooky season.
Spooky season, Scaretober.
Enjoy it, people.
All right, so we all are going around the horn saying watch it.
But at this point, if you know the reveal,
will it still be entertaining?
It might actually be entertaining knowing the reveal.
I mean, it is a, I think that's part of the biggest,
like, what the fuck moment of it.
But it actually might be fun, like, the sixth sense
to kind of see both sides of it.
Yeah, I think if you know the reveal,
I'm not going to watch it again. But I think if you know the, I'm not going to watch it again,
but I think if you watched it again knowing the reveal,
I bet there are a bunch of moments
that I didn't clock as being,
like you said about the mirror scene.
Like I bet there's a bunch of clever stuff in there
that is just not on first watch noticeable, you know?
So I think, you know, I think absolutely watch it.
And again, I'm not a horror movie person.
I've not seen Annabelle or any of the Conjurains
or any of these movies.
So this was like really one of the only
kind of modern horror movies I've seen.
And I thoroughly enjoyed how just bat-shit Bananas it was.
I was glad that it was banana.
One of the best things I've ever gotten to do
is go see horror movies with June Diane Rayfield
and even in a movie like a film called Skeleton Key,
when you screamed at the screen,
June will yell back at the screen.
This didn't give you those moments,
although you were a little bit freaked out last night.
I definitely was.
Oh, freaked out about a morgnet last night. I definitely was. I freaked out about a morning.
Yeah, I was scared.
Now let's get into, uh, the, the most fun of this show, which is a chance for us to tell everybody else what we were up to, what worried, what we're doing,
what do people want to watch?
See, do what do we want to tell them about June?
You go first.
Yeah, no, everybody.
The, the first four episodes of Grace and Frankie's last season were released
a few weeks ago as a surprise, you know, gift and drop. And if you haven't seen them yet, I
encourage you to check them out. And then the rest of the season will be
airing next year. And yeah, check out the Deep D dive with Jessica Sinclair and me
available everywhere on all podcast platforms.
And yes, Jason, cool up the Lysac has been a guest.
Yeah, that's it.
Well, June, and then quickly, if you want to just turn the
mic over to your malignant, does it mean you have any plugs?
My malignant has not been pulling his weight,
by the way. Okay, well there we go.
Yeah, in terms of bringing in some cash money.
I will briefly say to people that they check out
Star Trek Prodigy, which is on Nickelodeon,
a new Star Trek animated show that I'm a voice in
that is really beautiful and really fun and great.
Uh, like adventure...
With the great Kate Mulgrew.
Yes, with Captain Janeway herself,
Kate Mulgrew as part of it,
and it's a great, super, like, adventure,
Star Trek adventure-type show, animated show.
Um, and then, uh, that's about it.
Uh, yeah, oh, and you know what?
If you, if you, uh, we've all been on it before,
but there's a new season of Nailed It Up,
June, you are in an episode, uh, or wait, has your,
did your season already come out, June?
Yes, it did. It's just out now.
Okay, it did just come out. Okay.
And I am briefly in one of them,
but I will say, please watch Nailed It.
It is, it remains one of the funniest shows,
one of the most consistently funny shows to watch. And then also the series finale of Brooklyn Nine-Nine
just aired. I'm in it briefly, but if you've been watching that show at all, it is a wonderful wrap
up to a wonderful show. One more plug. Paul and I were just on an amazing episode of the Blank Check
podcast hosted by Griffin Newman and David Sims. Blank Check podcast talks about directors' filmographies.
If you like this show, I suspect you will like Blank Check.
It is a fantastic talk about film.
And we went on to talk about,
they're doing John Carpenter right now.
And we went on to talk about the movie
Big Trouble in Little China.
We talked about it for over three hours.
So it came out, hours. Three hours.
So it came out, I think this week.
So please go to wherever you get your podcasts
and check out, blank check,
the Big Trouble in Little China episode,
but also their whole Carpenter season has been fantastic.
And if you go into their archives,
they've done, it's one of my favorite podcasts.
They are truly a great companion piece podcast to us.
They are really, really fun.
And just really quickly, June and I are together in Star Trek Lower Decks.
My character, Lieutenant Billups, who is very much in the background of Lower
Decks gets a full episode in this season.
And June plays my mother.
And that's all I'll kind of tell you about that,
but I think you will enjoy the premise of that.
Keeping the trend of Scaretober going,
Unspooled is doing Scaretober right now as well.
We are in the middle of the exorcist.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
Time out.
Wait, what?
Wait, time out.
You guys are also doing Scaretober,
so are you just like,
did you start doing Scaretober over there
and you're just calling our thing Scaretober as well?
I kind of am branching them under one giant umbrella.
You know, the-
I don't know how June feels,
but I don't like being under the umbrella
of Scaretober that exists.
I want our thing to have its own nomenclature.
Of course, look look go on the discord
Discord that GG slash HDT GM or discord.gg slash Paul shear we can continue these conversations should it be hard to skip made
Or scared tober you know sometimes people just like to you know
Mix and match and and you know get some good movies and some bad movies all mixed together
Anyway a big thank you to our producer Cody Cody Fisher, our audio engineer, Devin Bryant, our MVP, Molly Reynolds,
our producer who picks all of our movies, Avril Halle,
our researcher, Nate Kiley,
all of our amazing people who do our art.
That is the ghost of Craig T. Nelson on Instagram,
otherwise known as Zach McAleese,
and of course, Kyle Waldron.
You can see all of their work on our Facebook
and Instagram pages.
Make sure you get on the Discord where the conversation does continue and we have a beautiful
big how did this get made Discord, which is just, I'm so happy with how it's been and
our amazing moderators there.
They have been fantastic taking it off the ear wolf boards and bringing it over there.
So if you have not checked that out, check that out.
And if you want to continue the conversation, let's do it next week on a mini episode. You can give me a call at 619-P-A-U-L-A-S-K at 619-Paul-Ask
and as always, you can offer up any questions about your life, your job, anything at all.
We will answer them all. And just so you guys know, I forgot about this, big news. We have
the Saving Jessica Rabbit shirt in our store right now. People are buying them and that's
great to know. And we also finally released our dirt bike kid shirt which is what is the
title of this movie and because it's Halloween, I don't know, just because I
wanted to, I have pulled some old designs out from behind the wall where you
couldn't get them before. Now we are reprinting some undercover shirts, some
oozing sexuality with Ernest shirts, and
a Dragon Sound shirt as well. So there's some really cool things up on the T
Public stores, so tpublic.com slash stores slash HDTGM to see some of the
classic ones and some of the great new ones that we have ratcheted out. There's
a shirt up there right now for that. And a Malignant shirt in which we will
currently debate offline and then get one up there hopefully now for that and a Malignant Shirt in Witch we will currently debate offline
and then get one up there hopefully by the time this is all released.
So thank you everybody for listening and we will see you next time on the mini episode.
Bye for now.