Full Transcript for Poltergeist (2015)

doesn't have a ghost in it. It's just haunted by potentially leak pipes. I okay, so today we're talking about the Poltergeist remake from 2015. What? They made a remake of Poltergeist starring Sam Rockwell almost a decade ago. 00:03:24:10 - 00:03:46:09 Unknown Yes they did, and we are talking about it today. You've discovered the concept of our podcast. Thank you very much. It is, a remake, obviously, of the incredibly popular and successful Poltergeist from 1982. Yes. I wish I had the exact quote in front of me if I was a better podcaster and researcher, I would have got it off my bookshelf. 00:03:46:09 - 00:04:23:00 Unknown Because why keep books if you aren't going to reference them? I don't know. Yeah, I'm asking myself and answering myself and not satisfied with either side of that equation that just keep moving off to a strong start, I love it. Stephen King wrote this like book length essay called Danse Macabre, and in it he talks about, The Amityville Horror, and he identifies in it a a new form of horror emerging, which is like horror for the homeowner. 00:04:23:02 - 00:04:59:19 Unknown and the original Poltergeist comes kind of at the tail end of this trend of suburban, haunted house movies, which are distinctly different than, like, the British, you know, haunted house, haunted castle movies. in terms of what is what is the fear grounded in and, the American Haunted house movie, is specifically like, oh, shit, what if someone drilled through the wall accidentally and now I have to, I have to I have to patch up. 00:05:00:00 - 00:05:18:09 Unknown What if my pipes burst? What if my walls started bleeding? how the cost that would come from that? Would that seep into the wood? Would I have to tear everything out? Is it just a quick patch? Can I clean this? How do you get blood out of carpet? I'm not sure. The the contractors who can fix up the blood stained walls. 00:05:18:09 - 00:05:43:05 Unknown They're so booked up because so many people have had bleeding walls this season. It's going to take you months to get them in there. The insurance company is going to haggle with you over paying out for that. so what's interesting to me about this remake is that not only is it unnecessary, I feel like it would be a little less unnecessary if it came out like even five years earlier in 2010. 00:05:43:10 - 00:06:17:15 Unknown Yes, because there was a, you know, a different kind of housing crisis happening in 2008 if you pay attention to the news. Yeah. it really isn't, you know, identical, but, you know, to the emotional stress that people were feeling, you know, in the 70s, late 70s, through the early 80s. so I, I, I want to just, I wanted to start the episode there because I feel like talking about the American haunted house film. 00:06:17:17 - 00:06:41:10 Unknown is going to be a foundational part of why this film does or doesn't work, and thus why or why it isn't, is, or is not forgotten. It is forgotten. yeah. Yes. I mean, sorry to tip my hand so early. I know I don't think the debate is, is the movie forgotten or not? If the if the machine designed to find forgotten movies is giving it to us, I put faith in the fact. 00:06:41:12 - 00:07:02:00 Unknown Like there's a reason Titanic has never come out of this machine. should it be sent to modern memory? Let's put it that way. Yes, that. No, that is a better question. I think that no, I have noticed this too, especially in just watching, the first season of American Horror Story, because I'm really just, you know, I got my finger on the pulse of culture. 00:07:02:00 - 00:07:27:16 Unknown I'm watching the 11. I'm watching the, the, the season of American Horror Story that I think predates this movie. The point is, yes, much of the so much of that show, I was surprised. Is it it is just tied up in the real estate market of LA. And, a big just feature is we sank all this money into buying this house, into buying this asset, and oh, it's haunted as fuck. 00:07:27:20 - 00:07:42:14 Unknown But we have so much money wrapped up in it we can't leave. Even though this house wants to kill us and is horrifying. And like that is a driver of the drama, is the fact that you have sunk so much money into something. And I think that's also for the same reason that I have a lot of trouble with horror movies. 00:07:42:14 - 00:08:13:07 Unknown I have a difficult time watching horror movies because I'm too scared of them. I think that's another reason that I'm not making more of a play at home ownership, because it's fucking scary to sink that much of your money into something that might be trying to kill you. And we're not even talking about homeowners associations yet. I would be I would be trying to kill the homeowners associations if I've learned anything in in MBA activism in circles, it's that those are those are the true poltergeists. 00:08:13:09 - 00:08:41:17 Unknown what's interesting, though, is like when you get these homeowner stories like they it's a good example of how comedy and horror are so closely associated with each other, like it's set up, pay off, and one of it is to make you laugh. One of it's to make you scream or feel uncomfortable, whatever. So you you get something like home owning and sinking money into home owning that can go like, so ludicrous that we have to laugh at it all, The Burbs or The Money Pit or. 00:08:41:17 - 00:09:07:12 Unknown Yeah, anything else? I guess, starring Tom Hanks. Did he do anything else but oh, moaning the 80s, he he he inherits his his mom's house in Forrest Gump. I'm pretty sure I think in Road to Perdition they're remade is splash. Yeah. You see I can't even afford to buy a mermaid anymore in this economy. It's terrible. Mermaids are going for so much I can't get a down payment on that. 00:09:07:14 - 00:09:32:04 Unknown the and then the flip side of that is like you like home owning is such an, absurd, extreme adventure that you have to play it like you couldn't just play a street like mumblecore drama

out of buying a house and fixing up a house and living in a house like, no. Yeah, there's no story there. The only story to these is owners regret. 00:09:32:05 - 00:09:50:14 Unknown home buyers regret. yeah. I shouldn't have done this. And now I'm reaping the consequences. And it's either hilarious or terrifying. And you know, there's never a movie about a bunch of people who live in apartments looking at their homeowner friends, going to Home Depot all the time and being like, man, that sucks. Sucks for them. 00:09:50:16 - 00:10:07:16 Unknown I'm just going to call the landlord and maybe I'll fix it. At least it's out of my hands now. Okay, I was going to bring this up later in the episode, but maybe it's worth mentioning now. how like there are very. And as soon as I say it, a thousand examples come to mind that prove me wrong. 00:10:07:16 - 00:10:30:00 Unknown But on the whole, there are less haunted stories set in apartments than there are houses. This is true, this is true, and I. What do you think the reason for that is? I mean, I think that on a logistical level, it's it's harder to be spooktacular when there's loads of other people close by, close enough that in many cases you can hear them having sex. 00:10:30:02 - 00:10:52:21 Unknown but then I think also, I don't know, it's strange because I feel like living close to other people in an apartment building can really be its own form of horror and torture, especially even even more closely living with with 15 years of evidence of that, you know, but I think I think really what it is, is just that, that, you know, when you've got when you've got a haunted house, that's your own domain. 00:10:52:21 - 00:11:17:23 Unknown That's not something that you're sharing with other people. That is your own space. And when it's being invaded by ghosts, ghouls, geist of all varieties, that that sets up a better conflict than just. Oh, I'm renting this. I have an $800 security deposit down. I can pull up stakes and leave at any time. There is a certain, invasion is a great word for it that is different. 00:11:17:23 - 00:11:46:20 Unknown And I think that's one of the things that that differentiates it from classic UK horror, you know, haunting haunted house stories of Japanese, where films about hauntings from Japan are more familial and about connecting with, you know, lost ones or, vengeful spirits, you know, that have been done wrong in their, their waking life. where there's okay, you're you're the kind of history buff here between the two of us. 00:11:46:22 - 00:12:19:05 Unknown there's another kind of specific thing to American haunted, haunting films, which is, I think even more than, like, homeowners regret or homebuyers regret. There's a certain guilt to owning land. Sure. that, you know, I think is unique to the American horror film. like, you might have a haunted castle or something, but there's not like, oh, this haunted castle was built on the remains of the Crusades. 00:12:19:05 - 00:12:45:14 Unknown Like. Yeah, exactly. Maybe they just have so many layers of history that it's that depth is built upon. Yeah, exactly, exactly. Whereas we have invaded, we invaded a bunch of other people's history and then started building our history on top of it. And. Yeah, exactly. And so I was going to bring up like this kind of for me starts with the the Homestead Act or acts of just like opening up. 00:12:45:16 - 00:13:13:05 Unknown And I wanted to get your reflections on this. And you think there's any validity to this where you kind of just the government goes, okay, this land, this free land, this open land. Yeah. Is free for the claiming, even though clearly it wasn't. and then we what kind of damage we did. Maybe not aware of it in the moment, but, you know, over decades and generations realized what the fuck did we do to claim this land? 00:13:13:05 - 00:13:40:16 Unknown And who have we, you know, taken it from? And yeah, it's it's that it's that situation of kind of taking a second and looking back and, and kind of realizing, you know, oh, wow. I wasn't even really thinking about what happened here before. I was just so excited to acquire this thing. I mean, it is, you know, it is that same kind of homeowner's regret coming into ownership of something without really considering what was there before and how that is affecting it now. 00:13:40:16 - 00:14:01:17 Unknown And just the, the, you know, the implications of that either in a horror movie on a practical level or in our current reality on a moral level of reckoning with what was done, like the places where these houses were built in both this movie and the far superior original are, you know, areas that were once inhabited by people other than the folks who were living there, areas that were taken by force. 00:14:01:17 - 00:14:37:01 Unknown And then this kind of new Paradise for affluent, upwardly mobile people was built here. And both both movies, one movie attempts to to reckon with that a little bit. And unfortunately, it's it's not the one that we watch for this podcast. Well, no, but I think that it, it through the years, it gets abstracted to the point where I think there's still some a kernel of truth in that, though, of something like today's film where they kind of whitewash the the reasoning from the first film and just say it was built on a cemetery. 00:14:37:01 - 00:15:07:10 Unknown The cemetery was moved. Just the idea that we are now, you know, this house, this place, the suburb that we've bought into and now live on is occupying space that was once, you know, kind of sacred for another reason. and now we've repurposed it for crass use. yeah. That's I think there's still some like, even if it's not addressing it head on like that, still there, that that guilt is still playing on the same sorts of things. 00:15:07:12 - 00:15:30:15 Unknown And that is very true. And I the I think that the strength of just the Poltergeist movies is they do kind of center on this

idea that the suburbs are built on violence. You know, there's this bucolic place where your kids are having fun, and it's a good school district, but there is displacement of Native Americans. There's displacement of, you know, black and brown people to have that place. 00:15:30:15 - 00:15:52:07 Unknown There's exclusion. And I think that both movies try to tackle that just I guess one of them, one of them completely tackles it, and the other one, it just sort of slips through its fingers. And sadly, that is the movie we're talking about today. Yeah. Okay. So to date, The machine has made us watch Poltergeist from 2015. do you want to give a quick synopsis of this? 00:15:52:07 - 00:16:15:05 Unknown And then we can talk a little bit about comparisons to the original, and I think we'll talk a lot about comparisons to the original. If my thoughts or any prediction. Newly laid off Father Eric Bone, played by Sam Rockwell and his aspiring author wife Amy, played by Rosemarie DeWitt, move into a house in suburban Illinois with their three children, 16 year old Kendra, played by Saxon Charbonneau. 00:16:15:11 - 00:16:37:07 Unknown Ten year old Griffin, played by Kyle Catlett, and six year old Madison, played by Kennedy Clements, as they get settled in their new home, Madison begins communicating with an otherworldly presence through the television, which messes with the lights and electronics to frighten and torment Griffin while their parents are away. At a dinner party during a rainstorm, Griffin is attacked by clown dolls in an old tree outside the house. 00:16:37:07 - 00:16:57:15 Unknown Kendra is nearly pulled into a pool of tar in the garage, and Madison is lured to a portal in her closet. With their daughter missing and seemingly trapped between our world. In the afterlife, the bones seek help from a team of parapsychologists and TV ghost hunter Carrigan Burke, played by Jared Harris, to bring their daughter back to the land of the living God. 00:16:57:17 - 00:17:20:00 Unknown Your synopsis of it made me so kind of brought the absurdity to the changes this film makes, what it would come to mind. It brings you. It highlights the absurdity of the changes that this movie made from the original, and it also highlights the absurdity of the similarity, like, yeah, well, okay, let's get some specs on this. 00:17:20:02 - 00:17:36:10 Unknown for further context. It was released on May 22nd, 2015 to, do you have how many theaters it was released to do? I do I have do I have a guess? I don't know. Do you want to guess? I mean, I didn't know if you had the number. I didn't want to presume. I didn't have the number in front of me. 00:17:36:10 - 00:18:03:22 Unknown So I will guess, I'm going to say, I don't know. Is this a 2500 theater movie? this is 3240 theaters. That's. Wow. I think I think they built theaters to put this. And what kind of ground did they build theaters on? Did they move cemeteries to, oh, theaters to show Poltergeist remake 2015. it debuted at number four. 00:18:04:00 - 00:18:26:20 Unknown what is it with four? We keep getting the ones that debut at night and stay at four. We're we're finding the. Well, now, I got a twist for you this week. it drops to number seven in its second week. Now, that's different than usual. usually it stays at the same number. However, most of the what we've covered so far have stayed at the same number and then dropped off in its third week. 00:18:27:02 - 00:18:49:10 Unknown This goes from number four to number seven in its second week to number ten in its third week. So has three top ten, weeks in a row. but the whole time it is getting slowly sucked into a pit of tar, going deeper and deeper and lower into the ground. Yes. it and then getting spewed back up into someone's garage. 00:18:49:12 - 00:19:14:09 Unknown it still stayed in theaters for about 11 weeks. here's what it was up against. Yeah. Number one, the weekend of May 22nd. also new that weekend, Tomorrowland earning George Clooney if you're going. What am I gonna wait till the machine spits that one out at us? I suspect more people remember Tomorrowland. I, that that one I think has more juice. 00:19:14:15 - 00:19:35:06 Unknown This is my period. But also, I lived in a house full of, Disneyland obsessives at the time. Well, okay. Very haunted, very haunted house. yeah. That's going to be curious to track of, like, because one thing we didn't talk about with horror films is like, it's hard to find a forgotten horror film because the horror film community just doesn't let anything slip through their fingers. 00:19:35:06 - 00:20:00:19 Unknown They they eat up every morsel of everything. You saying they as though they is not we in your case? Well, I don't know. I place myself a little bit on the outskirts of the community, because I see I have some very distinctive differences and different opinions than most, including including my opinion about the original Poltergeist. Oh, okay. 00:20:00:19 - 00:20:27:22 Unknown I mean, I listen, I, I've always assumed that you have a, you own a condo squarely in the middle of the horror community. You are no to cafes and bars and assembly station. You are in downtown horror community. No, no, you're it's like you talk about leprechaun for too much to not be living in that zip code. I it's like people who eat pizza like it crosses borders and boundaries and I'm constantly on the outside. 00:20:27:23 - 00:20:45:14 Unknown Just kind of like going, all right, I like this pizza a lot, but you also like it, but you like it for kind of weird reasons. Oh, I see, I see okay, okay, I guess that's true. I mean, you know, yes, I, I suppose I do. I do play video games like 40 hours a week, but I would, you know, be sick if I called myself a gamer. 00:20:45:14 - 00:21:05:13 Unknown So I guess it makes sense. I yeah, I've got my nose firmly up in the air about horror films, just about completely different reasons than most of the work community does. Oh, okay. So

