Cutting Deep into Horror | Bitter Feast (2010) — Dark Foodie Horror, Chef Revenge & Thanksgiving Scares - Weekly Spooky: Scary Holiday Stories | Terrifying Tales to Creep Your Night

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, let's move those. Paul, Paul, Paul, does the
broth look like it's ready? Don't answer that, I'll just
get mad. Oh hey, sorry, sorry, it's just been a
madhouse in here. You know, the holiday rush is coming
right up.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
Yeah. Uh, this is a really big kitchen. There's a
lot of people working in here.

Speaker 1 (00:22):
Well, it takes a lot to make a great meal.
You know what they say, it takes a village. I
think that was referencing children originally, but I'm talking about food.

Speaker 2 (00:32):
Oh okay, I'm glad we cleared that up. So what
kind of food do you guys cook here?

Speaker 1 (00:37):
Well? Only the finest. But I feel like that point
is kind of mood. I'm sure you're wondering why are
you tied to this chair?

Speaker 2 (00:45):
That was gonna be my next question. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:48):
Well, the fact is you have been a little judgy
the last few times I've made breakfast. You've kind of
taken it for granted, and you seem to not really
care that I work really hard for no runny yellows.

Speaker 2 (01:04):
God, that was just that was one time you undercook
the eggs. That was it. And it's when you were
experimenting with doing the French the French scrambled eggs, and
I feel like I was trying to be constructive.

Speaker 1 (01:17):
Okay, okay, no that makes no no, no, no, no,
relax that makes sense. Well then just relax. I did
choose a really nice chair for you. And uh, I'm
just going to sharpen this knife while not breaking eye contact.

Speaker 2 (01:34):
This is feeling a little charged.

Speaker 1 (01:39):
Maybe could we get a little bit more scallop in here? Jesus?
What are we?

Speaker 2 (01:44):
How?

Speaker 1 (01:44):
Why are we so cheap?

Speaker 3 (01:46):
Ah? And this podcast is about why horror scares us?
What deep, dark, secret scary cinema shines a light on.
The discussions are frank and involve conversations about abuse, trauma,
and mental health. There are also spoilers, so keep that

(02:06):
in mind too. Now, sharpen your machetes and strap raisers,
because this is Cutting Deep into Horror.

Speaker 1 (02:24):
Hello, my spookys, and welcome back to Cutting Deep into Horror.
I am, of course your host, Enrique Kuto here with
my Cutting Deep into Horror co host and foodie Rachel Ridolfi. Rachel,
how am I?

Speaker 2 (02:44):
Uh? Well done? I think.

Speaker 1 (02:47):
I mean it's funny. I said that as a joke,
but then I thought about it. Do you remember at
the end of October. My description of myself was crispy.
I just kept saying like, I'm all right, I'm just
really I'm just crispy right now. Yeah, that that's a
pretty fair assessment of it. For those who don't know,

(03:07):
I don't know how you wouldn't. But in October I
did thirty one shows in thirty one days, which was
actually thirty four shows in thirty four actually thirty five
shows in thirty four days. Long story, but math is fun.
Well I'm almost certain that's correct though. But that was
that was what, that was what we did, and it

(03:31):
was just a it was a lot. It was, it was.
It was harrowing because about a third of the programming
was novella length. It might have been more. No, no,
it couldn't have been more than a third, but it
was still that's a lot.

Speaker 2 (03:44):
That's a lot.

Speaker 1 (03:46):
But now we're here, Thanksgiving is coming right up, and
we wanted to cover a film that I introduced you to,
a film I discovered when it first came out and
was kind of blown away by, which is Bitter Feast
from two thousand and ten. And yeah, I thought that was,
you know, very very fitting. Well, well, you suggested, I

(04:10):
just thought it was fitting. Yeah. But before we start that,
I do want to mention we are sponsored by Cozy Earth,
and I want to say a huge thank you to
the Spookies who have been going to cozyearth dot com
and getting themselves something enjoyable to wear or to sleep
on or to wrap yourself up in for the upcoming

(04:32):
winter months. Cozy Earth offers all kinds of bedding and
towels and my favorite, which is of course, bathrobes. I
was a person who never really believed in sleep wear
or robes until about maybe five years six years ago,
and I got when I got a really nice robe,
and all of a sudden, I was like, I'm a

(04:53):
robe guy. Now. Nothing beats a great robe, and Cozy
Earth has all kinds of very cozy robes and pajama bottoms,
pajama tops and the best part, if you go to
cozyearth dot com and use promo code Spooky at checkout,
you get forty one percent off and every purchase supports

(05:17):
the program. That's why I want to say thank you
everybody who's already went there and used our code, because
I'm aware of every time you guys do it supports
the show directly while getting you something very relaxing and cozy.
So and the only thing that's been awful about this
Cozy Earth sponsorship is that I keep my brain keeps
transposing comfy and cozy. Oh no, So I'll record a

(05:42):
promo and I'll say Comfy Earth and be like, no,
it's Cozy Earth. It's go to Cozy Earth to get comfy,
not go to Comfy Earth to get cozy, and it
drives me insane.

Speaker 2 (05:50):
But yeah, are you synonyms?

Speaker 1 (05:53):
But we really do appreciate you guys checking that out.
And they have all kinds of great stuff, all made
with natural bamboo, so it's not only comfortable, but it
also will last a very long time. Yeah. So that's
cozyearth dot com. Use the promo code Spooky for forty
one percent off your first order. So thank you, guys.

(06:14):
I just needed to mention that really really quick. So
back to the topic at hand, Rachel I just cooked
us dinner. Ironically enough, although although it was a team effort,
I took a red sauce you made and then jujed
it up, Yeah, amped it up a little bit.

Speaker 2 (06:33):
I would call that a solid collaboration.

Speaker 1 (06:35):
Yeah, Yeah, and it turned out pretty well. Pasta a
little spicy Italian sausage, a little red swas, a little
bit of this that. Ye, But now I think that's
why it's perfectly you know, it's fitting that then we
sit down and record the show after we have a
nice little dinner. But I know that I showed you

(06:57):
Bitter Feast when we were on a cabin trip together.

Speaker 2 (07:00):
Mm hmm.

Speaker 1 (07:01):
It was one of those I was going through all
my movies and they had to be DVDs. Yeah, because
the place had a DVD player. Yep, that's and this
was one I had on DVD because it came out
in twenty ten, so I bought it before Blue ray
was much more accessible. But you're the one who was like,
I want to talk about that on cutting deep into horror.
So I would love to know, like, what made you

(07:23):
choose twenty ten's Bitter Feast, which, by the way, is
available to watch on two B, Pluto TV, Zoomo, Amazon Prime.
It's pretty much anywhere you could watch movies for free.
Bitter Feast is available. So if you haven't seen it,
you are going to. We're gonna spoil the hell out
of it, so keep an eye on that. But what
made you? What made this stick out to you that

(07:43):
you wanted to cover it?

Speaker 2 (07:45):
Honestly, I was so blown away by not only the characters,
but also the depth of the story because there's not really,
in the traditional sense a hero. In Bitter Feast, you
are to an extent rooting for one person, but when

(08:07):
you get down to brass tacks, neither one of them
are very likable people.

Speaker 1 (08:13):
I think that's easy for you to say as a
person who hasn't had to deal with criticism, professional criticism
as far as your day to day life. To me,
there's a very clear good guy and it's the bad guy. No,
but no, That's one of my favorite things about the
movie is that it's basically tormenting a critic. Because I'm

(08:34):
not a fan of critics. No, I just can't help it,
you know, even though some of my best friends are critics.
Never been a fan. But what about it? But what
about it made you think it should be on cutting deep?

Speaker 2 (08:46):
Like?

Speaker 1 (08:46):
What made it so scary to you?

Speaker 2 (08:49):
Honestly? I feel like the I guess it would be
like the third meal the Rabbit the rabbit Meal when
the character JT like totally flips and goes completely insane
with the torture and just kind of like accepts the

(09:10):
fact that this is his life now, is being tortured
by this guy that he pissed off. That was really
scary to me because it was him losing all hope.
And I feel like a lot of times in Horror
they can be almost upbeat because the main character still

(09:31):
is holding on to that shred of hope. But he've
really like he does lose hope totally. And then I
don't even feel like he actually gets hope back, even
after some things happen and he's like kind of it's
kind of looking like he could pull one over on Peter.

(09:52):
I don't think he does ever get the hope back,
which is very interesting to me.

Speaker 1 (09:56):
So it's the idea that he kind of accepts his
circumstance exactly. Oh, I mean, I could see that is
pretty pretty terrifying. There's a movie called King of the
Ants that represents that in a shockingly powerful way, the
idea of just acceptance of even the most horrible situation.
But we'll talk more about Bitter Feast and get into
who made it and when and why right after this.

(10:33):
All right, So we're talking about Bitter Feast from twenty ten.
I know I keep saying that, but I want to
make sure people find the right film directed by Joe Maggio,
who I, shockingly enough, have not seen any of his
other work. He directed a film in two thousand and
one called Virgil Bliss, which I never saw. He directed

(10:53):
a film in two thousand and three called Milk and Honey,
which I never saw. He did a film called Paper
Cuver Rock in two thousand and eight, which I never saw.
I like, I'm surprised. Yeah, then Bitter Feast. Than in
twenty eleven, he did a film called The Last Rites
of Joe May, which unfortunately I never saw, and I'm like,
it feels weird that I haven't seen some of of these.

(11:15):
Did a film called Super Moto in twenty sixteen, which
I never saw, and then in twenty twenty three he
did a movie called Bliss, which was really hard for
me to find anything about because apparently there was a
movie in twenty twenty one called Bliss and a movie
in twenty twenty four called Bliss.

Speaker 2 (11:29):
So that's not a confusing whatsoever.

Speaker 1 (11:31):
Well, it's kind of like one of my favorite found
footage horror movies of all Time is called Look and
you can't find it. It's the worst title ever because
it's look.

Speaker 2 (11:41):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (11:42):
It's almost as bad as Director's Cut, which is yeah,
really hard to find as well. So yeah yeah, uh
uh but yeah so directed written and directed by Joe Maggio.
It is produced by Glass Eye Picks, which is the
production company owned at least in part by Larry Feesenden,

(12:03):
the actor who also plays a role in the film.
Larry Fesden has been in so many movies. He was
a a he still is a character actor who started
getting into producing a lot of different stuff in the
early two thousands and onward, a lot of interesting films.
He's also directed a lot of interesting films, like When

(12:25):
to Go he did in two thousand and one. He
did his own version of Frankenstein called Depraved in twenty nineteen,
which was really pretty damn good. I enjoyed it. Produced
some of Ty West's early movies the guy You know
what Ty West is?

Speaker 2 (12:40):
I recognized the name.

Speaker 1 (12:41):
Uh see, she's his plan. He did X and Pearl and.

Speaker 2 (12:45):
Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, then I do. I just didn't
know that I know.

Speaker 1 (12:51):
But yeah, so Larry Fesden's really interesting career, really interesting guy,
and of course it stars Jane Legrosse, James Lagrosse as
Peter Gray and that is our chef, and then Joshua
Leonard as JT. Franks are critic I'll just say it
that way. Critic And for those who don't know, so,

(13:15):
James la Grosse has been in a ton of films
and TV shows. Most famously, if you were a horror
movie fan, you would know him for his role in
Phantasm two, where he played grown up Mike, which a
lot of people pretty mad about because they were they

(13:37):
recast Mike, but only in Phantasm two because the original
Michael a Michael Baldwin rejoined the cast after that. But yeah,
So he played Mike in Phantasm two. He was in
Point Break, he played Roach and Point Break. He did
a lot of really interesting movies. He did a Gun Crazy,

(13:58):
which I've always been a fan of. He's in Living
in Oblivion, which I love that movie just and though
those are just like some films in the nineties, he
did so many films. He's still doing tons of movies.
He was in Straight Into Darkness, which is my buddy
Jeff Burr. That was his film He's been in gosh,
so many movies. I'm looking at this list. I'm trying

(14:19):
to pick like just a few to mention. Yeah, and
he's especially been in TV shows like Crazy over the
last few years. He was in the Constantine TV series.
He was on Billions, he was in Fear of the
Walking Dead, Blue Bloods, Castle Rock, just a lot of stuff.
Oh yeah, he was in one episode of Severance.

