The Empty Man : Halloween Retrospective : GV Classic

0:00Speaker 1:Hello, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to A Geek First Retrospective. I'm the fool-me-twice, Travis Snell, and I'm joined by.

0:07Speaker 2:I am what-the-fuck-are-you, Kirkland Patzer.

0:13Speaker 3:I am the repetitious, Dylan Must. Now, is that even a word, or is it just repetitive? Is repetitious actually a word?

0:18Speaker 1:Repetitious is a word. Yeah. Okay.

0:20Speaker 4:I'll go with that, then.

0:22Speaker 2:Yeah.

0:22Speaker 1:I feel like it's like a post and past tense.

0:25Speaker 2:Another term for repetitive.

0:27Speaker 5:For what?

0:28Speaker 4:I like it more than repetitive, I think.

0:29Speaker 5:Repetitious.

0:30Speaker 2:Yeah, I like it too. Repetitious.

0:31Speaker 1:Yeah. And finally.

0:33Speaker 6:The emptied man, Taylor Field.

0:35Speaker 1:There you go. You sound like the tin man from Wizard of Oz. I'm the emptied man. Anyways, ladies and gentlemen.

0:42Speaker 2:My God, what a cup.

0:43Speaker 1:Yeah, I missed it. What was the cup?

0:46Speaker 6:It was a really cool cup.

0:47Speaker 4:It's a mug.

0:48Speaker 1:It's like a star.

0:49Speaker 2:A mug?

0:49Speaker 1:Yeah. That's kind of Stein-like. Well, it's not a mug, but it's not a... What classifies as a mug?

0:57Speaker 2:It's got to have a handle, probably a certain shape.

1:00Speaker 1:But I feel like a cup with a handle is not just a cup. I feel like that's something else, too.

1:04Speaker 4:It's a tall mug.

1:05Speaker 1:It's a tall mug. There you go, a tall mug.

1:07Speaker 2:It's a drinking mug. First time I ever had one.

1:09Speaker 1:Of those at my grandma's. That's where she always put iced tea in. I was like, what is this? evolutionary thing you have here.

1:13Speaker 6:What is this cup? Is it a mug? Yeah, yeah.

1:15Speaker 1:It's Halloween themed.

1:16Speaker 4:It's orange.

1:17Speaker 1:It's great, yeah. I like it. It's like 2002 where it's like, I've never seen a cup like this before. But you know what some of us haven't seen before is the Empty Man. Now, you might be wondering, why the fuck are you guys reviewing the Empty Man? Because if you look at this, it's, you know, like a cult classic. Not reviewed by many, though. A box office bomb and stuff like that.

1:37Speaker 5:But.

1:37Speaker 1:This is how it works, and if you in the future want to dictate what we do, because these polls have gone completely off the rails, but I love it. Like the Brad Pitt one, we got Megamind. For this, we got Empty Man. The video game one, I think that's the first normal one. We got Jake Gyllenhaal's Prince of Persia, and we're like, okay, I've heard lots of bad things about this movie. I feel like people want us to review this. I've never seen it fully, so I'm excited. That'll be coming in November. Look out for the Prince of Persia retrospective. And then in December, there'll be a Christmas one. And what we talked about in the town hall is when we're doing it, Every month we're going to do a Patreon retrospective, which that means everyone on our Patreon gets to put in their subjections, or their subjections, what the fuck, their submissions, and then at the Patreon producer tier, because, you know, hence the producer part, you get to vote on what we will be watching. So I'd have to pull out, me, I'll pull out one when these gents are talking, but there was a few movies, I think there was like, Fall

2:26Speaker 1:wasn't there, there was a few, there was like down to four, and then Empty Man took it away, and here we are, we're going to be talking about this, But today, Phil, we've got lots going on. At the time of recording this, we got Andor's out and House of Dragons out. We got Black Adam coming out. You and Dylan just did a side quest this week, Grounded. So there's lots of things on the feed right now. And we're in the ramping up to November 5th, our Extra Life Charity stream. Where can they find that all?

2:52Speaker 5:Ladies and gentlemen, you can find that with your internet connection in the search bar. Geekverse.ca is our home base. Geekverse Cast is our Twitter. And Geekverse is our Facebook.

2:59Speaker 1:Everything you need to know, down below. Video, audio, Discord, our podcast network that has eight shows and a slew of great people in there that will be appearing in the trivia battle come November 5th. It's going to be lots of fun. As you've seen, people have been starting to announce for that. Hosts, players, participants. So look out for that. That's going to be a good one. But there's tons of events. Title matches. We're saying goodbye to the Gauntlet. We've got a Monopoly battle. Taylor and Kirkland's last Call of Duty match ever, at least on air.

3:22Speaker 1:I'm sure when they're 80, they'll still be like, I'm better than you. But for the last one, they're tied two-piece. Gauntlet, we're going out in style. Last one to sign who wins it all, and they're playing a bunch of different Call of Duties, not just one. And then head over to Manscaped, get that podcast code GVPOD, and get 20% off of free worldwide shipping. And like I just pimped out before the Patreon, where you could be voting on polls like this, getting this episode ad-free early, getting exclusive episodes, joining After 9, which happens this Saturday, the movie Watch Song, which is going to be fun. And yeah, it's going to be a good time. And a big thank you to the people that did vote on this one. Aaron Brayden, April Darkness, Molly Biggs, Joshua Wright. If you want to get every benefit and vote, go join them. And we thank them and everyone else in between. Whether you're listening, watching, we very much appreciate it because there's lots of podcasts out there. And there's been twice this week. Luckily, I guess it's because our Halloween ends are via. I think people just want to see if me and Taya could

4:10Speaker 1:coexist after we've been fighting. But lots of people have been like, hey, first time I've listened. I'm going to stick around.

4:15Speaker 2:So you know what?

4:16Speaker 1:Thanks. And maybe stick around for Empty Man. We'll see what happens. Because I only know the reaction of one person, so I'm not going to lead with that person, but I don't know the.

4:27Speaker 2:Reaction of the other person.

4:28Speaker 1:That's probably me. Okay.

4:29Speaker 2:I can open up.

4:30Speaker 1:Then I'm going to throw it to Dylan.

4:31Speaker 2:Put myself out there and make myself vulnerable, and he just kicks me while I'm down.

4:40Speaker 1:Okay, he maybe showed his thing, but Dilmas, what do you think of... Okay, first of all, before this, because I think you had said this before that you hadn't heard anything, is before this poll, you had never heard of The Empty Man before, right?

4:50Speaker 4:That is correct.

4:52Speaker 3:And I'm always surprised when that happens, when a movie has come out during the podcast lifespan.

4:56Speaker 2:Yes.

4:56Speaker 3:Especially because this came out in 2020, was it?

4:59Speaker 2:Yeah, 2020, yeah.

5:01Speaker 3:So that's even more surprising. That's when we're like really paying attention to stuff. And I feel like I'm kind of on top of things. But like, yeah, this just completely went under whatever radar I had going on.

5:10Speaker 1:So, yeah. And what did you think about... So this is your first time watching. What did you think about it? Obviously, it's going to be overalls. It's two years. I think there will be one big twist we'll save. So if you still want to watch the movie, you'll be safe for our opening discussion, I'd say.

5:24Speaker 3:Yeah, well, first of all, I'm very glad the patrons picked this because I think this is a very interesting movie. And this is definitely one that I need to deliberate on. I don't think I have my answer yet as to how I feel about this movie.

5:37Speaker 4:I feel like I have a lot of questions for you guys. I want to hear your thoughts.

5:40Speaker 3:But Uh, overall, I think that there are a lot of cool concepts at play here on like some tropes that we've seen a lot in horror, but this movie is trying to kind of take some of those and mix them up and do something different with it. Um, and, but, but I think at the end of the day, like this movie kind of just went downhill for me as it kept going on. Uh, as my name is alluding to, there's a lot of repetitions, which are intentional, but then at the end of the day, like this movie is super, super long, like way longer than, I think it needs to be for what it's trying to achieve here. And ultimately, I just like the earlier sequences of the movie, what's going on there, the kind of the opening section. I really like that compared to what the rest of the story is. I like those sequences more. So by the end of it, I was.

6:23Speaker 4:Pretty out of it.

6:24Speaker 3:And, you know, when it's all said and done, I feel like I'm very confused by this. There's a lot of plot twists, things going on here that I just do not understand. Uh, so I hope, hopefully you guys can clear some up with me or maybe you are just as confused as I am. I'm not too sure, but yeah, overall I'd say I'm, uh, not in love with this one. I don't think I'll ever watch it again. Uh, but still glad I watched it at least once.

6:46Speaker 1:All right. So Taylor field, how did you feel about this movie?

6:51Speaker 5:This is one that I was definitely aware of, but I didn't know anything about it. And it's again, like you don't, it slipped under my radar. Cause I usually like to check into these kind of, um, at least based on the, the, the promotional material, like the poster and movie poster and stuff, it definitely was intriguing. So it definitely, it stuck with me, but I think I, I often probably confuse like the empty man with like the bye-bye man.

7:10Speaker 6:Cause that's another horror movie that they have out there.

7:13Speaker 1:So before you go, that's one of the reasons why this movie got delayed is so this movie was actually filmed in 20. It was done in 2017. They didn't release it because they are one worried. It'd be too confusing for the audience, which I don't think they're wrong. And two, the Bye Bye Man came out and bombed terribly. So they didn't want people to associate it with this. So this movie got kicked three years later. And when it came out, bombed critically, bombed fan-wise. But then after for a while, it gained this. And it does have lots of... Tons of people in my time and all the time are bringing it up as a hidden gem.

7:45Speaker 1:But that was the story of the Bye Bye Man. It did have a bit to do with as far as, eh, people might think this is similar. Let's sit on this movie. And it just sat on the shelf for three years just waiting to get released. Wow.

7:56Speaker 6:Bye-bye man, slender man, empty man. Yeah, empty man.

8:00Speaker 1:Bad man. Yeah. He got through. He got through. He got through. Finally.

8:06Speaker 5:So when it came to this movie, I was going to do a movie night and watch it with Madison, and she ended up going to bed. So she didn't watch it, and I thought, you know what? Okay, it's 10 o'clock at night. Let's pop it on. And by the time I finished.

8:20Speaker 6:The movie, I watched Endor. We'll see how that goes. But anyway, so I watched it. I thought, holy fuck, this movie is long. And what started off very intriguing, but I shouldn't add a but.

8:34Speaker 5:When it started off, I actually really liked it. I liked what we were getting, the setting, everything like that. I thought, okay, this is very cool. I feel like this is very much something that I should have tuned into sooner because.

8:43Speaker 6:I really like what we're getting into. And then it just.

8:47Speaker 5:starts to accelerate and I feel like, okay, like we're really, really accelerating. And then all of a sudden after like a plethora of stuff occurs, we get like the title card.

8:54Speaker 6:I thought that's only like the beginning part. What the fuck?

8:58Speaker 5:And then it just transitions. And again, not, not a spoiler, just totally different setting and scenery. And I thought, okay, this is very, very throw me for a loop here, but I wonder, okay, how's it going to come back to what we started off at the beginning of the film?

9:10Speaker 6:It doesn't come back to it at all.

9:12Speaker 5:Aside from just, uh, like other, uh, perspectives and displays and representations of it later on in the film, which is fine because they're calling back to it. But I would have loved to have gone and explored what actually like that, the setting and the.

