The Flop House - Ep. #381 - Countdown (2019)

Episode Date: October 22, 2022

We talk about Countdown, the film about a killer app. Imagine the terror of ordering what you think will be a delicious plate of mozzarella sticks only to have them viciously... what? It's the OTHER type of app? Aw man. An Internet-based horror movie? Those are never good? Will this one break the curse?Wikipedia page for CountdownMovies recommended in this episode:TárEl SurThe Innocents

On this episode we discuss Countdown. So you guys remember in the movie Suicide Squad where Slipknot got his head exploded because Flag uses little thing and he hit a button on his phone and blew off Slipknot's head and then Harley Quinn's like, wow, that's a killer app. Well what she was really talking about is the movie we watched today. Countdown, a movie about a killer act. Hey everyone and welcome to the flop house. I'm Dan McCoy. I'm Stuart Wellington. And I'm Elliot Kaelin. This is a show that, you know that much so far.

Yeah, you're already familiar with the privacy of it being a show. So kind. Great. We're working from first principles, a priori, it's a show. Let's be building from there. I love this this philosophical way of building the show logically. This part still show there's the performers and the audience. The audience is you listening to us. And where the performers, the three of us, Dan, Stuart, and Elliott, the members of the flop house. This is a podcast. Now Marcel Duchamp and his essay, the role, the three of us, Dan Stewart and Elliott, the members of the flop has. This is a podcast. Now Marcel Duchamp and his essay, The Roll, The Spectator and Art, would say that you

the audience have an equal part to play in this process, but in this case, you don't, because we can't hear you. Yeah. Anyway, so we talk about bad movies on this podcast. You said for when you like tweeted us after the show and we're like, oh, that's a really interesting thing you thought of. I mean, that's a really interesting thing you thought of. Oh man, that's a good point.

We will pretend to be interested. Wow. During. I was totally serious. JK, JK, JK, it's genuine interest. J-G-I, JK, G-I. G-I Joe, genuine interest show. That's when G-I Joe nods and goes, oh, that's interesting.

He means it. Yeah, he's an active listener. During the month of October or Shocktober, as we call it here at the flop house, and no one else at the other does. The block house. The block house. The podcast about birds. It's also about applying fake grass to miniature dioramas. That's the two things that the block house talks about. So we watch horror movies during the spooky season, Shocktober. We watched countdown from 2019 this time around. Guys, I was surprised to learn,

looking at the Wikipedia page that countdown was a major return on investment. It was a hit. It cost like 6.5 million and made something like 40 something. Now, looking at the Wikipedia page now. It says 48 million. Now again, we don't know how much marketing and publicity cost. You have to assume that that's at least the budget again, usually.

But for a movie like this, I don't know. Maybe not. Yeah. Well, I don't recall. You don't remember seeing all this about the way that the bird can get to me on. I saw it in spite of all the bad reviews that it got at the time. Now, according to the trivia on IMDB, apparently, we did a lot more research You can tell me on, and saw it in spite of all the bad reviews that it got at the time. Now, according to the trivia on IMDB, apparently we did a lot more research for this than we usually do.

The trivia says the app featured in the film actually exists, it is owned by the studio and was used to promote the film. So you got to assume a lot of money went into the research and development of an app that actually can tell you with exact prediction the second you're going to die. I mean, you cut out the middle man by just involving a demon in the process, but I think I'm getting ahead of myself. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, one of those, you go to one of those Russian demon farms where they just have demons mining Bitcoin hour after hour.

Now, one could argue that all tech companies are kind of demons and they're bad, but I mean, I don't want to make that argument right now because you might be listening to it this podcast using one of those tech companies products. Yeah, now because you might be listening to it this podcast using one of those tech Companies products. Yeah, the Twitter bird might be listening to this and going well. I never tweet tweet Let me let me go amplify some misinformation and then put a tiny widget at the bottom That makes me feel like I did my job now

Here's the thing I want sent an email and instead of go option to report people who are being horrible But then do nothing about it. You could choose not to to report people who are being horrible, but then do nothing about it. You could choose not to. The I1 sent an email to someone, and instead of going the person I meant it to go to, it went to a mailer demon, and I was like, ah, ah, and I had to get my computer exercised,

which of course means getting a gym membership. Any of it is a long story. So Stuart, why don't you tell us about this movie, Captain? Okay, well, we're off to an auspicious start because there's not that many production logos. At this point, I'm like, I usually, when I'm doing the summaries just to pull back the curtain, I usually kick back my heels,

chill, drink a cup of coffee because I know there's like 50 production logos. I give you whatever the fuck I want. That's me time. Unfortunately, I had no me time. I had to watch the movie. So you were scrambling to get to your pad and pen. Oh, shit. Dust off my typewriter real quick. Okay. So

The movie opens on a house party filled with teen slash college students Our hero group of teens are sitting around the table playing a drinking game. Well, are they? These are roughly the Drew Barrymore and Scream of characters for this movie. So they're playing a drinking game, but they quickly get distracted. Like teens do by talking about social media and other apps. They stumble upon and they accidentally stumble on this app countdown looking for a weight loss app. Instead, they find countdown, which very impressive that this app may should get in there and get the name countdown locked down.

I'm going to say this a surprising amount during this episode, I think. I liked the way the movie handled this. Like, I thought this was pretty efficient, that there were just like, Like I thought this was pretty efficient that there were just like, let's all agree that the app that counts down to when you die as a horror movie premise is maybe, I wouldn't say it's inherently a bad idea because all ideas can work.

But knowing the history of internet-based horror, I had- There's a lot of, yeah, there's a lot of speed bumps on the road. I mean, because once you introduce it, you're also like, who at the Apple store, like who made it and who the Apple store like approved it? Yeah, and also it's got 3.6 stars,

which is madness. I love that. That's the craziest part. I love that. I thought that was so hilarious. Because it's like pretty, a lot of people like it. There's a few people who are like, a few people are like,

a few people are like, demon came and killed me when I tried to save my life. I think you understand that the people who died didn't rate the thing. So it's like, my brother downloaded this app and died. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. But when the app tells you you've got 70 more years

to live than you're like five stars Yeah, exactly and this is the exact like someone pointed this out I think I might be stealing something for someone's letterbox review, but so I apologize you did to research on this But I love that like 3.6 stars I feel like is the exact number where you're like okay, I'll still download this It's probably gonna do something to my phone, but there's some of the rumors. This count down, but I just wanted to say,

like, I think it's good that it jumped into this because otherwise setting up the idea that all these people are gonna download this app, I don't know, I'm not necessarily, there's a lot of ways to go about it that I'm not gonna really buy, but the idea that they're just like at a party, they're looking for another app, they see this app and they're like, yeah, sure, we can make a dumb drinking game out of this.

Let's do this. I'm like, okay, let's do it. I'm stupid, will be. I remember a night at the bar where like a bunch of the regulars and I all just downloaded co-star and matched and then compared our astrology charts to each other because there's nothing else to do except drink. Yeah, and do you remember speaking of drinking and apps that years ago, someone made a lot of money off of an app you had to pay for. And all it did was it looked like the screen

on your phone was filled with beer. And then when you tilted it, it looked like it was pouring on the screen. That's all it did. I think it cost two dollars. And I remember having many friends that paid to have that. So yeah, so I totally believe that for free, the thing that I don't, the thing that is a hard thing for this hard Thread for this needle to thread this move thread the hard needle to thread for this movie you get them the We won't make fun of you for a myth Thank you. It's the kind of gray area between people Downloading it as a lark and treating it as a joke, but also kind of treating it as real which I guess fits into

Teen life where things are both a joke and and not but it's kind of treating it as real, which I guess fits into teen life where things are both a joke and not. But it's kind of like- It's kind of irony, you know? I feel like people would download it and they'd be like, huh, 60 years, pretty sweet, but then they would immediately ingest that as that is the amount of time that I'm living. You know, they wouldn't, nobody, they downloaded as a joke, but nobody, but everyone kind of took it as real right off the bat, you know, to great or less.

Well, and, and we're gonna, like, we're kind of getting into the meat of this app thing. But part of it is that nobody, the joke is that nobody reads the user agreement, which makes sense. And then, but part of the user agreement is if you change, if you change your life decisions in any way based on this information, you break the user agreement and a demon kills you. And the thing that's wild is that we only deal with people that are like, I'm dying soon,

I'm just gonna break these plans. As opposed to people that are like, I'm gonna live 70 years, I'm just gonna go hog wild. Yeah, you know what? That's true. There's a whole flip side of this that we never see. Like that would be a good idea. Like you're breaking the user agreement,

you're like, oh, I'm gonna lift til I'm 90. Fuck it, I'm, yeah, fuck well down, man. But the thing is the app relates. As we see later on, the app is so intent on enforcing that countdown, the specific countdown, that it means that this busy demon would be constantly like doing stuff to save your life constantly. I got to follow him around all the time and make sure that he lives to be nine years old.

This is a huge, this is a day out situation. I mean, that is, to be honest, that's a premise I would really love. If someone's like, okay, I'm going to live like a, I'm never wearing a condom again. I'm eating nothing but garbage. I'm going to throw myself out of windows. And the demon is like, oh, God, I'm gonna work so hard. I'm gonna sky-live. Okay, so our heroine court me reluctantly downloads the app. He'll find out she only has two scenes.