Speaker 2 (14:40):
Oh cool.

Speaker 1 (14:41):
Yeah, so really talented actor, major Hollywood guy. And then
we've got Joshua Leonard. And josh Leonard has the special
feather in his cap of being one of the three
stars in the Blair Witch Project, yeah, which we covered
last time here on Cutting Deep, and he played yeah. Yeah,

(15:05):
so but that was his first feature film, and since
then he's been in a lot of movies. He definitely
is of the three the most has the biggest career
of that group. But he's been in a bunch of
indie movies mostly. He was also he was in Hatchet.
He was in the two thousand and eight prom Night movie,

(15:25):
which I liked. Okay, he was in twenty Was It? No?
Not that one Shark Knight, which I love. Nobody Me
and David Denoi are like Shark Knight. But also one
of his more famous roles was he was in Unsane,
the Steven Soderberg movie, which I really liked about, you know,

(15:46):
about being in a mental hospital and being crazy. I
really loved that one, and it was the gimmick was
It was a major like festival hit, but it was
shot on the iPhone seven plus the whole movie was
what ever. It's all about doing stuff like that, just
shooting on whatever and being like, screw you. He's also
big on being his own director photography, and when people

(16:08):
say you can't do that, he's like, shut up. So
anywhere those things are related, I mean it might be
he uses a fake name. It's just that people will
be like, so you know what it was the photography,
like like, oh I used a fake name. It was me. Like,
he doesn't hide it at all. So anyway, with that
all being said, the long of the short of the
film is a professional chef starts to become down on

(16:32):
his luck. He's losing his TV show, his restaurants are
becoming passe, and on top of it all, there's this
hipster and he I think Josh Leonard really played into
being like not even like a caricature of a hipster,
but like really played into like being like a hipster
in the late two thousands, yeah, early twenty tens. I

(16:53):
think he really like nailed that kind of that kind
of look and way about him. And the fact that
his website's called astro Punks just made me want to
punch the screen. But he decides to take it out
on one of his cruelest critics. And that's the other
thing is like his criticisms are in no way constructive.
They are just tool just mean. Yeah, they're mean for

(17:15):
the sake of entertainment, And I I know what that's like.
I remember when I had my first film play on
like regular television. It wasn't even in the United States,
that was in the United Kingdom. I mean I was
getting comments to like kill myself. People are just like,
your movie sucks so bad, kill yourself. It's like it
was a children's movie that you didn't like and you're

(17:38):
an adult, like maybe just move on. Yeah, maybe I'm crazy,
but like.

Speaker 2 (17:45):
You can turn the channel.

Speaker 1 (17:47):
Yeah, no, for real. And there have been a few
critics that are that heart hurtful and harsh. And I
noticed when he repeats some of the reviews in there.
There are ones that say, like, you know, he should
be executed for this level of you know whatever, or
he should be banished from ever cooking again. And it's
like that is pretty you know, tough words from a

(18:08):
guy who writes on a blog to a guy who
like trained and became a Michelin star chef. To say
that you should never touch an egg again, it's like,
get the fuck out of here.

Speaker 2 (18:19):
Yeah, Like, don't you can say.

Speaker 1 (18:20):
The egg wasn't good? But maybe maybe you know, they
it was an off day, yeah, or maybe you took
too much cold medicine before you came. Like, I don't know.
I couldn't imagine reviewing food in a serious way.

Speaker 2 (18:33):
Oh no.

Speaker 1 (18:33):
I mean I love being able to say like, oh,
it's really good, but I couldn't imagine sitting there. I
mean it's the same thing with like with my cigars,
Like I've been asked before because of how intensive my
collection is, like do you review them? And I'm like no,
I mean like I like them. I like smoking cigars.
You know, if I get something from it, I'll share it.
But I can't imagine sitting in a room with a

(18:55):
camera smoking a cigar and then like giving my thoughts
and then cutting it down and sharing it like that
just sounds awful. Yeah, that just sounds so for me.
I mean just because the way I am, like cigars
are for me, and that's how food is too. I
mean I would say, if it's good, if it's you know,
the priced, well I can do all that. That's my
review is just like was it worth my time? Would

(19:15):
it be worth your time? You know that kind of thing.
But yeah, he's definitely clearly a hateful person. So and well,
we're going to jump into the beginning beginning and kind
of see where this meal is taking us through the courses.
I don't know, I thought it was gonna come up
with a pun leave me alone right right after this, Well.

Speaker 2 (19:50):
You were talking about your personal experience with critics, and
while I do not have the personal experience with critics,
as you were talking, it reminded me of a quote
from Robert Heinlend And you know what a nerd I am,
and how much I love his writing. It's true, but no,

(20:10):
his quote is a critic is a man who creates
nothing and thereby feels qualified to judge the work of
creative men. There is logic in this he is unbiased.
He hates all creative people, all creative people equally, and
that's kind of JT the critic. That's kind of the
whole point behind him is his creativity is in the insults.

(20:31):
It's not in actually enjoying the food. It's coming up
with the insults that are entertaining to everyone. Whereas Peter,
he's the creative one with actual food, he's actually being creative,
he's not destroying. And that is that ties into kind
of the beginning of the movie, which you would mentioned.

(20:56):
And we start off with two boys in the woods,
and we realized pretty early on that one of the
boys will eventually grow up to be the cook. And
he's sitting there playing with chef. He's sitting there playing
with a slightly older kid, and we learned that is

(21:19):
his brother. And the older kid is talking about in basically,
he's got written in his journal and he's talking about
there's the creators and the destroyers in the world, and
anyone who would seek to unite the two seeks to
destroy the world basically. But yeah, ties that all in

(21:41):
together to that quote. But as those two kids are playing,
the little whinier kid who grows up to be the chef.
He's he's like, I don't like this game and just
kind of whining about it.

Speaker 1 (21:56):
Well, it's not he's not being a whiner. He's being
whacked in the head with a sword and like shoved around.
He's being like physically harmed. These games are like, let's
play a game where I chase you and hit you.

Speaker 2 (22:08):
Well, it didn't start that way.

Speaker 1 (22:11):
It was pretty immediate. This is this is the dichotomy.
When you have one person who's an who is an
older sibling, and one person who was a younger.

Speaker 2 (22:21):
Sibling, there is a there's a different points of view,
I would say, so, so that's kind of that's kind
of the introduction though to uh, to Peter is just
learning a little bit about his childhood. And we do
come back to that scene later because it doesn't really

(22:41):
that's not all of it. Yeah, But then we get
to the present day and Peter is a grown adult.
He is a chef and he's got a cooking show.

Speaker 1 (22:55):
Called Bitter Feast.

Speaker 2 (22:58):
Yeah, called the Feast or Bitter Feast.

Speaker 1 (23:01):
Oh no, no, no, not Bitter Feast, No, it was just feast. Yeah,
it's just feast, yeah, yeah, which I thought was like nice,
but a little odd of a just feast, yeah, feast
with with Peter Gray.

Speaker 2 (23:14):
So we we get an immediate sense for Peter's personality
as an adult, because he's very excitedly talking about the
meal that they're going to be making and talking about
where he's sourced different ingredients from the meal. And his
co host is this lady, and she's kind of just

(23:35):
playing up everything for laughs, which is generally what a
co host on a cooking show is going to be
there for a bit of levity.

Speaker 1 (23:42):
Well, they're they're very different people. She is a an attractive,
much younger, blonde woman, fully made up, dressed, very cute,
and he is a very serious, pretentious, you know, bearded,
bespectacled guy. In his ways, he's almost he's almost. He'd

(24:06):
be a hipster if he was, if he was able
to be self aware. But I don't think he is.
I think he's too obsessive, you know, about about what
he's doing. Yeah, but yeah, so, I mean she's kind
of being his foil. But in my opinion, she's being
like a little too foily, like she's kind of belittling

(24:28):
what he's doing, which I could see how frustrating, that
would be, especially when, like the whole point of the
show originally was to showcase his cooking ability and to
showcase his recipes and and his his theories about food
and and and his like you were saying, his interest

(24:48):
in locally sourced things, and and and you know, all
the science of food and all of the communal aspects
of food, et cetera, et cetera. And she's just kind
of like making jokes out of it, you know, And
you know, I think he could take it a little
less seriously, but her jabs do feel awfully.

Speaker 2 (25:08):
Yeah, they are sharper, and you get the sense that
he resents it because the jokes are so low.

Speaker 1 (25:16):
Brow too well, and because she's clearly forced on him.
He would never want to hang out with that woman.

Speaker 2 (25:22):
No, never, And she doesn't seem like she'd want to
have much to do with him either, and not even
just because he's being mean to her, which he is
being very combative, is even on the air, but especially
off you know, as soon as the cameras aren't rolling,
he's you know, belittling her and demeaning her and raising

(25:43):
his voice at her. So, yeah, there is not good
blood there. So as soon as the show is wrapped,
he's having a talk with somebody who I'm assuming is
the producer, kind of like a coming to Jesus, almost
saying like, hey, you've got to get along with your
co host or else the show could get canceled because

(26:05):
basically she's the only thing that brings in the ratings.
And Peter's response is I don't care about the ratings,
to which the producer responds like, okay, well that's fine,
you don't have to care about the ratings, but your
show's not getting picked back up next next season because

(26:27):
it doesn't get any good ratings. And I love how
we get to learn so much about Peter as a
person through this interaction because he's trying to stay composed
because it's very obvious that the show was just like

(26:48):
a means to an end, like it's a way to
get himself out there, but it's not the thing that
he's really passionate about. What he's passionate about is the restaurant.
And when he gets to the restaurant, he gets pulled
aside by the restaurant manager kind of doing the same thing,
giving him like a come to Jesus talk, like, hey,

(27:09):
nobody wants to come to the restaurant anymore, because the
only thing that's keeping your name in the people's eye
is your TV show, and we heard that's going to
get canceled, and you just got a really bad review
from this food blogger, so now nobody even wants you're cooking.
And this is when we get introduced to j T,
who is he's written a very nasty, scathing review of

(27:35):
Peter's cooking in the restaurant, and the restaurant manager kind
of explains, like, we've got to let you go because
of all this unless you're willing to change the menu
to kind of fit the modern times and modern tastes
in what people want. And Peter doesn't want to sacrifice
his artistic art integrity because he already made it known

(27:59):
that he didn't want to sacrifice his artistic integrity for
the show, which he didn't care about. He's definitely not
going to give it up here at the restaurant. So
he gets fired, and as he's walking out, there's a
vase at like the entryway of the restaurant, and he
picks up flowers from the vase and throws it on

(28:21):
the ground like and storms out like a petulant child.
And the hostess at the restaurant even looks at the
restaurant manager and just mounts like what the hell, because
like this is his behavior. He is just so self
absorbed that he thinks that storming out after being fired

(28:45):
is like the way to go.

Speaker 1 (28:47):
What are they going to do? Fire him?

Speaker 2 (28:49):
Yeah, I guess he's already, you know, he's already been fired.

Speaker 1 (28:52):
Well, when we get back, we'll learn a little bit
more about mister J. T. Franks and how how they
cant right after this. Now we're following mister Peter Gray

(29:18):
home to his little cottage in upstate New York. The
film takes place in New York City, which of course
is where the big chefs generally, at the very least,
that's where they start. Usually the big chefs, unless they
were say from Los Angeles, or from Las Vegas, or
from Miami, Florida or thereabouts, or Austin, Texas or thereabouts.