9:28Speaker 6:Theme of how it started out. I think there's a lot more to explore with that, but we didn't get that.

9:34Speaker 5:So trying to just latch on and connect with these characters was fucking out to lunch.

9:39Speaker 6:That's not happening.

9:40Speaker 5:And trying to really like, out to lunch, trying to really kind of, understand.

9:45Speaker 6:And tag along on the bus of.

9:48Speaker 5:This narrative was extremely difficult because the bus had all flat tires and it wasn't working.

9:53Speaker 6:So, yeah, I don't I don't think I'm ever going to watch this movie again.

9:57Speaker 5:And when I just Googling it and trying to figure out certain components, cause I was, I took to the Googles and tried to like research it.

10:03Speaker 6:And I've got a couple answers.

10:05Speaker 1:You're like our main character.

10:07Speaker 5:What is the empty bottle blows into it. I, uh, I found some answers I think, but, uh, I think I, I have a, a similar, uh, status on how i feel about what they're trying to explain with the movie about like individual people i guess and this isn't a spoiler but like when when you're when you're in the situation you know the toll comes due and like what what are you going to do as a person so.

10:36Speaker 3:What the fuck are we talking about are you sure you're not reviewing the bye-bye man i'll leave it at that.

10:47Speaker 1:That'd be so good. Oh, did we have that very close to happen on a retro review once where someone watched a completely different version?

10:54Speaker 3:Well, we were talking about doing that for Pinocchio, remember? That was like the thing.

10:57Speaker 4:We should have done that.

10:58Speaker 3:We all should have watched another random horror movie that bombed in the year 2020.

11:04Speaker 1:Was that it, Taylor, for Dragon Ball?

11:06Speaker 6:Might have been. Because I watched this live-action one. You guys watched a different one. I was like, fuck, this movie's terrible.

11:12Speaker 1:Right? That's what happened. We were doing Broly, and you watched the live-action one. And you didn't join us for the review because we started talking about it. And you're like, I didn't watch this movie. I'm like, this movie's awesome. The Dragon Ball guys saying this? Okay, so you said you didn't watch Madsen. Dylan, did you watch it alone or did you watch it with Madsen?

11:36Speaker 3:Oh, I was so alone and I watched this one.

11:38Speaker 1:Kirk, please tell me you did not watch this shit because I feel like she would have hated you.

11:42Speaker 2:No, I did not want to just put that on her. Are you asking me my review? You said you were giving me laughs, so there you go. um yeah that this was an interesting watch uh i i watched in two sittings and like taylor i i thought the opening was so much longer than it what like what it actually was because last night i was i started it up i was doing some homework while i was going on so i was kind of like you know like 75 watching but i thought like that sequence was probably covering like 40 plus minutes of, of, of like the actual movie. So like, yeah, which.

12:22Speaker 1:All the reviews when this movie did get critically destroyed, everyone was like, but the first 20 minutes is great. Even says the Wikipedia page. It's like the opening of this movie is highly praised, but the rest of it, not so much.

12:32Speaker 2:I thought that was going to be the whole movie. And then, and then the title card came up. And like I said, like I just, I was in a vacuum. I had no idea how much time passed. I was like, what the fuck? And then I paused it and there was still like an hour 40 left. blew my mind but I think like my overall is pretty similar to Dylan where I I opening yes I I definitely love like loved what I was seeing but as the movie went on it was totally just losing me there maybe be like a couple things that would happen that really like I don't know piqued my interest and I I've just kept like swaying back and forth I felt on like a pendulum where I don't know if I hate this movie and I don't know if I love this movie so I definitely I I guess unlike Dylan. I do want to re-watch this because I want to see how I actually feel because there was some definitely interesting concepts that I'm excited to talk to you guys about.

13:21Speaker 2:It's funny how similar some of the ideas that they're tackling were to just some other things. Examples I'll bring up when we get there. It was definitely an interesting movie. Way longer than it should have been. I agree with that sentiment where I felt like maybe it could have been bare minimum 45 minutes shorter than what it was. It really was dragging on in certain areas. I don't know. I just felt like maybe they sped through interesting parts of the movie to get to some uninteresting parts of the movie for me. I don't know if that makes any sense. We'll detail it when we get there. Overall, I'm a little unsure.

14:06Speaker 1:So yeah, for me, it's interesting because the person that submitted this for our Patreon picks was Patreon Clay, U.S. Clayton, who's been one of our oldest patrons. So it's his pick, so congratulations. It's your movie. There you go. So the reason I've seen these, hence my name, Fool Me Twice, is because he highly recommended this. And like I said, I've seen lots of people highly recommend these before. So I had watched this probably about a year ago because he went and put it on, and I was like, didn't you just watch this not too long ago? I'm like, yeah, I did. And I kind of said back then that hey, there's things that were told in this review that I liked.

14:40Speaker 1:It's not a big difference. I think I'm much like this guy's where the first 20 minutes, it's a different movie. And I do, it's like, I want that movie. And then as we go along, I'm like, oh, there's some interesting stuff here, but I don't think they ever get past me being interested. I think there's some really high concept stuff going on here, but I think it's sometimes the movie suffers because it's just like, oh, it has to it's this big twist, you know, like that to me, that's the biggest thing about this movie. And I think that kind of hurts some of the things. It's very much like, I'd say like a sixth sense as far as like, this changes the perspective of the whole movie.

15:12Speaker 1:It's not like he's seeing ghosts. I'm not saying that, but it's like, there's two different versions. So I was hoping when I rewatched it again, cause lately I've rewatched Midsommar and Hereditary. And I've liked those a lot more than the first time I saw them. I would rate them a lot more higher now. So I was hoping I was going to get the same effect with this. And I didn't really. I kind of felt the same. The only thing that worked better is I understood it more.

15:34Speaker 1:Because last time when I saw it, luckily, we always say that about these weird movies. Like, oh, I can't wait for the YouTube explainer. The second I watched this movie the first time, I was hitting up YouTube. Like, okay, what is everything here that? So this time, at least, it's like, okay, I got to watch from that perspective and the twist. And I knew everything going in. And I feel like, and that's why maybe Dylan has some questions. I feel like, okay, I got a good grasp on what was going on now. but it didn't actually make me enjoy the movie much more. I'd still say I like it. I still give it, like, a passing grade when we get to the end. And I think there's one sequence in particular, maybe about 20, 25 minutes, I'll just say, when this guy is on a certain type of land looking into things and there's just certain things he bumps into, some really cool, like, scares or just, like, moments where you're getting goosebumps. Like, oh, my God. Like, imagine if you're in this situation. This is awful. So I think there's some merit to it, but I will...

16:24Speaker 1:We'll never watch this again, I don't think. I said it the first time, but obviously the patrons came in and changed that. But I didn't like it enough on a second watch to come back to it. I thought, oh, it's an interesting movie. But that's about it, you know? So that's all I have to say. Justin Costello says, awesome that folks are discussing the film. Lots of the code and discussion, especially considering the studio tried to bury it. Yeah, it's funny, but, you know, that's... here's the thing. And people might be mad because like, if there's somebody that really enjoy it, I don't, uh, from a studio perspective, I almost, I don't blame them because it's, I will have to go back. Cause I don't remember seeing trailers.

17:03Speaker 1:I could just see a studio getting this film and just being like, what the fuck do we do with this? Like, how do we market this? How is this going to play? And it didn't. The studio was kind of right in a way where I guess you could say, oh, they could give it more promotion budget, this and that. But this, to me, is a very good thing. I think the budget's only like $ 15 million, so it wasn't that big of a loss or something. But it's a very weird type of movie. I guess it needed the A24 treatment in a way to kind of get that buzz. But I don't know. It does have buzz, but it is an interesting case.

17:34Speaker 3:See, I feel like on the marketing side of things, since it is playing on Netflix, so many tropes in the first place. It's got that classic, like, Beetlejuice or, like, Bloody Mary kind of thing where, you know, you do this ritual and it summons this guy. Like, that's an easy thing to market. Or even just, like, you know, the kids, all these kids going missing in this town.

17:53Speaker 1:True.

17:53Speaker 4:And this ex-cop's going to go find them. Like, I don't know.

17:56Speaker 3:All that stuff seems pretty straightforward. I think how you tied into that beginning sequence, that might be a bit more difficult. But they could just totally skip past that in the marketing and let that be a surprise or show a quick shot of something like that.

18:09Speaker 2:Every trailer is just of that opening sequence.

18:11Speaker 4:See, that would be a huge mistake.

18:12Speaker 2:Everybody thinks that they're going to see a different movie.

18:14Speaker 4:Or a huge subversion. I don't know.

18:16Speaker 1:I was going to say, everyone watch Barbarians. I'm pretty sure I saw a screen grab that someone was saying Barbarians is coming to Disney Plus October 26th. It's not. Yeah. So everyone check out that. If you want to see a movie like that where the trailer is like the first 20 minutes and the rest of the movie is something else, that's Barbarians. But It's interesting, because Dylan, you're completely right. Those are great trope-y things, and I'd have to look at what the cinema score was, but then I imagine once people got in there, they might have been pissed, because the whole movie, I feel like you got that 20 minutes, and then you got the section where it is looking for the boogeyman, but then I feel like the last hour is... more like over the top like not over the top cheesy just like very trippy very high concept almost sci-fi stuff so you would get some of that but I think if people want like a movie monster it's the same thing like you guys didn't see it but that's the big thing with Halloween Ends is like it's advertised as a slasher but it's not really that much of a slasher so lots

19:09Speaker 1:of people are pissed about it and that's why I think a lot of people would be pissed if they saw these trailers and I should have, maybe at the end of this cast, I'll bring up a trailer. We'll watch it. Because I have no idea, like, what they would have shown and stuff.

19:19Speaker 4:That'd be interesting.

19:20Speaker 3:Well, I mean, it's... I'm going to find it. Seriously, because you said this got pushed to 2020. Yeah, three years later. Was that post-pandemic, though, 2020? Like, part of the reason this bombed, is that just because of.

19:31Speaker 1:I think it was. I think it was one of those early, let's test and put it out and everything like that.

19:37Speaker 3:That at least gives it a bit more reason for why it bombed.

19:41Speaker 1:100%. October 23rd, 2020. So that was still right in the middle of the pandemic and everything like that. So they're just like, let's see what the empty man does.

19:50Speaker 5:Yeah it must have been streaming right like i don't i think theaters had to have been closed at the point weren't.

19:57Speaker 3:They well no because uh tenant had come out in july wasn't it so it would have been a couple months after that.

20:03Speaker 1:I think some places because i think they're like us remember when Like with Kong and Wonder Woman in Canada, we got them in streaming, but some places in America did have theater. So that's another thing, too, and everything like that. Yeah, it's a good point about the pandemic because I didn't even think about that. So anything else overall before we start getting into some of the nitty gritty of it and everything like that? Nope.

20:26Speaker 6:Clay, you robbed me of two hours.

20:29Speaker 1:Oh, my God. Spicy.

20:31Speaker 2:Holy moly.

20:32Speaker 1:Okay. So before we get this, yeah, I'm interested. I'm going to share this trailer. We're going to watch it because I've never seen this.

20:37Speaker 2:We're going to break down the trailer.

