February 3, 2025 • 39 mins
In this episode of the 30 Screams or Less podcast we review the shudder original "Grafted" directed by Sasha Rainbow, written by Lee Murray, Sasha Rainbow, and Mia Maramara. Starring Joyena Sun (Wei), Eden Hart (Eve / Wei), and Jess Hong (Angie / Wei). The plot of the movie is a bright but socially awkward exchange student takes her craving for popularity to horrifying heights.
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(00:00):
Warning 30 screams or less may contain spoilers about movies that have recently been released.
(00:06):
If you haven't seen the movie go watch it, come back and enjoy the show. Or if you don't want
to waste your time watching the movie and rather have two random horror dudes watch it for you,
we got you covered as well. Welcome everyone to 30 screams or less,
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a horror movie podcast where we review horror movies in 30 minutes or less. Today's movie we're
going to be talking about is grafted. It's directed by Sasha Rainbow, written by Lee Murray,
Sasha Rainbow, and this is a fun name to say, ready for this? And Mia Mara Mara. I love the
last name. Mia Mara Mara. Love it. It's awesome. It's fun. Starring Joanna Sun as Wei, Eden Hart
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as, okay, here's where it gets confusing, Eve slash Wei and Jess Hong as Angela slash Wei.
The plot of the movie is a bright but socially awkward exchange student takes her craving for
popularity to horrifying heights. But before we get into it, Corey, last night I was looking in
the mirror and you know what? My beard was looking gnarly and I said to myself, I can't look like
(01:25):
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(01:46):
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(02:06):
Corey, what did you think of Grafted? Shudder with an absolute banger to start off 2025.
Yep. It borrows a lot from other films, but it did a lot to remain original, which I really
commend the director and writer for. I do remember watching the trailer for this at some point last
year. I know I sent it to you and being intrigued because body horror who fucking say no to that.
But then I completely forgot about the movie until it popped up on my shutter while I was browsing
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the other day. And I'm really glad I watched it. Dude, I'm glad I watched it too. This movie was
gnarly and it does have a lot of resemblance to the substance. So if you'd like the substance,
you would love this movie because it's body horror. Body horror is fucking so gnarly sometimes. And
this is a lot of skin grafting stuff. That's what the name is about. Grafting or Grafted. But
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there's a lot of skin being removed and replaced. Oh yeah. And all sorts of insanity. This movie is
nuts. It's absolutely nuts. Man, I'm watching it and I'm just uncomfortable seeing all the skin
getting removed. And the beginning of this movie is bonkers. Yeah, that's what I was going to say.
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It starts off just crazy. Yeah, it starts off crazy. Now I thought you were messing with me
a bit because I started seeing the subtitles and everything was in Mandarin. I'm like, shit,
I'm really going to have to pay attention to this now. And it's kind of a pain in the
dick because I have to type out my notes while watching the subtitles. So I'm thinking, okay,
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I'm going to have to deal with this for an hour and a half again. But it does switch. It does make
the switch from Mandarin to English. Eventually does that because she's doing all that stuff.
And I believe it was in China. She was living with her father. They both have this genetic
deformity with their skin. And the father was trying to find a way to graft new skin onto the
(03:59):
face and replace that deformity. So he started doing that and shit went haywire, man. First of
all, quickly, quickly went real haywire quickly. First of all, where the hell do you have this
random flesh? I don't know if he cut it off of himself because he was experimenting or if,
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I don't know, if he was like a professor or something, they probably had access to
people who shit the bed. That's right. Because she kind of did the same thing later on in the
movie where she took a skin graft from her thigh and then replaced it with the fake skin and it
fixed the whole thing. So the father was trying to do that. It's his work to begin with. He tried to
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figure out the whole cure and everything. And dude, the fuckery that happened to him was.
Dude, I thought legit was turning into the mask. I was like, I thought I'm watching a horror movie.
Is this like a Korean mask remake? You know what I mean? And then all of a sudden this dude starts
(05:00):
stabbing himself in the face with an X-Acto knife or a scalpel. Yeah, because he's trying to cut a
hole where his mouth should be. Yeah. The skin went over his mouth and his nose so he couldn't
breathe. Yeah. Oh man. Brutal. Absolutely brutal. Yeah. He poked himself in the face like eight or
nine times with a scalpel. Yeah. And the daughter kept trying to do it too, just to try to get his
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mouth open, but it was not happening. It just kept growing and kept growing. Have you ever seen the
movie Dick Tracy? Not since I was a kid. I mean, I've definitely seen it. It's an old, old movie.
So the father's face kind of reminded me of, I think, No Face, which was really just played by
Madonna back in that movie. And it was just a skin face. That's all it was. So that's what happened
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to this father. He basically turned into like this skin face and he died because he couldn't
breathe. And it's important we mentioned this because it does happen later on in the film.
And it's kind of cool how it happens later on because it's more intentional as opposed to
accidental. So the father's done all this work and he's got all these findings. At this point,
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Wei is grown up. She's about to go to college. She actually brings his book of work with her
because her goal is to follow in his footsteps and try to finish what he started. And she pulls it
off. But man, the professor wants what this girl Wei has been working on the whole time because
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like I see in all these movies with professors, they're going to lose their funding or tenure or
some bullshit and their whole division is going to get shut down unless they come up with some
sort of breakthrough. Now he saw her with this breakthrough and how she had this like book of
tests that the father's done and she found a way to actually make it happen. Have you ever seen
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the corpse flower other than in this movie? Oh, no, I haven't. I had no idea what that was
in this movie. Yeah, that's an actual thing. I think it blooms every eight years or something.
That's an odd piece of knowledge that you have there, Steve. I know. I looked into it one time.
Let's see. Corpse flower bloom. Let's see. And it's supposed to smell like shit. Just, oh, cool.
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Like not actual shit, but just like awful. Oh, I'm wrong. I am way wrong. Yeah, don't edit that out.
No, it's even longer than eight years. OK. Forty. Oh, yeah. Just a couple more than four.
Five times the amount, man. You were close. I was under. I wasn't over at least. But those things
take 40 years to bloom. So I guess it's I think it's only for a few minutes and then it like
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fucking dies and goes back into its state of hibernation for another 40 years. What a dumb
flower. You spend 40 years growing and then you just die within seconds. Yeah. Can you imagine
that? You just like watching this flower. You're getting really fucking old at this point. Let's
say you start planting this thing at 40 and now you have to live until you 80 just to see the thing
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bloom so you can die the next day, probably. I would never make it that long.
No, I don't want to be here until I'm 80. Well, I don't know. I think I'm going to be here until 150.
Not going to what you're like halfway there. Fuck you. Not halfway there. Almost.
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My God, man. So she meets the professor who's world renowned for his work in that kind of
field with skin grafting and such. And he's just trying to find this new way so that way he can
get his funding and he finds Wei's book and they're working together. They're trying to come up with
the final piece of the puzzle. Wei ends up actually going to that corpse flower that was like locked
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off. She just broke into the place and took like a piece from it and she starts mixing it with her
and experiments and she's like, fuck it. I'm going to try it. And she just fucking skin grafts and
pulls all this skin off her thigh and like, all right, well, let's put on this new fake flesh.
And look how she decided to test it on herself. Hey, I mean, what else are you going to do? You're
(09:03):
going to test it on a fucking rando? They go kill one of those fucking bitches. Yeah. Oh, I hated
them. All of them. Oh, they all sucked, man. I'm glad they got fucking dead and I'm glad they brutally
died. Yeah, they all got gut. Fuck them. They're awful people. Awful, clicky, school girl type
people. They're in college, but they still act like teenagers. Like they're in high school and
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they've got their popular click deal. I think it's college, right? It's not high school. Yeah, I
think it was actually high school. They were all pretty young. Oh, that's fucked up. But the girl
that she went to live with, I was kind of confused on that, was Angie her sister or her cousin?
See, that's what I was thinking. I got a little confused along the way, whether it was her sister
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or cousin. I think I want to go with cousin because that's what I wrote down as cousin. But I could
be wrong because I think that was Way's mother or maybe aunt, to be honest. I think it's aunt and
Angie was the aunt's daughter. See, that makes sense if it was the aunt she's living with and her
cousin lives there too. So I'm going to go with that was her aunt and her cousin that lived there.
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So, but the cousin and she goes by Angela or Angie. Yeah. And she sucked, man. She was such a douche
to Way. Her and Eve. What's that? Her and Eve. Oh yeah, they were both awful. This whole thing
could have been avoided if they weren't such dicks because Way was really trying hard to just be
friends with them and it just wasn't clicking. And it's not that they were bad or anything to
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begin with. They didn't understand Way and Way was trying to fit in and it just didn't work.