(29:43):
Usually otherwise, their first restaurants are going to be in
New York City, right and if they're very successful, then
their goal will be to open one in Los Angeles,
and in Chicago and then in London. You know, that's
the goal is to keep ex banding these restaurants. But
of course he didn't even have his own restaurant. He

(30:04):
was just the head chef at one, which is a
little odd, but maybe that wasn't that odd and twenty
ten Actually yeah, I don't know. I don't know how
common it was for these superstar chefs to own their
restaurants at that point. But it's but now that we
see him at his home, he's of course cooking, and
I love this sequence because I feel like we really

(30:26):
get to know a lot about him by watching him
cut up, dice up vegetables and prepare butter and all
this stuff, because he has this mentality of exactness and experience.
But he's also very happy the whole time he's doing it,

(30:48):
not like blaring smiles, but just a contentment with what
he's focused on. And MY favorite moment though, is when
it's all done and he takes a bite of the
food as he like, I think he puts on the
TV or something, and the look on his face because
what he made is excellent, you know, he just takes
a bite and he's like, oh, you know that's I

(31:11):
love that because I I am one of those people
that believes that if you are a creative person. And granted,
creating food is very different from creating books or creating
movies or creating music. It is different. It's consumed, but
it's not the same type of consumption. But I think

(31:32):
there's no shame in enjoying what you make. I've I've
always been flabbergasted when people say like, oh, I can't
stand seeing myself on the screen. I'm like, well, then
why'd you put all the effort into doing it? Like
I think, and maybe I'm wrong. I think that's just
something people say because they think that that's what you're
supposed to say, like, because that's endearing, versus saying like, hell,

(31:53):
yeah I was awesome. I you've been with I will
be like, hell yeah I was awesome. I just am
like that now you are. I'm not always that that
like that way.

Speaker 2 (32:06):
No, but you're never self deprecating.

Speaker 1 (32:07):
Oh no, I'll be like, yeah, I think it turned
out great, or I thought it turned out pretty damn good.
You know. I'm never like, uh, can you believe it?
It's like that's so stupid. Yeah, I mean, and if
you really feel that way, it makes me wonder what
your motive is to keep doing it, Like is it
just to keep self deprecating or I saw an actress
one time at a movie screening and it was the

(32:28):
first time she'd seen herself on the big screen, and
I was like, how did it feel to like see
yourself on a movie theater screen? And she was like, well,
you know, I'm always my own worst critic. All I
could think about was everything I did wrong. And I
was like, well, can I give you some advice? And
she's like what, And I'm like, I was that way
for like a good twelve years of my life. Way
better On the other side, if you learn to enjoy it,

(32:52):
it's way better.

Speaker 2 (32:53):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (32:53):
I often think about this, and I'll leave this point.
There may be a lot of creativity pontificating in this
episod of, because to me, that's what the movie is about.
It's about criticism and passion and creation and perversion. I
do think that a perversion in the broad sense, not
in the sexual sense, but like, to me, the best

(33:15):
example I can think of is, of all people, Gilbert Godfreed.
You know, Gilbert, the idea is okay in the audience.
I hope you do too. The guy who sounds kind
of like.

Speaker 2 (33:25):
This Iago from the Latin Sure.

Speaker 1 (33:32):
And aflac Duck and you know all this, and the
host one of the hosts of USA Up All Night,
and he was just a phenomenal stand up comedian, one
of the funniest human beings on earth in my opinion,
And we lost him a few years back. And I
still like hate that there's a world without Gilbert Gottfried
in it. But my favorite thing is I heard from

(33:52):
multiple sources when they would tell stories about like going
to Gilbert's house to see him, that they would come
in and Guilbert it would be sitting on his couch
watching his own stand up acts on TV and laughing.
And all I could think was, like, that is goals.
For real, That is goals, Because talk about a free joy,

(34:17):
that you do something for a living and you're good
at it and you love it, you love what you're doing.
You should be able to do that. Now, I'm not
saying that that means you know that, I, by any
stretch sit and watch my movies every week or even
I probably watch my own films I've directed. I probably
watch like three or four of them a year. Yeah,

(34:39):
it's probably around that. If I'm not actively making it. Yeah,
So I'm not saying that I sit around watching my
stuff all the time. But I like my movies. I do. Yeah,
you know, when I sit down and watch Awkward Thanksgiving,
which by the way, is available to watch on two
B TV for free and you should watch it around Thanksgiving,
I think. I think it's hilarious and I enjoy it.
So my point is I really just enjoyed the way

(35:01):
he just appreciated his own food with that bite. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (35:06):
Absolutely, no, I absolutely agree. And you've learned so much
about him very quick in sequence.

Speaker 1 (35:12):
Well, chefs have to be several things at once. Usually,
much like artists, they have to be disciplined and meticulous,
but they also have to be emotional and spontaneous at
the same time. And that's a tall order. That's not
really two mentalities that go hand in hand very often. Yeah. So,

(35:36):
but we're about to find out something dark in his history,
which is also another typical artist thing if we're honest,
is that he has a dark past that he's you know,
working out as he creates beautiful things for people to eat.
And we'll dive into that right after this.

Speaker 2 (36:08):
So, after enjoying his delicious homemade meal. We get a
flashback to that initial scene where he was a child
and he was being beat up by his older brother,
and his older brother starts chasing him through the woods
and Peter starts running off. He's clearly been abused by

(36:33):
his older sibling like this before, and he takes off,
starts running and trips and hurts his ankle, and his
brother like just runs up and jumps on top of
him him starts beating him up and then like goes
to strangle him.

Speaker 1 (36:47):
Yeah, and Peter, little.

Speaker 2 (36:52):
Kid, you know, he's trying to push his brother off
and he can't like get him off of him, so
he grabs a stick and just stabs him in the neck. Yeah,
right in the neck, and you know, blood everywhere and
obviously very traumatizing to little Peter. And he just gets

(37:12):
up and just kind of you know, takes a deep
breath and walks off into the woods. And then we
go back to the present day, and that really sets
the scene. Lets you know, kind of the demons that
Peter is dealing with and why he's so intense.

Speaker 1 (37:34):
Now, Yeah, I mean I would say I would say
so and and but that's you know, kind of the
like I was mentioning before the break, that's kind of
the the art thing is like that there's some element
of themselves, you know that torments. Yeah, that makes you,
makes you great or whatever. This would be a decent

(37:58):
combination with like Whiplash. Oh yeah, although Whiplash is in
a horror movie, but it may as well be for real. Yeah,
it's my fucking tempo, my fucking tempo. Yeah, it's a phenomenal.

Speaker 2 (38:16):
Let's just do a show about Whiplash.

Speaker 1 (38:18):
We could if we really, I mean, it's our show.
It's a great film anyway, it's more of a tense
film than a scary film. Yeah, but no, So so
now we know a little bit about his background. We
know that he was bullied, We know that he stood
up for himself, but that it went about as like
awry as it can. Yeah, which is, you know, not

(38:40):
not great, No, not a great thing to happen. So
could be better, It could be. I suppose it depends
on whose side you're on, I guess.

Speaker 2 (38:52):
Yeah, But then then it's time to look at the.

Speaker 1 (38:56):
Food critic, Yes, J T. Franks.

Speaker 2 (38:59):
Yeah, so it's modern day. We're in a restaurant and
it's it's a beautiful sequence of just like close up
shots of beautiful looking food. Yeah, and you know he's
taking the small bites and you know you see the
close ups of him like really and you and I
since we smoke cigars, you know, like there's ways that

(39:21):
you taste things where you taste things more. Yeah, when
you interact with like your palette versus just the tongue or.

Speaker 1 (39:28):
Yeah, you chew with little air. You're trying to work
your old factories and stuff like that.

Speaker 2 (39:32):
Yeah. So he's you know, doing all that and stops
and you know, sits and writes in his notebook, and
waitress comes over and asks as if everything is okay,
and he just kind of bemoans everything and says, I
would just like a little joy.

Speaker 1 (39:52):
Yeah, yeah, which.

Speaker 2 (39:53):
Is so so pretentious.

Speaker 1 (39:58):
Well, and the fact of the matter is if you're
gonna put yourself out into the world, whether it's cooking
or writing poetry or whatever, you're gonna get somebody who's
gonna be like, it's okay, but it doesn't really solve
all my problems. And you're like, okay, I thought I
was just trying to amuse you for like a half

(40:19):
an hour. I didn't realize that what I was supposed
to do is change your life forever. And I think
I've talked about that on this show that sometimes I
get really frustrated with people who just they just set
the bar too damn high with movies. You'll just be
like I hated that or whatever. I'm like, what was
wrong with this movie?

Speaker 2 (40:41):
Like?

Speaker 1 (40:42):
What did I you know, did I leave a changed person?

Speaker 3 (40:46):
No?

Speaker 1 (40:47):
But did I walk out thoroughly entertained for that ninety minutes? Yes?
What more do you want to, like for twelve to
fourteen bucks in a movie theater or three ninety nine
at home or just your Netflix subscription? Like, don't I
don't think that you should expect every experience to be
that way. But on the flip side of that, though,

(41:09):
a lot of these places that he's going to and
reviewing are charging you know, maybe one hundred dollars a plate.
Now this is twenty ten, so maybe eight hundred dollars
eighty dollars a plate. Yeah, So there is a part
of me that's like, yeah, but what does this do
for me that makes it worth this amount of money?
Although I won't lie the few times in my life
I've ate food that was sincerely so expensive it made

(41:32):
no sense. I was never buying, which is number one
the best part. But I will say it was shockingly good.

Speaker 2 (41:39):
I mean, I can I can believe it. I can
believe it. I've just never been in the position to
have that kind of food.

Speaker 1 (41:46):
I've I've lucked out a couple of times. I got
to eat line caught sushi at a restaurant where there
were no prices on the menu.

Speaker 2 (41:53):
And I'm still mad at you, and we.

Speaker 1 (41:55):
Ordered nine plates of food. We just kept ordering food.
That's what That's what what he said to do. The
guy I was there with, he was buying. He was like,
he was like, let's just order some stuff that we
could just order more as we go. So we were
just like, we would eat a bunch of fish, and
then he'd be like, let's get some mackerel and get
some more of those rolls, and then we just eat
that and they'd be like, let's get some of this

(42:16):
and this. But the second meal we did, we went
out and got veal, and again at a restaurant with
no prices on the menu.

Speaker 2 (42:25):
I can't even fathom.

Speaker 1 (42:26):
It is weird. It is weird to have no prices
on the menu. So but my point is, so I
can also see where there's an attitude of like, well,
what is what? How is this worth this much?

Speaker 2 (42:38):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (42:39):
But that being said, he's asking where is you know,
could I get some joy, which is strange to me.
And then he and he's like swinging the wine yeah,
and just kind of wrapping up this meal. And all
I can think is like, you make a living eating fancy.

Speaker 2 (42:55):
Food, yeah, and then complaining about it.

Speaker 1 (42:58):
That's the kicker, that's the entertainment value.

Speaker 2 (43:00):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (43:01):
Yeah. Well, and that's the hardest thing about criticisms is
it's really hard to be a critic if you're not
going to be mean, because that's what people pay for.
I mean, that's what they want, that's what they don't
pay for, but you know that's what people want to.

Speaker 2 (43:12):
That's what they show for.

Speaker 1 (43:13):
Well, it's like we it goes back to caveman days.
You know, you really really remember when you're told a
sabertoothed tiger lives in that cave, because that's important, Yeah,
to remember. So I get that, you know, I I
do get that, But it's it's kind of become this
self defeating thing with critics criticism where it's like it

(43:36):
has to be the worst thing I've ever seen. It
has to be so terrible you'll never want to watch
another movie for the rest of your life. It can't
just be like I didn't mind it, or oh, you know,
it was pretty good. It can't. And there's an episode
of The Simpsons where Homer becomes a food critic and
the entire city gets fat because he loves every single restaurant,

(43:59):
Like he says, replaces the best food he ever had
because he just loves to eat. So the whole town
is like getting bigger and bigger and fatter and fatter.
So there is something to be said for I mean,
I you know me, I like to be a good
audience to just about anything. I mean, I'll tell you
if I didn't love something, But like I try to
like the things I watch and the things I eat

(44:20):
and stuff like that. Yeah, so I don't know. But
this guy, he's clearly got an axe to grind, that
he's got some anger in him, and I think we
get to find out a little bit about his personal
life when he's done swinging his wine and harassing the
weight staff. But we'll have to wait till after this

(44:41):
to find out. So now, let's follow what's his name, JT.
Franks to his hip you know, probably upper east side

(45:03):
apartment where we're introduced to his girlfriend wife.