20:39Speaker 1:Yeah. We're going to pause scene by scene. You guys got sound over there? Yep.

20:44Speaker 2:Yep.

20:44Speaker 1:Okay.

20:44Speaker 2:All right.

20:46Speaker 1:So. Hey, wait.

20:47Speaker 5:We got to try it.

20:47Speaker 1:Oh, this is.

20:48Speaker 6:Yeah.

20:48Speaker 4:Dylan's hitting it on the head right here. A group of kids.

20:51Speaker 2:Yeah.

20:52Speaker 4:They got it all.

20:52Speaker 2:Dylan directed this trailer.

20:53Speaker 1:Have you heard about the empty man? Sure. Dylan actually directed the movie. It's like a ghostwriter name.

20:58Speaker 3:Even having the blood on the mirror, that's a very popular thing.

21:01Speaker 1:Yeah, that's smart. Oh, they show the first 20 minutes. Look at that. Oh, there's young Adam Driver from It. There you go. Oh, naked woman. Always smart to show off in a trailer. And they're setting up the ring rules of like seven days, three days, stuff like that. What a shot. There you go. On October 23rd.

21:23Speaker 2:It's showing, like, occult stuff, too.

21:25Speaker 1:Yeah. Oh, that's the ending of the movie right there.

21:27Speaker 3:Damn. Wow.

21:27Speaker 1:Okay. You know, this is a good trailer. Wow, they just show the family reveal there.

21:34Speaker 4:Show Elrond there.

21:35Speaker 1:Yeah, Elrond in there. Oh, of course. They're going to end with the Empty Man running at them. Is that what they're going to do? Because I feel like that's the money shot, right? Because there's not too many huge scares in this. I'm going to show them. Oh, here comes a big jump scare. Here we go. Oh!

21:55Speaker 2:Oh, fuck!

21:55Speaker 4:And that weird camera.

21:57Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.

21:57Speaker 4:See, like, that's not a bad trailer, you know?

21:59Speaker 1:No, that's a good trailer.

22:01Speaker 4:I'd see that.

22:02Speaker 1:We did, yeah.

22:04Speaker 6:I feel like I watched a different movie, though.

22:05Speaker 1:That was the same movie. Yeah, well, let's start off with the first 20 minutes, because I feel like that's something you're, at least with most of us, very positive on. So what were you feeling about, I guess, tackling in 22 minutes? What did you feel about, we meet a couple hikers, you know, they're on a, little journey here, very cold, very snowy. They find some sort of cave, and obviously that begins our sorrows here with the empty man.

22:28Speaker 5:Yeah, I thought the whole opening part here was great. You're just exploring, and you're just building tension of their hike. You know going in that something is going to be unfortunately happening in this movie, and I thought this was going to be our main characters for the bulk of this.

22:43Speaker 6:So when we get.

22:44Speaker 5:This cave scene where they encounter this weird being, I thought, oh, this is so cool.

22:50Speaker 6:I'm really digging this.

22:51Speaker 5:What is going to come out of this? Is this thing going to resurrect itself?

22:57Speaker 1:Is it going to spiritually possess?

22:58Speaker 6:Yeah, it was super cool.

23:00Speaker 5:It's obviously playing some kind of mental possession on our character here, and I was really jiving with it.

23:06Speaker 6:I thought, this is awesome.

23:07Speaker 5:So when that kind of concludes, and they go to the cabin, and it's day two and stuff, I thought, okay, this is cool. I really like how We're going to have this isolated story and we're going to have these people in this cabin. Like let's, I know we've seen this kind of thing before in different scenarios or aesthetics, but I'm all for it with this.

23:24Speaker 6:This is going to be great. And it was like, yeah, day three.

23:26Speaker 5:And then they're up by the bridge and all of a sudden fucking chick just goes stabby, stab, stab on the guy's back. And then like, they just start falling off the cliff. I was like, what the fuck?

23:37Speaker 6:What happened to the movie? Like we just, it's over. And then it was like title card.

23:41Speaker 1:Yeah. Title card.

23:43Speaker 6:And then we carried on.

23:43Speaker 5:I was like, well, that sucks because I really wanted to explore more of that. But I thought things that they, again, did in that opening sequence, aside from the killing part, it was just great. When she goes outside and you see that figure standing out there and she walks closer to it and it steps back and then it just starts running towards her and she just freaks out and runs inside.

24:05Speaker 6:I like that. That was pretty cool.

24:07Speaker 5:The other scene, too, when she's sleeping and the guy's over top I don't know if anyone else does this to their partners, but yeah, like whispering into your, you know, your spouse's ear or something.

24:18Speaker 1:I would never do such a thing.

24:21Speaker 6:I'm assuming he was issuing the command into her.

24:26Speaker 1:Yes.

24:26Speaker 5:Okay.

24:27Speaker 2:Yeah.

24:27Speaker 6:A great sequence.

24:29Speaker 1:Oh yeah. No, I was just looking at cinema score too as a D plus. Yeah. Audiences were not happy with that, but I, I was going to say with the, we were referring to the girl being whispered. I really liked that just because the first time I watched it, I was expecting him to do the killing. So all of a sudden when she was just popping off and sort of stab people in the throat, that took me by surprise because I did not see that coming at all. And I think it is a smaller tier like budget movie wise, but I think it at all, that sequence is shot well and it looks good and stuff like that.

24:53Speaker 1:Like I think lots of it's actual location, but it's just, It looks good. Again, it looks like the movie I wanted to see. All of that in that location. And I remember after I watched this, it was actually when I re-watched The Descent, because when they went in that cave, I was like, oh, I want to watch that again. So I have nothing but just 10 out of 10 for the opening. It's just creepy. It's great. You're wondering what's going on. It's good stuff. Yeah.

25:17Speaker 2:It's funny, though, because coming into this movie, I had no idea what it was. Obviously, we just watched the trailer all together for the first time. um i thought this movie was actually the kevin bacon one hollow man oh my god i was the 2002 hollow man yeah that's that's what i thought it was coming into it so i was like oh i've seen that movie that'll be fun to re-watch and then nope just like they're in the himalayas and um what's that deal.

25:39Speaker 6:I was just gonna say that's the invisible man is that the invisible man.

25:42Speaker 1:Yeah it's a play on the invisible.

25:43Speaker 2:Man yeah yeah and uh so they're in like the himalayas And I'm like, okay, this is going to be a cool movie. Like you just said in the Alps and like, yeah, like what we're doing here. And then, you know, I agree with you guys 10 out of 10 for all that's all the horror elements. And then just like being in the cabin. And then when she's outside, all that stuff was phenomenal. And then when they get to the bridge and everyone's just starts dying, I was completely shocked. Cause I'm like, what the fuck is the movie going to be now? Like if, like, if it's just the one guy who's the empty man now and he's alone in the Alps, like, where are we going to go? And then it just like, goes to black, goes the empty man. And I'm like, is this just like a series of short films? Like I, I had no idea what was going on. So, uh, that, that was an interesting experience for sure. But, um, yeah, for, for all of the snow stuff, 10, 10, fantastic.

26:29Speaker 3:Love a good snow here. No, I mean, it was like, it was taking me back to my trek in Nepal. You know, the suspension bridges that are kind of sketchy, all the dream wheels, some bones, the creepy.

26:41Speaker 1:That's what, that's what happened to Briggs. Briggs didn't move away. They went on some hikes.

26:45Speaker 6:Oh, yeah.

26:46Speaker 1:Poor guy.

26:48Speaker 3:But, you know, I mean, that was so exciting for me to have a horror movie in this setting. It was, you know, very exciting, but obviously it didn't stay there for too long. But, I mean, you know, we can't discredit that that is a very cool part of the movie, and it's not just one. It's like 20 minutes or something like that, you know. So it's a pretty substantial little, you know, mini horror movie tucked inside this bigger horror movie. Obviously, they're connected, but. It feels like barely for the most part.

27:13Speaker 3:But no, I mean, that is a great sequence. And it sucks that it is at the beginning in a sense that it is just downhill from there. Although it doesn't feel that way for the most, until like near the end, I would say. You know, I feel like it's more when it's coming together at the very end where it's like, okay, this does not fit together that well.

27:31Speaker 1:I wonder how he got out of there. Because like, so we learned that the empty man hijacks, possesses this guy, right? But for a while he's not, I guess he is moving and stuff like that because he had to get to the hill and everything like that. But for a while, it just seemed like he was just so comatose. It's like, how did he still get back and everything? For me, it's a little unclear, but okay, so I buy that the Empty Man's in him, but how does that girl see the Empty Man running through the snow? Even though I love the imagery of it with the snow, it's just a storm and you can kind of see... like this cloak figure, but not exactly. And then it just runs.

28:04Speaker 1:But then when it's the knock at the door, it's her friend.

28:05Speaker 3:And so that was, that was one of the questions I had is, is that creature we ever see a real thing because they're playing so much on like, Oh, it's all in your head.

28:14Speaker 4:None of it's real.

28:15Speaker 3:And a lot of it is like, whatever the, we transmit, you receive whatever that line is that they.

28:20Speaker 2:Say a thousand times.

28:22Speaker 3:So I wasn't sure like, is, are any of those sequences when we see that, because it's always kind of showing like that creature going to stab someone or something and, But then we see the person stabbing themselves or something like that. Is that creature ever actually a real thing in the world?

28:39Speaker 2:I took it as possibly there's something acting through the... What was the sphere that they were saying? The noosphere or something? I thought maybe it was getting at them through that.

28:47Speaker 4:So much jargon in this movie.

28:50Speaker 2:That was a recurring thing that I was questioning by the end of the movie. Were those events actually happening? How are these people getting murdered if it's all centered around our protagonist character becoming the new host or something. It was just hard to follow in that sense.

29:05Speaker 6:Travis, did you do some Googling after that first one?

29:07Speaker 1:No, this one I didn't actually funny enough think about because I was just more thinking about all my Googling was about the last half an hour pretty much, which goes into the other stuff, but obviously the big twist. So I never thought about this. I'd assume that it is some sort of real embodiment of the Empty Man because that person, when she does kill herself, I think it's kind of like a Freddy thing where It makes it look like it's an accident, but really something's there.

29:30Speaker 1:And something did knock, even though it was the guy that knocked. So you could kind of say it's just mind games. But I guess I lean more towards I think it is real, but I wouldn't be surprised. if it's not but I like the imagery of it because it looks kind of like death you know like a skeleton bony death and stuff like that so I like the look.

29:47Speaker 3:Of it I mean I guess you know thinking about it in that opening sequence if it is a real thing like why didn't the other two friends in the group see it Right?

29:57Speaker 4:Because there was, like, no time.

29:58Speaker 1:Oh, you mean, okay. You mean real, like, it's, like, can physically possess, like, outside the world and stuff like that.

30:05Speaker 3:Yeah, I guess I mean, like, is it visible? Like, or is it only visible to certain people, even if it's only.

30:10Speaker 1:That's what I think, yeah.

30:10Speaker 6:Yeah, okay.

30:11Speaker 1:Just in your mind or something.

30:12Speaker 5:Well, it's visible because you have to do the blowing the bottle thing, right?

30:17Speaker 6:And didn't she.

30:18Speaker 5:Like, because the other characters didn't see that thing.

30:22Speaker 6:It was just her.

30:22Speaker 2:So.

