Fatal Attraction Ep. 08 - The Good Son (with Jen Howell of Every Rom Com)

Jen Howell of the Every Rom Com podcast joins to help us answer the quesion: What if the dangerous stranger who is going to wreck your life…is a kid? 

Go grab Mr. Highway and strap in for THE GOOD SON (1993) starring Macaulay Culkin and Elijah Wood, written by Ian McEwan and directed by Joseph Ruben.

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
you
Hello and welcome to Get Me Another, a podcast where we explore those movies that followedin the wake of blockbuster hits and attempted to replicate their success.

(00:20):
My name is Chris Ohannico and with me is my cohost, Justin Beam.
Once you're not afraid, Chris, you're free.
You can fly.
Really?
That is great to know because I've always wanted to, I mean, if I could just find a uhbluff overlooking the ocean, maybe I'll give it a go.
Find it, do it.
Great to be here again, as always.

(00:41):
it's great to have you.
Today is episode eight in our Get Me Another Fatal Attraction series, and we'll be lookingat what might be the strangest movie in this series, a movie that asks the question, what
if that dangerous stranger who is going to wreck your life is a kid?
And joining us today is a very special guest.
We are thrilled to have her back on the show.

(01:04):
Jennifer Howell of the Every Romcom Podcast.
Welcome back, Jen.
Well, thank you so much for that introduction.
I'm very happy to be here too.
Always have a great time talking with you.
yeah, psyched.
that's great.
Jen is the host of an absolutely terrific podcast, the EveryROMCom podcast, which by otherco-hosts, Rob and I appeared on quite recently discussing the Steve Martin classic, LA

(01:30):
Story.
And it's a terrific episode.
We had a great time on your show.
Actually, I would say, and it's not just because I'm on your show, it is one of my topfive favorite episodes we have recorded for the show.
You and Rob just did a great job, so thanks so much for being on that episode.
Oh, it was a great time.
We really enjoyed it.
Thankfully, the movie that we're talking about today is not romantic, thank God, nor acomedy.

(01:56):
So today, we're gonna dive right in.
From 1993, this is The Good Son.
you
You're You know things.

(02:16):
something.
What if there was a sport?
You did these terrible things because you liked doing them.
Didn't you say he was evil?

(02:36):
I in evil.
You I let you go.
You think you could fly?
The Good Son.
What do think this is, game?

(02:58):
oh
The Good Son was directed by Joseph Rubin, who helmed a film we discussed earlier in thisseries, Sleeping with the Enemy, starring Julia Roberts.
The film was written by bestselling English novelist Ian McEwen, writer of the novelsAtonement and Amsterdam, the latter of which won the prestigious Booker Prize.

(03:21):
So there is, at least on the writing side, a little bit of pedigree behind this movie.
The Good Son stars Macaulay Culkin, Elijah Wood,
Wendy Crewson, David Morse, and Hardcastle in McCormick's Daniel Hugh Kelly.
And the film came out a little less than three years after Macaulay Culkin's breakthroughmovie, Home Alone.
Now, it's interesting to note, Macaulay Culkin was not the actor originally in mind forthis role because this film had a very long development going back to the late 80s.

(03:52):
Ian McEwen originally wrote the film as part of a deal with 20th Century Fox.
That script found its way to producer Mary Ann Page, who worked for more than three yearstrying to get the film made.
It was in development at Universal for a little while before coming back to 20th CenturyFox.
In fact, the first director to be attached was Michael Leeman, the director of Heathers.

(04:15):
That would have been a very interesting movie.
attached to star was a young Jesse Bradford.
who also played Harrison Ford and Bonnie Bedelia's son in a movie we talked about in ourfirst episode, Presumed Innocent.
And Mary Steenburgen was set to play his mother in that version of the film.

(04:36):
And that version of the film got all the way to pre-production with sets being built inMaine in late 1991.
But then, along comes Kit Culkin.
Now, for those who may not be familiar,
Kit Culkin was Macaulay Culkin's father and manager, and for a time in the early 1990s, aforce to be reckoned with due to his son's star power following Home Alone, which was also

(05:03):
produced by 20th Century Fox.
Kit wanted his son to star in this film specifically as a way to showcase Macaulay'srange.
And he had one very big bargaining chip.
Do either of you guys know what he had to hold over 20th Century Fox?
No.
Yeah, yeah, I did the research on this.
Yeah, he was saying I'm not going to let Macaulay star in Home Alone 2 if you don't, youknow, give in to my demands.

(05:30):
Yeah, Home Alone 2 was on the line for 20th Century Fox.
So 20th Century Fox, they were like, okay, we're gonna make a deal for Macaulay Culkin tostar in The Good Son, because that was the price and they were happy to pay it.
But that also meant that the film had to be pushed back a year.
So Home Alone 2 could be shot first and be ready for the holiday season of 1992.

(05:52):
I have still never seen Home Alone 2, by the way.
Really?
I only saw the original Home Alone for the first time like two or three years ago.
well that explains it.
I actually like Home Alone 2 a little better, but ah yeah, maybe we'll have a chance totalk about the relationship I find between Home Alone and this film later.
Yeah, Home Alone 2 is good.
It's got some pretty crazy stuff in it.
It's a more expansive story than the first one was, of course.

(06:16):
And he was also coming off of a really great movie in 91 called My Girl.
My Girl, I do remember My Girl.
So good, so good.
I mean, talking about range, that's another example of him getting a chance to flex someof that.
A little more sentimental in that one than what we're seeing here in The Good Son.
But boy, did we all benefit from his casting in this movie, didn't we?
Oh my goodness, both of these kids.

(06:38):
Both are great.
Macaulay Culkin and Elijah Wood are just really, really good in this movie.
The film has a kind of Hitchcockian flavor to it.
And Elijah Wood is basically like a 12-year-old Jimmy Stewart.
Yeah, he's amazing.
He's from here.
He's from Cedar Rapids.

(07:00):
we've talked over time.
mean, he was another case of parents who were extremely supportive of his effort to becomean actor and really helped him
forge a path in a career that has become one of the most diverse in contemporary cinema.
mean, the way that he's gotten into, especially behind the camera and the producer side ofthings, he's done some incredibly adventurous stuff and he's a real inspiration in a lot

(07:24):
of ways and one of the few truly famous Iowans.
I did not know he was from...
There's so many people from Cedar Rapids.
There's two of us.
I'm sorry I laughed at the Jimmy Stewart thing, I was just all of a sudden picturingElijah Wood in Vertigo and it was just, you'll be for a minute.
No, I'm glad you laughed at the Jimmy Stewart thing.
was hoping for the laugh on the Jimmy Stewart thing.

(07:47):
there is a little, uh it's a wonderful life nod later on in this film too, that we'll getto.
There's a scene that could be pulled directly out of, at least on the inspiration front,it's a wonderful life.
But we'll discuss that when we get there.
Another Jimmy Stewart connection.
Absolutely.
So as the movie was pushed back, director Michael Lehman subsequently left the picture andwas replaced by Joseph Rubin, who had delivered a big hit for Fox with Sleeping with the

(08:12):
Enemy and was personally approved by Kit Culkin.
Ian McEwen was brought back for rewrites to tailor the film to Rubin's taste, but wasultimately replaced by an uncredited David Lowery, who had worked on Rubin's film's
dreamscape and the stepfather, as well as writing,
Star Trek V The Final Frontier
was gonna say I wondered if he had been involved in the stepfather because like that whenI saw that connection I was like yeah that tracks like family crazy family members yeah

(08:41):
I think that's absolutely true.
The film was finally shot in late 1992 and early 1993 in Massachusetts.
Also part of the deal, Kit Culkin insisted that his daughter Quinn play a role in thefilm.
So that's McCauley's actual sister playing his sister in the movie.
brings us to the film itself, which is the story of a 12 year old boy, Mark Evans, playedby Elijah Wood, who following the death of his mother,

(09:10):
is sent to stay with his aunt and uncle and their son Henry.
Henry, who turns out to be a very dangerous kid.
And again, I gotta say, I was a little skeptical of this film.
There's reasons we wanted to include it in this series because while it is certainly notan erotic thriller by any means, it does have a lot of similarities to the movies we've

(09:34):
been talking about.
And...
uh
And some of the actions of the Macaulay Culkin character, Henry, aren't in line with someof the other antagonists that we've had.
really has.
There's obviously no erotic element in play here.
But one of the cool things that this movie does is that it exists in the world of kids.
Yes.
There aren't very many movies outside of family and outside of comedy, really, that allowthe audience to just simply live with the children.

(10:04):
and have the story completely based around them.
And the adults become side characters in it.
And here the adults are pivotal to some scenes, but really these two carry the entirety ofthe film.
And when I was younger and I saw it, because I saw it in the theater when it came out, mybrother and I used to go to a bunch of different movies at the second run theater here.

(10:24):
And when this landed on second run, we went and saw it.
And I remember just being struck with it.
I think it was the first time that I had seen a movie
outside since uh falling in absolute love with the monster squad and of course, Goonieswhere the kids are truly the stars.
And I really appreciated that.
And I also thought it was absolutely terrifying that a child could be engaged in this kindof behavior.

(10:49):
Yeah, what I find kind of interesting is that Elijah Woods character in this movieactually has some of the traits of some of the characters you find in these other
obsessive movies, because like, you know, he's obviously not taking it to a bad place.
But right, his mother is passed away in the movie.
And he sort of latches on to his aunt and like decides that his aunt has taken overqualities of his mother or even is has become his mother in some way.

(11:13):
And so
that could easily morph into its own very strange obsessive situation under different plotcircumstances.
So I thought that was interesting.
Absolutely, like these two characters kind of, you know, mirror each other in that way,although they go down, they go down very different roads, but like under different
circumstances, Mark could have become, you know, one of these obsessive characters thatwe've been talking about.

