Await Further Instructions

2 Guys And A Chainsaw - A Horror Movie Review Podcast

Treść dostarczona przez Todd Kuhns and Craig Higgins. Cała zawartość podcastów, w tym odcinki, grafika i opisy podcastów, jest przesyłana i udostępniana bezpośrednio przez Todd Kuhns and Craig Higgins lub jego partnera na platformie podcastów. Jeśli uważasz, że ktoś wykorzystuje Twoje dzieło chronione prawem autorskim bez Twojej zgody, możesz postępować zgodnie z procedurą opisaną tutaj https://pl.player.fm/legal.

9d ago 56:10

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We turn from last week’s bundle of holiday cheer to about the bleakest, most depressing Christmas horror fare you could find.

Does it intend to make a political statement? Yes. Several. Kind of akin to spending an awkward family holiday dinner with your most overtly racist relatives, it’s not gonna fill you with warmth and goodness. But this is a horror movie, after all, so whaddya expect? So drink up and drink in this highly-emotional feature-length Twilight Zone episode of what happens when a family’s already-awful Christmas Eve festivities get turned completely upside-down.

A dark, eerie movie poster reveals a person with glowing blue light spilling from their mouth, entangled in wires. The stylized text at the bottom reads "Await Further Instructions," adding to its mysterious and sci-fi allure.

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Await Further Instructions (2018)

Episode 419, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast

Todd: Hello and welcome to another episode of Two Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Todd.

Craig: And I’m Craig.

Todd: Well, Craig, we’re week two into the Christmas season, and, uh, last week we kicked it off with this just nice and warm, fuzzy feeling Christmas movie. I guess it’s only fitting that we follow it up with a terrible, dark, depressing I guess. Story of Christmas gone wrong when this movie started out It started to feel like a cautionary tale about family that doesn’t get along getting together for the holidays Anyway, but devolved into something else entirely.

What we’re doing is Await Further Instructions. It was a 2018 horror film recommended by a number of our patrons. Yeah. Yeah, I had never heard of it before Obviously hadn’t seen it before it looks like it’s a shutter produced film or co produced film Like I said came out in 2018 and was directed by Johnny Kevorkian who did He did a few things and then, sadly, passed away a couple years after this movie was released.

Oh, I didn’t know that. Yeah, of a heart attack. Yeah, this is one of, I think, five or six films that he’s done. And then the writer, Gavin Williams, here, wrote a few things. This, I think, was his very first, uh, feature length credit for writing. And then since then has gone on to be a writer on a couple things.

Just really not much, actually, to be honest with you. This is a British production. And yeah, like I said, I have, I had never seen it before. I’d never heard of it before, but the premise was very intriguing. How about you?

Craig: I watch everything. Right. Uh, so yeah, I’d seen it.

Todd: Oh, okay.

Craig: I vaguely, you know, I vaguely remembered it.

I didn’t remember having any strong feelings about it one way or another, but I remembered that there was more than meets the eye to like, The thing that eventually like traps them in the house or whatever. Like I knew where it was going this time around. Okay. Yeah, but I honestly was kind of surprised.

I, I honestly, I think several, multiple people either suggested or specifically requested this movie.

Todd: Yeah.

Craig: And I was surprised because I just didn’t think anybody knew about it. I just thought it was, you know, one of those. Just random things on the internet that I stumbled across, but I don’t know. Like you said, I mean, ultimately I feel like it’s, it’s commentary about so many things, so many things, but all of it comes, all of it comes down to like, everything is awful.

Like, uh, fam, families are awful. People are awful. Technology is awful. Everything is awful.

Todd: It’s a really depressing movie to watch at Christmas time. It’s a particularly depressing movie to watch at Christmas time of 2024, to be honest.

Craig: Well, and I feel like it’s kind of a trick too, because it takes place at Christmas, and like they have Christmas dinner and they open Christmas presents, but it’s almost like that’s the bait to lure you into this movie.

Like Christmas isn’t, it’s not really that important. It could be any family gathering. I suppose that could be said of. A lot of Christmas movies, but that’s true that Christmas takes a backseat aside from a lot of interesting lighting choices Right. I I did like that like the Christmas lighting scheme Made it visually interesting and it was a it’s not a bad movie I I feel like I’m dunking on it already and I don’t mean to because it’s not a bad movie In fact, I think it’s kind of interesting.

Yeah, it’s but it’s not like a Cheerful holiday romp If that’s what you’re looking for,

Todd: God, no, it’s not at all

Craig: turn away.

Todd: Well, I was, I was actually thinking about that myself after I finished watching it. I was like, did this movie really have to take place during Christmas? And you’re right. It could have been Thanksgiving.

It could have been any excuse really for family that is kind of at odds with each other to get together anyway. So I did, when I kind of came back away from my thoughts, I thought, you know, maybe it does at least serve the theme a little bit. Or at least. In a technical way of getting these people together who honestly wouldn’t be getting together otherwise and oftentimes, sadly, that is the holidays for a lot of us.

It is the time for us to get together when we’re far flung, make that extra effort to get everybody in the same room. People who maybe talk on the phone or maybe haven’t seen or heard from each other for a while. In this case, one of the main, basically, I guess you could say the main character, who is Nick, he’s an adult son.

It sounds like he has not been heard from or seen in three years. He hasn’t been calling his family much. He’s been a bit, I guess you could say, estranged from them. And his mother is very happy to welcome him into the house. But his father is just really off putting from the get go. Angry in a way that like I’m still your dad and how dare you come back after not contacting us You know, it’s a very oh my god.

This guy

Craig: Nick has been estranged from his family I I I’m under the impression that his girlfriend slash fiance. I don’t know on G I I think that it’s very relevant that are the family is Caucasian and on G is Indian. Right. And they’re, they’re also British, which I guess is probably also relevant. Right.

The reason that he’s been estranged for, it seems like she has encouraged him, you know, let’s go to your family’s house for Christmas. You haven’t seen them in a long time. This is subtext. I’m, I’m Reading this into it. Yeah. It’s never, but that’s,

Todd: that’s it’s, it’s never explicitly stated. Yeah.

