Episode 250 (Haunting of the Queen Mary - 2023)

Jay and Mark are joined by Professor Mike Dillon to discuss the 2023 horror film Haunting of the Queen Mary. Directed by Gary Shore, and starring Alice Eve, Lenny Rush and an evil swimming pool, the movie focuses on a spectacularly haunted cruise ship. In this episode, they also talk about creepy phones, trauma drama, and mid-peril conversations. Enjoy!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Mmmm, Hello and welcome to Deep Blue Sea the Podcast.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
I am Mark Evil Swimming Pool Hoffmeyer and.

Speaker 3 (00:22):
I am Jay Stuck oreos Clue. Welcome to you a
board podcast. Actually that's that's that's not the name of
this podcast. This is this is October. This is Halloween Mont.
This is the Creeper Boo Scream the podcast. Everybody Creeper
Boo Scream that rolls right off your tongue, rolls off

(00:43):
the tongue. There we go. This is coming out around Halloween.
I guess uhh. Yes, on this show, we've been to
the entire Creep Boo Scream trilogy by scene. I'm going
to stop doing that. Now we're doing it again, but

(01:04):
not today. Today we're talking about a deep we see
adjacent film. That's a film directed by Rennie Harland faturing
a quaity action or sharks, and this is a very
much an aquatic action film which entirely takes bay on
a boat. That boat is the Queen Mary. The film
is the Haunting of the Queen Mary, or in some
places it's just called the Queen Mary. I think this
is about the very real British ship that sets sail
from my hometown in Southampton is now resides in La

(01:30):
I think Yeah, in California, in Long Beach, California, in California,
Long Beach, California. And it's tells two parallel stories, one
featuring the Colder family. It's played by Alice Eve, Jill
Fry and Lenny Rush who are trying to improve the
public perspective of this boat. They're trying to save it
by doing a VR campaign all kinds of things. Whilst

(01:51):
on board their son Lenny Lucasblinnia Rush, he gets possessed
maybe question mark unclear. And then in the past, back
in nineteen thirty eight, we followed the Ratch family Neil Hudson,
Will Coben and Florrie May Wilkinson and their adventures aboard
were hilarity, ensues and lots and lots of blood. So
this is a this is our favorite kind of episode

(02:12):
to doing this, which is a film a guest brings.
We had a guest on this lap of the this
dive of the film and he said, talk about holding
the Queen Mary, and we're throw to do so. So
welcome back to Professor Mike Dillon that throw tab you back. Hello,
good to be back.

Speaker 2 (02:29):
This movie's I like this movie, and then I only
know about it because of you, Professor Mike Dillon, when
we were doing the out Now There in a Horror
Awards and you sent me a list of suggestions, and
I had never heard of this film, and I like it.
It's a good time. I've watched it a few times now.

Speaker 4 (02:44):
I dig it a few times.

Speaker 2 (02:45):
Huh yeah, yeah, a few times. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (02:49):
I think it was on my year end list, so
that must have been a couple.

Speaker 3 (02:53):
Of years ago.

Speaker 2 (02:54):
Yeah, twenty three.

Speaker 3 (02:55):
Yeah, twenty three.

Speaker 4 (02:56):
Yeah, yeah, this is a This is an odd one.
I'll admit my enthusiasm for the film has waned a
bit since I pitched it to you as a possible
nautical film that you could cover on the podcast. I mean,
it's lovely for you to have me back. We had
a I thought, a really fun conversation about the whether
there's a parrot or not in Deep Blue Sea, and

(03:17):
so I pitched this one. I was curious, mainly, like
Mark said, it's obscure people don't know this film, and
so I was curious. I did rewatch it last night
in preparation for this, and I suppose the good news
is that all of the scenes that I remember being
really effective still are on the downside, I seem to
have forgotten a lot of its deficits. In particular, i'd

(03:39):
say it's about twenty minutes too long and quite uneven
at some crucial moments, especially toward the end when things
need to come together for maybe some dramatic impact. It
does bounce between a lot of different plotstrands and total shifts.
But the reason I recommend it and where I ultimately
stand on it, and why I think it merits some

(03:59):
con iteration is just because of how weird it is.
This is a film, and I hate to use such
a such a bit of academic jargon, but this movie's bananas. Sure,
there are elements of this film that are completely bananas.
So I just was very curious to see your reaction
and have a chat about it.

Speaker 2 (04:18):
I think you the right. Too many people use the
word bonkers. I don't like that word. I think it's
lost all meaning. People need to go back to bananas
because this movie is. This movie is bananas.

Speaker 4 (04:30):
It's I will confess. Sometimes I'll go full banana bonkers.
That's fine, just a scaffolded a little bit.

Speaker 2 (04:37):
Yeah, I loved well you pair them together Jay banana bonkers. Sorry,
j you have to deal with a lot of banana bonkering.

Speaker 3 (04:45):
But not that's fine. Yeah, yeah, but on the bunk away.
My personal criticism of the film, this is a bad
film to watch on a busy train. It was my
my critician, which you know it willn't a busy train
when I started watching it, But around sixty three minutes
in when it starts to get really bloody, the train

(05:05):
got very busy and a child sat next to me,
so I had to stop watching it, and then I
picked up again when I got home. But yes, not
the Gary Show director writer did not intend to be
watched on a train, I'm sure, but that was what
I had to do for this. I had no it.
Never heard of this podcast, this film before you suggest
it either Mike and I had a good time. I agree,

(05:26):
uneven but some some cu Guber and the Bonca stuff
like the phone sequence. Great, loved it. That's from a
different film, has no place a different film film. Yeah,
it makes no sense to go to the rest of it,
but I really enjoyed it. It's a great sequence. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (05:40):
On the face of it, it really is just a
haunted house story and there isn't that much that happens,
that's all that Freshman original. But would you get or
a series of very strange and I would say quite
bold editing and framing choices that give the film kind
of a creepy and macabre quality.

Speaker 3 (05:56):
That does make it quite unique.

Speaker 4 (05:57):
And I think there's all kinds of editing and camera
choices that never do what you expect throughout.

Speaker 2 (06:06):
So I went and researched this film because you know
the phone bit, and there's other bits that don't tie together.
It's like I wanna know a little bit. And there's
Gary Short does no interviews about this film. There's nothing
out there from him. It's all Dracula untold. So then
I found a random podcast episode where the producer Bret Tomberlin.
What Tomerlin was interviewed and he said, So they filmed

(06:29):
this during COVID. They were gonna shoot on the Queen Mary,
but then they were told they can't. Then they were
told they could, but then none of the crew could
get COVID insurance, so they didn't shoot there. So they
went to the UK and they scanned the Queen Mary
used virtual stages. Someone had a heart attack on their set,
Joel Fry could only show up for the final twelve
days of filming. I guess House of the Dragon took
some of their gear and then they had They're like, well,

(06:50):
we're not bringing it back, so they had to go
back and get their gear. They couldn't have They had
aerial balloons, but those got taken. Netflix poached some of
their staff while they were shooting, and then he said
two art department heads quit because Netflix paid them. The
VFX company that was going to do their film went
bankrupt as they started filming. Then the Queen Mary went bankrupt,

(07:10):
and then someone doing set deck stabbed themselves in and
abdomen with the scissors. Gas was out, they said in
the UK, so they had to uber the entire crew
to the set. I don't know why the ubers had gas,
but then they had to renovate it. Then they had
to build makeshift pools because they couldn't use real pools,
and they and then because of like everything that went crazy,
they had no time for reshoots. So basically what they