(11:41):
The movie also, the other thing this movie made me think of, was a movie from 1956 calledThe Bad Seed.
Have any of you guys seen The Bad Seed?
yeah.
I specifically watched it for this episode.
Oh, you did?
Oh, that's great.
seen it.
I did, yeah.
I saw it a few years ago, but it's still fairly fresh in my head.
it's, uh, I mean, it's, it's fascinating.

(12:03):
It's, it revolves around an eight year old girl named Rhoda who kills a schoolmate.
Although in that film, it is revealed that Rhoda's grandfather was actually a notoriousserial killer.
So, you know, it was the fifties.
So the evil could be chalked up to genetics.
Well, I think another one that would fit on a triple bill with these two movies would beAlice Sweet Alice from 1976.

(12:24):
love Alice Sweet Alice.
It's one of-
It is one of my favorite New Jersey horror films.
I mean, obviously the original Friday the 13th, but Alice Sweet Alice was shot in thearea, in the general area of New Jersey that I, my family is from.
Like it feels very, I think it's shot Patterson.

(12:46):
My aunt used to live in Patterson.
My great aunt used to live in Patterson and it's just, it's very like it has,
I recognize the world of Alice, Sweet Alice very closely.
And it also straddles that world of old dirty New York.
yeah.
And it really wears it on its sleeve.
And Paula Shepard as Alice in that is akin to what we're talking about here with Macaulayand his performance.

(13:11):
I mean, she's so sinister and on a dime, she can just flip and become the sweetest, mostunassuming kid.
But then there's all these nefarious things happening.
Yeah.
at her hands and she's doing some setting people up in that too without spoiling thatwhole movie which everyone should definitely check out but I would say that's a great
triple bill right there.
is a great show.
Alice Sweet Alice in my mind is the closest there really is to a true American giallo.

(13:38):
I've never seen it.
definitely put that on my watch list.
The movie that I also kept coming back to with this movie though is Orphan because- Ohyeah.
Orphan obviously, without giving away too much, there's something a little different aboutit.
like- Sure.
Just the tree house alone, was like Orphan, how much inspiration did you perhaps take fromThe Good Son?
I actually ran into a Reddit thread where people were like talking about all the things inOrphan that are also in The Good Son.

(14:02):
I wish I'd written them all down.
wow.
But like apparently there's a scene with ice as well and like-
Yeah, and just the also being in the world of the kids and having the kids be reallyfrightened and feel blackmailed by this other child in their life.
That treehouse, we'll get to it in a short while, that treehouse is insane.
uh Orphan uh and Good Son 2 just so gorgeously shot.

(14:24):
Both films have absolutely breathtaking cinematography and the camera's constantly movingon both of those.
in Alice Sweet Alice you have an almost claustrophobic feel even when you're in a churchor something.
You feel so tight and constrained and the pressure building all around you.
These two movies are much wider than that.
But yeah, Orphan, let's make this a quadruple bill.

(14:47):
for sure.
Oh, it's an all day marathon.
I love it.
I love it.
ah So we open the Good Son with something.
I noted this when we were talking about Sleeping in the Enemy.
And I think it might be just a Joseph Rubin thing now.
Once again, we have the most boring opening credits.

(15:07):
This is a beautifully shot movie, but like it's literally white text on a black backgroundthe whole time.
And what is that font?
Like what font was that?
down.
What is that?
It looks it's not quite comic sans, but it's very close.
Like it would be fine for like Liar Liar or something, but not this movie.

(15:29):
Ruben must be a director who finishes the film and then goes, all right, guys, put creditson the front.
Yeah, just slap them on.
Whatever you got.
It's fine.
mean, if you have the desert right there, they open on a desert, you could just like shootsome more footage of the damn desert for god sakes.
opening desert shot is so short.
You could have just had the whole open credits over the desert.

(15:50):
At least it would have been something.
Yeah.
I gotta, I gotta go back and look at a dreamscape and the stepfather to see how thosecredits are.
Cause I can't, it's been so long since I've seen either of them that I can't remember thatopening shot.
You don't really know who it is there.
And we know by the end because we're going to visit it again, but that's another thing.
I mean, that's would normally be a shot with an adult standing, contemplating their placein life or something.

(16:12):
Little do we know it's a kid.
and what they've been through.
And we're just getting a brief little hint at where we're going to be in 90 minutes.
And it's a wild ride.
It absolutely is.
So before we go further in the film, I'm getting the feeling that both of you really likethis movie and I have to confess that I was kind of meh about it.
I'm just I don't want to I don't want to be the party pooper here.

(16:33):
Like the first time I saw it, I was like, all right, all right.
And then the second time I saw it was like, maybe not as good.
interesting.
cannot decide if Macaulay Culkin was doing brilliant acting here or if like
He just happened to arrive at the flat affect of a sociopath because he was bad acting.
I can't decide which it is.
Now Elijah Wood, no complaints with Elijah Wood.

(16:56):
I think he does a great job.
Yeah, yeah, I don't want to ruin everybody else's fun though.
We are here for honesty and truth.
is our mission and having a good time as well.
So no, absolutely.
We want absolutely honest opinions, uh like or don't like.

(17:16):
I was just, I was so surprised by it.
I was a little apprehensive and I was like, oh, okay.
But we'll get into it.
we do, yeah, first of all, I should say, Justin, you're totally right.
That opening shot, we don't know who it is.
It's such a distance and it's so short that we're never sure.
uh But then we cut to Mark Evans played by Elijah Wood playing soccer like a normal kid inthe 90s.

(17:42):
And we see his father who is played by David Morse.
We don't know it's his father at the time, but David Morse, I will say, is my secondfavorite George Washington.
In all of the people who have played George Washington, he comes in number two to BarryBostwick.
And he is approaching the field and the music is telling us that something is wrong.

(18:03):
And this is a case where I throughout this movie, I thought the music is kind of leadingyou along.
Like we didn't necessarily need it to, but it kind of just does.
Yeah, Omer Bernstein does the music and like he did the music for the Age of Innocence thesame year and he's done so many movies so they definitely had a pro on that.
Absolutely.
it just feels like leading me along in a way I didn't need.

(18:26):
I could have gotten watching that scene where from the body language and the looks onDavid Morse and Elijah Wysh's faces as the father shows up and I couldn't help.
I knew what was happening.
I didn't need the movie to tell me that it was sad because it was like, it's just kind oftelling.
Okay, I have a big complaint about this hospital room they go to.

(18:46):
yes, so Mark is taken to hospital where his mother is dying and in a scene that feels likeit might have given inspiration to the opening scene of the first Guardians of the Galaxy.
So what was your complaint about the hospital run?
I'm curious.
Did either, so I've spent some time in hospitals in the past, like as a patient, dideither of you notice that like this hospital has like no IV tower, no heart rate monitor,

(19:07):
no nothing?
I'm like, I don't want to be mean, but it's like, no wonder this poor woman is dying.
This hospital has no equipment.
Oh goodness.
No, I gotta be honest.
I did not notice that and that is good on you for seeing.
think that's yeah.
Oh, well, you might want to put some equipment in your hospital.
I mean, look, you know, nice.
You didn't have to share a room or anything, but yeah.

(19:29):
guys, can see.
Man, you know, you could have saved me.
Visually speaking, I can see why they do that, right?
It makes like a cleaner visual, but like just as somebody who spent time in hospitals, I'mjust like, no, no, no.
Like what's going on here?
It's like, this is the room where they put someone where there's no hope and they're justgoing to die.
And like, really like just put the Ivy tower in the other room.
Like this hospitals had budget cuts.

(19:51):
We got someone who needs it, who we might be able to save.
And uh unfortunately, Mark's mom is not going to be that person.
They don't make a lot of effort to dress this hospital thing up.
And they don't even show an exterior.
We are in the hospital a number of times in the film and we never see the outside of it oranything.
So it surely is just uh a set that they built somewhere and set up to be like a hospitalroom.

(20:16):
And it just happens the PAs forgot or the production design forgot the IV.
Like I wonder how much Macaulay Culkin got paid for this movie and if all the movie wentto like him or some other factor.
like it doesn't feel like there's certain parts that feel low budget.
Like there's other parts that seem all right and then certain parts feel low budget.
but the locations are, the locations are amazing.

(20:37):
Yes.
mean, they had helicopters employed for a lot of shots in it.
had underwater cameras.
mean, there's no doubt that they poured money into this.
I don't think it all went into his pocket, but yeah, you may be right to an extent.
So maybe it's just a visual choice for the hospital then.
And I want to add about David Morris though, Chris.
You think George Washington, I'm like this dude has the vials with the disease from 12monkeys in his pocket at all times.

(21:01):
he does, no you're totally right.
He's also the dad from Contact, from the opening scene of Contact.
And obviously many other things.
no, 12 Monkeys, totally.
I can't believe that didn't come to my mind because I love that movie.
actors like he's a good actor but he sticks out and you remember his other roles somehow Idon't know why that is but yeah David Morris is very yeah a presence

(21:25):
He's a big guy.
He's a physically imposing guy.
So we have this very tender touching scene with Mark and his mother as she is dying and hetells her that he's not going to let her go.
He's not going to let her die.
And it's just, I got to say, and maybe this is why I didn't notice the lack of an IV.

(21:45):
It's so superbly acted by a young Elijah Wood.
He is so great.
And like I said, throughout the film,
But this scene in particular, just really, really terrific.
Yeah, don't fault the acting at all.
that's been, but yeah, the second time I watched it, that stuck out to me.
But yeah, Elijah Wood does a great job in this movie.

(22:08):
I mean, there's a reason he got tapped to be Frodo Baggins or yeah, Frodo Baggins.
I almost said Bilbo Baggins.
So wrong Bagginses, Bagginses.
uh So, and it puts salt in the characters' roots.
He's like, I'm not gonna let you die.
And then we immediately cut to the funeral.
So it's like, hey, you know what?
This kid doesn't have the power over life or death, just like the rest of us.