Speaker 2 (45:09):
Sorry I initially thought girlfriend too, but yeah, it is
his wife.

Speaker 1 (45:13):
Yeah, name Peg, I believe. No, no, no, no, maybe hold on, no, no,
it's it's Catherine, Okay, because Peg was the actor that
was the woman that works with the chef.

Speaker 2 (45:27):
That's right.

Speaker 1 (45:28):
Yeah, so that's a Catherine Frank's. Sorry. I was looking
at the cast thing and there aren't a lot of
characters in this, so I was like, female names, female names.
And she is just hanging out just in the apartment
in a night shirt and or underwear, which I think
is the perfect way to establish a girlfriend or wife

(45:50):
in a movie. Yeah, just because it establishes like their
home and they're comfortable.

Speaker 2 (45:56):
Exactly.

Speaker 1 (45:57):
It is that they just don't care that they're like
walking around in their underwears. Yeah, and they're underwears. Give
give s gives so, but she's just kind of hanging
out and he is feverishly typing away on his computer
and uh, getting ready to update the gastro Punk's website.

Speaker 2 (46:17):
Does it does it like physically pain you every time
you have to say the name.

Speaker 1 (46:22):
No, it physically pains me every time I remember it.

Speaker 2 (46:29):
No, No, I thought you had more.

Speaker 1 (46:31):
I mean, it's like it's like the whole term gastro pub.

Speaker 2 (46:36):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (46:36):
I hate Yeah, that term. It's just so stupid. Yeah,
dumb gastro pub.

Speaker 3 (46:43):
No.

Speaker 2 (46:43):
I I get it because I am not a fan either.
I just relish in your pain, so that's fair.

Speaker 1 (46:51):
Yeah, yeah, I mean I I mustard in your pains.
But but so they're they're their home.

Speaker 2 (47:01):
Yeah, they're home. He's typing away and she has printed
out some of his past quote unquote reviews, and she's
reading them as he's typing, and it's almost it almost
seems like he's inspired by all of the mean stuff
that he had said before, and he's kind of like, yeah,
those those pretty great. And she's almost aghast at how mean,

(47:26):
Like not just oh this is mean and critical, but
like downright mean, like almost getting to the point of
telling people like, you should quit cooking or you should
kill yourself because the food was so bad, and not
even so bad that I got sick, just so bad
because it didn't live up to my expectations of perfection,

(47:47):
which is not great. And she's kind of asking like,
do you need to be this mean? Do you need
to be this critical? And he makes the point like
you said that this is what people come to his
blog four, Like this is how he makes money is
by being means. So it's not like he can just

(48:08):
pump the breaks because this is what he does for
a living. And she says that, you know, yeah, of
course he's always been a critic, but she's noticed that
over the past couple of years it's been worse and
now we're starting to dig deeper. So he says, yeah,
of course things have gotten worse, and they get into

(48:30):
a really pretty bad argument and he says, like he's
realized that he doesn't care about her anymore.

Speaker 1 (48:37):
Well he before that, he kind of says the thing, Yeah, okay,
he says the thing about, you know, having your child die.
Kind of does that, he said, Yeah, he says that
before he even says anything about how he feels about
their marriage. Yeah, so we we get the hint that
they lost a.

Speaker 2 (48:56):
Child because oh, because that's what it was is. She
tries to kind of diffuse things and mentions going to
an appointment in the day, you know, the next morning,
and he mentions like Oh, he can't stand hospitals. So
that's the first like little hint. And then she asks
even if he even wants to try having another kid,

(49:19):
which is the other little hint, and then you know,
it kind of escalates, and then that's when he drops
the you know, having your kid die thing. So we
realize that while he has always been a food critic,
he's probably taking out a lot of his pain at
losing his child on all these people and on everything too, Yeah,

(49:44):
on everybody. Like he's he's gone into self destruct mode,
really is what it is. And it seems like he's
gotten a good audience, so like that's extra encouragement. So yeah,
he admits to her like he doesn't care. He didn't care,
he doesn't care about trying to have another kid, he
doesn't care about their marriage, he doesn't care about her.

(50:05):
So she leaves and he kind of you know, there's
a sequence where he's like restless and walking around his apartment,
goes to start writing his novel and then stops and
then you know sits there drinking and just kind of languishing,
and then we go back to Peter in his little
homestead in upstate New York and at first he's there

(50:30):
chopping wood, kind of your normal rustic stuff, and then
he goes inside and he's got several sets of locks
and keys, and he takes them out and he starts
marking them.

Speaker 1 (50:45):
Yeah, he's meticulously numbering them, which.

Speaker 2 (50:48):
Is interesting but very unsettling. And then we go back
to JT. And he's kind of meandering around his house
very he seems he seems very suspicious and very restless.
And the movie does a great job of building the tension.

(51:10):
You know what's going to happen, you just don't know when.
And he's acting, you know, really scared as he's leaving
his apartment building, and we really think that somebody is
going to come and get him, Like while he's in
the staircase, sorry like stairwell, stairwell, we really think somebody

(51:31):
is going to get him in the stairwell. But he
gets out of the stairwell, we start feeling like he's safe,
and then someone comes up from behind and him it's
hits him in the head and he blacks out and
when he wakes up, he's chained up in a basement
and Peter comes down to you know, down these stairs

(51:55):
and shining a light in his eyes and kind of
takes some out and it's it's a beautiful shot of
them coming out from a cellar. And at first we
don't really notice or can't really see what's happening because it's,
you know, such a wide shot. And then we see
Peter motion with a rifle and he starts leading JT

(52:17):
off into the woods. So we realize very quickly that
things are not looking great for JT because he's all
chained up. He's being led through the woods in the
middle of nowhere. And and it's great because JT says
something like he could run away, he could escape, like
he could he could get back to civilization, and Peter

(52:40):
just points the rifle in the air, pulls the trigger
and says, yeah, I don't think we're in the middle
of nowhere, but we're pretty close.

Speaker 1 (52:48):
Yeah, And I mean he fires the gun and he's
like nobody nobody cares, like, yeah, nobody can hear anything.
And the first thing he does is hand him a bucket.
But what he has to do with that bucket you'll
have to wait to find out till after this. JT's

(53:17):
got this bucket and he's told that he needs to
go down to the creek and gather water, then take
the water back to his tree, and as long as
he does those things, he can drink. And we get
the impression it's been at least a day that he
has had no food or water, so he's being forced

(53:42):
to do this and to follow these instructions. So of
course he gets down there, he gets water from the
bucket he's walking along. He's of course exhausted and confused,
and his hands are tied very strangely, very tightly, and
he he walks along with the bucket. But what does
he do. He stops to rest for a minute and

(54:04):
sneaks a sip of the water. I think he just
grabs it with his hand and like sucks down some
of the water. So not acceptable, did not follow the rules,
So he gets the water gets spilled. Peter just spills
the water out and tells him like, I guess you
have to try again tomorrow, yep. And that kind of

(54:26):
sets the tone for the whole movie is this is
a person JT. Who, as far as Peter understands, has
never done much of anything other than tear down other people.
So how about you learn some discipline and you learn
how to do the things you claim, because you know

(54:51):
you said that Heinland quote earlier, which I felt was
an okay quote. But I prefer my version of that,
which is those who cannot do teach and those who
cannot teach teach Jim. So that's the version I always liked.

Speaker 2 (55:11):
That's a good one. You never heard that, No, but
I was homeschooled, so.

Speaker 1 (55:16):
Well, I mean I guess that, Yeah, I guess that's
the excuse for ignorance then, but no, So I get
where he's coming from though, this attitude of like, can
you even be like remotely as dedicated and disciplined as
I am to my craft when all you are trying
to do is drink some water?

Speaker 2 (55:37):
Mm hmmm.

Speaker 1 (55:38):
I like that. I think that's a like a really
fascinating mentality. Oh absolutely, And having to do it at gunpoint,
of course, because you know, otherwise why would he And
he is you know, very mouthy and very you know, why, like,
why would I do this? He's like, because you want
to drink, don't you? Three days? That's about how long

(56:00):
you have without water. Yep. So I thought that was
a really great way to kind of begin what is
going to be going down, And of course while this
is all happening. I know it's coming up soon, but
we were getting ready to meet the private investigator yep,

(56:20):
named William Coley played by Larry Fesden, who starts sniffing
around Peter Gray because he's been hired by the wife
to figure out what happened to JT. Franks. He does
mention at one point that his website gets forty thousand
hits a day. Yeah, so someone's gonna notice I'm missing.

(56:44):
Of course, before that, he had literally told his wife, like,
I don't care about you at all, go away, and
then she went away, and then he wasn't there when
she came home, which I'm sure didn't see.

Speaker 2 (56:52):
Odd, Yeah, because they just had a huge fight.

Speaker 1 (56:55):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (56:56):
Really, he could be going somewhere, he could be going
to visit his family.

Speaker 1 (57:00):
But the fact that he's not answering his phone, you know.

Speaker 2 (57:03):
That's a little concerning.

Speaker 1 (57:04):
It's worrying. So he's just asking questions. And he's a
great side character. He's very very quirky, very fun. He's
always chewing on swizzle sticks and straws and doing the
whole like you know, and I was a cop. We
always thought blob like he's just you know, pontificating and
being kind of kooky.

Speaker 2 (57:24):
Which, yeah, I love his character.

Speaker 1 (57:26):
Oh he's he's a great character in Fesden is built
for characters like that. That's one of his biggest strengths
as an actor. So we have that kind of going
on as well and his wife trying to figure out
what the heck is going on. But now we get
into probably my favorite scene, which is he h, this

(57:47):
is this is the one where they're in the basement. Yeah, yes,
they're in the basement and all of a sudden, set
up in front of him is a little camping stove
and a cast iron skillet, and Gray pulls out the
uh review of a of a breakfast and the review

(58:07):
is scathing, saying like even a chimp should be able
to make a.

Speaker 2 (58:13):
Eggsa because first Peter asks him, how do you like
your eggs? And you know, JT responds over easy, and
Peter pulls out the review and you know, basically says
like even a monkey could make eggs over easy. It's
super simple. You just put the egg on the skillet
two minutes either side, flip it and then you're done.

Speaker 1 (58:35):
Well that's actually what he said about the steak oh,
that's what he said. But yeah, I know you know no,
because I also was almost said that too, and then
I remember that that's the steak that comes a little
bit later. But that's it's fine.

Speaker 2 (58:44):
So so JT basically posits that this is this is
the challenge because it's been several days now since JT's eaten.
So the agreement is the rule are that he can
eat as many eggs as he wants, as long as

(59:06):
they're cooked medium or cooked over easy to perfection, no
ronny yellows. And it's his delivery is just so great
because it's almost instructional. It feels like he's hosting a
cooking TV show.

Speaker 1 (59:27):
Runny yellows. Yeah, he can have as many eggs as
you want, as long as they're cooked to perfection over easy,
no runny yellows. And that's the thing that you and
I quote from this movie all the time to each
other is no running yellows. So he cracks the egg
and his hands are tightal weird. He even says like,

(59:48):
how can I do it like this? And he doesn't
even answer it. He's just like, go on. But he
does crack the egg and he does a little chef's
trick where he kind of holds the yolk and then
lets it go, which I've never done or really heard about,
but I'm sure it's a chef's trick. I also want
to mention that in all the sequences where Peter is cooking,

(01:00:10):
I don't know if that was actually James le Grosse's hands,
but if they were, he studied because those hands are
impeccably preparing them.