She finds out she only has three hours to live. So her boyfriend, Evan, decides to get super drunk and drive her home. And she's like, no, I'm gonna die. And he's like, get out of here. And he drives off drunk. She then gets a notification from the app that she has broken the user agreement and only has seven minutes to live. So she walks home. There's a few jump scares. App keeps making spooky sounds, which is a great feature. The UI of this app is incredible. But it just guns like this. I do love also that everyone is like,

I don't know about you, but like, who leaves the notifications on? Every time an app's like, can we send you notifications? I'm like, no, Warhammer, Army List, making app. You don't need to send me fucking notifications. I mean, based on the fact that the app

doesn't let you delete it later on, I'm pretty sure that the app is a demonic app Yeah, what Attention to your preference limited options to customize. Okay. I will only give it three stars then Okay, so She then goes home to a dark house and then she gets you I mean, we can assume it's her house. Yeah, I'm assuming The listeners were probably like she just went into some strange dark. Well, it

is funny because like the guy was about to get like drive her drunk home and based on this walk, it feels like she lives maybe two blocks away. Yeah. And I understand that in other parts of the country, especially if you have your car with you, you, you would drive those two blocks. Welcome to L.A. Dan. But the degree to which her boyfriend is like, no, I'm driving drunk. It's my right as an American to use gasoline for all movement of any kind outside of buildings. So she is in the bathroom. There's a few scares and then she gets yanked up in the air by some invisible force and

smashed and then her broken body is smashed against the floor right when she was supposed to die Oh, and then we cut two stars to that app and then before the end of this cold outfit She has just at one moment left unconscious to tap the five star reading on the app and type out very accurate. But before the end of the cold open here, we see that her drunk boyfriend did crash his car and that you would have died that like would went right through her chair. Uh oh. How does that tie in together? Okay, cut to a hospital where that same boyfriend, Evan, is preparing for surgery. And he is nerve, he's, he's scared that he's going to die during surgery because he had also

downloaded the app. And it says basically that he's going to die when the surgery is scheduled. Yeah. He doesn't like this information. Unless a safe is going to fall through the ceiling and crush him on his way to the OR. He's going to die on the table. Yeah. Yeah. And he complains about this to Quinn, the real hero of the movie played by Beck from you, the first season of you. I love it. Now you could call Quinn a medicine woman, couldn't you? Oh, I did the whole time.

I guess I'll just delete that from every instance in my notes. I'm sorry. Okay. Because she's a nurse. She's a nurse in the hospital. Well, in fact, she just passed her test. She's officially a nurse, so they throw her party. All the other nurses are talking about this cool countdown app. So she downloads

this fucking app and it says she only has three days to live. That ain't good. And then a doctor played by Peter Fastenelli gets super handsy with her and you're like, what the fuck? He makes a pass at her and she's like, no thanks. So then Quinn has to go to her childhood home. I mean, he does more than make a pass. She says, she says more than no thanks. I want to make it clear, I'm not laughing at the idea of her husband laughing at the idea that she's just like, no thanks.

It's more, yeah, he's more handsy and it's a real pressure and assault situation. Well, initially, initially, it's a thing where he is testing the waters. He's like handsy, but he hasn't completely assaulted her yet. That does happen later. And it's helpful. He's being inappropriate, but he is not yet being threatening or violent, you know, that comes later. So she needs to fill out her eye nine. This is great because I'm like, man, this is exactly the kind of shit I have to deal with. It's also like so she didn't have to fill it out before because she was, because she was like a resident student.

Yeah, but also Audrey who works in payroll points out that like, like this is like all weird excuse for the movie to get her to go back home to get her birth certificate. And I was like, you don't need that. No, it's so much the idea that, well, because she doesn't want to be near her family, I guess, but it really is creating a very big reason for her to go to see her family who live in the same town that she does.

So she has to go to her child at home to get that birth certificate while she's home. She never does too. So all the scenes afterwards, as far as I know, all the scenes afterwards where she's working, she's there. Later on, later on when she has that HR meeting, I'm like, this is probably about the eye now. They're wearing her under the table.

It's what she is. Yeah, she never freezes. She was a permanent resident of the United States. So she interrupts her sister Jordan from having a romantic twist with a boy Joe who is shirtless, but they kick him out and then they get in a fight. They clearly have some strained relationship resulting from the death of their mother. And their father is like, hey, we're going to go put flowers on your mom's grave on Saturday and she's like, okay, let's do it.

Don't worry. She's going to, but you don't know. Like, it's going to be Like, the flowers were for Alternon. Yeah, exactly. Yep, exactly. Exactly. A big fight about it. Uh-huh. Do you think florists have to deal with a lot of that joke? I don't know that I think they have to deal with it a lot. I would say that that is probably a joke that has been made at some point. Okay. I'm guessing not recently. Wow, you're not lately. Just have that done.

I feel like if the, if the florist sees that a middle school English teacher is walking into the into the place, then maybe they get a little worried that the joke's coming up. Yeah. Still yourself. Did it seem to you like their, their dad was very young? Oh, I guess. I mean, yeah, it was just that movies have made it impossible for me to tell how old people are.

I think it's that in general aging and so people look young to us. That's true. I saw Tim of the elephant and Johnny Knoxville both on Seth Meyers recently and both of them, their fucking faces are so smooth. Like they look, they're very sexy men, but I gotta tell you. I don't know. I wouldn't call either of those faces smooth. Watch this episode, Seth Meyers.

Maybe there's a digital artist going there and cleaning that shit up. Seven of these all hot. I think is an extremely handsome man. Yeah. Very, very handsome Johnny Knoxville's also handsome man. Very lot of character, but both of them have like, that's what I would say they have character in their face. Johnny Knoxville in particular has like, I've been watching reboot and Johnny Knoxville's

on that. I've been thinking that he actually looks quite old and craggy today. Yeah. Okay. Well, you guys go back and watch, I get there's a plug for an episode of a late night with Seth Meyers and see him for whatever reason their face look much smoother than I expected them to look. And it threw me off because I'm like, Hey, guys, you guys look great.

Just age naturally, whatever. But maybe they're trying to still play teenagers. I think they were trying to do a new thing where the camera is is watching the show through the app that sees what you would look like as a baby. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Maybe face app. Okay.

So yeah, of course, she makes the plans with their dad and you're like, is she even going to be alive? But don't worry, like three scenes later, she just breaks those plans. It's crazy. I mean, that's the thing is she breaks the plans. It's like, if you're going to die, just keep the plans. Who cares? You know, it's like, oh, I've got to, I've got to, I've got to lose this loop before I don't. You know what, your dad's the last thing to be like, man, I'd really miss her, but she did break plans with me. I guess she doesn't have time to put flowers on the grave of her dead mom. That's not the last, the last impression you want to make on your widowed father. Come on.

Okay. So Evan, the injured drunk driving ex-boyfriend, I guess, is nervous. He's gone a tie during surgery, so he decides to make a run for it. He likes it down the hall. He writes a letter to himself saying, dear Evan hands on because his hands are still on his arms. They were not removed yet. Yeah, it works. He's trying to distinctly. So the letter he's writing to himself, he has to remind himself that he's not talking to his other friend, Evan, who I suppose has no hands.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, Evan Handlers. Yeah. But yeah, it's interesting that he, you know, on Cretches decides that the best thing to do to avoid death is to go down a lot of flights of stairs. This is not exactly final destination where it feels like death has to work pretty hard to set up these elaborate traps. Here, it's almost like if a mouse was throwing himself at a mouse trap and you were like, let me put the cheese on it at least. Let me give me a moment to set it. Well, and also this is when he's running for it, we also see another big difference from Filedinist

to Nessonation. Wow, before he begged it. He's looking at him. And you're wearing pants. So you did like big, yeah. That's exactly. Thank you. That was, it was all, it's this character thing that I'm doing. He's looking at a reflective surface and he sees a, like a shadowy demonic figure in the background. And I'm like, Oh, this is your daddy's final destination because there's none of that

in that shit. And of course, like, there's a bit where like, he looks in the mirror and then all of a sudden the thing like rushes the mirror and it cracks. So he's like, Okay, I'm going to go down a stairwell immediately. He gets locked in lights go out. Oh, fuck. What am I going to do? His time is running out. He hears somebody else coming up the stairs, turns around. Oh, no, it's his girlfriend, Courtney, but she's dead. She turns her face around. It's totally monster-fied. He falls down. What? Next thing we see his phone clatters down the stairwell. Time is running out. And then right when it hits zero, his time hits zero, his battered body splats against the stairs, period on the end of that sentence.

Cool. Okay. Let's see. Quinn goes to the more to inspect the body. She unlocks his phone using his dead shot. Well, she goes to the more because she got his phone, right? Because she knows because he told her that he had the countdown app, right?

Yeah, that was their first conversation. That was what connects connection. She is not just scared because the countdown app exists. She is scared because he has told her, like, oh, my girlfriend did die when countdown said. So she has at least some reason to believe that there might be something to this. And yeah, she goes into unlock the phone to do a little investigating and there's you know There's a couple of dead body bits where like it seems like the body's moving or is it?

