Fresh (2022)

Jamie and Caitlin meet at the grocery store for a little discussion about Fresh (2022).

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
On the Bechdel Cast.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
The questions asked if movies.

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Have women in them, are all their discussions just boyfriends
and husbands, or do they have individualism? It's the patriarchy,
zeph and bast start changing it with the Bechdel Cast.

Speaker 3 (00:16):
Nonmnam, Jamie, I'm hungry for.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
What for you?

Speaker 3 (00:21):
For me?

Speaker 2 (00:22):
For my ass?

Speaker 3 (00:23):
Yeah, for your ass and your titties.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
Egg on my ass. I thought he took her whole ass,
but it turns out just a portion.

Speaker 3 (00:33):
Questions I'm not sure, wait, because she seems like she
has her ass pretty much intact afterwards.

Speaker 2 (00:40):
Yeah, but I don't know. But I guess I forgot again.
My male gaze radar is all off, and I forgot
to check the size of her ass at the beginning
of the movie. Well, I was looking okay, good, good, disrespectfully.
I'm sure.

Speaker 3 (00:58):
Yes, I was gazing in a very objectifying way and
I didn't notice that much of a difference.

Speaker 2 (01:06):
Wow, get her ass? Okay, Welcome to Wow. What a really,
really feminist introduction to the episode. Welcome to the Bechdel Cast.
My name's Jamie Loftus.

Speaker 3 (01:21):
My name is Caitlin Durante, and this is our show
where we examine movies through an intersectional feminist lens, using
the Bechdel Test as a jumping off point, as frelutely
and what's that, Jamie Well.

Speaker 2 (01:37):
The Bechdel Test is a media metric created by Alison
Bechdel and her friend Liz Wallace, which is why it's
often called the Bechdel Wallace Test. It was originally created
as a bit for Alison Bechdel's iconic I host was
an iconic comic collection Nice to Watch out for, but
eventually it became used as a sort of metric to

(01:59):
see if people care about characters of marginalized genders, and
the answer is often know. Today, I think we have
a great discussion ahead. Yes, So the version of the
test that we use a little bit of a modified version,
requires that two characters of a marginalized gender with names
speak to each other about something other than a man

(02:22):
for two lines of dialogue or more. Yeah, that's sort
of what we're up to. I appreciate if nothing else,
the movie we're talking about today really warns you about
men from Oregon, And I think that's a really important
psa that I rarely see reflected in film. To all

(02:45):
of our listeners in organ can't wait to see you
at the next live show. But like men from Oregon
scary scary to me personally in my lived experience, I'm
afraid of them in my lived experience. They want to
steal my ass and eat it. That's just my lived experience.

Speaker 3 (03:07):
Sure to sure that hasn't happened to me yet. Time
will tell.

Speaker 2 (03:12):
I was about to say, well, it's just a matter
of time. It's just a matter of time. You meet
them in a different city and then you find out
month's sin they're from Oregon, and then you're like, oh,
this man's trying to kill me.

Speaker 3 (03:24):
Yeah. Anyways, we're covering Fresh twenty twenty two, originally released
on Hulu. Was it, I believe Jamie? What's your relationship
slash history with the movie?

Speaker 2 (03:37):
Well, first, I just realized that the character played by
Sebastian stand is in fact from Texas. So I would
like to modify as he tells us. And so actually
I would just like to say, Men who Live Live,
I'd like to totally backtrack everything I said. I was
just trying to be rude to an ex boyfriend. There's

(04:00):
plenty of time left in the episode to do that.

Speaker 3 (04:03):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (04:04):
In any case, my history with this movie is that
I had not seen it. I meant to and then didn't,
as so very often happens to me with movies on streamers.
It's weird. I feel like I used to be sort
of the reverse of this, but now it's like I
am much less likely to watch a movie if I
if I don't get a chance to watch it in theaters.

Speaker 3 (04:23):
You're a theater girly.

Speaker 2 (04:24):
Now I'm a theater girl. I'm an AFC Stubbs passholder.
So yeah, I would have loved to see this in theaters.
It's a bummer that that didn't happen. I don't know
if there was like a limited release or something, but
but yeah, I really like the stars of this movie,
Daisy Egga Jones and of course Itanio's own Sebastian Stan.

Speaker 3 (04:43):
Yes.

Speaker 2 (04:43):
So I was excited to see it and i'd never
seen I know that this was the director Mimi Cave's
feature length debut, which is wild. I feel like it's
such a fully realized thing. Yeah, I enjoyed it. It's
a brief and uncomplicated history with this movie.

Speaker 3 (05:00):
What about you, Caitlin, I did see it about a
year ago. Maybe not right when it came out, but
within not too long of it being released. Our mutual
friend Bryant and I watched it together and I thought
it was interesting.

Speaker 2 (05:20):
Yeah, I think.

Speaker 3 (05:21):
I already knew what it was about. It's about cannibalism,
and I knew that going in, so I wasn't like
surprised at the twist or anything.

Speaker 2 (05:30):
I kind of was surprised at well, if we can
talk about like pacing good stuff. Yeah, because I also
felt I hadn't even seen the trailer for it. I
don't think, but I knew what this movie was about,
like maybe just through like hearsay or whatever it was.
But yeah, but yeah, it takes a long time for
it to reveal that it's a cannibal movie for a
movie that it seems like everyone knows is a cannibal movie, right,

(05:53):
What are you gonna do?

Speaker 3 (05:54):
What are you gonna do? I did earlier today write
a letter boxed.

Speaker 2 (06:00):
Review bra I've never done before.

Speaker 3 (06:03):
Yes, simply states this movie gives new meaning to the
term meet cute.

Speaker 2 (06:12):
Yeah, I gotta hand it to you. I gotta hand
it to you.

Speaker 3 (06:15):
Thank you so much. But anyway, Yeah, I saw the movie.
I was like, oh, that was pretty cool, and now
we're talking about it, so let's proceed, shall we.

Speaker 2 (06:28):
I'm very excited. Yeah, there is a certain amount of
like Catharsis, to watch a good movie like this, for sure,
I quite enjoy So if nothing else, I feel like,
there it's a good opportunity for us to publicly air
out some personal dating horrors. And isn't that beautiful?

Speaker 3 (06:45):
That's honestly a lot of what my discussion will be
about here today.

Speaker 2 (06:52):
Okay, great, then welcome to a gossip with us, because yeah,
I feel like I really enjoyed this movie, and part
of it was because they were just like you could
just tell that it was written by a woman who
has to date men. Just there were like these little
details that you're like ooh oof, no eh hah, yeah,

(07:13):
that including like there's nothing more bone chilling than being
in a man's home and there's no signal and you're
like scary. I hate to ruin the mood, but I
remember having to do that once, being like I hate
to like wreck the mood, but like I need you
to give me the Wi Fi just in case you
want to kill me, and like, but you just have

(07:34):
to be direct about it because honestly, at that point,
if he's gonna kill you, he would just start at
the request.

Speaker 3 (07:40):
This is true.

Speaker 2 (07:41):
It's not like I can change my fate at this point.
But yeah, I like that reminded me of a couple
of years ago we were just like, oh my god, Yeah,
you have to be like, hey, I'm awkward, but I
need to be able to call nine one one in
case you're horrible.

Speaker 3 (07:58):
Yeah. Also, so we just covered get Out and I
watched this movie on the same day that we covered,
So I like watched it out in the morning we
recorded that episode, and then like later that night I
watched Fresh so Wild. What a day?

Speaker 2 (08:15):
What a day for you?

Speaker 3 (08:16):
But the movie follows similar beats in the sense that
it's like someone who goes to this unfamiliar place with
a romantic partner. They have alterior motives. Yeah, the protagonist
gets abducted, they have to try to escape, death is
or you know, loss of autonomy is imminent. You know,

(08:37):
lots of stuff like that, and then a victorious, triumphant
escape from the protagonist at the end. So like, you know,
obviously very different stories, but like following similar beats.

Speaker 2 (08:48):
Similar beats. I didn't think about that. Yeah, that's very
very true. Similar friend to the rescue thing. Yes, indeed,
although I did love that they had oh my gosh,
what is this character's name bartender?

Speaker 3 (09:01):
Oh, Paul Paul.

Speaker 2 (09:02):
Yeah. I love that they did have Paul be like no.

Speaker 3 (09:05):
No, he shows up to help and then he's like
never mind.

Speaker 2 (09:09):
Yeah, and you're just like, well, I you know, I
wish he had called someone else, but I don't not
get it.

Speaker 3 (09:17):
Right because he's well, we'll talk about him. But yeah,
I found that interesting.

Speaker 2 (09:22):
I thought that was an interesting fake out because you
I think maybe it is because we just watched to
get Out. I kept waiting for like the TSA moments
at the end of get Out, you're like, oh, no,
he's gonna leave. I guess that that is like pretty realistic.

Speaker 3 (09:34):
Anyways, I'll do the recap and then we'll go from there.