It pissed her off. It really fucked her up. And now it starts turning into this whole fucking
situation where it's like we animate her, where the scientist is going fucking crazy. I know.
This, I love this part so much because like eventually was Angie the first person she killed?
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Yes. Okay. The chopstick to the eyeball.
Gnarly. Yeah, it was disgusting, but eventually ends up cutting her face off. And the whole
transformation anytime she wears someone's face, it looked amazing. The practical effects.
Practical effects were awesome. But yeah, so anytime she would wear it or this particular time,
she had to learn how to be Angie. So she starts acting like her, like the way she walks, the way
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she dresses, tries to talk the way she talks at school. It was so funny and she did perfect.
She did. You know what I found funny is Way has really specific teeth. So I'm sure you saw that
where one tooth is kind of going over the other. Yeah. I actually made a note about this. Oh,
you did. I know where you're going with it. Yeah. So every girl that she actually decided to
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take their face and put it on hers, all had the same teeth. So the continuity there was actually
pretty awesome. Yeah. I'm glad they kept that in because that's the one thing that didn't change.
And that's important because teeth are very distinguishable. And like if these pristine
looking girls all of a sudden had really fucked up teeth out of nowhere, some people be like,
what's up with your smile? What's going on here? Very easy to recognize that something's up and
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they all had the same smile. It's weird, though. You would think that they would have their normal
teeth and shit if she wanted to try to really be like them, but that's hard for her to pull off.
She's not a teeth person. She doesn't go to dentistry school, whatever. She's not going to be a dentist.
She's working with skin here. So I thought that continuity was really cool. That's funny. We both
noticed that. Yeah. It's the little things, man. Little things in the movie you have to really pay
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attention to because here's what would have happened. If all their teeth were exactly the same,
we would have picked up on it immediately and be like, what about the teeth? What about the eyes?
Yeah. That's what's kind of confusing to me because the equipment that they had was
confusing to me because the acquaintances of these people that she was killing didn't notice
that it wasn't that particular person. You would think they would. The only thing that changed
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that I recall is the face. The body stayed the same. And another thing is the teeth. Yeah. No
one noticed the different teeth overnight. I guess not. I do know she put in contacts at least so
she can match eye colors and such. Yeah. She did the contacts out. Yeah. It's just, yeah, the little
things they did to make it seem believable. Yeah. You know what I was getting on this? You ever see
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Dark Man? Another one I haven't seen in a long time, but I did see it. The dude's cape was the shit.
Yes, it was. I mean, it's Leslie Nielsen and it's directed by Sam Raimi. You should go back and watch
it. It's a good one, but it gave me Dark Man vibes. But except with Dark Man, he was working with
prosthetics. So like fake prosthetic nose, face, all this stuff. And they were more like masks.
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So they weren't like a full replacement of the skin. It wasn't a cape. It was like a full like
trench coat. Yeah. But it almost looked like he had a cape on because he's like swinging around.
It's fine in the air, all that stuff. Really cool campy movie, but that's another body horror type
movie. I wouldn't even say horror though. More like action, right? That's kind of what I would
think is more body action. But we all know Sam Raimi. He's good with action. He's great with
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horror. Yeah. He's definitely got some crap that probably tarnished his reputation. Like maybe some
of the older Spider-Man stuff. What? You don't like the older Spider-Man stuff? Oh my God.
I don't know, man. The Tobey Maguire stuff wasn't a huge fan of. I like Andrew Garfield's Spider-Man
and I love Tom Holland's Spider-Man. Tom Holland's Spider-Man is a whole different
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fucking ball game. Can't even compare. But I enjoyed the Tobey Maguire Spider-Man. The first
one was great. Second one, I feel like might've been better. Third one is up for debate. I think
the best scene in that movie is the Tobey Maguire becoming a douche and doing his little fucking
strut. Was that one the one with Venom or is that the Andrew Garfield's Spider-Man? No, that's the
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one. That's the 30 second screen time of Venom. Yeah. Everybody waits fucking three movies to
finally see Venom and then they fight at the top of a building and then it's over. Yeah. He just
uses a bell sound to get rid of Venom, get him out of Eddie Brock and then Eddie Brock tries to go
for it, gets blown up and see you later Venom. That's it. And that's the last time we'll probably
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ever see Spider-Man and Venom on the big screen. I don't know. I've heard rumblings about Venom being
introduced into MCU, but I don't know, man. I mean, they've had three Venom movies. I've only seen
the first one. I haven't seen the other two. I've seen the first two. I haven't watched the third
one yet. They were surprisingly pretty good and knowing that Sony makes piece of shit movies,
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it was decent. I will say it was decent. Yeah. The first one was decent. I'm going to have to
go and check out the other two because Carnage is fucking awesome. He's just a badass Venom.
Well, I mean, Venom is pretty badass anyway. I play as Venom whenever you play the Marvel's
rivals game. Yeah, but you're not going to see Carnage in the movies. No, probably not. We won't
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be seeing him next to the Avengers or anything. You see Cletus Kasady at the end of, I think it
was the second movie. I don't think Carnage has been a thing yet in the universe, but who knows?
I thought they said the third Venom movie was the last one. Yeah. The last dance type deal. Yeah.
Well, that's actually, yeah, I think that was the subtitle. It's like Venom last dance. It's like,
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cool. Okay. Whatever. Hmm. All right. But yeah, we got to get back into this. I forgot we were
actually talking about a movie again. We were. Well, we're talking about a bunch of movies at
this point. Which is funny because there's another one that we loved, but we rambled. Dude, it's our
ADD. We just fucking go off the rails. Both of us. Every time. Every time. Every single time. But
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where was I? Oh, we were talking about the replacing of faces and stuff like that. And man,
she really started juggling these girls lives. Oh, so awesome. She's got three phones lined up.
And she takes their phones. Yeah. And she's going with Angie and she's going with Eve and she's got
hers and she's just going back and forth with all of them. Lot to juggle. So one of the scenes that
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I really love in this is when Wei's weighing the face of Angie and then the face starts dripping,
like you slowly see the wounds start opening up and the skin starts falling off. I just thought
from a filmmaking standpoint, that just looked amazing. It looked great. The practical effects
on that were great. This was happening with Eve's boyfriend. Oh, no, not Eve's boyfriend.
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Angie's boyfriend. Sorry, there's Angie, we. They're all the fucking same person basically.
So not we, Wei, Wei, Wei, Wei, Wei, Kurds and Wei, Kurds and Wei, Wei protein, Wei protein, bro.
Get some Wei protein, bro. Yeah. We just did it again.
(17:38):
Just did the yeah at the same time. Corey and I are in the same wavelength today. Synergized.
Synergized. Oh, geez. OK. Yeah, big word. That's actually. Yeah, that's when she was like making out
with Angie's boyfriend. And is that what it was? OK. Yeah. So she's making out with Angie's boyfriend.
He's thinking she's Angie at this point because she's wearing Angie's face and it starts basically
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melting off. And that's what kind of reminded me of Darkman, because in Darkman, he can only be out
in the sun for like, I think, two hours at a time or something. OK. Before his face started bubbling
and melting and then he has to get the hell out of there. So that kind of reminded me of Darkman a
little bit. All right. Yeah, I'm not going to say like maybe maybe that was a reference because
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there's just a ton of stuff I think that they got inspiration from when they made this movie.
100 percent. And I'm questioning whether they got influence from The Substance because those movies
came out really close to each other. I was reading that this grafted movie was actually made in 2023.
Was it? Yeah. That's I just I think Shudder must have picked it up. Oh, maybe. You know,
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streaming services do that. Yeah. So this technically came out before The Substance.
OK. Now we're wondering, was the director or the writer of The Substance, did they see this
beforehand? Because there's some real fucking similarities, man. Yeah. Especially the end of
the movie. But we didn't talk about Wei finding her homeless friend there. Yeah, she made a friend
(19:11):
with what was his name? Joe. Joe. Yeah. And it's important we bring up Joe because like you see him
here and there in the movie and Wei will talk to him kind of in passing, nothing big. So you're
just thinking that she's talking to this homeless person, but he becomes a real pivotal character
later on in the movie and he gets fucked up like one place, wrong time. Oh, yeah. He gets it bad.
(19:34):
Oh, my God. He gets it real bad. But it's getting to this point where she meets Joe and they kind
of have a kinship and the talk and things like that. She's on the outs with the professor who's
banging Eve at this point. And that's why I was questioning, like, it has to be college, man. It
can't be high school because otherwise we're talking some fucking diddling happening here. Yes.
