Cutting Deep into Horror | Dead End (2003) Christmas Road Trip to Hell! - Weekly Spooky: Scary Horror Stories | Terrifying Tales to Creep Your Holiday

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, We're just we're just a little behind schedule,
is all. We're gonna We're gonna get to Grandma's in
no time, don't you. Don't you kids worry back there?

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Well, at least like at least we're you know, back
on schedule, you know, despite what happened back there.

Speaker 1 (00:17):
Yes, yeah, that's exactly right, living living child, You're absolutely right.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
Do you want to explain like the uh, the lady
in the white dress though, like why she's here with us?

Speaker 1 (00:32):
Well, what kind of man would I be if I
left a woman in white on the side of the
road in the middle of the cold on Christmas Eve?
I mean, come on, that would be That would be
pretty pretty callous, wouldn't.

Speaker 2 (00:47):
It, I guess. But she just she she really only
like seems to pop up like when bad things happen
back there.

Speaker 1 (00:57):
Nonsense, you're just being paranoid. Maybe I have an idea
row row row your boat gently down the stream, merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily.
Life is bud a dream, gently down the stream, merrily, merrily,

(01:18):
merrily merrily. Life is but a dream. Now we're did baby.

Speaker 3 (01:26):
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.

Speaker 2 (01:44):
That in mind too.

Speaker 3 (01:46):
Now, sharpen your machetes and strap raisers, because this is
cutting deep into horror.

Speaker 1 (02:00):
Well, hello, my spookies, and a very happy holidays to
you all. It is I your intrepid host, Enrique Kuto,
here with my co host here on cutting deep into horror,
Rachel Ridolfi. Rachel, how are you?

Speaker 2 (02:18):
I'm pretty all right? Yeah, yeah, glad to not be
in the car with the dead baby anymore.

Speaker 1 (02:23):
Well, I mean it's still early. There's always more more
places to go. This is the fifth day of Hanukkah
when this airs, Oh.

Speaker 2 (02:38):
Mazzeltov, that'll do.

Speaker 1 (02:42):
But yeah, it's December nineteenth, so crimbo is really close to.

Speaker 2 (02:49):
Coming along right around the corner.

Speaker 1 (02:51):
It really is, and I've been enjoying it.

Speaker 2 (02:54):
But boy, howdy, lots of work huh.

Speaker 1 (02:58):
Yeah, you know, I remember when I worked in retail.
I actually liked working retail at Christmas time, which I
know people are like, what what is wrong with you?

Speaker 2 (03:13):
You would? Though?

Speaker 1 (03:14):
I really enjoy and the funniest part is I didn't
just work retail. I worked retail at the mall.

Speaker 2 (03:18):
I know, because you're a son of.

Speaker 1 (03:21):
A bitch at the Spencer's Gifts baby, and which I
liked working at Spencer's Gifts too, it was just the
management wasn't so good. I mean literally, like they couldn't
make my schedule right so that I could keep working there.
So what was I supposed to do? But but no,

(03:42):
so I enjoyed it. I enjoyed the crowds and the
music and all that. That's just that's just me. I
love Christmas and all that. But I'm not gonna lie.
When I went to work at the TV station, oh
I could say it now because the the dumb shit
boss of mine. He's retired now. Yeah yeah, yeah, I

(04:06):
hope it's warm down there, fucker no, uh no, bye bye.
He was a terrible, terrible boss, terrible person toward me.
But when I worked at DATV at first, I was like, oh,
hell yeah, like we don't have like a Christmas rush season,
which is overall true, but we did have to film

(04:28):
the parade. The parade on the on Black Friday, I
think is what it was. Yeah, yeah, it was on
Black Friday, and we did have to film like a
few other little Christmas y things, which I actually were
kind of fun as long as it wasn't too cold.
But I remember being like, yay, it doesn't like go
nuts with you know this or that. And then when

(04:51):
I became self employed, there were a few about five
or six years there where it just Christmas time was
just slow. So I just chilled. I was broke, like
dead ass broke. Yeah, I had no money. I remember,

(05:12):
this is so funny. So the first I think it
was the first December after I became self employed, work
dried up. I had had like a really good run
of gigs between going up to Canada to Film to
do the director of photography work on a movie and
then coming back here and then I did a seminar

(05:33):
for Film Dayton and back then they paid you for those.
They don't pay them pay you anymore, but back then
they cut your check, which was really nice. Yeah, I
agreed to it, and then I found out about the check.
I was like, oh man, she led with the check
but uh cleared and everything. But so you know, I
was doing all right. But then once like November ended,
it was just nothing there were no commercials to work on,

(05:56):
you know, and I was still building my business out.
I was trying to sell physical movies because this was
twenty fourteen, so you could. I mean, they still moved
quite a bit, but for the most part, I just
had nothing. So I kid you not, like I remember,
like I think it was the weekend before Christmas. I
had nothing to do, so I just laid on the
couch and I had to bring my TV into the

(06:18):
living room because we didn't have a living room television.
I had a television in my bedroom and I brought
it out to the living room and I signed up
for a three day trial of Showtime and just binge
watched I'm talking Showtimes app you know, not at the table,
and I just watched like three days straight, just like
I watched all of Californication. I watched like the first

(06:42):
three seasons of Ray Donovan. I mean, I mean seriously,
like it was my job. I laid on that couch
and I watched Showtime because it was free. So those
were simpler times. And then when I got into the
podcasting thing, it's slowly changed, and now the third or

(07:05):
the fourth quarter of the year is nuts. Yeah, it
just is insane. So I'm not complaining. I'm very happy
about all the people joining us and listening, and I'm
very happy about all of it. It's just boy, how
to use it? A lot of work. I feel like
lately I'm just the king of good problems to have.

(07:25):
Sometimes I want to punch myself for complaining. H I
have to record all these podcasts so people can listen
to them when wheen so anyway, but no, So it's
not been a bad It's not been a bad season overall,
just a.

Speaker 2 (07:41):
Very very busy season.

Speaker 1 (07:44):
Yes, and I mean aside from hiring that contractor.

Speaker 2 (07:48):
Ah, don't get started on that.

Speaker 1 (07:50):
I guess I won't. I won't, I won't. But but
I hate him, I know, dear, and he is stupid.
Yes that's what I got. Yep. But so that's quite
the cheery intro. So we're going to take a quick
break and when we get back we might even talk
about dead end from two thousand and three.

Speaker 2 (08:10):
Oh what a idea after this?

Speaker 1 (08:24):
So before this, I do have to say a big
thank you to our sponsor for today, and it's a
newer sponsor. This is our first week with them. It's
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(08:46):
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Speaker 2 (09:05):
Yeah, it's scary if you get real caffeine.

Speaker 1 (09:08):
Yeah, yeah, that's fair. So but if you head to
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(09:28):
holidays and beyond, head to Aspire and Aspire Drinks dot
Com use promo code Spooky. We'd really appreciate the support,
and big thank you to all the Spookies who've been
checking out our sponsors here and there. We've been experimenting
with new sponsorships, and a big thank you to Aspire
Drinks for giving us a little bit of support. Yeah,
but now it's time to talk about the film, which

(09:51):
I suppose is the entire purpose of the show.

Speaker 2 (09:55):
Allegedly.

Speaker 1 (09:56):
Yes, and the film is from two thousand and three.
It's called dead End, starring Ray Wise. And I'm going
to give the rundown, just the basic rundown from Google.
When a family en route to a Christmas Eve gathering
decides to take a shortcut down a wooded road, and
eerie sequence of events signals trouble ahead. After nearly colliding

(10:20):
with an oncoming car, father Frank picks up a ghostly
hitchhiker and her infant child. This is really long, with
the sudden appearance of their new passengers. Wait what Yeah,
the route becomes dark and treacherous, and the family's number
rapidly begins to dwindle in a series of seemingly connected,
grizzly roadside accidents. Okay, it's not a terrible rundown, but

(10:43):
it's really long. Yeah, jeez, just kept going. So that's
dead End. And it is a Christmas wintry car horror film. Yeah,
which may sound familiar because last time we were talking
we talked about another Christmas wintry car thriller horror movie

(11:08):
called wind Chill from two thousand and seven, and that
movie had a much bigger budget, a bit more of
a bit more cachet behind it.

Speaker 2 (11:18):
You have nothing to say, Oh no, I was actually
just looking at I was looking at the budget for
dead End. No, what doesn't What separates budget and wind
Chill isn't just sorry.

Speaker 1 (11:31):
What separates budget and wind Chill?

Speaker 2 (11:35):
Sorry? I was reading this while I was trying to talk.
So what separates dead End and wind Chill isn't just
the budget. What separates them is also while they have similar,
you know, a similar synopsis of like you said, being
a car movie, a dead of winter movie, very winterry

(11:57):
Christmas Eve, very Christmas, Yeah, on Christmas Eve, the execution
is so incredibly different because whereas wind Chill is more
of like a slow burn and it's a very very
intimate dive into just two characters, with dead End, it's

(12:22):
more of a but what's the word when you've got
a a large ensemble, a large cast of characters. So
it's an ensemble cast, and it's got more of that
early two thousand's crime thriller feel to it. That's just

(12:47):
kind of the vibe that I got from it from it.
So they both you know, they both have their similarities,
but it's just like they went two completely different directions
on how they executed it. Which is why I wanted
to talk about both of them, is because you know,
there's similarities, but there's so much there that you can,
you know, sink your teeth into.

Speaker 1 (13:07):
Well, I've been talking about one of the movies and
had somebody think I was referring to the other one
until I got into the details. Yeah, because you know
Car Trip, Christmas Eve, Haunted Road.

Speaker 2 (13:19):
Yeah, the broad strokes, they sound almost exactly the same.

Speaker 1 (13:22):
They do one big difference. Well, okay, so here's a
bizarre coincidence between the two. Both films were directed by teams, really,
which is not super common.

Speaker 2 (13:35):
I didn't know that.

Speaker 1 (13:36):
Yeah, Windchill, I forget who directed it, but that we're
not talking about wind Chill. That was last time. But
dead End was directed, written and directed by Jean Jean Baptiste,
Andrea and Fadris Canipa. And you may notice those names
all sound very French. That's because the film is French.

Speaker 2 (13:56):
It is, okay, now is it French? Canadian French?