Yeah, it turns and look at her. Yeah, yeah, she has to open up the dead body's eyes, which is well fun Yep, yep So much like there's four or five levels of security. And it's first it's eyes than it's fingerprint than it's toe print. Needs print for some reason and then it's naval print. So she's like, oh, why is this phone so secure? She's just a teenager. Do you guys do you think I could pull off a penis print shirt?

Yeah, you look great. I mean, I think you could. You look great. I mean, I think you're good. You look amazing. Um, Quinn, uh, so Quinn breaks your plans with her dad that immediately gets a user agreement notification. She has broken her user agreement because I guess she changed your plans because she was worried she was going to die at a cemetery, which seems like the most convenient place to die. Yeah. Yeah. That's really the thing that's concerning. Yeah. Yeah. She's not worried about her mortality. So it's just not inconveniencing. Yeah. She's not worried about her mortality.

So it's just not inconveniencing other people enough to deal with her her remains. Yeah. And if you start to try, they don't even have to take a hold. They just smoosh you into the ground and they walk away. Throw her in the mulcher. Yeah. And then there's then shadowy figures start up here in the background. What?

Uh oh. That's what happens when you break your user agreement, folks. Because that's the, it's one of these, this is, this is one of these demons where it's like, you're already going to kill these people. Is do you really have to keep going like maybe now? No. I'm not touching you. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Like it seems like this, this is a pretty dickie demon. It's a dickish demon. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I feel like demons are probably not cool. I'm proud of it. I don't know. Haven't you ever seen a tattoo on a, on a, on a like demons are probably not cool. I'm probably, I don't know. Haven't you ever seen a tattoo on a, on a, on a young jazz musician's arm of like a

cool devil man? I did. And then I saw, oh, wait, what he dies and the tattoo's gone. What is it? Yeah, yeah, it goes my time. My job here is done. When I say jazz musician, what I really should have said is swing dancer. Oh, okay.

Okay. Okay. So then, Quinn gets assaulted by her supervising doctor played by Peter fascinally, who then, and she fights him off, and then before she can alert her supervising nurse, he calls the nurse away to theoretically to like undercut her and change the narrative. And then she immediately gets another notification from this fucking app. And at this point, I'm like, who fucking cares about the demon anymore? Like this shit is serious.

Well, also like, it is, I mean, look, I wanna choose my words carefully. Cause like, like the sexual harassment is not funny, because like, like, the sexual harassment is not funny, but the way that this movie handles it is so goofy, because she like is going to talk to someone about it, and then she is thwarted so quickly. Yeah. And then never follows up on that. And then later on, they like suspend her without any investigation or like taking her

without even asking her like taking her. Without even asking her, take her side, right? Her perspective was, yeah. And look, I know that a lot of people have a lot of horrible experiences where they're not believed, but for a movie made now to have like a major hospital, be like, we're not gonna do any sort of investigation.

Like I just feel like to cover their own asses, they would do a little more than automatically assuming that the first person they talk to. I'm of two minds, Dan. I'm of two minds because one, it really, it's so ham-handedly handled. Yes, that it is very like, you do think that something, even the fact that like, she's like,

I've got to tell you something to the supervisor and the doctor's like, supervisor, I need you to do something for me and she's like, can you wait to tell you something to the supervisor and the doctor's like, supervisor, I need you to do something for me. And she's like, can you wait a minute? And at that moment, she just has to say, look, that doctor just, I mean, it's hard to say those things, especially when he's right there.

And say like, no, this is really serious. I need your help. But instead, she's just like, like sitcom kind of can't say it. But also, I'm gonna say that Dan Moore is that rather than blaming her actions, I would argue the way that the hospital reacts seems to wild.

Well, that's what you say. I think Dan is being a little naive at the same time that even in the time we live in, he is a powerful doctor. He's seemingly the only doctor in the whole hospital. We never see any other ones. She is the newest nurse on the job, the hospital and hospitals do not like, even, they do not like to have the stories. Even today in the world we live in Dan,

power still gets to cover up. So believe me, I agree that like, it's had so ridiculous. As a surgeon, like he has the power in that situation compared to the surgery. I thought you meant to say, I believe as a surgeon that that, and I was like, didn't you?

No, no, no, no, no. No, I believe that, but the movie, the movie does not do it in any way. Like, they have made up their decision before she walks in the door. And they're like, we're not even going to listen to anything. And even he even says, like, oh, as a key said, she said Sonari. And like, yeah, she hasn't said anything yet. But I think our conversation about this really highlights one of the issues with the movie is how once this plot is introduced, the idea of the demon stuff is like, okay,

this is silly. Let's talk about the serious thing that's happening here about this serious issues of work. But it really says is, if you're making, what I think it is that if you're going to make a horror movie that is relevant in some way, that relevance should play into the main gimmick or conceit of the movie. As opposed to, there's a demonic, we're making this movie about how social media, I guess,

are apps. There's a demonic app that kills people. But we should also put some me too stuff in there. Maybe we shouldn't put some me too stuff in there. No, you got to understand that the demon Ozon is the demon of knowing when you're supposed to die and changing the rules and also abuse of power and sexual assault.

Oh, I see. It's like if you want to address that issue, maybe make a movie about that issue. Yeah. Anyway, I want to make it clear. I am aware that there are a lot of situations in real life where there are terrible miscarriages of justice. I'm just saying that in this movie, the movie doesn't do a very good job of what it wants to do, which is just be like, this is so unfair, but like it's still, I don't know, not seeming like it, it just is being handled in these silly

ways possible. Well, I think because it's such a tangential issue in this, and it's not, it's not the main focus of the movies. They really don't have a lot of real estate to, to spend on it. Yeah. And they, but I do like that way, I do like that. Dan, you mentioned about to to spend on it. And they, uh, but I do like that. I do like that. Dan, you mentioned about how in real life it would be different because you of course are a real life expert. This is your Dan in real life.

No, he's Dan in real life. I think I can't think of it. I had waffles this morning. Is that what that's a portrayal? That is a picture. Depends on what you do. Either way, did you lay your head on them like a sad pillow? I just helped them up to my face and jelly criss. Okay, so Quinn goes home and she starts looking up stuff. She looks up some reports on the countdown app being tied to deaths. She watches a video that a woman who was bedeviled by the countdown app of her dying and people of course are like, cap, cap, this is bullshit, this is fake. Well, I do have a question which is like who uploaded this video because she like dies at the end of her own video and it did not seem to be like the movie could have handled us I guess by making it look like a live

stream that then someone else put out. That's what I would suggest is it was a live stream or a Twitch stream. But I forgot to mention one of the YouTube videos. I forgot to mention that one of the comments that said it was fake was actually from user Dank McCoy. Who uploaded? Who uploaded? I think I debate me.

That's how he ends that comment. Yeah. I think that what I like about this scene is that it harkened back to my first flop house episode. I know who killed me where she's doing research on telepathy or something like that. And she pulls up a video with the host of coast to coast, what's his name, Bell. And it was one of those things. Art about and it was like, it was like, you know what? The internet doesn't really work this way. And now almost 20 years later, the internet still does it. They're only making baby steps towards movies, kind of illustrating how the internet actually works.

By at least including comments that are hating on the video. So, you know what? Movies you're trying your best, you're making slow progress, but you know, one small step for countdown, one giant leap for depictions of the internet in low-ish budget horror movies. So research complete. Quinn closes her laptop only to see the ghost of Evan now monster fides sitting on the edge of her bed and she gets scared. So she runs out of there. He should have said any questions. She breaks her phone on the ground and then goes and sleeps in her car. She then gets woken up by her sister Jordan.

They get in a fight, but in the process, her sister learns about the countdown app. Uh-oh. Is that going to play into the story? Of course it does. She goes to buy a new phone from Tom Segura. Who is pretty funny in this movie. This is one of two scenes in the movie where the movie starts embracing the inherent ridiculousness of the premise by having very comedy characters, and I thought he was really

funny in it. Yeah, well, yes. And I kind of feel bad that this movie was, you know, to offer a preview of my feelings later. Well, no, I feel bad that this movie was so shat upon, just because we have watched so many movies like this for the flop house that are sort of aiming at a similar thing and doing it with so much less at least attempt to like, or care, like there are moments in this film

where like a scene shows up where an ancillary character like this phone cellar comes up. And I'm like, oh whoever made this, they were trying to make this war they were trying something they were adding a little extra pepper to it in a way that I've seen so many other movies do this type of thing and not even bother to make any of it interesting. And so I really appreciate when we meet this character who is just introduced being an absolute asshole to another. And she, so she buys his new phone and of course the app mysteriously appears on it before

she leaves the store. What? She throws a fit in the store, goes out in her car, gets attacked by a specter, and then gets rescued by a guy who overheard her talking about the app in the store. This guy, Matt, who turns out also has download the countdown app and doesn't have long to live.

They go to a bar, they find an old drunk conspiracy. This is one of those, this reminds me of, like it happens in a lot of these movies where they're like, we've only got, we've only got hours to live. We've got to get on top of this. And then it cuts to nighttime and they're at a bar. And I was like, so I guess you're going to get on this tomorrow. Yeah.