30:24Speaker 5:Did she not blow the bottle? I thought she was holding it at one point, and she did, like, blow into it.

30:29Speaker 4:She did.

30:30Speaker 3:I mean, she wasn't on a bridge, so she kind of broke that rule, but she did blow into it, and, like, the lights started flickering, right, in the room.

30:38Speaker 1:Maybe where that cabin is, though, is on, like, one big bridge.

30:40Speaker 2:You know, like, it's a huge... It's the Continental Bridge.

30:43Speaker 1:Yeah, like, it's a huge... Or that could have just been... Because I'm pretty sure... I don't know if it happens before or after, the whispering in your ear. Does that happen before or after? I think it is, like, actually... after this situation.

30:55Speaker 4:I think that would have been after.

30:57Speaker 1:Yeah, so. Yeah, I'm not sure because he only comes up a few times. He comes up with our protagonist at the end when he's chasing him. He kills that girl and stuff like that. And I guess, to me, I'm assuming that everyone that's dead is kind of killed by this thing because they keep making it look like it's a suicide and stuff like that. You know, classic mind monster. They're always, you know, they're always, they're always thinking.

31:17Speaker 6:They want to evade the cops.

31:19Speaker 1:Yeah, like, they have all these powers. They can go showers. You can't catch them all, but like, fuck if the police find out it's over for us, you know? And I get it, because you're supposed to be building a ledge, but I always find it's funny, these, like, ghosts are meticulously planning, like, well, I gotta make it look like a suicide so I can get away with it. It's like.

31:35Speaker 2:Wiping prints.

31:36Speaker 1:Doing all that stuff. It's just somewhere, like, oh, shit, all my cloak dust is getting all over the place, you know?

31:42Speaker 5:Yeah.

31:43Speaker 1:So, do we want to, because I feel like this is a big thing, do we want to talk about the film in a lateral from point A to point B, or do we want to talk about what the twist is And talk about overall. Because I feel like there's times where we might want to talk about something. But if we don't talk about the twist, we're going to have to hold back and stuff like that. Yeah.

32:04Speaker 3:I mean, I have a couple questions that I guess are maybe... Everything is kind of related to that twist at the end.

32:09Speaker 2:So.

32:11Speaker 3:I would personally like to get those questions answered so.

32:13Speaker 2:That I can have a better understanding.

32:14Speaker 6:Yeah, let's tackle it.

32:14Speaker 1:Okay.

32:15Speaker 2:It's just cannonball right now.

32:16Speaker 1:So what they reveal is this whole... And we're going to get into, like, set piece, set piece, because, like, there's certain things, like, what I was showing in the non-spoilers was, like, when he goes to and he sees the cult in there in the woods. Goddamn. That is a... That's another, to me, A plus 10, 10 sequence. He just takes that step and they start talking. He takes one more step and they move, like, a little bit, but it's perfect the way the camera looks because, like, you don't know if they're looking at him and then he moves one more time, like, oh, no, they're looking...

32:39Speaker 1:right at you bubba yeah.

32:41Speaker 2:It's all in the darkness with the moonlight.

32:43Speaker 1:Oh my god so good yeah.

32:45Speaker 2:And like that's where like there obviously that was placed like in a section of the movie that i was just kind of like losing interest and then a moment like that happens where it's like holy shit like this is this is this a fantastic movie like i i am creeped out right now and then those moments would just keep happening like little beacons on my dark trek through this movie but.

33:03Speaker 1:It reminded me a lot of Hereditary, where it has a really big opening, and then there's a lot of talking, and it's a really slow burn. But then the finale, like, oh, fuck, it really ramps up. So when I saw this for the first time, I thought it was going to be.

33:12Speaker 6:The same thing.

33:13Speaker 1:I'm like, okay, we've had a lot of dilly-daddling, but this finale is really going to ramp up. It does to an extent, but not to the extent that I necessarily wanted and stuff like that. So I will say before anyone else goes, because I completely forgot, we're going to take our first ad break, and then we'll be right back talking about more of this twist and everything. So we'll be right back. And we're back. Kirkland, you look like you're trying to get something out there.

33:34Speaker 2:Just the hereditary comparison. I completely agree. There was a lot of moments in this that totally made me think of that. Even like some Midsommar vibes as well. And then the other comparison that I was kind of hinting at in the beginning was I think Taylor's beaten Outlast. Has anybody else played that game? Like fall all the way? Oh, my God.

33:52Speaker 1:Are we fucking going to do this again?

33:54Speaker 2:How many times are we going to do this?

33:57Speaker 1:I have beaten Outlast. i played number two i'm looking very forward to outlast trials my god.

34:02Speaker 2:I love it yeah so the ending of outlast one is so similar to this like do you remember what it is yeah it's it's crazy so again it was just like was this ripped from that or is this like an actual like ghost story in the world that like they've just taken inspiration from because there there was just the concept there it's like okay that's exactly what it is in outlast there's even some like um I guess like some set pieces of a character running near the end and it just looked like exactly ripped from the game at last.

34:31Speaker 1:Even the videos he finds, like when he finds that video of Empty Man being like, oh, like he should, I love when he's like dead and they cut to like 30 seconds later and he's like pain blood and he's just like all rejuvenated. Yeah, I love it. It's just like, oh, creepy stuff.

34:45Speaker 2:His eyes are glowing.

34:46Speaker 1:Yeah. But anyway, so the whole movie, he's looking through stuff like, so we're going to get to a big set piece of stuff like that. Um, he is, so there's a woman that he is, I don't know, not with, with, they have some attraction. There's, that's a whole scenario we'll get into and stuff like that.

35:02Speaker 6:It's an affair, right?

35:04Speaker 1:Yeah. And then it wasn't really an affair. Like it's this whole fucking weird thing. But anyway, so he is looking for his friend's daughter because she had heard things about the empty man. And we get this whole thing, we talk about this trailer where they go to the bridge, they blow on the bottle. It's a very like ring, like set up as you're going to have three days. First you see him, then you feel him, then he gets you or whatever it is. Right. And then so they go through all this and he's looking through tapes and he finds like a cult and the guy from Get Out's there. So you're like, is this a Get Out continuation? No, it's not. Like all this thing, like there's all these like little crumbles and like, okay, what could be this answer? And what the answer is that he's a Tupla or Tulpa, however you want to pronounce it. Tulpa.

35:41Speaker 1:A Tulpa. What he is supposed to be is he is the next host because the person we met in the first 20 minutes, that got the host of The Empty Man. But he can only hold on to it for so long so they need something else. So this is where the movie, your suspension of disbelief has to take a fucking beating because it is creepy and whatnot, and it's in a fantastical world, so fine. But this cult, through the feeling of belief and passion and love and wanting the empty man to have a vessel, they just create our protagonist. Our protagonist is only three days old.

36:11Speaker 1:When he was born, he was just a man, and they gave him a backstory. They gave him all this stuff. He's pretty much just like a creative character. He's a video game character. They gave him all this to motivate him to get to this point so he would become the vessel. So, too, when you get the reveal that there's a lot of stuff in this movie that was preordained to happen or never even happened at all. It's just completely in his imagination, which is always a risky thing to do with the movies. But that's the big twist is the whole time the call of the Empty Man created him to be a vessel, and that's his only designation.

36:41Speaker 3:Okay, I'm going to stop you right there because the question on this then for me is I took it more so that within this last three days... is when they had started to take over his mind, and that's when they started this process. But I thought he was a real person up to that point, and they picked him because he had this traumatic past, and that would make him more.

37:01Speaker 4:Susceptible or something like that.

37:03Speaker 3:Because then why do the other cops know who he is?

37:05Speaker 1:That's all that's in his mind. And that's where people, I've looked up, people still try to go what happened in the movie and what didn't, because she talks about that with the family. They gave him this tragic backstory, like the cult. And our main character or the main girl that went away, she actually wrote the story. That's what she says. Like, oh, I wrote your backstory. So him sleeping with his mom or her mom, the killing of the kids.

37:30Speaker 3:Do those cops exist and they just said different things or they just not exist whatsoever?

37:35Speaker 1:That i don't know i take it as they don't really exist or if he heard something else the same way when he would interact with that mom at the end when she phones him she's like i don't know who this is i've never talked to you so i think it's just a scenario that didn't actually happen i think there's a lot of this movie that didn't actually happen and they're just like putting this in his mind.

37:53Speaker 5:So from how again how i took it because you guys kind of test upon it like yeah i initially thought dylan that it was this person who got fractured and broken from this tragic accident of his wife and his son. And then they took his mind cause it was obviously sorrow and they were able to just.

38:10Speaker 6:Do whatever they wanted to it.

38:12Speaker 5:But now when I started looking into tulpas, it seemed like, again, this tulpa is something that other people can't see, but like as an individual, you can like put your thought and manifest and create this. And so I took it as the, the girl that went missing, she created the, this Tulpa, this character that we follow in the story.

38:31Speaker 1:And they all did though. They show that scene. Remember when they, when he's looking at that scene, when he's on like a bridge or not bridge, he's in that room and they're all talking down below the dark room, right? There's a quick shot when they're doing the reveal of her blowing the bottle and she's with a bunch of them. So she needed a bunch of other cult members to help create this guy too.

38:50Speaker 6:Yeah, exactly.

38:51Speaker 5:So I'm, I'm honestly thinking that he, he is not, he's seen to them, but he's not seen to, Like regular other Joe Blow down the street. That's why, again, when he called that woman, the woman's like, who is this? So he's just not really like a ghost.

39:11Speaker 3:So when he's hitting up the high school and that one girl gets in his car and they're smoking a cigarette together. does she that she's a manifestation or is that whole thing made up because that's set up that like the whole town knew about this girl who died and all this stuff right so what's up with her then?

39:30Speaker 1:I think that one's real because like Taylor said, because she has like been affected by the empty man. She can talk to this person and interact and have this, because it's almost like, okay, once she This guy, what was our main character's name again? James. James.

39:44Speaker 4:LaSombra.

39:45Speaker 2:James LaSombra.

39:46Speaker 4:I like that last name.

39:47Speaker 1:James is, he's in the Empty Man camp, right? We have that girl that was at the school. The second she talks to the Empty Man or has that blowing the bottle thing, I think she can kind of go into the world of people that interact with the Empty Man.

39:59Speaker 5:You don't think it was just a memory, like an implanted memory?

40:02Speaker 1:It could, but just the fact that because she dies later on, we had a scene separate of him. I think she was something that was not with her cult or anything like that. So I think she got affected as some sort of sacrifice. So I think that did happen because I think their minds kind of connect in that way, even though he's not really real. He's kind of there. But I think he was right that people that are into that or to me affected by it can interact with James here.

40:27Speaker 3:Interesting yeah i mean this is kind of like a tropey thing right like the what's what's real and like nothing's real thing um yeah i don't feel like it works for me at all here because i'm just when it happened and even now i'm just like more confused than it feels like it's putting things together which it normally should uh because i don't know like now like none of it really has any meaning where it's like in any particular scene there it doesn't seem to be like a rule of who is actually interacting with them and who's not. And so did we just waste our time with those other scenes when we're with the cops?

41:01Speaker 3:Like those cops, were they actually there and doing something else?

41:05Speaker 2:Or I don't know.

41:06Speaker 3:Like I, I just, just very confused and not in a good way. That's like, Oh, I really want to figure this out. It's just like, I feel like the movie did not have an answer and they just kind of went with it anyway.