you have you have a house on the outskirts of the horror community, but you have a big telescope that you look through to spy on it and, and scribble in your notebook of your thoughts about what you see. 00:21:05:16 - 00:21:27:22 Unknown Yeah, exactly. I mean, listen, whatever neighborhood I'm residing in, I'm always going to be the person yelling at people on my lawn. So, that is true in the horror community as well, but that's great. I sure hope a ghost never gives you some kind of ironic comeuppance. okay. Getting back to what this was up against, so number one was Tomorrowland, which came out the same day. 00:21:27:22 - 00:21:52:21 Unknown So both of these movies are released May 22nd? Yeah. Number two, in the box office was pitch perfect two in its second week. Okay. Number three in the box office was mad Max Fury Road. Oh, well, third week. I mean, that that was sucking up a lot of attention at that point. Yeah. And there's another big attention one, in its fourth week coming in just under Poltergeist, Avengers Age of Ultron. 00:21:52:22 - 00:22:27:06 Unknown Oh, yes. I think I seem to remember those Avengers. They went on some adventures, didn't they, back in the day. And, this had a, reported $35 million budget. Of course, as always, that does not include marketing. This is a production budget. Who knows how much they throw in the marketing for these things, I'm sure. Yes. all the money they spent on those wonderful press kit packages where, where Sam Rockwell is being interviewed about the squirrel scene in this movie, seeming very interested and eager to talk about his time on the set of Poltergeist. 00:22:27:08 - 00:22:56:21 Unknown Oh, my God, Sam Rockwell doesn't remember this movie. No, no, I forgot Sam Rockwell was in this movie during this movie because he kind of stops being in it. Here's the surprising thing. Box office wise, it makes just under $45.5 million domestically and just under $48 million internationally. That's, slightly upwards of, $95.5 million. This doesn't quite. 00:22:57:01 - 00:23:20:20 Unknown In 2015, we were still like 100 million is the benchmark. but it's pretty dang close. So some some people almost made money off of this. People almost made money off like the. And by and not, I mean obviously the crew in the cast like they got paid. Sure. But like the people who who decided that this movie would make money, they almost were right. 00:23:20:22 - 00:23:44:15 Unknown They were almost right now. But here's the thing. I think maybe their assumptions, were a little maybe their aspirations were a bit higher because I crunched some numbers here that I thought were kind of interesting. Okay. now this is where we have to start talking about the original, the original movie is an Amblin film. 00:23:44:15 - 00:24:06:12 Unknown It was, I don't know how far into his slate it was, but, within the first five years of Steven Spielberg producing movies under his, studio of Amblin, it it was made when he was making E.T.. So, yes, I mean, so he's had the success of obviously jaws, which I don't think was Amblin, but Close Encounters definitely was. 00:24:06:14 - 00:24:34:16 Unknown Yeah. He had the flop of 1941. So like, it's interesting that in that movie he gets a budget of $10.7 million. compared to this movie's $35 million. Now I did some numbers. Inflation I got inflation. Hell yeah. He did $7 million even at that time equates to, $27 million in 2015. Money. Wow. We love we love adjusting things for inflation. 00:24:34:16 - 00:24:54:20 Unknown It always puts conversations in a new context. So he did he did so much more with less. Well he didn't. Well okay okay. Well hold it, hold it, hold me back. No no no no no I read I read all about that. It's disputed who did this. Even Spielberg really make Toby Hooper make the movie. I personally I I'm spicy opinions. 00:24:54:22 - 00:25:13:02 Unknown I don't super care and also either everyone okay, well then let's stop talking about it. What else do you have to say? That was gonna be my whole rant. Okay, this is this is something that puts me on the outside of horror fans, where it's just like, Steven Spielberg has a strong vision. He's the producer, he's providing the money, he wrote the script. 00:25:13:07 - 00:25:39:07 Unknown He's hiring someone who enjoys his talent. Like, yeah, why? What's the why do we have to debate over who did what? This is why I hate the autour theory. Okay. Anyway. Okay, great. Okay, here's the thing on that. Okay, so on a $10.7 million budget inflated to $27 million. Yeah, it originally grossed 127, I'm sorry, $121.7 million. Yes. 00:25:39:09 - 00:26:02:12 Unknown which would be $330 million compared to 95.5. So yeah, like the return on investment on the original is that now that's the math I can't do. I don't oh percent increases, I don't get I don't write it like, oh that's a 3,000% more right. In anybody with a calculator app who knows how to do it right in, let us know what that number is. 00:26:02:12 - 00:26:33:22 Unknown We'll read it on air in the next episode. It'll be great content. I think that it is. This seems like a case of, there was something going around in the early 80s where a, you know, kind of a horror movie with some comedy elements gets really big. And then Hollywood has spent the intervening 40 years since desperately trying to make that work again, like Poltergeist and Ghostbusters, they keep being like, this worked in the early 80s. 00:26:33:22 - 00:26:53:05 Unknown Why is it not working again? It's so close. We're just going to keep throwing money at it. yeah. Yeah, that was interesting. You bring up Ghostbusters because there's a lot of, yes, connections. We have to make that a spooky number. One might say. yeah. Here's one thing I just want to throw out right out the gate. 00:26:53:05 - 00:27:15:23 Unknown Which interesting connection is. Steven Spielberg has nothing to do with this remake except that he wrote the original. So I think, not even in the film, but

just on like IMDb, he's credited with like, story and characters by, he did not produce this movie. He did not write this movie. It's not based on his script. It's just it's kind of based on the concept. 00:27:16:05 - 00:27:41:23 Unknown I have a question about that later. The concept of this movie is, what if all the stuff that happened in the popular 80s movie Poltergeist happened to a family in the modern day? That's pretty much. Yeah, that's pretty much as close as it gets. No. No characters, no anything. Yeah. So but what's interesting to me, the connection is, the director, Gil Keenan, he directed, monster House. 00:27:42:01 - 00:28:11:17 Unknown Yes. Which was a dream. One of Dreamworks first, animated films. Features. Yeah. And Dreamworks being, part of Amblin and Steel, Berg's kind of animation division. he I don't I don't know if he owns it, but he, he at least helped spearhead creatively getting that off the ground. I'm not an expert on that. I could use some, fact checking, but, he he's the reason that monster house kind of got an audience. 00:28:11:17 - 00:28:41:08 Unknown Robert Zemeckis, who's a big collaborator with Spielberg, was producing it. Yeah. Bill Berg is like, this movie's fun. It's hearkens back to the 1980s, where you can have a scary family film. so he already has this kind of haunted house Steven Spielberg connection. Before going into this, I haven't read anything or saw any interviews where there's any connective tissue toward like, oh yeah, they we're talking about this. 00:28:41:08 - 00:28:59:20 Unknown And my name just got kind of bandied about for potential director, or if it's complete coincidence that he's directing this, I saw some interview where the interviewer mentions like, oh, well, you made, you made monster House. So you, you have experience with making haunted house films and thinking kind of like, well, I don't know, it seems like a like he, he has a background in horror movies. 00:28:59:20 - 00:29:26:17 Unknown I don't know that just by virtue of having made another movie with a house in, it makes you suddenly the the perfect person to direct Poltergeist. Because, I don't know, houses seem like a fairly common plot element. Well, I mean, he he got monster House based on a short film he did called The Lark, which is this kind of experimental, somewhat avant garde horror comedy about a haunted ish kind of house. 00:29:26:19 - 00:29:46:02 Unknown so, I mean, I don't think it's too far out of the realm to go. Can we shortlist some directors who have experience in, you know, bringing this sort of thing to life? Yeah. Well, so can we can we crack open the original Poltergeist? Because I like I mean, am I am I am I jumping the gun on you by doing this. 00:29:46:02 - 00:30:05:09 Unknown No, let's let's do it. But do it through this lens and talking about this film, which is like where was the 2015 remake on your radar when it came out? Had you seen it before? And we'll add to that. What is your relationship

with the original? okay. Well, easy, easy answer to both. This movie was not on my radar at all. 00:30:05:09 - 00:30:25:14 Unknown I had no idea that they made a remake of Poltergeist with Sam Rockwell in it, until the machine told us that they did. but the thing is, my relationship with the original Poltergeist started like less than a week ago when I watched it for the first time. Wow. Okay. I mean, no judgment. We all know you're not a horror fan, which is everywhere. 00:30:25:14 - 00:30:48:17 Unknown Is this a fan of horror films? Which is totally fine and reasonable? I don't, I don't live, I'm nowhere near that community. I take a detour on the freeway to avoid that community, on my way to whatever other community. yeah, I'm just not. I'm not really a horror buff. I've known that the movie was good. And then when I knew we were watching this, I thought, like, well, fuck it, I know this remake is not going to be great. 00:30:48:17 - 00:31:08:23 Unknown I want to watch the first. I want to watch the first movie first. So I don't get any any of it tainted. so I think the original Poltergeist totally rules. I think it's amazing and great. I think it's super, super cool. When I was watching it, I was just pumping my fists and saying, hell yeah! The effects are really cool and fun. 00:31:08:23 - 00:31:28:02 Unknown The movie is just it. It is just set up so well in terms of how this family is kind of presented to us, how it's shot their life together. It's a movie that just kind of lets you marinate in, get, get to know these people. There's just a bunch of scenes early on that don't really mean anything bigger in the plot. 00:31:28:02 - 00:31:43:21 Unknown It's just like, let's watch a third of it. Is that. Yeah, exactly. It's just a big slice of life. It's like, let's watch all the dads watching football. But oh, the wires are crossed. So it keeps changing to Mister Rogers Neighborhood, you know, let's watch Mom and Dad smoking a joint in their room while dad reads a book about Reagan. 00:31:44:02 - 00:32:08:18 Unknown Like, that's what I mean. I mean, listen, I have so much to say about the mom and dad smoking a joint scene that's going to come up again and again in this discussion. But I like the fact that the movie just kind of creates a really you know, the just this vibe of like, here's this family. Let's just start poking them with supernatural shit and watch how they respond and kind of just let the the plot flow outward from that. 00:32:08:20 - 00:32:31:03 Unknown It me I, I, I found it captivating and delightful and certainly creepy, but not not not scary. Like I was not cowering behind my seat. yeah. It's spectacle, I mean, and I think it was designed to be such. I mean, there are some intense moments in that, especially if you had seen it as a kid. Oh, sure. 00:32:31:05 - 00:32:56:09 Unknown the bathroom scene? yeah. Oh, yeah. Terrible. Really intense. Yeah. To to relate it to today's film. Like it's it's a remake. It's hard when you

have a remake not to look for proxies to original, memorable sequences. Sure. And you know, you have to have a skilled hand to go, okay, I acknowledge the original. We're doing something different. 00:32:56:09 - 00:33:37:12 Unknown You're either on board or you're not, and it's going to be successful or it isn't. And so today's film kind of often feels like we acknowledge the original and we're going to kind of do something on our own. But it's going to kind of nod to the original. And are you on board? Yeah. I in in a lot of ways it feels like the remake is just sort of a remix of a bunch of of well-known sequences and scenes and moments and lines from the original, but all of them perfectly and and precisely rearrange and remastered to be just so much worse than the original. 00:33:37:14 - 00:34:03:11 Unknown Like in, like just to deprive them of their dramatic power and of their weight and, and to kind of deflate tension and, and and meaning from moments that hit so well. And in the original movie, it's, it's like reminding you of it in the thing you really liked and then and then doing it just notably worse. Yeah. yeah. 00:34:03:11 - 00:34:30:05 Unknown I mean, I agree with that. I would describe it. Maybe not. I'm not accusing you here, but I would I would describe it maybe a little less critical way. and I'll go and maybe I'll explain by going into my answer to where it was on my radar. Yeah. Which is, I had seen this before. Oh. I believe I mentioned this on the show before that. 00:34:30:05 - 00:34:51:15 Unknown This is probably a pizza movie. but one that I was, like, excited for. one that, I knew I was going to watch, you know, eat the entire pizza and then just writhe on the couch in pain, you know, watching the rest of it. Yeah. pain induced by the pizza or the movie. Who can say I didn't see it when it first came out? 00:34:51:15 - 00:35:12:01 Unknown You know, like, I didn't see it in the theater. And, here's kind of the twist. I'm ambivalent about the original. and so I didn't I didn't really have, like, an opinion on the, the remake going into it. very early on in this whole, like, conversation about remakes, I've always just been like, who fucking cares? 00:35:12:01 - 00:35:36:02 Unknown Either it's going to be good or it's not. It's going to, you know, live and die by its quality. Who cares if it's being remade or not? Yeah, sure. Because that that's just kind of the thought that I've held for a while. that said, you know, it did kind of look like a pointless exercise. so even though I am a horror nut, I, I didn't see it in the theater, but I did eventually see it probably on streaming. 00:35:36:04 - 00:36:01:22 Unknown I couldn't tell you what service, but, and did it well while eating a pizza. So not to get not to try to, leverage extra credit points from our listeners. Yeah, but what? Because you've seen the movie before? Like you want extra credit for that? No. To prep for today's episode. I watched this movie, four times. 00:36:02:00 - 00:36:29:11 Unknown Now hold on. That's that's about. That's par for the course, though. How many times you watch barnyard? I watched I got the DVD for three bucks, and it has both the theatrical and extended cut. Now, this is not a 54 situation where the extended cut has seven extra minutes. And having I watched that before, I watched the theatrical, I can't tell you what was cut out. 00:36:29:11 - 00:36:54:04 Unknown I I've no idea what was cut out. What was there like a new kind of gay subtext to a lot of the ghost of that, that Harvey Weinstein just didn't want in Poltergeist? and I ended up watching the theatrical cut three times. and the extended cut once for today's episode. But I also went back and watched the original trilogy. 00:36:54:06 - 00:37:14:06 Unknown so I'm like, I'm steeped and oh, God, I forgot about this. I also read the novelization of the first Poltergeist book. okay. And and then you also went and built a house on the remains of a cemetery and raised three children in it. Like, Landon is more prepared to talk about this than anyone ever has been. 00:37:14:08 - 00:37:47:19 Unknown I listen, I just recognize that we're not going to hit many horror films on this show, so when we do, I want to go hard. but you live at the edge of the community and not in the middle of the downtown horror community. Folks, folks, I don't know. I don't know where Landon lives. as far as the original goes, like I it holds a special place in that I saw it on TV a lot before I was into horror, and there are some indelible, you know, images in it that have stuck with me. 00:37:47:19 - 00:38:16:09 Unknown And I think the curiosity from that is partly why I started to get into horror. So I have something to, you know, thank Poltergeist for, like, I seem to remember watching it like it was always playing on HBO or Showtime or some channel before I went to school. And I just remember the toward the end of the movie when JoBeth Williams is being, you know, she's in that, the room, the Nolan room. 00:38:16:09 - 00:38:37:20 Unknown Yeah. Yeah, yeah. She's. Yeah. She's getting she's on the ceiling. Yeah, yeah. like, I remember seeing that before school and just kind of being put in a weird place for multiple reasons the rest of the day. but then I watch it, you know, again, when I was a little bit older and I'm like, oh, okay, this is good, this is fun, this is fine. 00:38:37:22 - 00:38:57:23 Unknown And then I watch it again and like, and maybe I had an adverse reaction to like the like unabashed love for that movie. I'm like, yeah, there's still some things you could be critical about. And so I kind of maybe took too much of a counter reaction to it. Watching it this last time, I got more on board with it, and I just really appreciated the human drama of it. 00:38:58:05 - 00:39:30:02 Unknown Yes, that you can really the characters feel real and maybe it is watching it. In contrast to today's film, the characters feel real, their situations

feel real. there's something that Jo Beth Williams and Craig Nelson kind of bring to the marriage. That is. Yeah, just rich and textured. Yes. And I want to point out I'm going to say this now, even though it's a big note for my notes, the cast of this film is an all star cast. 00:39:30:04 - 00:39:55:09 Unknown I am just like, if you took this cast and put it into, like, an indie film. Yeah, you're talking about royalty here. David Gordon Green was directing, you know, a 1990s, you know, suburban psycho thriller that you couldn't get better than this cast. Yeah, yeah. So the remake typically is what you mean, like Sam Rockwell and Rosemarie DeWitt? 00:39:55:09 - 00:40:19:08 Unknown Yeah. And Jane Adams and, Jared Harris, they're all like. And we'll go into it when we go into their their context. They're all like rich histories in independent. And, you know, with the theater scene, so I'm not laying it at the feet of them. This movie, you know, really fails on a, a foundational level. Yes, yes. 00:40:19:10 - 00:40:40:07 Unknown And everything that I'm saying about this movie being worse in every way, etc. than the original, like, I want to make clear, this is not due to incompetent writing this. This script is written by, David Lindsay, a bear who is a, Pulitzer Prize winner for a theater. He wrote a play called, Rabbit Hole. And, he's written. 00:40:40:07 - 00:41:03:01 Unknown Okay, he's won a bunch of Tony Awards. He's clearly a good writer. He has written a lot of good stuff on stage, and he also seems to make a pretty good living writing blockbuster movies of somewhat more dubious quality, such as the Ghostbusters Afterlife and Ghostbusters Frozen Empire. I guess that's what it's called. Like, yeah, this movie is not bad due to the incompetence of the writer. 00:41:03:01 - 00:41:30:13 Unknown It's just the way that this got put together and what was asked for, the demands of the production, the demands of the marketing or whatever, and the way that this story was cut apart and reassembled, it just fundamentally doesn't work. Yes. I completely agree with that. And let's use that to get into talking about this film. Yes, because this movie, I think, starts by really trying to say, this isn't your daddy's poltergeist. 00:41:30:13 - 00:41:53:13 Unknown And how do we know that? Yeah, it starts well, first of all, the the MGM and ghost House logo, which is Sam Raimi's, production company, they're the ones, handling this, they're glitching out, man, you know. Oh, my God, why, what's happened that Jim Ryan is supposed to roar and it's gone. like neo is stuck in the matrix. 00:41:53:15 - 00:42:20:09 Unknown Oh, man. Oh, what if technology could go wrong? Well, it well, how it goes wrong is part of my problem with this movie. yeah. The. But then it starts on a, like, pixelated screen, and we slowly pull out, and as we pull out, we see a zombie's face. But it's clearly a, computer game. CGI rendered zombie face, Gamecube era Resident Evil four bullshit.