Speaker 1 (14:01):
The movie was made by French filmmakers with finance by
French money. But it was made in America, was shot
in Los Angeles with it it was written in English.
It was shot within American cast or at least I
believe they were all American. The other big name other
than ray Wise is Lynn Shea. Yeah. Lynn Shea, who
became a very big name in the Insidious movies, and

(14:25):
she was in the original Nightmarre and elm Street briefly
because her brother Bob Shea founded New Line Cinema, the
company that made the Freddy Krueger movies. So the cast
is pretty is pretty solid, especially having Lynn Shay and
ray Wise playing the two the married, the husband and wife. Yeah.

(14:46):
Ray Wise, who I know you'll remember because he was
in Digging Up the Marrow, which is a great film.
But he was also in Swamp Thing in nineteen eighty
two that was also a big one. A lot of
people remember him for. He was in Jeepers Creepers two
in two thousand and three, X Men First Class in
twenty eleven. He's been in a ton of films and

(15:08):
TV shows.

Speaker 2 (15:09):
Yeah, and he's every time I see him, I enjoy him.

Speaker 1 (15:12):
Yeah, No, I mean he's he's phenomenal. From what I understand.
He ended up replacing somebody at the last minute on
dead End really and kind of brought a lot of
renewed confidence to the project because he was a somewhat
recognizable actor and they had lost their lead of sorts,

(15:33):
and then they scored Ray Wise. He was also on
like an episode of The X Files. He's he's been
on all kinds of stuff. He's still with us. He
is seventy eight years.

Speaker 2 (15:41):
Old, and he looks good for seventy eight two.

Speaker 1 (15:44):
I haven't seen him recently.

Speaker 2 (15:46):
Oh, I was just looking at the picture on Google.

Speaker 1 (15:48):
Well Lynn, Wow. Lynn Shay's eighty two.

Speaker 2 (15:51):
Yeah, and she looks great too. According to Google.

Speaker 1 (15:53):
Lynn's still acting.

Speaker 2 (15:55):
Good for her Wow.

Speaker 1 (15:57):
Well, I mean the Insidious. The last Insidious film was.

Speaker 2 (15:59):
Twenty two three, so that's very recent.

Speaker 1 (16:02):
Well, and that's a big deal. That's something people don't
talk about a lot. She's the lead in the Insidious franchise.
She took over like by I think Part two or
Part three and became pretty much the main character in
those movies. Those are like some of the biggest box
office movies ever to have the lead actor be an
elderly woman. I think that's awesome. I hope it didn't

(16:26):
come out. I didn't mean like elderly woman to be insulting,
but I.

Speaker 2 (16:28):
Mean she's literally a definition.

Speaker 1 (16:31):
Yeah, and it's not often that any elderly person gets
to lead a movie, but if they do, they tend
to be like freakin' Robert Redford or something. So it's
awesome that lindsay that. Like, there's a horror franchise that's
basically led by an old lady who is not just
and she's not playing like a scary you know that
whole joke about A twenty four it's like old woman

(16:53):
plus naked equals horror. That's not what she's doing. She's acting,
you know, She's playing a character that people really are
and endeared too. Yeah, So when we get back, we'll
talk about first viewings of dead End and start digging
into a little bit of the story right after this.

(17:20):
So dead End twenty twenty oh three. Yeah, this one.
I actually last time we were talking about this, I
did not remember exactly how I saw it, but now
I do. It was one of the early films on Netflix, digital, oh,
cool streaming, or whatever you want to call it. It

(17:40):
was one of the very early ones. And that is
how I saw it. And I think I saw it
before Windchill maybe, and i'm because I know for a
while I had them both confused. Yeah, but I remember
putting it on being amped that it was a Christmas movie. Unfortunately,
there's no snow. It takes place in California. They filmed

(18:03):
it in California. Yeah, they do get across a sense
of cold, but it is not a snowy movie. That's
that's the biggest way you can tell them apart is
one has tons of snow, which in many ways is
due to budget. We don't know how much Wind Chill cost,
but it cost a few million dollars. At least dead

(18:24):
End cost nine hundred thousand dollars, so a relatively swelt
budget in two thousand and three. It was certainly shot
on thirty five millimeter film. Yeah, I will say there's
a rumor going around about dead End that it was
this monster hit on DVD, but I can't find any source,

(18:45):
Like I can't find any reliable source for where the
number comes from. But people are claiming that that it
did seventy seven million dollars in DVD sales. While that's possible.
If that were the case, I feel like Jean Baptiste
Andrea would have done more than one other movie. I mean,

(19:08):
because his career has just not been that eventful. If
you had directed a movie that made that kind of money,
I mean, I in that time period between three and six,
I was working in the DVD business, and that's insane
sale money. I mean, that's really really good money for
a major movie, not a little movie. So I mean

(19:30):
I would say it would be impressive if it did
seven million.

Speaker 2 (19:35):
Yeah, that's still damn good, very impressive. Noah.

Speaker 1 (19:39):
So but yeah, apparently there's no source for that sighting
sighting where that came from. I do want to mention,
by the way, that you can watch it right now.
It's very easy to get your hands on. You can
watch it for free on tub Pluto TV, Amazon Prime
Video with ads Plex, or you can rent it wherever

(19:59):
you your movies, Amazon Prime Video if you don't want
to watch ads Fandango at home, Apple TV. They all
have it and it's everywhere, and it's I mean, it
really is a great watch. When when I first had
seen it and wasn't completely I don't know, like it
just kind of happened. I kept forgetting parts about it,

(20:20):
Like for years I was like, oh, yeah, that was
the other Winter Haunted road movie, but that one, oh
you know what it was. It was there was the
other Winter Winter Haunted Road movie, but this one took
place at Christmas. Because for a while I kept remembering
Windchill is not taking place at Christmas, just being winter, Okay,
And then you know when I as time went on

(20:40):
and now you can just access any movie you want,
anytime you want, anywhere you want. Down here, I've watched
them so many times now I'm like, I know exactly
when they take place. Yeah, but at the time I
would get confused. But yeah, this one. It's got great scares,
great characters, tons of memorable moments, some really bizarre moments

(21:02):
which I think are better explained by the French being involved.

Speaker 2 (21:08):
Yeah, suddenly there's some scenes that make a lot more
sense now.

Speaker 1 (21:13):
Well, the French have a very broad sense of humor.
H hence why they love Jerry Lewis. That is such
an old joke, Like that was an old joke in
the nineties when people were saying it around me when
I was a kid, that the French loved Jerry Lewis
and now I'm making that joke, and it's been almost
thirty years since the nineties. It's I'm almost forty years

(21:37):
since the nineties. Sorry, So anyway, so I know that
I showed you this movie. It's become like a humorous
trope that most of these movies' is like, so when
did you see it, Rachel? And you're like, when you
showed it to me? Because I am your horror sherpa.
It's true, but oftentimes not always, but often you pick

(22:01):
the movies we talk about. Yeah, and this is no different.
You picked wind Chill and dead End back to back
because they have so much in common.

Speaker 2 (22:10):
M hm.

Speaker 1 (22:11):
So I would love to know what made you want
us to talk about dead End for cutting deep into horror.

Speaker 2 (22:18):
Well, not only did I want to compare and contrast
dead End and wind Chill, because there's a lot they
have in common, which we spoke about briefly, but there's
also a lot that is different. Like you said, wind
Chill is a very snowy movie, whereas dead End, it
feels kind of like winter, but it just it's cold,

(22:42):
but it's not snow.

Speaker 1 (22:44):
It's more like the way Christmas actually is in most
of the US. Yeah, it's rarely just piles and piles
of snow. Yeah, it's very rare.

Speaker 2 (22:55):
Which the color pellettes for wind Chill are like blue
and whites and blacks, whereas with dead End it's more
of like greens and browns and grays like so they've
got a lot, a lot of differences going on. Visually.

Speaker 1 (23:14):
Well, at that time, monochromatics were so so in Oh yeah,
because of the Saw movies. They kind of established this
idea of monochromatics. If you look back at those movies,
neither of them have very vibrant color at all. Yeah,
although I think some of that also goes to Dead
End having very good photography. They really played with lighting

(23:38):
and darkness and shadows because they shot the film on
if I'm remembering correctly, on like a four hundred was
it like four hundred meter stretch of road? Oh wow?
So not that much No, no, And I mean that's
you know, it's more road than I got, but you know,

(24:00):
but it's not that much space. And they shot it
at night and it was shot I believe in the summertime. Okay,
So to make it feel to make it feel atmospheric,
to make it feel cold. To make it feel all
those things, you would have to really play with shadows
and the way you use light. And one thing dead
End does that I think really helps keep you on edge,

(24:24):
even as it gets kind of funny at times or
it gets a little bit wild at times, is it
doesn't have any hyperrealism. There's no blue moonlight bathing through
the trees. It just doesn't do that. Yeah, and that's
a very common thing to do. I mean, I do it.
I love the blue shaded moonlight, which doesn't really exist.

(24:46):
But we all see night like that in movies. That's
the way we understand night. So I think that the
atmosphere is a real strong element of this movie, and
I feel like it's if I'm honest, I think it's
a more masterful use of filmmaking technique. As to where
Wind Chill, it's like they had all the snow, they

(25:08):
had some really good actors, they had a great location.
I think that they were able to literally build their atmosphere. Yeah.
As to where in dead End they created it using
the tools of filmmaking. Yeah, it's also worth mentioning that
unlike dead End, Wind Chill has, you know, an opening

(25:29):
at a college and then they're at a gas station
in a restaurant in his bathroom, and then and then
once they're stuck in the car, they end up wandering
and seeing things. Dead End is on this strip of
road in the car and in that little shed kind
of thing. Yeah, and that's it. Yeah, I mean there's
a brief thing toward the end. I mean that we

(25:50):
already warned you abot spoilers, a brief thing toward the
end at the hospital. But that's it.

Speaker 2 (25:54):
That's it.

Speaker 1 (25:54):
Yeah, it's a very very simple film.

Speaker 2 (25:58):
But that's the That's the other thing that I really liked,
and why I wanted to discuss these two movies back
to back is because they're they're both a master class
in utilizing the tools that you have at your disposal

(26:19):
as as as efficiently as possible. So like with dead End,
because they have you know, Ray Wise and Lynn Shay
and this great ensemble cast, they were really able to
lean into the character development and especially the history between characters.