(07:30):
had was what they had because they had no time
for reshoots, which I think added to why this movie
is how it is. But like you said, Mike, like
even if it's uneven, there's some very startling shots in
this and there's some really fantastic visuals that like that
come through here. So even if it's a little bit uneven,
even if it is twenty minutes too long, there are

(07:52):
still some things that I really admire about it. And
despite all the problems they had on set, I think
they cobbled together, you know, well, and didn't they didn't
kill anybody and bury them and in the camera, which
is good, which is nice, or build them put them
in the set. Yeah, so they don't, you know, they
don't have an anchor grip for the movie. That'd be
an interesting concept. Never mind what if Cameron did that? No,

(08:14):
not Titanic for the event. I digress. But yeah, there's
still a lot to like, and there are some very
effective shots. I like the casting, everyone's committed, the cinematography's legit.
I like what they're able to get. And so even
though that they were struggling all through the shoot, there's
still some stuff in here that I really liked, And

(08:35):
so I think you got it right. There are some
very effective beats in this movie.

Speaker 4 (08:40):
Yeah, I didn't know all that about like what a
troubled I knew it was shot during COVID, and I
figured that's because evidently they did film on the actual
Queen Mary. Yes, some some yeah, yeah, A Jay said,
so the Queen Mary is something you can actually visit it. It
is in Long Beach, California, which is quite close to me,
although I've never been. I think they've converted it into
a hotel. And they also do themed events, so particularly

(09:03):
in October, I've heard that they'll do escape room type
converted events. They also have the high schools sometimes host
their proms there, some of the wealthier schools, I'm guessing.

Speaker 2 (09:15):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (09:15):
I did a quick read on this, and apparently there's
no historical or kin a verified record of anybody having
been murdered on the ship. But nonetheless, rumors started popping
up that there had been some Grizzly killings aboard at
some later point, and that those spirits continue to haunt
the ship. But from what I've read, those rumors began
long after it was permanently docked, so it does seem
to be kind of just a transparent attempt to boost

(09:38):
ticket sales to claim that the ship is haunted. Yeah,
so taken in that context, this film is basically a
giant commercial for the ship's tourism efforts, you know, in
case there's any confusion as to why whatever group or
institution that operates the ship would want their hotel business
associated with all that brutality and depth. So that explains

(09:59):
how they got access to the ship what I didn't know,
And then of course COVID, you know, probably not only
gave them an incentive to just have something going on
while they while they shut the facilities down. Yeah, I
didn't know that production ran into so many stumbling blocks,
and it makes me wonder how much how much similarity

(10:20):
there is between original script and finished product, because when
you have that much going wrong and you have to
sort of salvage as much as you can in the edit,
then I wonder whether or not that accounts in some
way for how fractured the narrative is. Right, And it's
not so much a criticism of the fact that the
narrative bounces back and forth, but I kind of wonder
whether or not that's something they had to lean into

(10:43):
because of the footage they had assembled under the circumstances. Wow, Okay, well,
let's let's let's bounce between narratives and if we come
up with this sort of nonlinear style that will obscure
the fact that we just don't have coverage in some areas. Right,
maybe that's just kind of a late late save, you
know that speculation, But I'd be curious to kind of
do a deep dive.

Speaker 2 (11:01):
No, but that makes sense. You know, Joel Fry was
only there for twelve days.

Speaker 3 (11:04):
Uh. You know.

Speaker 2 (11:05):
Also too, we were talking about Street Fighter on movie
Stones of Flicks. The Stephen Desuza said he was just
ripping pages out of his script and that's why there's
so many scenes missing from that movie, like how people
get kidnapped and this and that. So they're like, Okay,
we don't have these actors. We lost a lot of time,
but we have these people. Let's do some tap dancing. Like,
let's let's have this scene. Let's there's the surprisingly long

(11:26):
tap dance number.

Speaker 4 (11:28):
Okay, guys, while the set deck will the set deck
team of that movie is getting away with murder.

Speaker 2 (11:33):
Yeah. And they're like and also to like, guys, what
do we do cell phone attacks Alice Eve? Yeah, like
you do it with roll, Like, guys, we gotta shoot,
you know, like, what are we gonna do? We have
no gas. We couldn't get her on time, our gear
got stolen. We can't use this big ballroom because we
don't have lights. Alice, grab your phone.

Speaker 3 (11:54):
Let's go, you know, like grow a bunch of glass
in the bar scene. What it doesn't matter. Why that's
how a mash her phase into the keys. Great. There's
a bunch of like little mini horror vignettes scatters through
the film, and I enjoyed those of the most of
all those local sequences. And the real, the real bloody
massacre in the middle is is incredible. Is like it's
it's the opposite of Psycho. It's you know, to bath

(12:16):
murder with all of the blood rather none of them.
It's great. It's well well, very well shot sequence.

Speaker 4 (12:21):
It gets surprisingly bloody. Yeah, this movie really doesn't skimp
on the gore. Like the axe kills have real impact, right.

Speaker 3 (12:29):
Literally the face as a mask on but like that,
that's a gouge out of her face afterwards. Yeah, Christ and.

Speaker 2 (12:35):
Then those people walk into the room and he follows
them into the other room of bodies. I think a
lot of credit needs to go to Isaac Bauman, the DP.
He shot Loki season two. We did five episodes of that.
He also worked on Channel zero and he was a
Cinematographern's servant for MLI Shamalan and Shamalan' is a crewing
some really cool dps by the way, But I I

(12:57):
I think it's visually interesting. It's a very visually interesting film.
I think he did some good work, and I like
the ghosts around. I like the casting decisions. I think
it looks I don't know, maybe they had extra time
to get unique shots on this, but it looks crisp
and clear and I dig it. And it also features

(13:17):
one of the best burns of twenty twenty three, not
literal birds. Everyone. Alice Eve is walking in with her husband,
what Joel Fry, I guess I should name them, have
the characters names Anne and Patrick, Anne and Patrick. And
he's like, yeah, but I have three books and she's like, oh,
you're counting academic journals as part of that. I was like, oh,

(13:40):
I was like, this is getting brutal between these two.
So I kind of like that one right there.

Speaker 3 (13:45):
I don't like the casting of them, but why do
they have to be American? These are all English actors.
Why are they all I don't know it irritated me throughout.
I don't I have no reason behind it. I just
like three English acts to say I had no idea
Lenny Rush was in it. He's he's like a up
and cooming child actor in the UK, and he was

(14:07):
on he was on New Year's Celebrity episode of task Master,
which is a show I love. So Hey, Nny rushes
in this and the the clothes he's wearing, my nephew
has the exact same top because we bought it for
him just made me happy. Is he nothing? Is he?

Speaker 4 (14:22):
Is he well known?

Speaker 3 (14:24):
He is getting well known in the UK? Least I
don't know, because he's been a few sitcoms. He was
in an episode of Doctor Who. He's in Noler Holmes too,
apparently he was in But yeah, he's he's an up
and coming guy.

Speaker 4 (14:38):
I think that is maybe the most fascinating choice made
in this film. Yeah, the casting of the little boy
who Lenny what's it Lenny Rush Rush who has Dwarfism, right.