Speaker 2 (01:00:19):
Oh yeah, like when he's when he's like dicing and
mincing stuff and he's like got the perfect form.

Speaker 1 (01:00:25):
It's incredible. It's incredible to watch, you know. I guess
I should have We should open this with like that.
I grew up with a a professional like he wasn't
really ah, he was like a quasi chef. I mean
he he learned through hard knocks, but like my stepdad
was a was a restaurant tour and a lot of
my kitchen habits came from him.

Speaker 2 (01:00:45):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:00:45):
It's why I'm very intense in the kitchen because he
was very intense in the kitchen. I don't know what
I'm not as bad as him. Because he gets the
egg in there, it's sizzling in the pan. He goes
to flip it over, and then that little bit of
yoke escapes, which, by the way, is one of the

(01:01:06):
things I hate, because you like your eggs fried, and
I try my best with them. Well, the real problem
is when the eggs are old, Yeah, they break a
lot easier. But of course these are all farm presh eggs,
well because they're naturally sourced, of course. But he flips it,
the yellow runs out of it, and as soon a

(01:01:26):
he says, uh, running yellow, he grabs the egg to
try and eat it anyway, scarfet and he whacks him
with the burning hot cast iron pan, pulling a chunk
of flesh off the side of his face. And that's
when you really start to realize, oh, okay, then this
is gonna get pretty brutal, and we'll find out just

(01:01:50):
how brutal.

Speaker 2 (01:01:50):
Right after this, so j T comes to in the
basement and he's still chained up, tied up, tied up,

(01:02:13):
he's gagged, and there's you know, kind of a flickering light,
and as he regains consciousness, he realizes that he's just
on the floor and the only thing in front of
him in that cellar in that basement is a TV
and it's broadcasting a live show that Peter is doing

(01:02:37):
on his cooking.

Speaker 1 (01:02:38):
It's broadcasting the last episode of Feast, Yes, the final episode.

Speaker 2 (01:02:43):
So he's, you know, Peter's like hamming it up for
the camera, and for once, he doesn't seem to be
like getting ready to jump across the set and strangle
his co host, like.

Speaker 1 (01:02:57):
Although she literally sabotages what he's going. Yeah, she.

Speaker 2 (01:03:02):
Hides one of his was it like one of his
tools or something.

Speaker 1 (01:03:05):
Yeah, it might have been the whisk or something.

Speaker 2 (01:03:07):
I think it was the whisk. But anyway, so he's
he's actually playing nice. But this is like not only
terrifying being in this situation and painful, but this is
really frustrating for JT because now Peter's just toying with him.

Speaker 1 (01:03:25):
Yeah, he's kind of winking at the camera and knowing
that he's watching.

Speaker 2 (01:03:28):
Like this, he's really doing this show for you.

Speaker 1 (01:03:31):
But so.

Speaker 2 (01:03:35):
Peter kind of passes out again. The next day he's
woken up or JT passes out again, And the next
day he's woken up by Peter just stomping down the stairs,
walking right over to him and just yelling wake up,
wake up, wake up, while poking him with a cattle

(01:03:55):
prod so cattle prod's and wakes up, wakes him up,
tortures him some more, drags him outside. And it's a
beautiful summer day, summer day, fall day, something like that,
and there's a grill and Peter's got this beautiful cut
of steak that he's cooked up, and he starts extolling

(01:04:16):
the virtues of like the fact that this this steak
was you know, hormone free and and you know, raised
right here in the valley, and he knows the farmer
that he bought it from, and just how much better
everything tastes when you get the food directly from the
source and all this, and then asks JT again, how

(01:04:37):
do you like your steak? And he says medium, well.

Speaker 1 (01:04:42):
And medium rare, medium rare. It would have been a
whole different scene.

Speaker 2 (01:04:50):
You're wrong, You're wrong, and that is why you die.
He does say medium rare.

Speaker 1 (01:04:55):
I just there's no yeah, I mean, who who, Well, No,
you're right, I'm sure somebody does. But you know what
I'm saying that they're wrong. I like mistake rare. I
used to say medium rare because I don't trust them
to get it rare. But rare is really where it's
at for me.

Speaker 2 (01:05:12):
Yeah, yeah, really just like my steaks.

Speaker 1 (01:05:15):
Your steaks are very good, although although I almost always
get the rarest of them.

Speaker 2 (01:05:21):
So you like it rare?

Speaker 1 (01:05:22):
Yeah, same with the chicken breast.

Speaker 2 (01:05:24):
I am so sorry about that.

Speaker 1 (01:05:26):
Yeah, that's hilarious considering what we're talking about, that you
accidentally give us food poisoning. Well, ago, it was your
first experiment with souvi yes.

Speaker 2 (01:05:37):
In my defense, it was a brand new way of
cooking for me, and I could have avoided basically three
days of agony for both of us cumulatively if I
would have just remembered, like, oh, yeah, you should use
a thermometer before you serve the meat.

Speaker 1 (01:05:57):
I mean, you know, And well, it's my own fault two.
Once I started to notice it seemed a little raw,
I just stopped eating. But I probably should have said
something immediately, but I was trying to be polite because
you really tried hard on that.

Speaker 2 (01:06:11):
Meal chicken sashimi.

Speaker 1 (01:06:13):
Yu chicken tartar Ooh So anyway.

Speaker 2 (01:06:18):
Yeah, so JT says medium rare. Peter pulls out another
scathing review, this time about a steak place and says,
you know, basically anyone could make a medium rare steak
and a half.

Speaker 1 (01:06:39):
Three and a half minutes on the other a monkey
could do it.

Speaker 2 (01:06:41):
Yeah, So now the challenge is he has to perfectly
cook this steak and he's allowed to eat. And JT
is more and more broken now, like he's he's kind
of past the bargaining point and he's really just like
accepting like this is this is going to go on

(01:07:02):
for a while. So he's just trying to comply now.
So he really does try to cook the steak, even
though like his hands are tied up all weird and
he really doesn't have the proper tools to be because
he's just only got like a fork.

Speaker 1 (01:07:17):
You can cook a steak with just a.

Speaker 2 (01:07:19):
Fork with your hands tied up.

Speaker 1 (01:07:21):
I mean, I don't see how would be any different.

Speaker 2 (01:07:23):
I mean that's fair.

Speaker 1 (01:07:24):
I'm just saying, I mean, like what like cooking a
steak is. I mean, I'm not saying cooking a steak
is easy, but I mean, like the concept like if
I'm cooking, like just quickly cooking a steak or whatever,
or even like a piece of fish or a piece
of chicken, if it's unless it's a really flaky piece
of fish, I can just do it all with a
with a fork.

Speaker 2 (01:07:43):
Yeah, it was a very fatty piece though. It was
like kind of coming apart.

Speaker 1 (01:07:47):
Yeah, it should be easier to not overdo if it's fatty.

Speaker 2 (01:07:51):
It should be in theory, in theory, in theory. So
he tries making the steak. Peter takes it off the grill. He's,
you know, cutting it up, talking kind of monologuing a
little bit and and gets increasingly upset and incense until

(01:08:12):
he growls and your steak is overdone and spits it
out and starts beating him.

Speaker 1 (01:08:20):
Well, he throws his sake out into the woods first,
which is, you know, just great because that's his food.
And I want to mention that My favorite moment of
that scene though, is when he takes this, when he
says like it's done, and he's like okay, and he
like takes it on the plate and he goes to
start cutting into it. I just imagine the guy going
it has to rest for five to ten minutes. Holdover cooking.

Speaker 2 (01:08:40):
Yeah, you said that last night, and I nearly died.

Speaker 1 (01:08:43):
I was raised in a very intense kitchen, although we
almost never had steak so well, yeah, but holdover cooking
was something I heard pretty especially with eggs. Yeah, yeah,
like pull him out now, holdover cooking.

Speaker 2 (01:08:56):
Yeah, they will keep kick cooking for a little while,
keep kicking, keep kicking, kicking, kicking. So uh tosses his
steak into the bushes. There's they get in, you know,
starts beating him. They get into a kind of a
fight because JT is able to kind of like get
kind of get a hold of him, and JT bites

(01:09:19):
uh Peter's hand like really bad, like and spits it out,
spits it out, and Peter picks it up and like
tries putting it back on that whole thing.

Speaker 1 (01:09:30):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:09:31):
So that's you know, that's great. That's a fun afternoon,
of course.

Speaker 1 (01:09:38):
Well, I mean I think it was a very educational
after you because I don't think you can teach greatness
of cooking with kindness, just like you can't train an
elephant to do circus stuff by being nice.

Speaker 2 (01:09:53):
Yeah, that's just said that to me so many times.
You can't train that with kindness.

Speaker 1 (01:09:57):
You can't teach that with kindness. That's that's like my
favorite way to ruin any time you're watching any kind
of like circus thing. And a lot of people hate
the circus but like, yeah, that's always it's like an
elephant's doing like some standing trick. I'm just can't teach
that with kindness. It's just a nice way to ruin
your day. But speaking of ruining your day, things are
about to get a whole hell of a lot darker

(01:10:18):
right after this.

Speaker 2 (01:10:32):
So we're following Peter. He is back at the studio,
the crews having some kind of like wrap party or something.

Speaker 1 (01:10:41):
Yeah yeah, they're popping champagne and given speeches and.

Speaker 2 (01:10:45):
The producers being very nice. Which producers, that's like their
job is to be nice until they're not.

Speaker 1 (01:10:52):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:10:55):
And you know, basically saying ah, you did a great job,
and like you brought you know, you people brought all
these fans together and all this, and and Peter is
playing the part of being a good cooking show host
and then he kind of SLINKs off to his changing
room to kind of collect himself, and someone's waiting for
him there. It's the private investigator. And Peter does a

(01:11:21):
very good job of kind of like playing it cool,
but he's still visibly perturbed that the private investigator is there,
and even you know, even asks point blank like am
I a person of interest, and the private Investigator's like, hey,
I'm not a cop. I'm just asking questions because you know,
the guy's wife is very concerned and like, some things

(01:11:44):
aren't adding up, and he even says like, and the
thing is, I can smell bullshit from a mile away,
and some things aren't adding up. Starts asking about his hand.
How'd you hurt your hand? I was cooking, Well, what
were you What were you made? Soueflay? What kind of soueflay?

Speaker 1 (01:12:02):
Cheese?

Speaker 2 (01:12:04):
How was it good?

Speaker 1 (01:12:06):
I think he said. I feel like he's yeah, he
said something more than yeah, pretty good.

Speaker 2 (01:12:12):
Pretty good? Uh, which it was a great exchange. It's
a great way to learn so much about both those characters.
And uh, I love that scene. And you know, Peter
kind of excuses himself. The private investigators walks off. He's
going to his car. We know where this is going

(01:12:33):
because he's sitting there waiting in his car, chewing on
a swizzle stick, just trying to play it cool. And
you see Peter's car just pull out suddenly, almost almost
getting t boned by someone else because he's like not
waiting for the right of way and traffic. So he
starts tailing him private investigator tails him back, you know,

(01:12:56):
to the countryside, sees that his story is actually kind
of starting to make sense because he had noticed how
dirty Peter's car was, and Peter soon well, I live
in the country and driving on those back roads sure enough.
Like it's a rough drive. It's pretty pretty bumpy, pretty.

Speaker 1 (01:13:15):
Muddy, which, by the way, reminds me after he kidnapped JT.
There's a great sequence when he's cleaning out his car,
like he's cleaning the back seat and he's cleaning it
totally like a chef. Yes, like his hands dragging across
and getting all the stuff out.

Speaker 2 (01:13:29):
And like cupping it up and then cleaning it. You know,
it's tiny circles exactly.