Speaker 2 (09:37):
Let's do it.

Speaker 3 (09:38):
Actually, let's take a quick break first and then we'll
come back.

Speaker 4 (09:41):
Oh all right, welcome back.

Speaker 3 (09:52):
Will you're back?

Speaker 2 (09:53):
Sharpen your freaking blades.

Speaker 3 (09:56):
Baby, oh or your teeth, because I just stand i'snna
eat your s sebashians Stan, Like, what is going on there?

Speaker 2 (10:04):
I've been trying to figure out what is going on there?
For years? What's going on there?

Speaker 3 (10:08):
Because I remember you saying you could not register who
that person was until Titania came out, and then you're like, oh,
now I know who he is because he plays is
it Jeff Galuley, Yes, thank you.

Speaker 2 (10:21):
We're a great recall.

Speaker 3 (10:22):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (10:24):
Uh yes, I think that maybe you know, in retrospect,
my issue with registering Sebashians Stan's face had more to
do with like Marvel glaze sure, where he was in
a lot of Marvel movies. And I feel like, this
is my theory, if you are in like enough Marvel movies,
your face just becomes naturally blurry to the human eye

(10:46):
for like five years, but then it wears off and
you're like, and he's and he's doing I haven't I
don't know. I saw the Donald Trump movie and I
was like.

Speaker 3 (10:56):
Oh, okay.

Speaker 2 (10:57):
But in any case, like he's he's a good actor,
and I feel like he tries a lot of interesting stuff.
But this was around the time where he was starting
to try more interesting stuff instead of just playing like
the Ppee Warrior or like whoever he is in Marvel?
Is he the Pepee Warrior? Uh?

Speaker 3 (11:12):
Yeah, no, that's correct. Is he the Winter Soldier or
is someone else the Winter Soldier? Don't answer my question, listeners,
I don't want to know, actually don't know.

Speaker 2 (11:21):
I'm just like, congratulations to Sebashianstan for the blur finally
wearing off of his face. I do register him now
as an autonomous human man. And I think he's quite talented.

Speaker 3 (11:32):
H yeah, no, but I agree it. Tanya really did
it for me. And while he plays a despicable character
in that movie, he is unfortunately so hot.

Speaker 2 (11:41):
He's really hot in that movie, specifically the little mustache.
You're like, I know, what is it? And You're like
it's my dad. Like You're like, what the fun? Anyways, anyways,
let's keep moving. I do appreciate, like I feel like,
and this will change the next time we talk about
Sebastian Stan. None of this passes the Bechdel test. But

(12:02):
he has, like I appreciate when an actor recognizes they
have like a somewhat punishable kind of handsome face, because
Sebastia stand like he's like villainous handsome.

Speaker 3 (12:13):
Yeah, yeah, I think so.

Speaker 2 (12:16):
Anyways, Daisy Egar Jones was great in Twisters. Yeah, and
under the banner of Heaven, did you watch that.

Speaker 3 (12:23):
I did not.

Speaker 2 (12:25):
Well, it's really depressing. Don't watch it unless you want
to get really upset.

Speaker 3 (12:30):
I feel like I know of it because you made
a joke to the effect of under the banner of
Kevin le mignonk you.

Speaker 2 (12:37):
Thank you for bringing that up. I didn't know if
there's gonna be a way to bring that up organically. Yes,
I would absolutely watch under the banner of Kevin, under
the banner of Heaven, it's you know, it's an Andrew
Garfield Police detective show. I would say, maybe too sad,
maybe don't watch.

Speaker 3 (12:58):
But under the banner of Kevin. Yes, anyway, Yes, let's
get it. Yeah, let's keep moving a lot.

Speaker 2 (13:04):
I like Chaos episode, Chaos episode.

Speaker 1 (13:08):
Ah.

Speaker 3 (13:09):
Right. So this is a horror movie, so you know
content warnings. There's violence against women, there's abduction, there's human trafficking,
there's cannibalism. The movie takes place in the Pacific Northwest,
in Portland, specifically, I believe.

Speaker 2 (13:27):
Yes we meet.

Speaker 3 (13:28):
Noah played by Daisy Edgar Jones. She's a single lady
looking for, if not love, she's just dating. She's out
there dating, going on dates. She goes on a first
date with a guy who ends up being a total asshole.
She's not having luck on the dating apps. Men are

(13:50):
being gross and sending her dick pics unsolicited things like
that her best friend Molly played by Jojo t. Gibb
reassures Noah that she doesn't need a man, and they've
just been conditioned by Disney Princess movies to have unrealistic
expectations about love and romance.

Speaker 2 (14:11):
And you're like, okay, twenty twelve, let's freaking go buzzby
twenty twelve.

Speaker 3 (14:18):
So one night, Noah heads to the grocery store to
grab some treats. A guy there strikes up a conversation
with her about cotton candy grapes. This is Steve played
by Sebastian Stan.

Speaker 2 (14:32):
Okay, Mistake number one, don't go on a date with
someone you meet in the vegetable aisle.

Speaker 3 (14:38):
Proceed with caution. I would say, well.

Speaker 2 (14:41):
I just the vegetables. Like if I met a guy,
you know, near the macaroni, I would be like sure,
you'd be like, ooh, yeah.

Speaker 3 (14:51):
I did have a guy approach me in the grocery
store one time. This was back when I lived in Boston,
so probably like twelve years ago. Okay, and he was
just like, hi, You're so beautiful, and.

Speaker 2 (15:05):
I said, who me?

Speaker 3 (15:09):
And then we did go on a like coffee date.
I want to say, like later that day. It was
like a Saturday or Sunday, when I was just like, fu,
I'm not doing anything.

Speaker 2 (15:18):
You almost got freshed.

Speaker 3 (15:20):
I almost got freshed. But I quickly realized that I
was not romantically interested in him, and I said, I'm
going to leave forever now bye.

Speaker 2 (15:29):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (15:30):
So I saved myself from being freshed. Good for you,
Good for you, Thank you.

Speaker 2 (15:34):
I feel like I'm constantly putting myself in situations where
I could possibly get freshed. It's a common criticism of me.
I mean, but so far, so good.

Speaker 3 (15:45):
So far so good, and it's not your fault if
it happens.

Speaker 2 (15:49):
I mean, let's be honest when.

Speaker 3 (15:55):
Well, let's try not to put that out into the universe.
But anyway, she's approached by this, you know, charming guy
who's trying to flirt and he asks for her number,
and he's Sebastian Stan So she says yes, and she
gives him her number.

Speaker 2 (16:10):
Who could blame her? She's but human, all right.

Speaker 3 (16:14):
A few days later he texts her and they meet
up for a date and they hit it off. It
seems like they have a lot in common. They smooch,
they go back to her place, and Jamie they have sex.

Speaker 2 (16:32):
Don't tell me that you should have done a content
warning for that.

Speaker 3 (16:39):
Yeah sorry at the X Yeah stop. This episode is
rated R okay. So some time passes and they keep
seeing each other. It's going well, it's cute. He even
suggests they go away together on a weekend trip, but Mollie,
her best friend, is a bit wary of this because

(17:00):
he doesn't have social media, she's never met him, she
doesn't nobody looks like. She doesn't like that this trip
is this like surprise that he's kind of springing on Noah,
especially because like she doesn't know where they're going. But
they're like whatever, it will be fine. And so Steve
picks up Noah and they head to his place before

(17:20):
going to whatever this destination is, which turns out to
be Cottage Grove, Oregon, and also where he lives seems
to be a several hour drive away from the city
because by the time they get there it's dark.

Speaker 2 (17:32):
Yeah, it was a little confused about that, but also,
I mean I can definitely relate with, even though this
kind of stretches credulity a little bit, the feeling of like,
I don't know, like someone that you like being like
this is normal, And then I've definitely been a person
that's like, ah, yeah, totally and this is regular for me,

(17:55):
Like it's unfortunately definitely a thing.

Speaker 3 (17:58):
Yeah, because you like want to put your trust into
someone that you like, and so you're just like, sure,
everything's fine, although we do see Noah seeming a bit
uneasy about this because she gets to the house, she
wants to connect to the Wi fi there's no cell service,
and you know, he ignores that. He makes her a

(18:18):
drink which he has drugged, and Noah loses consciousness. And
then we get the title card and the opening credits,
which is like thirty minutes into the movie. So surprise,
the movie's called Fresh. So it turns out Steve is
the bad guy. Yeah, Noah wakes up in a windowless room,

(18:40):
her arm is chained to the floor, and we're like, okay,
saw vibes Savva.

Speaker 2 (18:45):
I was also thinking of ten Cloverfield Lane, a movie
I really.

Speaker 3 (18:49):
Like, Oh, I need to rewatch that.

Speaker 2 (18:52):
I remember really liking it.

Speaker 3 (18:55):
Yeah, I know, so did I except for I remember
thinking the end and I'll try not to say any
spoilers here, but the end felt tacked on and that
it belonged in a different movie.