(26:41):
They were really able to bring that up. Where as
with wind Chilled, because it's only those two characters, we
really had to spend a lot more time getting getting
into their individual heads. So it's it's just a you
know a matter of taking the tools that you have
and utilizing them as best as you possibly can. And

(27:03):
that's why I wanted to bring it to people's attentions,
so that they could kind of sit down and appreciate
them both for their differences and their similarities.

Speaker 1 (27:13):
I mean, I think that's fair. So with that all
being said, we'll dive into the actual nuts and bolts
of the film right after this.

Speaker 2 (27:33):
So Dead At opens on a family driving down a
winding road very clearly is the West coast Ish region,
and it does we do get I know, laugh at
me all you went. I know, we had all that
time to prep Why didn't I clear my throat?

Speaker 1 (27:53):
Then, well, you're a notorious throat clearer now, because sometimes
you've been talking, like just not on a show or anything,
you've just been talking and I've literally been like, please
clear your throat because you just keep like, well, it's
like I don't know what that is. It's super fleming,
and it's just it's just like morphing, you know, and

(28:14):
and I'm just like, no, please please clear your throat
and then and then continue, So.

Speaker 2 (28:22):
Voice morphing aside. So this family there is a dad
and a mom in the front seat, and then in
the back seat is daughter and the Sun. They're both
you know, older, probably late teens, possibly early twenties.

Speaker 1 (28:38):
Well, the daughter is a psychiatrist, so she'd have her
late twenties.

Speaker 2 (28:42):
Okay. The Sun it is kind of ambiguous.

Speaker 1 (28:47):
I would guess he was just out of high school
or or maybe a senior in high school.

Speaker 2 (28:51):
Yeah, something something like that. And along with them is
also the daughter's boyfriend, Uh, Brad, I think, I mean,
I think that's its name.

Speaker 1 (29:04):
Yep, Well there's a Brad in it. I mean, yeah, Brad, Brad, Brad.

Speaker 2 (29:09):
I'm not totally insane. So they're all driving around and
it's pretty apparent that this has been a long road trip,
and the mom's kind of nagging the dad, uh, you know,
mentioned something about, you know, drive carefully because I've got
the all the presents in the back and I've got

(29:31):
the pie that we want to give to the family,
and he's, you know, he's like, nah, it's fine, it'll
be fine, and pretty you know. He he dismisses her,
and she just kind of goes about her business. She
goes to sleep because again, it's been a long road trip.
Everybody else is kind of nodding off, and then the
dad he starts to nod off, and another car is

(29:57):
coming on the other side of the road, approaching them,
and he barely wakes up just in time and kind
of swerves, barely missing the other vehicle, you know, crashes
off the side of the road.

Speaker 1 (30:11):
Well, they don't crash.

Speaker 2 (30:12):
They don't crash, right, No, No, they just off the
side of the road. Let's see, gonna mix up the movies.
But they they swerve, they pull off to the side
of the road. Everyone is okay, nobody's hurt. So the uh,

(30:33):
the dad kind of admits like, yeah, I guess I was.
I guess I was starting to like doze off there,
and everyone's pretty disappointed at him. But you know, his
his whole complaint is they do this drive every year
and it's so super boring and he hates, you know,
he hates visiting her family. And maybe it's that's is

(30:56):
that not argument not there right at.

Speaker 1 (30:57):
The Well, the whole point is the reason that not
on the road that they're supposed to be on, is
he took a different route because of how boring the
drive usually is. Usually is he doesn't so he's not
doing the drive that he's done every time.

Speaker 2 (31:09):
That's what it is.

Speaker 1 (31:10):
But that's the joke, is that he says he didn't
want to do because he didn't want to because he
didn't want to be bored, and he still started dozing
because he was bored.

Speaker 2 (31:19):
Yeah, so we immediately get a sense that the family
doesn't get along great. The sister and the brother. They
kind of snipe back and forth at each other. The boyfriend,
to his credit, he's trying to get along with everyone,

(31:42):
but the brother especially like really doesn't seem to like him,
or at least doesn't appreciate his presence.

Speaker 1 (31:49):
It's very two thousand and three. He's just constantly calling
him gay. I mean, that's really it. He's just constantly
calling him gay. He's wearing a baseball jack. He's really
into baseball. He played baseball in college. The the boyfriend,
not the brother, and that's like his thing. And he

(32:11):
keeps bringing up baseball, and the brother keeps mentioning how
you know, basically he's gay with all his baseball friends.
That's like his his go to insult constantly.

Speaker 2 (32:24):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (32:25):
So yeah, and the brother is is really which is
his name is Richard? Yes? Because this is the Harrington family.
He's really just a little shit. I mean, well, you know,
before before things started to get dire later on, it

(32:46):
was amusing, you know, it's kind of funny. It's like, oh,
you know, he's just kind of gives everybody shit. He's
just kind of a little asshole. But he doesn't stop,
no when things get weird and bad and scary and
weird again, and it's got to be too weird weird.
So yeah, he just he just keeps pushing everyone's buttons.
But he's especially all about pushing his sister and her

(33:11):
boyfriend's buttons.

Speaker 2 (33:13):
It's like his hobby.

Speaker 1 (33:14):
Yeah, and he likes to mess with his mom too,
So he's definitely the baby of the family.

Speaker 2 (33:20):
And we also get a sense that the mom really
cuts him a lot more slack than she possibly should
because he is pushing he's you know, going around pushing
everyone's buttons, and the mom is just making every excuse
for his behavior. So yeah, we we pretty immediately get

(33:45):
a good beat on the family dynamics. So they're driving
along these back roads and they pass a little shack
cabin thing, but no one really mentions it, no one
says anything, but what they do mention is after they
pass the cabin, maybe a mile or so down the road,

(34:08):
the dad sees a lady, a woman in the woods,
and she's dressed in a white shirt or white gown
like a dress, and so he immediately stops and pulls
over because what kind of gentleman would he be if
he just leaves a poor woman alone in the woods.

Speaker 1 (34:30):
And I guess we'll find out after this.

Speaker 2 (34:46):
So they see this woman in the white gown and
they pull off to the side of the road, and
there's some kind of discussion about what they should do
with this woman.

Speaker 1 (34:59):
Well, there's no in the car, yeah, because there are
three people in the back, two in the front, and
it's a station wagon style vehicle, and the back is
full of all the Christmas presents for all the cousins
and uncles and aunts and grandparents, yeah.

Speaker 2 (35:14):
The whole family. So what what they initially discuss is like,
what are they how are they going to help this woman?
And someone mentions, well, there was that shack a mile
or so back. Maybe there's like a telephone or someone
lives there. Maybe we could get some help from there.
But again, there's not enough room in the car for everyone,

(35:39):
So Mary and the daughter she volunteers to just walk
a clip down the road so that the young lady
can sit in her seat in the car and Mary
and will meet them back at the cabin.

Speaker 1 (35:53):
Well, did you it's funny to me, you're you're, you're,
you're glossing over two really interesting things. Number one, the
woman in white doesn't really speak, and when she does
it's to no. One in particular. And number two, she's
holding a baby.

Speaker 2 (36:09):
Uh yeah, I guess I should have mentioned both of those.

Speaker 1 (36:11):
Just the scary parts. It's okay, Well, no, it's you know,
it's it's not easy doing this, this show. It's not
easy doing a show about movies because you want to
You don't necessarily want to recap an entire movie, but
you do want to recap enough so that you can
set up the comments and thoughts you have. And sometimes

(36:34):
you just get too obsessed, you the Royal You, not
just you, Rachel, too obsessed with just getting through the plot.
But the woman in white is really creepy. She's this gorgeous,
very tall, blonde woman holding a what appears to be
a baby wrapped up in blankets, although we don't hear

(36:57):
a baby coup or cry or or anything like that.
And this reeks of a ton of vanishing hitchhiker myths,
which I've studied those extensively. It's possibly one of my
favorite folklore of the Americas, although there are there are

(37:21):
vanishing hitchhikers in overseas folklore as well, mostly in England
and Ireland and places like that, but it's very, very
common in America, and it's very common for it to
be a lady in white. That's a super common element resurrection.
Mary is a lady in white, and she's the most

(37:42):
famous vanishing hitchhiker in the world. So they have this
odd woman, but of course, from their perspective, it's just
a woman on the side of the road on Christmas
Eve with a baby. It's freezing cold outside, and she
clearly needs help. And this is pre you know, the
super proliferation of cell phones. So and I don't I

(38:04):
think a couple of them have cell phones and they're
not getting any reception. Yeah, So they turn around to
go back to this what looks like a cabin. It's
like a little shack. They're hoping it's a ranger's cabin
or a ranger station. And also worth mentioning, we haven't
seen a single light, we haven't seen an intersection, we

(38:27):
haven't seen any sign of anything except for that little shack.
We saw a little bit of go and now this
lady in white, and my guess is that it was
like about a quarter of a mile because as they
drive up, Little Marion decides to walk herself so she
can get some air. But that's when we find out

(38:48):
some interesting things that are going on with her.

Speaker 2 (38:52):
So as Marion's walking down the road, sorry, I'm reading
my notes real quick so that I can make sure
that I don't jump ahead, she's walking down the road
and smoking a cigarette, or at least trying to smoke

(39:14):
a cigarette. Like she pulls the pack out and she
goes to light it, and it looks like maybe her
lighter is dead or something windy or it's too windy,
something like that. And then she starts like rehearsing a
conversation to herself, and that's when we realize that while

(39:34):
she's aware, or while she and her boyfriend are planning
on getting engaged, she's planning on breaking up with him.
But also is this one she reveals that she's pregnant too,
so not only is not only is she sitting there thinking,

(39:57):
you know, she'd be sitting there planning her exit str
with Brad, she's also kind of rehearsing in her head
what she's gonna do because she doesn't want to stick
around with him, but she doesn't necessarily, you know, not
want to have the kid either. All the while, the

(40:22):
dad and mom and Richard, the Sun and Brad and
the lady in white, they all arrive at the cabin.
The mom and dad they get out and they decide
to go in the cabin. They're going to investigate and
see if they can find a phone or find some
way of like getting a hold of the authorities. Richard,

(40:44):
being the little shit that he is, he just high
tills it out into the woods with a porno mag.

Speaker 1 (40:50):
Well, he says he has to go take a leak,
but apparently he wants to pull his pud to a
porno mag by the light of a zippo. Yeah, which
I mean, I guess it was a different time. It
was the early two thousands. We had axe body spray
and that.