Craig: That’s the feeling I get because it doesn’t really seem like he wants to go.

Like as soon as they get there, he’s like, seriously, I feel like we’re gonna be ruining everybody’s Christmas. And he’s been estranged for three years and the dad’s pissed off about it. It seems like the reason that he’s been estranged for them for that long is because they’re horrible. Awful people.

Yeah. Aside from the mother, the mother seems lovely and you feel so bad for her that she has to live with these other disgusting, nasty people. Yes. I don’t blame him for being a strange and I feel like that’s a, that’s another thing that the movie addresses and very prescient in 2018 because I feel like this is totally relevant right now.

Sometimes it’s really difficult to get together. with your family if you have significant difference in values and all those types of things and this movie suggests just don’t because It’s not gonna end well Whereas most of these holiday movies like even violent night that we did last year a couple years ago Where you know, like it’s bloody and they’re killing everybody Still, the message is, come together as a family and cherish your family.

No, this movie is, if you come together with your family, you will end up killing each other because

Todd: people are horrible. It’s true. It feels like the movie’s starting out as like a Twilight Zone episode because immediately, well, look, I don’t want to go there yet, but what I’m trying to say is the movie starts that seems to start out as like a classic Twilight Zone episode because it does this high concept premise and it seems to have this moral message that it’s trying to get across at first when I watched it.

I thought, okay, this is like pandemic. Era commentary, right? This is about control and obedience, and to what lengths do we go to to protect each other, to what lengths do we trust the authorities? And

Craig: that is interesting. I find that part of it interesting. It’s just very bleak.

Todd: It is. It’s super bleak. And then I checked it, and I was like, oh, this is 2018.

Uh huh. You know, this is actually pre pandemic by two years. And so I thought, okay, well, they’re not making a direct commentary on that, but you can certainly read that into it. I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s similar thematic material. You know, this is also one year after Brexit, I guess? And will you add the racism element in there as well?

And these guys are just absolute dicks. The grandfather especially. The grandfather just sits in a chair and cackles maniacally whenever he pisses somebody off with his racist comments. Or here’s his adult son Tony also do the same.

Clip: I don’t know what’s going on. Letting anyone come flooding in. It’s always got to end like this.

Gramps, you can’t say that. Everyone’s entitled to their own opinions, but still. Mr Milgram, I know we’ve only just met and I don’t know much about your life, but that’s not fair. You’re right. You don’t know anything about Gramps? Kate, please, let’s not blow it out of proportion. Gramps is being out of order.

This country used to be great, till all them Johnny Ackmeds and Bobby Bongo Bongo started coming in. All I’m trying to say is that if we let these things go, then we’re perpetuating those views.

Todd: He just encourages and prods and pokes and seems to love to see this woman squirm and be offended. Of course I hate people like that and it’s nasty. Played by David Bradley, I’m sure you know the face if you don’t know the name. Felch, right? The guy there. But he’s been in a million things. I mean, he’s veteran of the British screen.

Oh, and these people. It didn’t catch this until afterwards. Their surname is the Milgrams, and they are on Stanford Street. Did you catch that?

Craig: Well, I mean, I read about it, but I don’t really know what all that means. I, I, I know that it has to do with, like, studies on obedience and authority and stuff like that, which this movie becomes, and I think that’s Again, very clever, but I don’t really know much about what those things were.

Todd: You probably were now. I might be jogging your memory a little bit, but it feels like none of us could get through high school or college without talking about the Stanford prison experiment that was conducted by Professor Stanley Milgram, I believe, who set up this experiment in the basement of one of the dormitories at the school.

And had volunteers play prisoners and volunteers play wardens and, and, uh, guards at this fake prison. Of course, they all knew it was fake, right? But, uh, very quickly, it sort of descended into chaos as The guys who were playing the, the wardens and stuff started using their power in pretty cruel ways against these, you know, kids who were playing the prisoners.

And that study’s been cited for decades as a example of how humans, when given power and given control, just seem to maybe have this odd, natural inclination towards using it to make other people suffer. Now, interestingly enough, In the years since then, more has come out about that study, and it’s a lot, it’s a lot more complicated than it was originally presented to me, especially as a kid, and it sounds like the methods, and it sounds like there was actually, Milgram himself interjected himself and gave instructions and commands to people to actually do certain things, and maybe muddy the results a little bit, or at least the grand conclusion of it, so I’m not really willing to go as far, I’m a pretty optimistic person, you know, I would like to think that we’re not always gonna just descend into a lord of The fly situation by default when we’re faced with some difficulty, but we do have some tendencies that we’ve seen, you know, to get us there.

So obviously, you know, naming this family, the Milgrams, they’re on Stanford street, yada, yada, yada. He’s making a direct reference to that as well. And like you said, that is a very definite theme in here. It’s like this family is patriarchy all the way down. And it seems like the kid Nick hates that and is bucking that trend.

He’s like the young, more progressive person marrying this. Who’s got this girlfriend anyway, they weren’t engaged, were they? I can’t remember. I don’t remember. And it, and it pisses his family off and there’s Brexit stuff in here. There’s, there’s a lot of setup for some serious social commentary.

Craig: Right.

There’s like political, like they’re on opposite sides of the political spectrum. And that’s one thing, you know, that’s fine, whatever. But these people. Like you said, especially the grandfather, but the apple clearly doesn’t fall far from the tree because the dad, I feel like is at least a little bit more diplomatic at first, but the pregnant sister,

Todd: Oh God, she’s insufferable.

Clip: Six letters. That’s not a real word. It really is. Indian words. Don’t count. It’s English. Shall I get the dictionary again? Don’t be silly. It’s just a bit of fun.

Craig: She is disgusting! Like, and, she’s People don’t like when we talk politics, so I’m not going to, but I’m gonna talk about the movie, so I’m just gonna say, she’s the character, this character, is stupid, and she’s clearly threatened by Someone who is more intelligent than her the movie establishes this.

I’m not generalizing. Right. It’s true But she’s just ugly like just ugly ugly Blatantly openly racist. I actually found that one of the most difficult things to believe because first of all, I If I were, what’s the main guy’s name? Nick. If I were Nick, I don’t care how much Angie encouraged me to make amends with my family, which I understand.