(22:29):
But it gives us some of the characters wound as we then, you know, as we learn like, okay,he...
One of the reasons I think he is so keen to save people later in the film when people arein real jeopardy that he might be able to have a tangible effect on is because, you know,
that his mother, he lost his mother that way and couldn't, you know, couldn't save her.

(22:51):
Obviously, how could he?
At the funeral, Mark's dad, Jack, is talking to his brother, Wallace, played by Hardcastleand McCormick's Daniel Hugh Kelly.
And the brother is trying to convince Jack
that he should leave his 12 year old son just after the passing of the kid's mother soJack could take a two week trip to Tokyo to close a deal that would quote, set them up for

(23:18):
life.
And I'm watching this and I'm thinking to myself, are you out of your fucking mind?
Never, never in a million years.
Yeah, like I'm thinking to myself, you know, there are babysitters in Japan, like worstcomes to worst.
Seriously!
to Japan with you.
I had the same, I'm like, listen, I don't have a child, but if I did and their motherpassed away, I wouldn't leave that kid for anything.

(23:44):
I have it bold, take him to Tokyo if you have to, hire someone to look after him in thehotel while you're at your meetings, but don't leave him with people he barely knows.
I mean, it's complete and utter madness.
they say they haven't seen these people for like 10 years.
Like that's like practically a stranger at that point.
Yeah.
Ten years when you're 12 years old?

(24:06):
They might as well be a stranger.
The last time they saw you, were two.
I don't remember people from when I was two.
We'd have no movie though if he went to Japan.
It would be like this like kind of like tween Lost in Translation instead.
he could have, you know, we could have done anything.
We could have gotten him involved with the Yakuza.
We could have, we could have had him get into street racing.
You know, it could have been the bad, you know, the good son, Tokyo drift.

(24:30):
That'd be more for Henry, think.
That's true.
That is that his wayward cousin crashes Japan and gets involved in the street racingscene.
Uh, that's a movie right there.
I love it.
But yeah, like I was just like the father leaving the son at this particular stage.
This is not just like a regular day.

(24:52):
The mother just died.
And like that, honestly, with all the crazy stuff in this movie, that is the mostunbelievable thing.
And that Uncle Wallace is encouraging him to like, you know, to go.
Like that's the first time that this dude is a sociopath too, which I am convinced of.
Like it's no wonder his son turned out to be full on Looney Tunes.

(25:14):
Jack decides to go to Tokyo, otherwise, as you say, there's no movie.
so naturally, he's going to drive from Arizona to Maine to drop him off.
I know.
Now, we have talked about this on the show.
And Midwesterners have a very different sense of what a, than people from the Northeast,of what a reasonable length drive is.

(25:37):
Yeah, not to mention, like, I have, I lived in Korea for a while, so I know what it's liketo fly to Asia, and flying to Asia from the West Coast is bad enough.
Flying to Asia from the East Coast, like, why didn't they, like, change the business tripto being in Paris, at least, so it would make sense.
Jen, he didn't fly to Asia.
He drove to Asia.
We see him drive off in his Jeep.

(25:57):
I mean, he drove all the way there.
He's just driving back.
he's not like he's leaving the car with the uncle or anything like that.
I mean, this is a long drive.
He says it's 11 states in three days for a two week stay.
Like that's like a quarter of the trip.

(26:18):
Like it's like a fifth of the trip or something like that.
I mean, it's just, it's crazy.
And Mark, you know, along the way is obviously very upset for understandable reasons.
We learned that Mark believes his mother isn't really gone.
But me and not like at least at this stage in a delusional way, but like he says, she'llcome back someday, maybe not as herself.

(26:40):
And I was like, you know, that's a very reasonable way for a kid to process grief.
Yeah, we've seen grief handled in so many different ways in these films.
And sometimes it's real sort of flippantly.
employed, but here we get to see it through the eyes of a child.
And in pretty much all the rest of these, the kids have always just been bit players.
And no matter what tragedy was at hand, either the kid was oblivious to it or they werethreatened by it.

(27:07):
Yeah.
So it's kind of interesting that we're offered the opportunity to see this through a kid'seyes.
And because I think we're used to this being an adult setting for this type of story,
I think that makes this feel weird that a kid is saying these kinds of things, but itmakes sense to me that a child through their limited perception at that age would, I mean,
how would they, how do we handle death as adults?

(27:29):
None of us have a playbook here.
Kids most certainly are going to have to dream it up.
Yeah.
I mean, it's not like we know what happens.
It's not, I mean, it's just, it's like, you know, that just seems like a very reasonablething for him.
And clearly he's not saying like he doesn't, it's not like.
yeah, mom's going to be around the next corner or when we stop for gas and you know, orsomething like that.

(27:50):
Like it's just kind of a general, you know, Hey, maybe, you know, maybe somehow her spiritwill come back.
But like it's too much for the dad.
Cause the dad's just like, she's gone.
that's it.
You know, it's, you know, forget it.
Yeah.
Just get used to it kid.
That's the way of the world.
I'm going off to Tokyo.
It's a long drive.
He's got to take those vials to Tokyo so that he can spread the virus.

(28:12):
He's gotta go all over the world
That's what he's really doing.
and one other thing about this whole this this road trip from Arizona to Maine.
Didn't anyone put on seatbelts in the 90s?
Like, holy shit, haven't they seen Poison Ivy?
So we arrive in Maine and I will say I really like the visual change from like thesouthwestern desert to this beautiful snowbound New England island.

(28:39):
Like it's it's a great like distinction that we're moving into new territory.
In this case.
Kind of vaguely Stephen King-esque territory.
Strange things can happen in picturesque main towns.
Yeah, that's a good thought actually.
Yeah, it does kind of give you a Stephen King sense and Stephen King, of course, made someevil children of his own with children of the corn.
Absolutely.

(28:59):
lot of associations you can make there.
That is the
second Children of the Corn reference in this series.
Who would have thought?
I also want to point out one visual thing because I love it.
This was shot in, it takes place in Maine, but it was shot in, I believe, North Shore ofMassachusetts.
All of the stone walls along the sides of the roads.

(29:20):
You see that in New England a lot, marking the old property lines.
My in-laws, their house, have this, there's a very long old stone wall.
For a while I lived in Rhode Island and again, big stone wall.
uh It's a visual thing that I really, really love.
But they get to the house, Uncle Wallace is there waiting.
Obviously he did the sensible thing and flew back.

(29:42):
ah As well as his wife Susan played by Wendy Crousen who, you know, was like, hey kid,this is your aunt who didn't go to your mom's funeral.
Well, to be fair, she probably had to stay home with Connie, so, you know.
Well, and this psychotic
forgot about him, that's crazy.
He's the main character.
He hasn't popped up yet.

(30:03):
Wendy Cruzen, who has this short haircut that it is so strikingly similar to Daini Delaneythat I kept thinking it was her.
I was like, it's Daini Delaney.
no, no, it's not.
So Wallace and Susan, they have two children, a younger daughter, Connie, and Henry, a boyabout Mark's age played by Nicole Culkin.
And I love how Henry is introduced because he pops up, I should say down, he pops down.

(30:30):
from upstairs while wearing this white featureless mask made out of like paper mache orsomething.
It's Michael Myers.
He's wearing a Michael Myers mask.
It's like what Rob Zombie had Michael making when he was in the asylum in Halloween, howhe made all these paper mache things that he would hide behind the whole time.
But it's a perfect way to blank this kid's face out.

(30:53):
And then what does he do?
He has another one.
This is the one gift that he truly gives.
Mark.
Amazing.
He has a matching mask to give him as a first gift.
A welcome here.
What a nice gesture.
Yeah, I want to add like I did a little bit of background research on the history ofsociopathy I don't I'm not sure if I'm pronouncing it right.
So I think you say it that way on the history of sociop...sociopathy?

(31:17):
I can't say it all.
I did a little background research on sociopaths, right?
like how...
First of all, thank you for doing that.
That's fantastic.
That is above and beyond.
how we've kind of come to understand them, right?
And like in 1941, in America, there was this book called The Mask of Sanity by HerveKleckli.
And that was one of the first times that sociopathy kind of came into like the mainstream,like, knowledge in the United States.

(31:43):
And then you have, you know, of course, the bad seed that you mentioned in 1956.
But the Mask of Sanity, because like one of the things that sociopaths or psychopaths willdo is like
put up this mask of like, I'm just a good boy.
I'm the good son.
So I wonder if that mask is like in some ways just alluding to that, you know, know, justthat book or just that concept.

(32:04):
Probably, I would say.
Oh, I would think absolutely.
First of all, that is a gold star for research.
That is fantastic.
Thank you for bringing that to the table.
And yeah, no, I absolutely think that.
The masks are clearly a key part of that, whether they are literal masks or the mask thatpeople put on for others.

(32:29):
I think that's a key, because he's putting on this mask all the time with his own parents.
He looks nice on the surface.
But you already I already think you sense a little bit of discomfort from his mother evenin the beginning though.
Yeah, like when he comes down with that mask like it could just be the normal exasperationbut like I feel like there's been like this little sort of feeling at the back of her

(32:51):
mind, you know.
oh
get the impression it hasn't been an easy childhood in the house.
And we learned some of the backstory and we learned some of the tragedy that that familyhas endured.
None of which seems to penetrate the father who's just fine with everything.
Like Wallace is just, whatever, oh, these kids, know, it's like, mean, that night theyhave a family dinner and honestly, I start to wonder if it's in the...

(33:19):
If it's genetic, because Jack stopped short of telling a story about Wallace and Susan'sfirst sexual encounter at a now torn down lighthouse, at a family dinner with three kids.
Why would you tell that?
Why would you even begin to tell that story?
The parents are pretty checked out for sure.
And again, this goes back, I'm sure, to trauma in how they were considering presentingthis.