I was kind of like how I would write a paper sink college. Yeah, there's, it's like, there's a scene in the in Ringo where they're like, they're, they only have a week to live. They got that phone call and they're researching and they go, a lot of research. I guess I'll go home now and I'm like, I don't think you should. Like just keep working. Elliot, you know, you need a work-life balance, okay? Yeah, do you?

The power is to spend your life. I think when I, when I know I only have a limited number of days to live, I'm gonna be on that grind. I'm not gonna give up. Guys, if this was me, if I download the app, I'd be like, okay, I get it, that's fine. I kind of was hoping at a certain point that the moral of the movie was gonna be acceptance of fate, that it was gonna be like, if this is what's allotted to me,

I'm gonna meet it with com and with like with, with like, peacefulness and acceptance. And I'm not going to make a fuss, but it's not what this movie is about. In which case, don't go to a bar, just have a drink later in the day. Like, do you work? So they're, but they're, they're commiserating over their mutual situation where neither of them have had read the user agreement. So they're talking to this old, uh, this old drunk guy who is spouting some general conspiracy stuff and they're, and they're like, hey, why don't this old drunk guy who is spouting some general conspiracy

stuff and they're like, Hey, why don't we get this guy to download the app on his phone and and Quinn's like, No, I don't want to, you know, tie this guy's soul to a devil. And then the guy says something about not believing in the Holocaust and she's like, Okay, let's get him to download it, which they do and they read the user agreement. And, uh, this movie, I've been realizing it exists in two different worlds that it keeps going back and forth between the kind of standard, not that interesting takes itself very seriously, boilerplate, our movie world that we've seen so many times. And this kooky world where there's just kind of nutty character like this Daniel Kloz

world that is just a slightly sideways or a where where Dana Klaus, I don't remember having an, I was like, where were it? Klaus, where it's like, there's the super insulting phone guy and later on, there's the fanboy priest. And then there's this, there's this conspiracy nutball at the, it was so, so loudly and bigly a cartoon of that kind of person at the bar, like I kind of wondered. I mean, I see this guy's all the time. I guess that's true. As long as we're correcting name pronunciations, I believe it's Peter Fetchanelli.

Fetchanelli, okay. Peter Fetchanelli, if you're listening right in, Delos, if you're right or wrong. And let me know if in New Jersey, I should say Fetchanell. Oh, yeah. I should say fetch a nail. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Okay. So they go to the hospital where Matt has a scary encounter with a little boy ghost in the minstrum.

I don't, did we talk about what they learned from the user agreement though? Yeah. I guess they talked about it earlier. Like if they mentioned it. Okay. If after learning the time of their death, if they change their life in any way, they break the agreement, which again, I feel like it's almost impossible not to. Yeah.

I have two things I want to say about this. First is that if you, if it says you'll live to be 70 years old and then at some point you just make a different decision, you don't even know it's related to like you go into this room instead of that room and you don't meet the woman that you'll marry and then she'll murder you eventually. Like, how do you, does it then tell you? I don't know. You have to be like, don't even know.? I know, I know, I know, I know, I know. You should be like, don't even know.

I don't like this narrative, you're right. No, no, no, I think it has to be a conscious choice. It has to be because. Because then, that's the other thing, because that's my other thing, is that it seems like a really poor understanding of what fate is, because my understanding of fate is it's like in Etappist Rex, where every single thing they did to try to avoid the prophecy made it happen. As opposed to, you did something different and now a ghost comes and kills you. It's not like, it wasn't like, okay,

Tyresia said that my son is gonna kill me and have sex with his mother. I guess I'll get rid of him. And then a demon goes, no, no, no, no, no, and picks up the sun and pushes him on top of the moon. I understand what you're saying, but this this move, this app plays my final destination rules where it's like, oh, you escaped the thing.

So now another thing that's totally unrelated is gonna come get you. That brings me up my thing about final destination rules where it's like, oh, you escaped the thing. So now another thing that's totally unrelated is gonna come get you. That brings me up my thing about final destination that I must have mentioned before where I just think it's so goofy that death is like, oh, you escaped me, I'm gonna get you. And it's like, just wait it out, death, everybody dies. Like it's not, it's not like you did the other job.

Yeah, but it's super fun. It is really fun the way they do it. But the idea that like, oh, now you have what it's super fun. It is really fun the way they do. It's a mixture, but the idea that like, oh, now you've escaped my clutches and I've got to work extra hard to get you. It reminds me of something that a, a good old coworker of my Enrich Blomkest one said when a woman who was the last survivor of the Titanic died and she had been a baby when the ship went down and he goes, first the Titanic, nobody gets away.

went down and he goes first the Titanic. Nobody gets away. It's like the Titanic and tractor down a hundred years later and finally took around. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So Matt, as a scary encounter with a little boy ghost in the minzroom, this had a couple of good scares. I like the bit where you see the little boy's feet walking behind the stolt. Like he's like in the stolt, but he's like going through the

dividers. Unless they had removed the dividers like this one bathroom. One of the dorms. Yeah, it's called a neighbor bathroom where they want everyone sitting in the stalls to be neighbors and talk and things with each other. We've shielded you from the outside world of the bathroom foyer, I guess, but inside here, we're all, but they're like, look, you're either in or you're out. If you want to see these people, you've got to get in a stall and start pooping. It's like a modding to take that step. It's a modding.

It's a modern take on the concept of salons. Hmm, interesting. OK, so, and then like, and there's a big, why can't everyone be a Louis the 16th being watched while you poop and talking to your courtiers? Yeah. Okay, so and also this is when the evil doctor, Dr. Sullivan tries to ruin Quinn's life. They bring her into a meeting with HR department who immediately accused her of assaulting him and they are going to suspend her. And she obviously is dealing with a lot, and she can't deal with this situation. And she doesn't

even have like any representative to help her out. It's really bad. So she storms out. And so Quinn and Matt, then at the direction of the hospital pastor go to speak with father John, a kind of non-traditional priest who's into demonology and stuff and listen to what to like trap music. Yeah, we might as well have called him father Otaku because he's just like super, super demon fanboy. Yeah, and I think he is implied to be maybe stoned when they show up because he's really concerned about his grub hub arriving and he's eating the communion wafers as if they're like chips.

Uh-huh. And so maybe, yeah, I didn't, I didn't put it together that he's stone, but he certainly, he certainly not your daddy's priest. Yeah. Unless your daddy was Jerry Garcia, I guess, I don't know. He immediately is on board and he explains to them this story about this general who learned the time of his death. So he swapped places with his brother, but then he still died anyway. He uses a commonly used, but not acceptable slur for Roma many times.

And each time it really, it really didn't like the sound of it. And the, yeah, and it's all tied in with his demon, Ozen, okay? So from now on, we know that demon we're dealing with is Ozen, the demon. Ozone. Yep. Ozone. He's the demon that's causing global warning, learning too. And they realize if they're going to, if they're going to figure out the, because this is all

tied in with like a contractual agreement, they're going to need to hack that, they're going to need to get into that app. So they need a hacker. So they track down the guy who runs the cell phone store, Tom Segura, who to hack the app, he has to postpone his Tinder date. Don't worry. He still has it in the mid credit sequence. I'm so glad because I, I, I, I, I see if there's a mid credit thing, which I'm like, I'm sure I hope that Stewart is doing this too. Yeah, I mean it was just lucky that I just left the TV running Well, I see another stuff. I'm okay because you were so scared you couldn't bear to turn it off

I feel like if I poked my hand out from under the blanket to get the remote that the demon ozon would rip my arm clean off my body Now I want to ask our audience, I'm looking at my brief internet. There are here. Early. No, no, I want them just to write in later. As I was just early on, I'm aware of this in one way street that is Ozen a real demon? Is it based on a real demon or is it totally made up for the movie? Because all I can find online is references to the movie and I'm curious whether they made up a fake demon or had the balls to use a real demon and risk that demon coming

along and suing them. Yeah, Dan, Dan, you're the, you're the Christian demonology expert. I've never heard of this demon. Also the, the, the, the legend, they didn't try and make that story until like a something for the Bible, right? That was just something that, because I don't think that that's from anything. I don't. Versions of like a similar story.

Yes, well, there's the story of the appointment in Somara, and things like that. Exactly. Right. And so it's like, I think that, just not exactly the same, I guess, but me and what I mean. But like, I think it's, I don't think he's presenting it as something from the Bible.

He does say there are demons in the Bible, but I don't think he says that this particular story is about. I take. Okay. So he, so Tom Sigerah hacks into their phones. He hacks into the app. There's a ton of information there. In fact, it has the name and the countdown clock of everybody who's downloaded the app.

And we find out, oh no, Quinn sister Jordan is downloaded the app. Of course. So he hacks his data as well as the three of them. Quinn, her sister and Matt and gives them all a bunch of years. Oh, wow. Ozen has been defeated. And it seems to work on their apps. And I love this idea that like, you know, obviously we all know this is not going to stick,

but I do love the idea that there's lots of movie left. There's enough actual code involved in this mystical app that like, it's like, okay, well, I guess the number does have to change. Yeah, it's at least it's rare. So Quinn and Matt are still a little shook up. At this point, the movie enters, it's kind of like a, it's kind of like a low-rent version of Prince of Darkness, where it's kind of a mix of technology and magic and faith and things like that. But you know, without any of the greatness. Without being incredible, yeah.