Speaker 3 (14:52):
Yeah, yes, it's yeah.

Speaker 4 (14:55):
It's it's such a it's such an odd move and
I feel genuinely conflicted this because I do feel it's
part of what makes the film so off kilter the
sort of non essential casting of a child with dwarfism,
because there's nothing in the film, nothing in the film
that requires the child to be little or otherwise disabled her,
And one could further argue that there is something maybe

(15:16):
tasteless about putting a disabled child in continuous peril like that,
which speaks to sort of inherent trashness about this movie,
I think. But at the same time, there's also something
very admirably progressive about a genre film like this, or
any film for that matter, giving work to an actor
with a disability, but then never remarking on it, or

(15:37):
just taking it out of given and not drawing attention
to it, or worse, making it so that his condition
gives him some kind of special abilities or special insights
into communing with the dead, or something condescending and exoticizing
like that.

Speaker 2 (15:48):
Right, So, I.

Speaker 4 (15:49):
Feel genuinely torn between these positions of On the one hand,
I do feel guilty and lousy for associating people with
disabilities as adding dimensions of weirdness to a film, But
at the same time, I do think it's a really
critical component in what makes this film so unusual and
bold is to do such unconventional casting. I'm curious what
you guys might think.

Speaker 3 (16:10):
Yeah, one of his first roles was in a was
as tiny Tim in a version of Christmas Carol, which
makes perfect sense for sure, the character, his condition, it
kind of fits that that's the kind of person they
would have role. But yeah, I I agree that it
stood out. I mean, no problem with it either way.
You know, I was just thrilled to say it's he's
a great actor. Sort I was disappointed he's not in

(16:34):
the second half of the film pretty much. I thought,
when did he come back? And then we find out
why it didn't come back. Uh.

Speaker 2 (16:39):
Yeah, he draws a lot of like like, there's a
lot of empathy to like. I don't know, he's just
a very nice screen presence. I think the acting the like.
And then he just dies spoilers, he just gets killed
in the pool, like what's like in a brutal scene.
It's a uh yeah, I guess it is unique casting.
They never really touch on that, They never explain they

(16:59):
never was any like magical elements to that. But yeah,
it did catch me, not off guard, but it was.
I guess it was a surprise, I guess while watching it.
But I think the strength, though, is that he's just good.
Lenny's good in this movie.

Speaker 4 (17:15):
It's the kind of switcheroo that I really appreciate because
it makes me check my own presumptions, which is, okay,
well you have you've gone out of your way to
cast someone with dwarfism in this role. That must have
some impact somehow, or it must be relevant in some way,
or that the child has certain special needs that are

(17:36):
going to figure into the plot somehow. And then when
you realize, oh no, there is no such a sort
of additional consideration here. This is they just cast somebody
who was right for the part and did a terrific job,
and you realize, oh wow, I'm the asshole in the
situation that that kind of yeah, I really appreciate that

(17:57):
sort of invitation to assume something kind of unusual is
going on, and then not having that happen just kind
of force us to force me any way to check
my assumptions. Was I think it is a you know,
like I said, a bold move.

Speaker 3 (18:10):
I guess you could argue that having casting somebody with
dwarfism might make the audience see this characters being even
more at risk or innocent, but potentially than a catual
without I don't know, I don't want to cast that
kind of aspersion, but I just I hope they just

(18:31):
cast him because he was the best actor for the role,
and I think he did a great job.

Speaker 4 (18:36):
Yeah, that's what I mean that there's nothing that there's
no peril that befalls this child that would play out
any differently in the context of the narrative than it
would with anybody. And I think that there doesn't seem
to be any additional emphasis or peril or you know,
sort of precariousness to the situation owing to his dwarfism

(18:57):
beyond what the audience might what baggage the audience might
sort of presume as they're watching it. And I find
that just a really fascinating kind of interplay between what
an audience might expect versus just what the what the
story calls for. And I think that's a Yeah, there's
something kind of avant guarde about about that choice.

Speaker 3 (19:15):
Arguably, I think Joel Fry was an excellent He's great
at playing people who are just kind of not doing
well in life. Every Joel Fry character, anything I can
ever think of it is that he's just this kind
of annoying best friend sad sack, you just can't get
it together, And that works for this character. That's who
this character is.

Speaker 4 (19:37):
It's on is he the boy's father or not?

Speaker 2 (19:40):
He? No, he's not. Yeah, she's like he's not yours.
He's like, well I raised him, so got it. Yeah,
But why do they need to be fighting? Why why
do they need to be because it's not it's.

Speaker 3 (19:55):
So half halfway through a horror sequence, they can stop
and have a conversation about like, so am I not
good enough? Which if I'm ever in like a stress situation,
I want to have the wherewithal to like stop and
have that kind of like wait, just hang on, let's reassess.
Do you like me? Just to have that halfway through
any kind of stressful scene, it'll be great.

Speaker 2 (20:17):
Professor Mike Dillon. Through your journey through the horror genre,
you know there's movies like Vacancy, There's movies like The Strangers.
There's movies like this where couples are on the verge
of a breakup or they're distance and then they get
put through hell. Why is that a common trope in horror?
Would you say just to have them reunite or have

(20:39):
them find strength together, and it's just something that fills
up pages. Why is that necessary for a lot of
these films.

Speaker 4 (20:46):
I don't know that it's necessary. There's probably plenty of
examples in which that doesn't happen, or when the family
kind of dissolves by the end. Right, So it is
a trope.

Speaker 3 (20:56):
I think.

Speaker 4 (20:58):
You want personal, unrelatable stakes kind of standing in for
the larger threat. And so you also I think in
a horrorone particularly one in which a sort of equilibrium
is restored, right, the demon is vanquished or the threat
is neutralized, and the symbol for that, of course, like
take take Poulter Guides for instance, Right, it's there is

(21:22):
an external demonic threat to the family. But the measure
by which so the measurement of the threat is of course,
like whether or not this family is going to be united,
reunited or not. And so the reunification of the family
is synonymous with the vanquishing of the evil. And so
those two things signal basically a happy ending, right, And

(21:46):
so you can't have the reunification of a couple unless
there's like a frame from the beginning. Right, that's the
sort of micro conflict that runs parallel to the larger
a conflict, which is of course the whatever killer or
slasher or whatever is going on. So, you know, I
think it makes sense narratively, you want characters who have
relatable stakes beyond just you know, I'm being chased by

(22:08):
a demon in the woods, because that's less relatable that
that plays on sort of kind of different set of
primal fears. But if I can restore my relationship to
my girlfriend, my strange girlfriend, and save the day, then
that gives me something worth well, you want something worth
fighting for to begin with, and you want something to signal,

(22:31):
and then of course you get the movies that give
you the impression that that reunification of the family unit
is upon you, only to then subverted at the end,
which are more your your more downbeat endings.

Speaker 3 (22:42):
I think.

Speaker 4 (22:44):
I don't know that answers your question, but I think
that's the Those are the emotional registers that I think
the trope kind of relies on.

Speaker 3 (22:51):
I just don't make sense.

Speaker 2 (22:52):
I just don't know why it's I get it. I
just think sometimes the narrative is strong enough, like the
Hills have eyes, like the family kind of likes each
other and they go horrible things and then that works.
But I mean that's also Wes Craven and Alexandraja like
they're they're pretty good at what they do. So it's
also another this I'm going off topic, Professor Mike Dillan,
but we got you here, and a lot of shark
movies there's always trauma up front, so characters are bigot

(23:17):
there's hate crimes where they get beat up or their
sister is murdered by their boyfriend, or.