Speaker 2 (19:07):
The end was really weird. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (19:09):
Well, also because you find out that that was a
script written on spec I think that had nothing to
do with the Cloverfield franchise, right, And then they bought
the script and then like co opted it into a
Cloverfield movie, and so you're just like, what, it doesn't
make any sense anyway. Okay, So she wakes up in
this room chained to the wall, but instead of Jigsaw

(19:31):
on a tape recorder saying let's play a game, Steve
is in the room and he explains that he drugged
Noah and that he intends to keep her trapped there,
chop off pieces of her and sell her meat because
people pay him a lot of money for human meat.

(19:53):
And he says he's going to keep her alive as
long as possible because the fresher the meat the bat
and the more valuable it is. And we're like, hey,
the name of the movie is Fresh.

Speaker 2 (20:05):
And they meet in the Fresh produce isle.

Speaker 3 (20:07):
Uh huh, and she's standing under a sign that says
fresh meets.

Speaker 2 (20:12):
Wow, and that's just a little joke he's doing. Yeah,
the movie is called Fresh. The movie's called Fresh, and
you won't forget it as you're watching the movie Fresh.

Speaker 3 (20:23):
Yeah. So he's like, I won't kill you right away
unless you act up, in which case he'll kill her sooner.
So Noah is obviously terrified because, believe it or not,
she wants to keep her meat on her body. Molly, meanwhile,
is trying to call and text Noah because Molly hasn't

(20:44):
heard from her, and she gets a text response and
it's clear to us the audience that it's Steve pretending
to be Noah. So back in Noah's dungeon room, she's screaming,
she's crying. She hears a voice coming from the room
next time her. This is Penny played by Andrea Bang,
saying that Steve isn't there right now and that she's

(21:07):
in the same situation as Noah, although Steve has already
started cutting off parts of her to sell her meat.
And there's a third woman, Melissa, although she has been
there for a while and it seems that she has
like lost her mind. Steve comes back and we see

(21:27):
him cut up Melissa's amputated leg. He's tenderizing the meat,
he seals it, he packages it into a few different boxes.

Speaker 2 (21:36):
And he's like basically doing I mean, there is a
portion of this movie where Sebastian Stan is like, remember
Christian Bale in American Psycho, I'm kind of doing that.
Like the you know, the needle drops and stuff felt
very reminiscent of American Psycho.

Speaker 3 (21:50):
Sure, yeah, yeah, you half expect Sebastian Stan to start
monologuing about Huey Lewis in the news or Whitney Houston
or something.

Speaker 2 (21:59):
Right right, Like he's not as far, god, but I mean,
what kind of yardstick is that?

Speaker 4 (22:04):
But yeah, like.

Speaker 2 (22:05):
Grooving around with his victims to like eighties music, You're like,
I know this, I know for some reason this is
a trope, right, yes.

Speaker 3 (22:14):
And he's like putting the meat in these like little
care packages along with like the photos of the women
and like articles of their clothing and stuff like that.
It seems like he always like says to these women,
let's go on a trip, and then that way they
pack a bag full of stuff and then he steals
it and anyway, so.

Speaker 2 (22:31):
He's objectifying women. Would we agree that he views women
as proud objects? What do you mean? That was the
thought I had? It wasn't the very end of the movie.
But well, let's just go on a second. Wait, wait
a minute, A looks like this guy respects ladies at all.

Speaker 3 (22:53):
Right, all right, So Noah is determined to get out
of this situation. She tells Steve that she needs to
take a shower, which he is about to let her do,
so he leads her upstairs. She takes note of her surroundings,
but then she tries to break free and escape, and
Steve stops her. When she wakes up again, she's on

(23:16):
a surgical bed and he is surgically removing her buttocks.

Speaker 2 (23:23):
Wilds.

Speaker 3 (23:24):
Yeah. Mollie, meanwhile, is still concerned, and she starts digging
and realizes that the picture that Noah quote unquote texted
of her trip is actually a stock photo from a website.
So Molly knows something's up.

Speaker 2 (23:41):
Also, like the second your good friend starts texting you
fully punctuated sentences, You're like, they've been kidnapped, They've been taken. Yeah,
your close friend would never send you a full sentence
in a text that's absurd.

Speaker 3 (23:55):
Also, you see Molly's face have this like book of
incredulity when she sends a heart emoji, and it almost
seems like, oh, she never uses emojis. That wasn't established,
And I feel like that maybe would have been helpful
to establish that, like Noah never uses emojis. But you
see her be suspicious Molly. That is when she gets

(24:18):
the heart emoji, and that's when she starts kind of investigating.
She sees the stock photo, and so she goes to
the bar where Noah went on her first date with Steve,
and she asks the bartender, Paul played by theo Okinewe,
who is a former lover of Molly's. They used to

(24:39):
like have a casual hookup situation, it seemed, and she
asks Paul to give her any info on Steve, like
his last name from the credit card that he paid with,
and Paul eventually gives Molly Steve's full name. So she
gets to googling, and it seems like Steve has a
wife and two young k kids, and she finds out

(25:01):
where he lives. Back in the Dungeon, Noah confides in
Penny that she slept with Steve and Penny is like, oh, whoa,
Like none of the rest of us did, but I'm
not shaming you. It's probably a compliment. Actually, yeah.

Speaker 2 (25:17):
Penny is like through the wall comments are very very funny,
where she's like no shame, no shame, but like wow.

Speaker 3 (25:24):
Whoa right? And then when Noah asks Steve why he
slept with her, he's like, yeah, I told you, I
like you. Then in a magazine that Steve gave Noah
to like help her pass the time, Noah notices writing
from another woman and it says like, if you're reading this,

(25:45):
it means he likes you. Use it keep fucking fighting.
And then it's signed Sammy Akbari. So Noah, taking this advice,
tries a new tactic where she asks Steve what the
human meat tastes like and he's like, oh, it's exquisite.

(26:06):
Why do you ask, though, And she's like ha ha,
I don't know, just curious, and he's like.

Speaker 2 (26:10):
Hmm, I still haven't seen Silence of the Lambs? Is
he Hannibal Electering now? Is he like oscillating between.

Speaker 3 (26:18):
No, I wasn't getting Hannibal Lecter vibes from Steve, but
isn't Hannibal elector a cannibal. I mean, he says like,
I ate her liver with fava beans in a nice kianti.

Speaker 2 (26:30):
But he's just a killer. He's not like a down
home cannibal.

Speaker 3 (26:34):
Well like Hannibal Lecter. I don't think we at least
in Silence of the Lambs. I haven't seen the other
Like there's Hannibal and then there's Red Dragon, and then
there's a show and you know, the sequels and the
spinoffs and stuff like that, I haven't seen. But in
Silence of the Lambs, you never see Hannibal. He's not
like a flirty, charming, handsome young guy who's.

Speaker 2 (26:56):
Like, wow, just drag him. She's kill Sorry, sorry, you're
like geez, he's just scary.

Speaker 3 (27:09):
So he he has a different approach than Steve.

Speaker 2 (27:12):
Okay, okay, thank you, I need it. I wanted to know.

Speaker 3 (27:17):
Meanwhile, Mollie goes to Steve's house where he lives with
his family, so like his other home, not the one
that he has a whole like cannibalism laboratory at and
Mollie tells his wife Anne played by Charlotte Lebon, that
her friend Noah has been seeing Steve, and Anne is

(27:39):
like I are you sure that that doesn't sound right?
And then Steve comes home, so Mollie sees him and
he denies that he knows Noah. So Molly calls Noah's phone,
which Steve has on him, and it starts ringing, so
he's busted. But twist, his wife is in on the

(28:02):
whole operation, and she knocks Molly out.

Speaker 2 (28:05):
The thing that is interesting about this movie is I
really enjoyed it, and none of the twists surprised me. Like,
I feel like the second you see her haircut, you're like,
she's in on it.

Speaker 3 (28:15):
You know, she does give off vibes that are a
little too sinister for me to be super surprised by
that twist. Yeah, so Ann the wife is in on
this whole cannibalism operation thing. And then we get another
reveal that she Anne has a prosthetic leg. Presumably she

(28:38):
was one of Steve's former victims. She's a survivor of
this situation. And then he spared Anne and married her.
Is what you can like gather. Then Steve basically invites
Noah on a little date upstairs where he prepares a
dinner of human meat her and the whole time she

(29:02):
is like, you know, calculating away out of there.

Speaker 2 (29:05):
Freaks a whole new you need to girl dinner, am I? Right?

Speaker 1 (29:08):
WHOA?