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So at this point, she's on the outs with the professor who's sleeping with Eve. And Eve thinks
that there's some fuckery happening between the professor and Wei because there's one real
incriminating scene where Wei actually cuts off the skin. She does the skin graft and she mixes it
with the corpse flower and puts it back on her thigh and sees it just completely get fixed.
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And she's trying to show the professor and he was just trying to hook up with Eve. And dude,
he's wearing the weirdest protection because it's on his hands instead of wearing it below.
Yeah, it was a little I couldn't figure out why that was happening either, but I didn't really care
that much. I was enjoying it too much. Yeah. Well, maybe he's one of those people's like,
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I can't do these things on my hands. I can only do everything else. Otherwise, I'm spreading germs.
Maybe. Maybe. Going to the produce department with fucking rubber gloves on. Yeah. I hate that.
If you ever did that in a grocery store, fuck you. Yeah. Yeah. Fuck them. Stupid. I don't know if
some people are weird like that when it comes to bacteria. Yeah. Yeah. I know. I really during it
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was mainly during covid people started doing that shit. Oh, man. They did all this. It's not helping
you at all. You're just like spreading germs. Yeah. It's spreading germs from one to the other.
Yeah. Idiot. Yeah. I like I love when people like they'll just bring a fruit up to their face and
they're basically smelling it like an inch from their face. And they're like, I'm going to put it
back. Cool. Just got all sorts of spit all over like this fruit that I'm about to have. I do that.
(21:33):
I boost not rockets on them first and then I put them back. Beautiful. Yeah. Nice little nice drippy
one on there looks like an oyster. Oh, God. Yeah.
Fucking oysters are like eating mucus. Yeah, I love oysters. I don't. I've done it because I commit
(21:56):
to the bit. So if someone's going to get a fucking seafood tower and no one's going to touch the shit,
I'm going to eat it because I'm like, I'm not spending this kind of money to not eat something
on this. I'm going to do it. Dude, why would anyone buy one of those and just not eat it?
I don't know. People are fucking nuts. I would say I would house one of those things. I mean,
(22:17):
they're everything. It's like shrimp and lobster and oysters and all that stuff. Yeah. Usually I
think like calamari and stuff on there too. Calamari. Now that's my jam. That's like seafood
onion rings. I never thought of it that way. I always thought of him as like little buttholes.
Oh, well, yeah, I don't need the body, though. I don't like the body. It's fucking weird.
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I want to try it. Let me eat this octopus's chest. Octopi. What do they call it? Octopus pie.
Octopi. Yeah. Octopi. Octopus. Oh, my God. That'd be like the weirdest food ever. Octopus pie.
Yeah, I like to have my octopus pie. Don't forget to eat your octopus pie.
(23:05):
Yeah, we're switching this week. Instead of beans, we're eating octopus pie.
Holy shit. Stop me. Cut me the fuck off. I'll just keep going for too long.
Oh, man. Have fun editing that. No, I'm leaving it. I'm leaving it. Octopus pie in.
(23:30):
This whole episode is going to be a doozy again. Let's fucking hope not.
All right. So she's not using octopus pie on her thigh, but the professor.
He just rubbed it on him. No, I know. I did it on purpose.
You paused.
(23:51):
OK. Game face, Corey. Game face. I'm trying.
All right. OK, so back to it. The professor checks out
Wei's thigh and it's very incriminating. Like, Wei's looks like it's one of those situations
where, hey, look at my octopus pie here. And Eve is in the background and she takes a photo,
(24:16):
clearly incriminating. I think I killed Corey. I'm still here. I'm just trying to catch my breath.
Anyway, later on, this photo is actually sent out by Wei, who's acting as Eve in a way to get the
professor fired, because at this point, the professor has stole all of her work and trying
(24:37):
to claim it his own. And she wants revenge. She gets him fired. She's able to steal back
the anecdote that he created based on her and her father's findings. And he was just trying to claim
the whole thing. So Wei decides she's going to dress up as Eve. And, dude, I don't know how she
pulls it off because Wei and Eve are completely different skin types. And Eve is built completely
(25:04):
differently, you know, just like up top and everything. So I don't know how she pulled that
off. I mean, you can do the contacts, you can do the hair and all that. But that's hard to pull off
being a Chinese person and having to look like a white person. She did a good job. She did a great
job. And I was thinking in that scene, like, did she just use all of her flesh and turn like into
(25:27):
Eve? Immediately, that's what I was thinking. But then it turns out she just started cutting Eve up
in pieces because she needed to feed the dog. Well, it's so crazy. It is an insane movie, man.
It's insane. Now, with Eve, we didn't mention this. We didn't mention how Wei killed Eve. Wei,
(25:47):
most brutal fucking Jeffrey Dahmer type Wei, takes a drill. Oh, yeah. Drills it into her skull,
turns her brain to mashed potatoes. And that's that. So it's pretty gnarly, man. It was gnarly
because Angie was running to try and escape Wei because Wei's chasing her around the house.
Yeah. And Eve sits down and hides behind like was like a table or something. Oh, no, she hides
(26:11):
behind a bush. Right. And then she thinks the smart idea is to hide in the pool and hold her
breath. Oh, that's what it was. Yeah. So she holds her breath and I don't know how Wei found her,
but holds her head underwater and then drills right into the top of her skull. Yeah. So not only is
she drowning, her brain is turning to mush. Yeah, that was it looked so good. Yeah, it looked really
(26:33):
good. That's what Jeffrey Dahmer did to one of his victims. He drilled a hole in them to try to make
them into zombies. Yep. Except I think Wei went a little too deep. Kinda. Clearly too deep because
Eve is very dead. Uppercase DED dead. Yep. No coming back. Nope. No coming back. So this is when
Eve brings, I'm assuming just brings her inside, cuts her off, all that stuff, uses her flesh to
(26:57):
become Eve slash Wei. But the movie's insane. And eventually just gets to this point where Wei is
kind of spiraling out of control because she can't keep the face going for too long. And at some
point she's just running around faceless, man. She has no face on. Yeah, but you see all the gross
muscle and whatever the fuck's under her face, bone. Yeah. You know what we didn't talk about?
(27:20):
The first attempt for her to just pull off her own face. Oh yeah. It was so gross because we were
talking about those wounds separating. Yeah. She started digging around in those wounds with her
fingers trying to peel it off. Oh yeah, the first time it was like very clean. She's using a scalpel
type shit and she pulls her face off. But then she started losing her fucking mind. She's just ripping
(27:44):
at her face at this point. Just pulling it off chunks. Man. Brutal. Absolutely brutal.
And it was close up. They gave us a close up of this. Oh yeah, they weren't fucking around in
these visual effects. Nope. No, it was actually very, very gross. It was quite disgusting. In a
good way. In a good way. I don't want to make it sound like I'm shitting on it if Sasha Rainbow
(28:06):
ever checks this episode out. Oh yeah, that's right. No, Sasha, we're not shitting on this the
slightest bit. You'll hear our final score at the end. But dude, okay, so yeah, the cops are closing
in. They're realizing that some fuckery is happening at the house because one of the
neighbors came in and saw that Wei kidnapped the professor, strapped him down to a table, and did
the other anecdote that she had which killed her father. So it's like taking over his face and she
(28:33):
stabs a fucking straw into his mouth. So the skin takes over his face, but he can still breathe
through this little straw hole. At least she wasn't entirely torturing him. She caught, what is it,
courteous enough to let him breathe? Yeah, oh yeah. And courteous in that aspect, but at this point
she's a serial killer because she's killing a bunch of people. I mean, she killed two of her friends.
(28:56):
She killed that other girl that she was friends with who really wanted to be friends with her,
and that was in the kitchen. You remember that, right? Yeah, but now I don't remember how she
killed her. Yeah, I can't remember how she did. I know it was in the kitchen. I think she just
fucking whacked her with something, and that's what happened there. But now she's at a serial
killer level because she killed three friends, and Angie's boyfriend is dead. I wouldn't call him
(29:17):
a victim of Wei killing him because he kind of did it to himself. He fell off a cliff while Wei
was making out with him as Angie. Yeah, kind of crazy. So she's running through the streets at
this point. Face is gone. Cops are on her tail, and she's got to find a place to hide. She sees Joe,
and she decides to get under this blanket that Joe is under. So she's under this blanket with Joe,
(29:42):
and she's got the anecdote, and it's broke. And it must have broke on her face and his,
and they started molding together. So two people's faces became one and just molded into this fucking
mass of two human beings, and they couldn't find her. It's like she completely vanished off the
(30:03):
face of the earth because she just completely morphed into another human being. And this kind
of reminds me of the substance where that final scene where Elizabeth Sparkles started turning
into that freaking monster thing because she could only do like half of an injection of that
substance. And it gets really fucking... Oh wait, no. The young version tried to do another copy of
(30:25):
a copy type deal, and that's when it turned into like this fucking giant monster blob looking thing,
and that's what she kind of looked like because Angie's aunt was running, and she thought she
saw someone that looked like her, and she looked over and saw this grotesque man, which is really
way mixed with Joe. And pretty much end scene, fates of black. That's how the movie ends.