Speaker 2 (41:12):
Yeah, what a winner, what a real winner.

Speaker 1 (41:14):
Well, he's supposed to be like nineteen or twenty, you know, Yeah,
maybe he's college. I kept getting the vibe maybe he
was a senior in high school.

Speaker 2 (41:22):
That's what I think, is like seventeen to nineteen, somewhere
in that range.

Speaker 1 (41:27):
But while he's on his excursion that leaves mister now
I can't remember his name, Brad alone with the woman
of white and a woman in white in the car,
and things get in multiple ways quite a bit stickier,
not literally. That's the other scene and we'll get to

(41:50):
those right after this.

Speaker 2 (42:04):
So Brad, the consummate gentleman is in the car with
the shell shocked lady in white. She's holding a bundle
of blankets and kind of caressing it and rocking it
like it could be a baby. And Brad he really

(42:25):
is like he is trying. That's one of the things
that I like about Brad is even when, like even
when Richard is busting his balls, even when the dad
is kind of a busting his balls, Brad's still like
a good sport about everything. And so he've really is
like he's trying to talk to this lady. He's trying
to ask like where she's from, and you know, if

(42:49):
she needs any help. And then he starts gushing about
Marion and that once Marian's there, she'll be able to
help because she's the best psychologist he knows, and you know,
she works so hard to get through college and she's
the smartest person he knows, and he's gonna ask her

(43:11):
to marry him. And the woman in white really does
not seem to be registering any of that. She's pretty disconnected.

Speaker 1 (43:25):
Yeah, I would say so.

Speaker 2 (43:28):
And we get the vibe that she is like totally
dissociated from everything. And that's when she's kind of starts
rambling on and she starts talking about her baby, and
then she just kind of shoves it into Brad's face

(43:49):
and says, you know, here, take this, take this, you know,
hold it. You need to hold my baby, and he's, again,
he's a nice guy. So he holds the baby and
he's kind of like, oh, you know, I've never even
really this, Like, am I doing it right? And that's
when he realizes his baby's really cold, and he kind

(44:10):
of pulls back one of the blankets and he or, no,
we don't even see it. No, we just hear him scream, no, no, no,
we don't, we don't.

Speaker 1 (44:20):
No. He asks her how the baby breathes through all
those blankets how the baby breathes too, and she It's
one of the creepiest scenes in the entire movie because
she laughs like it's a really funny joke, not like
a crazy, like a legitimate like because he's he's dead

(44:43):
and it's friggin mortifying. So then he screams when she
apparently shows him the dead baby, and the scream startles Richard,
who is finishing bopping the bishop. And when everybody runs back,

(45:03):
Brad and the woman are gone, yeah, no sign none.
And at that point Marion is almost to the cabin,
and that's when we first see the hearse, which makes
up the poster image for the film, which is a
hearse with a person kind of like pounding to try
to get out of the back. We see the hearse

(45:24):
driving away and her boyfriend is in the back of
the hearse, like pounding on the window, trying to call
to Marion.

Speaker 2 (45:32):
Yeah, and she watches, i mean she watches him stuck
in this car as it drives off, and she just
books it to the cabin and she starts screaming that
they've got Brad, they've taken him. We you know, we
need to we need to save him. So they all

(45:55):
pull pile into the car and they peel off down
the road, trying to chase after the hearse And as
they are careening down the road, there's something in the
middle of the road. So they come to a stop
and all get out of the car and we never

(46:19):
see it, but everyone is absolutely mortified when they look
at this thing in the road.

Speaker 1 (46:27):
Yeah, they definitely play with the theater of the mind
on it. One of my favorite things about this is
the fact that when she starts screaming about this frank
her dad doesn't really ask a lot of questions. I mean, like,
once he sees how pandic she is and she says,
like she saw a car running down He's like, well,
which way did they go? How far ahead where they

(46:49):
He just gets in the car. But he in the
car and they just book it trying to catch whatever
is going on. But when they find the body, they
really play up all these very dark humor elements about
how messed up his body is. At one point, I
don't know if this is immediate, but at one point

(47:10):
they try to get his cell phone. Yeah, and that
sequence is so is so wild because as they pull
the cell phone, you realize that the cell phones, and
Tenna is hooked through an ear ring in his ear,
which is not attached to his body, like the ear
is just attached to the cell phone, which just raises

(47:31):
more questions than answers. But also we hear things like
after they see his body, you know, Frank is just
like Jesus Christ, like, you know, they must have taken
an axe to him, and Richard is saying, you know,
more like a chainsaw. Yeah, So all we know is
that he is just ripped to shreds. We don't see

(47:52):
much beyond like a hand or maybe that might have
been Richard that we see a hand off screen or
coming in off screen. So it's very very playing with
our our our expectations off screen. It's it's it works
really well because this movie is not very thick on plot.

(48:13):
It's very thick on characterization. It's very thick on atmosphere,
and it's very thick on just ooky. I mean, you
just you feel unsettled when you watch it, because it's
it's pretty creepy. It is, and it's consistently creepy, you know,
when when even when they were going through the Ranger
station or whatever you want to call it, because it

(48:34):
was just some kind of cabin. It's full of taxidermy
and old traps and nothing else. The road just really
feels like it it never ends and it's all the same,
which I think really has an effect on your brain.

Speaker 2 (48:52):
And it's feel foggy. Yeah, and it's.

Speaker 1 (48:54):
Very foggy, which is smart because it helps make it
feel like makes it look like it might be colder.

Speaker 2 (48:58):
Yeah. Yeah, So yeah, they find they find Brad and
that that also just totally wrecks Marian. Uh and she
absolutely breaks down and I mean just goes into hysterics.

Speaker 1 (49:20):
Well that's after she uses the phone, right.

Speaker 2 (49:23):
Well, no, they lead her off when they're trying to
get the phone. They like kind of lead her off
so that she can sit in the car. But yeah,
then the mom oh yea, yeah the phone them uses
the phone, So she gets the phone. She's the only
one who's like not squeamish about using the really gross, bloody,

(49:45):
disgusting she gets.

Speaker 1 (49:46):
She gets Richer to grab the phone, which is my
favorite because as he's he's takes the phone, he pulls
the ear off of it. She takes the phone and
then she goes put that down it's dirty, and he
throws the ear down, which which is just the family.
The family dynamics work very very well in this. And

(50:07):
as Laura goes to call nine one one on the phone,
that's not exactly what she gets, but what she does
get is something much scarier. We'll talk about it after this.

Speaker 2 (50:32):
So Laura the mom, she dials nine one one, and
instead of getting what you would normally anticipate with a
like bad connection, it's not just a crackly, you know
connection over the cell phone. They're getting like straight up

(50:53):
like demonic voices and uh, you know, like real hateful,
like evil stuff. As she's trying to as she's trying
to ask for help over nine to one one, and
she's you know, she's asking as anyone there can like
anyone hear me, and it's it's just evil voices. So

(51:15):
she kind of throws the phone down, like Okay, let's
not do that anymore.

Speaker 1 (51:21):
Because she hears a woman begging for help.

Speaker 2 (51:23):
Yeah, And then she gets to talking with her husband
and with Richard about what they should do about Brad.
So they decide to take his body off the side
of the road because they just can't bear the idea
of just leaving what's left of him there, and that's

(51:46):
that's when marian that's when Marian like really starts to
freak out because she comes out from the car and
she sees them dragging him away, and she just starts
screaming and you know, throwing her fists, and her mom
freaks out and grabs her by the shoulders and starts

(52:09):
slapping her in the face, telling her to get it
all together. And then the dad grabs the mom and
like pulls her away, and it kind of almost in
a real sad wave, reminds you of like the Three
Stooges kind of slapstick where somebody's freaking out in hysterics
and they're taking turns slapping them.

Speaker 1 (52:29):
I mean, that was a trope and a lot of
stuff to slap people when they're hysterical. Well, and the mother, Laura,
she's heard this woman screaming and begging for help on
the phone and has told nobody. She's kept that to
herself for whatever reason, she has decided probably not to
scare anybody.

Speaker 2 (52:49):
M hm.

Speaker 1 (52:49):
So she's way on edge, way on edge. And they
get back in the car and they keep on rolling,
and that's a regular occurrence in this film that you
know that kind of bookends every big incident is then
they get back in the car and they keep on

(53:10):
trucking yep and hoping that, you know, maybe next time
it won't be so bad.

Speaker 2 (53:15):
Maybe the next sleep book be The Leap Home.

Speaker 1 (53:18):
Well, I mean, I do love me some quantum leap.
But as they're driving along, you know, on a dark
road in the middle of the night, in the cold
they as often happens in dark car rides at night,
some truth comes out and Frank kind of admits that

(53:44):
he doesn't like Laura's family very much. He doesn't really
enjoy spending a lot of time with them. We've had
references about the gun nut brother and her parents being
really snobby and annoying. So this pisses Laura off quite
a bit. And this is another element of the movie

(54:05):
that I think works really well. We get a ton
of realistic family strife, and whenever it starts to come
to a head, whenever it starts to really click, then
the horror comes right back. So as they're going into
it and Laura's tearing into Frank about insulting her family,

(54:27):
that's when they notice there's a friggin baby carriage in
the middle of the road, a black baby carriage from
friggin nineteen forty looking baby carriage and antique baby carriage
just sitting in the middle there of the damn road,
and of course they stop. Richard decides to go take

(54:52):
a look. They all get out of the car, but
Richard decides to go take a look and decides when
he looks inside of the what's it called a Yeah,
he decides to start screaming and make it seem like
something in it is grabbing him. And then he laughs
it off, and because what a dick, Like literally, somebody died, yeah, horribly,

(55:15):
and you saw his corpse not just.

Speaker 2 (55:18):
A stranger either, like someone who was going to be
part of your family potentially.

Speaker 1 (55:22):
Yeah, okay, maybe when you put it that way, it
is kind of funny, but so, you know, he's he
can't help but make with the jokes, I guess. So
they decide they're going to move this bacinet thing out
of the road and keep on driving, but Richard gets
abducted by the hearse. So and and please please.

Speaker 2 (55:46):
Oh sorry, I was I was reading the sorry, I
was reading my notes. And before before the sun gets
abducted by the hearse, there's one of my favorite scenes,
which is when after they've after they've found the bassinette,
and the dad and the mom are outside of the car.