00:42:20:11 - 00:42:43:00 Unknown Yeah, we keep pulling out and we see that it's a kid playing a zombie game on an iPad in the back of a car, and, oh. Hey, guess what? We just entered 2015. Yeah, yeah, that's right, that's right. We do things a little differently around this kind of poltergeist, you know, and these early moments of the movie where it's us with the family in the car. 00:42:43:00 - 00:43:02:00 Unknown It's kind of one take we pull out of the youngest son. Griffin's iPad and we're, you know, panning around the car. There's Sam Rockwell and Rosemarie DeWitt are driving, and they're there's all this kind of just, like, family banter back and forth and like, you know, the sister says bitch or something. And then the little sister keeps repeating, bitch, you know, dumb ass. 00:43:02:00 - 00:43:26:04 Unknown Yeah. And it's there's, there has kind of a looseness to it. And, and there is clearly inspired by and trying to evoke the kind of loose familial atmosphere of the original Poltergeist. And in this moment, I was thinking, okay, okay, maybe this is going to work. They seem to understand the vibe of the original movie, and they're trying to recreate it in the present. 00:43:26:04 - 00:44:03:08 Unknown And I'm like, okay, all right, I'm interested. But of course, it's vastly easier to start a movie like writing the first scene in a movie is the greatest thing in the world. And any writing, any scene after that is so incredibly difficult, because then you got to build on that and it's not easy to do. and I think it falls apart pretty quickly afterwards, but at least, at least in the first moments, I'm thinking like, okay, they're trying to like they are cognizant of what made the original great, wasn't just, ooh, the spooky tree, ooh, the spooky clown, but the way the family interacts with each other. 00:44:03:10 - 00:44:29:21 Unknown Yeah. Okay, so where to start with this? Because I think it's important to say it at the top of the episode by the top of the episode, I mean, 15 minutes into the episode. Yeah, it's yeah, that's very early for us. It is, and maybe we don't have to talk about it more than just this little disclaimer about child actors. 00:44:29:23 - 00:45:10:02 Unknown But I'm certainly not out to criticize any child actor. no. It I am curious, though, what the difference between directing children in the 80s, 70s and 80s versus now is. Maybe, maybe it's not even in the directing, but just what is the difference between capturing a performance of a child in the 80s versus now, where this is, I think for the most part, a good version of it, but there's still like an artifice to it that doesn't seem to exist as much in the 80s. 00:45:10:02 - 00:45:40:00 Unknown Like those kids felt like kids. These kids feel like actors playing good actors playing kids. Yeah. No, totally. I think what it is, is just that the, the industry for cultivating and producing child actors has become more efficient and more streamlined. And you have,

I think a lot of, you know, if a young kid is showing an interest in being an actor professionally and they are in the right environment for it. 00:45:40:00 - 00:46:01:11 Unknown There are classes, there are magnet schools, performing arts things. There are programs. There's there. Yeah, yeah, there's probably a culture of parents being willing to show their kids like, okay, you want to be an actor, let's watch in the bedroom or something like that. I don't know, like, I like let's I, I'm sorry, I actually haven't seen that movie, so I don't know if there's some huge, awful sexy scene in it. 00:46:01:16 - 00:46:25:16 Unknown It was just like the first artsy one of all the movies, because you got a picture in the bedroom. Because I don't, I don't know, that's that's the one by the target, right? The one it's a Todd Field movie. The one time we were all like, Nick Stahl, are we going to make him a star or not? 00:46:25:18 - 00:46:42:07 Unknown Or like, no, put him in some yellow makeup and throw them in Sin City. You know what we need to. We need to see. We need to see his junk get ripped off by Bruce Willis. That's what's really going to put him on on track for stardom. But do not let do not let your aspiring child actors watch Sin City. 00:46:42:09 - 00:47:12:02 Unknown All I'm saying is the kids in Poltergeist in 1982 were primarily coming from auditioning for like, you know, McDonald's commercials or something. And coming from watching Howdy Doody, not Howdy Doody, I don't know, whatever kid's show was on back then, I don't fucking care. I was born in the late 80s, and I think that child actors just today are like, there is a, there is an environment of they they're they're exposed to more capital acting. 00:47:12:02 - 00:47:31:11 Unknown And I think that just some of that comes through in their performance, where I think there was just something more genuine back then not to take anything away from child actors working today. Weren't the child actors in this movie who I think are good? Yeah. yes. I wonder if there's a certain amount of like, it's the the I wonder I wonder if there's a disconnect. 00:47:31:11 - 00:47:55:07 Unknown Clearly I have no involvement in this and, you know, no perspective as a parent. But like, for all the shit that went down in the 80s and then it stopped, we never had a problem with child actors again. Yeah. Nope. We started treating them real, real well after that. But I wonder if that there's a certain disconnect between, you know, the, the systems in place to protect the child. 00:47:55:09 - 00:48:15:05 Unknown and I'm not saying this as a bad thing. This is good that those are in place, but I wonder if those systems, create more conversation which creates more of a performance rather than just like I don't want any distractions for this kid. Just. He's a kid. Throw them in on in camera. Yeah, yeah. Anyway, you said it. 00:48:15:05 - 00:48:29:07 Unknown You said it a lot better. And I was just, I was just playing

on it. Well, hey, we don't we're not in the. We're not in the saying it. Best Olympics here. Actually, I guess I'm not. Kind of. It's not raining my whole life for this, now we're all in it. For the love of the game. 00:48:29:07 - 00:48:57:19 Unknown For the love of our own voices. Okay, so, like, I, I think something that is distinctive about this movie versus the original and that works against this movie is that it is considerably shorter. This movie is 93 minutes long. The theatrical release, the original Poltergeist 114 minutes for for me, you know, gearing up to watch a movie that I suspected I would not enjoy a great amount, seeing that it was only 93 minutes long was kind of a relief. 00:48:57:19 - 00:49:31:17 Unknown But then you really do feel that missing time in in the movie, everything seems very compressed in the time frame. We don't get all of that time up front to hang out with this family and kind of observe them. The movie tries to front load as much of that as they can, but everything just plays out a lot faster and because of that, I think that that fundamentally compromises what this movie is trying to do because, yeah, that 100% I'm on board with you there. 00:49:31:19 - 00:49:57:23 Unknown it is it's a bit of an editing thing. I think it's a bit of economics in writing where you're just trying to like, as much as, like save the Cat created a language that screenwriters and executives can use to talk to each other, and also created a shitload of problems of like, oh, yeah, nothing can breathe anymore if the characters aren't doing exactly this thing on exactly page 15, then, you know, get back. 00:49:57:23 - 00:50:22:03 Unknown We're going to hire some other writers. If you're not going to do it. Yes. Yeah, exactly. It's it's reduced it to a numbers game. And and so you, you lose you know it's it's them. They're looking at buying the house. They buy the house. They're moved in. And there are you know, there is a scene of like mom and dad in the bedroom, you know, drinking whiskey out of coffee mugs, instead of smoking a joint together. 00:50:22:03 - 00:50:37:14 Unknown I have a lot of thoughts about that, which I'll get to in one second, but we have scenes like that. But there. But those scenes are mostly taken up with them talking about how Sam Rockwell lost his job and, oh, am I going to coach baseball? Or what am I going to do, an hour out of money? How are we going to make this work? 00:50:37:16 - 00:50:56:03 Unknown Oh, at all these moments that would just be hanging out with the family time in 82, just like, hey, this is funny that the this one, dad is riding his bike up the street with an armload of beer and the kids make him crash, and he's carrying all the spilling beer inside, and they're watching the game like slice of life moments that are just kind of fun to watch. 00:50:56:05 - 00:51:24:17 Unknown We don't have that. Everything here is building up to something. And in a lot of cases like that's the dialog that

they're that they're that they've got in all these scenes that is establishing plot. It's the dialog is good. But yes, but but it's it's just it's not doing what they want it to be doing. Because then as the movie goes on, as the hauntings continue, basically, Sam Rockwell and his wife, Rosemarie DeWitt, go to a dinner party. 00:51:24:17 - 00:51:45:21 Unknown All the creepy stuff at the house happens with the kids, you know? The tree attacks Griffin and Madison gets taken into the closet and all this stuff, they get back. Madison is missing. They hear a couple creepy things through the TV, and the parents immediately are like, this house is haunted. We can't call the cops about this. We need to go find some paranormal investigators. 00:51:45:21 - 00:52:06:14 Unknown And they. And then it's just, okay, we're calling in paranormal investigators, I need it, I need it to slow down button here for a second. Sure. Do it, do it. Finish your point. It. It is laughable that that these people, these parents have just come home, found their daughter missing and their two kids panicking. And they just immediately it is just taken for granted that they won't talk to the cops. 00:52:06:19 - 00:52:27:15 Unknown It is just taken for granted that they accept. There's a haunting in the first movie there. There are multiple scenes of each parent seeing weird, inexplicable, verifiably strange stuff in the house so that by the time their daughter goes missing, it's plausible that they'd say, we need to talk to ghost hunters about this. And you don't get that in this movie. 00:52:27:15 - 00:52:58:23 Unknown And so then the entire logic of it and the whatever kind of lived in believability of family life you want to have is completely stripped away. And the movie can't stand it. And I think there's one kind of almost throwaway scene. Well, what would seem like a throwaway scene in the first movie? but on retrospect, to your point right now, it becomes essential in understanding why they don't go to the cops is when they where it's after. 00:52:58:23 - 00:53:23:05 Unknown Okay. This is the original. If you haven't seen the original. Sorry, I'm going to spoil the original. You've had time. You've had time. They they, Nelson comes home from work. Jo Beth Williams has, been noticing this stuff with the chairs in the kitchen. she sets a chair in the ground, it gets pulled across the room, and he's like, okay, so what's the trick? 00:53:23:09 - 00:53:43:22 Unknown She slowly brings him to realize, that something weird is going on here. Yeah, there's something strange in their neighborhood. Yes. Yeah. And who are they going to call? They go to their neighbor's house and they're like, hey, they try to ask if there's anything weird been going on at your house, and they can't keep a straight face. 00:53:43:22 - 00:54:09:15 Unknown They're just like, you know, we we can't quite believe what's happening in our own house. And we we can hear how crazy we sound. Yeah. Trying to ask you. Yeah. If anything weird has been going on in your house. And with that, it's like a 15 second, 15, 25 second scene. And once you get back into the house with them, you're like, okay, I understand why they're trepidatious to mention this to anybody that doesn't exist in this version. 00:54:09:17 - 00:54:29:04 Unknown They don't they don't seem to have friends aside from a dinner party they go to once they we don't see neighbors, they don't talk to anyone else. Questions about that. So okay, you've hit on like 16 different things. I need to go into a lot of depth on nice, nice. That's that's the, Truman Capote classic right there. 00:54:29:06 - 00:54:51:23 Unknown The first is like, since you've mentioned it so much already, I'll kind of reverse order my notes here, which is, when the first poltergeist opens. Listen, and we should be taking this film on its own. You know what is presenting as well. But, but but when you remake a very famous, well-regarded movie, you naturally invite the comparison. 00:54:51:23 - 00:55:14:17 Unknown I mean, I don't think we're being unfair. I. No, but but, you know, it's like instead of just comparisons, comparing it, let's look at what it's doing differently and then try to take it on its own, you know, by its own volition. So I'm prepared. I'm prepared. I got notes on that too, buddy. I got so many notes, the the first film, and I know I was pointing the finger at myself because of what I'm about to go into. 00:55:14:22 - 00:55:39:01 Unknown The first game takes like over its credit sequence. You know, you had mentioned there's the just around the the suburb, you see the remote control cars. A guy bringing beer home on a bike. You get a sense of the neighborhood, the vibe, the place. You know, this is the 1980s Norman Rockwell family. Yeah. this is Reagan's America coming to fruition. 00:55:39:03 - 00:56:00:20 Unknown This shot in Simi Valley, where the Reagan Library is. He's reading Reagan's biography. What is that? While he's smoking? But what which which is. Listen, I respect that. I respect I, I, I want to read that as him being a like, I'm going to know my enemy, I'm gonna I'm Reagan would hate that. I'm doing this right now. 00:56:00:22 - 00:56:27:23 Unknown versus this today's film, this film, the 2015 film, the remake film. Yeah, yeah, they get it, dude. There. No one else occupies this space. They are isolated. Yeah, they live in a suburb, yet you don't see a single neighbor to the point where, at the end of the film, when the house ostensibly blows up. Yes, you. No one is leaving their house. 00:56:27:23 - 00:56:51:19 Unknown Yeah. To. To go. What the fuck is going on out here? It's empty. Like there's a police car and a fire truck pull up and there's emergency services. But like no other neighbors, there's there's a there's a moment. Okay. The the very pivotal scene. And this is where I think breakneck editing for main stream audiences who don't care enough, like they just want to get their

money's worth. 00:56:51:19 - 00:57:17:10 Unknown Like, this isn't a criticism of audiences. It's just like when you're you're a movie going, you know, on Friday night to a date night, you just want your $15 worth. You're not going there to, you know, analyze and criticize and look for flubs and stuff like that. You just you're assuming you're going to get a show. Yeah. Unless you want your date to go very poorly, which is which I spent 20 years of my life doing a lot of a lot of girls told me like like me more as a friend. 00:57:17:10 - 00:57:44:02 Unknown After hearing my unfavorable reviews of a mission impossible movie. there's the centerpiece or the center, the, like, halfway point of this film when they start to go, oh shit, something's going on. There's this huge sequence between all three kids when they're left home alone. Kendra is watching them, and it ends with the iconic tree. that's in both films. 00:57:44:04 - 00:58:09:14 Unknown Basically sucking Griffin out the window, holding him by his ankle over the front lawn. Yeah. And Sam Rockwell and Rosemarie DeWitt come home and see their child being hurled around like a sack of potatoes by a tree. Yeah. And they're like, okay, we got a problem. Like my as it was, I was watching and I'm like, how is this going to end up with him in his bed, waking up and no one believing him? 00:58:09:17 - 00:58:41:20 Unknown You know, they come home inside the the tree like it's a fucking Disney, you know, villain from the early like 1930s days. Like like Whistler just being alive. Trees throwing apples at you or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And not a single neighbor is going, why is there a fucking animated tree in their yard? Yes. And and they're like, there could be a it looked taking this movie on its own merits and not trying to compare it. 00:58:42:00 - 00:59:06:04 Unknown There is something to be said for we are in we are in a tough time financially. The real estate market is goofy right now. We bought a house in a foreclosed on neighborhood where we're surrounded by empty homes, and there's no one else around. That is a cool and really scary concept, but the and the movie. The real estate agent says something about foreclosures up front, but other than that, they never try to do anything with this. 00:59:06:04 - 00:59:25:09 Unknown Very rich. Is that do you think that was them trying to explain why there's no activity around? I mean, she says something like, I think that's both trying to explain why the neighborhood's kind of empty and also why they're able to, like, why they're able to get a competitive price on this house when money is tight. But I also like that I get I get so many questions about that. 00:59:25:09 - 01:00:03:15 Unknown But they don't. But like, they don't revisit that again. They don't like that. Not at all. A I'm realizing it right the second, as you're saying it like that is probably why there's no reaction from any other neighbor in this movie is like, this is a foreclosed

neighborhood. Not necessarily just the next door neighbor. And that's what I and again, that's a way that I think that doing a contemporary remake of Poltergeist could be really cool and really incisive, because the first one is such a portrait of, you know, the ascendant suburbs and American affluence, and then this one can, like, take all the same stuff, but have it be about, oh, the suburbs are 01:00:03:15 - 01:00:27:09 Unknown falling apart. Everybody's fucking broken in dead. What like and it's not about, you know, it's not about the perfect suburban life. It's about horrible suburban life that then gets even worse, what with the poltergeists. But it doesn't do that. It introduces the idea. And maybe the writer had that in there and the studio said, yeah, no, no. But yeah, no one wants to be reminded they're there to eat popcorn. 01:00:27:10 - 01:00:51:09 Unknown We're there to sell popcorn and, you know, get some kisses. Yeah. So, you know, no one wants to be reminded that they can't afford their their property tax. You can't you can't get any kisses when you're thinking about the mortgage payments that you're that you're underwater on. Okay, I want to come back to this. I have more notes than you need to go into, but I need to take a quick tangent just to talk about the tree. 01:00:51:11 - 01:01:14:10 Unknown Great. Okay. Talk about the tree. The trees here. Our tree. Scary. I mean, it's it's a trope, right? Like the the tree branch looking like a claw on the window while you're trying to sleep as a child. Trees, plural, are scary. I don't think like a a for if I can, if I see the forest for the trees. 01:01:14:10 - 01:01:40:05 Unknown Wait, I actually don't know what that fully means. A large number of trees in the dark. That is scary. A single tree. Yeah, yeah, I could take a tree. I have a tree. I have a poltergeist tree right outside my window. Does it bloom? Poltergeists. Every spring. Do they? Do they smell bad like that? Like that one tree with the white blossoms that smells a certain way that that we all know of. 01:01:40:07 - 01:02:01:03 Unknown you know what I drove? I was traveling for work the other day and drove through a city that smelled like a belch. Oh, like I've driven. I live in a state like. And there's a lot of a lot of beer being drunk in Wisconsin. It's not out of the out of the question that everyone in a town could burp at the same time. 01:02:01:05 - 01:02:26:07 Unknown It just it was, you know, you drive past like roadkill or skunk or or, you know, a farm that smells like manure. I've never driven through a city that just smelled like, oh, someone at the table next to me burped and blew it towards you. Yeah. So gross. I'm torn between not wanting you to say the name of this town on the air, to preserve the dignity of the residents and wanting you to say it, but so we can all avoid it? 01:02:26:09 - 01:02:43:05 Unknown yeah. I wouldn't be able to I it was, you know, between here and there. So, you know, you figure