Speaker 3 (23:24):
The real films we covered is the real opening scenes
to films we covered, Yeah, and like and.

Speaker 4 (23:28):
Then they wait, what are these films?

Speaker 2 (23:30):
So like there's something there's like something in the the
reef Stocked. There's a few other films where there's like
a tragedy that happens, like the Shallows her mom died,
and then she go that that one makes more sense
that one actually does it intelligently. But there's a couple
oh yeah, baits Yeah, Like there's there's weird there's weird

(23:51):
drama in the beginning involving drama, involving trauma.

Speaker 3 (23:54):
Jesus, the drama creepoo scare is that the name of
this screen?

Speaker 2 (24:03):
So, but I guess you're overcoming trauma, but I feel
like sometimes that trauma doesn't really have much to do
with being attacked by a shark, or am I missing
a metaphor? Like I know you haven't seen these films,
but as far as like, uh, I don't know, I
don't know what the point is of those, Professor Mike Dillon, is.

Speaker 4 (24:23):
What I'm saying again again, I don't think it's unique
to U, certainly not to shark movies, but to horror
in general. Right, you get action movies that do this,
thrillers that do this. John Wick opens at a funeral, right,
he's mourning his wife, et.

Speaker 3 (24:37):
Cetera, et cetera.

Speaker 4 (24:38):
So I think there's in the let's let's limit.

Speaker 3 (24:41):
It to shark movies.

Speaker 4 (24:42):
Right, Like the shallows, you get characters who are uh,
it's a it's a screenwriting shortcut. These are people who
are not happy. They're not they're not just living the dream.
Because that's uh makes them less compelling, because you know,
you you put a happy person in a bad situation
get out of it. Maybe that's inherently less compelling than

(25:02):
someone who already feels down about circumstances and they have
every reason to just maybe give up or or not
want to sort of fight back and and kind of
reclaim some desire to live, but they do so anyway, right,
And so to have someone who already has every reason

(25:22):
to just be depressed about life then put under extraordinarily
dangerous situations that really test their will to live and
then they decide to punch through. Push through is maybe
kind of a it's maybe a cliche, but it's it's
the building blocks of a of a pretty compelling narrative arc.

Speaker 2 (25:43):
No that makes sense, and like, you know, John Wick
makes sense. His wife died, he got a dog, the
dog died. He's going to kill people, you know, shallows.
She went to go visit the place where her mom surfed,
and she makes a mistake by staying out too late
because she had brought a friend. But her friend has hungover,
So like it makes sense that she is trying to
figure that out. There's this other movies where it's like
my sister was murdered by my husband, and I'm going
on a kayaking trip and a shark attacks me, and

(26:05):
then you're just kind of like, wait, yes, what's here.

Speaker 3 (26:08):
That's that's kind of my favorite part about The Reef
Stalked is just you wrote, like the opening blind side
of like wait wait, wait, what just happened? Yeah, like this,
we just met this character and then this sister comes
to visit her and she's been killed by her boyfriend
that wasn't established her too. I enjoy when we see
a lot of shark films. A lot of them are
very similar. So when something throws a curve ball, it's

(26:30):
just different. I appreciate that. And having a merger in
the opening scene is different. So I like that.

Speaker 2 (26:37):
Yeah, I never saw that coming, that's for sure.

Speaker 4 (26:40):
I think I appreciate more. So take like The Dissent, right,
not a Shark film, but you have this unspeakable tragedy
at the start of the film, and then she's still
kind of dealing with the memories of that and the nightmares,
and then they go down into this cave and then
things get exponentially worse. Right, And so rather than has

(27:01):
to I'm dealing with this personal trauma and then this
external monster of some kind is attacking me. I need
to deal with these things simultaneously. I think the better
the better scripts are the ones in which the kind
of the trauma that you're dealing with kind of informs
the means by which you decide to rise up and
fight the current threat, so that the act of vanquishing

(27:23):
the monster or demon or whatever it is is attacking
you becomes kind of the conduit through your own sort
of redemption, right or you're you're dealing with the trauma
through this process.

Speaker 3 (27:36):
That makes sense.

Speaker 2 (27:36):
I mean, she's I mean that's what you would want,
you know, like with monsters in there, So it makes
sense after the loss of her husband finding out about Juno,
Like you're fighting out of a deep dark hole with monsters,
you know, inner monsters that would be rules by the way.

Speaker 4 (27:50):
Yeah, Well, what's particularly dark about that movie is that
the sort of redemption, this sort of I'm the very
mousey weak person that everyone has to kind of constantly
worry about because like.

Speaker 3 (27:59):
Is she okay?

Speaker 4 (28:00):
Is she going to be okay? And then she turns
up to be the one who rises up and becomes
the biggest warrior of the bunch. But that act of
claiming her own agency and deciding.

Speaker 2 (28:10):
To be a warrior not a warrior.

Speaker 4 (28:14):
Is what's dark about the film is that it's synonymous
with getting her revenge on Juno.

Speaker 2 (28:18):
Yeah, right, by.

Speaker 4 (28:21):
Stabbing her and leaving her to die. That is the
means by which she's going to kind of assert her
self control. There's kind of that's that's something kind of
macab and Graham about about that character arc, I think,
which is what makes that film a bit edgier than,
you know than your films in which the family and
the family dog are all safe at the end, you know.

Speaker 2 (28:42):
And Juno rules by the way, I just want to
put that out there, you know, is the best. I mean,
whatever she gets in the tunnel.

Speaker 4 (28:50):
Husband, yeah, yeah, her decision, she makes bad decisions.

Speaker 2 (28:53):
But just a badass a little let's leave that there.
I think she's I think she's cool, but yeah, not
a good friend, yeah, not at all. Or tour guide. Yeah,
going back to Queen Marry. Sorry sorry to drag us
on that. It's just a I mean I but also too,
I mean, I guess at the end they decide to
stay together and then let an what's spoil the ending? Right?

Speaker 3 (29:16):
Oh yeah, let's talk about it.

Speaker 4 (29:18):
So yeah, well if you if you can, if you
can summarize it cogently, because I'm not entirely.

Speaker 2 (29:23):
Let's rolled sleeves.

Speaker 3 (29:25):
I've never seen this before. So the whole I'm going
to try and do this. So the whole point is
back when the ship was built, that was built with
the superstition of sacrifice, a foundation sacrifice where somebody had
to be buried within the walls as like a sacrifice
to the ship, and then the ship would become unsinkable.

(29:46):
When the Queen Mary is one of the famously unsinkable,
it's like so many things, it's lived so much long
that I should have done so this kind of makes sense.
They would apply this to this Kathy Beats exactly. So
the person they buried in to the into the walls
in the pool mark there's something wrong with the pool
in this film. It's our favorite, his favorite kind of
film is something wrong with the pool. Very it's at

(30:10):
night swim. That's something wrong with the pool. There's night
swim at sea. So they buried this guy I comemember
his name doesn't matter, and he because when David Ratch
pisses in the pool, I think it's at this point
when he urinates into the pool, he gets possessed by
this guy who then and then goes on a murdering

(30:30):
rampage before being killed to put him back into the walls.
Slash forward to twenty twenty three pee in the pool.
I don't know if it's it's something to do with
the pool, it's something wrong with the pool. But that's
his interaction with the pool. And then when when Lenny
Rush goes into the pool, he has a he gets
like strangled by his camera keeps flashing. That's another good scene.