(33:42):
they both keep sort of removing themselves from the scenario.
Yes.
Susan keeps making her way out to the cliff that will, the bluff that we'll get to.
And she doesn't, she doesn't go with her husband.
No, never.
We never see him out there.
She's not morning with him.
She's doing her own morning and processing of the loss.

(34:02):
And he is attached to his office.
In fact, when he goes to discipline the kids, um doesn't know where else to put them otherthan his office.
And so that's his bluff.
in the film.
Yeah, no, 100%.
Absolutely.
And they get a little, there's a little roughhousing at the table.
Uh, we're, you know, not too, but like, you know, Henry gives a kick to Mark.

(34:24):
Mark gives a kick back.
So he gives as good as he gets.
I was just gonna say they build up Henry's uh violence very gradually and like, and thenshows kind of the continuum of like all kids have like some of these violent instincts,
you know, he's doing that.
He's breaking the lobster apart kind of violently.
Yeah.
And then like, and then like, then you see him playing war games outside at one point.

(34:46):
And those are like, you know, that was very, very common in the eighties.
I think probably some parents have stopped that a little bit, you know, like, like movetowards, but it's part of childhood.
And not every kid who did that turned into like a murderous, you know, psychopath.
I mean, the lobster claw.
my God.
Like, and listen, I've struggled with lobster claws.
They are difficult.

(35:08):
but like he is just destroying this thing.
my God.
Like, and the mother's just like, you know, and since like Susan turns to Jack and is justlike, he's going to be fine.
No, no, this is this, all of this is just, there's red flags everywhere.
There's masks, there's lobster claws.

(35:30):
These are big red flags.
I think like the first thing for me, like though, that like I would think this boy is notlike, you know, a normal boy that I should play with is when we come to the tree house and
I don't want to get too ahead of ourselves, but the tree house.
for sure.
And also, well, I'll wait till we get to the tree.
Are we getting to the tree house yet?
We are getting to the tree house scene.
We have, you know, Jack, after dinner, it's time for Jack to leave so he can drive toTokyo and, you know, leave his grieving son behind with these deranged people.

(36:00):
And, you know, the first thing seemed okay.
You know, we see Henry, you know, he does wake up, he sees Henry outside playing soldier,which again, is it like that in of itself is not like the thing that'd be like, oh, that's
a red flag, especially in like at that time.
But then.
You know, Mark goes out to join Henry and Henry takes him to the tree house.
Holy shit!

(36:21):
This is the tallest tree house I've ever seen!
Yeah, like this is the real treehouse of horror here.
Okay, forget the Simpsons.
Oh my god!
would not get me anywhere on that ladder at all.
Like, it's like not even put together well.
you can't even...
Climbing up the thing is dangerous, especially when you have to...
This is like the kind of treehouse I've had in a nightmare, where you have to kind of getyourself over the ledge and be kind of like floating in the middle of space to do so.

(36:46):
I can't even describe it.
How would you even describe how you get onto this tree?
I would describe the whole thing as the tree house in the pet cemetery because it lookslike it was built and it grew there organically.
have to climb through a broken fence to get there and they run through this yard that'soverrun with rubbish and all kinds of trash and things like that.
It's clear this is an abandoned house with an abandoned tree house, but it is absolutelyhorrifying.

(37:10):
And you keep waiting for something to happen in this tree house.
You're just expecting, you're looking at it in that moment thinking this is where theclimax of the film is going to happen.
It's a harrowing climb to the top.
And then it has this kind of upward reach around the bottom lip of this, of the platform.
You have to work your way around and it's, it's a nice setup for a little bit of tensionand a bit of a misdirect.

(37:34):
Absolutely.
Cause I mean, but like, you know, I mean, it is just so tall.
who, like, you know, like you wouldn't just break a bone if you fell out, you break yourneck.
Like who built this thing?
It gets so unsafe that like child protective services should be on their way over to liketake this thing out.
a treehouse should not be so high that it puts you in mortal danger.

(37:58):
This whole movie, like it just makes me think of like when people are on social mediatalking about Gen X was your childhood really like this?
I just want to like be like just go watch The Good Son and you'll see like Gen X childhoodlike slightly exaggerated but like I mean there are elements that are totally put right on
point in this movie right but it's all just a little bit slightly exaggerated.
The treehouse wasn't quite that tall, the dogs were quite that vicious, know, etc.

(38:23):
You know, I I played in the woods as a kid, I got in the back of the house and like, youknow, in hindsight, I'm like, yeah, I kind of, I kind of hurt myself there, the rocks and
stuff, especially as a kid, you know, you know, you know, what are you doing?
But like that tree house man is just a recipe for just disaster.
it is, like, I just don't understand who would build this.

(38:44):
Henry climbs up and Mark follows him.
And just as Mark gets to the top branch, like it's just getting, and you have to like putyour
lay foot on a branch to get up the final thing and the branch breaks and he's hanging fordear life.
And Henry, with Mark's life in his hands, asks,
If I let you go, you think you could fly?

(39:07):
No.
Thankfully, he said no, because that's the right answer.
And then Henry pulls him up to safety.
And what's interesting to me about that is for a little while, it creates a sense ofloyalty in Mark.
Like, he helped me.
He didn't let me fall.

(39:27):
And that is the beginning of the bond, which eventually will get broken.
But it's part of that bonding.
And when they're wrestling around up there on the tree house, can hear Macaulay do hishome alone scream from when he puts the aftershave on his face.
It sounds exactly the same as that moment in that film when they're rolling around and thecamera's of pulling away.

(39:53):
wow.
I didn't notice that because I've only seen, I haven't seen Home Alone.
I've only seen it like twice.
think a couple of years ago, like honestly, the first time I saw it was like on DisneyPlus.
Let's put it that way.
I just didn't see it when it came out.
So it kind of missed it.
And it was like that.
took 30 years to catch up.
Yeah, I wasn't a big Home Alone fan either.
like, I'm interested, like, Justin, you said you saw The Good Son in the theater.

(40:16):
Were you like a big Macaulay Culkin fan, when you were younger then or?
No, oh not at all.
We just went to lots of movies.
I we saw Milo and Otis.
We went to just about whatever was playing at the second run theater.
we had so many We actually had two of those in town here.
nice.
so we, yeah, there was a little theater in Marion where I grew up, which is right next toCedar Rapids, that where

(40:42):
They played Saturday matinee, double bills and things for families and kids.
And so from a very early age, my parents were totally down with taking us to the theateror at this point dropping us off and I would just take my little brother with me and we'd
go see something.
And I don't know how we got into this at that age because obviously we shouldn't have beenthere alone, but we most certainly did.

(41:06):
workers I worked in a theater and we really didn't care as long as we didn't think youwere gonna cause trouble
Yeah, yeah.
We didn't look like hooligans, I guess, walking in.
But no, I wasn't, I wasn't really a fan of anyone in particular, but I was a fan ofeverything.
I remember at this age, that's the age where we are, we don't have the filters and thejudgment and the whatever else built into us, right?

(41:28):
I was awed by movies, period.
And so I would go to see or rent anything that looked even remotely interesting.
And I think that that helped me have like a wider perspective.
on movies as a whole, but I miss that time.
I miss those days of being that age where the world just wowed me.

(41:49):
absolutely.
Oh my goodness.
I remember the first R rated movie I went to without a parent.
it's I know, Jen, it's one of your favorites.
I was in high school and it was it was Bram Stoker's Dracula.
Yeah.
Amazing.
uh
I was gonna say though, the reason I ask is because I feel like this movie, probably whenyou see it for the first time, it probably hits you differently if you're a Macaulay

(42:13):
Culkin fan, if you're familiar with his work or if you're not, you know?
Because it's almost like stunt casting in a sense.
It's like, wouldn't it be crazy if we took America's sweetheart, this boy who's thebiggest child star at the time and made him evil.
Right?
So it's quite a bit of stunt casting.
Roger Ebert was very upset with this movie.

(42:34):
I read his review and he was like, why would they, why would Macaulay Culkin's parents puthim in this?
He was very mad.
He really thought it was a distasteful film to have an evil child.
And I don't know why exactly, but.
On a related note and back to early film going experiences, I once mistakenly took a girlon a first date in high school to see Natural Born Killers.

(42:55):
my God.
I was just super excited to see the movie.
I loved The Doors from Oliver Stone and I couldn't wait to see that film.
And this girl, I was on student council, that's a whole other story, but I...
The president of the student council, asked her if she wanted to go out sometime and shesaid, sir, sure.
This Friday.
And so I said, well, I'm going to see this movie.

(43:17):
You want to go?
And she's like, yeah.
So we went and saw it and she never spoke to me again.
But.
I spoken to you.
I mean honestly, it's still better than when I took a date to see City Slickers 2 TheLegend of Curly's Gold.
took somebody to see the movie where the woman's harrass- like, the me more harasses, um,it was Michael Disclosure or something?

(43:40):
We did it last week!
Yes, yes!
took Sedate to see that one, so...
That is a hell of a date movie, my good...
That was a fail.
Well, in natural boring killers, to the point that you made Jen about Macaulay Culkin andthis one in the stunt casting, it was the same thing with Woody Harrelson.
And that's what Oliver Stone said.

(44:00):
He was on chairs for goodness sake.
Yeah.
I mean, he was sort of the knucklehead laugh track guy.
He was the silly dude in the bar and the kind of clueless fella.
so Oliver Stone absolutely leaned into that in casting him.
and then presenting something that was so completely polar in the presentation of acharacter.
It's like Henry Fonda in Once Upon a Time in the West.

(44:22):
it's, know, it's that, you know, we're going to cast the against the image.
and, you know, this is certainly a case, you know, it's funny because Roger Ebert, Ireally like a lot of Roger Ebert's writing, but he, he sometimes has it in for horror
movies in particular.
And this isn't quite horror, but it's on the edge.