I have personal experience with this kind of thing. Right. I just, I just would not like, I would just say to her, you don’t understand. My family is horrible. Yeah. And I wouldn’t have done it. And then, and then as soon as any of this, right. Ugly, ugly, blatantly racist shit started happening, I would have been out the door, I would have, like, sent FedEx to pick up my bags, like, you couldn’t have gotten me out of there fast enough.

Yeah. But they don’t. They stay.

Todd: This is a problem I had with the movie too, is that I felt like the characters were very caricatured and everything was very overplayed. Again, I think it’s in order to service this point, but whereas this kind of thing works for, like, a Twilight Zone episode or something where you only have 20 minutes to tell a story.

For this long hour and a half movie, I expected to see a little more depth. I expected to see a little more explanation. I saw a glimmer of it in the father later on. Right. There’s a moment where his father dies. And so he’s coming to terms with that, and he goes into this little soliloquy monologue, internal monologue, I guess, that he says out loud, revisiting these moments from his childhood where his father gave him these harsh truths, and you can see that he is both I’ve been changed by it and hurt by it, and it’s through his pain, you know, that I don’t know.

I guess you’ve you get this. You’re supposed to get the sense that he’s this asshole guy because he was taught by his father that that’s how you’re supposed to be if you want to be a man. And he’s been trying to live up to that because he’s been seeking the approval of his father that he’s never been getting, which is, I mean, you know, that’s life, that happens, but I just feel like in some of these situations, things wouldn’t have been so black and white.

Craig: I can’t find sympathy for that guy. Yeah. I just like, like, so your dad was a dick. I’m sorry. You know, I never went through anything like that. I had a lovely childhood. So I don’t know what that does to people. But, repeating the cycle, like, What are you doing? I don’t understand how you’re justifying that in your head.

Like, your dad was a dick to you and it ruined you, so you’re gonna do the same thing to your kids? Like, I don’t get it. And I don’t know Well, it goes to

Todd: certain extremes. Go ahead, sorry.

Craig: Yeah, it’s just, well, no, I was just gonna say, it’s so hard. Like, I really do like the main people. Nick, who looks like Ronan Farrow, I don’t know.

But he, like, he’s a young, you know, liberal and, and his beautiful girlfriend and, and they seem to be so open minded. I think we’re supposed to sympathize with them. I, I think that, They are supposed to be our surrogates in this. Right. I like them. And then you, you feel awful for the mother who is, you know, when they get there, she embraces them and she’s so glad and, and she’s, She’s trying to keep things together, and she’s trying to avoid conflict and break up conflict and do whatever she can, but the dad, the grandfather, and the sister are just so awful, and the sister has a boyfriend who also seems like he could potentially be kind of redeemable, but he just becomes a puppet for the dad and the sister.

He’s so empty. Well, I kind of felt bad for him in that, like, I felt like he, I mean, you feel a responsibility to your partner, you know, especially she’s vulnerable, she’s pregnant, it’s not, I mean, I guess it’s his fault for being with her, but it’s not his fault that she’s awful and she kind of manipulates him, and then, I’ve never been in this situation because I’ve never had a girlfriend or a wife, but I would assume you want to have a good relationship with your girlfriend.

Wife’s dad, you know, like if your wife’s dad asks you to help him change all the batteries in the fire alarms over Christmas, like my dad does with my brother in law, like you do it because you know what I’m saying? It’s like, I, he seems like a nice guy and I feel kind of bad for him, but ultimately he becomes their puppet and he’s kind of bad too.

So it’s hard to feel. I don’t know. It’s just hard to find sympathy overall. And we really need to get to, okay, so they have this big blow up over dinner. There’s a lot of racist talk, a lot of finger pointing. It’s, it’s horrible. And Nick and Angie don’t leave immediately. She convinces him for some reason to spend the night, even though they have to sleep in separate rooms.

And again, this doesn’t make any sense to me. Why spend the night when they’re, I guess just to avoid conflict, but their plan is they’re going to get up super early in the morning before anybody else is up and they’re going to sneak out and leave. And that’s what they do. They get up super early. They tiptoe around and they go downstairs, but they find that the door is blocked with this black material that I think at some point they think is metal, but immediately to me, it looks weird.

It looks to me, it looks corded like,

Todd: yeah. Like,

Craig: corrugated. It’s grooved. Yeah. Yeah.

Todd: Yeah. Like, highly corrugated metal. Not like, you know, with wide corrugations. Very narrow.

Craig: And it’s black, and it’s covering every entry, including the windows, and eventually the whole family gets up, and they can’t figure out a way out, and then the TV starts talking to them.

And then that happens for the next hour.

Todd: Yeah. Yeah. The TV is black, but it’s got these, actually it looks like the old VHS, you know, you remember, your dad was a big camcorder guy, you remember when you put the titles in your camcorder, it had that particular pixelated font, it’s totally that, which, I thought that was kind of cute, but it just says, stay in your home and await further instructions, hence the title of the movie, they have really no choice, Now instructions start appearing on the, on the screen at first.

They’re like, okay, well, let’s at least have a nice Christmas dinner. And so they prepare this great spread. And of course, there’s more arguing and more racist talk.

Craig: Oh, and I know it’s all like,

Clip: oh, we need to wait for more instructions. But in the meantime, we are going to celebrate this special day. As you would any other year.

If we don’t uphold our values and have a proper British Christmas, The term is the wordy one.

Craig: Right before that, he had stopped the son in law, Scott, and, oh god, this was, like, his son, his own son walks right past him. And then right behind his son is the son in law, and he stops the son in law. And he says, can I count on you, Scott?

I need to know that you’ll back me. We need to protect the herd, even from themselves. Yeah, it’s very political. Yeah. There was grandpa earlier, like talking about how before all these foreigners coming in this country used to be great. Before all the, uh, boy,

Todd: I mean, we can, we can empathize with this right now, but, uh, you know, again, Brexit in particular, this being a British movie in this 2018 movie, clear parallels to that too.