that out. Great. Okay. okay. But I've just always been curious about trees. I've never found them scary. Never found their branches scary. Their shadows scary. Like, know nothing about them. It didn't scare me in the first film. 01:02:43:09 - 01:03:10:20 Unknown It's always been kind of a sticking point for me and trying to relate to, you know, a proxy character. being afraid on screen that's partly why the first film didn't scare me that much. I think I and I feel like, like I agree, even as someone who, you know, spent much of his childhood being very afraid and much of his adulthood also, and someone who wakes up in the middle of the night thinking he's seeing shadowy things in his room and freaking out about it. 01:03:10:22 - 01:03:33:14 Unknown I do not find trees or the shadow of a tree. Scary either, but I feel like a lot of that. The you know, the genesis of the original Poltergeist seems to be shit that Steven Spielberg and other people around him were scared of as kids, or frightening memories from childhood, or tropes that they were aware of or had personally lived. 01:03:33:16 - 01:03:54:05 Unknown Being implemented. So it might just be. I think it might have been as simple as there is a spooky looking tree outside of his house in the 50s. Okay, yeah. So it's like reading any Stephen King novel. Yes, exactly. Exactly. Every everybody is a writer who has struggled with substance abuse issues at some point and is probably racist. 01:03:54:08 - 01:04:15:05 Unknown Why is there a racist in every single Stephen King novel? You know, I mean, look, I think in the same way that people feel guilt about the land that they've bought property on and are trying to deal with that. I think Stephen King is dealing with his white guilt in his own way. I mean, you you might ask why we often go on so many, you know, tying ourselves up in knots trying to qualify every statements. 01:04:15:05 - 01:04:52:21 Unknown I think it's because we're we're all trying to be good people and expressing our guilt in different ways. All right, all right. okay. I just had to go down that tangent. I got to get back to some of the stuff you said. for. This is the big sticking point for me, for the whole film that I'm going to keep circling back to is, I think, a reason why not just in this film, but in many films, when scares don't work, when tension doesn't work, and suspense is unmotivated, camera movement unmotivated, or contrived? 01:04:52:23 - 01:05:22:19 Unknown fear? Like they this movie tries to set us up immediately for this house is fucking scary isn't it folks? And they're viewing it in the daylight. There's been no historical like we we should be scared because we, the audience, know that this is a remake of a movie where our house is haunted. Yeah, as far as these characters go, they're going to a house in what looks like a nice neighborhood. 01:05:22:21 - 01:05:39:09 Unknown though the characters in the film don't seem to think this is a nice neighborhood, it's close. It's close to some power lines. We get a lot of shots. Yeah, the power lines for that. I also have power lines. Right. I get it, I get I mean, listen, I don't think anybody should get up on their high horse about me. 01:05:39:10 - 01:05:59:13 Unknown You can see power lines from my house. Yeah, I like having electricity. I prefer a preferred to the alternative. What do you. If you think the electricity is doing something to you, what do you think the Wi-Fi is? I mean, like the. Not that I'm. I'm not a proponent for that, but like, the power lines is not going to be the thing that she gets hung up on as a character. 01:05:59:13 - 01:06:14:16 Unknown Like if she's worried about that, she would also be worried about the Wi-Fi in her house. yeah. Yeah. You know, or, you know, Lord knows how many micro-plastics there are in the. Well, actually, I guess we never really see them eating anything in this movie, so I don't know because they know we do. We see him eating chicken nugget pizza. 01:06:14:20 - 01:06:34:23 Unknown Oh, yes. Chicken nugget pizza. Well, that's loaded with microplastics. and this is the oldest daughter, by the way. Anyway, so they're they're looking at the house. they're talking to the realtor the kids are exploring, and they go to what will end up being Madisons room that has the closet, which is where all this stuff happens. 01:06:34:23 - 01:06:55:14 Unknown The portal opens up both in this film and the original, and there's no reason at all, given that this, that the kids should be afraid of this house. Yeah, we, the audience should be afraid of this house. But when they go in and they see this closet, like there's a slow push in on the closet, and there's a slow push in on Griffin and he's like, no, I don't know about that closet. 01:06:55:14 - 01:07:27:23 Unknown Oh my God, it's the middle of the day. The sun hitting it a little too intensely for me, know what I mean, Verne? And then like because that's not working. I feel like filmmakers then have to resort to tricks like they do in this movie a handful of times where Griffin's like staring at the closet. And he gets kind of up in a trance and then there's just a loud jumpscare where Sam Rockwell thrusts his hand into frame and starts shaking the doorknob. 01:07:28:01 - 01:07:44:17 Unknown Yeah, that's like okay. But he wouldn't do that. I mean, like he put his hand like two inches from Griffin's face to grab the closet. I mean, like, he would say something to Griffin, like, hey, could you get let me. What's in there? You know? Yeah. He would say something before the jump scare happens. It's like a sneak up on his son. 01:07:44:17 - 01:08:18:09 Unknown Yeah, right. And there's another moment when Sam Rockwell, like, hallucinates shit coming out of his face. And Rosemarie DeWitt, like, another jump scare. A hand kind of, like, comes over his shoulder, like, like a claw grip, you know, grabbing at his shoulder to turn him around. It's like, no human has ever, like,

seen someone, you know, flushing their face out in the water, in the kitchen sink and, like, reached around their shoulder over a top of their shoulder and yanked them backwards to get their attention. 01:08:18:13 - 01:08:41:19 Unknown Yeah, yeah. I mean, yeah, the movie has to keep finding excuses to give you a jump scare to kind of kick you in the ribs. I mean, yeah, I look, I mean, to some extent, I would say the much ballyhooed squirrel scene wherein, you know, on the first night up in his attic bedroom, it's that was ballyhooed by one one journalist on a junket. 01:08:41:22 - 01:09:03:05 Unknown I've just been I've just heard a lot of talk about this fucking squirrel, because that journalist brought it up in two separate interviews, at the press junket. So clearly, clearly that that made a real impression on her. Did you look at the the, the Kyron at the bottom? I mean, it was squirrel news. Oh, they had a, a bias for why they were bringing it up. 01:09:03:05 - 01:09:21:22 Unknown I know, I should have realized it was Knut. Yes, that makes more sense. but but but this whole bit where Griffin is in his room and he's he's, you know, hearing all these noises, and then he opens a thing and a squirrel comes running out like we're jumpscared by the squirrel. And then there's this business of his dad getting a squirrel trap. 01:09:21:22 - 01:09:58:19 Unknown But it's like the squirrel isn't part of the haunting. It's not like part of the poltergeist. It's literally just there's a squirrel in the house, and it doesn't serve any greater purpose other than that. Like we were told we needed to have a jump scare on page 28. This is okay. I differ from you a little bit here, only in that the oops it's an animal scare is almost required when you're dealing with, you know, maybe not like auteur Ari Aster isn't putting, you know, a cat jump scare in his films. 01:09:58:19 - 01:10:19:07 Unknown But when you're dealing with a PG 13, you know, for quadrant blockbuster horror film, you got to go with the Ripley needs, you know, to find Jonesy jump scare. which, you know, it's the animal jump scare that doesn't quite make sense, but it always usually brings levity. Like, oh, we can laugh now because it was just a squirrel. 01:10:19:07 - 01:10:40:10 Unknown It wasn't actually a ghost coming for me. Yeah. Like it's it's a tried and true thing and I'm not defending it. But if they are doing it, I've seen it done so much worse than this squirrel scene. Yeah. Like at least Sam Rockwell, you know, reacts to it in a way that's like, you know, there's something to be afraid of. 01:10:40:10 - 01:10:59:01 Unknown And then he's immediately like, oh my God, and walks out of the room and kind of is joking about it. And it they use it to infuse the movie with some necessary energy that was missing. Well, look, I will admit I, I don't think that Sam Rockwell does a great performance in this movie. I, I really like Sam Rockwell. 01:10:59:01 - 01:11:18:09 Unknown I think he's a

great actor. Huge fan of him. but I think his best moment in the movie is, you know, he heard his son screaming and run upstairs. His son runs out of the room, he is chasing the squirrel around, and then he kind of like, comes out and the whole family is standing there waiting, and he, like, makes this big show of, like, screaming and writhing and throwing himself against a couple of walls. 01:11:18:11 - 01:11:35:12 Unknown And I'm like, is he going to start dancing? Is he going to do is Sam Rockwell dancing? This is what I want to see. But then he does this whole thing about how I just it's a squirrel will be fine. I'm okay. that is kind of the most energy that we ever get out of him in this performance is kind of the most character that we see. 01:11:35:12 - 01:11:57:05 Unknown And I, I feel like I feel I feel sort of bad for Sam Rockwell and that he didn't have a lot to work with here, so I don't really want to put it on him. But there is just something about the fact that it takes moments like those. It takes this kind of fake out jump scare with an animal to kind of lend any, to these characters or this movie like that. 01:11:57:06 - 01:12:15:20 Unknown It gives them a little. Yeah, but then they don't carry on with the momentum. They just kind of like come to a quick stop there. Okay. And let's go into talking about where this falls in Sam Rockwell's career. but I'll, I'll preface this by saying there are on the whole, this is not a good Sam Rockwell performance. 01:12:15:20 - 01:12:36:18 Unknown It has fun Sam Rockwell moments in it. Like this moment, there's a cute moment where I could tell he is kind of getting along with the kids, and they're going out to the party for the night, and the kids just keep saying, I, I break my neck. Break my neck. Oh, yeah. He just like, just go, okay, we're getting out the door now. 01:12:36:20 - 01:13:01:04 Unknown And, you know, it keeps breaking their necks and they're like, giggling. It felt like something organic that happened on the set. He's doing like, karate chops at he's not actually breaking their neck. He's like pretending to like, do kung fu moves on them or something. Yeah, exactly. but like, we also get one of the most contrived. Like, how do you know a man is suffering, financial woes in a movie? 01:13:01:06 - 01:13:26:22 Unknown He can't put a seatbelt on. His heart's pounding on the steering wheel, and, you know, he gives that about as much as someone from his stature can give it. Which is, you know, you can't sell that moment. Yeah, but let's talk, just real quick about where, this falls in Sam Rockwell's career. so, yeah, he's not yet Academy Award winning Sam Rockwell. 01:13:26:22 - 01:13:45:07 Unknown No. but he was making the Academy Award winning movie that that year, I believe in 2015. Yeah. I don't know how long it took to make that movie, but, quite possibly. Yeah, he was he was on the path to it. Yes. That movie, by the way, is Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. And the

Truman Capote review is it sucks. 01:13:45:07 - 01:14:18:01 Unknown Anyway, continue. Oh, okay. Interesting. yeah. So Sam Rockwell is just a fascinating actor in that he has one of the slowest burn careers in modern memory from. Yeah, like he starts out in the late 80s, with, like, TV shows, guest stars and stuff like The Equalizer. that is now has its own, you know, remake with, yeah, Denzel Washington in its third installment in its third installment. 01:14:18:03 - 01:14:39:19 Unknown I remember him obviously my my first exposure to him, though, you know, I wouldn't have known it at the time. He plays a punk in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle movie. Yeah, yeah, the 1990s. He's all over the place in both forgettable and interesting films. in 1992, he worked with Paul Schrader in Light Sleeper. 1996. 01:14:39:19 - 01:15:14:00 Unknown He's in Julian Schnabel's, Basic Weight with, Jeffrey Wright. Saul Rubberneck, who, you might know, he had a, stint on Frasier. He was a writer in, Unforgiven. Yes. Yes, he directed this movie called Jerry and Tom in 1998. And it's just cast with people that, like a character actor directing a film, is going to only cast other interesting actors, and that movie is just filled with them wall to wall. 01:15:14:02 - 01:15:39:01 Unknown it's 1998 is a big turning point for him. He does five films, including Woody Allen's Celebrity, this, quirky little indie flick called Safe Men with Paul Giamatti and Steve Zahn. Oh, that's a that's a power trio. I want to watch that movie. Yeah. Off cast that one. That was my first exposure to him, because I was either on a Paul Giamatti or a Steve Zahn kick, probably Steve Zahn at the time. 01:15:39:03 - 01:16:02:23 Unknown and so, yeah, I saw that one out and I'm certain that's where I first saw him. so but so if 98 was a turning point, 99 put him on the map, because he does it midnight, Midsummer's Night Dream with Clint Eastwood, then A12 punch of playing wild Bill in the Green Mile. Yeah. And, of course, Guy on Galaxy Quest. 01:16:03:05 - 01:16:36:06 Unknown I never give up. Never surrender. truly brilliant role. then between, 1999 and 2015, he continues to do interesting projects. just a quick run chronologically through some of the hits 2001 he works with David Mamet, in heist, Jon Favreau's, follow up to swingers, made, which is important because then he's cast as, the villain in Iron Man two that Jon Favreau directed a much a much better his his 15 minutes of screen time in Iron Man two. 01:16:36:07 - 01:17:00:11 Unknown Vastly better than older guys hear. They're just oozing charisma in every moment of that otherwise pretty bad movie. 2002 is this George Clooney year? He worked with him, as an actor on Welcome to Collinwood. And then I think, put him in serious consideration in the Academy's mind with, confessions of a Dangerous Mind. Great movie, great performance. 01:17:00:13 - 01:17:27:08 Unknown that, you know, I think is his first, like, high profile leading film. And that puts him in the the the crosshairs of some producers who cast him opposite Nicolas Cage in Matchstick Men by Ridley Scott in 2003. takes on a George W Bush proxy, although he eventually plays George W Bush as well. Yes. in, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. 01:17:27:10 - 01:17:50:11 Unknown Yeah. 2007, he puts in an incredible performance, David Gordon Green, Snow Angels, as well as The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. So the whole title got to say the whole thing can't can't abbreviate it. 2008 does Frost Nixon 2009 moon G-Force. Gentlemen Broncos 2010 is Iron Man two 2011 is Cowboys and Aliens. 01:17:50:11 - 01:18:12:20 Unknown You're seeing some ups and Some downs 2012 Seven Psychopaths, his first collaboration with Michael McDonnell, which is what would get him is, you know, Oscar with three Billboards eventually. Yeah. Another movie that I am not super keen on. Go on. 2013 to 15. he does the way, way back, which I think is a movie you and I like, but it's not really remembered. 01:18:13:00 - 01:18:43:05 Unknown yeah, but no real big hits on the radar, so you can kind of see why you are at a point where, okay, I've had all of these things I don't really have, you know, I don't have the awards yet. I haven't had a massive franchise. I haven't had a huge blockbuster hit. This movie comes across your plate and you're like, I'm not really passionate about it, but you know, if it's going to get me the, you know, table service, I need to have, you know, conversations with producers around town. 01:18:43:05 - 01:19:00:03 Unknown I'll do it. oh. Okay. So you're not implying that he just made this movie to get noticed and served at a restaurant, right? It's like if you. Have you ever waited so long for them to come and take your drink order that you star in the remake of Poltergeist just to get their attention? Well, I'm not not saying that's not the case here. 01:19:00:04 - 01:19:10:09 Unknown I mean, listen, you pay for the bottomless steak fries at Red Robin. You expect to have those things refilled. Sometimes desperate times call for desperate measures. 01:19:10:11 - 01:19:40:16 Unknown So that's where it falls in his career. And, you know, he he's a seasoned actor. Oh, yeah. But much like the fries at Red Robin. Yeah. And one that like, I almost commend his, like passionless performance here because I'm like it's not that he's like not game for the film. I mean he does he services it. But like I almost like commend him for having better taste. 01:19:40:21 - 01:19:58:22 Unknown He's like, I know the fucking movie. I'm in, man. This is this is what this is the bare minimum. It needs to do what it needs to do. Yeah. He's the every, every decision he makes in this performance gives me the impression that he knows this is a movie that will only be remembered by two douchebags on a podcast. 01:19:59:00 - 01:20:17:15 Unknown down the line, it's like, I don't I don't need to entertain them. I don't give a no one is going to