(44:42):
It's got a foot in horror.
You know, all of these thrillers kind of a foot in horror.
Which is so weird from the guy who wrote Beyond the Valley of the Dolls.
I know.
Oh my God.
mean.
oh So, yeah, they go to the tree and the treehouse of gravitational doom.

(45:02):
You're going to fall to your death.
uh then next we...
by the way, you know what we didn't see?
What?
How the fuck they got down.
yeah, but they show it later.
There's like a rope.
They like slide down some kind of rope or something.
Yeah.
I didn't get it.
We cut to them playing in an abandoned factory where they're just looking to get tetanus.

(45:24):
Yeah.
Come on,
And they're ruining a perfectly good future artisanal coffee shop slash yoga space.
Those windows would have been fantastic in Instagram, you know?
I mean, well, that must've been what the security guard was there guarding was like,they're getting ready to turn it into a coffee shop.
But you know, then they smashed those windows and the whole project wasn't financiallyviable.

(45:46):
This is the standby me portion of the movie where they're in a, where they're in some sortof a junkyard place and get chased off by the old man.
Then they run down the railroad tracks and they find themselves in a cemetery.
So this is a whole progression and it establishes the environment for the rest of themovie, right?
Yeah.
It establishes that this Island is a.
Death trap.
Beautiful and wide shots.

(46:09):
Beautiful and wide shots.
Riddled with rust and everything close up.
Riddled with rust.
There's an uncovered well that's just waiting for a kid to fall in and make the nightlynews.
By the way, why is there even a well in a graveyard?
Wouldn't that affect the water?
Like, I don't know.
This whole island, it's an island of death.

(46:30):
My God.
And honestly, just where are the parents?
are the parents?
Cap the well.
Cap the well with the dead body water.
I mean, you're not drinking from it anyway.
Like it's clearly where, know, know, Macaulay Culkin's character is, you know, is clearlygoing to be a serial killer, is going to dump the bodies.

(46:54):
oh
And I will say, again, to come back to the score, the whole time I'm watching this and Ifeel like the music was lifted from another way more positive movie.
It's just like, it's just a jaunt.
It's like The Reavers or something.
it's like, wonder, it's not a bad score, but I wonder what movie it was originally writtenfor.

(47:18):
At the well, Henry lights up a cigarette and shares it with Mark.
And we hear some of Henry's thoughts about life and death.
Go on.
They gave you cancer.
Who cares you're gonna die anyway?

(47:43):
Did you see your mom after she was dead?
I wanted to.
But they wouldn't let me.
You should have made them let you.
It's very important.
See, people don't like to talk about death.
So that's why I have to investigate.
It's scientific.
But does it feel like that?
What did you want to like last time we saw her?

(48:05):
Kind of pale.
Kind of pale.
I took a real good look on my kid brother Richard, drawn in the bathtub.
Your brother drowned?
He was completely blue.
You should looked at her eyes and lips.
And touched her skin to see what it felt like.
Cold.

(48:25):
Shut up about my mom.
Hey, don't get mad.
I'm just trying to be scientific.
Just shut up or I'll hit you.
Try it.
I'll throw you down there.
yeah?
Hey look, I'm sorry.
That was really dumb of me.

(48:46):
I'd know how I'd feel if I didn't have a mom.
So we learned that Henry has this odd fascination with death going beyond like more ofmore like a normal curiosity.
And we also learned that his younger brother, Richard, was drowned in a bathtub.
And, you know, this is going to become a significant fact.
Yeah, and I think like all, like most audience members I think at this point would realizethat he killed his brother, right?

(49:09):
I mean, yeah, like at least consider the possibility.
It's, you know, it's not a shock, you know, when, when, we get where we go.
when Mark, when Mark protests the cigarette, when he refuses the cigarette and Henry goes,you're going to die anyway.
That's quite a moment for a kid of that age eh to hand this other kid.

(49:32):
You know, it's just.
Anyway, they continue on and they encounter one of the other islands many death traps withthis furious angry dog that chases them across a footbridge.
mean, the footbridge basically seems to exist to trap people for the dog.
Who built this island?

(49:53):
Man, this island could be like a video game, like a kind of...
no, it's like, it's some kind of horror thing where like there's a mastermind who designedthe whole thing.
And of course, after the dog chases them and nearly mauls them, Henry gets up in its faceand barks back at it and goes, I love that dog.
Yeah.
I mean, honestly, it's amazing that after losing a child in an apparent accident, theparents are let their son run around this incredibly dangerous island with all this stuff

(50:22):
unsupervised.
I mean, Susan spends a lot of time out on the bluff looking out at the ocean.
So maybe she doesn't have time to check up on Henry.
The sad thing is though that she loses the one son in the home, like in the place whereyour child should be the most safe.
So that's absolutely true.
Like that is yeah.
Like the pain, think Wendy Cruzen did a good job portraying a mother like who's justriddled by guilt and pain.

(50:46):
Especially since she's expected to spend like most of the movie, as you said, standing onthis cliff edge, just like looking at the water, which would have made more sense if her
son had died by falling off the cliff.
what?
Like, it's like she's a protagonist in a gothic novel out there staring off at thehorizon, dreaming of Manderley or something.
it's...

(51:07):
in any case, she is too busy staring out the ocean to realize that her son has built aJason Voorhees murder shack straight out of Friday the 13th part two.
Like, I mean, he's introduced in a Michael Myers mask, now he's got Jason Voorhees murdershack.
Honestly, he just needs to build a glove with razor fingers and he's hit the 80s slashertrifecta.

(51:30):
He's probably not far off, he's already built this crossbow thing that fires large rustybolts.
Like, first of all, this is a 12 year old kid and he could build this weapon?
Like, this kid is a genius, an evil genius, but like I couldn't do that.
Holy shit.
So yeah, these guys built this giant crossbow thing that fires bolts.

(51:55):
They scare a cat.
Well, they don't scare a cat.
They try to scare a cat, but the cat, you know, as cats are want to do, the cat just stayscool.
The cat's just cool the whole time.
Yeah, but like he specifically says, like when I'm like what?
I keep forgetting their names.
Like when Mark says like, you did a good job scaring him.
Good aim.
Henry says the site's still a bit off.

(52:16):
So it's clear he was trying to kill the cat, not just clearly the cat like he's like it'skind of a cue to the audience.
Like, hey, I meant to kill that cat.
And I was so glad a cat didn't die, by the way.
Like, oh, like no offense to the dog, but like I have a cat.
So just like, nope, not in my house.
Sure, uh Mark goes to some therapy sessions with a basically useless child therapist.

(52:41):
Like, she's just, she brings nothing.
This woman brings nothing to the table.
I mean, no wonder on, you know, child danger island, the child therapist on the islandwould have nothing to bring to the table at all.
It's interesting because Mark gets it into his head that the spirit of his mother has comeback into Susan, his aunt.

(53:03):
And I'm entirely sure why.
It's like he sees her kind of with a flowing white gown, like a flowing white, like, youknow, night gown.
uh And somehow that gets into that's what she's wearing.
Yeah.
Like that's it.
But somehow that makes the bond that like, you know, that that's what puts it into hishead.
Yeah, they should have at least given them the same haircut.

(53:23):
agree with you on that.
Like something, something more.
It is a really, it is a really sad scene.
It ends up in her arms and they're sitting on the steps and yes, it And this is really,Elijah is so incredible all around, but in this scene in particular, when he's just so
real and you're really feeling it from him.

(53:45):
And in the previous scene, when he's talking to the counselor, he admits to her that hefeels great guilt because he let someone die.
He is taking the responsibility on his shoulders of losing his mom.
And then he wakes up from he's struggling to sleep.
They present it.
So he's kind of half awake, half not.
That's when he sees her walking past his door and the whole thing unfurls from there.

(54:08):
But as that shot moves up to to Henry watching from above, music turns sinister.
All of a sudden it is a really touching moment.
And I like this movie.
I have some issues with it, like Elijah Wood is just terrific throughout.
Like it's no surprise watching this movie that this kid would grow up and go on to aterrific career.

(54:33):
Like he is great.
think Macaulay Culkin's also really good, but I Elijah Wood just is fantastic.
And Mark Bonds with the little sister Connie as the two do a puzzle.
love Queen Culkin's little line delivery here too, where she's like, I've got my ownsecrets and I'm not going to tell you a single one.
I'm like, I actually thought she did a pretty good job.

(54:54):
But that sounds like a kid that age and something they would absolutely say.
No question about it.
She made the most of her little line there.
Honestly, she's really good in this movie, like in the part that she had.
I buy her, you know, as I certainly buy her as the little sister of Macaulay Culkin,because they look enough alike.
uh Mark and Henry take the crossbow out again, and this time Henry shoots and kills thatferocious dog.

(55:18):
So much for loving that dog.
And that angers Mark, because he thought they were only going to scare it.
nevertheless, Mark helps him dispose of the body in the uncovered death well.
uh You know, again, not the last.
Probably not the last thing, certainly not the last thing Henry's going to put in there,but like had his murderous career continued, I bet this would have been the thing that was

(55:39):
dug up on the five o'clock news in 20 years.
Now this is the point in the movie where I stopped liking the movie as much and I'm goingto tell you why because like from this point on I was really frustrated with Mark's
character and I'm like, I'm sorry, but like I would have found a way to talk about uh mycousin just killed a dog.
Like I know like there's all this stuff put in like, he's afraid it's going to be blamedfor it or something.

(56:02):
But I'm just like, how would he be blamed for it when it's obvious he didn't make thecrossbow?
I don't know.
I just like, found it hard to believe that he couldn't do a better job advocating forhimself, even under the strength stress of grief.
So interesting.
it's not an Elijah Wood problem.
I, for me, it was like the story became somewhat implausible to me.
Like if they'd made the mother like a little less friendly, like the same way the dad is.