I thought it was a little heavy.

Craig: It is for sure.

Todd: Look, I know that this stuff goes down all the time, but. My god, it’s like everything that comes out of these guys mouths is something offensive or talking or complaining about the foreigners

Craig: Yeah, and and to be very fair. I don’t encounter people like that in my everyday life Even people who I have fundamental disagreements with I do not encounter ugly people like that most of the people that I encounter who have different values than me are kind polite Decent people we just have differences of opinions and I think that there are significant differences opinions But I I don’t come across in my day to day life ugly people like this

Todd: Exactly and look ugliness does happen and I’ve been in the presence of People suddenly bursting into arguments that just were not appropriate for the moment and just seemed to come from some deep passion like they just got to get this stuff out every 10 minutes or so.

But like, I just find it hard to believe that a family, especially that is now in this particular situation, is going to go so out of their way to continue to piss each other off in these brief moments. Blatant ways, you know,

Craig: that’s what I’m saying. No wonder this kid didn’t come home, right? He had the right idea.

He should have just stayed away. I Think that’s kind of the ultimate lesson of like He should have stayed away. Things would have been, even if, oh God, I don’t even care about spoilers. If you’re listening to this, you don’t care about spoilers. Even if, as the movie suggests in the end, this problem is widespread and potentially worldwide, at least they could have just been trapped in their own apartment with just the two of them and not with all these assholes.

Todd: They might’ve even just been fine, you know, as we go through this, I’m hoping that You and me talking, I’m gonna discover the point the movie was trying to make, because I think it gets really muddied, and I’m not even sure what the moral result, the moral tale is supposed to be.

Craig: I think it, the message is supposed to be that, ultimately

Todd: Don’t submit to authority?

Craig: No, that they do. That we’re easy to manipulate and we’re easy to, gosh, I don’t know what the word is. I’m trying to come up with a fancy word, but I can’t submit to, uh, yes, yeah, yes, yes. We’re, we’re quick to submit to authority. And I don’t think that that’s untrue. No, I don’t know if I believe it to the extent because the dad just has an epiphany that these messages are coming from the government.

Todd: Yeah.

Craig: And the government knows what it’s doing. So, we have to, you know, whatever they say, we have to do. And so, you know, they sit down to this beautiful dinner that the mother has been slaving over all day. And then, before they can even carve the bird, you know, they have these terrible fights, racist shit getting thrown around.

And in the midst of this, somebody happens to glance at the TV, and the TV says, All of your food is contaminated. Eat nothing. And they do like, they throw everything away and what’s his name? The smart kid, the one that we like objects because not only are they throwing away everything on the table, they’re throwing away everything like canned goods, like packaged goods.

They’re throwing away everything. And the guy’s like, the kid’s like, We don’t know how long we’re going to be here, right? What are we going to do? And the brother in law is like, we have running water. It didn’t say anything about water. You can survive without food for weeks. There were also so many times, and, and there were so many times in this movie where I also didn’t understand is Nick, Nick is the name of the, the.

Kid, we like there were so many times when I didn’t understand his decision making, because if I were in that situation, I would have said, fine, throw all the food in my room. You don’t eat it. Don’t you’re right. It’s probably bad. Don’t eat it. Throw it all in my room. And then there’s another part. I feel like coming up pretty soon where they get a message that says.

One among you is contaminated. Well, first of all, they all have to scrub themselves with bleach, which they act like is no big deal. I would think that that would not be pleasant. I know, I was thinking about that myself. I would think it would burn. If you

Todd: rinse it off fast enough, it’s not gonna be too bad.

But you’re right, if you let that sit on you, and they’re all taking their sweet time with it, for sure.

Craig: That’s a big, long thing. We get to watch Grandpa scrub his balls for like, a minute. A minute.

Todd: Well, before the bit you’re going to talk about, there’s another part that I really want to talk about. And that’s when Down the Chimney, which was an opening that I guess they all forgot existed.

That’s right. Drops a plastic baggie with a syringe for each of them. And it tells them that they need to take these vaccine. It’s already been established that Angie works at the hospital. Did she ever say what she was? Was she a doctor? Was she a nurse?

Craig: I think she’s a nurse, but I’m not sure because they said she works at the hospital and, but so does the son in law, but the son in law doesn’t really, he doesn’t really seem to have any medical knowledge at all.

So maybe, I don’t know, maybe he’s like a clerk or something or something. I don’t know, but he works at the hospital.

Todd: Yeah, well, of course she’s immediately suspicious. She’s like, first of all, these syringes look used. I mean, they’re not properly capped. They’re not sterile. So just that alone, you know, is not good.

And Tony’s like, nope, we’re going to do it because this is what we’re instructed to do and it’s going to save our lives. And this whole argument, I really liked this bit because Again, I’m thinking COVID, I’m thinking people with general distrust vaccines these days, and the medical establishment in general, and even when authority is telling you you need to do this, they’re not quite so sure, and we’ve also had reason lately to believe that maybe things are not being told to us in our best interest, and so like, this is a dynamic I could get behind and I could understand, I was really interested to see how this was going to play out, especially with this father, you know, this is a dynamic I could get behind and I could understand, I was really interested to see how this was going to play out, especially with this father, Was just dead set on following everything that the TV, which he thinks is the government, is telling them to do.

His

Craig: government. I think that’s what it comes down to. I mean, even with, you know, we say vaccine distrust, some people might say, you know, like maybe we’re foolish. So being so trusting, you know, I, I think that it just, this is, he believes this is his distrust. telling him to do this. Right, right. So he trusts, he trusts it.

Todd: Yeah, he just grabs it and he jabs it right in. He’s like, I don’t care, and he jabs it right in there. But then the next scene shows that they sterilize the rest of them. And also, kind of a point, it looks like they boiled them, right? To sterilize them?

Craig: Yeah,

Todd: yeah. You probably shouldn’t do that because that would probably change the medication inside.

Craig: Yeah, I have no idea what those, you know, like, I have no idea. Ultimately, like, that part is kind of silly. It is really dumb. Who, who put that? Like, Who bagged up those syringes and dropped them down the chimney? Good point. Because when we find out, Who’s behind this?