(56:10):
The dad's getting that bottle of booze and gifting himself
and gifting himself some holiday cheer. That's when. That's when
Richard is in the back seat alone with Marian while
she's just staring dead eyed off into the distance, and
he starts like actually getting vulnerable with her. And this

(56:37):
is one of my favorites because it's it's too easy,
especially with Richard's character, but with any of these characters,
it would be too easy to write them off as
being like cheesy stereotypes but every dim yeah, like one dimensional.
But this is one of those scenes, and there's several
of them that adds so much depth to the characters.

(57:01):
And you know, Richard admits to Marian that she's like
the smartest person he knows and he wants her back,
and he you know, he knows that she would be
able to get them out of this situation. And I
just really like that because we get to see a

(57:21):
side of Richard that we didn't know was there. And then,
on the other hand, when he doesn't get a response
from her. When he's like bearing his heart and soul
to her, he goes back to being even more Richard
because then to try and like get any kind of

(57:42):
reaction out of her, you know, and even a bad
reaction is still a reaction. He admits that when they
were little kids, he was the one who microwaved her hamster,
and he he was the one who killed the hamster,
and she still doesn't react, and that, you know, upsets
him even more. So I don't know, I just wanted
to bring attention to that scene because it, you know,

(58:05):
really it's really touching, and it kind of shows how
multi fascinated or multifaceted these characters are.

Speaker 1 (58:12):
No, I agree, it gives him more depth just in
time to take him away so that you care. No,
But I mean, yeah, care no, it works, It works
incredibly well. And yeah, I mean it's a phenomenal scene,
very understated scene that works very well. And when they

(58:34):
go to save Richard, Frank notices the woman in white
yet again. So as they've been driving around, we had

(58:54):
a few little like creepy things happen, including the radio station,
which was pretty pretty creepy. But I think my favorite
part of that and The reason I'm bringing it up
is the way that Frank tries to rationalize everything. Yeah,
but you know what it's not. It's not destructive. I

(59:15):
mean it's it is constructive to try to make sense
of what's going on. So, you know, when they're hearing
like a radio station that basically sounds like the bowels
of Hell with screaming and stuff, He's like, sounds like
public radio, you know, like some experimental thing or whatever,
and Laura is just kind of like, what.

Speaker 2 (59:37):
Yeah, uh, it doesn't make any sense.

Speaker 1 (59:40):
And the tire blows out. We end up seeing Richard
taken away after we witness the The Woman in White.
They chase after him because now the movie's starting to
really book it. Yeah, and further along the road they
find richard body.

Speaker 2 (01:00:02):
A little abruptly, yes.

Speaker 1 (01:00:04):
And he has been burned to a crisp. He has
been immolated, Yeah, totally. And after finding Richard's body, that
is when Laura starts to lose it. The mom starts
to become very, very off, and this is some of
the most memorable moments of the film because when she's

(01:00:27):
playing crazy, Lynn Shay is just fascinating to watch as
she's just kind of like looking around like a little
curious child, and I mean there are all these seeds.
Like there's a part where she's just shoveling a pie
directly into her gob hole and then asking if anybody
wants any as she's been like not even slicing it yet,
she's just pulling the it was chocolate pumpkin pie because

(01:00:49):
earlier in the movie that was what they were she
was telling him to drive carefully about was because the
pumpkin pie almost got ruined. So she is starting to
to really lose it. And before that, she was already
losing it because she was pointing out there have been
no landmarks, there have been no crossroads, there have been

(01:01:09):
no sign of anything. It's just been empty road this
whole damn time. And on top of that, on top
of all of it, my brain just went, like, on
top of all of that, you know, they should have
seen something. They've been driving yet eighty miles and just

(01:01:32):
at that moment though they see a sign. Yeah, one sign,
the first sign this whole time, and it says Marcott, Yeah,
with an arrow, that's it. An arrow, And it says Marcot.
They look at the map. There's no markot on the map,
but the road doesn't even seem to really be on

(01:01:53):
the map. And earlier I believe Frank had made the
plan of like, since the north Star is, you know,
over there, we just keep going this way because this
is west, and we have to reach the ocean. Eventually
we'll just reach the ocean because we're going west. So
that's when he starts to devise. Okay, Marcott must be

(01:02:15):
like a military military base. That's why it's not on
the map. So we must be on a military road,
one of those private military roads, and that's why we
don't see anything. We haven't seen anybody, and it's not
on our map or anything. And all of that makes
some degree of sense, I mean, like in the realm

(01:02:35):
of bizarre things happening, aside from the other things happening,
which it's a little harder to make that make sense.
But that's that's what they're going with. And Marian is
starting to come back to reality and is starting to
be Frank's confidant now that Laura has pretty much checked out. Yeah. Well,

(01:03:00):
as they're trying to figure out what they're going to do,
there are a lot of great moments. The shotgun pretty great.
They reveal that there was a shotgun was a gift
for uncle, Uncle, and it comes into play.

Speaker 2 (01:03:21):
Yeah, well, and I love too, because this is when
we start that that drama and the history between the
family that I had alluded to. This is when we
really start digging all of that up. Because when Laura
is going into hysterics initially after they find Richard's body,

(01:03:44):
she's kind of screaming and wailing, and she's convinced herself
that he'll wake up any minute now, this is just
one of his pranks, which we as the audience, we
know that Richard is prone to pranks, but it is
very clear that this is not just one of his franks.
He is not going to just wake.

Speaker 1 (01:04:01):
Up, no, but.

Speaker 2 (01:04:04):
He's a corpse. But she starts crying about how this
is like that time when they went on vacation with
his father, and Frank's.

Speaker 1 (01:04:16):
Most of this time, we went on vacation, yeah, and
and and yeah, yeah, sorry yeah, because he doesn't say
his father yet. She just says when we went in on.

Speaker 2 (01:04:27):
Vacation, and Frank's like, what, we never went there, and
that's when she says, no, we went with his father,
his real father, real father, And that's when we realize, Oh,
whether she's being truthful or not, we're not entirely certain.
But she's revealing to everyone that she had an affair
and Richard is the product of that affair. And she

(01:04:50):
even names her affair partner. His name was Alan, and
she keeps she keeps alluding to this as she's going
like goo goo gaga crazy.

Speaker 1 (01:05:03):
Well, yeah, and because she's it's becoming clear that there's
some kind of special flame burning for this Alan guy,
who we later find out Frank mentions Alan was a
friend of his who stopped coming around years and years
and years ago. And she is just do you know,
still doting over the son Richard, who I forget what

(01:05:28):
his original she xcept saying like, no, he's supposed to
be I forget. Yes, yeah, but she's like, no, that
was that was the name Richard, or that was the
name that Alan wanted him to be, So that's his
real name. And she's just pushing this and pushing this,
and to Frank's credit, he is really not freaking out. No,
which I mean they've been married like what thirty years? Yeah,

(01:05:51):
something he must have known or had suspicions of some sort,
you know, like he must have heard that. Okay, a
lot of that makes sense, like that track what am
I going to do? You know, scream and yell like
we're in the middle of like people disappearing and showing
up mutilated, burned, alive and shit. Yeah, so you know

(01:06:12):
what am I? What am I going to do? So well?

Speaker 2 (01:06:15):
And I also love that there's several instances where he
makes it very clear that this new information does not
change the fact that he is Richard's father. Yeah, And
I think that's again another little, very emotionally deep part
of the movie that makes it so long lasting to

(01:06:38):
me is as much as Richard and Lauren nagg at
each other, he still got her back, and he like
still cares for his children, even if he's deeply annoyed
by them sometimes.

Speaker 1 (01:06:52):
Oh, Frank is like a really good example of a
patriarch in a family overall, although he starts to go
down hell, I mean everybody does in a little bit,
and we'll get to that. But man, so now that
Laura's gone completely bonkers keeps talking about the real father

(01:07:14):
of Richard, things are getting really extra tense and they're
not getting any better. But we'll talk about that after this.

Speaker 2 (01:07:36):
So we mentioned Laura going bananas and pumpkins, and she
is like absolutely shoveling a chocolate pumpkin pie into her face,
which I've never heard of a chocolate pumpkin pie before,

(01:07:57):
but I really want to try. I mean, she makes
it look not great.

Speaker 1 (01:08:04):
It looks like a pumpkin pie with chocolate sauce on
top her or something like that.

Speaker 2 (01:08:08):
Yeah, but she's she I love that because Lynn Shay's
you had mentioned it. Lynn Shay's insanity is delightful and
terrifying at the same time, because there is so much
not there and her just eating this this pie gleefully

(01:08:30):
with her bare hands is a great example. Like she's
a little like five year old. And then she starts
shoveling chips into her face and uh, Marian says like,
you need to slow down, You're gonna make yourself sick,
and then smash cut.

Speaker 1 (01:08:47):
Though she says she says, no, I won't yeh esus ralphing.

Speaker 2 (01:08:52):
She's just yeah, on the side of the road, pukin
her guts out because she did indeed make herself sick.
But that's when Frank and Marian get to have a
little bit of their own heart to heart and they

(01:09:13):
are kind of sitting there talking about what Lauren had said,
what she had said about her having an affair, only
him having an affair. There was there was all sorts of
accusations we call.

Speaker 1 (01:09:27):
It accusations that I that's why I understand why you
like you two.

Speaker 2 (01:09:33):
And as there as they're talking about it, Lauren comes
out from behind the car and she's just got the
shotgun and very gleefully points it and right points it
right it. They're in their direction, and you know, starts
joking around that she she could end this right now,

(01:09:57):
but she's super like she's not being confrontational.

Speaker 1 (01:10:00):
Well, she tells them it's a toy. It's just a toy,
because then she puts the barrel in her mouth and
then takes it out as a joke. Yeah, and then
all of a sudden gets very very serious when she
points it again.

Speaker 2 (01:10:12):
Yeah, which it you start to become more and more afraid,
not just because of the ghosts, but because you realize
that she's so broken and unhinged, that she's just as
dangerous as all the weird stuff that's been going on

(01:10:35):
up until this point. So they they try to take
the shotgun away, and she just shoots Frank in the
leg and he topples over.

Speaker 1 (01:10:49):
Well, and at first we don't see where she shot him,
so it looks like she just freaking killed him. Yeah,
and then luckily he's just screaming. And again another part
where they play up a lot of the gallows humor
because then he's on the ground, Ah my leg, Like,
why'd you shoot me on the leg?