Speaker 3 (29:14):
So anyway, she's like feigning interest in the line of
work he's in, you know, the cannibalism industry, and he's
telling her about it, and she's like, uh huh, and
she asks if he only eats women, and he's like, yeah,
that's where the market is, plus they taste better. And
then she eats some human meat from a woman named Hope,

(29:40):
and then he brings her back to her room after
the date. She makes herself throw up this meal because
you know, she obviously only ate it to manipulate him,
but it's working and he wants to have dinner with
her again the following night. Then we see Steve take
Mollie out of of her like dungeon enclosure. Noah doesn't

(30:03):
know that Mollie is there, although she does realize that
some new woman is present, and then Steve cuts part
of Molly off. Also, Mollie had shared her location with Paul,
and he sees that she's somewhere far away, and then
her location becomes unavailable entirely, and so he's like, hmm,

(30:25):
that's weird, and then he'll eventually set off to go
find her. Then it's time for the next little date
between Noah and Steve, and she's being very flirty and familiar,
and she's like clearly trying to put Steve at ease
and get him very comfortable to like let his guard
down and all that stuff. They eat Melissa liver pete.

(30:48):
They also eat breast meat, which I think might belong
to Molly, because I feel like it's implied what's being
removed from her is Molly's breasts.

Speaker 2 (30:57):
Oh okay, because I also was just like very un
clear on I mean not that I'm like be more specific,
but like I was kind of unclear on just the
there's a little bit of YadA YadA when it comes
to the healing process, for sure, because I just feel
like if someone took even half of my ass, I
wouldn't be like I can sit down for a date

(31:20):
next week.

Speaker 3 (31:21):
You would think it would take a lot longer to heal.

Speaker 2 (31:24):
As a horror fan, I feel like it's almost a
missed opportunity to like do some like And he has
this freaky chair he designed for women without asses, Like
you know.

Speaker 3 (31:35):
I feel like she does sit on one of those
like little cushioned donuts.

Speaker 2 (31:39):
That's true, that's true. But wow, he does care.

Speaker 3 (31:42):
He thinks of everything. This Steve also another reason I
think it's Molly's because he doesn't specify whose breasts they're eating.
He says the other names of the other uh oh,
but he does.

Speaker 2 (31:57):
He doesn't want her to know.

Speaker 3 (31:58):
Yeah, he shows her this stash of all the belongings
from like the women he has abducted, as well as
photos of them. So Noah sees Melissa and Penny and
Sammy who had left the note in the magazine, as
well as all their phones. So now she like knows
where the phones are. And then she really turns up

(32:21):
the charm, except well, she's like, she gets very vulnerable
and she's crying and he's like, come your babe, it's okay.
And then they start kissing, and then they dance and
they start fooling around and she's about to go down
on him, but then she bites his dick off. Question mark,

(32:41):
I hope, So I hope.

Speaker 2 (32:43):
So again a little unclear. I kind of wonder if
this wasn't like available on Disney Plus, like if you
would really get to see it. It is so weird.
I added Hulu to my Disney Plus and now it's like, oh,
it's cheaper, it really is, like, but no, it's funny.
Like when you add Hulu to Disney Plus, it just

(33:04):
defeats the purpose of Disney Plus entirely because you're like, oh,
I feel like Disney Plus used to be really discerning
about like it has to be family friendly. And you're like,
now I can watch Daisy Egar Jones like bite someone's
dick off right after Nightmare before Christmas or whatever.

Speaker 3 (33:22):
Yeah, yeah, I mean funny juxtaposition. Yeah, but anyway, she
bites his dick off, or at least bites it enough
that it draws a lot of blood, and she smears
toothpaste in his eyes. And then she grabs a phone,
grabs some keys, starts to escape, but first she saves
Molly and Penny and the three of them.

Speaker 2 (33:43):
You're like, what about Melissa.

Speaker 3 (33:45):
Melissa's presumed dead because she no longer has a liver.
They ate her liver, So I think that implies I.

Speaker 2 (33:52):
Guess I don't know how bodies work. I'm like, don't you.
I'm thinking of kidneys, and I'm thinking of kidneys because
you well you need you don't have two livers, well,
I know, but you can live without one kidney. I
just was like, livers, you have two, okay.

Speaker 3 (34:09):
Yeah, just the one liver and they ate it. So
Melissa is probably dead, so she can't save her, but
she does save Penny and Mollie, and the three of
them fight off Steve with knives and meat tender risers,
and they managed to get outside into the woods, but
Steve comes after them with a gun. He's shooting at them.

(34:32):
He is absolutely furious that Noah tricked him. Meanwhile, Paul
has driven to Steve's house to try to find Molly,
but he's like, this is creepy, and then he hears
the gunshots, and so he leaves, being like I've seen
this movie and I don't make it out alive, you know,
commenting on how black people often do not survive horror movies. Yeah,

(34:54):
so he leaves.

Speaker 2 (34:55):
I did keep expecting him to come back. Same, but
I kind of like that he doesn't, like, I mean,
because they liberate themselves.

Speaker 3 (35:04):
True. I was like, I hope he's at least nearby
so that they can get a ride home from him.

Speaker 2 (35:09):
They are very far away, very and I mean as
we're about to talk about, like the ending of this
movie is very abrupt.

Speaker 3 (35:17):
It is, yeah, although maybe you know, everyone ends up dead,
so maybe they just like take the keys to one
of Sebastian Stan's cars and drive.

Speaker 2 (35:26):
I mean, I don't even mean that as a criticism.
I was just like, oh, yeah, I guess it's yeah.

Speaker 3 (35:31):
Anyway. So Paul leaves, but Steve's wife Anne shows up
at the house. She sees that Steve is in danger,
but Noah, Molly, and Penny get to him first. Noah
grabs his gun and shoots him in the head, killing him.
Then Noah goes back into the woods to get her phone,

(35:53):
which she dropped, and Anne approaches her, pretending to be
one of Steve's victims. Then she attacks Noah, but Molly
saves her and bashes in Anne's head with a shovel,
and then the movie ends with Noah and Molly embracing
plus a little button where Noah gets a text from

(36:13):
I think, the guy she went on a date with
at the beginning of the movie saying like you up
the end. So that's the movie. Let's take another quick
break and we'll come back to discuss. And we're back

(36:36):
we're back.

Speaker 2 (36:37):
So, okay, here's my big I'm just gonna come in
with my big question. I say it, Okay. I feel
like the characters are generally underdeveloped, but in particular, I
feel like it really stands out with Molly's character. I
feel like the black best friend trope is being sort

(36:59):
of ployed pretty heavily here. Yeah, I guess what I
will say is that, like I wouldn't say that, you know,
we know Noah so well and we don't know anything
about Molly, like I would say, we don't really know
either of these characters very well. But it's just the
the trope of like, while Mollie is a very active character,

(37:22):
and I like that their friendship is at the core
of the movie, and you can read in this message
of like, you know, Steve's maybe biggest mistake with Noah
is to assume that a lack of biological family in
her life means that no one cares about her, and
that she has found family with Molly and all this
stuff like that is great. I like friendship between women

(37:42):
at the core of a story. But you know, while
Molly is a very active character, she's in the story
to service no you know what I mean, I don't
know for sure, did that come.

Speaker 3 (37:52):
Up for you? Definitely, especially because in the first like
several scenes we either see Molly in or like hear
her in a phone conversation. She is just like giving
advice to her straight white friend because we learned the
Molly is queer, she dates men and women.

Speaker 2 (38:11):
It was to the point where I was like, I
wonder if this is gonna be a trope that's like
commented on within the movie, because it felt pretty like
obvious what trope is happening there, but it's not really
commented on where yeah, she's just weirdly fixated on the
relationship of her straight white friend and you're just like, God,

(38:33):
what year is it?

Speaker 4 (38:34):
Come on?

Speaker 3 (38:35):
Yeah, you do see Mollie talking about like what it's
like to date women and how there are fewer games
and there's more emotional dependence, which she's saying it seems
like ingest you know, she's kind of joking around, because
that's otherwise a pretty like reductive thing to say, but
it seems like she's joking. But I was like, well,

(38:56):
can't we see that then to give like Molly more
interior life, like see her dating women and what that
does look like in contrast to Noah dating men, that
would develop Molly's character a bit more and make it
so that she has more interiority versus everything she does
is in service of her straight white best friend. I

(39:18):
do feel like she is that Mollie is integrated into
the story more meaningfully than I was expecting, because she does,
like go to investigate and then she helps to defeat
Steve and she kills Anne. But it still means that
everything she does is to like help her white best friend.

Speaker 2 (39:40):
Right. It's tricky because I do yeah, Mollie does become
a very I mean, the movie can't happen without Molly.
It's not like she's strictly there and in the way
that I feel like we see this trope in other
movies where it's like a very expendable character who's just
there to basically be like, so, how are you feeling

(40:01):
about the relationship? So, like I will give the writer
Lauren Kahn like credit for you know, this movie is
not possible without Molly. She's integral to the plot. For
she's extremely active, like she's smart, like my favorite scenes
with Mollie. And also Jojo T. Gibs is really funny,
she's great, but she thinks like a girl, like you know,

(40:24):
like you when something is like a little bit off
with her friend, or like the way that she views
texting and the way that she approaches things like it
all felt very like authentic and you know, relatable, and
like even the fact that, just like the touches of
like she makes sure to share her location with somebody
when she's going into a situation that feels unsafe and

(40:45):
just like, yeah, I liked her character when the like
internal logic that she has and she's funny and she's cool,
but it's like there's nothing else really there for her.
Like I feel like this movie would have been more
interesting to me as like a two hander where Molly
and Noah are like characters of equal importance as opposed

(41:08):
to Mollie is Noah's friend, which is how this movie
you know rolls out for sure.