Todd: It’s all very strange. Yeah. Yeah. I don’t know if we’re meant to look at this too closely, but, uh, yeah, I agree with you.

Craig: I was just going to say all of the vaccines that I’ve had over the last 10 years have been cold. Like, like they have to keep them chilled. Yeah. So yeah, it’s, it’s dumb, whatever. And there’s a whole thing where, you know, he, he basically, he doesn’t have to strong arm most of his family because again, Patriarchy he says to do it.

So they do it. I was a little bit surprised that Nick and Anji did it. I guess you know, what choice do you have? But

Todd: I don’t know they did have a choice I mean they were standing so strong against it the whole time and I thought okay Well, these two are not gonna take it.

Craig: Well, and this is another one of those times where god I maybe it’s me maybe if maybe other viewers will feel differently, but I’m putting myself in Nick’s shoes and when he They’re like there’s only two left and you know, it’s him and Anji and he picks up the syringes I would have thrown that shit on the floor and stomped on it.

Like what are you gonna do now? Like yeah Yeah, I’m not taking it. Like what are you gonna do? Like, you can’t throw

Todd: me out, but, but they do it. Well, not only that, but he turns to her and he says, We have no choice. I’m like, what, what are you talking about? You’ve been sitting here all along arguing your choice, and nothing has changed except that everybody else has taken them.

You still have the same choice you had from the beginning. And then why does she take it too? I just did not get that at all. I

Craig: also hoped, like, I felt like in a better movie, They would have faked it. Like, you know, like I, I thought when she like poked it in his arm, I thought maybe she could have like poked it off to the side and just squirted it out.

Like, Oh, we did it.

Todd: It doesn’t look like anybody was paying that close attention. Well, where I thought this was going was the two of them weren’t going to take it, and then something was going to happen to somebody, you know? Either to one of them or somebody else, and then that would throw a question onto whether it was a good idea to take it or not, you know?

Craig: Well, something DOES happen to one of them! Something

Todd: DOES happen, yeah. Grandpa suddenly starts gets up and starts puking out blood, I guess.

Craig: Well, I don’t know what it’s supposed to be. It’s black. It’s like tar. I don’t know.

Todd: Yeah, I don’t know.

Craig: And what is that about? Like, again, I think that this is, it’s all just about control.

Like, how, whatever is behind These messages, how far can it push them and it just keeps pushing them a little bit farther and so in this moment, it tells them all to take these injections and they all do. And then one of them dies a violent and mysterious death. The dad says, Oh, well, he was old. These things happen and not on.

She’s like, are you kidding me? Like, are you going to try to

Todd: pretend this

Craig: is a coincidence? So they know, you know, like. I, I, the dad doesn’t, the dad just continues to trust and because of that he just continues to keep doing whatever it says, which leads to the next message is like, one of you is contaminated or one of you is infected, isolate them.

And so immediately they’re like, Oh, it’s, it’s Angie, because she coughed once at dinner. Yeah. Yeah. It’s not because she coughed once at dinner. It’s because she has brown skin. Like it’s, it’s so. Like you said before, it’s a little heavy handed. It’s a little in your face. Thank God. I’m sure there are people like this exist, but I, I don’t know them.

And thank God, because these people are just so like, it just so blatantly, obviously, Disgustingly racist and and this is the part that you said that I was getting to and you were right when they’re like we have To isolate her. It’s obviously her and Nick’s like no. No, I won’t let you and she’s like, no, it’s okay.

We can’t fight this Wasn’t it wasn’t it your immediate thought like if you’re him, don’t you just say fine?

Todd: I’ll go with her. Exactly. That was my exact thought, and I thought he was gonna do that. So that was irritating. The other irritating thing was they decided that they, for reasons I don’t understand, were gonna put her in the same room as the corpse.

I’m like, you have five rooms upstairs here. Put the corpse in one room. She can go in the other room, with or without Nick. Why is this happening? I didn’t get that at all. I don’t know. I don’t know. So I know, but really, this was the point where I started to detach from the movie because I didn’t get, it’s just started to feel too, too fake.

Like, I just didn’t, I couldn’t believe these characters would actually make these choices. I couldn’t believe Nick, who is going to secret her out in the middle of the night, and they were both going to leave this place was just going to be okay with leaving her in a room by herself with the guy’s corpse.

It just didn’t make any sense.

Craig: Yeah. And, and, and, In breezing over the plot, we’ve left out things that aren’t particularly consequential, but there’s been a lot of violence. Like they hit each other all

Todd: the time. Men

Craig: in this family are constantly fighting each other. Like, yeah, they’re Nick. At some point fights both Scott and his dad like they’re physically fighting and to stop them the mom starts singing a Christmas carol Oh, yeah, and as ugly as this is I was like, I almost can buy this Like family like families coming to fisticuffs and the mother doing anything she can to break them up.

Todd: Uh,

Craig: I think it’s about that time too that I, I think Angie’s just talking to, to Nick through

Todd: the door

Craig: and she says, I think the TVs are watching us. I think that the messages that they’re sending are reacting to the things that we do. So in other words, I think what she’s saying, and I think that what we’re meant to believe is that it’s, it’s playing on their conflicts.

And, and pushing that. She, she tells him to turn

Todd: off the TV. In a way, it’s, I mean, Speak No Evil was a better movie than this, but it’s similar to that. At least it seems to be at this point. That the, the television, the messages it’s telling them, it’s trying to push them to see how far will they go, how far will they obey.

That was obviously a better movie and a very different situation. But yeah, that was, that came immediately to my mind. He goes downstairs, he sneaks downstairs and runs into his sister again. And then he unplugs the TV. She catches him doing it and she gets angry. And then they all kind of come in there and there’s a fight.

And then Kate tells him that Scott needs to like beat him up or hit him. I mean, she’s like, be a man.

Craig: Oh my God, it was so gross. Like she is such a disgusting character. Like it’s so like, it’s hard. Like I’m having these terrible feelings about a pregnant woman. I’m like, that is awful. She is pregnant.