Without being amazing, yeah. Without being a waking nightmare that, that even finds horror in if you just video formats and missing a soundtrack that is both banging and terrifying. So, uh, Quinn and Matt decide to stay the night together, but like his friends and they do this like sleepover confess session where they like reveal their deepest, darkest secrets and then they end up in bed together. Uh, Ozen attacks and deletes a bunch of times, so their apps go back to normal. You can't trick Ozen like that. He doesn't fuck around. Sister Jordan starts to see scary stuff. There's like a motion sensor, night light in the hallway and the place she's staying. And that's like, okay, yeah, it's pretty scary. O's in uses the

like the night light. He uses mom ghost. He does all kinds of stuff to mess with Jordan. But then Quinn and Matt show up and take her away. They go and meet up with father John again and father John comes up with a plan. They, uh, they're going to beat the clock using a holy magic. What they need to do is they need to prove that the devil is a liar in this case. So they need to prove that somebody survives, assuming that nobody kills themself first, they need to prove that the clock is wrong and that somebody is going to outlive the time that it's a lot of them.

Yeah, if they can, if they can do something different than what the clock says, then the curse is broke. And so they make a soul. And Apple removes the app from the store. So they make a salt circle in the basement and they try and hide in the holy salt circle before Matt's clock is up. A salt circle and a salt star of David, which was a little bit of appropriation that I didn't care for, but you know, I mean, is it a star of David inside of the circle of pentagram?

Does that know? No, pentagram is a five-sided star. Yeah. The star David is a six-sided star. Yeah. Okay. So all those notebooks that you were drawing those images on because you thought they were cool and demonic, you're actually just Jewish. Yeah, you're just Jewish, Dan.

That's okay. Well, when you were like, don't miss with me, I've got power. And you should people that pentagrams you draw on. Look at me. Look at me on Alan. Oh, I'm gonna start studying my equilibrium way over due for my bar mitzvah.

Yeah, you've got to be bar mitzvah now, Dan. Okay, so, um, I mean, we still get that money. So, Ozen, of course. Wait, Dan, I don't like the stereotype that you're already, you're already. I'm talking about the money for my bar mitzvah. What?

That's just the fact that you're greedy for it. Why, Dan rubbing his palms together and I'm just about the money for my bar of myths. What? That's just just the fact that you're greedy for it. Why is Dan rubbing his palms together and I was greedy as a Gentile. I'll be greedy now. Why is Dan applying for a job at the bank in the green. Yeah. Yeah. Why is he for a job?

Oh, woo. Okay. So Matt's time's almost up. So of course, it's time for Ozone to show up. And he does. Now, guys, what I think I was in kind of looks cool. He's like, he kind of looks like a curator, the lead singer from the band, Portal. He's like, he's like a tall monster draped in like a black sheet and he's like dusty and you can kind of see his like eyes and teeth a little bit, right? Yeah, yeah. I thought he was he was a he was a fine looking kind of demon. I mean, not exciting, but there's a couple of moments where I like him later on when he like gets like sucked into like a black hole. That's true. I like that. That's pretty cool. Not the best, but could have been worse is how I get this.

My review of Ozen. could have been worse is how I did. It's my review of Ozen. Three point six stars. Yeah, three stars. So he, Ozen is timing by the salt. Uh oh. So he just, like the hit by the salt. Oh my god.

Elliot high five across the world. Boom. We did it. OK. So try to kill them by the countdown, but they made a lot of salt. Mm. Wraped up like a douche.

So, uh, it's not the lyrics, but it sounds like it. That's for sure. Uh, so he, uh, Ozen sends a toy dinosaur and Luer's mat outside of the circle. And then he, Now this make, this makes sense because of the story that Matt told earlier about his guilt over stealing a toy dinosaur from his dying brother. So it's not like it just, he was like, cool, I love dinos. It was a pretty cool dino.

I mean, it's not a stegosaurus, but that's okay. So he's a... The epic stegosaurus is up there, man. He's got all those spikes. Yeah, that's my wife's favorite dinosaur. What's... Me? I'm all about dinonicus, because I love those therapods. Yep, what about you, Dan? Uh, why can because I love those therapods. Yeah, what about you Dan?

Why can't I remember the one that's like kind of like it's got the horns and it's like That's a cool You know the the ones that are in water nice Leasie's or less sources are technically not dinosaurs their marine reptiles That's okay. Okay. There's a I've never been able to figure out why, but dinosaurs only live on lands, they don't fly or swim. Very strange, huh? Well, they fly now.

And now they fly because they're birds. That's true. And also if a fossil's being transported, usually put it on a plane, I guess. They also fly because they have developed a tech that gives them rocket packs so they can fly around. You're thinking of dinosaur saucers. That's a little different.

Oh, fuck, I am thinking about Dino saucers. Okay. So, so he leaves the production of the circle, Ozens, Snatches him by the leg and drags him outside into the street. Get over here. Yeah, that kind of thing. So they chase after him and he's like, I've survived and then a truck immediately runs runs him over.

He gets pushed into a tree. He did not survive. Um, and in the process of the, uh, the whole demon fight there, uh, Jordan was injured. So they have to rush her to the hospital, uh, a fellow nurse, uh, while they're dealing with the demon stuff, a fellow nurse comes up and is like, I know what you're talking about. Dr. Sullivan also assaulted me. I will stand with you. Solidarity. And she's like, okay, let's do this. We'll do this later, though. I got a demon to deal with. Dr. Sullivan at the time is currently healing using a heal spell on her daughter,

or sister Jordan. I don't know about that. Just seems like seems like looking at her abdomen, where she got hurt. And Quinn comes up with the idea to she, she tries trick doctor Sullivan into meeting her into the abandoned wing of the hospital, which is filled with, you know, like dust and plastic sheets and land. Every hospital has a, as a spooky just, yeah, every hospital has a as a spooky just yeah every hospital has a spooky wing it's a band it's full of ghosts full of cobwebs they call it they call them kingdoms and that's that's

really go if you want to have spooky stuff at a hospital yeah so she she tricks him into meeting her there under the pretense that she is going to try and get her job back by giving him sexual savers. Yep. But instead she, the way the way to a man's heart is through your vagina.

She thinks. Yeah. So she starts attacking him and it's about to kill him with what morphine and overdose morphine. Yeah. Yeah. Because if she can kill him that I'll mess with, he had already downloaded the app and it said he was going to live 70 more years and she's like, yeah, fucking see about that shit.

And right before she can kill him, Ozon snatched his own way. Hey, like what we're talking about before. Yeah, exactly. Stay in your lane, Ozon yells. Jordan's time is running out. She's supposed to die even before Quinn. They're both on like minutes at this point. So she's running around Ozen attacks her. Do we ever get any sorry? I'm just realizing, do we ever get any

clarity on what happens to that doctor? Like, yeah, yeah, yeah, we'll get to that at the end. Okay. I didn't. I missed it. So, Ozen's about to kill Jordan when Quinn shows up and she makes a desperate last ploy to commit suicide using an overdose of morphine. And Ozen is like, wait a minute, I'm going to morph into your mom and your dead mom and try and convince you not to kill yourself. This was a, this was a strange choice on Ozen's part because Ozen doesn't have a lot of time. Yes, Ozen. And I'll say he, I don't know what gender Ozen is, but I saw say Ozen. And it's that Ozen needs to stop her from killing herself. At the same time, Ozen has to kill Jordan.

You'd think that Ozen would choose a faster method, like maybe snatching the morphine out of her hands or something like that, pushing her down rather than the psychological method of pretending to be her mom to talk her out of it. Yeah, if you're gonna morph into something, morph into like an old-timey cowboy with a lariat to like life, so it's not a very bad thing. Or for just just for fun, do that. Cause she would be fucking shocked.

If you were just hanging out in the hospital and all of a sudden there's a cowboy there, I just, Paco's Ville, your lariat's a snake, this is amazing. I just like to take a moment also to say that her dead mom, or at least the version of her that we see, played by Andrea Anders, who I know best from, she was the love interest in better off Ted.

Oh, okay. She was in the short lived, but full of future stars that come. The class that I watched, and most recently, recently she's Ted Lasso's a strange wife. So a sitcom, a bit of sitcom royalty kind of. There's a bunch of, there's a lot of, there's a lot of more small screen best known actors in this. I feel like everyone here,

they're best known for their television work. You know, probably what in the script, it was probably, Ozen Morp's into the cowboy, but they're like, wait a minute, we have this actress. Let's do it. Let's have's into the cowboy, but they're like, wait a minute, we have this actress. Let's do it. Let's have her be the mom.

And they're like, from the class. Yeah. Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, text. We got to cut you. We got a better replacement. Aw, shucks. They were gonna put me in the movie. No, I understand.