remember I was in this. I'm I'm going to I, you know, I'm going to collect my check in in those junket videos. he the one where he's asked about acting alongside the squirrel. He's like, oh, it's almost like he is, remember? 01:20:17:18 - 01:20:56:20 Unknown It's like there's a squirrel. And that's what I actually was, the squirrel. I mean, it reminds me of the junket videos for, Operation Fortune, ruse, digger, which all of all of which seem to have been shot, you know, like, for the release. So years after making the movie and everyone involved has to be, like, coached and reminded on what the movie was about, what happened in it, who their character was, I yeah, yeah, I like Sam Rockwell just really disappears in this role and not not in a good way, where he, like, disappears into the role is just that Hugh Grant in Operation Rooster Care. 01:20:56:20 - 01:21:24:21 Unknown Yes. yeah. Academy Award winner for 2023. but like over, just over the course of the movie, his character just sort of fades, like late in the movie, you know, or midway through the movie, they bring in the Ghost Hunters and then a little after that, the Ghost hunters bring in Jared Harris's character, the TV ghost hunter, and and at that point, it's pretty much Jared Harris and and the little kid, Griffin talking to each other. 01:21:24:21 - 01:21:49:05 Unknown And Sam Rockwell is sort of just in the background. He kind of like, runs into a couple of rooms, and he holds on tightly to a rope at one point, and he puts a car in reverse. But otherwise, for the second half of the movie, he's not really there. He's not really doing stuff. He he slides down the roof like it's a slide that looks when the house partially collapses. 01:21:49:08 - 01:22:17:02 Unknown I mean, that does look neat. That does look pretty neat. That's that's that's good. But work, for it, for an actor. it's a comparison to the original that I think this is hard to not make. Where? That's not 100% the case of the first film, but what happens in the the first two movies, at least? Craig Nelson, it's about the powerlessness. 01:22:17:07 - 01:22:41:22 Unknown Yes. That the the archetype of the breadwinning father. Whoever got to make noises to make sure, you know, I'm not, you know, holding that up as a thing, but. Yes, You're okay. You're in. You're in the clear. You made the noises. Okay, good. like there's a certain playing on the male anxieties of being helpless in a situation where all you typically want to do is problem solve. 01:22:41:22 - 01:23:12:04 Unknown And what can you do if there's no. It's the problem that needs solving is beyond what you can do. Yes. And what makes the original interesting is he's constantly continuing to try to assert himself. Yeah, but he's at the behest of tanka. yes. Zelda Rubinstein. Yes, yes. Which is such a fun juxtaposition. Whereas this one and taking and this is where I want to be careful to take this film on its own. 01:23:12:04 - 01:23:33:17 Unknown Right. You don't get Zelda Rubinstein, and it would be a mistake, I think, to try to, like, cast another Zelda Rubinstein. Yeah. Okay. Cast a little person to. Yeah, come in and do it. Would almost feel offensive to do that rather than just take the character in a different direction. But in doing so, you you completely lose that juxtaposition. 01:23:33:19 - 01:24:05:15 Unknown They, they there's a moment when, Jared Harris is trying to explain what's going on and what needs to be done. And Sam Rockwell's like, I'm just having a hard time believing all this, and they try to play that dynamic a bit, but it being to kind of males going at it doesn't have the same effect. Yeah. And I think that there's so much that that is kind of seeded at the beginning with, with Sam Rockwell being, you know, in some ways emasculated. 01:24:05:15 - 01:24:27:06 Unknown Yeah. He used to work at John Deere, but he's been laid off recently. He's clearly pretty bitter about it. The family's having these money troubles, like there's this whole bit where he's been trying to buy the trap for the squirrel, but multiple cards get declined. And then I got I got a press pause for just two seconds, because you just mentioned the real estate lady and the hardware store lady. 01:24:27:08 - 01:24:57:18 Unknown The best performances in the movie to me. Yeah, these, these two throwaway characters, the hardware, the store clerk in particular, are just like A-list material. What they're bringing to this, I've never seen it. Just, like, walk on actors. Kill it more than they do. She. She. Yes. The lady at the hardware store is not amused at all that this guy is having multiple cards get declined as he tries to buy a squirrel trap, and so I, I, I don't know, I guess my wife must have canceled this one. 01:24:57:18 - 01:25:16:02 Unknown No, it's it's not canceled. It's just you. It's it's coming back rejected because you've you haven't paid your bill, actually. And Sam Rockwell is like trying to joke his way through is like, well, third time's a charm. And she's like, okay, we'll see. Yeah. It's like, I, I don't have time for your bullshit. Let's just get through this interaction. 01:25:16:04 - 01:25:33:13 Unknown I that's, I know I really like that character. Yes. No. Very relatable. Where's where's what house does she live in. Does she live on the in the in the same subdivision. Is she just made peace with all her, her ghosts? but he, you know, after having this experience, he's in the car. He's mad, he's punching the steering wheel. 01:25:33:13 - 01:25:49:02 Unknown It's like I can't provide for my family. And then he goes, like, he sees them all in the rearview mirror, and then he comes home and he's got like, oh, he's got a new phone for his oldest daughter, who is all upset that her phone died, and he's got this remote control drone for his son. Oh, boy, a drone is going to be a plot point in a movie. 01:25:49:02 - 01:26:07:03 Unknown Don't we love how every movie had that for like five

years? And he's got, you know, a nice jewelry for his wife, and she's like, how did you pay for this? And he's like, I robbed a bank. We then never find out how he paid for it. And we don't really credit cards. I but like so what he's got a did he open a new card? 01:26:07:03 - 01:26:28:11 Unknown I don't know but third card worth the third. So he just kept going. So it had another like yes thousand dollars on it for all that other shit. I presumably, I don't know, there's all of this stuff that is set up with like, okay, so he like he, he feels, you know, he feels emasculated by the world. He's not able to provide like, this is this drama for him. 01:26:28:13 - 01:26:52:01 Unknown But then that, that he just sort of disappears as a character. And then the next update we get is just at the end. It's like, okay, he's started coaching baseball at, you know, at some high school based off of the bumper sticker we see on his car. I don't know, we just we we just lose them in there trying to cram so much stuff from the original movie into a shorter package. 01:26:52:04 - 01:27:18:02 Unknown That shit is shit is so densely packed in the second half of this movie that you lose entire characters. You lose their whole arc. Yeah. I mean, I can't refute that and you know, it. There are some similarities to Operation Fortune. Not in that there's exposition dumps, but there are important things that I think we need to see that are just given throwaway lines. 01:27:18:02 - 01:27:40:19 Unknown And yes, I think a lot of it comes, actually, at Rosemarie DeWitt's character, who is trying to write a book, has written a book. She's a writer. She's not a writer. Has she written something before this? Yeah. She not, like they are. There's a big, you know, discussion that Sam Rockwell is going to be the one that goes out to get the job, because this is the time for her to write her book. 01:27:40:21 - 01:28:00:13 Unknown Yeah. I mean, listen, as being a writer, I understand, or both of us being writers, we understand like there's never a good time to sit down and write. That's just a fallacy. You're never going to get that. Yeah, but if you don't have a job and she doesn't have a job and you're buying a new house, I think it's maybe time to not sit down and write a book. 01:28:00:15 - 01:28:37:01 Unknown yeah. Exactly. Because because also, even people who have written multiple books that have sold well will tell you it's not exactly a moneymaking and right. Writing a book like you're never going to really do well off of that. But then there's like allusions to her having been a teacher or, a college student or a research person, because when she that's how she knows about the paranormal researchers, she used to work or be in the university and says a throwaway line of like, oh, when I used to be here, this, you know, department used to be so and so was always thought of a little weird. 01:28:37:01 - 01:28:52:04 Unknown I don't know what she says exactly, but it's a throwaway line that alludes to the history, as opposed to showing us the history between these characters and making us understand the point of view they're coming from. Do we actually do we want to? Do we want to talk about the researchers while we're while we're here, while we're at this point? 01:28:52:04 - 01:29:28:05 Unknown No. Not yet. No, I do 100% want to talk about them. Okay. Sorry, I my version of improv is no, I don't I hate hey, look, you know what this is? This is we're not upright citizens, but, no, now we're like. We're like fourth or fifth city. At this point, I what I want to talk about before the researchers and I think this is important, is to talk about the ghosts, talk about the haunting, talk about the activity, so that once we get into the conversation about the researchers, we have a little more sense of what they're up against. 01:29:28:05 - 01:29:50:23 Unknown We've been talking a lot about the family, but not what they're experiencing and how it comes about. Sure, we got some highlights. So many comments and questions about the poltergeist activity in this movie. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense. I and I, it's the Poulter. I mean, listen, in the original movie, the Poltergeist has never really personified either. 01:29:51:00 - 01:30:15:16 Unknown But here it's it's in the second film, it here it seems there's not any one avatar for it. The poltergeist nest is mainly represented by lights flickering electronic devices going off hands, pressing the inside of a TV on. Yeah, this is this is what? I don't understand it. Even the ghosts don't really have a point of view. Like. 01:30:15:21 - 01:30:45:12 Unknown I mean, let me just ask, start asking some questions and get your, your your reaction, your answers to this. Sure. Of course, of course. Okay. Ghosts travel through electricity. yeah, I guess they do, I guess so the Amish have no ghosts. Do the ghosts live in the ground? Well, the bodies are in the ground. So are the. 01:30:45:14 - 01:31:07:17 Unknown Are the bodies infused with the ghosts? What? Why could. Okay. Why can Madison, when they're first seeing the place, find a twig, put the twig upright on the ground and push it. Push it into the ground, and then watch it be pushed back out of the ground toward her like it's a sprinkler. well, yeah, that I don't that it's. 01:31:07:18 - 01:31:29:03 Unknown Yeah. What makes that happen? you know, I can't I you ask me these questions like, I'm one of the paranormal paranormal researchers, and I know, like, I'm not Jared Harris right now. I don't I don't okay? I don't think it's like a ghost. I don't think it's like a dead body with this. It's like reaching out of a coffin and physically pushing the twig back up. 01:31:29:03 - 01:31:49:10 Unknown If that's what you're asking. It's most likely magic. It's probably ghostly, gooey magic. I mean, it would be much funnier. And then. And then one times the finger actually comes out, and then she's playing with a with a

skeleton finger. It's got a little smiley face drawn on it with a Sharpie. Exactly, exactly. It's fun. It's a lighthearted comedy like Ghostbusters. 01:31:49:12 - 01:32:24:14 Unknown This is where it gets a little confusing for me, where there's like, it's just shit happening as opposed to anything being having intent where, like Rosemarie DeWitt, I found this trivia kind of interesting. Rosemarie DeWitt apparently agreed to do this film because her husband had just. It was Ron Livingston. I had just been in The Conjuring, and The Conjuring was hugely successful and in a in a rare moment in this episode, not comparing it to the original, but comparing it to The Conjuring. 01:32:24:16 - 01:32:50:00 Unknown what the the first conjuring film does so well is like it start small and it the the what? The activity that happens in that has a through line like the it ramps up inactive. There's a slow possession of one of the characters and there's like a want a definite want or you know like the the ghost is compelling. 01:32:50:02 - 01:33:15:09 Unknown The children in the film this I don't, but the ghost is a prankster in that. Like it wants to play with the kid, but it also wants to consume the kid and have the kid be a guide. Which kid? Why is Griffin more terrified of it than Maddie? Can Maddie see them? Who has the special power? How can the ghost also travel through the TV but also possess a tree? 01:33:15:11 - 01:33:35:20 Unknown Yeah, why? I mean, like, I don't understand a lick of what's happening with the ghosts here. Yeah, I mean, look, a lot of the ghost stuff in the original doesn't strictly make sense. How it's connected or how it's doing one thing or another. The original is literally just a bunch of different spooky things happening at the same house. 01:33:35:20 - 01:34:00:16 Unknown But in the original, there was a connective tissue with everything else, with the family. And like you were just on board enough with the characters that you weren't sitting around wondering, what are the logistics of the ghosts? Because you're more wondering, how is this affecting the characters that I'm invested in? Yeah. How is it making them feel? It's part of why I'm ambivalent on the first film, too. 01:34:00:17 - 01:34:26:03 Unknown I'm fine. It the individual things in a vacuum to be interesting. The chair scene is interesting. The, the, you know, right before the, the chair experiment when she's, you know, clearly what The Sixth Sense borrowed from as she's talking to Carolyn. And, yeah, she's walking through the kitchen in one take and you see the the kitchen chairs, you know, around the table. 01:34:26:03 - 01:34:52:19 Unknown She walks off, you know, the camera follows her off frame and we walk back, and they're all stacked like, yeah, on top. That was a cool effect that was scary. Yeah. That is actually, you know what they claim poltergeist activity is, but yeah, everything else in the first film also feels pretty disconnected and and crazy. Like, if you can possess a tree, why would you possess a clown doll if you can? 01:34:52:21 - 01:35:21:05 Unknown If you can suck a person through a portal, why? Why fuck around with being inside of a clown? Why? Well, I don't know. Some some not going to. Not going to take that bait. I'm curious about the clowns because it's like there's this whole thing on the first night where where a griffin opens, you know, a little closet in his room, and he pulls on a string and a whole bunch of different clown dolls fall down from, like, some crawl space. 01:35:21:05 - 01:35:36:23 Unknown And his dad runs in when he's screaming and sees him, it's like, oh, the old owner must have left them. So a few different questions. First, it's like, okay. First it's like, okay, the real estate agent is showing them the house. Oh, the former owner was really into electronics. So the whole house is wired and there's speakers in the walls. 01:35:37:01 - 01:35:58:18 Unknown Okay. Who was the old owner? What's going on with him? Did the poltergeist haunt this guy out? Why did he leave a bunch of clowns behind? What's the deal with that? Why are the clown dolls? And then. And then he is scared by the these clown dolls that he finds in there, and. But then another night, then when his parents are off at the dinner party, Griffin is sleeping in his room. 01:35:58:18 - 01:36:18:07 Unknown And the clown dolls, which are still in the room, he's just left there, even though he's scared. Then the clown dolls animate and start running around and attack him. But it's like, why did you just leave the creepy random clown dolls in your room? Dog? Why didn't you throw them out? They're not yours. You don't like them? Why didn't you have your dad take them away? 01:36:18:09 - 01:36:43:09 Unknown That many clowns, especially, like tucked away in a crawlspace? Like that's the house of a serial killer. That's John Wayne Gacy lived in Illinois, is all I'm saying. Maybe he had a vacation property. Dude was making bank for a while. All right, there's there's a specific formula when it comes to clowns in horror films. Yeah, I'm going to butcher it, but let's try analogy over here. 01:36:43:09 - 01:37:20:12 Unknown Yes. Clowns are scary. Yes. Because they are evil. Yeah okay. Yeah. Evil clowns are not scary because they're evil. all right. So I don't I'm going to be honest I don't understand what you just said. Okay. The original Poltergeist clown. Scary. Yeah. Because it's a clown. This poltergeist clown. Not scary because it's an evil clown. I know, I get it. 01:37:20:12 - 01:37:41:18 Unknown The original Poltergeist clown is is convincingly looking like a child's toy clown. But a child's toy clown is scary. This is a clown that sounds are scary. This is a clown that is made up to look scary and evil, and that makes it not scary. Am I getting it? Exactly? Am I glad? Because it's not a clown? It's an evil clown. 01:37:41:18 - 01:38:06:23 Unknown Yes. Okay. Yeah. It's like I can have a stack of