Todd: She’s just going through terrible. It’s just a hormones, Greg. It’s that’s

Craig: all it is. She’s egging on her. Well, the dad plugs the TV back in and it flashes red and it’s like, warning, interrupting emergency signal puts lives at risk. And then, Nick and Scott, the son in law, start fighting, and yeah, she’s egging them on.

She’s like, get him Scott, get him, get him! Like, what is wrong with you? That is your brother!

Todd: Follows them up the stairs?

Craig: Yeah. She follows, she’s right there. Like, They’re fighting. She’s not more than two feet away from them and they’re up on the landing. And I don’t even remember who pushes who, but it’s accidental.

I think it’s unclear. So close. Yeah. Because she’s so close to them, they’re fighting and they move and she gets knocked over the banister. And falls on her back. This movie is dark.

Todd: Yeah, it really is.

Craig: You don’t see that very often. I mean, she’s, she’s literally due in two weeks. She, she is ready to give birth.

And she falls over the banister. Now, she lands on her back. And, she’s not dead. Dead.

Todd: Breaks a leg. Yeah, her

Craig: leg is terribly broken, like the bones are coming out. They try to make her comfortable and, and do what they can. She eventually passes out from the pain and, God, things are kind of pandemonium.

During, during that fight, Scott happened to look over at the TV and just for a brief second the TV flashed, I see you? Yeah.

Todd: Why?

Craig: I, I don’t know why.

Todd: Why would it reveal that? Yeah, I’m not quite sure.

Craig: But this, at this point, everything is crazy and Kate is hurt and they don’t know what’s gonna happen. The dad just checks out.

He’s like, I’m gonna go to work. I’m gonna go to my study. And he just goes and hangs out in there for the next 20 minutes. I don’t know what’s, I don’t know what’s going on there.

Todd: By this point, has Josh run over to the The opening, because they were at there was an opening in the doorway.

Craig: There’s a slot that

Todd: Vaginal slot, yeah, that they have to push the

Craig: Syringes.

Clinical

Todd: materials back through. And, uh, he runs over there to try to pry it open and then putting his fingers in there, the TV also flashes like, oh no, contamination of the portal or Opening or whatever and it just bites his fingers off

Craig: and in those moments when you see that opening and I would say that before The reveal near the end the this is the only time that it’s suggested, but I do feel like it’s suggested enough When that slot like opens and the sides of it are kind of moving it moves Organically,

Todd: yeah,

Craig: it doesn’t move That gives you some indication that there’s something, something weird going on.

I mean, obviously there’s something weird going on, but it’s not just like these are metal doors that have been bolted to the front of their house.

Todd: Yeah. Well, at this point, I think Nick gets smart. He sticks his phone to a selfie stick and Pokes open a second floor bathroom drain. I don’t know. I don’t know exactly how this works if the pipes go directly out of the house or whatever, but anyway, it’s some way that he can penetrate through the wall of the house.

So I guess the house isn’t totally encased, even though the impression is given because he’s up at the roof at one point. He tries to. Pry away the roof and going

Craig: through walls.

Todd: Yeah, it’s so weird. Yeah But anyway, he pokes that through the wall and he’s able to get a video of what’s outside and you can see there’s this sort Of looks like a bunch of he calls them snakes.

I say cords. Uh huh coming down thin skittering

Craig: kind of like kind of like almost It’s a definite turning

Todd: point in the movie for us because now we have an idea of what, what’s actually happening. I mean, we don’t know why, but you know, at least, you know, it’s not, for example, some weird experiment that people are doing to them.

It’s clearly the, some kind of entity that has encased the house. And so, uh, the, the TV goes crazy when this happens and they, uh, Again, obeying the TV, run upstairs and grab him and say, what did you do? And this brings on the part that I also just couldn’t really get behind either.

Craig: I think that the only way that we can justify this is that Kate falling and being What comes to turn out to be mortally injured because she dies.

I think we’re to believe that he was at the verge of breaking maybe his whole adult life and that’s what did it. And he just broke The father. The father. So when the TV tells them that there’s A spy among them and they need to extricate information. Like he’s more than willing to tie up his only son and torture him.

Right. For what information?

Todd: Like a terrorist that he himself, well, yeah. It’s weird. What does he think he’s going to get out of him? He cuts him in the face, he cuts him in the leg, he’s He lines up a bunch of tools like he’s been doing this for years. Like he’s one of those, like, uh, stereotypical German Nazi doctors, you know?

Right, right. Doing terrible experiments on people. It’s a little much, I thought, and I I don’t know. I mean, like you said, okay, he was a little crazy. Alright, I guess I’ll just go with that.

Craig: The only thing that stops him from torturing the kid is the mother screams from downstairs. And they run to see what’s going on with her and the daughter has died.

The pregnant daughter has died. And is this the point? That finally I was so glad. I don’t, like, the dad says something insensitive. I don’t remember it. At some point he says something like, There are always casualties in war. And the mom just slaps the shit out of him. And she’s just done. She’s just Yeah, that was a long time coming.

I know! And I’m so, I’m so happy in that moment, like, finally! Put this asshole in his place. Oh god. Right. At some point Anji’s messing around with the black stuff that’s covering and she pulls, you know, it’s like it is cords. Like just a lot of cords side by side in a sheet. And she pulls one loose and we kind of get POV from the cord.

And I, I wondered if it was like a camera, like a, like a fiber optic camera or something.

Todd: I was thinking fiber optics. Yeah. So the idea may be that it’s just kind of ever watching in some way.

Craig: Yeah. I think that what we’re ultimately to, I don’t know, these could be machines. We’re, we’re never told. Yeah.

What they are they could be machines. We don’t know or they could be some kind of alien that’s actually like Seeing and and sentient

Todd: could be demons from another world. Who knows? Yeah, I

Craig: know at another point she Plugs in I think another tv like an old analog tv and it’s giving the same messages But she takes the back off of the tube Of the tv and she gasps and shrinks away from it, but we don’t see it at that point, but she tells Nick later.