(30:46):
Completely bonkers. Absolutely bonkers movie. This movie is nuts. Yep. Absolutely insane. Like I said,
I was before when I sent you that trailer last year, I was looking forward to this. It was on
my letter box. Body Horror is like, I love it. And you don't get a ton of good ones, really good ones.
And then, you know, last year, of course, we had the substance and now we have this. Didn't we do
(31:08):
something similar recently? Yeah, I think we did. What are they? I feel like if I know though,
off the top of my head. Let me see. Yeah. Just go through our previous episodes, everyone just go
through our previous episodes and let us know and just listen to every single one there while you're
at it. Actually, did we call Street Trash Body Horror? Technically it is. We could call it Body
Horror because of that substance that's killing everyone and their bodies are just turning into
(31:33):
fucking colorful mashup of mess. Yeah. OK. So we'll consider that Body Horror. But there are a lot
of hits and misses in Body Horror. I mean, I can think Re-Animator, absolute classic Body Horror.
Right. That's an absolute classic substance is going to be a bonafide classic. Yeah. It will be
brilliant. Good for them, by the way, for being Oscar nominated, like all over the place. Yeah,
(31:56):
I really hope she wins it. She needs it. Yeah, that would be more. She's never won one before,
I believe, right? No, no. The first award she really won was that Golden Globe for her portrayal in
the substance. So she said something like this is like the first award I've ever gotten.
And people always said that I wasn't going to be an award winner. Yeah, right. Which is such a shitty
(32:19):
thing for people to say. Yep. I mean, she kind of fell out of the public eye a little bit. I don't
really... I feel like she disappeared for a little while and then she came back and she did substance.
And I just watched Landman and she's in that show. Oh, really? Yeah. She's the one that just
finished season one. Yeah, she's in that show pretty much every episode. I didn't see it.
Oh, it's so fucking good. Is it? So she's doing really well. You know what? I can tell you what's
(32:44):
going to happen here. Even if she doesn't win an Oscar, she's going to be set for more and more
movies for sure. Because same thing happened with Michael Keaton. Michael Keaton wasn't really doing
much. Batman. Then he got Batman. Well, he got Batman later on, but he got Birdman. Remember he
was in Birdman? Yeah. And he got nominated for an Oscar for that. So got nominated for an Oscar. Now
(33:07):
you're seeing him in all these movies. You're seeing him in Spider-Man, Homecoming, and you're
seeing him in all these movies. Freaking Beetlejuice, he becomes Batman again. He's doing all these
things. Sometimes that's all you need is that little push from your peers to be nominated for
an award like this. To really come back and kind of spark your career again. I'm pretty sure the
(33:27):
same thing is going to happen with Brendan Fraser. I haven't really seen him up for anything at the
moment regarding roles. I think the last thing he did was The Will. Yeah, which killed it. Yeah.
Didn't he win an Oscar for that? Yes, he did. Best actor. Good for him. Well deserved. That movie is
brutal. That's another body horror movie. Yeah. Not quite. Not quite. Right. The director. What's
(33:51):
the director's name? Of what? Darren Aronofsky. Thank you. Darren Aronofsky. He does some body
horror stuff if you think about it. Have you ever seen Black Swan? Yeah. That's body horror, I think.
When I was looking up movies that are considered body horror, that's one of them. And I think it's
because of the turning into the swan type deal at the end, which is fucking brutal, man. You see like
(34:15):
the legs kind of breaking and everything in some of those scenes. It's fucking gnarly. That's another
old one. Natalie Portman was amazing in it though. Oh, she was great. Great movie. I watched it like
two years ago for the first time. And I said to myself, why did I wait so long? Yeah, that's
definitely one that I've for some reason just never, I haven't gone back and rewatched it since
(34:36):
it came out. There's really no need, especially if you have a problem with bones cracking. For you,
I love that shit. Yeah, like me. I know you love that shit. You get off on it. I don't. I hear it
and I go, I know. That's why I love sending them to you. I hate you for that. Yeah, I know. So yeah,
there's some really great body horror movies. I mean, how do you feel about Tusk? Tusk is like,
(35:00):
Tusk was kind of a cringy, but like, I honestly don't know if I would have watched it if it wasn't
a Kevin Smith movie, because Kevin Smith's one of my favorite directors of all time.
And I think I only watched it because he directed it. Okay. You know, yeah, Justin
Long was in it and stuff, but like, I don't give a shit about Justin Long. What are you talking
about? That's our scream king right there. To says who? Says everyone. Okay. What is scream
(35:23):
prince then? What the fuck? What does that even mean? I don't know. It's not quite king,
but he's like a prince. Yeah, but what does that mean? Like, what is he king of Hollywood or horror?
He's in all these horror movies, more than most men. Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah. No, he's in a lot,
man. I feel like I see him in everything. Keepers, Creepers, Tusk. Young Justin Long. Yeah.
(35:43):
Yeah. Barbarian. Now you're going to make me look it up. Look it up. Oh, drag me to hell.
I can just keep going. So he did the Goosebumps one. Oh, that piece of shit. It's a wonderful
knife from 2023. Oh yeah, that's right. Yeah, that was no good. Clerks three, Barbarian,
House of Darkness, some Disney stuff. Yep. Oh, Creep Show. Yeah. Okay. So yeah, he's definitely
(36:06):
done a lot. A lot of a lot of horror stuff, but yeah, he's done a lot of horror stuff. So,
I think we can get into it though. Corey, what do you give Grafted? So this gets a five out of five
for me. 2025 is off to a great start in horror. This was pretty crazy from start to finish,
and I'm so glad the people that bullied Wei ended up getting fucked up. It made me so happy,
and I feel like this movie got a happy ending because of it, as fucked up as that is. Body
(36:30):
horror can be a huge miss most of the time, but this was really good, and I'm hoping between
the substance and this, maybe we'll get the genre revived. Yeah, maybe, because I don't feel like we
see a lot of body horror movies. I mean, we're starting to get a little bit now because of the
substance, or it's more at the forefront now, I should say. But dude, here we go again though.
(36:51):
We're turning into five out of five whores. Yeah. This is what, week 10 with five out of five? I
know. It keeps happening. I swear, we're not paid to just give five out of five scores on this.
No. But same for me, five out of five, easy. This movie was absolutely bonkers. I've seen
this girl essentially diving deeper and deeper into depravity. It seems to be a common trope
(37:16):
with scientists in horror movies where they come up with a formula and will do anything to make
sure that they retain it. That's essentially what's happening here is the professor was trying to
claim it as his, but she wasn't having it. The practical effects were nuts, and even the virtual,
like the VFX or virtual effects look pretty good blending the two together. Score was pretty cool,
(37:37):
which we didn't even talk about. I like the score. Yeah, it was very good. Yeah. Score was pretty
cool. Hoping for a vinyl of that. Yeah. I'll have to get it. Well, maybe. Maybe Waxworks will come
up with it. Who knows? Fingers crossed. Fingers crossed. Yeah, I would get down on that. So the
premise overall was fucked up. I did see some parts in this movie that could be comparable to
The Substance, Reanimator, and Dark Man. So I'm wondering if those were perhaps inspirations.
(38:02):
Pretty great movie. Highly recommend it. It's on Shudder if you want to see it. Definitely check
it out. All right, everyone, be sure to like, follow, and subscribe on Facebook, X, Instagram,
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(39:16):
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don't forget to drink your beans.
Warning 30 screams or less may contain spoilers about movies that have recently been released.
(00:06):
If you haven't seen the movie go watch it, come back and enjoy the show. Or if you don't want
to waste your time watching the movie and rather have two random horror dudes watch it for you,
we got you covered as well. Welcome everyone to 30 screams or less,
(00:38):
a horror movie podcast where we review horror movies in 30 minutes or less. Today's movie we're
going to be talking about is grafted. It's directed by Sasha Rainbow, written by Lee Murray,
Sasha Rainbow, and this is a fun name to say, ready for this? And Mia Mara Mara. I love the
last name. Mia Mara Mara. Love it. It's awesome. It's fun. Starring Joanna Sun as Wei, Eden Hart
(01:01):
as, okay, here's where it gets confusing, Eve slash Wei and Jess Hong as Angela slash Wei.