killer clowns from outer space figurines in my bedroom at night. No problem. Enjoy them. It's fine and fun. And we all have a good laugh at it. Yeah, if I had a stack of Ronald McDonald figurines on my bedside, I would not feel comfortable in my room at night because he's a clown. 01:38:06:23 - 01:38:27:01 Unknown And clowns are scary. Because yeah, because a clown that is not that is not overtly, visibly evil. You have to assume this clown is trying to put one over on me and lure me into a false sense of security. It's like when you can when the when the clown wears its evilness on his clown sleeve, that's it's like, okay, I know what I'm getting into. 01:38:27:01 - 01:38:47:06 Unknown I can handle this. Yeah, right. You can listen to My Chemical Romance, probably like the here's one thing I enjoyed about the design of this clown is that its pull string is its nose. That's a little disconcerting. Desperate. It's pretty cool. If I was if I was an evil clown, that's. I would have one of those. But it's it's face paint. 01:38:47:06 - 01:39:07:21 Unknown It's like it's made to look Gacy like with pointed features rather than. Yeah, kind of, you know, the tragic clown kind of look, but and it's voice box isn't just, you know, haha. You know, the typical clown size hole. I could do better than that. it can be great. I always go to the Happy Gilmore. get ready everybody. 01:39:07:21 - 01:39:33:17 Unknown Clown doing the punch. But of course, give me a second. Here we go. Get your hopes up. Holy shit. Dude, that's actually a remarkably effective and creepy clown impression. I was not thinking, given how badly we bungle literally every impression we try to do, every on air. That was really good. Thank you. Thank you. Damning you with faint praise, I suppose, but I thought that was good. 01:39:33:17 - 01:40:02:04 Unknown Well, the voice box for this clown that has evil looking features is an evil sounding voice box. Yes. So who the fuck is owning this doll? Yeah. And to begin with, and, and and you say to us, maybe you're being pedantic. It's a haunted house, but there are some spooktacular things that happen within. The person blinks and everything's back to normal, and their faces and all fucked up, and the drill isn't coming at their eye. 01:40:02:10 - 01:40:26:21 Unknown But then there's other stuff, like the clowns, where there are physical remnants of the thing. So it's like, okay, so clearly the house inhabited this clown doll, but then did it also record new audio for the clowns voice box? Right. I'm sorry. That's it. Once the doll is possessed, then it takes on the evil features. Is that what you're positing? 01:40:27:00 - 01:40:51:17 Unknown I mean, I guess I get much like barnyard, this movie has just created more questions than it answers. okay, so this is the other thing about this is like, okay, going back to the electricity question, they're not like flickering lights and stuff throughout the house. They're mostly like fucking up. Okay, here's a grape. I just have to go into grape territory real quick. 01:40:51:19 - 01:41:10:05 Unknown When you get horror coming out of like where you live at the outskirts of the horror community, but you have like a vacation home in in griped territory. Is that where is that where you go on the weekends to fish? Okay. Sorry. Can you see it with that? That's I don't know. I mean, this is where I feel like an outsider because I feel like horror fans are defensive. 01:41:10:05 - 01:41:43:03 Unknown Often. Not always, but very defensive and quick to, quick to justify and quick to, you know, talk about these things. Probably not to this film, but generally they do. Whereas like I, I'm more like, this doesn't work. We shouldn't be defending it. Sure. And what bothers me about a lot of and why it's hard to do horror in the modern day is like how many films you see where you have to go way out of your way to explain why they don't have access to their phones. 01:41:43:08 - 01:42:24:22 Unknown Because the way that they show a phone getting possessed in this film is just not a way that a, that technology works. Like when shit starts to go wrong, it starts to their screens start to like have a tracking effect, like it's an old CRT, VHS, you know, going the right. Yeah, that doesn't like the phone would shut off for a movie or you would get like an incoming call from, you know, numbers jumbling around, but your screen wouldn't go like it's next to a magnet for a movie that is so much about technology, it has a very, like, confusing understanding of technology and how it functions. 01:42:24:22 - 01:42:54:11 Unknown Yes, like I've never seen a flat screen TV do static the way the static in this movie works. I've never seen a phone glitch out in the way that it does, and the daughter just seems to think it's like, oh, what's wrong with my phone? What's going on here? Well, if the whole house is wired for technology because of this audio file or the techno file, like, why are they only choosing the device like it's almost like the the, the ghosts are ghosts of teenagers who need to upgrade their device. 01:42:54:13 - 01:43:14:05 Unknown Like these ghosts won't possess anything less than an iPhone 14 Pro model. yeah. Exactly. They all these ghosts want to do is just, you know, check out the latest TikTok dance challenges and maybe, you know, upload some videos of their own, like it's this house is possessed by the ghost of the dancers in the thriller video. Yeah. 01:43:14:07 - 01:43:49:08 Unknown The exact the only light that these ghosts are going towards is the ring light set up, right above their webcam. ghosts don't want to work anymore. so I'm, I don't know. I'm. I'm trying to. I'm trying to think of, like, I mean, I guess the the other thing then is that when when, Maddie has been sucked into the ghost world and when her brother finally goes in to get her back out, completing this kind of newly added arc for this movie about, oh, her brother was too scared

to save her when she was getting sucked into the portal, so now he's standing up for it by going into the ghost 01:43:49:08 - 01:44:10:14 Unknown world and and the rope. Whatever. It's very anticlimactic. It's. It's just not good. But the ghost world is basically just, like, kind of a spooky looking replica of their house, where everything in it is made out of writhing dead bodies, which sounds a lot more metal than it actually is. We got to talk about that too. So okay. 01:44:10:16 - 01:44:40:11 Unknown conceptually, this is an interesting idea. the this kind of Boston hellscape that exists as kind of a layer to our existing reality. Yeah, I, I not in this film. It's not done well here, but I like that idea. I like I can see walking into the production offices and looking at the concept art and going, well, that's interesting. 01:44:40:11 - 01:45:03:21 Unknown I think I'd like to see that. Oh, wait, this isn't a Poltergeist movie. the the thing is, and look, I the thing is that the TV show Stranger Things has taken this concept and has been just bludgeoning it to death for the past 6 or 7 years. The whole concept. Okay. Yeah. Now I that's where I have to check my reference at the window because I'm not. 01:45:03:21 - 01:45:22:17 Unknown As I watched the first season of Stranger Things and thought, okay, you know what? I'm kind of done with the 80s nostalgia, so let's keep it moving. And that was it. Look like that first season I think is great, and I think it goes downhill after and I think that but a I mean, that movie or that show is so clearly heavily influenced by Poltergeist. 01:45:22:17 - 01:45:42:22 Unknown But yes, B, this whole idea, it takes the idea from the original one that is revisited here of, oh, there's a reality like ours that's gross and evil directly on top of ours, and portals can exist between them. But so maybe part of why I reacted so, so negatively to this is even though Stranger Things came after this movie, it's just okay. 01:45:42:22 - 01:46:06:05 Unknown I have seen them. It really just flogging this notion of there is a there is a spooky world that looks kind of like a gross, broken down, rotted version of ours that sometimes children get lost in. But I mean, okay, it the first time you came across it on Stranger Things, I mean, just taking the seat of the concept in and of itself. 01:46:06:07 - 01:46:42:23 Unknown Yeah, that that concept in and of itself, yes, is cool. I think that the way it's executed here, though, we don't they don't really spend enough time on it to really establish it. It's like, what's she doing? Is she on the run in this world? Is she hiding from the like? Is she walking on writhing human bodies? If if the wall that she's hiding behind is made of the bodies and she's also running from the bodies, then can't the wall bodies see her and grab those hands that are trying to, like, move through the, you know, and biotic fluid of the ectoplasm? 01:46:42:23 - 01:47:02:17 Unknown Like, can't they just reach out and grab her like it's like original Poltergeist. We never see where the girl is. We just hear her and she comes back. And what is unseen is frightening. Here they give us some glimpses of it and a brief scene in there, and that immediately robs us of kind of the mystery or the terror of what is unseen. 01:47:02:19 - 01:47:21:19 Unknown And it just raises all these other questions. And so it makes the whole thing feel like, I don't know, was it that bad of a time for her? I mean, I don't want to be in a house made of writhing bodies either, but it's well, let's I'm not going to spend too much time on this. But I do want to mention what happens in the second and third film. 01:47:21:21 - 01:47:47:12 Unknown because it's given that's that's brought out a little bit more. And clearly they had that to, you know, reference and look back on when making this movie. Yeah. So the second film is kind of the, the force, the present, the beast, as it's referred to in the first film. Yeah. is given is more personified into this particular character. 01:47:47:14 - 01:48:17:07 Unknown and he becomes the face of there's this whole backstory of the bodies that were under the house. Were these people who died through this cult, and the cult leader is the one that's trying to possess Carol and and. Yeah, it's a whole fucking thing. And by the third film, a film I love, and I'm not gonna tip my hand for my verdict here, but I think more people should see it. 01:48:17:09 - 01:48:44:21 Unknown there's this whole idea of the mirror world. Yeah. you can actually see these entities in mirrors, in reflections. and you get that, you get that idea of like, oh, there is our world kind of mirrored in a evil or dimension. And there are these points where people can come through and affect our world or take us through to their world. 01:48:44:22 - 01:49:07:00 Unknown and it doesn't seem pleasant. That said, we don't ever really go into that world. We see reflections of it, but we don't ever go into it. And I could see the executive going, well, this time we're going to go into it. What if we give you the budget and you go into the world? Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think the the main thing that the original movie was missing was we just didn't get enough answers, like we didn't go all the way. 01:49:07:00 - 01:49:29:01 Unknown We didn't shine a light on every single nook and cranny of the story. And now we can do that and it'll make it better, obviously. okay. I think that's all I want to cover with the ghosts so far. Do you have anything else? no, I don't. All right, well, before we get into the paranormal investigators, let me, talk real quick about Rosemarie DeWitt, who she is. 01:49:29:03 - 01:50:00:00 Unknown and where this falls in her career. She's kind of an indie darling, I adore her. I think she brings. If you're you're casting, you know, the type of, textured actor to bring, an actor that can bring a textured performance like Jo Beth Williams did in the

original Rose. You can't get better than Rosemarie DeWitt. she's just she's, radiant onscreen, regardless of what she's in. 01:50:00:05 - 01:50:25:21 Unknown I like her a lot in this. I think probably her performance is my favorite in this movie. Yeah. Agreed. there are some pretty trophy things that they put her through, but, Yeah, she does, you know, wonders with it. So the. I don't mean to be derogatory toward her career, but she is the quintessential indie film protagonist's best friend. 01:50:25:23 - 01:50:53:14 Unknown Yes. she got her start in the early 2000 with a couple TV shows like Law and Order, sex and the city, Rescue me. she was in Cinderella man. she was in. Hey, hey, hey, Purple Violets, directed by one. I'm sorry. Written, produced and directed by one Edward Burns. Oh. Okay. Okay. So she, you know, she's kind of, you know, she's into arts, your stuff. 01:50:53:16 - 01:51:22:21 Unknown She likes to kind of think about things and kind of go a little deeper, find, think. Oh, you got me. You got me. she finally made a huge splash, I think in 2008, Rachel Getting Married and directed by Jonathan Demme, where she played the titular Rachel. she was one of the best friends, maybe the sister of, Toni Collette on, United States of Tara, the the Showtime show. 01:51:22:21 - 01:51:46:00 Unknown Yeah, great. Great show. she was on all the episodes of that. I think most, if not all, at least most, 2011. She stars in Your Sister's Sister with Emily Blunt. She. It's her first collaboration with Lynn Shelton. indie darling director who died way too young. She had such great movies, and such an interesting perspective. 01:51:46:02 - 01:52:14:12 Unknown she also directed Touchy Feely in 2013, starring Rosemarie DeWitt. she was in 2011 as Margaret, starring Jim Sheridan. There's a 54 connection in, like, a widely different directorial movie than what you actually got. Movie. An indie movie called Nobody Walks in 2011, written by Lena Dunham. Yeah. Then she starts to get some bigger movies starting 2012 with the watch, movie. 01:52:14:14 - 01:52:39:14 Unknown The machine is 100% get it? Throw it. Yeah, yeah, I know for a fact. Yeah. the odd life of Timothy Green. She, if you can make it was ensalada leaves. She was in some Oscar bait movies, like The Promised Land, directed by Gus Van Sant, starring Matt Damon. Yeah. another Oscar bait Beatty movie was men with Women and Children, starring, directed by Jason Reitman. 01:52:39:16 - 01:53:05:10 Unknown in 2014, and then another indie film, digging for fire, in 2015. So, again, this falls in a career where it's hard to blame someone for, like, going this on paper. Seems like it could be a sure fire hit. Of course. Why would you say no to it? Yeah, yeah, well, you've got you've got an acclaimed writer on board who has penned some other big hits. 01:53:05:10 - 01:53:30:20 Unknown It's a remake of a movie that was critically acclaimed and very popular. Yeah. You mentioned a little bit of David Lindsay a bears. Did I say that right? I think so, I don't fucking know. I, I tend to pronounce stuff wrong on the podcast. Our listeners know that. So don't ask me. well, you mentioned a little bit of his thing is first is Hollywood career goes like he might be a forgotten all star. 01:53:31:01 - 01:54:01:22 Unknown Oh, yeah. Absolutely. He he wrote, robots, the animated robots movie with Dreamworks. And now that's the Williams there with Robin Williams and Greg Kinnear. Baby, I remember seeing that in theaters. It has. Listen, I'll give this guy I want to give this writer a lot of credit because there's also a line in robots that has always stuck with me that I thought was hilarious, where at one point, Robin Williams character, says to Greg Kinnear, if I appear to be getting smaller, it's because I'm walking away. 01:54:02:00 - 01:54:29:05 Unknown It's really good. He I, you know, Brendan Frazier had a huge run in the early 2000, and then who remembers in CART that, I do not you do not he wrote, rabbit hole you talked about. He won the the Pulitzer for that. Yeah, yeah, Pulitzer for that? Yeah, Pulitzer for that. The. And the film version is very good, but not one I feel like anybody remembers. 01:54:29:06 - 01:54:45:12 Unknown No. Even though it was the debut of Miles teller. Yeah. And and, and, and, you know, same guy wrote David Lindsay. A bear wrote that as well. he wrote the script. Yeah. Yeah, he, he wrote. So I mean, yeah, I think that's, you know, goes to our mission statement here, which is forgotten doesn't necessarily mean bad. 01:54:45:12 - 01:55:03:14 Unknown Yeah. because I remember seeing Rabbit Hole in the theater. Actually, I might have seen a Q&A with him, because I saw that as a screening series out in LA where you'd watch the film and they have a filmmaker or, you know, someone from the film talking about it. I think that was a screenwriter one. So I probably saw a Q&A with him. 01:55:03:14 - 01:55:23:07 Unknown Yeah, I mean that I mean, that wouldn't that, that wouldn't be a surprise because it seems like this guy just works a lot. I want to also shout out he won two Tonys in 2023 for, writing a musical adaptation of his play. Kimberly Akimbo. but then he also, he also wrote Shrek the Musical in 2008. 01:55:23:08 - 01:55:44:08 Unknown Yeah, and no Tonys for that one. No, no Tonys for that one. Surprisingly, he also wrote, yeah, rise of the Guardians, which I. But is that different from Guardians of Cool? Oh, yeah. Yeah it is. Yes. Yeah. Sorry. I also forgot a movie. I seem to have forgotten. And he also wrote Oz the Great and Powerful, arguably one of Sam Raimi's worst films. 01:55:44:09 - 01:56:06:04 Unknown so. But but that was in 2013. Raimi's production company is doing this film. You could see how these sorts of connections start to get made. Yeah, exactly. He's like, I want to make another forgotten film with you. listen, I mean, there is something to be said for doing a job where where, good or bad, nobody remembers it.

01:56:06:04 - 01:56:35:01 Unknown We just get kind of a clean slate afterwards. Yeah, I get it. I always think about the. What? The Tibetan monks who do those elaborate sand paintings that take forever. And then as soon as they're done, they just wipe them away to start fresh. It's like, you know, you make making forgotten movies is basically that, actually, since you're talking about writing and we're talking about the little touches throughout this film, I want to call out a line in a moment that I thought was both great in terms of performance and was just a really nice line. 01:56:35:03 - 01:56:53:19 Unknown Yeah. when they're early on in the film, they're looking at the house and they have to they're deciding, okay, we don't have any other choice. Rosemarie DeWitt is, you know, with Sam Rockwell at the back window looking out the backyard, and he makes some sort of, you know, snarky joke about it. And she goes, you have to try to like this. 01:56:53:19 - 01:57:18:05 Unknown Yeah. And like it felt real between the two of them. You know, in terms of performance, it's a great line. It's a really good line. It was one of the few things that started to route me. But you know, ultimately there weren't enough of that in this. But I really like that moment. I know there is so is so many moments up at up at the top of the movie where he is making good use of the limited real estate. 01:57:18:05 - 01:57:49:02 Unknown He has to try and establish this, this family and and yeah, lines like that really do it. I think we should make use of the limited remaining podcasting real estate we have, or shall I say, remaining, real estate of our audience's attention span to start talking about the paranormal investigators in this movie. Okay, because I mentioned earlier that that this remake feels like a remix of the original in which they remixed everything into the worst possible way. 01:57:49:02 - 01:58:12:21 Unknown And I think that the paranormal investigators are sort of emblematic of that. because, you know, first we have just the simple fact that the family immediately goes to talk to the, weird cranks at the university, paranormal investigation department, rather than calling the cops or any other, any other work to try and figure out where their daughter went. 01:58:12:23 - 01:58:41:16 Unknown But so they, they, you know, go to them basically the day after the big catastrophe with the tree and the tar and Maddie getting sucked into her closet. And they bring the paranormal investigators back to the house and they're showing them around with everything that's happening. And they're basically retracing the steps of, I think, one of my favorite scenes in the original where, you know, in the original movie, they've been getting haunted for some amount of time. 01:58:41:16 - 01:58:59:00 Unknown Weird shit's been going on. They there's there's a there's a jump cut in time when the paranormal investigators come and it's like been, what, a couple weeks maybe. Oh