She’s like in the,

Clip: in the, in the room. I found an old tv. I opened the back of it. There was something inside, something livid like a creature, like a heart beating. What if that same thing is in the TV out there? What if it’s in every tv?

Todd: Now I have a question about this. So, this television which was just being stored in the closet upstairs suddenly has this entity in there?

Are we to believe that all televisions have these like latent entities in there that are we’re just gonna wake up over time? Or It’s

Craig: loose, I don’t know.

Todd: So she’s like, well, there’s probably something in the television downstairs as well, but all hell kind of breaks loose because, because she did that, I think the entity starts pumping in black smoke into her room and ultimately all of the rooms upstairs through these pipe, they were like little pipes

Craig: that were

Todd: poking out through those cords.

And, uh, that gets everybody freaked out, and he manages to break her out of that room, and he’s trying to break his mom, who has, I guess, locked herself in the bathroom.

Craig: I don’t know what’s going on there.

Todd: Yeah, I don’t, I don’t remember when she ran up there, why she did that, but anyway, she’s kind of locked in the bathroom, and they’re trying to get the keys, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and it has this glass door, but it’s one of those glass doors with the wires in it, too, which, uh, I guess you might have inside your house.

I don’t know. Anyway, he’s trying to break it open and he can’t do it in time and the mother just explodes

Craig: Against the glass like the yeah, I mean first it seems like the gas is like Burning her skin off like it’s acidic or something. Yeah, but then just She just explodes. Okay, alright. Ha ha

Todd: ha, whatever.

So now you, I was like, close the frickin door, guys. Like, they left the door to the other room open. I was like, why don’t you close it? The gas is just flowing in from above. So, they run down the stairs and they try to barricade themselves into the living room and they stuff You know, towels and things in the cracks.

Craig: And the gas is coming down the stairs, like it’s rolling down the stairs, but it stops at the bottom step. Like, like the gas itself is, is sentient. And then, on the TV, is something new. It’s a green butthole. It’s a butthole.

Todd: Some might call it rays of light from heaven, but you know, it depends on your perspective, I guess.

Craig: Okay. So there’s a green butthole on TV and I think Nick tries to unplug it, but it still doesn’t go off. And then the house starts shaking and then it starts spewing out. The TV starts. And I say spewing out, it’s just typing the same way it has before, sending these messages. I am reborn, I bring salvation, resurrection.

Yeah, it gets

Todd: Very religious here.

Craig: So now the dad thinks that it’s God like he looks up there like they have a crucifix above the TV and like It’s a little heavy handed like he’s looking at the TV and it’s saying these things and then we see him look up at the cross and then back down like

Todd: The camera actually pans up to the cross and pans back down to the TV.

I almost laughed out loud at that point Subtle this is not

Craig: and even though Kate is dead Her stomach starts moving, so apparently the baby’s alive, so the dad thinks it’s a miracle. Like Jesus or something? I’m not

Todd: I guess. I was so confused at this point. I was like, where’s this movie going? What’s it trying to do?

I thought we were about to be presented with something kind of profound that’s suddenly religious, or to me it just kind of descended into a whole bunch of shit that I cannot begin to unpack.

Craig: I know, and there’s, there’s been weird dream stuff that’s been going on, and that happens here again too, like, out of nowhere in the middle of all of this, Nick and Anji both wake up in a beautiful field, and for like 30 seconds, and then snap back into the house.

Yeah. I don’t know what that’s all about. And when they snap back into the house, the message on the TV is, make a sacrifice to save the unborn. And so the dad is trying to sacrifice Angie, but she says, no, I’m the only one who knows how to do a C section. So instead the dad kills Scott. Yeah. And then Angie and Nick fight the dad and Nick kills him

Todd: with the TV

Craig: with the TV But then the TV writes itself and all those weird tendrils I started calling them tendrils at this point all these weird tendrils come out.

They’re coming through the window They’re coming out of the TV and it’s like some all of a sudden some hellraiser shit. Like some of them have like Claws and hooks on the end? Like where did that come from? And this is very Hellraiser, like those tendrils like go into the dad’s head and lift him up so he’s like upright but kind of floating just above the ground and they reanimate him and talk to Nick and Anji threw him, and they’re like, Join with me.

Become me. Worship me. God. Worship me now or face your extinction.

But one of them, one of them just figures out, I guess, It can’t kill us. It needs us. It’s a parasite, and we’re the only ones left. Okay, sure, I don’t In a house? In the world? What? I think in the house, but I think that they underestimated it, because

Todd: Doesn’t mind killing them.

Craig: No, it does. That’s it. I mean, the tendrils end up cocooning both of them, and then the dad axes them to death.

And the dad, and I say the dad, but it’s really the thing animating as people. Sets up the TV in front of the pregnant belly, in the dead woman, and then the tendrils, like, cover her, and I guess, somehow, eat away all of her flesh, leaving only her bones and the baby.

Todd: I wasn’t sure how that worked, but okay. At this point, I wasn’t sure of anything.

Craig: And the TV that Alien Dad had set up right in front of the belly starts playing, like, these pretty pastel colors. And text comes on that says, Hello, Ruby. That’s the name they said they were going to name it if it was a girl.

Worship me. And then it pans out to show, like, I typed in the whole neighborhood is covered and then I had to go back because it kept panning out like the whole town is Covered like I don’t know. Maybe this is happening all over the world. Who knows? I don’t care.

Todd: I just didn’t get it, honestly. I mean, and I, you know, I was thinking, am I just being lazy?

Do I need to sit down and sort this out? But the more I thought about it, the more I thought, I’m not even sure if the writer knows what he’s trying to say. If they’re trying to say something here, it’s so buried under layers that I have no interest in peeling away, honestly. It just, okay, if the, if like you said, the whole message is that people are terrible and they’ll do terrible things to each other when somebody tells them to, and even the people who go against it eventually die anyway, I’m not sure what kind of message that, I mean, it’s a message of sorts, but it, It’s not like anything profound.

It’s more of an observation than anything else. You know, bad things happen to people and bad people do bad things to each other for very poor reasons And that’s life, I guess. What is this whole thing about worshiping this thing as a god? Is there some religious element to this? Are we pulling religion in as now the the thing that’s demanding obedience that we blindly follow?