41:16Speaker 1:Yeah.

41:16Speaker 2:Yeah. I, I feel like I agree a lot with Dylan there. Cause I, I I'm usually pretty generous with these like heady concepts. It's like, Oh yeah, you know, it's, it's make-believe it's a movie, like totally get down. But like when it, if it really is just this guy was made three days ago and like all, all the scenes that we watched just don't really matter because they weren't actually a thing. Now, of course they, they do matter because it makes that twist very powerful, powerful in the moment. But in that moment, I like Dylan was saying, like, I was just confused and being like, well, that can't be the case. So like, maybe this is just a fun movie to discuss with friends on like what actually happened.

41:51Speaker 2:But like, if that is, if that is the case where just three days ago, you know, this guy's just, just, just poof, like into existence. It's like, no, you, you not, not there. You know, this is like a video game movie. I'm not abiding by that. This guy was just created three days ago. Like, come on now.

42:07Speaker 6:Yeah.

42:08Speaker 1:Yeah. For me, like the twist, I, the first time I watched it, I was like, okay, I was taking some of it in, not some of it. And then like I said, I watched this video and then this made it like a little bit better, the second watch. But to me, it's not a twist where I'm like, man, I can't wait to, and I did, but I can't wait to rewatch this and see these scenes again and stuff like that. Now seeing it again, I think there is a lot of, it's tough, right? Cause I, when movies do this, when it's like, okay, there's going to be a big twist, a big reveal, but we're not really in on it. It's like, well, of course it's a twist. Cause we didn't see it coming. Like it, I don't think there's too many signs of, When they're talking this, when there's a whole movie of him talking to this woman that he's had an affair with, right?

42:46Speaker 1:There's no signs in that scene where it's like sometimes you get the flashbacks of him. He was talking to no one or he was in a sane asylum and there's little hints. You go, okay, but there's none of that. It's just like, oh yeah, you know everything.

42:56Speaker 2:Boom.

42:56Speaker 1:And again, talking about Sixth Sense, when you watch Sixth Sense, that happens with that twist of like, I'm sure one knows, but like, okay, the main character, Bruce Willis, he's dead and stuff like that, right? And he can talk, like he's with someone that can talk to ghosts. So you can see Bruce Willis. But when you go back and watch the Bruce Willis scenes, there's so many times where he's interacting with someone. And they say stuff, but they're saying to someone else. They're not interacting with Bruce Willis.

43:19Speaker 1:In the movie, they set up that Bruce Willis and his wife are separated, so they're really estranged. They show them having dinner, and Bruce is trying to say, I could be better. I could change. And she just gets up and walks away. Now, we take that as, oh, no, the wife's walking away because she's not wanting to do this marriage anymore. But really, it's she walks away because there's no fucking person in this chair. She's just having dinner alone. this movie doesn't do that to me. It's just like, oh yeah, all that stuff, it didn't happen. Oh, what's kind of the hints that didn't happen? Well, we didn't have that. And just like, well, of course it's a twist because if you don't give us that homework to try to pick up on like a sixth sense, an inception, it's not like, it is a twist, but it's not an impactful twist for me because I don't get the rewarding views. And maybe I'm wrong. There could be more people deep into it. I think people love the movie because they like, almost like Craig was saying that either way, it is a heady space. Like technically every happened for this character, James, because he's like, created

44:07Speaker 1:it on his own little acting adventure right like he's been put into a play and he's supposed to live these things so he will become the empty man because somehow this cult and i think there's something fun to that that these people believe in the empty man so much they like created a person but that's not what the movie's about until the last 10-15 minutes you know so which maybe you could make the whole movie.

44:26Speaker 3:About that but so another question then uh i just thought i'm gonna keep them coming uh because he's the one who finds i mean from what we're seeing He's the one who finds all the kids under the bridge and lets the cops know. So are we just to assume that someone else found them or the cops found them and that happened? Or did that just not happen at all?

44:47Speaker 4:Did they never actually find them?

44:50Speaker 6:Well, I guess there were.

44:51Speaker 5:I was going to say, we don't even know if the kids were real kids. But I guess they had documented folders of them.

44:59Speaker 1:Or did they?

44:59Speaker 2:Of them dying, though?

45:00Speaker 6:Or did they?

45:01Speaker 2:I don't know if they did.

45:02Speaker 1:Oh, go ahead.

45:03Speaker 2:Well, I was just going to say, yeah, because if Amanda was her name, the one that created him, if she was in on it the whole time and there was the other characters, including her, that did the ritual, maybe it is that case where those other characters are just a part of the cult and they're not actually dead. And who's to say that that isn't the case? Because everything that our character went through and that we saw through his eyes, that was just basically made up, right?

45:31Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, if we don't know that the cops and what they're doing in the movie is real, then it's hard for us to really know anything, because that would be like our only outside characters that aren't either having blown into a bottle, so they're now susceptible to it, or being part of the cult, who, I guess if you're part of the cult, you just instantly can interact with the empty men and understand.

45:53Speaker 1:It all, I suppose.

45:54Speaker 2:Once you get your card in the mail, you've got to wait two weeks. Yeah, pretty much.

45:57Speaker 4:So it's hard. I don't know.

45:58Speaker 3:I feel like I wish the movie had picked a side on some of these things so we could have a little bit more to actually bite on and understand fully.

46:06Speaker 1:Yeah.

46:06Speaker 3:And maybe it's out there, but I don't know. It didn't work for me by the time the movie rolled credits, which it should. Or even by now, a few days past, these things should hopefully make a little bit more sense.

46:20Speaker 1:Yeah, but they don't really.

46:22Speaker 2:Yeah.

46:23Speaker 3:Okay, maybe my last question then, and I'm sure more will pop up, but the scene then when there's two of him, where he goes into that place, he sees people doing their ritual, and then later on, we see him from the other perspective. He's the one that made the sound under the staircase, whatever it was.

46:43Speaker 4:What's going on there?

46:44Speaker 1:That, I feel like he's just.

46:48Speaker 4:Is there actual time travel? What's going on?

46:51Speaker 2:That's probably, yeah. It's probably one of those moments though, right? Because that would have been him when he was like just made, right? Like when he's on downstairs making the noise.

47:01Speaker 1:Yes.

47:01Speaker 2:And then, cause that's like when they make him. And then if like time travel rules, he would have like gone through that second event to like arrive there and witness it. Cause like eventually that's what got him to become the new empty man.

47:16Speaker 1:Right.

47:16Speaker 2:So like all of that would have been in the same timeframe.

47:20Speaker 6:But if he came back to witness it, that would have been after the fact. Like if he was.

47:24Speaker 5:Created, then if he were to come back to that creation moment of time, that means he would have to at some point have gone back in time to a degree. Because I mean, if I walk through a door where I'm born or whatever, and then I go live my life, come back a week later and stand on the catwalk looking down at this group, that means that this group is creating another Tulpa in this situation.

47:48Speaker 2:Oh, like another new you.

47:50Speaker 5:Yeah, if that's where he was born, like we know that group was obviously calling out, trying to create something together. We know that that's not really the group that created him because his creation was in that like subway little tunnel with the chair and the group people behind him, right?

48:03Speaker 6:So different scenario.

48:06Speaker 1:I just took it as like, it's like a slip of conscience in a way and he's kind of, I guess it is. You have that time travel aspect because he makes the sound, but it's almost just him reliving his birth and stuff like that. But again, I I don't have a solid answer for that one.

48:20Speaker 2:I guess it also could just be something that the creator of him wrote in, that he went there and witnessed it from that point, because then that wouldn't have made it real, actually. It would have just been the initial experience of him being born. Yeah.

48:32Speaker 1:Dylan, you got any more questions?

48:35Speaker 2:This movie is headier than I thought it was.

48:36Speaker 5:Oh, yeah.

48:38Speaker 4:I probably do, but I mean, just the.

48:40Speaker 3:The nothing's real thing kind of answers all my questions in a way, right? It's like, well, if anything doesn't make sense, it probably wasn't real.

48:47Speaker 4:So there you go.

48:48Speaker 3:Have fun with that, viewer. That's a great decision from a movie-making standpoint, isn't it? Movies are not real.

48:54Speaker 6:You didn't even watch the movie.

48:55Speaker 2:So they tried to bury it.

48:56Speaker 1:This isn't real. And then everything starts tumbling around and stuff like that.

49:00Speaker 2:It would be like a 1408 moment.

49:02Speaker 1:Exactly, yeah. What do you guys think of the lead? Because I haven't seen him in too many things. I saw him in Departed. And then in Iron Man 3, and that was about it.

49:10Speaker 4:What does he do in Iron Man 3?

49:14Speaker 1:He's an extremist goon. He's a bodyguard. He fights Rhodey at one point. one point and stuff like that.

49:21Speaker 6:What was the person's name?

49:22Speaker 4:He looked distantly familiar.

49:23Speaker 1:His name's like James Badgerdale or Dale Badger? James Badgerdale. Badge.

49:30Speaker 2:Three words.

49:31Speaker 4:James Badgedale.

49:32Speaker 2:That is a very.

49:33Speaker 4:That does not flow off the tongue.

49:34Speaker 5:He looks so much younger in Iron Man 3.

49:37Speaker 6:That's crazy.

49:38Speaker 1:That was 10 years before this movie.

49:39Speaker 6:Is that really 10 years?

49:40Speaker 1:Don't shit on the guy.

49:42Speaker 3:No, but this was filmed in 2016 to release in 2017, Travis. It's only two years difference.

49:47Speaker 1:No, because... No, what was it? Four years. Iron Man 3 would have been filming in 2012. So it's four years, but yeah, whatever. I like him enough in here.

49:56Speaker 4:Doing this movie aged him.

49:59Speaker 6:Significantly.

50:00Speaker 1:I liked him enough as an actor. Also, we get into the debate of what's real and what's not. But in the moment when you're watching him learning in these revelations, I think he's a solid enough lead. I like all the storylines they do give. And that's the problem where the twist I get is because it is like, oh, look at this crazy thing. But I like the movie better. One, obviously, the 20 minutes. But then, obviously, the actual just trying to find investigate this entity because i like the relationship with the nora and the daughter and everything like that and i like the whole like it's messed up and that's the whole point like we could have you a tragic backstory so you could feel pain and you're perfect for the empty man but like in the movie pretense i love the idea that okay so his wife and him are friends with this other couple his that husband of the equation dies so the wife of course is with this child they're at the wake child's very tired she's gonna take the child home what's our lead going to do? Just stay back and have sex with the widow in a very like, and it's cause it's not,

50:56Speaker 1:I guess you could say it's not real. It's fine. But just as even shots and she like has the dress around her face.

51:01Speaker 2:Oh yeah.

51:01Speaker 1:This is fucking weird, man.

51:03Speaker 3:But like, you know, it does sound like something that that teenage girl would write as she's like trying to come up with stories.

51:09Speaker 1:Yeah. And that's why to me, I liked all that in like, if it was a real sense, as far as I like how disturbing it is and okay, sure. It sets up James to be this guy that were all Paul will like take on the empty man. But, I liked the story they were doing with him as like it's a classic investigating the boogeyman sort of situation, you know? So I liked him enough.