Speaker 1 (01:13:35):
Yeah. I just wanted to mention that real quick, that like, yeah,
when he cleans it, he is so cleaning it in
a chef's a very chefy way.

Speaker 2 (01:13:42):
Yeah, it's great. That's why I like it is because
there's so much going on with the characters. You learn
so much about the characters just by watching how they
interact with the world.

Speaker 1 (01:13:52):
Yeah, and I believe at this point, by the way,
the private investigator mentions, you guys have something kind of
in common. Your brother disappeared when you were a kid,
and the Franks lost a five year or their five
year old son to leukemia.

Speaker 2 (01:14:11):
And Peter was totally okay, all.

Speaker 1 (01:14:15):
Right, Yeah, well, well, the idea of bringing up something
like that from the private investigator's standpoint would be to
try to put you off balance. But also it's possible
that because he has police department ties and law enforcement ties,
that he could have asked around and people could have

(01:14:35):
told him like that always seemed kind of weird, or
like the scuttle butt was that they went out together
and only one son came back, but like, you know,
nothing came of it because he was a little kid.
So by putting those feelers out, he's just trying to
push him off balance, especially if it turns out that
that's a skeleton in his closet. He wants to make

(01:14:57):
sure he's like, I can see your skeletons. So it's
a really interesting sequence. And yeah, but but Peter reacts
like not at all, completely nonplussed by those questions. Yeah,
so so now he's followed him all the way out
into the country, and yeah, his his claims seem pretty.

Speaker 2 (01:15:14):
Reasonable, especially when he gets inside, when he breaks in
when he breaks in. Yeah, yeah, he breaks in, and
he's kind of scoping out the house the inside of
the house, walks around, and he gets to the fridge,
opens up the fridge, and what's in the fridge cheese
to fly, he chef. He sets down his swizzle stick

(01:15:35):
and picks is kind of like it was actually kind
of gross. You and I were both grossed out a
little bit. But he actually takes the plate of the
soufle out, just takes a bite with his hands and just.

Speaker 1 (01:15:47):
Good, pretty good.

Speaker 2 (01:15:48):
Yeah, And then he takes a swig directly from the
milk jug.

Speaker 1 (01:15:52):
And it's not just any milk jug. What are those called? Uh,
it's like not not a decanter, but like you know,
when you're at like a nicer I don't mean like
a super fancy restaurant, when you're at like a nice
place where they'll give you like a little jug of
water of your own. It's a little like water vase.

Speaker 2 (01:16:09):
Yeah, and it's not not quite a jug. It's nicer
than that.

Speaker 1 (01:16:12):
Yeah. Yeah, it's clearly that's like farm fresh milk kept
in a little glass container. And he just swigs down
some of it and puts it back in the door.
Of the fridge, and I'm like, oh, there's already too
much bacteria in there. I can tell you stories about
my weird friends who fight to get their raw milk.
I don't think it should be illegal for you to
have raw milk, but uh, there's a reason I think

(01:16:35):
you have every right to get diarrhea. Anyway you want,
I choose it from Rachel and Suved. You might choose
it that funny.

Speaker 2 (01:16:57):
The best part was how delayed the react was for me, though.

Speaker 1 (01:17:01):
Yeah, you felt like a little off. The next day,
I was horrible, horrible time. I had a raging headache
and my stomach was just doing tumb backflips, and I thought, oh,
I just I'm just really exhausted because it was the
end of the you know, the nightmare month of work.
Not that December will be much easier. It turns out
December is probably gonna be just as much content in

(01:17:23):
some ways. In some ways, they won't be as many novellas.
But anyway, that's not my point. My point is, Yeah,
so he's he's wandering around the property and right, and
at that point, it sure seems like everything this guy
has said is the truth.

Speaker 2 (01:17:39):
Mm hmm. It's adding up.

Speaker 1 (01:17:40):
And he's definitely he's definitely made it clear that he's
going on a hunch and a long shot because he's
got nothing else to go on. Yes, because when he spoke,
or when when very soon after this we hear we
don't hear him interact with the wife, but she calls
to leave him a message and says, like, have heard
from you in a day or so, like gonna get

(01:18:01):
an update. So clearly she's clueless as to where the
hell he could be other than, you know, like maybe
with friends or something. So this guy is definitely like
chasing away out there lead, probably in part because they
have a lot of money. Yeah, so she can afford
to pay him to you know. He's like, I could
just chase down everything if you want, but it'll cost you,

(01:18:22):
you know, so, which is my favorite line, Like you
can't be a private investigator without the line, but it'll
cost you. So. But just as things seem like they're
probably all right, they aren't, and we'll talk about that
right after this.

Speaker 2 (01:18:52):
So the private investigators snooping around after being gross and
drinking milk directly from the carton, uh, from the glass. Uh.
But again he leaves his swizzle stick on the counter
and walks off. He's walking around the property and it

(01:19:13):
seems all quiet, and he starts walking away because like
he isn't a police officer. He doesn't technically like even
have a warrant to be there.

Speaker 1 (01:19:21):
He's no, he's breaking totally. I think the reason he
left his swizzle stick is because he was planning to
come right back.

Speaker 2 (01:19:27):
Yeah. But as he's walking around, he hears a very
muffled voice coming from a cellar door, and he goes
to investigate, and of course there's JT. So he goes
down and JT's almost delirious and kind of like, you know,
at first terrified because he thinks that it's Peter comeback

(01:19:50):
to torture him some more. And the private investigator like
manages to calm him down just a little bit and says,
you know, I'm gonna find something to get your chain's
loose and I'll be right back.

Speaker 1 (01:20:03):
Yeah. His reaction, the private investigators reaction, is kind of like, okay,
all right, let's let's like he doesn't seem more like
totally shocked. He's just kind of like, okay, this leads
worked out. Let's get you out of here right now.
So yeah. He even says to him, He's like, I'm
gonn finder way to get you out of here. I
will be right back. I promise I will be right back.
And he's, you know, saying no, no, no, don't go

(01:20:24):
and he and he runs off to try and find
anything to get him loose, because to break into the
cellar he had to use an axe to cut open
the chain.

Speaker 2 (01:20:34):
So he goes back for the acts.

Speaker 1 (01:20:36):
Which isn't there, but he finds it.

Speaker 2 (01:20:40):
Well, yeah, yeah, he does. He does find it. So
JT's down in the cellar by himself and the private investor.
Private investigator kind of shows up in the doorway and
kind of wobbles down the stairs and just falls forward

(01:21:01):
and there's an accent.

Speaker 1 (01:21:02):
His back better than a back's in your axe. No sorry,
but no, there's an accents back and he is dead,
ded dead.

Speaker 2 (01:21:13):
Yes, And obviously this is very, very traumatizing to JT.
Then we have a nice, beautiful little hunting excursion with
Peter and he's out in his homestead out in the woods,
hunting a rabbit and picking berries and kind of enjoying

(01:21:35):
the scenery. We we throughout the whole movie, we get
the sense that he is a very very good shot,
and he is very very good outdoorsman, Like he's not
just for show, like he is a good good at
gathering and like, you know, kind of finding food.

Speaker 1 (01:21:52):
From the land.

Speaker 2 (01:21:53):
So then he gets back, he starts making this pain
painstakingly detailed meal, you know, preparing the rabbit making his
own pasta, and you know, preparing this sauce. And now
it's JT's final test. And I think this scene for

(01:22:15):
me is truly the scariest psychologically because it's it is
the moment when we see JT totally give up all hope,
like I was talking about in the beginning. So in
front of him, in front of JT, there are two
identical looking dishes, and again Peter pulls out a review

(01:22:42):
and this time it's the review that JT gave that
pretty much cost Peter his whole career. And it's a
review of this rabbit stew with mulberry or rabbit with
mulberry rigou And JT's talking about how, you know, he

(01:23:04):
feels bad for the rabbit being served with with BlackBerry
or with mulberry.

Speaker 1 (01:23:09):
Well, with the very mulberries that they.

Speaker 2 (01:23:12):
Eat, yes, and talking about how he's talking about how
you know that there's the meal is silly and it's
not a good meal because it's not serious and it's
just this weird kind of who who even would have
done this? And kind of ends His ending thought is

(01:23:35):
that by the way he can tell the difference, his
palette is so refined that he can tell the difference
between local mulberries and frozen imported mulberry.

Speaker 1 (01:23:47):
Frozen imported Ecuadorian mulberries, I believe, is what he said. Yeah,
and that that I'll tell you. Okay. I've been trying
not to make this show entirely about me bitching about critics,
but this is where I get his insanity, okay, Because

(01:24:08):
it is one thing to say something tastes bland. It
is one thing to say something is too spicy. It
is one thing to say something is too salty. It
is another thing to say this is an apricot and
it's a fucking banana. And this is where I this

(01:24:28):
is where I get really mad when it comes to
critics because him saying like, oh, this mulberries, these are
imported mulberries, when we literally saw where he picks mulberries
on his own property. I did a movie once, well, Okay,
two examples. I did a movie back in two thousand

(01:24:49):
and ten called Faces of Schlock. Whether it's your kind
of thing or not doesn't matter. But they had said
about the short film I made that the you know this,
this looked bad and this looked bad. And then they said,
and the sound was clearly from the camera, the microphone

(01:25:09):
on top of the camera. I used a seven hundred
and fifty dollars Zeppelin microphone, like I used a real
high end microphone, and the sound sounds like a high
end microphone. We just simply didn't do that. We used
a really good mic because I borrowed it from my

(01:25:31):
friend ironically named Mike, but I did. I borrowed it.
Then like years later, I do Babysitter Massacre. You can
watch it on twob right now. And they said, like
this kind of you know, cobble together garbage shot on
an iPhone. Now, this is this is twenty twelve, twenty thirteen.

(01:25:54):
We pulled focus like there were lens choices, Like that
wasn't possible back then with an iPhone at all. And
all I could think was like, that's not a criticism.
You're literally just lying, lying, You're wrong. What are you
talking about, Like you could say the movie's boring. I
can't say, well, you're wrong, it's not boring. That doesn't
I can't do that. But you can't say like, oh,

(01:26:16):
well the whole movie is made of sand. That's what
do you what? You know, it's not that stuff drove
me up the wall more than people saying like I'm
terrible and should quit and should die. Hearing somebody say
like this kind of garbage shot on a cell phone.
It's like I used lenses and it's obvious, like I

(01:26:36):
pulled the focus of those shots. It can't be on
a camera on a phone. It literally, ironically on a
camera that costs less than an iPhone at that time.
So that's the kind of thing that drive me crazy.
So the idea that he is like, you know, I
could taste imported mulberries, it's like you're not just critiquing,
you're slandering. You're saying this person is a liar. And

(01:27:01):
that's even worse than what I'm describing, because it's not
like I opened the movie with like we used this equipment.
At least you know there's interpretation. But for them to
say these are fresh mulberries from where the rabbits are
hunted and you say, no, they're not. You're claiming they're
a liar, and you're demonstrably wrong. So I really get

(01:27:24):
the rage that that can instill, because it's like, I'm
not wrong. I know what I did. Yeah, yeah, like
I did the thing. What are you freaking talking about?
And the interesting twist though about this gentleman's refined palate,

(01:27:45):
we'll get into right after this.

Speaker 2 (01:28:00):
Peter lays out these two dishes, and, after reading the
scathing review, explains the rules of the game. These dishes
are indeed identical, except for one very subtle difference, one
minute difference, one very subtle difference, very very subtle. Yeah,

(01:28:24):
in fact, it's hardly a difference at all. One of
them is made with the native mulberries that he's collected.
The other one is made with belladonna, also naturally occurring
in his area. Looks very, very similar in every way

(01:28:46):
to mulberries, but it's extremely poisonous.

Speaker 1 (01:28:53):
Well, there's another term that some people may not know
for belladonna, which is nightshade. Well, actually, wow, the technical
term I looked it up just to make sure, is
deadly nice. That's literally the name is Entropa belladonna, commonly
known as deadly night shade or belladonna.