Speaker 2 (01:11:07):
So uh, Maryan dresses his wound, and she tries to
take the car keys, but he insists that he can drive,
and so he's driving. She's in the front seat. Mom's
in the back seat, and then he just takes the
bottle of whiskey and just starts drinking because like, hey,
he's got a dull the pain somehow, I.

Speaker 1 (01:11:26):
Said, you know of a better pain killer.

Speaker 2 (01:11:29):
Which fair point, I mean. And it's not like there's
any traffic around. He's not going to hit anybody.

Speaker 1 (01:11:35):
Uh sure, I wouldn't predict anything, not on this stretch
of road.

Speaker 2 (01:11:42):
It's it's all up for grabs.

Speaker 1 (01:11:44):
Yes, yes, so Marian.

Speaker 2 (01:11:49):
As he's driving along, Marian kind of dozes off, and
then when she wakes up, he shows her the map
and that's when he starts explaining to her about the
North Star, and he's got this theory that Marcutt must
be a military town or most naval base.

Speaker 1 (01:12:07):
Yeah. Well, first he had said a military that was
that was his first thought when he saw Marcott twice was.
But now he's like, it has to be a naval
base because we're heading toward the ocean, so Marcutt must
be right on the seat, must be there.

Speaker 2 (01:12:21):
And that's when he it's it's around this point that
he also starts talking about that this story reminds him
of stories he heard when he was a kid about
people lost on abandoned roads, and he starts talking about,

(01:12:45):
you know, how how people would get lost, how people
would die on these roads, and we start to see
that he's they're both really starting to accept that some
things strange is going on, because he's been more than
willing to kind of explain away and justify every little

(01:13:08):
thing that's happened, and every weird thing that's happened, he's
got an explanation for, yeah, or at least trying at
least trying to. But this is the first point where
he's like, you know, actually, maybe this could have some
other supernatural origin. And that's when as they're talking about

(01:13:34):
that as they're discussing like where they could be and
that this is all way too weird. This reminds him
of the ghost stories from his childhood. Laura starts talking
about the people that she can see in the woods,
and she says that she can even see one of
her friends in the woods. And she starts waving and

(01:13:56):
like asking if they can stop so that she can
go see her friend. And Marian asks, well, who's this person,
and Frank says, oh, well, that's her friend, but she's
been dead for twenty years.

Speaker 1 (01:14:07):
Well he says it like she's been dead for twenty years.
You mean, he's very dismissive. He's not he's not willing
to play with the idea that maybe there's ghosts going on.
That's you know, not not what's up.

Speaker 2 (01:14:18):
And Lauren even Lauren even or Laura even asks that
if the dead are alive, maybe they should pull over
the car and check Richard in the back because maybe
things have maybe things have changed for him, and they're
just like, no, no, we've got to keep driving, just

(01:14:41):
stay put. So she just opens up the car door
and just leaps out.

Speaker 1 (01:14:45):
Yeah, yep, she I mean, it's a it's again the
comical elements do play a role and why this film
is so rewatchable. So she jumps out of the car
and they obviously slam on the brakes to get to her,
and I'm pretty sure at that point the hearse is back. Yeah,

(01:15:07):
but Frank wards it off with the shotgun. He's like
chasing off with the shotgun, but the shotgun doesn't exactly go.
It doesn't work out the way he hoped, as we'll
explain after this.

Speaker 2 (01:15:34):
So Frank fires the shotgun at the black hearse and
it comes to a slow halt and then it just retreats,
and that's the first time that the hearse has kind
of bucks the pattern. So they're feeling kind of like

(01:15:56):
they're feeling kind of good about it that Frank actually
defended them. And then they feel even better because Mom
comes out from the woods and she looks a little disheveled,
but she's alive. She's walking. Uh, it could be worse.

(01:16:17):
And Frank embraces her and he's honestly very relieved to
see her. And as he's holding her, that's when he realizes,
like her something on the back of her head is
kind of sticky, and he touches the back of her
head and realizes that she doesn't have a back of

(01:16:40):
her skull. No, her brain is like totally exposed. And
he's disturbed and he kind of points it out, like
something's something's wrong with your head. And Laura, she touches
the back of her head and then like starts touching

(01:17:02):
her brain like she's masturbating.

Speaker 1 (01:17:05):
I mean, you you're the one who made it dirty.
I was thinking, like when you have an itch, you
know that that's like really good, but you know it's
like going to break.

Speaker 2 (01:17:14):
The skin, Yeah, like something something like that. Uh So, yeah,
she she touches herself and then just keels over and dies.
But when she dies, the person's name that she says
is Alan her a fair partner, and that totally crushes Frank. Yeah,

(01:17:37):
that is the last of his spirit being conquered. So
he goes off and he grabs the shotgun and he
puts it, puts it to his head, but Marian leaps
over and she grabs it and she stops him. And
the way she gets him to kind of come back

(01:17:58):
down to reality is that she's having a baby and
he can't leave her alone, and that activates something in
Frank where he's like, no, you're right, we do have
to keep going, just even if it is just for
the baby.

Speaker 1 (01:18:19):
I mean, activates the father in him. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:18:21):
Yeah. So they get back in the car and as
they're driving, well.

Speaker 1 (01:18:27):
I think it isn't at this point they'd mentioned that, like,
maybe we just need to stay in the car because
only bad things happen when we stop. I feel like.

Speaker 2 (01:18:36):
That that was en Yeah, it was shortly before this,
because at first they're saying like, we should stay in
the car, only bad things happen when we get out
of the car. But then shortly after this they start thinking, oh, well,

(01:18:56):
only bad things happen when we're on the road, so
maybe the fastest way to Marcott is going through the woods.

Speaker 1 (01:19:04):
Well they don't think that. Frank thinks that. Marian thinks
that is freaking the dumbest thing ever, scariest thing ever
to ye to get off the road and walk through
the woods.

Speaker 2 (01:19:13):
Why would you do that?

Speaker 1 (01:19:14):
Yeah? No, that that Yeah, I just remember that was
a big moment because when you're watching this movie for
the first time, you're not it's hard. This is one
of those movies that's hard to watch it and pretend
you don't know how it ends once you know, yeah,
it really is, it's very hard and and when we

(01:19:34):
do reveal and talk about how the movie ends, at
the time this movie was made, that was not a
cliche ending. That was still a pretty pretty surprising ending.
So when I was watching it for the first time,
I remember like, sincerely hoping they could get off the
stretch of road or find something. I didn't you know,
one hundred percent believe you know that Marcott was a

(01:19:57):
military installation or something, but I was like, what the
hell is going going on? Like, where are they going?
How do they get out of here?

Speaker 2 (01:20:03):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (01:20:04):
No.

Speaker 2 (01:20:04):
And that's one of the reasons I like this movie
is because even though once you've seen it, you know,
I mean, you know the twist, you know what's going on,
But every single time I've watched it, because I think
this was either the second or third time we watched
it together, every single time you watch it, even if

(01:20:27):
you know how it's going to end, you're still hoping
for a different ending. You're still like, there's there's still
that feeling of like it could be different if only
they would just choose different like different actions, And it's
that's kind of kind of at the heart of these

(01:20:51):
lost on the Haunted Road kind of stories thematically is
that feeling of you know, repetition, of like can we
break the pattern by making other choices. It's and it's
explored more in wind Chill, but it is still explored

(01:21:12):
in Dead End of this idea of kind of like
going through uh where hell or purgatory is going through
the same thing over and over and over.

Speaker 1 (01:21:23):
They're a few pretty good haunted road movies. Man, I've
always enjoyed them, the concept of a haunted road. But
they're they're they're getting tired of this crap and they're
thinking about maybe it's time to abandon the road after this.

Speaker 2 (01:21:55):
So they haven't come to the to the coast, they
haven't come to any kind of signs of civilization. And
Frank finally starts insisting that they should ditch the car
and just walk straight through the woods because that will
get them to Marcott or anywhere faster, faster than they

(01:22:19):
would otherwise. And it's spooky, it's scary in the woods.
At some point, Frank even like walks into barbed wire
because it's so dark they can't even see in front
of them, and they see a light in the distance,

(01:22:41):
and that's the first time, honestly since they saw that
little like tiny cabin shack thing, that they've seen any
signs of other human life. So they start booking it
toward the lights.

Speaker 1 (01:22:55):
Well, because when they hit the when they hit the
barbed wire fence was a fence, yeah, which that would
be a sign that there are people at least have
been there. So they crossed through the fence, they see
that light and they chase after it. Yeah, and it's
a pretty solid reveal.

Speaker 2 (01:23:13):
So they chase after the light and burst through the
undergrowth of the trees and it's their car.

Speaker 1 (01:23:24):
Yeah, it was their headlights.

Speaker 2 (01:23:25):
It was their headlights. And they instantly start arguing about
it because Marion says like, well, we must have gotten
turned around obviously, like we've just gone in big circles,
and Frank points out like, well, if we got turned around,
then we came from the wrong direction.

Speaker 1 (01:23:45):
Yeah, the why didn't we come from the other side.
We went in that way and came out that way? Yeah,
And also the car is locked, wi are the headlights on?
And that's when he suspects that Laura is still alive,
So he unlocks the car to check and she is
very much dead, which is a very chilling moment because

(01:24:05):
he uncovers her and you just see her there, you know, cold,
lifeless and gray.

Speaker 2 (01:24:09):
Yeah. Ah, but it does not explain why the lights
were on. So now they're abandoning the idea of walking
through the woods because it's clear that's not getting them further.
So they get back in the car and they start
driving some more like any good road trip. Of course,

(01:24:31):
there's more and more driving, and this time it's Marian driving.
Frank kind of finally acquiesces to her. She looks over
and she realizes that he's writing something on a piece
of paper, and she asks him, what are you writing?

(01:24:52):
And he kind of jokes around with her at first,
like he doesn't want to reveal it, and then he
tells her, well, I'm writing a list of what I
want to do when this is over. And so they
start talking, kind of joking around about what he should
do when this is all over, and they talk about
getting him a game system, and he says he wants

(01:25:13):
an atari, and Marian says, well, I think a PlayStation
is kind of more the thing nowadays, and he's like,
well's a PlayStation. She's like oh no, I think an
Atari is good for you.

Speaker 1 (01:25:26):
Atari's cooler anyway.

Speaker 2 (01:25:27):
Atari's cooler anyway.