(30:55):
That interaction allows Ratch's daughter her who he killed, Jackie Ratch,
who he killed. I'd never quitt quite inderstand he kept
on calling her. I think the soul that possessed David
Ratch had a daughter called Cassandra who didn't inhabit Jackie.

(31:15):
Jackie just becomes her own soul on the board. I
don't know if there's a Cassandra there as well. Unclear.

Speaker 4 (31:19):
I think Jackie and Cassandra are the same person. The
daughter's name is Jackie, but she adopts the name Cassandra
to try to impress these movie people in the ballroom.

Speaker 3 (31:32):
Okay, but because there was a point where where Jackie
undoes her father's straight jacket, he calls her Cassandra and
she says, that's not my name. My name's Jackie. I think, yeah,
So it's like he's calling her by her fake name.
Despite being a different character. I don't know, it doesn't matter.

(31:53):
That's one of the things that's not really not really
made clear because, like you know, before they get went
on the ship, Lucas had a dream that they'd lived there.
So I don't know if children coming aboard that are
going to they already know they're going to become entombed
on the ship somehow they have it doesn't matter. So
Jackie takes and in habits possesses Lucas, leaves the ship
with Anna Patrick off screen, and drops him out of

(32:17):
a window because it's not her son.

Speaker 5 (32:22):
I think I wasn't unclear, right, So she understands that
she is allowing this child to fall up the window
because by doing so it will vanquish the spirit that
has possessed her son.

Speaker 3 (32:36):
Yes, potentially yes, and injures her hand in the process,
which then allows for the phone sequence. Again, doesn't really
the whole injured hand doesn't really go into doesn't really
become anything. So when they're back on the ship.

Speaker 4 (32:50):
Sorry, no husband and a husband and wife, but.

Speaker 3 (32:56):
They have the same surname, so I think they are
in a bar.

Speaker 4 (32:59):
But are two characters return to the ship to do
their research project overnight after their son is confirmed dead
from deestration.

Speaker 3 (33:11):
And it turns out that they know pre definestration or
even mid definestration. Uh, the inhabited the possessed Lucas revealed
that they are really Jackie and that Lucas is on
the ship somehow. So when they when Anne and Patrick
came back to the Queen Mary to do the more research,
that was a ruse. Actually came back to try and

(33:34):
find and potentially retrieve Lucas. But whilst they're they're like, ah,
we'll just we'll stay here, and so that's when their
souls remain somehow. I don't know how the rats inhabit
their bodies. Mike's head is in his hands. The Chess
have the bodies of Anne and Patrick and then head off.

(33:55):
They then get arrested. Has been killed and then laughed
the way to the police station. I don't know what
David ratch in the body of Patrick order. He was
not involved with the death of Lucas in the eyes
of police, so he's just gonna be released as a psychopath. Well,

(34:16):
he's not a psychopath. It was the guy who possessed
him with the psychopath. But he seemed a little unstable
even pre possession, so I don't know, he's just out
there being a menace perhaps, but yeah, that's the film.
I think that's something.

Speaker 4 (34:31):
Up that's a much more admirable effort than I would
have been able to pull off.

Speaker 3 (34:37):
I mean, the.

Speaker 4 (34:39):
You know, one of the central scenes that ties together
a lot of these elements is really worth looking at, right,
because you have close ups of her hand is completely
swollen in bandaged, so you don't know what happened, and
then there's a black and white flashback to how it happened,
no reason why it needs to be in black and white,
and then we flashed forward to her in a bathtub

(35:01):
or taking a shower. It's kind of reminiscing about this
horrible thing that the details and significance of which we
still don't know, and then it randomly cuts back to
nineteen thirty eight. So you have this seemingly important thing
which comes to become much more important later, presented to
us through a series of very unmotivated edits that deliberately

(35:22):
avoid straightforward storytelling, which is both the strength and kind
of what makes this film kind of ludicrous. Right, It's
ostensibly just about a couple doing a research project on
a ship and are trapped alone overnight and it's haunted.
Simple enough premise, and there would have been a straightforward
way of telling that story. And it's as if they
just said, nah, let's shuffle it like a deck of

(35:46):
cards and you know, hope it makes sense or not.
We don't really seem to We don't seem to know ourselves.

Speaker 2 (35:53):
That's because you could have. It must have come down
to scheduling, because they only had Fry for twelve days
and then they had you know, who knows how long
they had ALICEU, so they they probably needed them together.
So then maybe they split them up to keep them
distant and away from each other. And then they added
more of the flashback scenes because they didn't have the
actors and they had the ballroom. There's a lot of

(36:13):
ballroom work in this movie. Like, hey, listen, we got
the ballroom. We got a guy, we got Fred Astare,
a guy who you know playing Fred a stair. Yeah,
but yeah, this is a this is a very high
concept film that that is made into like Memento a
little bit. It's like high concept, but then it becomes
not like two people dropped on a boat and then
it goes way away from there. But still that being said,

(36:37):
this is insane. But I'm telling you it's so it's
so bananas. I like that word that at least has personality.
This is a movie that does have personality to it.
And you know, Jay explain, it just made it like collapse.
You're talking about shuffling decks. We had like a we
had like a card or a structure that just made
it collapse because I never thought about it. She does

(36:59):
murder her the kid, and then it just goes and yeah,
you know, and I'll uh, I'll come back to the
boat and it's very frustrating, but also at least it
makes you feel something I do. Like I like when
when the rampage happens on the boat, like people get
step bathroom kills nuts and when the people get killed
in the next bat it's nuts. And there are some
startling visuals in this film. So it's bananas, But I

(37:22):
still think it's it's unique enough to set it apart
for most horror films that come out, because it's not basic,
that's for sure.

Speaker 4 (37:30):
It's it's both its strength and its weakness, right because
because that unconventional kind of quirk that the movie has.
Like therein lies the problem as well, because because it's
so content to be unconventional and it's pacing that won,
it eventually loses track of time because it's just the
running time becomes inflated. But also, if you juggle multiple

(37:51):
storylines the way this one does, there is an assumed
obligation from the audience that they will tie into each
other at the end, which this does, but in a
way that it remains really abstract. I'm not entirely clear
how Jay managed to pull all the threads together.

Speaker 3 (38:07):
It wasn't by reading the Wikipedia because that ends about
a third way through the just they.

Speaker 2 (38:13):
Don't even try to finish it.

Speaker 4 (38:15):
So, yeah, there's a point. Yeah, So so to build
off of what Mark is saying, there is a point
at which all of this movie is sort of formal
daring does kind of give way and spill over into incoherence,
and you know that unfortunately ties into the film's excessive length,
and you know, the longer the longer it goes, the
harder it gets to sort of what keep track of

(38:37):
the bread crumbs to find your way home?

Speaker 3 (38:39):
You know, Yeah, why.

Speaker 2 (38:41):
Is there tap dancing?

Speaker 3 (38:44):
It's it's a great I mean, I definitely just have
a character playing for the stat that's great. I haven't
seen many further Step films, but I felt this is
the only one where his dance sequence is like really red.
Everything's like really mootely red. That feels like not a
typical further Stead number. It's weird.