Speaker 2 (01:29:15):
And explains that for children three to five berries is
deadly for adults fifteen to twenty, and then explains what
kind of symptoms you will experience and says, now that
we know the rules, JT gets to taste one bite

(01:29:39):
of each dish, and then after he's tasted one bite
of each dish, he gets to decide which one he
hasked to finish, because he can if he's got such
a sophisticated palette, he'll have no problem distinguishing the difference
between one that was made with harmless, delicious small berries

(01:30:01):
and the other one with deadly nightshade.

Speaker 1 (01:30:04):
And of course, and because of the amount of berries
in there, I think he said, there's thirty or twenty
berries and the whole thing one bite should only make
him mildly discomfort discomforted. Yeah, because people have been taking
belladonna recreationally for centuries. I think I wouldn't recommend it,
but you can.

Speaker 2 (01:30:27):
Yeah, not a fun time necessarily, I mean, I guess
it depends on your definition of fun. So Peter does,
like he does, start to fight back a little bit
and not physically psychologically. Peter's kind of saying, like, what,
so you're you're basically just gonna kill me now, and
and Peter even says like, no, you can even choose

(01:30:49):
not to participate. You don't even have to play this game,
but we're gonna keep doing this because clearly you need
to learn these lessons. So like, you don't have to
participate now, but eventually you're gonna have to keep continuing
with the tests. So okay, JT kind of resigns himself,

(01:31:12):
and the tension builds because again, he hasn't eaten now
on what a week or more ten days, a very
very long time. So even just you and I mean
you and I we've we've done intermiss intermittent fasting, and
you know how different after just like sixteen hours of

(01:31:35):
not eating, how different your palate is.

Speaker 1 (01:31:38):
Yeah, it's much more intense.

Speaker 2 (01:31:40):
So he's he's starving literally, and his palate is all weird.
And he sits there and belaboringly takes the first bite,
choose it, savors it, and goes to take the second bite,
and Peter even stops JT and says, cleanse your palate.

Speaker 3 (01:32:02):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:32:02):
He pours them a glass of water. Oh what did
you mention that he actually let.

Speaker 2 (01:32:07):
Him have He does let him have one.

Speaker 1 (01:32:09):
He was tied to a chair. This time, he's not
in the basement. He's actually in the dining.

Speaker 2 (01:32:12):
Room, as any good meal should be served in the
dining room, of course. So he cleanses his palate and
then he takes the second bite, savors it, thinks and
kind of nods at the first plate and says, that's
the one. That's the one with mulberry. Okay. Peter says, okay,

(01:32:37):
you've made your choice. Eat and he just scarfs it,
like in ten seconds flat. He's demolished this plate it
food and like you said, he's shoveling it in He's
I mean, he's not using utensils, he's shoveling it in
his face. He's like a toddler eating a cake, just
like spar smearing it all over himself because he's so

(01:33:01):
fucking hungry. And there's there's a beat, and then he
starts to cough and choke a little bit, and Peter says, ah,
are we getting getting a little constriction in our airways?
Are we? Are we starting to have some problems? And

(01:33:23):
and JT's like turning red and you know he's he's
eaten the one with Deadly Nightshade, and Peter Peter isn't
relishing in his victory as much as being utterly disappointed

(01:33:44):
that JT couldn't taste the difference.

Speaker 1 (01:33:48):
Well, you're you're you're letting you're totally Are you forgetting
the best part?

Speaker 2 (01:33:52):
What's the best? Maybe I am forgetting that when starts
reviewing the oh, I was going to get to that
to get But my thought is, what if JT didn't
pick wrong? Maybe he just he wanted to die?

Speaker 1 (01:34:06):
Well, I thought that's why he was mad. I thought
he was mad because he he was like, no, I
knew you chose, because he even says like, you know,
how could you not tell the difference between night Shade
and Mold Frries. I think he knew that he did
it on the yes, he just didn't want to suffer anymore.

Speaker 2 (01:34:22):
Yeah, And that's what makes his final final review quote
unquote so much more chilling, is that he was like, no,
this is how I'm going to go out. And not
only am I going out on as best of my
terms as can be negotiated in this present circumstance, But
then I'm going to give the final review, and you know,

(01:34:45):
is totally lashing on him about, you know, how the
rabbit isn't cooked right.

Speaker 1 (01:34:52):
And how the well he's like laughing and wheezing and saying,
like the pasta overcooked, the the ragu sour.

Speaker 2 (01:35:05):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:35:06):
I love that the way he says it, because his
face is all bloody and yeah sour.

Speaker 2 (01:35:14):
So that that is the scariest scene to me, because
that's the that's the darkest depths of human desperation right there.
But he had given up, you know, he's given up
all hope. He's trying to kill himself. But he's going
out on his own terms, which is scary.

Speaker 1 (01:35:36):
It is scary. But unfortunately, there may be a contingency
plan for this that I think is even scarier than
what you're talking about. And we'll get to that right
after this. So as as a great chef, he's ready

(01:36:06):
for you know, he's not. The courses aren't over yet,
let's say so. Peter pulls out a needle as JT
Is dying and says, this is the antidote. We're not
done or I'm not done with you yet, and sticks
it in his neck and pumps him and he starts

(01:36:28):
breathing again. And that was to me even scarier than
than JT's acceptance, although acceptance of like your own fate
it can be. I mean, it is very unnerving. Did
I show you King of the Ants?

Speaker 2 (01:36:44):
No, you've just been threatening to show me King of
the Ants.

Speaker 1 (01:36:47):
That blows my mind. Oh man, it's great. There's basically
a sequence where there's a lot to that movie, but
they're they're basically beating a guy in a shed every day,
trying to give him enough brain damage so that he
can't tell anybody what they've done, because they figure nobody
will ask questions if he just if he dies or disappears,

(01:37:10):
people are gonna look. But if he just shows up
and he's touched in the head, they're just gonna be like, oh,
he must have had like fell down or something.

Speaker 2 (01:37:18):
Ah.

Speaker 1 (01:37:20):
So they're wrapping his head in like foam cushion and
then hitting him with a golf club in the side
of the head every day, again and again, and leaving
him in a hot shed and only giving him water
once a day. And he's after a few times, he's
like crapping himself and he's you know, losing his mind.

(01:37:43):
They show him like having these terrifying nightmares and stuff.
But at one point, when they're in there laughing and
drinking beer and they're getting ready to do the thing,
they look over at him and he's just wrapping the
thing around his head and tying the knot while your face,
you're face Holy moly, Okay, I gotta show you that one.

(01:38:04):
That one's not quite a horror movie either. It's more
of an action thriller drama. But like, wow, your face, Yeah,
because that's that's when I think about like the absolute
sense of like acceptance and defeat and et cetera. I
think of that scene, yeah, because it's and even the
guys in the scene, they're all like, what is he
doing because he's just wrapping the thing around his head

(01:38:24):
and tying it on like they usually do. Yeah. So anyway,
you're here right now. So so now we find out
that there is an even bigger plan. And I will say,
as we get into the remainder of the movie, this
is probably my least favorite plot device. I just feel

(01:38:48):
like it was a little bit easier than the rest
of it. As I just say how much I hate critics.
But he now kidnaps the wife yeah, brings her out
to the farm and she is now tied up, and
JT is freaked out because he thinks, you know, something

(01:39:08):
awful is gonna happen to her. And then Peter leaves
JT in the base or leaves her in the basement
and takes JT up and into the forest where he's
dressed in his hunting camouflage with this little beret.

Speaker 2 (01:39:22):
And he looks great except for the beret. Like, the
beret for me is what puts pushes it over the edge.

Speaker 1 (01:39:28):
Well, I love that because he's so pretentious. Oh, absolutely,
he's gotta he's gotta be like that. But as he's
marching in with the woods, he's basically saying like I'm
going to hunt you like you're I'm going to You're
gonna be game. And then he says that you know what,
he says something along lines of like Catherine, uh, probably
won't even realize what she's eating.

Speaker 2 (01:39:50):
Yeah, he said, like, well she won't, she won't realize
what she's eating.

Speaker 1 (01:39:55):
At first at first.

Speaker 2 (01:39:56):
Yeah, the ribs may be a bit stringy.

Speaker 1 (01:39:59):
Man, I may have I may have to braize you,
actually braise them actually, And then he even says like
I might even try a little bit myself. And this
is the only part I wasn't crazy about. I just
felt like that was almost two horror movie bad guy
to like resort to cannibalism. Yeah, and I felt like
being a chef and then feeding somebody their own loved

(01:40:20):
one was a bit on the nose.

Speaker 2 (01:40:22):
But I will Eric Cartman, but.

Speaker 1 (01:40:25):
I will say that that I think had he and
I'm not saying I wish this how the movie went,
but I think that if he had been feeding him Catherine. Oh,
I think that would have made more sense. Yeah, from
a perspective of like, you know, like, what did Catherine
ever do for him to do that? I guess, you know,
the mortifying thought to JT, yes would be would be hell,

(01:40:49):
But like you know, I don't know, like I'm shrugging
a little bit, like I guess that's you know, hell,
but like he'll be dead. Like, I feel like it
would have been more horrific if he had been feeding
him Catherine. But I think that would have made more
sense to what the character was about. But yeah, So
that was the only part I don't love, and I
love basically every minute of this movie, but I just

(01:41:10):
felt like that I just felt like that came kind
of out of nowhere and was a little bit more
dark and horary than the rest of the movie. Yeah,
but he goes to hunt the guy and it doesn't
quite go exactly the way you'd expect him, and he
runs away, he gets shot, and if you want to
take it from there, I mean, yeah, it gets kind
of messy.

Speaker 2 (01:41:31):
So as as Peter is chasing JT through the woods,
Catherine is able to get a little shard of glass
while she's down in the cellar and she starts like
cutting herself free.

Speaker 1 (01:41:50):
Yeah, so her neck is tied to a post and
that's it. Yeah, she's not nearly as intensely bound as
her husband.

Speaker 2 (01:41:58):
Was, so clearly, like, you know, not, I wouldn't say
he's underestimated her. It's just like she's not in Peter's consideration. So,
you know, Peter is chasing JT, chasing him through the woods.
JT's able to kind of get the one up on him,

(01:42:19):
you know, kind of lose him a little bit by
backtracking up and down the creek, almost losing it, so
he would lose his trail. So JT's able to like
kind of make his way back to the farmhouse where
Catherine now that she's gotten her hands free, she gets
her neck free, she's able to breathe, and she starts

(01:42:40):
kind of like investigating around the house and that's when
she finds body, the body of the PI yes, and
she very quickly starts to put together what's going on.
So she runs to the phone and dials nine to

(01:43:01):
one one says, how you know, we've been kidnapped, and
of course they ask what they're supposed to always ask,
is you know, well, what's the address of your emergency?
And she doesn't know, and they're asking, okay, well, do
you see any landmarks? Do you see anything you can
describe to us? And she hears someone coming, so she
carefully puts the phone down and tries to you know,

(01:43:24):
kind of like find her, find a find her place
of safety, find a place to hide. Right, and it's JT.
And so they are reunited and they start running out
the house together trying to figure out a plan of
how to get out, how to escape, and they realize

(01:43:48):
that Peter's car is there, so he tells her to
go into the car. He's going to go back to
the cabin and get the keys and the whole time
holding our breaths because we're wondering, like where Peter could be.
He manages to get the keys, he manages to get
the car started, and Peter finally makes his arrival on

(01:44:11):
the scene and he starts firing at them, and they
almost are able to drive away. And then just like
I said, though, he's a real good shot, he gets
he gets JT right in the head and the car crashes.
Catherine gets out and she's severely injured. She's struggling, and

(01:44:35):
Peter's coming for her, and he as he's walking up,
he's kind of reminiscing almost, and he starts quoting what
his brother said in the beginning of the movie about
how there's creators and destroyers and he who would seek
to unite them, seeks to destroy the world. And then

(01:44:58):
he looks at cath for in kind of cowering in
the grass, and she's all beaten up and bruised, and
she just got out of the car crash, and he
very disappointed in himself. He says, huh, I guess I
am a destroyer after all.