51:28Speaker 3:Yeah, it's interesting because it's like, you know, for most of the movie, I feel like he's purposely not really showing much emotion. And he's like this guy who like, it sounds like something sketchy happened while he's not a cop anymore. He obviously has this traumatic thing. So he's kind of disconnected from, from the world in a way. And so it's like, it actually kind of makes sense that he is kind of a boring guy, even if it's not the most exciting. But then he definitely goes on the full Nick Cage turn at the end of this where he's just going crazy.

51:59Speaker 1:That's fair.

51:59Speaker 3:When he's threatening Elrond. I don't know the actor's name, but I'm just going to say threatening Elrond because it sounds better.

52:04Speaker 1:Elrond's going Nick Cage too and he's laughing with the blood.

52:07Speaker 3:Oh, he's going crazy too. But that sequence to me was absolutely hilarious. That whole time he's just drinking and driving too. He's just completely off his rocker at that point.

52:16Speaker 4:But I loved it.

52:17Speaker 3:That was my favorite part about him was when he was just doing some zany stuff. It definitely caught me off guard. I didn't feel like we were going down that direction. And then it obviously takes a whole different turn in the, like right after that with the plot twist and whatnot. But, um, yeah, I thought he was okay for the most part. Cause he, he at least seemed like a good guy. Like he's doing, he's just, whatever he's got going on in life, he's putting it all to the side to like help find these kids.

52:39Speaker 4:I was like, Oh, this guy's a.

52:40Speaker 3:Pretty, he's a good, he's a pretty good dude. He's on this interesting journey. But yeah, I really liked that Kate, that Nick Cage kind of turned into a crazy guy version of him.

52:48Speaker 4:That was fun.

52:49Speaker 1:Yeah.

52:49Speaker 2:That's fun. Yeah. I, I did like him for the most part. I feel like I was wanting more of his backstory. Now, where I am, of course, now I understand.

53:01Speaker 1:You got it all.

53:02Speaker 2:You got it all. Yeah, I understand why we didn't dive into any of that because they were just, like, giving us little glimpses of this situation between him and Nora and, like, that family and then just, like, hints of, like, his backstory. I love when he, like, goes to first talk to, like, the detective and that other cop is like, oh yeah, it's like, I know you. He's like, you're, he's like, you're a cop. It's like from Baltimore, right? He's like, yeah, I heard of you. And then the, just nothing. And I'm like, okay, I guess now I know that he was a cop and some sketchy thing happened in his past. It was just really like cheesy the way they handle it. Again, I understand because it was written by Amanda.

53:39Speaker 1:Yeah.

53:41Speaker 2:So, but like majority of the movie, I was just like, why aren't they just diving into like this dynamic between him and this family? Cause this is totally fucked up. And there is, as you're mentioning, Travis, like, There is a lot of heavy, dark shit about his, like, story of, like, he just let his wife, like, drive his son home while he just stayed back and fucked that lady. Like, again, very weird.

54:02Speaker 1:At the wake. There's still food around. She's still in her wake dress. It's just like, this is all wrong.

54:07Speaker 2:This is all bad. Yeah, exactly. So, again, because that was the majority of the movie, I was a little bit, like, I don't know, like, not in... in in it at the time um but i i still think he was like a solid actor for this role like when he was put into those situations whether he was in his room and like hearing noises i you know i got my baseball bat in my bedroom too i'm like oh yeah he's he's prepared when an intruder comes down and he just like he seemed believable in those moments he didn't seem like a classic like really dumb like character in like a horror movie that just does like he i felt like he was doing decent decisions in the moment and like dylan was saying like i was like yeah he seems like a like a standout guy. If he's just investigating these murders and just putting his life on hold and being like such a great asset to these detectives that weren't ever actually there, I think. Um, but yeah. And then of course I, I did like his big zany moments and also just, again, like it was like a descent into madness, but like clarity at the same time, because he was finally like understanding what

55:09Speaker 2:he was. Um, so, you know, in hindsight, I can kind of appreciate the them tackling that because i feel like that's not a character that i'm i'm used to seeing in movies this movie is not a normal movie that i've seen so uh.

55:22Speaker 1:Yeah definitely not in that category uh let's take uh another break we'll continue our thoughts about lead and other things also we'll be right back and we're back so sorry do you guys want to say anything else on uh paul mr badger Isn't his name Paul.

55:37Speaker 4:In this movie?

55:38Speaker 1:James.

55:39Speaker 6:James. His real name is James.

55:41Speaker 1:That's what fucked me up there.

55:42Speaker 2:I'll take the role, but my name is going to be James.

55:46Speaker 1:Look at that first picture there. Is that him pulling the tire?

55:48Speaker 6:Yeah.

55:49Speaker 1:What movie is that from? I don't know what movie it's from. The Empty Man post-credit. I'm coming back. The sequel. But, damn. It's all going to get demonetized.

55:59Speaker 4:Whatever this is, it's popular. Whatever it is.

56:01Speaker 1:Yeah. What was that?

56:03Speaker 6:I don't know. It's just like Today's Fanboy Delusion is what it's called.

56:07Speaker 1:Oh, now you know.

56:08Speaker 4:Today's Fanboy Delusion.

56:09Speaker 1:He's living an empty man life.

56:10Speaker 3:I do not want to check that website out. That sounds horrible.

56:13Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's where it is tough to talk about. And that's where I guess I'll just talk about some things that I like. Because it is tough to break down. Because I think there is just most of it is just that. answer is boring it's it's not real didn't happen not real but as far as like imagery and things i like the cult stuff i liked all the videos of the empty man and i'm trying to figure it out i liked when he went to the actual cult thing like i said you have the guy from get out there and he's been in lots of other things too but just like you're kind of learning and that and to me that cult stuff at least is the actual substantial stuff because that's actually real and i at least i think it's real because that's like how they operate and everything and i do love that moment when he's cruising around the building, and he finds them having their little meeting, and they all, like, stop, and same thing, look at, like, I love any time they did that and everything, so there's, like, some good creepy moments in it, just because the payoff was a little meh for me, that, in retrospective, like, the second watch is, like,

57:00Speaker 1:it did feel like nothing, but in the moment, I'm like, okay, I'm, like, in some cinematography here, I'm, like, even the cult chases him, I love the mood, but they also have, like, little flashlights, and just, like, little things, and he just fucking runs a bunch of people over, again, I don't know, does he actually run them over, like, is he, like, out of control for their thought process or are they choosing to get run over or did that not even happen?

57:21Speaker 1:I digress, but I'm going to say he ran them over.

57:23Speaker 2:So, you know, but yeah.

57:26Speaker 1:Yeah.

57:27Speaker 3:For me, when it comes to the cult stuff, I just found it hard to like get an understanding of what exactly was going on there. Like, Steven Root's the name of that actor. I mean, I've been watching Barry lately. He's fantastic in that show. But yeah, I wasn't exactly sure what his position was in the cult. Like, is he the head of the cult? Is he just like someone they get to do speeches and stuff? Because it seemed like everyone was kind of flocking him afterwards as if he was, you know, like the person at the top and they all came to like praise him or something like that.

57:58Speaker 4:So I was a bit confused by it.

58:00Speaker 3:But I think like overall, we get a lot of time with either hearing the cult speak or, these conversations or when he goes to that cabin and we're getting a lot of stuff there but i just felt like it was way too jargony for me like they have too many of these phrases that i think are just probably 5 10 15 minutes longer than they need to be and it makes it hard to follow what's going on and i can't fully grasp it and there is certain things in there like the he transmits we listen like that thing that really stuck with me that line but like i don't know what does it really mean and it's like backed up by all this other just many many paragraphs of random bs that i think just ended up kind of clouding what the final vision was and i almost wish they simplified it a bit because i love a good cult but i just couldn't get into this one because i just found myself too confused um and not even with like their ultimate plan because i think that makes sense to me but it's just like who are all these individual people and what are they all doing here and who are these like people that were getting highlighted and whatnot it's just uh just

58:57Speaker 3:a bit too confusing.

58:58Speaker 5:For my liking well i think I think that's where your name kind of comes into play here again, too, with the cult, because that's what he's preaching, right? Like life is just full of repetition and it's just repeats and just scenes. where human beings just get caught in this kind of grind and they lose that soul in their lives. So coming here and having that, you know, this, the classic cult higher purpose, um, I guess that's, that's kind of like the pole to kind of recruit all these people.

59:26Speaker 6:And, and Maybe.

59:28Speaker 5:I don't know if they're thinking like maybe the empty man is like a genie in a bottle kind of a thing. We go to this hospital room and we get our like three wishes or something like that.

59:35Speaker 1:I don't know.

59:36Speaker 5:But the goal for me was a little bit more elusive. But in terms of like why these people were all here at the cult, I kind of I feel like I understood that a.

59:46Speaker 6:Little bit better.

59:49Speaker 1:I was going to say, when Dylan said, I like a good cult, someone's going to cut that out and cancel one day at that clip. I like a good cult.

59:55Speaker 4:Oh, I love a good cult, man.

59:57Speaker 3:It can be a very happy thing when it's done well.

59:59Speaker 1:Yeah, I guess cult technically is not bad. It's just that it's been used for... It's usually bad. Nowadays it's bad, but it didn't start that way. But I think I don't have much more to add on what Dylan said other than I just want to say this because I will forget and other guys have said this. Yeah, I think that this movie definitely could be shorter. I get it because I feel like they're trying on purpose to make it feel like long and drug out. So when you get that twist, it feels like, Oh my God, like what a big journey we've been on. But I think, what did we say? It's like two 18 or something like that. Like, I can't, yeah, I.

1:00:27Speaker 6:Think it'd be a clean 20 minutes.

1:00:29Speaker 1:No, I won't go there.

1:00:29Speaker 6:It's just the opening.

1:00:31Speaker 1:I think you could get this down to a two, two Oh five. I really do. Cause I do think eventually it's just a lot of hitting the same tropes kind of over again. Now, if it was the big reveal of him finding out what this cult was and exposing or taking on, then sure. But again, that's where I feel like... I feel like the second he enters that hospital room, the movie shifts, and it's just like, you know, Amanda talking about a bunch of stuff, revealing the plot, everything. He shoots the fucking vessel and everything like that. But I feel like it's just... It's just...

1:01:01Speaker 1:What am I looking for the word? Not exploration. What is... When they explain the plot a bunch.

1:01:07Speaker 4:Exposition.

1:01:08Speaker 1:Thank you, Delmas. It's just that for 20 minutes with some scary imagery in there. So then when you watch it again, at least for me, It just doesn't add up to much because you know it's kind of going nowhere. So I feel they could have cut some stuff. Even then, when we talk about this whole, hey, now this could be real, the whole cult and that girl that he's talking to and she kills herself, I don't even know if that stuff's needed. It adds the intrigue if he's a real detective looking into it. But if he's not a real detective, I don't really think that's needed. I think you can get the same amount of movie without that mileage.

1:01:37Speaker 3:Well, I think, too, they really stuck on this three-day cycle and You could have done that and then made it skip through parts of it, but I feel like they wanted to intentionally make it so each day of these cycles are equivalent in screen time for some reason.

1:01:52Speaker 1:A 72-hour long movie.

1:01:54Speaker 3:The opening sequence in Bhutan, as much as we all liked that sequence, considering that that's not really what the movie is like, that's just kind of a scene setter. Like you easily could have shaved five minutes off of that just by, you know, making it a bit more snappy. And like the other thing that didn't work for me was he has the sequence where he's sleeping in bed and then he hears something outside. So he like examines his hallway and then he picks up his weapon and it goes out to the door.