Speaker 2 (39:02):
It's so weird.

Speaker 4 (39:03):
I mean, it's it's why I ultimately do lean positive
on this film, because I mean, like, you know, I
started by admitting it's far from perfect for you know,
the reasons I laid out, But I have a real
soft spot for movies that are a bit bananas. And
and what I think I mean by that is that
this is a film that, for better or worse, seems
to embrace a really trashy aesthetic, right. I mean the

(39:25):
fredi is their bit apropodea and nothing right the song
and dance number. I mean, there are choices here that
work is like really high camp, I think, and that's
something that I think the movie is doing that that
is unusual and just utterly utterly weird that that kind
of spills it over for me into into something I

(39:46):
really enjoy.

Speaker 3 (39:50):
Halloween costume balls, everyone's in in like elaborate costumes as well.
That just adds an element of campaugs. And the guy,
the guy playing the director Angus right, is the actor
that I quite enjoy. He's great. If you need someone
to just be the smuggest person in the world, that's right.
He's great at doing it. So yeah, I like him.

Speaker 4 (40:09):
Yeah, the father character he's wearing, so you're right, there's a.

Speaker 3 (40:13):
Bit of Halloween. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (40:15):
I thought he was blending in as Gratcho Marx. Sure, yeah,
but but but the result is that he looks kind
of a cross between Bruce Campbell and Basil Faulty.

Speaker 3 (40:28):
Sure, yeah, yeah, that's what it.

Speaker 2 (40:29):
Looked like to me.

Speaker 4 (40:30):
Yeah, great chin, Yeah, Now we are we meant to
infer that, because when there's a moment in which he
takes off the mask and he has a giant, gaping
deformity in his face, and it it felt to me
that we're meant to infer that's a war wound from
World War One.

Speaker 3 (40:46):
Yeah, I think so, yeah, because well he says that
he's a wolf veteran, and then it's like, oh, he
lied about it, and then he takes a mask off
and he's wounded, So I think, yeah, it's a.

Speaker 4 (40:57):
Bit similar to the wound in the the husband who
comes around from the girl with the needle from last year.

Speaker 2 (41:03):
Oh yeah, and then she runs away from him. Yeah,
that movie's gnarly.

Speaker 3 (41:11):
I haven't heard of that. From there.

Speaker 2 (41:15):
There's a poster of them too. It says the Flying
Ratches at one point and they said they entertained the troops.

Speaker 3 (41:21):
Oh yes, yes, yeah, he said he was. Yeah, he
was there entertaining.

Speaker 2 (41:25):
They are performers. So then that's how crazy, that's how
bananas this movie is. Because there is a poster that
talks about the Flying Ratches and so they have skills.

Speaker 3 (41:40):
Yeah, because yeah. The one thing, the one element of
this film doesn't make sense to me is the only
one when he when the dad, when David Ratch goes
to the director and he's like, please let my kid
dance with you, please, And then they can get thrown
out because he's trying to read somebody else. When he

(42:00):
and his wife get thrown out, they're like, do you
think do you think she bought it? Do you think
the kid bought that? I was like, this was all
this went as planned? And I didn't I didn't understand that.
What what was the intention? What was this just to
get her in a room with Freds there and Ginger
orders and this director and then leave and then they

(42:21):
go and it's almost they're going to go rob the place.
They're like setting these up and we got thrown out. Great,
just what we wanted. We're gonna go still the safe
and then he goes and in the pools, one does
as one does. I didn't. I didn't understand what that
was supposed to me. Ah, I'm getting blanket especially.

Speaker 2 (42:43):
I never thought about that. Yeah, because they're do like
we should just leave her here, and then she's sitting
there and then like, hey, you want to dance, and she.

Speaker 3 (42:53):
Successfully wins over the director and then she bat her
ankle and then that doesn't anyway.

Speaker 2 (42:59):
I don't know.

Speaker 4 (43:00):
I did have a thought. I I viewed this film
as kind of an unofficial trilogy in my head only
between this ghost Ship and Triangle the.

Speaker 3 (43:12):
Same, that's the same. Yeah, we've covered those of the two.

Speaker 4 (43:15):
So I thought, okay, yeah, I mean the latter of
the Triangle I really enjoy. I don't know how you
guys feel about that. I think that's a terrific be
horror movie. Yeah, but so I think if you if
you take those films, so the Haunted Ship, aspects of
ghost Ship, the anxieties around motherhood from Triangle, and then
more than just a dollop of the Shining and you
put it all in an idiot blender and then you
get this film, right.

Speaker 2 (43:37):
But blender.

Speaker 3 (43:39):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (43:40):
So I think as difficult as this, as frustrating as
this film can be to follow at times, because I
can sense that's kind of pulling our hair out a
little bit, I think it does reward you a bit
on a second watch, especially if you understand the tragedy
at the core of each narrative. Right, So, the nineteen
thirty eight one as well as the modern day one,
I think we're meant to understand, you know, if Alice

(44:03):
Eve is kind of coping with the guilt of having
let her son fall out the window, and she's trying
to reconnect with the spirit like whatever it is that's
going on. What I noticed this time around is that
both narratives are about mothers trying to protect their children,
in the nineteen thirty eighth story as well as the
Alas Eve storyline, you know, and so so it is

(44:24):
similar to Triangle in that respect, but in taking in
that frame even the Fred Astaire scene, which is really
kind of oddly joyous, and it's this musical number. It's
very tappity tap. There's something oddly predatory about that scene,
isn't there.

Speaker 2 (44:39):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (44:40):
Yeah, I mean I don't know if I was reading
too much into it, but the sort of sweaty older
men saying, you know, little girl, you've impressed us and
now we're gon we're gonna make you a star. Maybe
that's a bit overdetermined now by knowledge we have about
how young Angenos like Judy Garland or Debbie Reynolds were
mistreated in Hollywood when making musical numbers. But there's something

(45:00):
creepy about that girl being taken under their wing at
the exact moment her parents are failing to supervise her. Yeah,
so I wonder about that as well. Upon this rewatch.

Speaker 2 (45:14):
I never thought about it, but yeah, when Fred, when
Fred first comes up to her, you're like, who is
this guy? And then you learn who he is and
then they yeah, I guess it is kind of predatory.
And then the guy's like, oh, yeah, we gotta go
talk to your parents, like I'm sorry, Like we'll bring
it back.

Speaker 3 (45:29):
So at least at least he's sing touch your parents
and not like little girl, come with me. I'm going
to sign this, sign the contract never see your parents again.
So at least it's an intention to go and get
permission from the parents and guardians. But I don't know.

Speaker 2 (45:43):
Yeah, and then she gets killed.

Speaker 3 (45:46):
Yeah, we haven't I don't know if there's anything to
even say about it. We haven't really touched on the
captain and that whole well, the two captains, I guess
we have the captain in nineteen thirty eight who is
like pushing the ship to go, as well as the
mysteries may of this one, which actually there's at the
start of like the restaurants sequences of Dne sequences, they

(46:07):
have like a big ship made out of ice and
like they just mocking Titanic this it just seems mean
it's made of ice, but the captain just wants to
keep going and that overpowers the ship and things go
wrong that way. And then in the present day you
have the character of Bittner, who is a long long
standing security guard acting as captain who I think we're
supposed to win for is possessed by the soul of

(46:28):
the actual captain. Maybe I don't unclear, but it's okay, sure,
that's just me thinking.