Better off Ted was a great show. It was kind of hampered by a stupid name and that time's a lot. Been really telling people what to expect a great show. It was kind of hampered by a stupid name and a lot of still. Yeah, they really tell people what to expect from the show. It's like happy endings like what the fuck? Okay, so, but Quinn, uh, and checks yourself with the morphine. Uh, Ozen is not pleased with this and Morphsen to dust a final morph. Quinn falls down and dies and Jordan rushes over to her sister's dead body only to see that there are instructions written on her body and Sharpie instructing where to insert

the Narcan, a plot point that was mentioned way earlier in the movie, but I didn't mention it because it seemed like it didn't matter, but it does matter and you should have been paying attention. Except for as IMDB goofs points out, Narcan. This is a true goof. This is a true goof. Narcan is prone to point out fake goofs.

This is a real one. Narcan will not bring back someone who has died from a morphing overdose. It makes the, if your heart has stopped, then putting an overdose fighting drug will not restart your heart. So what happens is, of course, Jordan injects the Narcan into Quinn and Quinn comes back to life and all of a sudden, bring me to life by Evan Essin starts blasting, Ozen's like the songs dope actually.

And everybody's like, rockin, it rules. I love this show. Yeah, just like the end of Zatoichi the blind assassin. Yeah, it's incredible. And then we get a fast forward flash forward blind swordsman. Sorry, sorry. Yeah. So we are in the graveyard. Quinn Jordan and their dad are leaving flowers that their mother's grave.

Then they read on their cell phone that the doctor has been, that the doctor has been arrested for assaulting multiple women, more women have come forward. There's a mug shot of him that's pretty fine, but she also did hit him with like a crowbar. This, this is the part that I like, I'm not sure that the film had a good stand itself. Self-reflective. Self-reflective. Self-reflective.

Self-reflective. Self-reflective. Self-reflective. Self-reflective. Self-reflective. Self-reflective. Self-reflective. Self-reflective.

Self-reflective. Self-reflective. Self-reflective. Self-reflective. Self-reflective. Self-reflective. Self-reflective. Self-reflective.

Self-reflective. Self-reflective. Self-reflective. Self-reflective. Self-reflective. Self They get an notification that the app has been updated. She's like, what the fuck? And the movie's over, fired whatever until we get that developer had the flaw in the first version. And they look, we're coming out with countdown 2.0. We're looking for unicorns. We got to get this thing off the ground. We're valued at $4 billion right now. So we think we can get a little bit of VC. Get this thing going. Yeah, yeah. What? For unicorns. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. There's always you there are investors. Yeah.

Angel investors. Unicorns is a different than angel investors. Is it? I really know the the sexual app. The only thing I know about unicorns is that I feel like it was a waste of fucking Walden Goggins talent to make it play a fucking Pills or guy on this bullshit network sitcom. Okay. Movies over.

I don't think so. There's a lengthy mid credit sequence where Tom Segura's character is on his Tinder date. He is clearly mismatch with this woman. He is kind of an asshole talking over her, making inappropriate comments. She is terrible. I kind of realized my limit with Tom Segura my limit with Tom's sagura, I guess, is two scenes because by this scene, I was like, I don't really need any more of them in this movie.

Yeah, they really play up how big of a creep asshole he is. And then he is alone in a dark restaurant. All the lights go out and then we hear like, Ozen Chuckles or something and he's like, oh no, I'm dead. End of movie. Bring me life by Evan Essence starts crank cranking everybody's head banging. It fucking everyone on the cast comes out and takes a bow multiple bad. I know. Take a

bow by Madonna plays. It's very sad. They take another bow. Samba. Yeah, it's amazing. Yeah. Okay. So this is the part where our IP Angela Landspirer across the screen. We're like, what is this game about 2019? How did they know? Because we have that family. Yeah. Yeah. So this is where we give our final judgments and we have our shocktober category. I get to say, guys, I killed that summer. You did a great job. You

did a great. You know, it was in that summer. You killed it right away. You're the fucking peach bit. But it's gonna be totally scary. We do the fake, you know, it was into that summer, you killed right in time. I can't hear the fucking peach bit, but it's gonna be totally scary. Can we do the fake podcast you host? Talk about your summer. I'm feeling it's gonna be favorable. Is this movie totally scary, is it totally snorifying or is it frighteningly funny? Of course, not since categories.

I'm just gonna say, like, I got, I kind of liked this. I, I mean, I tipped towards it before. I think the thing is I've seen so many to the two loops do it. I've seen so many movies like this that are trying to do basically this kind of thing and do it badly that I appreciate that this movie is a trim 90 minutes. It mostly feels like 90 minutes. There's a bit towards like the start of Act Three that I thought dragged more than the rest of the movie,

but in general, I felt like it was pretty fleet. It tried to do a few more fun things with its dumb premise. It's not as good as like a final destination movie, but it's aiming towards that tone. And it's, you know, like there's a lot of elevated horror. This is like a different type of horror. This is like a traditional like, I don't know, young teens want a pop horror movie that's gonna have a few jump scares that they can go to

that's not gonna be too brutal in any way. And I don't know, on a silly level, I looked at the Wikipedia page and I found with delight that my good friend, Kimber Myers, is the quoted critic from her review in the LA time. she was like the one like more positive review. They could find to put on the Wikipedia page to have like a balanced idea of what the critical response was and I'm like I texted him like I like to do I like to do. You know, not great like there's certainly don't run out and see it but of the movies that I'm forced to watch for this podcast. I liked it okay.

What do you guys have to say? Yeah, I mean, I feel I'm kind of in between a, I feel like it's a between a bad, bad movie and a movie I kind of liked because there's definitely stuff that I like about it. The, there are some jokes and there's some silly stuff that actually works. Uh, I feel like there is a bit of a tone misjudgment when it comes to the mixing of silly app demon and sexual assault by superior. But yeah, I think like, I feel like if it had leaned more into the sillier stuff, it could have been closer to something like a happy death day territory. Yeah. And it's not, I feel like it's not that far from that kind of a movie.

I think that's what I was shooting for definitely. Yeah, I wish it was like, I wish it, they, I wish they had stepped back and were like, how can we make this a little bit sillier? Yeah. Yeah. I think it's a movie that is having trouble finding that balance that doesn't know exactly what kind of movie it is or wants to be in that way. I have to admit, I found it mostly fairly snorifying, but not as snorifying as other movies we've watched. I give it a solid two to two and a half stars, you know, on a four or five star rating.

It could do worse. Wow, not even three points. Not even three point six. You could do worse, but you could also do a lot better. Maybe, but I feel like I'm coming to it from a biased point of view of having seen a number of very good movies recently in my personal life. And so I'm coming to it from the point of view of, oh, movies are wonderful. So to see a movie that is merely kind of mediocre to sub is, you know, maybe I should be, I probably shouldn't have watched a movie for a couple of weeks.

And then watch it and I'd be like, this is amazing. It's like there's people in right and right on my screen. Frankly, I'm jealous that you've got to watch a bunch of good movies. Oh, it's been, it's all, it's all been about very strict curating of what I, of the things that I watch. But also of the two-shock-told movies we watched this year, I'd say go with Orphan because it knows what kind of movie it is. It is a, it's a bonkers opera. And this, and this is, doesn't know, it doesn't know if it's going to be serious or silly so it becomes silorous which is not a word yeah yeah learn your words movie

Her Majesty served Great Britain and the Commonwealth, loyally, for over 70 years. And while of course we feel a profound sadness, we must remember she lived a long life and died in such a way that I think many of us would want for ourselves. She was at home, surrounded by her family. And of course, she was listening to the Beef and Dairy Network Podcast. The Beef and Dairy Network Podcast is a multi-award-winning comedy podcast and you can find it at maximumfun.org or wherever you get your podcasts. You're in a theater, the lights go down. You're about to get swept up by the characters and all their little details and interpersonal

dramas. You look at them and think, that person is so obviously in love with their best friend. Wait, am I in love with my best friend? That character's mom is so overbearing. Why doesn't she just stand up to her old god do I need to stand up to my own mother? If you've ever recognized yourself in a movie, then join me, Jordan Khrushiola, for the podcast, Bealing Scene. We've talked to author Susan Orleen on realizing her own marriage was falling apart after

watching adaptation, an adaptation of her own work, and comedian Harry Conte-Bull-Lue, on why Harold and Kumar was a depressingly important movie for Southeast Asians. So join me every Thursday for the Bealing Scene podcast here on Maximum Fun. Let's quickly acknowledge that we can't do this all on our own. I mean, we could, but it wouldn't be- We did for a number of years. It wouldn't be provoking. It wouldn't be rewarding in the sense- the literal sense of there being rewards given.

So I want to thank everyone who is a member of Maximum Fun and helps make the show possible because by this point, we probably, you know, as much as we love it, couldn't keep doing it if it wasn't also a second job for all of us. But it would be very hard to justify the time away from my family, yeah. But also, we have some sponsors that I would like to say thank you to as well. And one of them is Squarespace, which allows you to build a lovely website where you can engage your with your audience. You can sell anything, products, content you create, even your time. It's the all-in-one platform for building your brand and growing your business online. And some of the things you can do with Squarespace, what are they?

Well, you can sell your products on an online store, whether physical or digital projects, products, Squarespace has the tools you need to sell online. You can create pro-level videos, effortlessly, effortlessly, they say, the Squarespace Video Studio app, this app's not going to tell you when you die, it's going to help you make and share engaging videos to tell your story, grow your audience and drive sales.