The plot of the movie is a bright but socially awkward exchange student takes her craving for
popularity to horrifying heights. But before we get into it, Corey, last night I was looking in
the mirror and you know what? My beard was looking gnarly and I said to myself, I can't look like
(01:25):
this. I got to do something. So I decided to break out Beard Octane's beard wash and conditioner,
along with their beard oil and dude, my beard looked amazing. I'm glad you turned me on to
Beard Octane. Yeah, of course. Like I said, I've been using their products for years and I can
vouch for them. And whether you're pounding IPAs or chopping wood, you got to look your best.
(01:46):
Visit beard octane.com and use the code 30SCREAMS10 at checkout for a 10% discount. It helps us. And
like I said, the products are absolutely incredible. They're local too. They're based
out of Connecticut. So help them out and support small businesses. We're not just slinging beard
grooming supplies. We've been using them for a while. Yeah, we have. 30 Screams RLS starts now.
(02:06):
Corey, what did you think of Grafted? Shudder with an absolute banger to start off 2025.
Yep. It borrows a lot from other films, but it did a lot to remain original, which I really
commend the director and writer for. I do remember watching the trailer for this at some point last
year. I know I sent it to you and being intrigued because body horror who fucking say no to that.
But then I completely forgot about the movie until it popped up on my shutter while I was browsing
(02:30):
the other day. And I'm really glad I watched it. Dude, I'm glad I watched it too. This movie was
gnarly and it does have a lot of resemblance to the substance. So if you'd like the substance,
you would love this movie because it's body horror. Body horror is fucking so gnarly sometimes. And
this is a lot of skin grafting stuff. That's what the name is about. Grafting or Grafted. But
(02:54):
there's a lot of skin being removed and replaced. Oh yeah. And all sorts of insanity. This movie is
nuts. It's absolutely nuts. Man, I'm watching it and I'm just uncomfortable seeing all the skin
getting removed. And the beginning of this movie is bonkers. Yeah, that's what I was going to say.
(03:15):
It starts off just crazy. Yeah, it starts off crazy. Now I thought you were messing with me
a bit because I started seeing the subtitles and everything was in Mandarin. I'm like, shit,
I'm really going to have to pay attention to this now. And it's kind of a pain in the
dick because I have to type out my notes while watching the subtitles. So I'm thinking, okay,
(03:38):
I'm going to have to deal with this for an hour and a half again. But it does switch. It does make
the switch from Mandarin to English. Eventually does that because she's doing all that stuff.
And I believe it was in China. She was living with her father. They both have this genetic
deformity with their skin. And the father was trying to find a way to graft new skin onto the
(03:59):
face and replace that deformity. So he started doing that and shit went haywire, man. First of
all, quickly, quickly went real haywire quickly. First of all, where the hell do you have this
random flesh? I don't know if he cut it off of himself because he was experimenting or if,
(04:19):
I don't know, if he was like a professor or something, they probably had access to
people who shit the bed. That's right. Because she kind of did the same thing later on in the
movie where she took a skin graft from her thigh and then replaced it with the fake skin and it
fixed the whole thing. So the father was trying to do that. It's his work to begin with. He tried to
(04:39):
figure out the whole cure and everything. And dude, the fuckery that happened to him was.
Dude, I thought legit was turning into the mask. I was like, I thought I'm watching a horror movie.
Is this like a Korean mask remake? You know what I mean? And then all of a sudden this dude starts
(05:00):
stabbing himself in the face with an X-Acto knife or a scalpel. Yeah, because he's trying to cut a
hole where his mouth should be. Yeah. The skin went over his mouth and his nose so he couldn't
breathe. Yeah. Oh man. Brutal. Absolutely brutal. Yeah. He poked himself in the face like eight or
nine times with a scalpel. Yeah. And the daughter kept trying to do it too, just to try to get his
(05:22):
mouth open, but it was not happening. It just kept growing and kept growing. Have you ever seen the
movie Dick Tracy? Not since I was a kid. I mean, I've definitely seen it. It's an old, old movie.
So the father's face kind of reminded me of, I think, No Face, which was really just played by
Madonna back in that movie. And it was just a skin face. That's all it was. So that's what happened
(05:45):
to this father. He basically turned into like this skin face and he died because he couldn't
breathe. And it's important we mentioned this because it does happen later on in the film.
And it's kind of cool how it happens later on because it's more intentional as opposed to
accidental. So the father's done all this work and he's got all these findings. At this point,
(06:05):
Wei is grown up. She's about to go to college. She actually brings his book of work with her
because her goal is to follow in his footsteps and try to finish what he started. And she pulls it
off. But man, the professor wants what this girl Wei has been working on the whole time because
(06:26):
like I see in all these movies with professors, they're going to lose their funding or tenure or
some bullshit and their whole division is going to get shut down unless they come up with some
sort of breakthrough. Now he saw her with this breakthrough and how she had this like book of
tests that the father's done and she found a way to actually make it happen. Have you ever seen
(06:46):
the corpse flower other than in this movie? Oh, no, I haven't. I had no idea what that was
in this movie. Yeah, that's an actual thing. I think it blooms every eight years or something.
That's an odd piece of knowledge that you have there, Steve. I know. I looked into it one time.
Let's see. Corpse flower bloom. Let's see. And it's supposed to smell like shit. Just, oh, cool.
(07:10):
Like not actual shit, but just like awful. Oh, I'm wrong. I am way wrong. Yeah, don't edit that out.
No, it's even longer than eight years. OK. Forty. Oh, yeah. Just a couple more than four.
Five times the amount, man. You were close. I was under. I wasn't over at least. But those things
take 40 years to bloom. So I guess it's I think it's only for a few minutes and then it like
(07:34):
fucking dies and goes back into its state of hibernation for another 40 years. What a dumb
flower. You spend 40 years growing and then you just die within seconds. Yeah. Can you imagine
that? You just like watching this flower. You're getting really fucking old at this point. Let's
say you start planting this thing at 40 and now you have to live until you 80 just to see the thing
(07:55):
bloom so you can die the next day, probably. I would never make it that long.
No, I don't want to be here until I'm 80. Well, I don't know. I think I'm going to be here until 150.
Not going to what you're like halfway there. Fuck you. Not halfway there. Almost.
(08:16):
My God, man. So she meets the professor who's world renowned for his work in that kind of
field with skin grafting and such. And he's just trying to find this new way so that way he can
get his funding and he finds Wei's book and they're working together. They're trying to come up with
the final piece of the puzzle. Wei ends up actually going to that corpse flower that was like locked
(08:41):
off. She just broke into the place and took like a piece from it and she starts mixing it with her
and experiments and she's like, fuck it. I'm going to try it. And she just fucking skin grafts and
pulls all this skin off her thigh and like, all right, well, let's put on this new fake flesh.
And look how she decided to test it on herself. Hey, I mean, what else are you going to do? You're
(09:03):
going to test it on a fucking rando? They go kill one of those fucking bitches. Yeah. Oh, I hated
them. All of them. Oh, they all sucked, man. I'm glad they got fucking dead and I'm glad they brutally
died. Yeah, they all got gut. Fuck them. They're awful people. Awful, clicky, school girl type
people. They're in college, but they still act like teenagers. Like they're in high school and
(09:24):
they've got their popular click deal. I think it's college, right? It's not high school. Yeah, I
think it was actually high school. They were all pretty young. Oh, that's fucked up. But the girl
that she went to live with, I was kind of confused on that, was Angie her sister or her cousin?
See, that's what I was thinking. I got a little confused along the way, whether it was her sister
(09:44):
or cousin. I think I want to go with cousin because that's what I wrote down as cousin. But I could
be wrong because I think that was Way's mother or maybe aunt, to be honest. I think it's aunt and
Angie was the aunt's daughter. See, that makes sense if it was the aunt she's living with and her
cousin lives there too. So I'm going to go with that was her aunt and her cousin that lived there.
(10:06):
So, but the cousin and she goes by Angela or Angie. Yeah. And she sucked, man. She was such a douche
to Way. Her and Eve. What's that? Her and Eve. Oh yeah, they were both awful. This whole thing
could have been avoided if they weren't such dicks because Way was really trying hard to just be
friends with them and it just wasn't clicking. And it's not that they were bad or anything to
(10:32):
begin with. They didn't understand Way and Way was trying to fit in and it just didn't work.
It pissed her off. It really fucked her up. And now it starts turning into this whole fucking
situation where it's like we animate her, where the scientist is going fucking crazy. I know.
This, I love this part so much because like eventually was Angie the first person she killed?
(10:54):
Yes. Okay. The chopstick to the eyeball.
Gnarly. Yeah, it was disgusting, but eventually ends up cutting her face off. And the whole
transformation anytime she wears someone's face, it looked amazing. The practical effects.