Speaker 3 (41:15):
Yeah, And I don't think it would have been that
big of an adjustment, like writing wise or structurally or
anything like that.

Speaker 2 (41:21):
So and I think it just like from a writing
perspective too, like Mollie is unbelievably loyal to Noah, like
which is great friend love that. Yeah, but I would
have liked to know a little bit more about their friendship.
We don't really learn very much about it a bit,
Like I think the most we get is her telling
Steve they used.

Speaker 3 (41:42):
To work together. Yeah, okay, like you know.

Speaker 2 (41:46):
You work with a lot of people, like and there,
I don't know, Like I feel like there is something
a little bit missing for me there where I know
in horror, very often you don't get a ton of
information about characters. That's fine as long as it's equally distributed, right, Yeah,
But like it would have made more sense to me
if Molly was like, Noah, you know, got me through

(42:06):
this really difficult period in my life, or like something
to really explain why she will go balls to the
wall for this character that I feel like gets away
from the best friend trope a little bit because not
that like Noah, you know that your friend should not actively,
of course, try to rescue you if you've been kidnapped

(42:26):
by a cannibal. But but I do feel like I
would have liked to understand their connection a little more,
And I feel like it would have made the movie stronger.

Speaker 3 (42:37):
Right, especially because we open on a conversation with them,
you know where Noah is getting advice from Mollie. We
close on a beat of them like embracing saying I
love you, I love you more, and it's like, well,
then contextualize that a bit more please.

Speaker 2 (42:53):
And I feel the same way with Penny and Noah,
where again you get like the suggestion of a like
cool character dynamic between the two of them. I feel like,
you know, in a lesser movie, you'd have victims sort
of turn against each other or whatever it is, right,
but they are very much on each other's side. But again,

(43:15):
you're like there's an opportunity for them to get to
know each other, and like they kind of don't. It's
these like little jokes instead, and we don't learn very
much about Penny, And again, I think it makes the
movie stronger if we know more about her, like you know,
and finding something she and Noah have in common, like

(43:35):
I don't know, I just the relationships between women in
general in this movie. I feel like, you know, there's
interesting stuff there, but it kind of like there just
wasn't enough for there to be a really impactful relationship
between women. Molly and Noah are great, but it's just
for me. It was like, what have you guys done? Together,

(43:56):
Like okay, like what is the friendship?

Speaker 4 (43:59):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (44:00):
More for sure. Yeah, I want to talk about Anne
her Wow, good arrested development reference.

Speaker 2 (44:11):
Thank you. Yeah, let's talk about and Charlotte Lebon.

Speaker 3 (44:16):
Yes, so you know, you can read her character as
someone who did what she had to do in order
to survive. It seems like she seduced Steve into sparing
her and that was her method of escape from almost
certain death. So I chose to read her character and

(44:39):
her behavior as commentary on people who are like the
victims or recipients or survivors of some form of oppression,
and then rather than siding with other oppressed people like
you think they would, because you think they'd have empathy

(45:00):
because they experienced the same oppression themselves, but instead they
align themselves with the oppressor and become complicit in, if
not active, participants, in the oppression of others, which is
something I think about a lot. I am conly thinking
about this. It happens a lot in society. Ever heard

(45:22):
of it? And I find it to be such a
troubling yet fascinating phenomenon.

Speaker 2 (45:29):
Yeah, I mean it's like all the fucking time, Like
how many this is unfortunate? But yeah, Like, I feel
like a lot of people have the experience of, especially
people of marginalized genders, of like my first boss who's
not a man, and then they are also upholding the
same shit, and you're like, well, what the fuck the point? Right,

(45:49):
what is the point?

Speaker 3 (45:51):
You know, it's the trad wife phenomenon. It's like when
black people become cops. You know, there's like a bunch
of different exams, and.

Speaker 2 (46:00):
There's all of these societal reasons, Like you're saying, like,
there's societal reasons as to why this happens, but it is.
It's like sad. It's sad to see in characters like Anne,
and I appreciated that. I thought that, Yeah, that was
like one of the more effective things in the movie.
I guess I am fine with the way that that

(46:21):
character went. But the thing I liked the most is
that I feel like the movie it does not have
a ton of empathy for Anne, but I think it
had a little bit in a way that I think
was interesting. Where Noah, it seems like, is being presented
with the beginnings of the same kind of dynamic, right,
where like Noah, in order to escape the immediate circumstances

(46:45):
is having to play meat ball with this guy, right,
like he's thank you, thank you, no, but like she
she is sort of having to play ball with him
in order to liberate herself, and she is different. She
liberates the other women who are trapped there. But I

(47:06):
did think it was interesting that it was like, oh,
this is almost certainly what happened with Anne, but she
did not liberate the other people. And you know I
would hazard I guess out of fear and like out
of selfishness and fear, right, which is why a lot
of people of marginalized genders uphold the patriarchy because it's

(47:26):
personally advantageous and because they're afraid of not aligning. And
you see it everywhere. You see it in fucking politics
all the fucking time. Yes, we could keep going, right.

Speaker 3 (47:39):
I think it has a lot to do with power
dynamics as well, where people will choose the side of
the oppressor because the oppressor has more power and they
think that if they align with the oppressor, they will
inherit some of that power. And that is true, and
that does happen sometimes, but it doesn't mean that they
will be immune to oppression and marginalization because cause this

(48:01):
oppression is very large scale in it's systemic, and it
needs to be fought against, which is what Noah does,
rather than what Anne does, which is like, you know,
uphold it after she escapes quote unquote from the oppression.

Speaker 2 (48:16):
Yeah. I thought that was really effective. Yeah. And then
I mean we are quite literally bashed over the head
with that message as well when Molly kills Anne, and
I think she says like, bitches like you are.

Speaker 3 (48:29):
The problem, Like, yeah, I came to you for help.

Speaker 2 (48:32):
I almost like again, I feel like I'm coming dead
too hard to that. I almost like didn't need that.
I'm like, yeah, no, we get I got it, Like
I got it. Yes, and is a part of the problem.
But you know, it's a horror movie. It can't be.

Speaker 1 (48:44):
It's weird.

Speaker 2 (48:45):
Sure, sure, but yeah, I thought that that was pretty effective.
I did have just like a story logic question where
so like they have two kids and Sebastian stans just
bonking women over the head and meanwhile, my sons are asleep,
My two gorgeous sons are like upstairs.

Speaker 3 (49:01):
And his murder cannibal house is so far away, like
how does he have the time to drive the air
and back to his other house where his family lives.

Speaker 2 (49:10):
You know, yeah, you know. I yeah, cheating men, you
know men, men with the secret life. They make it work,
they make it work. Yeah, yeah, there are our strongest soldiers.

Speaker 4 (49:24):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (49:24):
I thought the an stuff was effective, and I feel
like that character's like presence was pretty well balanced. What
I was interested in? What did you think of like
when she saw I don't know, I guess okay, I
do have questions about her ending right, because for a second,
I was like, are we supposed to believe that this
is like Anne's idea. No, it's Steve's idea, which makes

(49:47):
more sense. Great, but you know, she sees his body
and I feel like you sort of get a sense
of like a little bit of relief from her. She's like,
all right, put it on ice. We're going to sell
his meat. Yes, like is the suggestion there, But then
she like pretends to be grateful for Noah but then

(50:07):
tries to kill her. I guess I was just like
a little bit coulde. I guess that's just the power
dynamic right where she's like, now I'm going to have.

Speaker 3 (50:15):
The meat business business.

Speaker 2 (50:18):
Like I guess I was a little confused about what
her end game was because theoretically, like she is now
liberated too, Yes, but I don't know.

Speaker 3 (50:27):
Yeah, I guess that she's just like so deep in the.

Speaker 2 (50:30):
Meat, so deep in the meat. Of course, it's like
she I don't know, I guess I don't know how
that would play out for her in the courts.

Speaker 3 (50:39):
Uh huh.

Speaker 2 (50:39):
But yeah, I'm like, and you really want to keep
running this business? Like it seems like it's kind of
on thin nice as it is. Yeah, In any case,
I just wanted to mention that because I wasn't totally
because the movie does just end very quickly for me,
where I would have been interested in maybe one more
beat with Anne to understand where she's coming from a

(51:02):
little better. Like obviously her character is indefensible, but like
in order to just like explore the idea that we
were just talking about a little more and siding with
the oppressor and what leads to there, I feel like
it maybe would have benefited from a little more investigation
of that, especially because like Noah and Anne, it seems
like we're treated pretty similarly towards the beginning by Steve,

(51:27):
and I almost feel like, well, then don't you want
to see those characters like interact a little bit. I
don't know, I think it could have been interesting.