Speaker 2 (46:35):
That's interesting though. That's really interesting.

Speaker 3 (46:40):
Because he says the last line of the he says
is in the flesh, which is something I believe the
early captain says as well.

Speaker 2 (46:50):
And he does kill me.

Speaker 3 (46:51):
I think he does, yes, So he is dead on
the ship. See. I watched this and then after immediately
after finishing it, I went back and kind of skipped
through scenes watched the things again to do the the
ranking at the end of this episode. So I did
kind of have that experience. So I just go back
and what did they say? What are the same? So yeah,
I think I think Bittner is supposed to have been

(47:14):
possessed by Captain Karady and Bittner is Dorian Log Captain
Cardy and his Jim Pitt.

Speaker 2 (47:19):
Both good actors.

Speaker 3 (47:21):
Like great performance is like that's great. Yeah, yeah, he
seems like a real horrible person to be around.

Speaker 2 (47:28):
Murders that guy and puts him on a little cart.

Speaker 3 (47:31):
Yeah, uh not clear, Tony. You know it works.

Speaker 4 (47:36):
So if he's possessed, or whether he's possessed or not,
what is his objective? He does seem to be invested.
He he and he understands the ship is haunted, right,
and he's trying to keep it contained in some way.

Speaker 3 (47:46):
Yes, he actually talks about one of one of our
guests stole a vessel, a little girl, he said over
the phone to some other character who also knows about
the haunting. Uh.

Speaker 2 (47:57):
It was supposed to be a trilogy, by the way.

Speaker 3 (48:00):
Oh on the boat, the whole thing of the Queen
Mary too, and.

Speaker 2 (48:03):
Yeah, they're supposed to do three different stories, but then
this one just didn't take off. I know, I just
threw that out there. Wow.

Speaker 4 (48:12):
Yeah, well do you have to know whether it's a
continuation of these characters or its completely different. They never
got to it.

Speaker 3 (48:19):
Huh.

Speaker 2 (48:20):
Yeah, they because they were like, oh, it's just film here.
But then they had so many problems. The guy said
that it was the producer said that it was worse
than the problems that were had on Jaws. Wow, which
is that's saying that. That's pretty bold right there. So
I just want to put that out there. But yeah,
they wanted a trilogy, and then this one they had
no reshoots, and it seems like it was just kind

(48:41):
of dumped and I didn't even know it existed. Professor
Mike Dillon until you told me. So, I feel like
I know most horror films that are out and yeah,
this one just snuck out there.

Speaker 4 (48:51):
Yeah, it's it's odd that they would reach all the
way back to Jaws when Titanic itself. Titanic itself was
a legendarily difficult shoot, right, Yeah, I didn't catch the
ice sculpture. That is kind of funny. I mean I do.
I do wonder about the relationship to Titanic, right, because

(49:13):
I assuming that's still the film most people think of
involving an ocean liner must because yeah, because it's rising
guy off deep Yeah, after the brising show always. But
I my math may be a little off. But the
voyage that features centrally in the story, which takes place
in nineteen thirty eight, right, if I'm not mistaken. That's so,

(49:36):
that's twenty six years after the Titanic sank in nineteen twelve. Coincidentally,
this film, Haunting of the Queen Mary comes out in
twenty twenty three, which is also twenty six years since
nineteen ninety seven, which is the release year of James
Cameron's Titanic.

Speaker 3 (49:50):
So Beautiful.

Speaker 4 (49:52):
Yeah, so I feel like the Specter of the Titanic
kind of looms large here, both in the sort of
historical and kind of extra textual con text. There are
moments when the ship's captain demands of the ship remain
at full speed despite engine pressure issues. I'm not sure
exactly what the problem was, but and then there's also
moments when the passengers are being escorted to safety because

(50:12):
there's an axe murderer loose, but they haven't been told that,
and so their panicky reactions are like, oh my god,
are we sinking?

Speaker 3 (50:17):
Are we sinking?

Speaker 4 (50:18):
That's unnatural reaction.

Speaker 3 (50:19):
Yeah, yeah, that's a very natural reaction. Yeah. Yeah, after
a talk I'd gone around talks about the Titanic, you
mentioned it by name, and there's a band plane.

Speaker 4 (50:29):
At this point in history, it's still the most famous.
It's still the most infamous disaster involving a luxury ocean
liner and memory for all of these passengers, and so likewise,
there's perhaps some inavertent commentary here about you know, how
do you how do you portray a disaster a border
cruise ship a historical drama anyway, a border cruise ship
in a compelling way that isn't going to bring up

(50:49):
comparisons to Titanic, which is this iconic film. So if
I had an opportunity to ask the director, to ask
Gary Shore, it would be whether he studied James CAMRA's
Titanic at all and made any just attempts to take
the big swings that he takes against James Cameron's aesthetic,
particularly in scenes that involve a bit of opulence, right
like the ballroom sequence and so on, and of course

(51:12):
the big boiler room sequences, and it just it makes
me curious about whether you're trying to lean into certain
comparisons or the consciously try to avoid them.

Speaker 2 (51:20):
I this movie has a much like Titanic when I
think about it has a very bright, lively feel until
everyone dies during the nighttime sinking of the boat. But
this one, even at the diner, the diner scene, with
most scenes with Alice Eve the tour, there is a
there is a very dour look to it. So I think,
just right off the bat, it's already much a much
different looking film, and there's just that menace to it

(51:43):
as well. So I think, also, you know, the boat
doesn't sink, so something has to happen on there. But
I guess it's like Jaws. The only time you make
a shark movie, people gonna be like it's Jaws or
compared to Jaws. So I guess if you have a
boat movie, you're going to be compared to Titanic. So
you gotta subvert the best you can. And this movie
definitely does that.

Speaker 3 (52:04):
Yeah, I don't know answer.

Speaker 4 (52:06):
Yeah, I mean it's also there are some real points
of comparison too, though, I think because I think Titanic
does have some interesting things going on. I always found
it interesting how the film, how that that James Cameron
from treats issues of class, and this is something I'm
drawing largely on like conversations I remember having with other
people at the time. So I can't take soul credit
for this observation. But you know, like Billy Zane plays

(52:28):
the film's main villain, right, and he's easy for the
audience to hate because who's going to empathize with the snobby,
rich guy who like doesn't he use it as a
as a human shield?

Speaker 3 (52:38):
At one point I wish he has, you know, Yeah,
he shouts his ticket on the boat.

Speaker 4 (52:43):
Yeah yeah, anyway, I mean that's not the point. But
having a wealthy bastard as your villain isn't that interesting.
But having your protagonist be a working class guy Jack
right around the time that labor unions are growing and
involving in their influence, and then he allies with this
woman Ros also around the time of a suffragette movement, right,

(53:03):
And so the film I don't know the extent to
which James Cameron intended this, but you know, it does
seem on some level to suggest, perhaps allegorically or rather
seems to invite the viewer to imagine an alliance between
labor and women's rights as the right kind of alchemy
for fighting or resisting power.

Speaker 3 (53:21):
Right.