Speaker 1 (01:25:29):
Well, what I And another great moment of levity too,
because he says, I'm writing what I'm going to do
when I get out of here, and when she kind
of conjoles him to show it, show her, for her
to for him to show her the paper, he's literally
wrote what I'm going to do when I get out
of here as the heading, which I thought was really funny.

Speaker 2 (01:25:48):
It's great.

Speaker 1 (01:25:49):
So he hasn't written any specifics yet, but as he's
writing the next thing, he gets a lot more dour
and she's like, what are you writing? And he's just like,
none of your damn business.

Speaker 2 (01:26:02):
Yeah, kind of really brushes her off. It's really guarded.
He got very very guarded. So we don't really know
what all that's about. But they come back to the cabin,
the cabin ranger, it's definitely the same one as last time,

(01:26:25):
and they go in trying to find anything to help themselves.
They turn on you know, they kind of flip a switch,
but the bulbs blow and so Marian goes back outside.
She's trying to find something to get light or get
a flashlight so that they can see in there, and

(01:26:46):
Frank kind of lights a match and he's just looking
around on the inside of the cabin and as he's
as he's looking around, there's rustling noises, and then it's
almost like something jumps him and he drops the match,
but he doesn't get hurt. Marion runs in and he's

(01:27:12):
got an axe and he's just kind.

Speaker 1 (01:27:14):
Of yeah, and he says, there's someone in here. There's
someone in here, and it's it's this is where you
start to really pick up on the futility. It's starting
to really feel futile, like no matter what they do
or where they go, something is after them and it
takes whatever form is necessary. There's literally no escape. They

(01:27:37):
walked in a straight line away from the car and
didn't even go in a circle. They went right back
to where they came. They got turned around. Yeah, and
you know, the whole concept of Frank wanting to constructively
write down, like what he's going to do when he

(01:27:58):
gets out of there, that's a method of trying to survive. Yeah, yeah,
having things to look forward to. But think about that reality.
I mean, his wife is gone, his son is gone.
He really only has his daughter and his grand baby

(01:28:19):
future grand baby. That's it. So it's got to be
weighing on him heavily. Yeah, and on top of that,
the fear of losing the one last person in the
world he has.

Speaker 2 (01:28:32):
Yeah, that's it's a lot of pressure on his shoulders.
And no wonder why he starts breaking down and going
into his own hysterics because he's being crushed by the

(01:28:52):
futility of the situation and to try and lighten things up.
As Marian's leading him back to the car, like trying
to collect themselves and especially trying to like collect him,
he kind of jokes around and asks where his bottle
of whiskey is, and she reminds him that she she

(01:29:15):
threw it away. She threw it out the car because
it wasn't doing anyone any favors, and he gets really
enraged and he actually slaps her like really hard.

Speaker 1 (01:29:26):
Yeah, yeah, I know, he hits her real hard, and
he's just like a different person, Like, you know, he
says this whole thing about like, uh, don't you ever
ever get in the way of me and my liquor.

Speaker 2 (01:29:36):
Yeah, it's very yeah, any pocket because because there's the
one slap and she like she looks like she doesn't
even know what to think. Yeah, uh, not even stunned,
like physically, but like emotionally stunned, Like did that even
really just happen? Like it doesn't even compute. It's like
if you told someone like one plus one equals purple.

(01:29:59):
It's like doesn't even register. And then it slaps her
as he slaps her a second time, and this time
it like does register on her face what just happened,
but like there's this resignation of she's not going to retaliate.
And then he punches her full on dex or and
not which guff because that is so we don't know

(01:30:25):
Frank well, but we do know that's not characteristic of him,
Like he cares deeply for his family. At no point
did he get physically violent with anyone else. Uh, So
we know that this this was not this is not
Frank's character. This is him lashing out because he is cornered.

Speaker 1 (01:30:44):
Yeah, and because there's a lot of desperation going on
here and a lot of mysteries still to be sorted out,
and maybe we'll do just that sorting after this.

Speaker 2 (01:31:09):
After punching her, Frank almost immediately realizes what he's done,
and he picks up his daughter and he takes her
back to the car. He starts crying because he hurt
his daughter. He hurt his little girl, and he realizes
it's on him, and he also there's kind of this

(01:31:33):
acceptance that he let his family down. He you know,
he wasn't able to protect them the way he wanted to.
And he's putting Marian in the car, he's trying to
keep her safe, and then he sees the woman in
white in the woods and there's not even a second thought.

(01:31:53):
He just grabs the shotgun and follows after her and
starts firing after her. And he's screaming and threatening her
as he's following her into the pitch darkness of the woods.
And he's threatening her because you know, she hurt his family,
and he's threatening threatening her because you know, all of

(01:32:15):
the bad stuff that's happening. He follows her into the
darkness and then there's a slashing noise and then silence.
Back at the car, Marian wakes up. She comes to
as a figure is circling around the car. We can
kind of see their shadow through the windows.

Speaker 1 (01:32:35):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:32:35):
We hear someone say he's dead, and then the shadow
looms like directly above her in the window. She kind
of clamors around the car. She gets into the driver's
seat and starts it, and she speeds off as fast
as she can, but almost immediately the car runs out

(01:32:57):
of gas and just chugs to a halt. And she's
weeping because that was her only chance to get out
and it's just totally gone. She gets out of the
car and she slowly starts walking down the road and
she looks down at the road and she sees a

(01:33:19):
pen and I think it was the pen that her
dad was writing with, but I'm not sure. And she's
kind of staring at the pen a little dumbfounded. And
then some red drips on her from the sky, and
then more red, and then she realizes it's blood, and

(01:33:39):
she looks up and blood just starts pouring and dripping
from the trees, and she screams and runs off. And
as she's running along the road and screaming, she's screaming
out like to the ghosts, let's end it, just end

(01:33:59):
it now.

Speaker 1 (01:34:00):
Yeah, she doesn't want the torment anymore. Yeah, because all
she's doing is losing everyone and everything.

Speaker 2 (01:34:05):
And it's it's kind of that realization of like that
the hope is the punishment almost for her, because there
was this constant hope that she'd be able to get
out of this. But the more she clung to hope,
the more she was punished for hoping. It's just kind

(01:34:25):
of Greek tragedy in a way. Yeah, So she's screaming,
let's send it. She's ready for this to be done.
And as she's walking down the road, she sees four
body bags just lined up neatly in the road. She

(01:34:47):
walks past the first three, and when she gets to
the fourth one, she opens it up and it's her dad.
The hurst comes up and it pulls up right next
to her, and the woman in white appears directly behind her,

(01:35:07):
and Marian falls over. The woman in white assures her
that he's not here for you, referencing the hearse, and
the woman in white gets into the back of the
hearse and it just drives away. And that's the first
time when we see the Hearse that someone isn't actively

(01:35:31):
trying to escape it as it drives away.

Speaker 1 (01:35:33):
Or it was taking people away.

Speaker 2 (01:35:35):
And now the kind of like it's her.

Speaker 1 (01:35:37):
Ride, and we're starting to we're starting to have the
picture put together, we're starting to have the puzzle pieces
fall into place as we're realizing that this is not
a reality at all. This is a kind of purgatory yeah,

(01:35:57):
for lack of a better term, maybe or it could
simply be Marian's own mind kind of dealing with the
situation by avoiding the reality of it. And that's where
it gets really it gets really heavy, because in a moment,

(01:36:20):
Marian is about to wake up and the reality of
the situation is coming, but it may still not be
as entirely cut and dry as you might hope for,
and we'll talk about that. In a moment, Marian suddenly

(01:36:50):
awakens in the hospital. She's got bandages on her and
she's greeted by a doctor, doctor Marcott. And this is
one of the elements I think that really clicked with
me because when I saw this film, I didn't get
to see it when it first came out. I didn't
see it when it was brand new. And we're now

(01:37:12):
finding out that she was in a coma, her family
was killed in a car accident. The car accident that
from our perspective, they had narrowly avoided. This has happened.
This twist has been used a lot, but it was
still somewhat novel when this film came out.

Speaker 2 (01:37:33):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:37:35):
In fact, this ending makes the whole film feel kind
of like an extended Twilight Zone episode.

Speaker 2 (01:37:42):
I agree here.

Speaker 1 (01:37:44):
But one of the things that really stuck with me
and made me appreciate it a lot was the reveal
of doctor Marcott. So now that's why the sign said Marcott.
And the way I took that when I watched the
first few time times was that these were things she
was hearing, Yeah, while she was in her coma, So

(01:38:06):
she was hearing doctor Marcott. Although there aren't a lot
of other examples of that. Of course, there is the Hearse,
and we find out that the motorists who drove by
and found the rack was driving a hearse. Yeah. He
was a classic car collector and kind of an odd
looking gentleman. I forget that actor's name, but he always

(01:38:28):
plays kind of gothic characters. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:38:33):
Well, and we find out that the woman in white
and her baby, they were the other motorists killed in
the accident at the start of the movie. So that's
why they were constantly showing up is because they were
also involved in the accident, and they passed away along

(01:38:53):
with Marion's family. She's the sole survivor of the accident,
you know, So that's why that's why she was constantly
seeing the woman in white. That's why she was, you know,
constantly seeing her family, but wasn't able to save them.
And that's why the Hearse and the man in black

(01:39:14):
appeared so nefarious, is because in reality, you know, in
her mind they were the villains, but in reality they
were just guilty by association.

Speaker 1 (01:39:27):
Maybe maybe because the way that we that it's revealed
to us that this guy is the one who was
driving the Hearse is he's chatting with doctor Marcott, mentioning
how Marian was the only survivor of the crash, how
how nasty it was. As the doctor's going to leave

(01:39:50):
for the day, her car won't start and he offers
her a ride, and that's when we see that it's ah,
the Hearse he's driving, and he kind of mentions that
he collects cars or what whatever, And I mean that
was the car in Marion's dream, I would call it,
you know, just oh, it's all the coincidence, not the coincidences,

(01:40:11):
but the revelation of the reality or whatever. But as
the credits roll on the movie. There's a little post
or a mid credit sequence where these two road workers
are complaining about having to work on Christmas Day, which
I love because one of the workers looks to the

(01:40:32):
other and says, I should be at home getting stuffed,
you know, and the other guy looks at me goes,
so should They about the people who died in the
car accent And they're just you know, sweeping up debrief
from the road and one of them finds the note
Frank had written to Marion, things I want to do

(01:40:55):
when I get out of here. That opens a lot
of question because if all of that was Marion's nightmare
of their circumstance, that note was written after they'd all died,

(01:41:15):
So where'd the note come from? How did it end
up there? And that's I think, like the extra coupde
gras that makes the movie really stick and hang in
your brain because that's just a cool touch because they
don't give you any more than that. Yeah, you just
get that to make you wonder did everything we see

(01:41:38):
happen because that's physical evidence that it did. Yeah, that's
that's my favorite part, is that ending. My favorite things
about this movie are the creepy way that ending makes
me feel, and and because like and it's all done
in daylight. I mean, they're out in day light, like

(01:42:00):
sweeping up. It's the creepy atmosphere has gone, and yet
it's still freaking you out. Yeah, after you've spent eighty
minutes in this dark, cold road with this family desperately
trying to get anywhere and getting nowhere very fast. So
that's that's my thought. But I mean, do you have
any any thoughts on what that ending could entail, what

(01:42:20):
it would mean that they found the note and anything
and all, what you think about What did you think
about the ending when you first watched it?