Yeah,

Craig: I don’t know. I think that’s Yeah, I think it is. I, I think they are trying to say it. They, they just kind of But

Todd: then is this thing God? Is it being God is bad? You know, I mean, like

Craig: I don’t know. I mean, this is something that has been on a lot of people’s minds. You know, the, the election in America didn’t go the way that some of us wanted it to go.

And it went the way that the majority of us wanted it to go. And, and I think that a lot of people have been apprehensive and nervous about getting together with family, especially if there are differences of opinion. You know, I’m just to the point where I just can’t take it anymore. I can’t take the division and the ugliness.

Like I just want to go back to a time that existed in our lifetimes where we just agreed to disagree. And. And. And. We left it at the door.

Todd: Yeah. And not everything was so apocalyptic.

Craig: Exactly. Exactly. You know, things are going to be what they’re going to be. I’m, I’m just, I’m, I’m just exhausted being anxious and I’m exhausted on both sides with all of the, animosity and finger pointing.

I I’m just done with it. Like you think what you want to think and I’ll think what I want to think and let’s just have lunch, you know, like,

Todd: uh,

Craig: I’m, I’m just so, I’m just so tired of it. So the way that I, uh, I’m approaching it is just, you know, I know the people in my life that I love. And, and if we have differences of opinion, let’s just not talk about it.

Let’s just eat and get fat and tired and tell jokes and, and just not talk about it. I know, I know that ultimately things have to be talked about, but. Not right now. Things are pretty much established here for a little while. Let’s just open presents and, and have a good time. And, and I know, gosh, I’m reluctant to even say that.

And I’m getting a little misty saying it because I know that I come from a place of privilege where it’s easy for me to say that. And I know that it may not. Feel so safe and easy for a lot of people and if you’re in that position where you don’t feel safe with your family Then I agree with the message of this movie.

Don’t go if you don’t feel safe with your family Don’t

Todd: yeah

Craig: find family that you are safe with and go there.

Todd: That’s a really depressing takeaway But uh, it has some truth to it. I was just thinking in the midst of what you were saying maybe Their ugliness towards each other is what brought this down upon them You

Craig: Yeah.

Yeah, I think so,

Todd: you know, and, and of course the whole neighborhood, like the idea is that everybody at that, at that point was just sort of being ugly. And, and so that gave this entity license to the ability,

Craig: wouldn’t it be interesting to find out that this entity was objective and like, they really just were responding to whatever was going on in the house.

So, like, if everybody loved each other, maybe it would have told them, You win a trip to Tahiti!

Todd: Eat all the food. It’s perfectly

Craig: fine. Oh, boy. Who knows. I, you know, it’s not a bad movie. I don’t think it’s a bad movie. I do think it’s heavy handed, and it’s Whatever that messaging is meant to be, but it’s not badly acted. It’s not badly shot. It doesn’t look bad. It’s, it’s intriguing. It’s, it’s a fairly unique concept.

I’ve never seen anything just like this before. Yeah, it was with it. It was fine. It’s bleak and save it for after the new year.

Todd: Yeah, don’t watch it now. Find

Craig: something more fun and lighthearted and uplifting to watch. Alan and I just watched Spirited. It’s a musical with Ryan Reynolds and Will Ferrell.

And we watched it last year too, but I had kind of forgotten about it. And it’s like almost two and a half hours long. It’s just a fun, jaunty musical with lots of singing and dancing and good family chemistry. Stuff and watch that instead

Todd: Not a black tendril or racist grandpa in sight, huh?

Craig: Not at all

Todd: All right, well, thank you guys so much for recommending this movie we love hearing from our patrons They are the ones who pointed us in the direction of this and a lot of the movies actually we’re going to do for this This holiday season, not just our patrons, our listeners out there as well.

You guys reach out to us on the website. You reach out to us sometimes by sending us voice messages and we actually have a recent voice message. Craig, would you like to listen to it? Yes. This is from our listener, Nikki.

Nicky: Hey guys. I recently found you as I was looking for a fresh horror podcast to listen to, and I have fallen in love with you both.

I’m binging all my favorite horror movies you’ve done on Spotify, and the more I listen, the more I enjoy. Todd, you have a beautiful voice, and before I even knew this podcast existed, I listened to a few of those erotic werewolf stories you’ve mentioned, which is too funny. Craig, I love your sweet laugh, and I share your love of Stephen King.

Keep doing what you’re doing, guys. You’re great at it. Love you. Love your show.

Todd: That was nice. Now that’s some of that positive encouragement we need to be hearing.

Craig: Yeah. Yeah. Very nice. It’s always nice to hear from people.

Todd: I think it’s funny that she brought up the, uh, the werewolf stuff. I don’t, did I talk about that on an episode?

I don’t, I, I don’t know.

Craig: I mean, we did the whole werewolf month thing.

Todd: Oh, I must have brought it up then.

Craig: I don’t know. It’s, it’s all, it’s, it’s. Try

Todd: to keep that secret.

Craig: It’s, it’s, it’s always nice to hear from people who have found us recently. Yeah. Like, I love hearing from people who have been with us for a long time.

That’s amazing. But it’s, it is nice. It’s to know that new people are coming around. It’s fun.

Todd: And Spotify, a lot of people come to us through Spotify. It’s kind of surprised me lately how big that has blown up as a podcasting platform. So it’s doing us a lot of favors. I’ll tell you that. Nice. Thank you, Spotify.

Please keep doing what you’re doing. And Nikki, thank you so much for sending us that lovely message and for those wonderful compliments. And any of you who would like to reach out and, uh, send us a message like Nikki did, you just need to go to our website, ChainsawHorror. com. At the very top, there’s a button that says talk to us, and you don’t need any special software or anything.

Just write the website, just use your mic attached to your computer or whatever, your phone, whatever you’re using. And that’ll go straight to us as soon as you click send. And we love hearing from you guys, no matter how you find us and how you hear about us. Until next time, I’m Todd. And I’m Craig. With Two Guys and a Chainsaw.

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