Practical effects were awesome. But yeah, so anytime she would wear it or this particular time,
she had to learn how to be Angie. So she starts acting like her, like the way she walks, the way
(11:18):
she dresses, tries to talk the way she talks at school. It was so funny and she did perfect.
She did. You know what I found funny is Way has really specific teeth. So I'm sure you saw that
where one tooth is kind of going over the other. Yeah. I actually made a note about this. Oh,
you did. I know where you're going with it. Yeah. So every girl that she actually decided to
(11:41):
take their face and put it on hers, all had the same teeth. So the continuity there was actually
pretty awesome. Yeah. I'm glad they kept that in because that's the one thing that didn't change.
And that's important because teeth are very distinguishable. And like if these pristine
looking girls all of a sudden had really fucked up teeth out of nowhere, some people be like,
what's up with your smile? What's going on here? Very easy to recognize that something's up and
(12:07):
they all had the same smile. It's weird, though. You would think that they would have their normal
teeth and shit if she wanted to try to really be like them, but that's hard for her to pull off.
She's not a teeth person. She doesn't go to dentistry school, whatever. She's not going to be a dentist.
She's working with skin here. So I thought that continuity was really cool. That's funny. We both
noticed that. Yeah. It's the little things, man. Little things in the movie you have to really pay
(12:31):
attention to because here's what would have happened. If all their teeth were exactly the same,
we would have picked up on it immediately and be like, what about the teeth? What about the eyes?
Yeah. That's what's kind of confusing to me because the equipment that they had was
confusing to me because the acquaintances of these people that she was killing didn't notice
that it wasn't that particular person. You would think they would. The only thing that changed
(12:54):
that I recall is the face. The body stayed the same. And another thing is the teeth. Yeah. No
one noticed the different teeth overnight. I guess not. I do know she put in contacts at least so
she can match eye colors and such. Yeah. She did the contacts out. Yeah. It's just, yeah, the little
things they did to make it seem believable. Yeah. You know what I was getting on this? You ever see
(13:16):
Dark Man? Another one I haven't seen in a long time, but I did see it. The dude's cape was the shit.
Yes, it was. I mean, it's Leslie Nielsen and it's directed by Sam Raimi. You should go back and watch
it. It's a good one, but it gave me Dark Man vibes. But except with Dark Man, he was working with
prosthetics. So like fake prosthetic nose, face, all this stuff. And they were more like masks.
(13:39):
So they weren't like a full replacement of the skin. It wasn't a cape. It was like a full like
trench coat. Yeah. But it almost looked like he had a cape on because he's like swinging around.
It's fine in the air, all that stuff. Really cool campy movie, but that's another body horror type
movie. I wouldn't even say horror though. More like action, right? That's kind of what I would
think is more body action. But we all know Sam Raimi. He's good with action. He's great with
(14:03):
horror. Yeah. He's definitely got some crap that probably tarnished his reputation. Like maybe some
of the older Spider-Man stuff. What? You don't like the older Spider-Man stuff? Oh my God.
I don't know, man. The Tobey Maguire stuff wasn't a huge fan of. I like Andrew Garfield's Spider-Man
and I love Tom Holland's Spider-Man. Tom Holland's Spider-Man is a whole different
(14:24):
fucking ball game. Can't even compare. But I enjoyed the Tobey Maguire Spider-Man. The first
one was great. Second one, I feel like might've been better. Third one is up for debate. I think
the best scene in that movie is the Tobey Maguire becoming a douche and doing his little fucking
strut. Was that one the one with Venom or is that the Andrew Garfield's Spider-Man? No, that's the
(14:46):
one. That's the 30 second screen time of Venom. Yeah. Everybody waits fucking three movies to
finally see Venom and then they fight at the top of a building and then it's over. Yeah. He just
uses a bell sound to get rid of Venom, get him out of Eddie Brock and then Eddie Brock tries to go
for it, gets blown up and see you later Venom. That's it. And that's the last time we'll probably
(15:07):
ever see Spider-Man and Venom on the big screen. I don't know. I've heard rumblings about Venom being
introduced into MCU, but I don't know, man. I mean, they've had three Venom movies. I've only seen
the first one. I haven't seen the other two. I've seen the first two. I haven't watched the third
one yet. They were surprisingly pretty good and knowing that Sony makes piece of shit movies,
(15:28):
it was decent. I will say it was decent. Yeah. The first one was decent. I'm going to have to
go and check out the other two because Carnage is fucking awesome. He's just a badass Venom.
Well, I mean, Venom is pretty badass anyway. I play as Venom whenever you play the Marvel's
rivals game. Yeah, but you're not going to see Carnage in the movies. No, probably not. We won't
(15:49):
be seeing him next to the Avengers or anything. You see Cletus Kasady at the end of, I think it
was the second movie. I don't think Carnage has been a thing yet in the universe, but who knows?
I thought they said the third Venom movie was the last one. Yeah. The last dance type deal. Yeah.
Well, that's actually, yeah, I think that was the subtitle. It's like Venom last dance. It's like,
(16:09):
cool. Okay. Whatever. Hmm. All right. But yeah, we got to get back into this. I forgot we were
actually talking about a movie again. We were. Well, we're talking about a bunch of movies at
this point. Which is funny because there's another one that we loved, but we rambled. Dude, it's our
ADD. We just fucking go off the rails. Both of us. Every time. Every time. Every single time. But
(16:30):
where was I? Oh, we were talking about the replacing of faces and stuff like that. And man,
she really started juggling these girls lives. Oh, so awesome. She's got three phones lined up.
And she takes their phones. Yeah. And she's going with Angie and she's going with Eve and she's got
hers and she's just going back and forth with all of them. Lot to juggle. So one of the scenes that
(16:54):
I really love in this is when Wei's weighing the face of Angie and then the face starts dripping,
like you slowly see the wounds start opening up and the skin starts falling off. I just thought
from a filmmaking standpoint, that just looked amazing. It looked great. The practical effects
on that were great. This was happening with Eve's boyfriend. Oh, no, not Eve's boyfriend.
(17:14):
Angie's boyfriend. Sorry, there's Angie, we. They're all the fucking same person basically.
So not we, Wei, Wei, Wei, Wei, Wei, Kurds and Wei, Kurds and Wei, Wei protein, Wei protein, bro.
Get some Wei protein, bro. Yeah. We just did it again.
(17:38):
Just did the yeah at the same time. Corey and I are in the same wavelength today. Synergized.
Synergized. Oh, geez. OK. Yeah, big word. That's actually. Yeah, that's when she was like making out
with Angie's boyfriend. And is that what it was? OK. Yeah. So she's making out with Angie's boyfriend.
He's thinking she's Angie at this point because she's wearing Angie's face and it starts basically
(18:03):
melting off. And that's what kind of reminded me of Darkman, because in Darkman, he can only be out
in the sun for like, I think, two hours at a time or something. OK. Before his face started bubbling
and melting and then he has to get the hell out of there. So that kind of reminded me of Darkman a
little bit. All right. Yeah, I'm not going to say like maybe maybe that was a reference because
(18:23):
there's just a ton of stuff I think that they got inspiration from when they made this movie.
100 percent. And I'm questioning whether they got influence from The Substance because those movies
came out really close to each other. I was reading that this grafted movie was actually made in 2023.
Was it? Yeah. That's I just I think Shudder must have picked it up. Oh, maybe. You know,
(18:47):
streaming services do that. Yeah. So this technically came out before The Substance.
OK. Now we're wondering, was the director or the writer of The Substance, did they see this
beforehand? Because there's some real fucking similarities, man. Yeah. Especially the end of
the movie. But we didn't talk about Wei finding her homeless friend there. Yeah, she made a friend
(19:11):
with what was his name? Joe. Joe. Yeah. And it's important we bring up Joe because like you see him
here and there in the movie and Wei will talk to him kind of in passing, nothing big. So you're
just thinking that she's talking to this homeless person, but he becomes a real pivotal character
later on in the movie and he gets fucked up like one place, wrong time. Oh, yeah. He gets it bad.
(19:34):
Oh, my God. He gets it real bad. But it's getting to this point where she meets Joe and they kind
of have a kinship and the talk and things like that. She's on the outs with the professor who's
banging Eve at this point. And that's why I was questioning, like, it has to be college, man. It
can't be high school because otherwise we're talking some fucking diddling happening here. Yes.
(19:59):
So at this point, she's on the outs with the professor who's sleeping with Eve. And Eve thinks
that there's some fuckery happening between the professor and Wei because there's one real
incriminating scene where Wei actually cuts off the skin. She does the skin graft and she mixes it
with the corpse flower and puts it back on her thigh and sees it just completely get fixed.