Speaker 2 (01:42:27):
Oh, I absolutely loved the ending because you said that
it was like a an episode of the Twilight Zone,
and I absolutely agree. It's just got that feeling of,
you know, the mystery being solved. But the final the

(01:42:47):
mid credit scene, I love that it muddies the water.
I love that it gives you something to think about
and chew on, because otherwise I feel like the movie.
I feel like that would almost cheapen the movie to
be like, ah, well, the mystery is solved. It was
literally all just in her head. But to have that

(01:43:10):
one loose end of be like of saying like, well
it was all in her head or was? It just
makes it so much more entertaining to me.

Speaker 1 (01:43:20):
Well, I agree with that. I think the reason I
like it so much is because it ends with this idea.
Like they do. They wrap it all up in a nice, nice,
neat little package with a bow. They explain everything that
you need to explain, including like Richard being immolated because

(01:43:41):
the car was on fire. Yeah, you know, everybody's injuries
make sense because of the way the car accident happened.
So the reason I love that ending where they find
the note is because they wrapped it up so well
and explained so many things. It really makes you wonder

(01:44:04):
after it's given you that it takes it away from
you a little bit.

Speaker 2 (01:44:07):
Yeah yeah, or.

Speaker 1 (01:44:08):
Maybe this happened and maybe that guy driving the hearse
is some kind of a who knows because he comes
off well grim. Reapers don't play with you. They just
they just take you to hades. You know. Some folks
call hell. I call it hades. It's all right. I've

(01:44:28):
been thinking about sling Blade since you accidentally said Hurst
a couple of like five six minutes ago. I was waiting.
I was like, if she says it again, I'm bringing
it up. But then, since you caught my sling blade
reference a well, honestly I wasn't gonna make the reference,
but then the way you were looking at me, I
was like, oh God, I gotta make the sling blade reference.
But will well collegiateally debate collegiately debate this ending a

(01:44:53):
little more after this break. So my point is the
guy driving this this hearse. I'm not saying that I'm

(01:45:14):
one hundred percent convinced he's not just a guy who
drove by and witnessed this, but the way Doctor Marcott's
car doesn't start so that he has to give her
a ride, and he's very charming. He is he's British, Yeah,
and he's just very charming, really tall, lanky, long black hair,
like a little ghoulish, but like not in like a

(01:45:36):
mean way. I mean, yeah, it's a horror movie. There's
just something about it that sticks in my craw like
why would they all each be in the car because
that and taking why would that be taking them away?

Speaker 2 (01:45:50):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:45:51):
And I mean he could be could very well be death,
that could be, But why the why would the note
exist even if they were, even if they were in limbo,
why would it exist nothing else existed afterward. So that's

(01:46:12):
my my my big thought, Like it does kind of
like it does. It's an noggin scratcher. Yeah, yeah, I
love that ending because of that, because you get it
all handed to a neat little package and then it goes,
Actually this, it's it's the fact. And I'm sorry because
I keep trying to figure out exactly how to say it.
It's the fact that it's so effortlessly hands you that curveball.

(01:46:37):
It's such a minor thing to make you wait.

Speaker 2 (01:46:39):
What, Yeah, yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:46:42):
So I don't know, Like, could it be they were
could it be they were taken to you know, could
it be that they were in limbo after the wreck
and that the man in the hearse was the grim
Reaper and he was gathering them? Yeah, yeah, so that

(01:47:03):
he could take them away. But then why why would
they get in his hearse or would he put them
there in his hearse, drive them away and then leave
their mangled bodies on the road unless he was taking
them to reality. But even that, I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:47:18):
I don't know, taking them to the afterlife.

Speaker 1 (01:47:22):
But he's leaving their mangled corpses. I mean, like you'd
think you'd just take them, Like, why is he leaving
their you know, ripped up bodies for them to find?

Speaker 2 (01:47:33):
I don't know. I'm not a grim reaper. I don't
know these things.

Speaker 1 (01:47:38):
Also, when I forgot to mention this, but when she
finds them in the body bags, they are in the
order they die, yeah in the movie, Yeah, which I
just thought was a nice touch. So I don't know,
but I think that that little that little tinge at
the end is perfect. It's really perfect because it makes
you ask a million questions from a forty five second scene. Yeah,

(01:48:00):
so that's just really good storytelling.

Speaker 2 (01:48:02):
Yeah. No, I enjoy it so much.

Speaker 1 (01:48:05):
So I cannot recommend dead End enough. If you want
a Christmas horror film you've never seen, or one that
you maybe watched it way back, when revisit it, you'll
be glad you did. So before we get out, I mean,
is there anything else you want to say about Dead End?

Speaker 2 (01:48:25):
M No, I think that, But I think that just
about covers it. I really enjoy this movie me too.

Speaker 1 (01:48:31):
No, It's it's a phenomenal one and I love I
mean Christmas horror just hits different. So before we take off,
we actually got an email. For those who are not aware,
you can email us at Weekly Spooky at gmail dot com.
We'd love to hear from you. You can tell us
what you think of the movies we reviewed, recommend things
we should check out, et cetera, et cetera. This one

(01:48:52):
is from Melissa. The subject line doesn't exist. Uh well,
this was actually wrote us this through Weekly Spooky dot
COM's contact form. I've been recently listening to Cutting Deep
into Horror and do you even movie? I'm gen X
and was a kid in preteen when some of the
movies from the eighties came out. I have always loved horror,

(01:49:14):
from nos Feratu on up to now. I do have
a movie recommendation. It's not really horror, but it's a
bit weird. The movie is called Dudes from nineteen eighty seven.
I've totally seen Dudes. I kind of adore that movie.
It's been a while since I watched it, so I
may have to track down a copy because Dudes is

(01:49:38):
as a it's a bonker's little movie. Let me see
if I can find the synopsis real quick, because it
is a very offbeat movie three punk loving New York
City dudes need a change and drive a Volkswagen Beetle
to California after rednecks kill one of them in Arizona.

(01:49:58):
They want justice. Cute girl helps them. That's a great.
Acute girl helps them. And it stars Daniel Roebuck, who
I love. I'm not going to dig into it more
because she digs into more about it. I saw some
of the filming in Clarksdale, Arizona. Okay, because it was
shot in Arizona. I was in seventh grade in our

(01:50:20):
school K to eighth grade, went to watch a scene
being filmed. That's so cool. It was probably a nightmare
for the director. Yikes, yeah, all those kids making noise. Anyway.
It was an indie film released on VHA, VHS and
Blu ray, directed by Penelo's Penelope Sphrus. I remember correctly,

(01:50:40):
Penelope Penelope Spearrius went on to do Wayne's World.

Speaker 2 (01:50:44):
Oh cool.

Speaker 1 (01:50:45):
I'm almost certain that that's the right Spearus. I'm checking
because I don't trust myself.

Speaker 2 (01:50:52):
You shouldn't.

Speaker 1 (01:50:54):
Actually, I think I'm wrong. I don't think she did
direct that, but she did write Summer Camp Nightmare, which
which is not a horror movie. But it sounds like it.

Speaker 2 (01:51:03):
It does sound like it.

Speaker 1 (01:51:04):
Oh wait, see y'all. No, IMDb sucks, dude, it doesn't
work like it used to. She totally directed Wayne's World.

Speaker 2 (01:51:12):
Ah man, that's awesome.

Speaker 1 (01:51:14):
And the Little Rascals movie, which I always had a
saft spot for.

Speaker 2 (01:51:18):
I love that movie.

Speaker 1 (01:51:21):
Let's see anyway. Oh sorry, I read that part written
by Randall Johnson, starred John Crier, Catherine Mary Stewart, and
Dan Roebuck and leaving the lead singer in Fear the
punk band. Oh you know Fear No. And I should
have known when you reacted. It was filmed in northern Arizona,

(01:51:42):
not a large budget. You might hate it or not.
Keep it real, keep it spooky. Thanks. Oh and one
of my favorite Hitchcock films is Rope Cheers. I need
to revisit Rope. You would probably like Rope.

Speaker 2 (01:51:56):
Oh yeah, I haven't seen Rope, but I think I
feel like you've told me I need to see.

Speaker 1 (01:52:01):
Well that sounds like me. Yes, well, Melissa, I will
say to you. I am going to put dudes in
my soon to watch rotation as soon as the holidays
are over. And thank you so much for listening. And
for writing in. Really do appreciate you. The first person
to write in directly to Cutting Deep into Horror.

Speaker 2 (01:52:22):
Yeah, thank you, Yeah, yeah, that's very nice.

Speaker 1 (01:52:27):
So on that note, I guess it's time to get
out of here. I guess yeah, geez, so sorry, I'm
getting worn out by the holiday season. Thank you guys
so much for tuning into Cutting Deep into Horror. I
hope you enjoyed learning more about dead End than you
ever needed to know. If you love what we're doing here,

(01:52:50):
you get head to Weekly Spooky dot com slash join
and sign up for our Patreon for as little as
one dollar a month. You get two bonus shows every
month and my undying gratitude, so make sure you're subscribed.
There's so much more to come. There's always more and
more and more on the Weekly Spooky Feed. Rachel, you
have the final word.

Speaker 2 (01:53:14):
Don't pick up pitchhikers, especially if they're lady's wearing a
white dress.

Speaker 1 (01:53:21):
Ending the show with a little misogyny. I like that.

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Cutting Deep into Horror | Dead End (2003) Christmas Road Trip to Hell!

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