(56:27):
I don't know.
Yeah.
Yeah, I think part of that is, the way I look at the story is I think he having just losthis mother and have his father drive off to Tokyo is, mean, this kid is gonna have
abandonment issues and now he's found an aunt who he seems to connect with.

(56:49):
I wonder if the fear is, well, if I tell on Henry, which he will eventually do and won'tbe believed.
He does it badly, but he's also 12.
Like, I might do it better, but you know, I'm older than 12.
But that brings us to the incident with Mr.

(57:11):
Highway.
boy.
Mr.
Highway is a dummy that Henry has built in his murder shack, and he takes this dummy withMark's help, although Mark doesn't know what he's planning.
I mean, although, you know, honestly, what did you think was gonna happen, Ken?
And he throws it off the overpass onto a busy highway at rush hour.
mean, this is like, this is a huge accident.

(57:34):
Like there's, there's a lot of stunt driving going on here.
Like it's just, it's crazy.
Like, man, like this kid is just really demented.
And yeah, like he's, I think you're right.
I think he, he definitely there's the impetus to tell, but I think he doesn't know how todo that.

(57:54):
And he's scared.
Because imagine being thrown into this scenario where you are in a new place, new peopleall around you.
You're dealing with the grief of the loss that he just had of his mother.
And here this kid is just railroading him left and right through these terrifyingscenarios.
And he clearly has no impulse control whatsoever, let alone any kind of emotion for thepeople around him, any kind of empathy.

(58:19):
he's...
terrified.
I mean, I remember what it was like.
The neighborhood bullies would come and mess with me and my brother when we're riding ourbikes and they threatened us.
You better not tell.
We knew we shouldn't tell because if we did, there was always going to be tomorrow or theSaturday after that when we were out riding our bikes and forgot about whatever we had
said and they come and take revenge.
So to a certain extent, that part of it, understand.

(58:41):
And Henry makes it clear that if, if, if he tries to, he will say that it was Mark's ideaand who are they going to believe their own son or this kid?
who are from Arizona who they haven't seen in years.
I think I just like I had a very different childhood in some ways I think I cleaved prettyclose to adults in a lot of ways and I think I was like a little bit more apt to tell on

(59:05):
people who were doing bad things which makes me sound like such a nerd and I guess I wasbut like it just makes it harder for me to relate and also I guess there's probably a
difference between boy childhood and girl childhood in certain ways so maybe like um maybelike the law like the law of what you can tell on and what
what should stay secret is a little different too, I don't know.

(59:26):
I think under ordinary circumstances, once they get to the highway accident, which isenough to make the news, uh I think he would tell, but I think he is just afraid that it's
gonna get turned back on him in this house where he is a stranger.
Mark and Connie, the sisters start to have a bond, and Henry then strongly implies that heis planning to hurt her or maybe even worse, which leads Mark to...

(59:53):
talk to the therapist about if a person can be born evil and she says she doesn't believein evil because she's a naive idiot.
before that too, I think we missed the part where they're under that like underpass orwhatever.
And then like, Henry delivers his little life philosophy to Mark.
Yes, he does.
right.
Because that's right after the Mr.

(01:00:14):
Highway bit.
They go into this underpass and they have this conversation where Henry lays out his wholelife philosophy.
know you did.
Hey, come on.
We did it together.
You could have killed people.
With your help.
I didn't know you were gonna do that.

(01:00:36):
I feel sorry for you, Mark.
I just don't know how to have fun.
What?
It's because you're scared all the time.
I know.
I used to be scared too.
That was before I found out.
Found out what?
that once you realize you can do anything, you're free.

(01:00:57):
You can fly.
Nobody can touch you.
Nobody.
Mark?
Don't be afraid to fly.
You know what?
Sometimes you should be afraid to fly if you're going off that treehouse.
I mean, that's like, or the cliff or Mr.

(01:01:18):
High.
I mean, it's just there's a continual thing of like, oh, don't be afraid to fly, but itwill kill you.
Yeah, that counselor by the way, the worst counselor in the world, she really should havemet Michael Myers' counselor.
They could have had some constructive conversations.
At least!
knows, you know, like, you know, at least Dr.
Loomis knows what Michael is and is willing to, you know, take him out, take him down.

(01:01:41):
She's, she would just be like, oh, I bet, you know, she would be like, you know, the, the,the, the opening scene of the original Halloween, this lady would be like, ah, boys will
be boys.
ah know, it happens.
So.
There's a bit where Henry says to his parents that Mark wants to move into the deceasedbrother's room, which is interesting because it's like, it's fine with the father because

(01:02:09):
the father I think is a sociopath himself, but the mother quite reasonably is upset by allof this.
Of course, it wasn't Mark's idea at all.
Again, this is where we see how Henry manipulates people and manipulates what they thinkof, of him and the people around him.
And did you get a sense that Henry had brought this up to cause pain to his mother?
Because he seems to be enjoying how she's suffering about the concept of changing the wayRichard, the little brother's room, looks.

(01:02:36):
Absolutely, 100%.
And then Henry pulls a move from Hetty's playbook from Single White Female where sheintercepts a message from Mark's dad.
Mark's dad calls, oh, sorry, he's not available and, you know, he's never gonna get thatmessage.
And then Wallace and Susan decide to spend an evening out on the town.

(01:02:56):
And they're rich and they don't hire a babysitter for their son who calls his littlesister vermin.
Okay, come on.
Right.
Come on.
I would have gotten like some bored 15 year old to come over.
Seriously, people, like, you can afford it.
First of all, and this is just me, but they have a house guest for two weeks who isgrieving the loss of their mother.
Maybe just put off going to the fancy restaurant until, you know, after the, the, theirhouse guest goes home.

(01:03:21):
Like maybe that, like, you know, but yes, on top of that spring for a babysitter.
Like, you know, because it just like, clearly have enough money to pay some dumb highschool kid enough to come over and make sure the kids don't play a
a game of hide and seek where Henry literally turns off the lights to the house with agiant switch like it's Clue the movie.

(01:03:47):
And Henry strongly implies that if he finds Connie first, he is going to hurt her.
And we don't know if he would or is he just playing mind games with Mark.
But in order to protect Connie, there's a whole cat and mouse in the house.
Henry has some pure serial killer appearances where he just pops up.
with the flashlight, he's just like, oh, he's always gonna be around the next corner.

(01:04:12):
But eventually, know, then he starts, finds Connie, but then it just starts tickling her.
So it's like, is he playing mind games or what?
And it's this whole thing, and it ends up with Mark like sleeping in Connie's room toprotect her.
Yeah, which why wouldn't the parents come home and think, well, this is odd.
I wonder why he's doing this.
These parents have no clue what's going on in their own house.

(01:04:35):
You know, hey, they gotta go to the main version of Tavern on the Green.
It's uh steak night or whatever, I don't know.
uh But the next morning, uh they wake up to find, the next morning, Mark wakes up to findthat Connie and Henry are gone, which leads us to the skating part.

(01:05:01):
I swear the look on Mark's face when he overhears they're at the pond and just takes offrunning.
It is, it's fantastic.
Like Elijah, what is so great in this.
And this is the most popular skating rink I think I've ever seen.
It's just a pond frozen, but it looks like the entire town must be there.
it's packed.
It's like downtown New York city.
Yeah, no, it's absolutely.

(01:05:22):
is, it is, it's like, it's Rockefeller center on Christmas Eve pack.
Um, and,
mean, the frozen pond is clearly able to support ice skaters.
But at the same time, because this is accidental death island that they're living on,there's one section where the ice is thick and it's been roped off with like a sign and

(01:05:44):
caution tape.
No, it's got like a barrier, like a police barrier in front of it.
And this is what I mentioned earlier as the, it's a wonderful life moment.
that's the core of
George Bailey losing hearing in one of his ears is when he and his friends and his brotherare sliding down the hill on those shovel sleds and his brother goes through the same kind

(01:06:05):
of barrier through a similar area of ice, falls through it and then George helps him outand as a result he gets sick and he loses hearing in one ear which becomes a running thing
in the whole movie.
And it really sets the entire film on its course.
This is the same thing here.
I was watching it again today like good Lord.
That's the same scene.

(01:06:25):
gotta revisit It's a Wonderful Life, because I have seen it from beginning to end, but Ialways see it in bits and pieces at my in-laws on Christmas evening.
It's never the best way to watch a movie.
I gotta sit down and watch it from start to finish again, because it's been a few years.

(01:06:46):
But now that you say that, I remember.
I saw it in a movie theater once and if you see it on a big screen there's like a skullstatue on Mr.
Potter's desk that I never noticed until I saw it Really?
Yeah, so it's kind of fun that way.
I do love one of my all time favorite Saturday Night Live sketches is the alternate endingto It's a Wonderful Life.

(01:07:07):
I don't want money Potter, I want a piece of you.
Oh, it's the best.
It's just the best.
So there's this one section where the ice isn't as thick and Henry, he is skating along,he's going really fast, he's pulling the little sister along, she's having a good time and
then he just aims her at the thin ice area and hurls her.

(01:07:29):
Like, it's just, and she comes to this stop, like she skids out to this stop and then shestands up and she actually gets to her feet and then the ice around her just goes in like
a perfect circle like Bugs Bunny was underneath with a saw.
Like, and boom, down she goes.

(01:07:50):
And people are just standing watching.
Like, I'm like, it's...
Like it takes a while for people to get out there with accident.
Like she goes under the ice.
It's really freaky.
Yeah, to be fair, though, like, I think I was even surprised when the guys were out therewith the walking on the ice near the ice that just broke with the because you're supposed
to actually lie yourself flat.
Like they weren't even doing proper protocol.

(01:08:11):
You know what I mean?
Oh, of course not.
I think you're I think your instinct, if somebody falls to the ice, you would want to savethem, but also you wouldn't want to break more of the ice.
like Henry is already appearing, quote unquote, help her, even though he's just he'sbasically doing that meme where he doesn't push your hand down.
I had that in my notes!