(20:24):
And she's trying to show the professor and he was just trying to hook up with Eve. And dude,
he's wearing the weirdest protection because it's on his hands instead of wearing it below.
Yeah, it was a little I couldn't figure out why that was happening either, but I didn't really care
that much. I was enjoying it too much. Yeah. Well, maybe he's one of those people's like,
(20:45):
I can't do these things on my hands. I can only do everything else. Otherwise, I'm spreading germs.
Maybe. Maybe. Going to the produce department with fucking rubber gloves on. Yeah. I hate that.
If you ever did that in a grocery store, fuck you. Yeah. Yeah. Fuck them. Stupid. I don't know if
some people are weird like that when it comes to bacteria. Yeah. Yeah. I know. I really during it
(21:08):
was mainly during covid people started doing that shit. Oh, man. They did all this. It's not helping
you at all. You're just like spreading germs. Yeah. It's spreading germs from one to the other.
Yeah. Idiot. Yeah. I like I love when people like they'll just bring a fruit up to their face and
they're basically smelling it like an inch from their face. And they're like, I'm going to put it
back. Cool. Just got all sorts of spit all over like this fruit that I'm about to have. I do that.
(21:33):
I boost not rockets on them first and then I put them back. Beautiful. Yeah. Nice little nice drippy
one on there looks like an oyster. Oh, God. Yeah.
Fucking oysters are like eating mucus. Yeah, I love oysters. I don't. I've done it because I commit
(21:56):
to the bit. So if someone's going to get a fucking seafood tower and no one's going to touch the shit,
I'm going to eat it because I'm like, I'm not spending this kind of money to not eat something
on this. I'm going to do it. Dude, why would anyone buy one of those and just not eat it?
I don't know. People are fucking nuts. I would say I would house one of those things. I mean,
(22:17):
they're everything. It's like shrimp and lobster and oysters and all that stuff. Yeah. Usually I
think like calamari and stuff on there too. Calamari. Now that's my jam. That's like seafood
onion rings. I never thought of it that way. I always thought of him as like little buttholes.
Oh, well, yeah, I don't need the body, though. I don't like the body. It's fucking weird.
(22:41):
I want to try it. Let me eat this octopus's chest. Octopi. What do they call it? Octopus pie.
Octopi. Yeah. Octopi. Octopus. Oh, my God. That'd be like the weirdest food ever. Octopus pie.
Yeah, I like to have my octopus pie. Don't forget to eat your octopus pie.
(23:05):
Yeah, we're switching this week. Instead of beans, we're eating octopus pie.
Holy shit. Stop me. Cut me the fuck off. I'll just keep going for too long.
Oh, man. Have fun editing that. No, I'm leaving it. I'm leaving it. Octopus pie in.
(23:30):
This whole episode is going to be a doozy again. Let's fucking hope not.
All right. So she's not using octopus pie on her thigh, but the professor.
He just rubbed it on him. No, I know. I did it on purpose.
You paused.
(23:51):
OK. Game face, Corey. Game face. I'm trying.
All right. OK, so back to it. The professor checks out
Wei's thigh and it's very incriminating. Like, Wei's looks like it's one of those situations
where, hey, look at my octopus pie here. And Eve is in the background and she takes a photo,
(24:16):
clearly incriminating. I think I killed Corey. I'm still here. I'm just trying to catch my breath.
Anyway, later on, this photo is actually sent out by Wei, who's acting as Eve in a way to get the
professor fired, because at this point, the professor has stole all of her work and trying
(24:37):
to claim it his own. And she wants revenge. She gets him fired. She's able to steal back
the anecdote that he created based on her and her father's findings. And he was just trying to claim
the whole thing. So Wei decides she's going to dress up as Eve. And, dude, I don't know how she
pulls it off because Wei and Eve are completely different skin types. And Eve is built completely
(25:04):
differently, you know, just like up top and everything. So I don't know how she pulled that
off. I mean, you can do the contacts, you can do the hair and all that. But that's hard to pull off
being a Chinese person and having to look like a white person. She did a good job. She did a great
job. And I was thinking in that scene, like, did she just use all of her flesh and turn like into
(25:27):
Eve? Immediately, that's what I was thinking. But then it turns out she just started cutting Eve up
in pieces because she needed to feed the dog. Well, it's so crazy. It is an insane movie, man.
It's insane. Now, with Eve, we didn't mention this. We didn't mention how Wei killed Eve. Wei,
(25:47):
most brutal fucking Jeffrey Dahmer type Wei, takes a drill. Oh, yeah. Drills it into her skull,
turns her brain to mashed potatoes. And that's that. So it's pretty gnarly, man. It was gnarly
because Angie was running to try and escape Wei because Wei's chasing her around the house.
Yeah. And Eve sits down and hides behind like was like a table or something. Oh, no, she hides
(26:11):
behind a bush. Right. And then she thinks the smart idea is to hide in the pool and hold her
breath. Oh, that's what it was. Yeah. So she holds her breath and I don't know how Wei found her,
but holds her head underwater and then drills right into the top of her skull. Yeah. So not only is
she drowning, her brain is turning to mush. Yeah, that was it looked so good. Yeah, it looked really
(26:33):
good. That's what Jeffrey Dahmer did to one of his victims. He drilled a hole in them to try to make
them into zombies. Yep. Except I think Wei went a little too deep. Kinda. Clearly too deep because
Eve is very dead. Uppercase DED dead. Yep. No coming back. Nope. No coming back. So this is when
Eve brings, I'm assuming just brings her inside, cuts her off, all that stuff, uses her flesh to
(26:57):
become Eve slash Wei. But the movie's insane. And eventually just gets to this point where Wei is
kind of spiraling out of control because she can't keep the face going for too long. And at some
point she's just running around faceless, man. She has no face on. Yeah, but you see all the gross
muscle and whatever the fuck's under her face, bone. Yeah. You know what we didn't talk about?
(27:20):
The first attempt for her to just pull off her own face. Oh yeah. It was so gross because we were
talking about those wounds separating. Yeah. She started digging around in those wounds with her
fingers trying to peel it off. Oh yeah, the first time it was like very clean. She's using a scalpel
type shit and she pulls her face off. But then she started losing her fucking mind. She's just ripping
(27:44):
at her face at this point. Just pulling it off chunks. Man. Brutal. Absolutely brutal.
And it was close up. They gave us a close up of this. Oh yeah, they weren't fucking around in
these visual effects. Nope. No, it was actually very, very gross. It was quite disgusting. In a
good way. In a good way. I don't want to make it sound like I'm shitting on it if Sasha Rainbow
(28:06):
ever checks this episode out. Oh yeah, that's right. No, Sasha, we're not shitting on this the
slightest bit. You'll hear our final score at the end. But dude, okay, so yeah, the cops are closing
in. They're realizing that some fuckery is happening at the house because one of the
neighbors came in and saw that Wei kidnapped the professor, strapped him down to a table, and did
the other anecdote that she had which killed her father. So it's like taking over his face and she
(28:33):
stabs a fucking straw into his mouth. So the skin takes over his face, but he can still breathe
through this little straw hole. At least she wasn't entirely torturing him. She caught, what is it,
courteous enough to let him breathe? Yeah, oh yeah. And courteous in that aspect, but at this point
she's a serial killer because she's killing a bunch of people. I mean, she killed two of her friends.
(28:56):
She killed that other girl that she was friends with who really wanted to be friends with her,
and that was in the kitchen. You remember that, right? Yeah, but now I don't remember how she
killed her. Yeah, I can't remember how she did. I know it was in the kitchen. I think she just
fucking whacked her with something, and that's what happened there. But now she's at a serial
killer level because she killed three friends, and Angie's boyfriend is dead. I wouldn't call him
(29:17):
a victim of Wei killing him because he kind of did it to himself. He fell off a cliff while Wei
was making out with him as Angie. Yeah, kind of crazy. So she's running through the streets at
this point. Face is gone. Cops are on her tail, and she's got to find a place to hide. She sees Joe,
and she decides to get under this blanket that Joe is under. So she's under this blanket with Joe,
(29:42):
and she's got the anecdote, and it's broke. And it must have broke on her face and his,
and they started molding together. So two people's faces became one and just molded into this fucking
mass of two human beings, and they couldn't find her. It's like she completely vanished off the
(30:03):
face of the earth because she just completely morphed into another human being. And this kind
of reminds me of the substance where that final scene where Elizabeth Sparkles started turning
into that freaking monster thing because she could only do like half of an injection of that
substance. And it gets really fucking... Oh wait, no. The young version tried to do another copy of
(30:25):
a copy type deal, and that's when it turned into like this fucking giant monster blob looking thing,
and that's what she kind of looked like because Angie's aunt was running, and she thought she
saw someone that looked like her, and she looked over and saw this grotesque man, which is really
way mixed with Joe. And pretty much end scene, fates of black. That's how the movie ends.