Much more pleasant. Display post for your, display post from your social profiles on your website. You can automatically push website content to your favorite social media channels. So followers can share it too. So why not check out squarespace.com slash flop for free trial. And when you're ready to launch, use offer code flop to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Elliott, I believe you have a jumbo tron. I do indeed have a j-j-j-j-j-j-j-j- you love musicals? Do you love cast albums? Excuse me, I'm trying to read these are not these are rhetorical questions for the jumbo tron. I'll start from the beginning. Yes. Do you love musicals? Do you

love cast albums? Are you people? If you answered yes at least twice, you'll love the original cast. A podcast about original cast albums and the people who love them. Each episode, dramatist Patrick Flynn invites the guests to choose the cast album they love, and then they talk about the album, theater, musicals, resurrection machines, whatever. Past guests include Tony Winners, NPR hosts, record producers, critics, and two-thirds of the peaches. Stewart, the door is always open. That resurrection machine's reference is to my episode of it. It's your called action.

Get on your podcast of choice and listen to the occasionally number one performing arts podcast in South Korea. No joke and no clue why. The original cast. So I'm going to add that. I'm going to try and the original cast is a really great podcast. It's all about original cast albums for Broadway shows. Steward, yeah, get on there if you can. I had a really good time. I, you know, like, I don't think it's awful to say that sometimes I make an agreement to guest on a podcast. I'm like, I'm so busy this week.

Do I, like, this is gonna be a hassle? This is not gonna be great. I, once I started doing the original cast, I had so much fun talking musicals. Like Patrick was a great host. I really had a good time. So. What did you talk about on your episode, Dan?

I talked about Sweeney Todd, the demon barber of Fleet Street. Which cast album, the original or the revival? The original cast, yes. Okay. And I talked about the music man, original cast album, when I was on on I only asked because Rest of peace again, Angela Lancebury. Yeah, don't hate me people. I kind of like the revival of Swinny Todd the album more than the original Swinny Todd album, but that's maybe because I saw

one person and one I didn't anyway stew if you were going to be on that podcast what musical album would you talk about? Let's see is power slave that podcast, what musical album would you talk about? Uh, let's see. Uh, is Power Slave by Iron Maiden a, uh, musical album? I mean, their stage show is pretty close to, uh, theatrical event. So maybe, yeah, there's some storytelling in that. I never been to a wedding that had a music man or a sweetie Todd cake as I saw a Power Slave cake at Jenny Jeffy's recent wedding. So maybe, so that's one up on the others. So I'm when you go on the original cake cast, you can talk about it. Oh cool. I can do that. I can talk

about a cake you saw one time. It's called it's called overhired cakes and it's about cakes that you heard someone else talking about. Okay. Before we move on to you guys want to make any plugs for yourselves? Always. Please, please. I own two bars in Brooklyn, New York. And you know what? You should come visit them. We have booze, we have snacks. We have nice bartenders. Sometimes I'm there. Hinterlains bar and minis bar in Brooklyn, New York. Bye. I've got two. I've got three things I want to plug, Dan. One is. Yeah, he left.

Well, I guess we'll do the rest without him. The three things I want to plug, one, if you've got kids, why not listen to the who was podcast on our radio. That's a podcast I co-host and it's really fun. It's a quiz show for kids about history. You know, I'm sorry, Dr. Levin. Yeah. And Dr. Remi, you don't have kids or you want to spend your time away from your kids?

How about maniac of New York? I assume my super violent comic book from Aftershock Comics, Volumes 1 and 2 are collected in stores now. Volume 3, don't call it a comeback. That's the name of it. The maniac of New York's Don't Call it a comeback comes out, I think December 7th, the first issue. And number 3, let's go back to the kids again.

My kids books, Shaco and Hippo and Horse Meat Stog still in bookstores. So that's some things for kids and some things for not for kids. Yeah. Well, my book proposal that I set out came back with a lot of people being very positive about my voice and a little confused about whether the book actually

would have an audience. So if anyone wants to just publish that right now, wow, like, no, no, I probably have to reconceive it. So I mean, having read your book proposal, I think it's a very funny proposal. And I think you probably just need like a little bit more of a framework. Yes, the framework is the key. But also, you know, if you want to save me time, if you're a big time editor and you just want to put the book out. If anyone, if anyone's listening is an editor at a publishing coming up, publishing time to my Dan has a, has a, has a proposal for a, for a comedic book.

And I have a novel that I'm, that I want to start trying to sell. So get in touch. Yeah. Oh, stew. What about you? What publishing projects are you trying to launch? I'm still trying to publish that fucking coffee table book. That's just pictures of dogs faces while they're shitting. Yeah. Because they either look like super serious or super confused. And I think it's fucking hilarious. And that would you divide it in

the same. And one half of the book is serious and one is funny. Or you would be all mixed up. That's part of the joy of a coffee table book is just picking up and flipping through that shit. Sounds good. Hey, let's move on to letters. Why not? Let's do it. This letter is from Jonathan Last Name With Health who writes, Elliot's favorite movie, as mentioned in episode, I assume that they're referring to the previous episode based on the rest of the email, is taking of Pellum 123. And yet Charlie Verick is snubbed a markedly more successful criminal than Michael Cain. And

it has Charlie in the title Jonathan lasting with help taking you to task that your favorite Charlie's didn't include Verick as portrayed by Walter Mathau. You're right. I mean, to be honest, Walter Mathau to me is Lieutenant Zachary Garber or the or Grumpy old man. It's hard for me to think of him as any other character. Charlie, Varic, I have to say I like it. I don't love it. It's not my favorite to his.

Yeah, I kind of it feels to me like a movie that I wish had either a little bit more comedy or a little bit less comedy, but that's okay. You know, I like different people can disagree about things. That, I mean, Palem obviously is also like an action thriller, although, you know, Mathhab doesn't do any action. But, no, I mean, it's talking action. He's very conversational. I would advise the car.

What about that? What about that 10 minute long martial arts sequencing? I just gotta say that one. I mean, he does shoot someone at one point. But still. I like that in Charlie Verri. Yeah, the part that single that single shot sequence when the fighting is way down a hallway. Yeah. Yeah. In both Charlie, Charlie, American hopscotch, he gets to be like an actual like tough guy. And I think that that's, I mean, hopscotch is a lot goofier, but like hopscotch is like I can buy it more in hopscotch

because it's goofy. There's a part in Charlie, where he is a sex, he's like a sex god for a moment. And I'm like, this is a bridge I can't cross. I'm sorry. I just, I, you know, I think it's fun that he got to do those things. Although on the other hand, as I've been talking to Elliot about, I've been reading Mark Harris' biography of Mike Nichols and Matt that sounds like a real asshole.

He does come off like a real, like a real, like I've never read anything about him where someone other than Jack Lemon was talking where he came off as a friendly guy or someone you wanted to be around. Yeah. Yeah. So I hope that answers your question about Charlie.

It's kind of like all the stories that are coming out now about Bill Murray and you're like, yeah, he always seemed like a guy that would be very difficult to be around. Very like, yeah, not an seemed like a guy that would be very difficult to be around. Very like, yeah, that easy guy to spend time. As much as, yeah, the screen person is appealing. You could see how this person is nuts when you want to see in life, necessarily. Yeah.

Ben lasting with held rights. Dear flop house. Ben Mankowitz. Wow. Probably. Dear flop house, it's the most wonderful time of the year. Halloween spooky season to the youths. And it always makes me reminisce on my favorite fatty fanged icons of pop culture, the

Night Lords. Heretic, a starting of the first founding. Yeah. Big E's eighth legion, but number two in my heart, space wolves are number one, but I'm burnt out of those guys. Cool. Stuart, what kind of metal would you suggest an enthusiast blast whilst cladding their plastic in shades of midnight? I thought Slayer initially, but is that two on the nose? Much love and thank you for making my Saturday morning commutes delightful. Are they Dominus Knox? my Saturday morning commute delightful, Ave Domina's Nox.

Cool, yeah. That's been a lesson, well. Dan, is there any mention of Conrad Kurs or the Night Haunter in there? I mean, you heard the letter. I don't know what you want from me. I mean, Dan, turn it over, look on the back.

Is there anything on the back? On the back? It's my iPhone case. It's green. Oh, Okay. Is that what you're looking for, too? Yep. That's what I was looking for. Thank you. Painting Night Lords. They are a calf space marine Legion and their baddies and they're a little spooky. You know what? I would recommend any of the road runner King Diamond records. That's right. You got what, fatal portrait, Abigail, of course, them conspiracy, all those, check those out.

They're great. The eye, all those albums, they're great. They're spooky. And you know what, King Diamond rules. Sounds good. I, as always, I zoned out. I'm talking about horror and this is and metal. To two of my favorite things.

I know sorry I was just trying to into the look through my my film diary to see what I was going to recommend and of course I've seen I've actually been talking about weight lifting or something else I like or you just going to roll

your hair out and I went into the look through my film diary to see what I was going to recommend. And of course, I've seen, I've actually, can I talk about weightlifting or something else I like or you're just going to roll your fucking eyes and begin. I'm, you know, I'm checking out the camera weight lifting TikToks. Well, thank you. Well, I want to get posted on Instagram. I don't actually look at your TikTok. You don't look at my fucking TikTok. What are you checking off to?