1:02:20Speaker 1:He's Kirkland with the baseball bat.

1:02:22Speaker 4:We pretty much, yeah, we pretty much get that.

1:02:24Speaker 3:I mean, it's slightly different each time, but we see it like that sequence twice over and both times it feels like it's just, I don't know. Like it doesn't really have a nice ending to it. It's kind of just like, Oh no, no one was there. Nothing happened. So it's like, I don't know why that needs to happen twice. Like, I guess they're trying to do it because of the cycle thing, but I think you easily cut one of those host sequences out of there, combine them into one, uh, shorten down that three day sequence, or at least like you don't have to spend as much time with each day if they're not going to be as exciting. I think just those two things alone would save you a lot of time. And then just cutting back on the exposition, as you mentioned, Travis, like taking away some of that jargon that just confuses instead of, adds to it i i i legitimately think you could take 20 30 minutes off this movie and it would be better i don't know i i don't know if i should say be better for it but at least it would make the pacing better and that is a big that is a big con that all of us have is that it is way too long so i

1:03:16Speaker 3:think that would help it out a lot.

1:03:18Speaker 1:Yeah you're not wrong with opening and that's what sucks is because that is like the best part but it's just thinking like okay what goes towards the other movie but i think that's part of the twist right as they're trying to make you think it's a different movie But then when you get it, it's like, oh, it's not really him looking into something. It's he is the thing, you know, and stuff like that. And I agree with even stuff like it's even little stuff, but we get lots of flashes of like him, like pulling up the woman's dress. It's like, okay, I got the idea of it.

1:03:41Speaker 3:It's like those shots of his family, his quote unquote family.

1:03:44Speaker 4:So many times they hit you over the head with that way.

1:03:48Speaker 2:Yeah.

1:03:48Speaker 1:And that's where it's like, even if it's just saves two to five minutes, he takes on this. Like I get, even if it was just a regular mystery, I get it. He feels bad about his family. he really screwed up here, you know, like, all right, you know, but alas. Yeah. Um, let me take a look at my notes, but you guys have anything specifically notes, why sequences, scenes, shout them out. Cause now's the time.

1:04:09Speaker 2:Um, with my name, I absolutely loved when our character of Greg, I think it was his name was in the cave and he's just all puzzled, you know, his buddies just like meditating in front of the skeletons. Like what the fuck is going on? He says it a couple of times and then he goes like face to face with to like the empty man skeleton and he's just like what the fuck are you and i i just burst out laughing i was like oh my god this is gonna be such a fun movie and then it completely shifted like 10 minutes later but yeah that moment holy shit i knew that was gonna be my name because it was just such a memorable moment.

1:04:43Speaker 3:That shot too like once again going back to that sequence you're talking about like the snowy mountains and stuff but that is a great sequence when he goes in the cave the kind of blair witch moment where his friend's like he's there he's conscious but he's not looking at him That was a great moment. I wish we could have lived in that for the whole movie.

1:05:00Speaker 1:I'm sorry if one of you is looking like that and if you say, if you touch me, you're going to die. I'm not touching you. I'm like, oh, I'm going to have to get you airlifted out of here.

1:05:08Speaker 4:You're not going to go, what the fuck are you?

1:05:10Speaker 1:What the fuck are you?

1:05:12Speaker 6:What do you think would happen if no one touched him?

1:05:16Speaker 1:I think he would be... But no, I honestly think he would probably be contained there. and the vessel would die, but then the empty man would be stuck there. Because I don't know what the whole ritual is. He says, if you touch me, you die, right? To me, that's kind of insinuating that now that he's touched him and they bring him on, he can start to whisper to these people. He can slowly start to infect these people to become his followers and stuff like that.

1:05:43Speaker 3:But he killed them all off anyway before he left.

1:05:48Speaker 1:Our main guy?

1:05:50Speaker 4:Yeah, well, because all those three people.

1:05:51Speaker 1:After he touched them, though, right? You know, that's the thing. They all touched him after, like, their help lifting him up.

1:05:55Speaker 4:I know, but they didn't help him get out, really, right?

1:05:58Speaker 1:How did he get out of the cave, then?

1:06:00Speaker 3:Well, I mean, like, okay, when they're all dead, he's still at, like, the top of that mountain. So I assume he, like, went down by himself, is what I'm saying. So if he could do that, I assume he could get out of that cave eventually.

1:06:10Speaker 1:I guess, but then what does that meaning of if you touch me, you die? And it's not a threat. It's not like someone, like, he's going to mess him up, because that doesn't happen. So I just don't know if it is... Yeah. Does he need like their deaths to kind of give them some sort of power?

1:06:24Speaker 3:I wonder if that's still a bit of his friend still in there, like saying, don't like trying to save him.

1:06:29Speaker 2:I wonder.

1:06:30Speaker 1:It could be. Yeah. But yeah, I still, yeah. Cause yeah, that's the thing. Well, I guess technically though, He went down there. Let's say they leave him in the cave. Did he have the tools to get up? I can't remember that if he's still.

1:06:42Speaker 2:In the cave.

1:06:43Speaker 6:He needed a rope, and the lady was holding the other line of the rope up top.

1:06:46Speaker 1:So you know what? If they would have figured this out, obviously there's no way they could have. But I think if they could have left him in there, same thing. He would have become a skeleton. It would have just been like, well, hopefully someone else finds the empty man at some point in the future. But no, they brought him up, and he's in this cabin.

1:06:59Speaker 3:Yes.

1:07:01Speaker 2:The look of the effigy, oh my gosh, what a great image of this creature. It doesn't dance around and move. It's just this one skeleton in such a weird shape. It just totally looks spooky.

1:07:13Speaker 4:It's huge, too, right?

1:07:15Speaker 2:It was, yeah.

1:07:16Speaker 1:Oh, yeah.

1:07:17Speaker 4:A lot of fingers and things like that.

1:07:18Speaker 2:A lot of fingers.

1:07:19Speaker 1:Like I want to see it in its like form before it became the skeleton, you know?

1:07:22Speaker 5:I know.

1:07:23Speaker 1:Is it really a man? They call it the empty man.

1:07:25Speaker 5:Yeah.

1:07:25Speaker 2:It looks humanoid with the skull and everything, but like, are those his hands? It looks like like a chest piece or something. And then like these fucking tendril things coming out of them. Yeah. Weird. Definitely a alien or monster looking.

1:07:38Speaker 1:It's an alien.

1:07:40Speaker 2:All comes back to that crystal skull.

1:07:42Speaker 1:Um, I hit all my notes as far as scenes I wanted to shout out, creepy scenes, stuff like that.

1:07:49Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, I want to shout out the... Someone can look this up, the actor who plays Elrond also is in this movie. Because, I mean, we just finished Rings of Power and then I watched this the day after. So it was kind of fun to see that guy in a different role because I really liked him.

1:08:04Speaker 4:In rings of power. And I, I don't think he's doing.

1:08:06Speaker 3:A great job here, but I also don't think there's much room for him to do a great job. I still have fun with who the character was, but I was almost confused because I, I, before I watched the movie, I think Taylor had said in our chat that, Oh, L Ron's in it.

1:08:17Speaker 4:I'm like, wait, what are you talking about here? Um, which one did you think?

1:08:21Speaker 1:Which one?

1:08:21Speaker 2:I thought it was Hugo Weaving. I, I, a hundred percent.

1:08:24Speaker 1:I don't know.

1:08:24Speaker 3:I feel like I might've thought about the, I was thinking about this guy cause you know, we're so hot offerings of power, but, uh, What was it like? Because the first scene you get with him when he's like getting a coffee and I think James like says something to him and he just like walks the other way and doesn't say anything. I'm like, is that the only time he's in this movie? Because like, I don't think he's a huge actor. So that would be, I guess that would make sense. He's kind of just some small side character. I was like very confused by that. But then obviously he shows up like, once again, we're doing everything in cycles in this movie. So he shows up like 10, 15 minutes later and then we get a bunch of sequences with him. But it was fun to at least see him in another role now that I have a better perspective on him. saying a lot of man's yeah definitely eating up that word And the reason why I thought it was going to be Hugo Weaving is because going into this, I thought this was Hollow Man, like the 2002 movie.

1:09:11Speaker 2:I'm like, oh, it's going to be so interesting to see him.

1:09:14Speaker 1:Kevin Bacon, Hugo Weaving.

1:09:15Speaker 2:Lord of the Rings.

1:09:16Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, there you go.

1:09:19Speaker 3:The last thing I wanted to shout out, which I have an answer to this now, which is that none of it is real, so that's fine. But I was going to say too, when the police investigation is going on and this guy is like, the last one who talked to Amanda before she went missing. Uh, he found all the bodies under the bridge. He was talking to a high schooler in his car, like smoking with her, which is like a very creepy, weird thing for him to do. Like, he just knows so much. I'm like, It is shocking to me that they have not detained this guy. Like, he should be suspect number one. He's, like, you know, had this traumatic past, ex-cop. He's kind of this weird guy, has these weird connections with everyone who's gone missing. It's like, man, they should be arresting this guy right now. But obviously, none of that was real, so it all makes sense. But I had to shout that out still.

1:10:05Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely.

1:10:07Speaker 1:Yeah, and I feel like they, at one point, like, they almost make it look like the cops want to question that, but that is never.

1:10:13Speaker 2:i was waiting for it to come up yeah and they're just like oh they just this guy's former cop he's totally trusting there no one's like hey i heard you fuck that dead guy's.

1:10:22Speaker 1:Life yeah we all know about what you do like just even get rid of that if you're not giving you have the cops those recurring characters throughout the movie like also looking into it you don't need them you know again i get the intrigue it's adding but yeah um tell you anything dad Uh.

1:10:38Speaker 5:That again, just, you guys already talked about it, but that sequence where he found the cult in the woods and all that kind of stuff. And he was hallucinating as the flames are going super high, but you guys already talked about their movements and stuff. The one thing that really got me was just when they were approaching him and he realized that they were like mimicking his movements and he just, I'm pretty sure he said, nope.

1:10:58Speaker 6:And then he turned and ran. And I really, really liked that.

1:11:01Speaker 1:I think he's like, yeah, no.

1:11:03Speaker 2:And he runs.

1:11:03Speaker 1:And I did, I thought it was an endearing moment, but the same thing too, about, Obviously, they start climbing over the car, but when you watch that, you can almost make it feel like he is controlling them in a sense because they do move just the same way he moves. Like, every time he moves a foot back, they move a foot forward and stuff like that. Now, again, like I said, they go ape shit on his car. They're backflipping all over when he runs them over. So that part doesn't really track, but I guess the track could be just that they want to get, like, he thinks they want to kill him, do all these things, but they.

1:11:29Speaker 5:Just want to, like.

1:11:29Speaker 4:I mean, that's probably not actually a real car, right?

1:11:32Speaker 1:Yeah, I guess. I guess not. It's not a real car. He's like, where's the insurance on this thing? He hits somebody. They're like, what's this creation we made? Why is he worried about the car damage? He's like, they just want to get here. And there's a whole day, like day three, he's at an automotive. He really has to get his car fixed. And the call's just like, I fucking hate what you created here, Amanda. This guy's really responsible. I'm like, oh, OK. Well, I'm just going to sit around, rent a new car.