Speaker 1 (01:45:16):
And before before we get to the final ending part,
did we gloss over that he does confess to killing
and hiding his brother's body.

Speaker 2 (01:45:25):
We did gloss.

Speaker 1 (01:45:26):
Well, there's a lot to cover, but it was actually
I believe when he was taking him out in the
woods to hunt. Yes, he informs him basically of what
we saw, but from his perspective, he was always a
mean boy. He was always beating me up and bullying me.
Blah blah blah blah blah. I stabbed him in the
neck and then I buried him in a like a
very shallow hole and covered him in leaves, and no

(01:45:47):
one ever found him. So I just wanted to mention
that because, as you were saying, I was like, oh wait,
when did that happen? So we know that he didn't
like plan to kill his brother, but we also know
that he was not really perturbed about doing it.

Speaker 2 (01:46:02):
He did not show any remorse.

Speaker 1 (01:46:04):
Yeah, there's there's no remorse at all, which again I
get as a younger sibling. But no, so I'm sorry
I didn't he decided to thank you for that. Thanks,
but so we know that as well. But no, So
this is an incredible moment you had, that moment where
as he's got her down in the grass, he kind
of realizes like, maybe I am a destroyer.

Speaker 2 (01:46:22):
Yeah, so in a kind of mirror to what we
know is the beginning of the movie. He gets on
top of her and starts strangling her, and she's you know,
losing consciousness. She's trying to push him off, she's trying
to get free, she's trying to find any way to
save herself. And then she notices something and she grabs

(01:46:46):
a stick and she stabs him right in the neck,
just like he stabbed his brother.

Speaker 1 (01:46:52):
Yep.

Speaker 2 (01:46:54):
And he you know, looks stunned and he falls back
and he's taking his life, breaths and just looks up
at the moon and then the movie ends.

Speaker 1 (01:47:05):
Yeah, that's where that's where it ends.

Speaker 2 (01:47:07):
That's that's what it. That's all she wrote.

Speaker 1 (01:47:10):
And Bitter Feast comes to an end, and it is
It is an incredible ride. I love that ending because
I think that remember how I said earlier that one
of the elements was perversion. Yes, to me, the fact
that he became what he despised is is a perversion

(01:47:31):
of the things he had become in life. Now it's possible.
You know, we don't know everything about his character. For
all we know, you know, he was a sociopath always,
For all we know that was why he was so
good at becoming a chef. He was, you know, he
was so cutthroat. He didn't care who he hurt to
get what he wanted. He didn't care about any of it.

(01:47:51):
He just did what he wanted and got what he wanted,
and blah blah, blah, blah blah. We have no idea. Yeah,
or he could have been a relatively normal guy who
just didn't take shit from anybody. But then when he snapped,
he basically went back to that baser instinct because as

(01:48:11):
a child, everything in his life got better after he
killed his brother, his bully, the person who was tormenting him.
M hmm. And it wasn't premeditated originally, you know, but
but the proof is in the pudding. I've got better.
You know. His parents gave him more attention, he wasn't
bullied all the time. He you know, did all these things.

(01:48:33):
So in a way, it was almost like a reset,
like a a a trip to simpler times, is kind
of the way I look at it from his perspective,
I mean, and to have him do all of this
stuff and then kind of realize that he is doing
what his brother was doing. After all this time of

(01:48:55):
wanting to be a creator of putting things into the world,
he was a destroyer and then he immediately gets the
fate that he had given destroyers in the past. I
think that's a really fascinating thing. And if you want
to go even deeper with all of his hunting and stuff,
you could even read that as like almost kind of

(01:49:16):
an anti meat message of I mean, I'm not saying
that that's what they were going for. They were trying
to make a peda movie. I'm just saying like you
could look at it like poetically as like, well, he
was killing all these rabbits and hunting venison and hunting
all these things. Maybe he was destroying more than he
was creating. Oh yeah, I don't know, that's just a thought.
What do you what are you thinking?

Speaker 2 (01:49:35):
Well, because I like where you're going with the you know,
the meat message, and I think that ties into one
of the big thoughts that that you know, I've had,
and I'm sure this is you know, lots of people
have talked about it, but yes, JT, you know, was

(01:49:58):
a quote unquote destroyer because he was giving bad reviews.
But we see, well.

Speaker 1 (01:50:05):
He was giving malicious reviews without any care for how
it could hurt somebody exactly.

Speaker 2 (01:50:10):
Yeah, it was. I mean there were bad mean and
you know.

Speaker 1 (01:50:13):
Very there were several parts where Peter was saying like,
this is my life. Yeah, you know, like there were
several parts where he said that, Like when he said
that to the owner of the restaurant that was firing,
He's like, this is my life.

Speaker 2 (01:50:26):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:50:26):
So I mean I don't want to give I don't
want to totally absolve JT. Not that he deserved what
he got in this movie, but he never once thought like,
what will happen to this person's life, business, family? Yeah, yeah,
he never once thought of that. That didn't matter, no,
not at all.

Speaker 2 (01:50:43):
But it's it's interesting to me because we see we
see on screen so often, so many examples of Peter
and how dedicated and faithful and meticulous he is with
his cooking. But then we also look at how much
time and energy and planning he put into destroying the

(01:51:09):
person that he hated. And so there's kind of that
that look of like you like you were saying the
perversion of his creative force, where you know, for using
his creative force for good would have been making more
good food and and you know, opening a new restaurant
and maybe trying a new cooking show. But no, he

(01:51:32):
took that creative energy and he poured it all into
just bringing down the person that brought him down. And
that is a pretty interesting exploration for me.

Speaker 1 (01:51:46):
Well, and if you want to go even deeper into
the kind of analyzing, one thing I noticed upon rewatching
this film for the first time in a good while
was how intensely he talks on his TV show, et
cetera about the ingredients, the sour saying, the difficulty, the

(01:52:06):
the rarity, the da da da and da da da.
And I know that that's all a part of gourmet food,
but if you think about it, that's an element of searching.
That's something you have to do. You have to go
outside of yourself to because it's not cooking technique. It's
getting the best ingredients and then preparing them properly and

(01:52:29):
doing all this stuff procuring these things, which kind of
made me wonder if he was kind of a little
creatively bankrupt, you know, because he's doing a cooking show
where he's making meals that like no one watching it
can make. Yeah, and maybe I don't watch enough cooking
shows on television television. I watch a lot of cooking

(01:52:51):
on YouTube, but like he's you know, explaining how to
make like a you know, Brazilian sea bass for Tata.
Who's making a Brazilian and sea bass for Tata at
home while they watch along? Nobody, Yeah, nobody. And that's
kind of my point is like, is maybe in a way,

(01:53:12):
procuring JT was kind of him leaning into the laziness
or the desperation that he had found himself in as
a chef. Because it can't it can't be just that
he's bad on TV as to why he's getting let
go of from the restaurants. Something else has to be missing,

(01:53:33):
and it can't just be one review ruins your restaurant. Now,
it may be that one review on top of the
fact that you're inclining, or on top of the fact,
you know, the whole mulberry with the rabbits thing is
honestly one of the least extravagant concepts. Yeah yeah, compared
to importing you know, fucking beef tallow from Tibet or

(01:53:55):
some shit, you know, aside from that kind of thing,
that's actually like a really down home concept. And he
grew up hunting and he grew up in you know,
being in nature, so in a way, it's like that
might have been one of the last times he was
really inspired. Oh yeah, was this rabbit dish with the

(01:54:18):
mulberry ragou and having that destroyed by this writer on
top of the fact that he feels like maybe deep
down he's lost it, or maybe deep down he's out
of ideas or what have you. I don't know. That's
just kind of a thought I started to have when
I noticed when he would talk about when he kept
talking about the ingredients. And I know that people talk

(01:54:38):
about ingredients, and ingredients are important, but at the end
of the day, like you should be able to make
an omelet with eggs and it should be good. Yeah,
like you should know how you know what I was
growing up, My stepdad had tricks for if the eggs
were olled, he would look at the date on them
and then he'd he'd be like, we got to wake
the eggs up, you know, like we had tricks from
the restaurant. Yeah. So, like the idea that everything is

(01:55:01):
you know, sea bass and and and and a reduction
from a blah blah blah blah blah, and you know,
you know, bergugnon wine and all like. I don't know
that that's just a thought I had in my head.

Speaker 2 (01:55:14):
No, I I think that's a very good thought. And
I think you and I are both of the especially
when it comes to cooking. We're both of the opinion
that as long as it tastes good and you enjoy it,
then it's good food. You know, And I think food
poisoning for going back to the food poisoning forever. But

(01:55:41):
that's it's not just food though, that's any any creative
thing that you consume, art, music, movies. If you enjoy it,
then it's good. It doesn't have to be the best,
most expensive ingredients, it doesn't have to be you know,

(01:56:01):
shot on the most expensive camera. It as long as
it's something that you enjoy, then it is good.

Speaker 1 (01:56:12):
Yeah. And as I look at this more and more,
I think, and we'll leave it here. But I think
he I the more I think about I think he
wanted to torment and kill this guy as a way
to recapture his spark. I really do. I think that
this was his way of bringing back that inspiration he

(01:56:32):
had to create by destroying the destroyer. Yes, yeah, that's
just something in my head like that maybe after he
was done tormenting JT. Franks, that maybe he could return
to glory. Yeah, but instead he returned to gory. So

(01:56:52):
with that all being said, before we get out of here,
you want to tell him what we're going to be
talking about this the next episode of Cutting Deeple Drop
the day after Thanksgiving, and it is food and family themed.

Speaker 2 (01:57:06):
Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

Speaker 1 (01:57:08):
The classic from nineteen seventy four, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
possibly my favorite horror movie of all time and one
of the scariest horror movies of all time. I cannot
wait to dissect it and talk about it because I
actually have never really watched it through that lens before,
so I'm going to really savor that. And I want

(01:57:28):
to let you guys know if you need to bone
up ahead of time, because Texas Chainsaw is a perfect
Thanksgiving movie. It's got food, it's got family. It is
right now streaming on Netflix, it is on t B,
it is on Pluto, TV, Roku, Channel Plex, It's on Peacock.
It is just about anywhere you watch movies for free,

(01:57:49):
so that you have no excuse not to check out
Texas Chainsaw Masacer. If you haven't already, we'll be talking
about it on Black Friday.

Speaker 2 (01:57:58):
Woo.

Speaker 1 (01:57:59):
Yeah. Well, I mean just has to.

Speaker 2 (01:58:00):
Be perfect, that just happens to be you perfect.

Speaker 1 (01:58:03):
When it is yo. So uh but with that all
being said, thank you guys again for tuning in, and
uh we do appreciate you listening to Cutting Deep into Horror.
I've been your host Nrigue Kuto here with Rachel Radolfi.
And uh, if you love what we did here and
you want to recommend a film or give us a
comment or say no running yellows, send an email to

(01:58:24):
Weekly Spooky at gmail dot com. We'd be happy to
respond to you, or you can leave a comment on Spotify.
But if you're a dick, I will just h I'll
just feed you to your wife, I guess. And if
you love what we're doing, I want to support us
in a very direct way. You can head to Weeklyspooky
dot com, slash join, sign up for the Patreon for
as little as one dollar a month, and remember head

(01:58:46):
to cozyearth dot com and use promo code Spooky at
checkout for forty one percent off your order of bamboo sheets,
lounge wear, or my favorite robes. So now it's time
for us to get out of here until next time,
so well, stay hungry.

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Cutting Deep into Horror | Bitter Feast (2010) — Dark Foodie Horror, Chef Revenge & Thanksgiving Scares

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Cutting Deep into Horror | Bitter Feast (2010) — Dark Foodie Horror, Chef Revenge & Thanksgiving Scares