(01:08:31):
She's doing the high five meme and she's going down!
He doesn't quite do it, but he's like, it's-
I kept waiting for him to do it.
Honestly, I was like, he's going to do it.
But like then she's under the ice and that is, that's terrifying.
Like it's, and I watched this for the first time, like a little over a week ago.

(01:08:54):
And then I watched it again before just like the other day, but like the first time Iwatched it, I'm like, is this movie going to kill the little sister?
Cause that is honestly darker than I thought it was going to go.
Yeah, they already killed a dog and you don't usually get a dog killed.
So yeah, I mean granted it's a mean dog, but still.
Like then they get around and then they cut very quickly to the hospital where we hearshe's fine almost immediately.

(01:09:18):
like, oh, it's like, oh, she's okay.
And Susan spends more time looking at the ocean, you know, maybe considering if she shouldwatch her kids a little more closely now that she nearly lost the second one.
uh Mark goes to her and tries to tell her that Henry let Connie go deliberately.
There's something I have to tell you.

(01:09:40):
What?
I'm not sure.
I wasn't real close.
At the pond.
I don't think what happened at the pond was an accident.
What do you mean?
The ice was too thin.
Henry was spinning her around.
They were going way too fast.

(01:10:02):
Then he just let go.
He threw her toward the thin ice.
Mark?
Henry said he hated her.
What are you trying to tell me?
I've told you.
I'm telling you.
Connie didn't just slip.
You don't know what he is.

(01:10:23):
Henry tried to kill Connie and you could do it again!
Stop it!
Stop it, that's a lie!
Henry is my son.
He's my little boy and I love him.
Don't ever come to me with these lies again.
This is where it's like, what would he have said, you know, even back with the dog,because here, like the mother doesn't believe him at all.

(01:10:45):
Yeah, see, this is, I feel like I was pretty eloquent at 12 and I feel like I put a pulltogether and argument like, listen, some things have happened.
Number one, he killed a dog.
Number two, he threw that thing off the highway that caused that big accident that you sawon TV the other day.
Number three, I'm pretty sure he just tried to kill his sister.
I would have put it all, like I was a lawyer at 12.
I swear to God, like I could have gotten this done.

(01:11:08):
Well, here's the problem with the dog.
They got rid of the body.
No body, no crime.
But it's in the, I mean, somebody could surely find it in the well and somebody's probablymissing their dog.
I mean, this doesn't seem like a huge town.
So like, just feel.
Does that dog just exist to menace children in this town?
I'm just saying, this is where the movie loses me, because I'm just like, come on, comeon, Kate, just tell her three things before she slaps you.

(01:11:31):
Just get it all out first.
And do it in escalating order, don't lead with the maybe he tried to kill his sister,because there's no proof there.
Wait, that's where you go to, that's the culmination.
And she really whacked him too.
Man, man.
You know, and I didn't get a chance to say this with the tree house and it will apply tothe climactic scene, which we'll get to in a short while, but everything in this movie

(01:11:55):
looks absolutely real.
at no point I'm like, that's, you know, Elijah Wood on a green screen or that's, you know,uh an adult in a wig.
Like it's never did I think that.
All of that stuff where kids are in real jeopardy looks absolutely convincing.
did harness stunts for some of it now that I remember.

(01:12:15):
Like I watched the special features or whatever on the disc and I guess they had them inharnesses for some of these scenes.
I would think that you would, I mean, even still, like when we get to the end and they'reon the cliff, that looks amazing.
But that said, you know, even when he goes to her, even though he doesn't approach it theright way, it's still enough to plant a seed in Susan's mind.

(01:12:37):
You know, it's just enough.
Like it just puts that seed of doubt about her son.
And that seed grows a bit, a little bit when she unexpectedly finds Henry in Connie'shospital.
Like she's sitting there in the dark and he comes in and she is surprised to see him.
You know, it's like, thought you were home with daddy and he tells, I was worried aboutConnie.
The real question is how did he get there?

(01:12:59):
How did he get home either?
Because then she's like, Oh, I'll see you at home.
Yeah.
And I'm like, how?
He's like, I'm going home.
She's like, all right, well, I guess we'll see you there.
And then he walks out and you know, he's walking through terror metropolis to get there.
They never established this is where the exterior shots would have helped to place this.
hospitals somewhere, but they're making it seem like it's right next door.

(01:13:21):
They live like down the street from the hospital or some like, it's just,
Wait, Connie doesn't have an IV either, I don't think.
What the hell?
Oh God, world of this movie and, and, know, proper medical procedure.
It's not happening.
It's not happening in the world of the good son.

(01:13:43):
oh Mark finally gets a phone call with his dad who has, I guess, finished driving to Tokyoand he tries to tell him that Henry is evil and dad tells Mark to go to the child
therapist and that he'll be here soon.
I guess he's starting his return drive from Tokyo and, uh, and,

(01:14:03):
He goes to the child therapist, oh but the child therapist has already been gotten to byHenry.
And you know it too, don't you just know that he's gonna be there?
yeah, like you totally, absolutely.
You absolutely know that he has already poisoned the well on this useless child therapist.
I will say, I did think that the fact that Mark is only there for a finite period of timeundercuts some of the jeopardy.

(01:14:30):
you keep your head down, stay safe and get the hell out.
Like if this was more open-ended, like imagine how much the danger would have been turnedup if he was just there indefinitely.
Like what if his parents had died?
Like what, not both of his parents, what if his parents had been in this really bad carwreck?
That's what I was thinking.
mom had died and his dad was like in a coma or in, in traction or something.

(01:14:53):
Yeah.
if his dad was just like, you know, it was a jerk who jumped, dumped them off for anindefinite stat.
You know, it was just like, and both of those setups are more dark, like they're evendarker.
But like if he was there, if essentially, if this is your new home kid, then it's reallyterrifying.

(01:15:13):
And then I would have found it more believable too, that he's not telling on the cousin.
I would have found it a little more believable, I think, yeah.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
And then up in insanely high treehouse, Henry and Mark have a conversation where Henrywarns Mark not to say anything else about him.
I an interesting session.
I like therapy.

(01:15:34):
What did you tell her?
Sorry?
It's strictly confidential.
But you better stop telling lies about me.
Because no one's going to believe you.
Sooner later, they're going to find out about you.
Who's they?
My dad.
My mom?
I told you, Mom.
Why would she believe you?

(01:15:56):
She's my mom, not yours.
You know you're wrong about that.
She is my mother.
You're a mom?
You crazy?
Your mom's maggot food.
My mom said she'd always be with me.
She chose your mom as a way of coming back.
But I guess you wouldn't understand that.
But it's true.

(01:16:16):
She's my mother now.
Hey, Mark.
Don't fuck with me.
Why is he going into the insanely high tree house now that he knows his cousin isdangerous?
Seriously.
Well, Anne Henry says your mom's maggot food.
And then a minute later, his salvo is, Hey Mark, don't fuck with me.

(01:16:39):
It's amazing.
It's honestly, and that's where I was like, I think, I actually think McCallick getsreally good in that way because he delivered that don't fuck with me.
Fantastic.
Yeah.
Yeah.
and then one night Henry, yeah.
Head games, Mark into believing that he has poisoned all the food in the house.
and Mark is literally trying to put every bit of food in the house down the garbagedisposal.

(01:17:02):
mean, there was more food on that counter than in the refrigerator.
And does uncle Hardcastle, you know, is he sympathetic to Mark's plight?
No, he just wants the kid out of the house.
Like he's just, he's clearly had enough of this kid.
And again, this is where I start to think that maybe, maybe Henry gets it from his, his,his sociopath father.
So I want to say one shot that I really admire in this film, like I have my problems withit, but one shot I really admire is when like Henry gets, or no, sorry, Mark gets sent to

(01:17:31):
sleep in Richard's room, that little toddler's room, and he's on that little toddler bed,and they've got this like super like high angle, right?
When it's like looking down.
I'm trying to remember my shots.
Yeah, the super high angle shot where he like appears so small, like he's almost like ahobbit again.
compared to his uncle who's like looming over him.

(01:17:53):
Right.
It just really shows you how disempowered he is in this household now and like, and alsohe's in the bed of the kid who's already been murdered.
Or even murdered!
my god!
You know, yeah, exactly.
And here's the thing about Henry.
Because if Henry was a little bit more experienced of a psychopath, he could have gottenaway with all of it.
Because sometimes he lingers too long.

(01:18:14):
He stares too intently.
And it's enough to grow that seed of suspicion in his mother.
A suspicion that grows even further when she pays a visit to Henry's Jason Voorhees murdershack, trademark pending.
We'll have that in the stores by Halloween, kids.
Because there she finds this rubber duck that belonged to Richard.

(01:18:34):
Again, if he had played this whole thing cooler, she might never have suspected a thing.
But he had to go and grab the rubber duck and throw it down his murder well.
Yeah, and he says, it was mine before it was his.
Right.
Yeah, like it was mine before it was his.
Like, oh man, you know, like if he was a little bit more savvy, he could have gotten awaywith it all.

(01:18:56):
Susan heads out to her comfort bluff while Mark and Henry have a confrontation back at thehouse over Henry's threat to kill his own mother.
And Henry points out, like Henry's like, well, she's your mom.
Isn't that what you said?
And this escalates to the point where you have Mark holding this pair of scissors atHenry's throat.
And of course that's right at the moment where the father walks into the room.

(01:19:18):
And of course the father doesn't believe, he believes his son.
So he locks him in the office as, just as you mentioned, the father's, you know, his, hiscomfort place is the office.
And that's his like the jail cell for, for poor Mark.
So from the window though, he sees Henry and Susan talking and walking off together.
So it's kind of.
This bit is like a repeat beat of the sister in the pond where Mark has to break out andrushing to save someone that he thinks quite correctly is in danger.