Speaker 3 (51:35):
Yeah, And what about Anne made her gravitate toward being
complicit and being part of the problem exactly, Like what
were her circumstances that led her to that versus like
how did she differ from Noah?

Speaker 2 (51:51):
Right? I mean, because she is obviously she is a villain,
but she is a more complicated villain than Steve. And
I feel like it would have been interesting and just
again like another chance to like have more character moments
between the women in this movie that just kind of
like doesn't happen.

Speaker 3 (52:10):
Yeah. Also worth noting that Anne is a character with
a prosthetic limb, which is not the case for the
actor Charlotte Lebon, so it's another example of an able
bodied actor playing a disabled character. I want to also
briefly touch on the man who is with Anne at
the end, who she tells like put his body on ice.

(52:33):
This is someone who we've seen briefly before. Seems to
be like an assistant who like helps deliver the packaged meat.
He appears to be like a First Nation's indigenous person,
but we don't know anything about this person. He has,
Like I think no dialogue. We don't know why he

(52:54):
would be working for this white couple doing their evil bidding.
He clearly knows what they're doing. He's standing right there
when like the dead body of Steve is there, like
he's packaging the you know, he's he knows what the
operation is.

Speaker 2 (53:10):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (53:10):
So it's just like why this care? Like this is
not the inclusion or representation we need of indigenous characters.
Why was this choice made?

Speaker 2 (53:22):
Yeah, a character that could be so easily removed again, Yeah,
just another like it just feels a little bit like
what are we trying to do here?

Speaker 3 (53:31):
Right, Because like a lot of casting in contemporary movies
within the past few years, it is more inclusive, but
a lot of these movies are still made by white people,
and they're just like, oh, I have to fill a quota, right,
you know, I want to be inclusive in my casting,
But they're not giving a lot of thought about like
who is in what role, who is occupying what he

(53:54):
has the narrative power like yeah, and what implications a
certain person and cast in a certain role has and
whether that tracks logically at all. So that felt to
me like an example of like, oh, let's see an
indigenous person on screen.

Speaker 2 (54:12):
But in a role that could be taken out of
the movie without any issue. Like, yeah, I agree with
you there, And yeah, it's frustrating because I don't know
who casts this movie. It is a fairly diverse cast,
but it cuts along very, very trophy lines. And this
movie came out two years ago, Like there's really no

(54:33):
reason for that to have happened, and it ultimately kind
of undercuts what this movie is trying to do by like,
you know, subverting the gaze of a cannibal movie, which
is a cool idea and like it works for me
for the most part, but it's like that level of
care again, it's just kind of I mean, like a

(54:54):
white feminis the thing to do is for one message
to come through really clearly. But the you know, intersectional
thinking I don't think was there at least in the casting.
I mean, and yeah, in the casting, it definitely wasn't
for sure. Yeah, should we talk about Steve.

Speaker 3 (55:11):
Let's talk about Steve.

Speaker 2 (55:13):
I have to say I thought the like rom com
portion of this movie was very effective for me in
terms of just like, I mean, rom COM's the wrong
thing to call it, but just I think my favorite
parts of the movie The Cannibal stuff great, sure, and
I like it, but there was this like weird satisfaction

(55:34):
of watching someone who is smart blow past all of
these red flags. It just made me feel better about myself.
You know, were so many times. You know, it's like,
if you end up in a bad situation, you end
up in a bad relationship, you're made out to be
like God, I'm I mean and she says that to herself,

(55:55):
like I'm so stupid, Like how could I have let
this happen? And I feel like the movie does do
a really good job of illustrating the fact. I mean
sometimes it's just Penny saying that through the wall, but
like that, no, like there was not some crucial thing
that you did wrong that means that you're now getting cannibaled.

(56:17):
But I thought that the writing with like the subtle
red flags, that whole section, that whole beginning section, really
worked for.

Speaker 3 (56:25):
Me, especially because the red flags are subtle enough that
even if you are smart and intuitive and perceptive, you
might not recognize them, especially because in just like the
landscape of modern dating and so many men and I'm

(56:45):
now speaking from personal experience here, but like cis men
tend to not consider the fact that people of marginalized
genders move through the world very differently, and that there's
a level of like caution and self preservation that we
have to be far more concerned about than sis men.

(57:08):
And I try to communicate that a lot with like
people I've matched with on a dating app and we're
scheduling a first date, and I am and not that
I've always done this, but boy have I learned my lessons.
But like, generally speaking, I will insist that we meet
in a public space and in a neighborhood that is

(57:29):
familiar to me, because I need an exit strategy if
I need to get away, I want to be able
to do it safely, and I want to like have
it be in a place where I can navigate easily.
But a lot of people who I'm like organizing a
date with, and unfortunately I'm tragically heterosexual, so it's men
who I'm dating, They'll be like, oh, well, just come over,

(57:53):
you know, and I'm like, no, I haven't met you.
I don't know you. I don't know if I can
trust you, and they're like, oh, of course you can,
blah blah blah, and I'm like, do you not understand
that trust is something that people earn. You can't just
declare that you're trustworthy and have me automatically trust you.
But so many CIS men don't seem to understand that.

(58:15):
And again I'll tell them, we have to meet in public.
I want to hang out in public for a long
time before I would ever consider like going to your
place or bringing you back to my place, like, I
have to know that I can feel safe, and like
the number of men who just like do not even
consider that or care about that is astonishing.

Speaker 2 (58:37):
It's interesting because I know that you and I approach
like I think you approach dating much smarter than I
have historically. But I mean, even who knows I really,
I mean, you know, check the logs. But I do
like I agree with you, and especially any time I
feel like when I've done that dating, I've never even
really said that that's what I'm doing because I am

(59:00):
afraid it will be interpreted as you know, I'm afraid
of the dynamic that introduces, even though it's like, of course,
of course you're thinking that. And I feel like a
lot of men cannot handle the idea that they are
not inherently trusted and that like the world doesn't fucking
revolve around them for sure. And I mean, I think

(59:22):
that what you're doing makes so much sense because it's
like you're just normalizing, Like there's no reason for me
to trust you. You are a stranger.

Speaker 3 (59:30):
Yeah, and like I.

Speaker 2 (59:31):
Have to move through the world differently, and I wish
that there was a more like a clearer understanding to that.
But I've definitely been I won't even say guilty of,
but my instinct in the past has been too planned
for that. But never say that that's what I'm doing,
because I'm afraid of how men react when their pride

(59:52):
is injured, which should be scary yet and my experience
is often violent, Yeah, yeah, or cruel or whatever. I mean,
I think you get that quick with the guy from
Jane the Virgin at.

Speaker 3 (01:00:02):
The beginning of the movie, Oh is that who that is? Yeah,
I didn't watch much of that show.

Speaker 2 (01:00:07):
I've for some reason was so into it then, but yeah,
that like he is the sort of you know, archetypical
bad date and that this is like what Noah is
used to. And I think that that ends up being
very effective because as I was like watching the movie,
I'm like, I would have fallen for this, I would have.

(01:00:29):
And I think that it's very like you're saying that
the red flags are very present and noted by her friend,
but is subtle enough that she's like, it's probably not
a big deal. Let's see what happened, right, and like
that sort of looped thinking of like, well, if I
am worried about this, then how am I ever going
to have a relationship blah blah blah blah blah blah,

(01:00:51):
and like feeling that sort of loop. I don't know.
And then when she gets to the house, I've just
like soft triggered by yeah, just going into someone's house
and realizing you're like, oh, I don't know where I am,
or like if I do know where I am, I'm
not able to communicate easily enough. And now the power
dynamic is such that I have to basically admit I

(01:01:13):
don't feel totally safe right now. Could you give me
the tools to feel safer and sort of being at
someone else's mercy but having to maintain a like sexy
like vibe while being like okay, like it's Jay.

Speaker 3 (01:01:28):
What's your Wi Fi best word? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:01:32):
I mean, but like I went on a weekend trip
with someone who I had just recently started dating, you know,
a couple of years ago, and there is like that
moment where you're like, well, we don't know each other
that well, and you know, and then the more time
we're spending together, I'm like, and I don't know if
I like you very much, and You're like, well, how
the fuck would I get out of here? I mean,

(01:01:52):
it is just, yeah, I don't know dating men. It
is just like means that you frequently find yourself in
what feels like hostage situation, and that is a lot
of why this movie works works.