I don't know. It confuses and angers me. Because it reminds you of a clock. Yeah. I mean, that's, yeah, it has two ways in which it reminds me how old I am. Let's move on to the final part of the show where we recommend movies that, and I've seen a lot of good movies lately, like Ellie and I've seen a lot of good movies lately like Ellie and I've seen a lot of good movies but one in particular I saw recently that

I wanted to highlight I saw a tar I thought you're gonna be like I saw a lot of good movies lately like Ellie and I want to highlight one of them it's called screw balls. It's about a group of. of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of

group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of group of And one of the things that we've... The first one he's made in 12 years, the first one in 12 years that starscape Lanchett. The first one he has made, as a director. Since little children, I believe, and prior to that, he had made in the bedroom. So a good director who has not been able to make a lot lately, but TAR is even a giant leap forward, I think from those other previous works of his.

I think that it gets T tard, if you will, by being the cancel culture movie, but that would be sort of diminishing to it. I think that there are a lot of movies out there that pretend to be character studies because they want to talk about some sort of thing in society. Like they use the character study as an excuse to get to the societal thing, which I think that this movie actually uses sort of public reckoning of figures who have misbehaved in some way as a way to get to a character study. Yeah. Which is kind of more interesting, I think, as a film. And one of the things I like about it is it plays out almost like a stage play

for at least the first half where we see Kate Blanchett's character interact with all people from different facets of her life, like whether it be her wife, whether it be a fan, her assistant, the other conductor, like the assistant conductor, a student that she's teaching, and you get all the facets of who she is, like showing how people are very different

depending on who they're interacting with and showing sort of what her strengths and her shortcomings are. And as the movie goes, it comes on, we learn that she has done some things that are terrible and that she absolutely deserves to have some sort of reckoning for, but you also have enough of a sense of her as a complex character that you... You don't have to tell us everything that happens in the movie. No, you just like, it is that character story that I'm talking about. It's it's interesting to see this woman as she deals with her carefully constructed life.

Sort of whirling out of control and I don't know. It was a movie that unlike Elliot, I watch a lot of trash on my spare time in addition to the good things. I mean, I watch good things too. I just rewatched who's afraid of Virginia Woolf for one thing. But, uh, but checks out. Jan's not lying. Let's check his, his movie. That's a four-mentioned Mike Nichols, uh, by every, but watching this, I was like, oh yeah. You're like, you're like, I watch good movies too. I watched Wolf because of the Mike Nichols by the way. But this movie, I was watching, I was like, oh yeah,

movies can do this. Like this is like, like even beyond, you know, not watching, like maybe watching too much goofball shit. Like this is a movie that is doing something that I really haven't seen a film try and tackle, This is a movie that is doing something that I Really haven't seen a film trying tackle at least in a long long time and I Enjoyed I really appreciated sort of being involved in something that was genuinely great for once Anyway now now I want to hear what Elliott is gonna. Yeah, what, what are you going to recommend, Mr. I watch good movies now.

Anyway, so it's a little movie called Predator 2 and it's a story of John Predator. No, I watched the movie I watched that I want to talk about is not a new movie, but an older movie. This is a movie called El Sir. It's a Spanish movie from 1983. It's by the same director, Victor Erise, I think his name is pronounced, who made Spirit of the Bee Hive.

If you're familiar with that, you know, in which I feel like if there's any Spanish movie that's not made by either Boonwell or Amo Dovar, that gets mentioned, it's Spirit of the Bee Hive. But El Ser is a movie about a young girl and her relationship with her family, but specifically her father. And it's narrated by that girl after she's all grown up. But it's telling the story of her childhood and how her father who seems to have kind of

secrets in his past that she can't fully penetrate. But there's something about him that makes him the more special of the two parents to her. Maybe it's because of those secrets. Maybe it's because he doesn't quite understand her and she doesn't quite understand him. And it's a movie that the director considered a kind of half made movie because it's only 95 minutes long and it ends at a point where the director was hoping

to continue the film. But to me, it felt very fulfilling and very complete. And the South of the title is where her father is from, this place that she's never been, and she's very curious about. But because of a political disagreement with his father in the Spanish Civil War years, he's left that place.

And it's a really beautiful looking movie. It's very kind of like Dim and Cosy is how I would say it, a lot of the visuals in this very early 80s way. And it just felt to me like a movie about a real thing about how that I'd never really thought that much about before, which is that even when you know your parents or you learn more about them, there's always an emotional truth to them that remains a mystery to you. An emotional truth about you that remains a mystery to them, that no matter how much you love a

member of your family, specifically a parent or a child, you can't, there's always going to be a part of them that you don't know, but which to them feels omnipresent and inescapable. And I feel like this movie really captured that in a way that really moved me and I found very beautiful. And so it's after seeing a lot of not terrible movies, but movies where I was like, that was fun, that was okay. Seeing a movie like this that really, touched me very deeply, which I thought was visually very beautiful. It was like, similar to what Dan was,

his reaction to Tara, it was like, oh, right. This is why I love movies. It's because they can, they speak to me in a way that otherwise I don't know how to be spoken to or how to speak to others. And so I really loved it. And it's coming as a movie otherwise I don't know how to be spoken to or how to speak to others. And so I really, I really loved it. And it coming as a movie that I didn't know anything about going into it. I had never heard of it until I did the thing I do where I record any foreign movie I've

never heard of that comes up on turn of classic movies. And so I really like to lots that's L. Sir, literally the South or 1983. Don't know where you can find it. I don't know where it's streaming, but look for it. Why not? And I have a little bit of a qualified recommendation. It's a movie that you can currently stream on Shutter called The Innocence. It was written and directed by the guy who wrote my favorite movie from last year at the worst person in the world, a movie that also reaffirmed my love of film and touched me deeply.

The innocence, maybe not as much, but it is a thriller about a group of children living in a housing complex in Norway. And the children start to develop kind of strange powers. And it is very kind of deliberate, patient. It makes a lot of effort to kind of build the world of the that these children inhabit. It relies a lot on the acting chops of a group of, you know, a small group of children. And it ends up, it kind of plays out a little bit like, it reminds me a little bit of like, Domo, a child's dream, the Katsuhiro Tomo comic. And also, you know, with some like, you know, like Lord of the Flies, like kids making decisions that are, you know, get increasingly more dangerous. And it, the part of the reason it's qualified is

that it is like it, fairly slow and deliberate. It's also a violent, and the violence is often directed at children and animals. So it can be a difficult watch, but it is a very beautiful movie. I just wanna, that's a great recommendation. I just wanna backtrack and say that Elser, I looked it up, is streaming on

Criterion right now. And of course, Tars in theaters. I also wanted to say, like, I mentioned Tars, giving me the feeling of a play. I don't want that to be misinterpreted. I just meant in that it has these scenes that are allowed to extend longer than a movie scene usually is, so we can really like live in it with the characters, but it's very cinematic, especially with these of sound. But yeah, we know movies. We know other movies. We don't just, we don't just watch, we don't just watch countdown. We just count down. We just all count down. A movie that we could, a movie that was fine for what it was. It was fine. It was okay. It does, you know, you know, you only have so many, uh, according to my phone, I only have so many hours and days left in my life.

I mean, I kind of don't want to go into it, but you know, what guys, I'm fine with it. That's good. I get, you know, life, I get that that's the, that's the best way to deal with it. Probably, you know, I mean, Dylan Thomas would disagree. He would say rage, but, you know, there was, he was probably fucking drunk when he said that. Wow. I mean, probably, yeah. Uh, that kind of makes me feel like Stuart doesn't have that much time left, so we should probably sign off. Uh, I would just want to say before we go, thank you to, uh, Maximum Fun, check out the all the other great podcast for the Maximum Fun at maximumfund.org.

Check out our producer Alex's other podcast, FastTrack. Oh, he goes by the name Howell Doddy. Did you just remember that you have to record some? No, I mean, I remembered that we recorded a hot new track. Yeah, there's gonna drop in soon. Alex sent the guide track for this song that we're gonna do. I love it already and we haven't even done our parts yet.

So I gotta record that. I gotta record my part too, yeah. But anyway, so check him out, Howell Daudy on Twitter, and thank you for listening for the flop house. I've been Dan McCoy. I'm Stuart Wellington. And I'm...

Elliott Caleb. Okay, Alex, make sure to drop in, and bring me to life by Evan Essence right now. We don't have the rights. Hemingway asked is how I would describe that. That was his six word story. Baby shoes, four sale baby shoes. You know how usually you put baby shoes

on the feet of a baby? Well, this time they weren't on the feet of a baby. They actually haven't been on a baby's feet. As new, they're basically new. Mid-condition, they haven't been on a baby's foot. We didn't have a baby. We planned to have a baby and either we didn't have a baby where we had it and it died.

You read into it It was very sad. Yeah, my my intro was Tight enough that even Sikko Kormack McCarthy would have blocked me. Okay Maximumfund.org comedy and culture artist-owned audience supported Audience supported.