where we don't as the audience get to see it, but we get the feeling that they've been experiencing it for a while. Yes, clearly, at least at least a week has passed. 01:58:59:00 - 01:59:17:08 Unknown And it's like, you know, our oldest daughter is mainly staying with friends. Our son only sleeps with us. This room is locked away. They're showing them around. And there and there's this scene where one of the investigators is bragging about, like, I used a time lapse camera to get a seven hour video of a matchbox car rolling across the floor, and they're like, oh, yeah, okay. 01:59:17:08 - 01:59:34:21 Unknown And they open the door to the bedroom and like, shit's flying around and levitating and lights are flashing and it's this great moment of the paranormal. Investigators who are the pros are completely blown away and having their minds fucked by this. And the family who's been dealing with this for a week are all just like, yes, that's the rumor. 01:59:34:21 - 01:59:58:04 Unknown Shit's flying around. Anyway. What was that about a matchbox car? Very funny, very amazing. They they try to recreate that in this movie. They're showing them around one of the paranormal investigators, I should point out, played by Nicholas Braun, cousin Greg from succession. Folks, I was hooting and hollering at at a, at an appearance from one of my my and my one of my best friends, frankly, I got to talk about. 01:59:58:04 - 02:00:20:03 Unknown Yeah. The. I gotta talk about Boyd, but but so they do. This name is Boyd in the film. Boyd. you know, you know, all the, you know, the young men named Boyd these days, but, this same thing where he's bragging about having captured, you know, some very subtle paranormal experience on a time lapse camera. He tries to sit down on a chair, and the chair gets whipped out from under him and shatters against the wall. 02:00:20:05 - 02:00:48:05 Unknown And the whole family is just kind of nonchalantly shrugs and goes, yeah, well, yeah, whatever. Anyway, here's the next room and it's like, okay, but we haven't had it. Like, this seems to be 12 hours after their daughter disappeared. There's no indication that this has been a long time. Yeah. It's like it's just they have the the families reactions to this have just turned on a dime, simply because we want to try and mimic a scene from the original, even though we've done none of the work to earn it. 02:00:48:07 - 02:01:10:04 Unknown And so this coming right on the heels of them being like, no, we're not going to call the cops. We're not going to tell anyone about this. it's suddenly just makes like, any ability to get invested in these characters or understand their motivations. It's just lost at this point. We talked a little bit in Operation Force and Ruse to care about filmmakers like Shortcutting. 02:01:10:06 - 02:01:30:07 Unknown Yeah. yeah. And I feel like this is another example of that where it's like, well, we don't we don't need the jump in time. You know, the audience is just primed from, you know, 40 years of movie watching to know that they need a laugh right now. Yes. So we don't really need to go out of our way to justify it. 02:01:30:13 - 02:01:53:12 Unknown That said, that scene in the original is an example of something that's a little overwrought for me, something that I can't connect to. It takes me out of it. At times. I wish what I my ideal version would be this scene from this movie played out by the characters in the first movie. like, I want that jump in time in there. 02:01:53:12 - 02:02:25:12 Unknown Exactly. Everything you just outlined. But like, she opens the door and it's like there's shit floating around in a circle. There's this. It almost looks like it was shot for 3D. Yeah. And like, this protractor is taking five minutes to open up and move toward her face and like, yeah, the there's a suspension of disbelief or a disconnect between, like, the audience or me as an audience member reacting to the actor reacting to the stuff happening like I would almost rather just go, oh yeah, okay, great. 02:02:25:12 - 02:02:53:09 Unknown You, you, you had a time lapse thing and it took ten hours to watch this race car go across the thing, open the door and just have there be like some demon noise and a chair flung at the door and, you know, the door slamming shut and just going, oh, what the fuck was that? Yeah, like, I would I like the economy of the moment here more than I like the spectacle of the original, but I like the performers and just the, the vibe of the original more. 02:02:53:13 - 02:03:09:22 Unknown Yeah, yeah, I oh look, I, I will agree that the, the effects of the chair just unexpectedly flying out from under him and shattering against the wall. That looks that looks really cool. That's a startling moment. And I wish that the rest of everything around it kind of could lift it up the way that it does. Yes. 02:03:09:23 - 02:03:30:15 Unknown To be agreed. But but so they've got these investigators, they're showing them around and it's just, you know, that that the investigators in the first movie do a bunch of actual study and stuff. And here I just feel like it doesn't go very far. We get a scene with Boyd where he's like trying to do some drilling in the closet that she disappeared into where, like, his hand, I hate this. 02:03:30:20 - 02:03:43:19 Unknown Yeah, it's like it gets, you know, the drill goes through the wall, and then he's feeling around for it, and then he's getting. He's getting pinned to the wall. Something's pulling on him, and the drill is drilling through from the other side, and it's about to drill into his face, but then it okay, the thing lets him go. 02:03:43:19 - 02:04:08:05 Unknown Then here's this is part of what I was trying to get to earlier about just saying shit just happens in this film. Yeah. It's like there's logistically this doesn't make sense. And the fact that the movie, a supernatural movie is making me think about logistics speaks to the foundational

problem here. Yeah, he's got a drill. He's going to be drilling, mounts for a camera or for, like, a thermal camera. 02:04:08:05 - 02:04:28:04 Unknown Right. Got a sensor? Yeah. And he puts the as he starts to drill in, like his whole hand gets pulled in. He drops the drill through this hole in the wall, and he's putting his hand down there to try to get it. And something grabs his arm and holds him against the wall. And then the drill starts coming through the wall, you know, closer and closer to his face. 02:04:28:10 - 02:04:56:07 Unknown Okay, a you're like veering into torture porn territory with that. Sure. Which is like antithetical to the haunted house movie. Yeah. Be on a logistical basis the length of the drill that you would need to go through the wall toward his face, like there's not enough space for the between the walls, for the a hand like you shouldn't be questioning about. 02:04:56:08 - 02:05:17:01 Unknown Yeah, yeah, but it is a real drill when he goes in. So it's not like a fake drill. It's a real drill that he drops and then it's coming towards his face. Granted, then he's all hallucinating it. So then who gives a shit in the first place? But the other thing is, this is a PG 13 movie. At no point do I think I'm going to watch a drill go into someone's face. 02:05:17:05 - 02:05:48:08 Unknown So the whole moment is irrelevant. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I didn't know it was PG 13 and B, I am very deeply emotionally invested in Nicholas Braun. So I was just very worried about my boy no matter what. but, yeah, it's a scene that just kind of ultimately means nothing doesn't come back to anything. And it's you can't make your movie just a collection of spooky bits when you're not presenting them as well or as effectively as the first film did. 02:05:48:10 - 02:06:07:07 Unknown But I want to talk to something more systemic that you mentioned, which is the first film has the team and they're a team. Yes. They go in, they work together, they're doing science. They're they're collectively being astonished by what they're seeing. They're talking together, trying to justify like, well, maybe it could be this or maybe it could be this. 02:06:07:08 - 02:06:31:06 Unknown they're individually having experiences. One guy gets bit by, you know, some spectral entity. Yeah. another guy hallucinates that, his face falling apart. I should probably save this for the mini, but I just have to get it off my chest. In the first film, one of the investigators goes into the kitchen and there's this really intense sequence. 02:06:31:11 - 02:06:47:12 Unknown He goes to the kitchen to have a late night snack. I get that he pulls out a chicken wing like a cold chicken wing. He's just going to munch on. He pulls out a raw steak and sets it on the counter. My mind is, are you not going to grill a steak at two in the morning because everyone else is asleep? 02:06:47:17 - 02:07:07:14 Unknown But who the fuck do you think you are? Walking into someone's house and eating

their, like, prime cuts of meat? I mean, yeah, like so many questions about that. The just the biggest, fattest, thickest T-Bone steak. You also shouldn't counter defrost that stuff, but yeah. Like what? You're gonna you're gonna. Are you yourself. You're gonna grill an entire stick. 02:07:07:16 - 02:07:35:00 Unknown Like he said. I'm going to get a bite to eat. You're going to be in the kitchen for what, like half an hour stinking up the whole house? And then you're going to just sit down all by yourself and eat this, like, 42 ounce porterhouse steak? Just get a baked potato while you're at it. Yeah, okay. I'm way off my point, which is, I say that ridiculousness, the first movie has a team and they work as a team, and even when they bring ten Gina in, like, she feels like an extra part of the team. 02:07:35:00 - 02:08:03:08 Unknown Yes. Here it's just like an I don't understand how these people are together. Like, unless Jane Addams, the head, of the department, is like overseeing Boyd and the other investigator who's given, like, two seconds of screen time. Yeah, nothing. And I can't remember her name offhand. unless she's, like, overseeing their thesis and has to work with them, there's no reason they would be working together. 02:08:03:09 - 02:08:26:08 Unknown They are like they're not a team. Boyd is like trying to get Griffin at one point to go. You know, it seems like your dad's on hard times. Have you ever thought about, you know, having a poker guys could be kind of lucrative? Yeah. Even if it turns out to be a hoax. And Griffin's like, no, I just want my sister back and then walks away and he goes, you're good, kid, you're good. 02:08:26:10 - 02:08:47:14 Unknown Just in a cringeworthy scene to me. yeah. The just need to be there like I don't when there's no come up. It's for Boyd. There's no need for him to have a character that needs comeuppance. Why is this shit in there? Yes, and it's the same as when then they call in the big guns when there was promptly outmatched by this. 02:08:47:14 - 02:09:11:21 Unknown And Jane Adams calls in, Jared Harris's character, the the TV ghost hunter. Carrigan Burke, like they they call him in to deal with this. And it sort of comes up that, oh, she and Carrigan actually used to be married, and their marriage fell apart, and she went into academia and became it. Can two characters who are opposite sex not have a sexual past? 02:09:11:22 - 02:09:32:04 Unknown No. In a movie physically impossible. But like but okay, why is that necessary? It's so stupid. This whole thing. This is in the third act of the movie. There's like 20 minutes of movie left and it's like it comes like, oh, you. You two used to be married. Oh, I didn't I didn't realize that. Oh, yeah. Well, she went and retreated into academia purpose for it. 02:09:32:05 - 02:09:57:20 Unknown There is no reason we don't need this backstory on them. This is taking away from moments that we could get with the family, who we've been following for the

whole movie. And I like, it's it's it it's like there is they give us too much of the paranormal investigators, but for no purpose. Like it's in the same way that like, there's too much and too little time. 02:09:58:01 - 02:10:22:12 Unknown They no, no end. Yes. They're sewing. They're they're adding in points of conflict and tension between characters. That does not need to be there. That is cluttering the the movie. And they're not giving it space to develop. It's kind of similar to just the simple fact that, like, you know, Sam Sam Rockwell's family is like in this state of financial distress and desperation, but then nothing is ever really done with that. 02:10:22:12 - 02:10:43:15 Unknown So it's like you just introduced this thing that they talked about a little bit that then disappears. And it's the same with this. Like they are. Yeah. This is not making the movie better. It's not making the movie scarier. It is just, cluttering the our road to to the finish line. And yet it's still a brisk 95 minutes. 02:10:43:15 - 02:11:00:01 Unknown I know, I know, I mean, look, it's like it's a joke about the two old women at the restaurant where one of them is saying this food is terrible and the other one is saying yes, in such small portions, it's like we should I shouldn't be complaining. I don't like the movie. You should have given me more of it. 02:11:00:03 - 02:11:30:18 Unknown yeah. Okay, so what else to say about these investigators before going into to Jane Adams and to, Jared, Jared Harris? okay. Let's talk a little bit about Carrigan Burke. Jared Harris. Yes. Gina. Replacement. Here's what bothers me. Is that the character, if the film was a little more tongue in cheek, I think I really would have liked this, you know, TV investigator approach to it. 02:11:30:18 - 02:11:56:05 Unknown Yes. Yes. and the film goes out of its way to address some things of the first film or try to physically fit some lines, the iconic lines from the first film into this, maybe that like, it took me six days for my eyes to unroll. particularly his catchphrase. Now, the thing is his catchphrase, which I'll get to in a second. 02:11:56:08 - 02:12:29:12 Unknown Okay. When he says that on the show would have been a fun reveal like, hey, this is a gimmick. This is something that producers are hoisting on me. I'm a real like, paranormal investigator, but the artifice of doing a reality show and the, you know, the line that everyone knows from the original, this house is clean. Like if that was revealed as a like in movie joke of like, we can't take this shit seriously, but it's, you know, what the producers are asking on a reality show as part of the gimmick. 02:12:29:14 - 02:12:57:05 Unknown That would be kind of fun, but the movie we're watching has the teenage daughter loving the line and like, oh, look, look, he's going to say it. This house is clean. He's going to say his catchphrase and the introduction of it ruins it. It's like I remember once I was. I was seeing up in the air. Yeah. the Jason Reitman movie starring George Clooney and, okay, I guess spoiler alert, if you give a shit about this. 02:12:57:05 - 02:13:23:01 Unknown But, there's a guy behind me as George Clooney. There's a point in the movie where he has gone through his, you know, airplane exploits and is coming back to, Vera Farmiga. and she, as he's walking up here, stupid to knock on the door. The guy in the theater behind me goes, she's married. and I'm like, okay, it wasn't. 02:13:23:01 - 02:13:40:05 Unknown I mean, I it's not that I was was not aware of that or wasn't going to be super obvious, but like, I was wrapped up in the movie enough to not like to have the spell working on me, and the guy behind me just kind of ruined what was happening by, you know, saying it out loud before it happened. 02:13:40:09 - 02:14:06:02 Unknown Yeah. And that's kind of the case here. This the the older teenage daughter in this movie was just kind of like that annoying movie theater goer. the fact that she makes him, that she films him and makes him say, this house is clean at the very end. Yeah. And that earlier she's been watching him on TV and there's like, hashtag this house is clean at the bottom of the screen. 02:14:06:02 - 02:14:29:12 Unknown And he says, this house is clean. That's funny. That to me is funny because I would believe that. Yeah, but calling it out is what's not funny. Just just hitting it on the head again and again. Like, yeah, it is really. yeah. It it's it's a lot. I agree with you though. I think that in, in the same way that like bringing in the idea of the whole neighborhood being foreclosed and like having this be about suburbia falling apart. 02:14:29:17 - 02:14:46:06 Unknown I think it's interesting, the idea that, oh, the expert they bring in has a professional ghost hunting show, because that is a thing in 2015. And now, like ghost hunting reality shows are huge. And I think there's a lot that could be done with that. Like, no, maybe the person we bring in who claims to be an expert is actually an idiot. 02:14:46:07 - 02:15:05:18 Unknown That what if they've got a camera crew with them that is making everything worse? Like there's so much interesting stuff that could be done with this that the movie does not engage with. Why are they bringing in the university crew when I'm sure he a would do this as a episode on this TV show and be has a crew with him? 02:15:05:23 - 02:15:27:10 Unknown Yeah. Why not like from a writing you're writing the poltergeist remake? Why not? Just like, go. Why do I need to do all of this? You know, extra work to set up both tracks of these characters when I just make it the one thing. Yeah. And. Yeah. What? Why am I so beholden to the exact structure of the original? 02:15:27:10 - 02:15:45:01 Unknown Like. Oh, well, I have to have three university investigators because that's what's in the original movie. And I have to exactly follow that template or it doesn't count. And then those