Speaker 3 (01:02:05):
Yeah, oh okay, wait, I have so many thoughts. One
is that I think the fact that they meet under
the circumstances of meeting in real life quote unquote versus
meeting over a dating app might inform some of her
feeling more at ease, even though they are perfect strangers

(01:02:25):
and they don't know each other. But because I mean
to bring them back to our personal lives, you and
I approach dating differently in the sense that I feel
like you tend to date people who you have met
in real life, either you know, in some kind of
comedy circumstances or you know, different settings where I've never
done apps yet, and I've pretty much only done dating

(01:02:46):
apps and that's how I've met like ninety five percent
of the people I've like briefly dated. So there is
this level of like, oh my god, I'm meeting up
with a stranger who I've only corresponded with over text
or maybe FaceTime, but like they're so straight. So that
does mean that I feel like I have to be
extra cautious and extra clear about my intentions because I

(01:03:08):
totally get like being wary of setting boundaries because of
how so many men respond to setting boundaries and feeling
like their ego is bruised because they're not automatically trustworthy.
But like you said, I am trying to like normalize
the idea of like men understanding that they are just

(01:03:32):
inherently safer moving through the world than people of marginalized genders.

Speaker 2 (01:03:36):
Which is like it feels so weird at this late
stage that like you have to be like, have you
ever thought about this?

Speaker 3 (01:03:43):
You're like, and so okay, there's a spectrum of what
will happen if, first of all, a man just like
ass this man saying come over. We've never met in
real life before, but let's have our first date on
my couch. That is a red flag just in and
of itself, and I usually will just not talk to
the people after that. But if we've already had some

(01:04:04):
kind of like rapport that feels fun and we were
flirting and we like it seemed like a good conversation
stuff like that, I will be like, no, actually, I
need to meet you in public, and then I'll explain why.
I'll be like, I need to make sure we vibe
number one, because like, if we're just sitting on your
couch and I don't feel any romantic feelings.

Speaker 2 (01:04:25):
At best, that's awkward.

Speaker 3 (01:04:27):
And it's like, don't you want to know if you
vibe with me? Like what if you're not into me?
Like this is a two way street first of all.
And I was like, and that's just not safe for me,
Like I don't feel safe or comfortable doing that. We
have to meet in a neutral public place that is
familiar to me. If they say, Okay, totally get it,
no worries, We'll go out for a drink or whatever,
blah blah blah, fine, I'll proceed. Anyone who pushes back,

(01:04:51):
and I have had men push back on that to
be like, oh, then they act like I'm being difficult, like.

Speaker 2 (01:04:56):
You've saved yourself.

Speaker 3 (01:04:58):
Yeah, yeah, like you know everything need to know, which
is that that person is scary and doesn't understand boundaries
and just like doesn't care about people being concerned for
their own safety and all those things. So right, there's that,
But I'm wondering, like back to her meeting him in
this public place and she's.

Speaker 2 (01:05:20):
Done quote unquote everything right, and I feel like this
movie makes it clear that even if you do everything right,
that doesn't mean you're safe, which is a skin which
is a very you know, negative message it is, but
it's true. I mean, I guess, like coming from the
opposite place, and I mean I'm just like absolutely petrified

(01:05:41):
of apps and and just strangers in general. I think
that's just like, hmm, my social anxiety is such that
it's always been a non starter for me as I've
dated people that I met meet in person, and you know,
as this movie demonstrates, not better, not better, true different
kind of bad. But I I'm glad that there is

(01:06:02):
And I guess I wonder because I haven't really experienced it,
but that like when it's someone you haven't met in
person before, it almost feels like maybe a little bit
easier to set that boundary because you're like it just
makes sense, whereas like if it's someone i've met before again,
I mean it's like I have a secret plan where
it's like my my boyfriend right now, who you know,

(01:06:24):
so far, so good. I don't think he's gonna steal
my ass. No, I love the guy. Uh, but but
like for our first date, I was like, let's go
on a walk while it's light out.

Speaker 3 (01:06:38):
Yeah, even though I knew that we got along and
that we vibed, and because you already knew him a
little bit too, right, right, I.

Speaker 2 (01:06:45):
Mean that's I think that that's like my level of
paranoia with men that I was like, I will only
really hang out with men that I am already pretty
sure I'm not actively afraid of. Yeah, Like I just
don't trust other people's vouching. I just like I just
can't do it. And and that's probably just like PTSD
stuff from the past, but like, but yeah, so I

(01:07:06):
just was like, even with a man that I have
known in passing for like a year, still, it's like
we have to meet up when it's light I need
to like understand what your general vibe is right so
that I can get out yeah, because it's like, but
like even then, you're it's just so fucked up. I
don't know. That's why I and I like that there's

(01:07:27):
like almost this expanded metaphor of of course he's done
this before. Of course I'm not special, and that I
feel like was very resonant for me too. Is like
it is very tempting to be like, there's something different
about me, and it's like you know, occasionally, but it
doesn't matter, because the way a lot of CIS men

(01:07:49):
will treat you is the exact same way they've loved,
bombed and taken in a lot of other people who
sometimes look strikingly similar to you. It's very spooky, it's scary.
I was thinking about this experience I had that you
know about, but like I knew the guy who was
dating had dated another woman who I had met before,

(01:08:12):
and we look not dissimilar, and when things ended in
this very like horrible way, I reached out to her
and we had a sort of like moment of like
the play by play was exactly the fucking same. But
it's just it is so many like little echoes of
this movie just felt so familiar, and I like that,

(01:08:35):
even though intersectionally I don't think this movie does well
at all, there is this like understood solidarity between most women,
and I think that's also authentic too, as like there
are ants in the world who are treated just as
horribly as you are, but do not have solidarity with

(01:08:57):
you at all for sure, And I feel like, you know,
see that gradient, even though I would have liked more
depth than the characters, like, I appreciate that well.

Speaker 3 (01:09:07):
Going back to the like blame and shame component of
the movie that Noah feels like we said, the red
flags are so subtle that they are missible at least
until she gets to his house. He won't give her
the Wi Fi password and then she's drugged. Obviously from
that point on, like the red flags are glaring, but

(01:09:31):
prior to that, they are arguably not even red flags.
Like a lot of what he does wouldn't ping for
someone as being like, you know, him not being on
social media. That's something that some people just choose not
to do, and it's not necessarily a red flag.

Speaker 4 (01:09:48):
You know.

Speaker 3 (01:09:48):
There's different things that yeah, maybe could be interpreted as
a red flag, but like they're not.

Speaker 2 (01:09:54):
I'm like unless you're old, you should at least have Controversially,
you should have an Instagram account. If you don't, I
think you're kind of fucking scary.

Speaker 3 (01:10:02):
I mean, even if you don't post it.

Speaker 2 (01:10:04):
But again, just have it. Have like have. I do
feel like there is a necessity to have someone be
able to vouch for your existence. Otherwise you're like, what
do you have to hide? And the answer is often.

Speaker 3 (01:10:17):
Something something right. But there are things that could be
not even interpreted as a red flag. But she still
blames herself and she thinks, you know, she says like, oh,
I'm the only one who's slept with him. Oh my god,
And she's disgusted with herself and humiliated. And Penny, although

(01:10:38):
she does sort of like pass judgment to be like, wait,
you slept with him. I don't think anyone others of
us did. But I'm not slept shaming you, you know,
so there's something to that. But she then follows up
Penny does by saying like, it's not our fault, it's
always their fault. And the idea of like you said,

(01:10:59):
you can do everything right, or you can proceed with caution,
and you can just go about dating the way modern
dating generally goes and it can still end horribly and
it's because it's the fault of the perpetrators.

Speaker 2 (01:11:16):
Yeah, I like again it's like it's all a little
bit undercooked, but the core message of it and the
fact that the empathy of the movie is clearly with
Noah and that it's done I think just in a
way we don't see in horror very often, where it's like,
I don't think a cis man could have written this movie,
because you do have to have sort of the lived
experience of I have to protect myself and thinking on

(01:11:39):
the other end of that, how would I think if
my friend told me this about this guy? Like, I
feel like that was all very like well thought out
and considered and didn't feel like ten y. I feel
like sometimes especially with it's like talking about like modern dating,
the technology's weirdly outdated, which wasn't true here either, which

(01:12:01):
I feel like is kind of hard to do. So
kudos kudos too, Yes, Because this movie is written and
directed by women, white women, Mimi Cave and Lauren Con
and it's also produced by Adam McKay, which I love
to hear it. I guess Lauren Conn began as Adam
McKay's assistant.

Speaker 3 (01:12:21):
Oh, not kidding.

Speaker 2 (01:12:22):
Yeah, I mean I feel like we are saying more
horror movies from a more diverse array of directors and
genre movies in general. But like, you know, keep it coming,
keep it coming common And.

Speaker 3 (01:12:34):
That was my point. You reminded me of what my
point was, which is that so many horror movies from
years past did so much to blame the women for
getting killed. You know, the whole trope of like, if
you're a woman and you have sex with someone, then

(01:12:55):
you got it right. There's that, you know, there's the
final girl trope, which this movie avoids because there are
three final girls.

Speaker 2 (01:13:06):
And I think this movie is again trying to avoid
racialized tropes in horror, but I would say it is
less successful at doing that.