1:11:57Speaker 1:And they're like, oh, my god. He's never going to get to us. What's happening? Just go to the hospital.

1:12:02Speaker 2:I hope there's some fan fiction out there that ties us into the Matrix world in some way, shape, or form. Because I feel like that would be believable if this character was just made somewhere. He's actually just a program. He's a program. Nothing is real, because it's all just, you know, take the blue pill or whatever.

1:12:16Speaker 3:What if instead of that, though, this is actually related to Iron Man 3, and he has the same character.

1:12:21Speaker 1:In the novel?

1:12:22Speaker 4:He's actually part of the MCU.

1:12:24Speaker 2:This is him after he retired.

1:12:25Speaker 4:The Empty Man is the next Thanos.

1:12:28Speaker 1:Yeah, Empty Man's definitely going to be in Doctor Strange 3. Like, was Zombie Strange fighting the Empty Man? We'll get to see the Empty Man fully formed, and that skeleton, he's going.

1:12:36Speaker 2:To be fucking huge.

1:12:37Speaker 1:Actually, now that I think about it, the skeleton kind of looks like Doctor Strange when he has the cloak, so... Maybe it's just a Doctor Strange thing gone poorly, you know?

1:12:45Speaker 2:This is set way in the future after Doctor Strange.

1:12:47Speaker 4:I mean, it makes sense too, right?

1:12:48Speaker 3:Because Doctor Strange, they have camarades in Nepal, but Bhutan and Nepal.

1:12:53Speaker 4:Are on their border with each other, so they're really close.

1:12:56Speaker 6:It's all coming together.

1:12:57Speaker 1:They took down the Sanctum Sanctorum, like everything, and that's why... This hole in the cliff is where the headquarters used to be.

1:13:05Speaker 2:We figured it out, guys.

1:13:06Speaker 4:It all makes sense now.

1:13:08Speaker 3:It's some Sorcerer's Supreme bullshit, all of that.

1:13:10Speaker 1:Thank you, Kevin Feige.

1:13:11Speaker 6:It's Zombie Supreme.

1:13:12Speaker 5:His body left in that destroyed temple.

1:13:15Speaker 1:I can't wait in Secret Wars when those portals open again and the empty man walks through. Just this cloaked motherfucker.

1:13:24Speaker 3:The audience will be like, what the hell is that?

1:13:27Speaker 1:Oh, I know that character from Marvel Comics 92. No, you don't.

1:13:31Speaker 2:Thanos is stabbing himself in the eye when he comes back.

1:13:36Speaker 1:No, it's Fury in the other eye, though. He's just a blind man. I'll start, Taylor, because I imagine you'd probably be the lowest there. So, Taylor, obviously, I don't know if you can say anything more. As you said, Clay, you wasted two hours of my life. But any final thoughts and rating you would give this?

1:13:54Speaker 6:Yeah, I'm not going to watch this ever again.

1:13:57Speaker 5:Um, and when I was making dinner tonight, I just kept telling Madison, like, this movie was just not good.

1:14:03Speaker 6:It was not good.

1:14:03Speaker 5:When I went to bed last night, like 1am, she's like, how's the movie?

1:14:06Speaker 6:Cause I woke her up. I'm like, Oh, I'm glad you didn't watch it.

1:14:08Speaker 2:You're whispering in her ear.

1:14:10Speaker 4:Don't watch the movie.

1:14:15Speaker 5:So, um, yeah, it's, it's, uh, it's just, it's, it's one of those things, you know, it's, you know, clay for the fans, for the patrons, you know, you, uh, You put.

1:14:28Speaker 6:The signal in the sky and I answered the call. And that was one hell of a call.

1:14:36Speaker 5:It's a movie and it's not high on my list.

1:14:40Speaker 6:Like I said, I'm not going to rewatch it. The character is hard to get connected to.

1:14:43Speaker 5:And when you get like finally to the end where there's a twist, you just feel like everything that you observed in this journey you went on was completely irrelevant because it doesn't even all happen, I guess.

1:14:52Speaker 1:I don't know. Most of it. It happens in his mind, Taylor.

1:14:56Speaker 6:It happens for him.

1:14:58Speaker 4:It happens when the plot needs it to happen.

1:15:01Speaker 6:Yeah, exactly. So as far as a rating would go.

1:15:05Speaker 5:I'd probably go like a 2 out of 10.

1:15:09Speaker 6:I'm only doing it.

1:15:10Speaker 4:Is that your lowest rating of all time?

1:15:12Speaker 1:It might be, actually.

1:15:14Speaker 6:I had one point for every 10 minutes I enjoyed.

1:15:16Speaker 1:I was going to ask you, what are the two things you enjoyed from this? What gives you the two and not at least a zero?

1:15:22Speaker 5:It was the setup at the beginning of just getting this isolated kind of landscape and then seeing the bones of this cryptid remains.

1:15:30Speaker 6:I was like, fuck, I'm in. And I regretted that decision.

1:15:34Speaker 1:The bones is a full point of the point skill system.

1:15:37Speaker 4:Well, it's cryptid.

1:15:38Speaker 2:They're big bones.

1:15:38Speaker 4:You know that's going to give them a.

1:15:39Speaker 1:True. Dylan, any final thoughts as far as we'll never talk about Empty Man ever again?

1:15:44Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean.

1:15:46Speaker 3:In concept movies like this, I really like to get nitty gritty with a breakdown of the details and stuff. And unfortunately, like this was not one of those for me. Like I just afterwards thinking about it, like nothing was satisfying for me to think about. And even in this discussion, like this is not your guy's fault. The movie just is not satisfying in that it's not giving us like, oh, I want to theorycraft on this, what this means to me, what it means to you, that kind of thing.

1:16:09Speaker 4:It just doesn't do that.

1:16:10Speaker 1:But.

1:16:11Speaker 3:I'm going to throw it right back to you, Clay. All those questions we had, I want to see paragraphs. I want to see your essay. Write back to us and please tell us what your answers are or if you don't even care about that.

1:16:22Speaker 4:Maybe Clay doesn't even like this movie.

1:16:24Speaker 6:I don't know.

1:16:24Speaker 4:But if you do, I want to know what it is.

1:16:26Speaker 3:About it that you like and what your answers to those questions are because we've had many of those conversations with you. Back before we had a Patreon on Facebook, we'd be talking with Clay for hours, days about certain movies and games and stuff like that. So I really want to hear from you on why you picked this, why this is worthy of going back to two years later. But for me, that's pretty much it today.

1:16:47Speaker 1:If he doesn't write in next afternoon, I'll grill him too. I'll get him too. I don't know who else would have seen it. as far as our patience goes.

1:16:55Speaker 4:I feel like April probably.

1:16:57Speaker 2:Has seen it.

1:16:58Speaker 1:April, who's rocking like 200 movies on her letterbox. I feel like big boy when I'm like, I've watched 53, I've watched a movie per week a year, and she's like, yeah, look at this. Boom! And stuff like that. But there you have it. Clay, he's going to come back. He's like, I want you guys to watch Hollow Man. Like, what the fuck? You guys watched the wrong movie. Kirk and Pat, sir, what is your final thoughts on the score?

1:17:21Speaker 2:Yeah, so... As we talked about the just irrelevance of the journey of our main character, it really, really brought down my overall feeling of this movie. But like I, you know, I can't deny it definitely had me on edge in certain moments, like when he was in his house and he was hearing stuff and that I feel like that ritual is a fun like trope to have in a movie and follow along with. It's always been kind of spooky. Like I remember just getting so freaked out about like the Bloody Mary concept as a kid and just like what you would see. It was more like what you would see. It was just terrifying of me.

1:17:55Speaker 2:So something like The Candyman and those types of movies, I feel like really do it for me. The cult stuff was really fun too. That scene that we mentioned of just them all just running around in a circle of this flame pillar. And he's just in the woods and comes across this. And it's just like, what the fuck have I come across? And then when it just goes dark... he goes up to them what the fuck are you no but like that was just such a well done scene and and with the opening as well like there there definitely is things that i can enjoy in this movie but it definitely hurts it a lot knowing that just a lot of that stuff is is irrelevant but like i said beginning i do want to revisit this this might be a fun one to to show my dad or something see i feel like he'll he'll like a heady movie like this um so i i think right now i'll give it like a I'll give it like a six i think i i think i was leaning like six and a half because of just like how i was feeling in some of those moments but it it brings it down a lot with uh just knowing that this character never really was there never really interacting with a lot of the the scenes

1:19:03Speaker 2:and it was just so long so unfortunate share your thoughts chavis i'm.

1:19:08Speaker 1:Just picturing this watch along between kirkland and his dad and it's like they're watching like the funeral scene kirkland's like you see that you greet that dad you see a fucking that guy's wife what do you think about i.

1:19:19Speaker 3:Don't know why you should just tell your dad at the start this guy is actually not real and then you see how he reacts.

1:19:26Speaker 1:Or say one of these characters isn't real tell me who it is but just the thought of watching like that sequence with It's just the.

1:19:34Speaker 6:A modern day Sixth Sense.

1:19:36Speaker 3:Yeah, when the movie starts, like, this whole snowy part, don't worry about this.

1:19:39Speaker 4:This is not relevant.

1:19:40Speaker 6:You know what I mean?

1:19:41Speaker 1:This is the prequel to the movie you're about to watch, you know? Shape 20 minutes and it's a two-hour movie. But, yeah, I'm right where Kirkland is. I'm at six because I think it's a... There's some stuff I like, as I said, about, you know, some moments in there. And I think acting overall is, for the most part, good. Like, serviceable. I think there's some fun shots there. I think there's some... You know, a squirt in the sand would be amazing, but I thought it wasn't all so bad either or anything like that.

1:20:02Speaker 2:So.

1:20:03Speaker 1:I think it's more than a passable movie. It's just kind of in concept that I like. And then the execution, not so much. I think when we talk about the it's not real or these sort of scenarios, it's kind of like when you watch an A24 movie and most of the time this shit is happening, but they never get a jail-free card where the person wakes up from a dream, right? There's scenes where you're like, oh no, this actually all happened. In this world, it all happened and stuff like that. And they don't go back on it.

1:20:29Speaker 1:I think they kind of go back on it. Yes, for a journey for a particular character, But for me, it's not a journey that I plan on ever going on again. But yeah, like I said, I like some stuff, the cult stuff. I like the scene always, like I said, with the feel. I think that's a highlight along the opening and some things. But yeah, no, I wish I liked it more because I know, Clay, you're a big fan. Hopefully, yeah, like Dylan says, I want to hear why you are a big fan. And he's not alone. There's tons of other people that are. They kind of, when I've seen people be like, oh, give me Halloween movies on my Twitter timeline of like what I should be watching I haven't seen before. Empty Man does come up quite a bit, so it's just, yeah, I don't know, and that's, you know, that's good, so. Well, Asian Men, we did it. We'll be back next November to be talking about, also there'll be other retrospectives along the way, but for the Patreon picks, we're going to be watching Jake Gyllenhaal's Prince of Persia, and you know what? I feel like this might be the better movie somehow, so we'll see what happens in November.

1:21:27Speaker 1:Until then, it won't be boring.

1:21:29Speaker 2:Bye-bye.