(30:46):
Completely bonkers. Absolutely bonkers movie. This movie is nuts. Yep. Absolutely insane. Like I said,
I was before when I sent you that trailer last year, I was looking forward to this. It was on
my letter box. Body Horror is like, I love it. And you don't get a ton of good ones, really good ones.
And then, you know, last year, of course, we had the substance and now we have this. Didn't we do
(31:08):
something similar recently? Yeah, I think we did. What are they? I feel like if I know though,
off the top of my head. Let me see. Yeah. Just go through our previous episodes, everyone just go
through our previous episodes and let us know and just listen to every single one there while you're
at it. Actually, did we call Street Trash Body Horror? Technically it is. We could call it Body
Horror because of that substance that's killing everyone and their bodies are just turning into
(31:33):
fucking colorful mashup of mess. Yeah. OK. So we'll consider that Body Horror. But there are a lot
of hits and misses in Body Horror. I mean, I can think Re-Animator, absolute classic Body Horror.
Right. That's an absolute classic substance is going to be a bonafide classic. Yeah. It will be
brilliant. Good for them, by the way, for being Oscar nominated, like all over the place. Yeah,
(31:56):
I really hope she wins it. She needs it. Yeah, that would be more. She's never won one before,
I believe, right? No, no. The first award she really won was that Golden Globe for her portrayal in
the substance. So she said something like this is like the first award I've ever gotten.
And people always said that I wasn't going to be an award winner. Yeah, right. Which is such a shitty
(32:19):
thing for people to say. Yep. I mean, she kind of fell out of the public eye a little bit. I don't
really... I feel like she disappeared for a little while and then she came back and she did substance.
And I just watched Landman and she's in that show. Oh, really? Yeah. She's the one that just
finished season one. Yeah, she's in that show pretty much every episode. I didn't see it.
Oh, it's so fucking good. Is it? So she's doing really well. You know what? I can tell you what's
(32:44):
going to happen here. Even if she doesn't win an Oscar, she's going to be set for more and more
movies for sure. Because same thing happened with Michael Keaton. Michael Keaton wasn't really doing
much. Batman. Then he got Batman. Well, he got Batman later on, but he got Birdman. Remember he
was in Birdman? Yeah. And he got nominated for an Oscar for that. So got nominated for an Oscar. Now
(33:07):
you're seeing him in all these movies. You're seeing him in Spider-Man, Homecoming, and you're
seeing him in all these movies. Freaking Beetlejuice, he becomes Batman again. He's doing all these
things. Sometimes that's all you need is that little push from your peers to be nominated for
an award like this. To really come back and kind of spark your career again. I'm pretty sure the
(33:27):
same thing is going to happen with Brendan Fraser. I haven't really seen him up for anything at the
moment regarding roles. I think the last thing he did was The Will. Yeah, which killed it. Yeah.
Didn't he win an Oscar for that? Yes, he did. Best actor. Good for him. Well deserved. That movie is
brutal. That's another body horror movie. Yeah. Not quite. Not quite. Right. The director. What's
(33:51):
the director's name? Of what? Darren Aronofsky. Thank you. Darren Aronofsky. He does some body
horror stuff if you think about it. Have you ever seen Black Swan? Yeah. That's body horror, I think.
When I was looking up movies that are considered body horror, that's one of them. And I think it's
because of the turning into the swan type deal at the end, which is fucking brutal, man. You see like
(34:15):
the legs kind of breaking and everything in some of those scenes. It's fucking gnarly. That's another
old one. Natalie Portman was amazing in it though. Oh, she was great. Great movie. I watched it like
two years ago for the first time. And I said to myself, why did I wait so long? Yeah, that's
definitely one that I've for some reason just never, I haven't gone back and rewatched it since
(34:36):
it came out. There's really no need, especially if you have a problem with bones cracking. For you,
I love that shit. Yeah, like me. I know you love that shit. You get off on it. I don't. I hear it
and I go, I know. That's why I love sending them to you. I hate you for that. Yeah, I know. So yeah,
there's some really great body horror movies. I mean, how do you feel about Tusk? Tusk is like,
(35:00):
Tusk was kind of a cringy, but like, I honestly don't know if I would have watched it if it wasn't
a Kevin Smith movie, because Kevin Smith's one of my favorite directors of all time.
And I think I only watched it because he directed it. Okay. You know, yeah, Justin
Long was in it and stuff, but like, I don't give a shit about Justin Long. What are you talking
about? That's our scream king right there. To says who? Says everyone. Okay. What is scream
(35:23):
prince then? What the fuck? What does that even mean? I don't know. It's not quite king,
but he's like a prince. Yeah, but what does that mean? Like, what is he king of Hollywood or horror?
He's in all these horror movies, more than most men. Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah. No, he's in a lot,
man. I feel like I see him in everything. Keepers, Creepers, Tusk. Young Justin Long. Yeah.
(35:43):
Yeah. Barbarian. Now you're going to make me look it up. Look it up. Oh, drag me to hell.
I can just keep going. So he did the Goosebumps one. Oh, that piece of shit. It's a wonderful
knife from 2023. Oh yeah, that's right. Yeah, that was no good. Clerks three, Barbarian,
House of Darkness, some Disney stuff. Yep. Oh, Creep Show. Yeah. Okay. So yeah, he's definitely
(36:06):
done a lot. A lot of a lot of horror stuff, but yeah, he's done a lot of horror stuff. So,
I think we can get into it though. Corey, what do you give Grafted? So this gets a five out of five
for me. 2025 is off to a great start in horror. This was pretty crazy from start to finish,
and I'm so glad the people that bullied Wei ended up getting fucked up. It made me so happy,
and I feel like this movie got a happy ending because of it, as fucked up as that is. Body
(36:30):
horror can be a huge miss most of the time, but this was really good, and I'm hoping between
the substance and this, maybe we'll get the genre revived. Yeah, maybe, because I don't feel like we
see a lot of body horror movies. I mean, we're starting to get a little bit now because of the
substance, or it's more at the forefront now, I should say. But dude, here we go again though.
(36:51):
We're turning into five out of five whores. Yeah. This is what, week 10 with five out of five? I
know. It keeps happening. I swear, we're not paid to just give five out of five scores on this.
No. But same for me, five out of five, easy. This movie was absolutely bonkers. I've seen
this girl essentially diving deeper and deeper into depravity. It seems to be a common trope
(37:16):
with scientists in horror movies where they come up with a formula and will do anything to make
sure that they retain it. That's essentially what's happening here is the professor was trying to
claim it as his, but she wasn't having it. The practical effects were nuts, and even the virtual,
like the VFX or virtual effects look pretty good blending the two together. Score was pretty cool,
(37:37):
which we didn't even talk about. I like the score. Yeah, it was very good. Yeah. Score was pretty
cool. Hoping for a vinyl of that. Yeah. I'll have to get it. Well, maybe. Maybe Waxworks will come
up with it. Who knows? Fingers crossed. Fingers crossed. Yeah, I would get down on that. So the
premise overall was fucked up. I did see some parts in this movie that could be comparable to
The Substance, Reanimator, and Dark Man. So I'm wondering if those were perhaps inspirations.
(38:02):
Pretty great movie. Highly recommend it. It's on Shudder if you want to see it. Definitely check
it out. All right, everyone, be sure to like, follow, and subscribe on Facebook, X, Instagram,
TikTok, threads, and YouTube. Leave us a five-star review on all podcast platforms so we can get
some more exposure. Of course, tell your friends. Both our intro and outro music are courtesy of
Andrew Scott Bell. Be sure to check out Andrew on all major streaming platforms. And if you see
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Winnie the Pooh, Blood and Honey, On Vinyl, In the Wild, be sure to pick it up. We're also part of
the Shining Wizards Network. Be sure to visit ShiningWizardsNetwork.com. They're an awesome
podcast network ranging from wrestling to heavy metal, horror, all that good stuff. So check that
out. Visit 30ScreamsOfLess.com for all previous episodes and transcripts to go with those
episodes. Also, check out BeardOctane.com for their whole line of grooming supplies. And be sure to
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use the code 30Screams10 at checkout for 10% off your order. And if there's anything you want us
to review, send an email to 30ScreamsOfLess at gma.com or hit us up on social media. Use hashtag
30ScreamsOfLess. And also, we have some awesome merch for sale on our website. So definitely check
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our hosting costs. I'm Steve. I'm Corey. And thanks for listening to 30 Screams Of Less. And
don't forget to drink your beans.
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