Speaker 3 (01:13:16):
I agree, Yeah, Paul, just real quickly. Yes, On one hand,
you have him recognized of the danger he's potentially in.
He hears gunshots, he's in the middle of the woods,
and he acknowledges like, I've seen this horror movie and
I know that I don't make it out alive, so
I'm going to bounce. But also, is that kind of

(01:13:39):
commentary on how like men tend not to be helpful
in these situations when it comes to like women's liberation.

Speaker 2 (01:13:46):
It felt unclear to me, Like, yeah, I thought the
idea of it was interesting, but it kind of just
felt like a weird joke.

Speaker 3 (01:13:55):
Well, why make him even drive the whole way up
there if narratively he's not going to do anything, He's
just gonna turn right back around.

Speaker 2 (01:14:02):
That was the thing I was curious about to Yeah,
especially because like I would be curious what got cut
from this movie, because it did feel like there are
certain little plot holes that probably could have been fixed
by another scene that might have existed at some point. Yeah,
because Paul like has not that he's like a prominent character,
but he does have more screen time than a character

(01:14:22):
who randomly bails right would have. Like you're just like, well,
then what was the point? I mean, I guess you know.
His function is to connect Molly back to Noah again,
a black character servicing ultimately servicing the white characters. Yeah,
but then at the end, it's sort of like his
whole character ends in this kind of confusing joke.

Speaker 3 (01:14:44):
It's also implied that he's only helping Molly because he
thinks he has an opportunity to have sex with her
again or to like reignite there.

Speaker 2 (01:14:54):
Which is like a man to do. And I appreciated that,
like Noah and Molly different points use their whiles to
get what they need from who they need it from where.
It's like pretty clear from just how Noah and Molly
talk about Paul that Mollie's like not interested and I

(01:15:15):
think kind of ghosted him when they dated.

Speaker 3 (01:15:17):
It seems like it.

Speaker 2 (01:15:18):
Yeah, so it's not like she's all of a sudden
interested in him again. I think she possibly knows that
this is his personality and wants to, you know, keep
him involved and entice. But again, you would think with
Mollie and with all of these characters, does Mollie not
have a second friend to tell Hey, I'm like someone
that you would trust more than someone you ghosted last year?

(01:15:41):
Like it just I get it. It's like a small
cast and it's movie logic, but I just felt like
another it just the smallness of these women's world. It's
just kind of bizarre.

Speaker 3 (01:15:54):
That's why I think it would have been interesting if
like Mollie is dating a woman, right, and she's person
who helps Molly on this quest and we see what
that dynamic looks like. Not to say that like women
dating women is perfect in sunshine and butterflies and amazing
and like that contrasted with women dating men, but like

(01:16:18):
that would have been an interesting dynamic to explore to
see how those interactions are different, or just just see
what that looks like and also.

Speaker 2 (01:16:25):
Feels like, I mean on Noah's part, Like if Noah's
always hanging out with a couple, that would sort of
explain why she might be dating more. Yeah, which because
I mean, I've been the friend of a couple and
it's like, if the couple is awesome, it's awesome. But
sometimes some days you're like.

Speaker 3 (01:16:42):
Wow, I am really the third wheel, ARENENTI.

Speaker 2 (01:16:46):
No one's kissing me. This stinks.

Speaker 3 (01:16:51):
And that's why I need to find myself a throuble
to be exactly.

Speaker 2 (01:16:58):
Yeah, Yeah, I think that that's all I really have
for this movie. I think it's good. I like it.
It passes the Bechdel test for sure.

Speaker 3 (01:17:06):
It does. Noah and Molly they do talk a lot
about Steve, and they talk about dating men in general.
But I think that if you're going to not pass
the Bechdel test, a great way to do it is
to comment on how dating men is difficult and awful.

Speaker 2 (01:17:25):
And that they are protecting each other.

Speaker 3 (01:17:29):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:17:30):
Yeah, like they're talking about protecting each other from men,
which I feel like spiritually passes or mistrusting men fundamentally.

Speaker 3 (01:17:38):
Yeah. Right, And then Noah and Penny talk about their situation,
which is they're only in this situation because of a man.

Speaker 2 (01:17:48):
But if you know, I mean, I feel comfortable saying
this movie pretty handily passes technically and on vibes. But
what about the most important metric of all time? Can
you tell that I have to pee really bad because
I started talking so fast? So what do you think
in regards to the nipples scale?

Speaker 3 (01:18:08):
Will we rate the nipples zero to five nipples? Examining
it through an intersectional feminist lens, I'm going to give
them movie yes, three nipples. Yeah, I mean, you could
look at this whole movie is like the meat eating
of women as a kind of allegory or metaphor for
just like the objectification and exploitation of women's bodies in society,

(01:18:31):
And that's an interesting metaphor. And the fact that the
women triumph at the end and they stand in solidarity
with each other and do the opposite of what Anne does,
which you know her thing is she becomes part of
the problem.

Speaker 2 (01:18:46):
So and it doesn't save her because it never does.

Speaker 3 (01:18:49):
Right, and she gets brutally bashed over the head with
a shovel yike, and so right. So there's these cool
things happening. The fact that the movie, even though the
character blames herself, the movie is not blaming her for
not seeing that she was being seduced by a cannibal
who was planning to sell her meat. So I think

(01:19:11):
there's a lot of cool stuff going on. There are
some things that I feel like we're mishandled, especially in
regards to casting choices and the characters who are people
of color servicing the white characters and all that stuff.
So three nipples. I will give one to Jojo T. Gibbs,

(01:19:34):
who plays Molly, I will give one to Andrea Bang
who plays Penny. And I'll give my final nipple to
semiak Bari, who we don't see on screen, but she's
the character who leaves the note in the magazine.

Speaker 2 (01:19:53):
Amazing, Yes, I am going to meet you at three.
I think that this movie has leaves something to be
desired in terms of intersectionality, I feel like there's a
lot of surface y stuff where there is a diverse
cast and there is queer characters, but it still is
ultimately a white, hetero story, and these are the characters
that are ultimately being serviced by the plot. However, when

(01:20:15):
it comes to contemporary dating commentary, it's awesome and like
I think it works super well. The performances are really good,
the writing is really specific and a way that I'm
not used to seeing in horror because there's not enough
women that get to take big swings in horror. So
the highs are high, the lows are frustrating, but I

(01:20:37):
am excited to see more, particularly from Mimi Cave. So
I'll go three nipples. I will give one to Mimi Cave,
I will give one to Jojo Gibbs, and I will
give the final one to Oh my goodness who played Penny.
I shut my tab fuck, oh Andrea bang, Andrea bang,
and yeah, congratulations to Sebastian Stan for me recognize him now?

Speaker 3 (01:21:01):
Yes, yes, yes, yes, also quick shout out sorry. I
know he have to pee, but I just want to
say the moment of foreshadowing when Noah and Steve go
back to her place for the first time, and she's like, Ooh,
can I get you anything to drink or eat? And
he says no, just you because he's gonna eat her.

Speaker 2 (01:21:21):
Also just a classic cringe man thing to say.

Speaker 3 (01:21:27):
Yeah, no, I just went you babe.

Speaker 2 (01:21:29):
I just want you just feel good. I'm like, no,
you don't anyways, fucking liar. And with that, uh, and
that's a fresher movie. You can follow us everywhere. You
can follow us on Instagram at bachdol guys, you can
follow us on Twitter, backl the cast, and you can

(01:21:50):
subscribe to and in fact, you should subscribe to our
Patreon aka Matreon Patreon dot com slash Bechdel Cast. Five
dollars a month gets you two bonus episodes every damn month.
How nice is that?

Speaker 3 (01:22:02):
That's so nice? You know what else is nice is
the fact that I'm headlining two shows in Boston on
November oh gosh is it sixteenth. So if you live
in Boston and you want to see me do stand up,
go to my website Kaitlindononte dot com and the links
will be there for that. I just wanted to plug
that real quick. Now.

Speaker 2 (01:22:23):
That's what I call nice. And if you want to
see me live in person in Los Angeles. I'm workshopping
my new show at the Lyric and you can check
it out on November twentieth and December fourth, and the
other one's sold out sorry, And you can also get
our merch at teapopulic dot com. Slash The Bechdel Cast.

(01:22:45):
Holidays coming up, babe, could be fun, could be. And
with that I have to go chop off my own
ass and eat it for lunch.

Speaker 3 (01:22:53):
Me too, Okay, Bye bye. The Bechdel Cast is a
production of iHeartMedia, hosted by Caitlin Derante and Jamie Loftis,
produced by Sophie Lichterman, edited by Mo laboord Our theme
song was composed by Mike Kaplan with vocals by Katherine Voskresensky.
Our logo in merch is designed by Jamie Loftis and

(01:23:16):
a special thanks to Aristotle Acevedo. For more information about
the podcast, please visit linktree slash Bechdelcast