three investigators have to bring in, you know, the expert because it's beyond their expertise. And they have this whole thing of when it comes in, it's like, oh, he knows that he can't do this for his show right. 02:15:45:01 - 02:16:06:23 Unknown Yeah that's fine. It's like, well wait. Also, why are you guys so dead set on keeping this a secret like in the original movie, it makes sense that Craig Nelson wants to keep a lid on the spooky stuff going on, because he's a real estate agent who's trying to sell other houses in this same development. Sam Rockwell, why does he care if people find out about the spooky shit going on like it's. 02:16:07:01 - 02:16:36:05 Unknown Yeah, yeah, it's it's a, it is. I just another another time where this movie has the opportunity to reach for something interesting but opts not to. It's just that perfect remixing into something that does not catch your imagination. Yeah. the other kind of problem, just inherently in the script, not in the performance necessarily is the level of expertise each of these people bring. 02:16:36:05 - 02:17:01:08 Unknown Yes. I liked that in the original and to, to a very slight degree here, the original investigators are like, yeah, we know a thing or two. We might be able to help you out. Let us get in there and see what's what. And they quickly get in there and go, oh, okay. Yeah. We are used to, you know, time lapsing, a race car going across a toy race car going across a floor for ten hours. 02:17:01:08 - 02:17:22:21 Unknown Yeah. Not a chair being flung at the wall. This is above our pay grade. Let's bring in the expert. You know this. Bring in. You know, not even an expert, but, like, we need experimental help. Yeah, like when they. There's not a lot of explanation for who Gina is when she's brought into Poltergeist. Yeah, it's just someone that they've encountered in their, you know, paranormal experiments, at the university. 02:17:22:23 - 02:17:55:22 Unknown And when she comes in, I don't know, she's got an expertise. But what they're trying to do here with Carrigan Burke is almost like a max von Sydow sort of thing in The Exorcist, where I battle the spirits as if, like, these spirits are a specific thing I know is it's like, where's his dad? Monster manual? Yeah, like, oh, this is, you know, I'm going to need, you know, something to to amp up my dexterity modifiers. 02:17:56:03 - 02:18:13:14 Unknown if I'm going against these guys. Yeah. always helpful to have as opposed to just going, I don't know what we're up against. This is what it could be like. It's kind of a a mishmash of being an expert, knowing what he's up against, but not having any idea of what's going to be effective or not effective. 02:18:13:14 - 02:18:34:04 Unknown Like it's just it's all over the map. It's not really clear, like what makes him good at what he does or even whether he's good at what he does, which is. Yeah, also. Yeah, but he has scars. he says the exact same thing Jane Adams does. Yes. He has scars to prove it. Yeah. It seems to me that you're just like an asshole who pisses off the ghosts. 02:18:34:04 - 02:18:54:01 Unknown Maybe. Like, maybe that's not a sign that you're actually good at what you do. It's. It's also, it's a bold choice because, like, trying to make the, like Zelda Rubinstein in the original Poltergeist. You know, she's this little person who comes in very knowledgeable. She tells the ghosts what's what. She she really has this commanding presence, even though she's in a little bit of the movie. 02:18:54:07 - 02:19:17:06 Unknown So to fill those shoes, you create a character who is the the host of a TV reality TV ghost hunting show. That's bold because because people who host reality TV ghost hunting shows are some of the most like laughable, clownish, easily marketable people in the world. And I say this is someone who used to work on a TV ghost hunting show. 02:19:17:08 - 02:19:42:10 Unknown So it's like I it's easier for me to suspend my disbelief for the existence of ghosts in the afterlife than it is for me to suspend my disbelief, to assume that there could be a TV ghost hunter who's actually cool and and can actually help you in a problem. it's a big swing. I mean, the most realistic thing is during the film, or during his show, the clips that we see of his show, he is wearing a fedora. 02:19:42:12 - 02:20:04:08 Unknown Yeah, yeah, that's on brand and I. And like that thing. Lean into it. Have him be a real fedora guy. Idiot. Who who is outmatched, outclassed, terrified by this, but then calls on something deeper within himself or some expertise that he has and is able to deliver something like, just by following in the footsteps of the of the original movie. 02:20:04:10 - 02:20:29:06 Unknown But kind of remixing what things look like or who plays what role. It doesn't it doesn't create something satisfying. Yeah, yeah. That said though, I really like Jared Harris. I like I love Jane Addams. I want to talk just real quick about where this falls in their careers. I'm gonna start with Jane Adams, who we haven't we haven't really gone too deep into it on her character, but there's just not a lot no go into. 02:20:29:07 - 02:20:47:01 Unknown She stammers. That's her character. Yeah. So she's, nominated for two Emmys, for her most recent, turn on the HBO show hacks. which I know you love Jane Smart. I am, I am a I'm a fan of hacks. I had to look up and remember who she is, but she is actually quite not. Jean smart. 02:20:47:01 - 02:21:01:07 Unknown I do look up who, Jane Adams is on hacks, but she is very good playing Hannah Einbinder as mother. So she starts in the mid to late 80s, with some TV, including a tales from the dark Side. I say that because I'm a horror fan and love tales from the dark Side, but I live in the horror film. 02:21:01:10 - 02:21:26:12 Unknown Yep. She also starred in Paul Schrader's Light Sleeper with Sam Rockwell. Oh, you might know her from 11 episodes of Frasier. 000 sits up. yes.

Frasier has entered the building. I don't remember who she was. Can you tell me the name of her character? I didn't put that in my notes. Well, then we know right off the gate. 02:21:26:14 - 02:21:46:22 Unknown sadly, I'm not as big of a fan as I thought. You keep talking while I go and see. Okay. so she started with Sam Rockwell, as I said. But she also previously starred with Jared Harris in, Todd Salon's happiness. but she's also doing some, pretty mainstream stuff. And father of the bride, part two. 02:21:46:22 - 02:22:11:05 Unknown You've got mail, a wonderful movie that is, kind of overlooked is Wonder Boys with Michael Douglas. she was in it. She does, 2004 is her, Jim Carrey year. She does Eternal Sunshine of the spotless, Spotless Mind. I think she plays, part of the married couple. David Cross plays the other part. Right. 02:22:11:08 - 02:22:29:18 Unknown as the friends they visit. but she's also in A Series of Unfortunate Events, Lemony Snicket. So I should say. Yeah. it's got to be a cool Todd Field. You you've made it in the bedroom joke earlier out of nowhere I, you know, I wouldn't call it a joke so much as just a reference, but sure, I mean, you you seem to think it was a joke. 02:22:29:20 - 02:22:55:15 Unknown Just I'm just shocked. she was in, Todd Field's little children. she had a great role in a really small film, called the Wackness with Josh Drake. and Ben Kingsley. She, she was on all episodes of HBO hung, and, she was also in digging for fire, which I mentioned earlier when I talked about Rosemarie DeWitt. 02:22:55:19 - 02:23:16:20 Unknown She has starred with every other actor in this film before. So that was that was how they got her. Basically, they just everybody had her number. They all texted her at the same time and she couldn't say no, Janie, I got your number. Oops. This is not, get sued for doing that. You know, I think you're I think you misunderstand how copyright law works. 02:23:16:20 - 02:23:37:22 Unknown Us warbling very off key a few lines of a popular song does not get, copyright people on us, because actually, that makes people less likely to listen. And the idea is that playing the actual song would allow us to profit from it. Oh, boy. Okay. Jared Harris, he is the son of Richard Harris, infamous. Not infamous. 02:23:37:22 - 02:24:10:10 Unknown That that that sounds a bit like he's like. Yeah, he's like a warlord or something. No, he's not a warlord. He's, he's, just a famous, well-regarded, English actor. He was the first Dumbledore. yes. Dumbledore for a certain generation. but many other things to many other generations. but Jared Harris, was an actor who I think is going to be most well known, depending on your interests, because he spends so much time and so many genres. 02:24:10:12 - 02:24:31:09 Unknown Yeah, he's just kind of a workhorse character actor. So you might know him from Chernobyl. oh. We might know him from Mad Men, both of which he was nominated for an Emmy. you might know him as. I

think Richard's the third, in the Crown. Richard the third? No, he's the hunchback. He's definitely not Richard the third. 02:24:31:09 - 02:25:00:05 Unknown No, he's he's the one who is. Who is Queen? Queen Elizabeth's, dad who dies and she becomes. Yes. Yeah, yeah. I've been watching too many towers of London's. yeah. I don't know which Richard he is, but it sure as shit ain't the third. I don't even think he's a Richard, for that matter. His, film credits go back to 1989, in the early 90s for small parts in big films like Far and Away, last of the Mohicans, Natural Born Killers, in the 1990s. 02:25:00:05 - 02:25:24:11 Unknown He's on the indie scene in films like Wayne Wang's Smoke, Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man, Dead Man with, Johnny Depp. He played Andy Warhol, and Mary Herron's, I shot Andy Warhol. as I mentioned, he was in, happiness. Todd. Silence. Happiness with Jane Addams. his body of work is just, like, so big. okay, here, here. 02:25:24:12 - 02:25:45:14 Unknown Just a few notables to get us up to to to speed here. Curious case of Benjamin Button, Ocean's 12. He works with Guy Ritchie and man from uncle and the Sherlock Holmes. The first Sherlock Holmes movie is Moriarty. he works with, Spielberg in Lincoln as Ulysses S Grant. Yeah, he works with Adam Sandler and Mr. Deeds. 02:25:45:18 - 02:26:11:05 Unknown Lady in the water. Igby goes down. he's in one of the residents evil. so leading into to be in. Everybody's been in a Resident Evil at some point leading into Poltergeist. he's on like a mainstream kick with films like, Mortal Instruments forgotten. Poulter. I'm sorry. Pompeii. for. Yes. Yes. The Boxtrolls. 02:26:11:08 - 02:26:32:14 Unknown Forgotten. Yeah. and then I just have to mention this for myself. the year before this film, he's in a revitalization of hammer Horror Films, a production company that was, you know, really well known 50, 60, 70, and came back, in the early 2000 with, Let Me In and, Woman in Black. Yeah, but you're right. 02:26:32:16 - 02:26:54:03 Unknown You're not in the horror community, though. Now you're sort of in the distant, distant outskirts, you know, rooting for the revival of a beloved 60s, English horror production company. but that film that he was in before this was called The Quiet Ones. So, like, he's not he's not a stranger to this type of horror either. Yeah. 02:26:54:05 - 02:27:28:00 Unknown And then he takes this film. Yeah. And then he. And, you know, this is his first film playing a reality TV ghost hunter. And frankly, so I, I, I'm glad he didn't get typecast, but also kind of kind of wish he did. I wish that this character A had been given the freedom to suck and that be. Then we got a spinoff about like this crappy TV ghost hunter having learned nothing, continuing to try and hunt ghosts and do badly at it, keep keep getting injured by the ghosts because he pisses them off. 02:27:28:01 - 02:27:49:00 Unknown It sounds like a will 4k vehicle. Honestly it does. I'd watch that. I'd watch that. I'd. What can we can we, can we get will Forte in this movie instead of Jared Harris? No disrespect to Jared Harris, but I just want to. Well, hold on now we're starting to veer into, like, a scary movie, territory. And I want to just make sure we're approaching it from a slightly different angle. 02:27:49:00 - 02:28:08:22 Unknown You know, at least, you know, I feel like at least Scary Movie committed fully to the bit that it was doing. Unlike this movie, which does not commit to any of its bits. all right. What what else do we talk about in our remaining moments here? I didn't think plot wise, I don't know. I mean, they Jared Harris comes in, he helps him. 02:28:08:22 - 02:28:25:11 Unknown You know, they throw a rope into the portal and there's people pulling on the rope from downstairs. So go watch the original poltergeist. This same stuff happens. They get the daughter, the son goes in holding the rope. He gets Maddy back. They pull him out of the ceiling. They're covered in goop. They wash him off in the bath. 02:28:25:15 - 02:28:42:10 Unknown They're trying to leave the house. There's a fake out ending which is also again remixed for the minimal amount of tension and suspense and enjoyment in the like. They are in the car and is just like, oh, but the ghosts aren't gone. Wait, I thought you helped them go into the light. No, they didn't want to go into the light. 02:28:42:11 - 02:29:01:17 Unknown no. We have to go in. The ghosts pull the car back into the house. It's so just. Oh, they did a fake out at the end of the of the other movie. We got to do the same thing here, but faster. Just the same thing, but faster. The same thing, but faster and worse. Oh, God. All right, well, then let's go into our final two segments here. 02:29:01:17 - 02:29:22:06 Unknown Why? Why do you think this film was forgotten? I at risk of making this any longer. I would like to read an excerpt from an essay, that I hope. Okay, well, we'll, shed some light on that. This is an excerpt from the 2021 essay. Everyone is Beautiful and No One Is Horny by Benedict. And it ran on Blood knife.com. 02:29:22:08 - 02:29:55:13 Unknown Okay, this is a piece of pop culture criticism that is more broadly focusing on how, you know, heroes in action movies, Marvel movies are all very beautiful and and immaculately, you know, their bodies are immaculate, but nobody shows any desire or messiness and kind of partizans. Yes, exactly, exactly. Not even a but, scene today, one of the most striking scenes in 1982 is Poltergeist is not the evil clown doll or the monster tree, but a moment of relaxed affection between the parents. 02:29:55:18 - 02:30:17:18 Unknown The father, a bald, beer bellied Craig T Nelson, cracks jokes and prances for his wife, who wears a frumpy nightgown and smokes a joint and gamma's weed thoughts and laughs at her husband's silly display. Finally the husband. Finally, the husband playfully dives on to the bed. Neither character is glamorous in this scene, but

their relationship feels frisky and lived in and charismatic and real. 02:30:17:20 - 02:30:42:06 Unknown The house looks real, too. There are toys and magazines scattered around the floor. There are cardboard boxes waiting to be unpacked. Since the recent move. The kitchen counters are cluttered and mealtimes are rambunctious and sloppy, as one expects in a house with three children. Compare this to homes in films now massive, sterile, cavernous spaces with minimalist furniture. Kitchens are industrial sized and spotless, and they contain no food. 02:30:42:11 - 02:31:09:09 Unknown There is no excess. There is no mess. In her blog, McMansion hell, Kate Wagner examines precisely why these widely hated 5000 square foot housing bubble behemoths are so awful. Over and over again, she reiterates the point that McMansions are not built to be homes. They're built to be short term investments. End of quote. So bringing this back around to housing, the way we started this whole thing. 02:31:09:11 - 02:31:30:14 Unknown Yeah. The original Poltergeist was a labor of love. It was built on I mean obviously it was designed to make money. Movies are it was financed by a studio. But it came together because of a bunch of themes and ideas that were really important to Steven Spielberg and Tobe Hooper. By comparison, this remake of Poltergeist is basically a McMansion. 02:31:30:14 - 02:31:55:00 Unknown It's sterile, it's composed, it's lifeless, and it's just sort of a short term investment that was cooked up by Fox 2000 and MGM because they wanted to try and squeeze some more life out of an IP they already had. So we don't remember this movie because I think at every level, like no one was, no one was really putting the thought, the consideration, the heart, the love into it that Spielberg put into this. 02:31:55:01 - 02:32:15:06 Unknown Spielberg and Hooper put into the original. Everybody was kind of like, okay, well, we have to do this, so let's do this. Let's put together the pieces and more or less the order that they were, and maybe people will see it. I mean, how do I follow that up? I should have let you go first. 02:32:15:08 - 02:32:46:06 Unknown Yeah. I feel like I'll just take five minutes to say the same thing. I take issue a tiny bit with, like, well, not even a why am I even going to try to, like, clearly Spielberg was trying to make money. Yeah. You know, but he was trying to make money doing the thing he loved. Yeah. And, you know, I think there's a lot of people that contribute to the tangible quality of the original. 02:32:46:08 - 02:33:11:05 Unknown I'm very proud of us that we didn't get into the practical versus CGI argument here. Now, that said, I think I said something on our our Tarzan episode, which I still hold true and I think applies here, which is when you can do anything with CGI, the brain doesn't register it as important. Yes, exactly. I feel like. 02:33:11:06 - 02:33:43:10 Unknown Yeah. And I want to circle back to what I said at the beginning of this episode that I watched this movie four times. Yeah, for this episode, not including the original trilogy and I don't think I would be able to do that if there was anything substantive here for me to latch on to. Sure, it's a movie that just kind of moves through you like a ghost, like you feel a cold spot for a second, and then it's gone and you're like, what was that? 02:33:43:10 - 02:34:01:20 Unknown Yeah. And then you might feel it again when you walk in the next room, like, you can watch this film and then not remember this film and then watch this film again and then not remember this film again. This movie will just make the lights on your TV flicker, and that will be that. And that will be that. 02:34:01:22 - 02:34:12:12 Unknown What? What more is there to say? That's why this film is forgotten. It's it's, it's a TV strobe light. There's no here, here. 02:34:12:14 - 02:34:32:06 Unknown Fuck that moment to. Jesus Christ, I can do that. Oh, shoot. She sets it up by saying they're coming. And then she says, they're here. good God. okay. Well, so then let's get to our verdict. Should we send this back to modern memory or should we not? No. Let's not. Let's forget the hell out of this movie. 02:34:32:08 - 02:34:55:19 Unknown Let's throw this movie into the closet. I, I since I've got a big bag here, on my side of the machine of send this back to modern memory stamps. I'm gonna I'm gonna use one of these stamps to, use on Poltergeist three. I, I want to take this opportunity to say, hey, let's send that movie back to modern memory. 02:34:56:00 - 02:35:17:01 Unknown there's a black cloud hanging over it. I understand, but if you look at it be, you know, for its special effects and for the kind of inventiveness of what they were trying to do with the alternate dimension, it's a fun film, and one that I think it kind of has like a canon vibe. If you, you know what canon films are. 02:35:17:06 - 02:35:39:13 Unknown Yeah. like, it's just got this weird creativity to it. It's not great. I'll, you know, be the first to admit that, but, it's got Nancy Allen in it. You can't go wrong with her. Can't go wrong. Pam Skerritt in it. No problem. Wrong him. No, sir. Laura Flynn Boyle in her first role. it's just it's a fun, fun film. 02:35:39:17 - 02:36:00:12 Unknown Let's forget this remake. Great, great. Cool. So basically, we take this one out of circulation and we replace it with a different one, like Indiana Jones put in this bag full of sand on the thing. Yeah, exactly. Except the thing we're taking off is not a golden idol. No, no, he's basically taking a bag of sand off the thing and putting a golden idol back on. 02:36:00:18 - 02:36:25:08 Unknown Yes, yes, that's what we're we're we're rewind. We're being kind and rewinding. Raiders of the Lost Ark. Great, great. Okay, so you're recommending Raiders of the Lost Ark, then? Great. Putting it down. All right, well, I guess if there's nothing else to cover with this movie, we'll just see everyone next week for Sherman caps. I've been Landon Solano, for Landon Solano. 02:36:25:08 - 02:36:59:08 Unknown I've been Truman caps. Stay out of your spooky, swirly closets, everybody. We'll see you next week. Whoa. This movie Memory machine is part of the Grunt Work podcast network. Join our Patreon at Patreon.com slash Grunt Work podcast to keep the machine running. Theme song by Porky's Groove Machine. Write us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. For more information on today's show, visit Movie Memory machine.com.