(01:19:49):
Like, do you think it's his intent to, like, so the mother is the one who brings up,though, Richard's death to Henry.
Do you think Henry is intending for his mother to end up dead on this walk, or if it onlyturns that way because she gets it out of him that he murdered his brother?
He had already brought up the possibility of killing his mother one way or another.
So I think it's like, this is essentially the opportunity presents itself.

(01:20:13):
But to be perfectly honest, if it hadn't on this walk, she's out by that bluff enough.
All you need to do is sneak up behind her and bam, there you go.
Yeah, my husband was watching this with me and he's like as soon as he saw her standing onthat cliff he's like, yeah, that's being set up, isn't it?
And I'm like, yeah.
Totally.
They have a conversation where she asks directly if Henry killed Richard and Henry answersthat question.

(01:20:43):
Yes, mom?
You have to tell me the truth now.
What happened the night Richard died?
Don't you know?
I'd like to hear it from you.
I was downstairs playing.
Don't lie to me, all right?
Just don't lie to me.

(01:21:05):
Now you tell me.
Did you kill Richard?
What if I did?
So what if I did?
Man, man.
Again, it's just a little more savvy.
He might've gotten away with it all, but he, you know, he lets it go.

(01:21:25):
uh And then she's out by her bluff and she's looking around for him and he runs up andjust pushes her over the side.
Ooh boy.
And again, this whole final sequence, this confrontation at the cliff, first it looksspectacular.
At no point did I feel that it didn't completely work.

(01:21:45):
But she grabs onto a branch like she's Indiana Jones.
like, my goodness.
It's like the bitten last crusade where, you know, it's like, uh, underneath the,underneath the cliff.
And, and, know, he's going to throw a rock at her, but Mark tackles him.
And we have this fierce battle with these two 12 year olds on the edge of a cliff.

(01:22:06):
It's amazing.
Like it's like, it's like William Shatner and Christopher Lloyd and Star Trek three.
Yeah, I will say the action is good.
an Elijah Woods character impresses me with his fighting instinct.
Maybe he's not killing on his cousin.
Maybe he's not good at public speaking.
But when it comes to like fighting for his life, he's got it under control.
Yeah.
He goes for him and, and, you know, Susan's able to climb up to the top and she reachesthe top just as the kids go over.

(01:22:32):
She grabs one with each hand and, but you can't pull them both up.
So who's she going to save her psycho son or this other kid?
And she lets McCauley Culkin go and he drops like molaram off the rope bridge.
And again, it looks amazing.
Like I don't know how they shot it.

(01:22:52):
I mean, I'm sure they had harnesses, I'm sure they had doubles, but at no point was I nottotally convinced that it was those two kids.
This is such a hard choice, like you gotta think for this woman to make like even if youknow, like if your son, you know that your son now has killed your other child, but like
even so like it so goes against like parents instinct to kill one of their children, youknow?

(01:23:16):
totally.
Totally.
But you know, mean, he was a bad seed.
He was not a good son.
He was a bad seed.
We need to talk about Kevin McAllister.
Yeah, absolutely.
Like honestly, know, Home Alone, you people talk about Home Alone and you know, that KevinMcAllister is a psycho.

(01:23:39):
You know, here we get like a much more sort of fully fleshed out version of that.
Yeah, I was gonna say, like, Home Alone, that's how I feel about it.
I've never really liked the first Home Alone movie because, like, I always felt thatMacaulay Culkin's character is, so super violent and, it just doesn't appeal to me.
Like, I know it's all supposed to be, like, really cartoonish, but, like, I'm just feelingit when these- these burglars are terrible people, right?

(01:24:00):
Yeah, but I'm feeling it the whole time.
yeah, they brought it on themselves by breaking into this house continually.
Yeah, but I just for a Christmas film, it was never what I wanted to watch.
Like I never understood people like, it's Christmas time.
Let's watch like Joe Pesci's head get burned off and like, you know, somebody else getlike a tack in their foot.
I'm like, no, no, thank you.

(01:24:21):
It's the spider that does it for me in Homeworld.
can't do the spider.
Ugh.
Terrible.
It's casting Macaulay Culkin against type and yet it's also sort of playing with this seedthat was already there.
It's super interesting that way.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
Um, and then the final shot is, the same as the beginning.
It's now we know that kid is Mark.

(01:24:42):
He's looking out over the desert.
He gets a voiceover where he wonders if Susan would make the same choice.
m
I'm sorry, the voiceover, and it hadn't come out yet, so it totally wasn't influenced bythis, but it reminded me of a Sex in the City voiceover.
I couldn't help but wonder.
God, that's funny.
I mean, it was, you know, if you think about it, was probably a pretty tough conversationwith her husband after letting Henry go.

(01:25:07):
Like she went back to the house with, uh, with Mark and there's going to be a talk.
Well, they probably just went out to dinner.
Just enjoyed a casual dinner on the time.
got a, you know, we got reservations.
And a moonlight kiss by the well.
We're going to get.
Wouldn't that be a great subplot if they have this romantic thing about that well and theyhave no idea that he's been throwing dead things in it the whole movie and they go out on

(01:25:31):
strolls at night.
A lot of people do walk their dogs through cemeteries and whatnot.
Sure.
could end up at that well with your loved usually there aren't wells in the cemeteries.
Well, maybe a general rule.
Well, okay, here's something to consider.
Maybe the city is really progressive and that well is just a quick way to bury peoplewhere it's like a chute and they just, they move it around and drop the bodies down.

(01:25:51):
They slide in and they...
patch it up and move it on to the next place.
We don't know what that well was about.
You don't have to go through the whole embalming process, all that stuff.
That's why his mom was cremated.
to give in to the- A million miles away, wherever- The funerary industrial complex.
Yes, yes.
Very progressive, Semitim.
Yeah, this movie really surprised me.

(01:26:13):
I did not know what to expect.
I wasn't sure going into it, but like I really felt because I think it- the character ofHenry
does bear some similarities as well as the character of Mark to some of the othercharacters we've seen with, you know, it's just what if that dangerous stranger was a kid?
it works because I think Macaulay Culkin and Elijah Wood are so good and the film ispretty well made.

(01:26:38):
Like even though there are things in it that are just like that tree house, my God, whobuilt that?
What psycho built that tree house?
The father, clearly the father.
I first thought it was in their yard.
Like the first time I was watching, was like, is that in their yard?
I'm like, did the father build that?
I'm like, how?
Like, how did he really do it?

(01:26:58):
Like, did he use a helicopter?
Like, I have no idea.
As Justin, as you said, it looks like it grew organically out of the ground in a, youknow, out of like the, the, the dirt, the dust, the, the soil of the pet cemetery.
Maybe it, maybe at a certain point it was a reasonably
designed tree house that was safe for kids.

(01:27:20):
And it just kept growing after McCauley-Colkins, Henry killed the family that lived inthat house next door.
Right.
Intimidarily possible.
whole place went to shit after that.
And then it just kept getting taller and taller over time.
I really like the expanded universe you guys are creating for this town.
I enjoy it.
Fan fiction of Goodson.
Hey, it's not too late for a Goodson legacy sequel.

(01:27:45):
True.
I mean, I don't know why the end of- good- Yeah, see him pretty definitively at the bottomof that cliff.
couldn't have swan dived away.
It's the sister now, guys.
you're right.
You're right.
She saw it all.
The good It's like Simon and Deadly Night part.
oh She has secrets.

(01:28:05):
She's not going to tell you a single one
That's right.
When we and we never learn those secrets.
That's on the poster.
She has the secrets and she's not going to tell you.
At least the last few episodes, I have pitched legacy sequels.
I don't know what has gotten into me, but some of these movies I'm like, I want to seewhere these characters go.

(01:28:27):
love making a sequel to a movie.
I love it when we do that on our show too.
It's the most fun.
Well, I think that probably brings us for a close today.
Jennifer, thank you so much for joining us.
It is always a pleasure to have you on.
Can you tell the world, tell anybody who's listening, where the Every Romcom podcast canbe found out?
Sure, it's not too hard to find.

(01:28:49):
So we have first of all, a website, everyromcom.com.
You can find us on pretty much all the podcasting platforms, everyromcom.
And then we're on, let's see, Facebook, everyromcom, podcast and blog.
We're still hanging onto Twitter for now, at everyromcompod.
And we are also on Instagram and Blue Sky, at everyromcom.

(01:29:13):
And also, if you for some reason you want to hang out on my Letterboxd, I have aLetterboxd account, my personal one, Jen Everyromcom.
So you can check out my Letterboxd.
actually write a review for every single thing I watch.
I never would be that disciplined.
And also there are certain things I watch and be like, I'm not letting the public knowthat I'm watching this.

(01:29:34):
Just not doing it.
Oh no, I'll never tell.
I'm like Connie, I'll never tell.
not telling.
Well, we will be back next week to conclude our Get Me Another Fatal Attraction serieswith two later entries in the trend, both involving teens.
So join us then when we discuss 1996's

(01:29:56):
Fear starring Mark Wahlberg, Reese Witherspoon, and William Peterson.
And from 2002, Swim Fan with Jesse Bradford and Erica Christiansen.
Again, thank you so much for listening.
We are your hosts, Chris Iannicote and Justin Beam.
If you've enjoyed the show, please consider subscribing and following us on Blue Sky,Instagram, threads, and still Twitter at Get Me Another Pod.

(01:30:21):
In addition, check out the Justin Beam Radio Hour wherever you listen to podcasts.
And you can find Justin's book, Roadside Memories at justinbeam.com or wherever books aresold.
If you've liked the show, please tell your friends about it.
Tell your enemies about it.
Tell that woman standing on the bluff and staring out at the ocean about it.

(01:30:42):
And join us next time as we continue to explore what happens when Hollywood says, get meanother.
you