Speaker 4 (53:22):
The Titanic does kind of have traces of that, and
so I don't think this film is quite as lofty
in that messaging. But at least the nineteen thirty eight
segments have echoes of this, right in terms of like
the hubris of the ruling class, and insofar as it
it's about a family from third class that's trying to
smooth talk their way into the first class. If we're
meant to understand the father character who loses his mind

(53:44):
to be a war veteran as well, then that suggests,
like logically that what haunts the Queen Mary all the
way to present day is an act of violence committed
by someone driven to insanity by being mistreated as a
member of the lower classes and mistreated as a as
a wounded veteran. Right, and and that's the bad juju

(54:05):
that that continues to haunt this space all the way
to present day. Like, I find that kind of interesting.

Speaker 2 (54:13):
Yeah, there's that's why I like this movie. There's a
lot going on there that I hadn't even thought about.
But yeah, Professor Mike Dillan, I wish I was more
eloquent in my response to that, but that makes sense
because I do play with that, and he does have
to lie, but it turns out he is a soldier.

(54:33):
But what does he say? Never look desperate in front
of these people. Didn't never say that? Yeah? Never beg
yeah yeah, And then he begs does that leave him
open to be possessed? When he goes down to the pool,
he's all pissed. Well, he pisses in the pool.

Speaker 3 (54:52):
Mm yeah, I I I first time around watching it,
I like, did I miss the bit what he gets possessed?
And when I went back, I know they just didn't
really didn't shut it perty well, Yeah, this.

Speaker 2 (55:09):
Movie also had twenty eight producers, so it's too many.
So is that many. There's a lot of money coming
from other places and people help it out, so that
this probably had a lot of voices, And say, I
don't know. I think it's interesting that they had no
type of reshoots though, because I think maybe that could
have helped, that could have cleaned up a couple of things.

(55:29):
But I don't know, you know.

Speaker 4 (55:31):
I mean, I'm not sure whether that information makes me
like the film or admire the film more or less, right,
because on the one hand, it it's a really easy
explanation as to how this sort of came together in
such a jumbled way, because it's just there's too many
chefs in the kitchen. But at the same time, for
there to be all those ingredients for something just completely incoherent,

(55:52):
and all these competing voices and priorities to then comple
together something that is in its own way quite compelling
is all the more remarkable.

Speaker 3 (56:01):
Right.

Speaker 4 (56:01):
It's like, Wow, you guys had every deck stacked against.

Speaker 3 (56:04):
You, and yet you pulled out a movie that.

Speaker 4 (56:07):
You know, quibbles aside, has a lot going for it
that really is quite startling and gorgeous to look at.

Speaker 2 (56:14):
I think that's why Gary Shore hasn't done many interviews
about this film. So he helped write the screenplay, he
took a story, he wrote the screenplay, he directed it,
but there's really nothing out there from him about it.
And so if this was a tough production, if there's
a lot of voices, if this had every issue in
the book, he probably doesn't want to talk about it.
So I think, if anything, it's more it speaks to

(56:35):
his skill as a director, because he did cobble together
something pretty pretty good here and it's worth watching. The
Alice Eve did that movie ATM where they're trapped into
ATM with a killer haunting them. It's bad, it's boring,
it's really boring, like this one is not. This movie
is never boring, it's never stock. And I think that's

(56:56):
a credit to Gary Shore, and you know, the DP
and everyone who worked on it, Isaac Bauman as well.
So I you know, even with I always admire that.
I like when a director can take so many notes
and then put together something that like with a lot
of problems, to put together something that's worth watching and
something interesting. And it's kind of a bummer that a
lot of the reviews for this film are largely negative.

(57:18):
IMDb's like four point one, which is very low. I
don't think it's a four point one out of ten,
even though it doesn't make sense and it gets lost
and it doesn't totally piece together. But I still think
it's like I still think is. We watch a lot
of horror movies, and I think it's better than a
lot of the other ones, just in terms of looks
and ambition, I guess, and you feel something, Yeah, there

(57:42):
it is. That's the right word. I should have said
that without saying all that. It has a personality to it,
and it is quite disconcerting at times, So I think,
to answer your question, and I'm making all this up,
I think that's credit to Gary Shore for pulling together
something quite interesting despite everything going on. And we had
a good cast, and I guess no one's working during

(58:04):
COVID and the House of the Dragon people stole his gear,
which I find to be very interesting. Me. Yeah, They're like,
you got to come get it because we're not going
to bring it back. That's what they said to him. So, uh,
I'm glad I listened to that interview. And also, you
got me thinking about Melissa George again, Professor Mike Dillon,
because I like thirty Days a Night Triangle, like Alias,

(58:26):
I miss Melissa George.

Speaker 4 (58:28):
Melissa George, we had a great run of the or
A Lonely Place to Die is really quite strong. What's
the other one? Touristas is great?

Speaker 3 (58:37):
Yeah, big big fan.

Speaker 2 (58:39):
She did Amityville Horror. But but yeah, yeah, I like her.
I liked her and Alias. You just brought that back
to me. I appreciate it. What does this rank on
boat horror for you guys? Like, you know, there's there's
like the monsters on a boat, there's ghosts on a boat.
Is this upper echelon, bottom e chelon? Like where would
you put it?

Speaker 4 (58:57):
Are we lumping this in with yachts the water or
dead calm?

Speaker 2 (59:04):
Yeah, let's do it.

Speaker 3 (59:05):
Sure? Yeah, donkey punch.

Speaker 2 (59:07):
I mean like that, you know, like where does it
in a kind of boat horror? No that it has
to be open.

Speaker 3 (59:15):
They get off the boat a bunch, they get off. Yeah,
I mean, I like, I don't know not to once
an apologize to saying don'key punch in this podcast. I
feel like I need to put it every time it
comes up, But it would always come up, we would
never come Are we ever going to cover it?

Speaker 2 (59:30):
Well?

Speaker 3 (59:31):
Maybe, I don't know. Along this shows.

Speaker 2 (59:36):
I think I would put it in the upper echelon
because I just like the ambition of it. Like, I
don't think it's triangle, Like I don't think it has
the trashy thrills of ghost Ship. But I think ghost
Ship is is a is a. Yeah, it is a
is a odd not is it bananas? Is?

Speaker 1 (59:52):
That?

Speaker 2 (59:53):
Is that the right word?

Speaker 4 (59:54):
But I mean Ship is still goot Ship. I think
hughes closer to convention than this one.

Speaker 2 (59:58):
Yeah, that's true.

Speaker 4 (01:00:00):
If not in the nature of the story and the
haunting and everything, but in it's it's a hammer and
editing choices. This one is goes in some very weird directions.
Ghost Ship, I think is a bit more conventional. It
has that great opening scene with the scene.

Speaker 2 (01:00:16):
Yeah, that's what keeps that movie in conversation, I think
because whenever you look at somebody, go ghost Ship like
that opening like that.

Speaker 4 (01:00:24):
Arguably they play their hand to early, but that's still
a great scene.

Speaker 2 (01:00:27):
Yeah. Yeah, the rest of it isn't great, but yeah,
whenever you look at somebody, they're like, yeah, that opening
scene that thing rules.

Speaker 3 (01:00:33):
And of course it's directed by the writer of written
by the director of DVC three Jump Poke. Hey, I
have to bring up his name because he wrote Got Ship.
I think I've hmm, I'm not sure where I drank this.
In terms of about horror. I like it. I like
this film more than I possibly should, but I agree
that it doesn't make any any kind of sense, and

(01:00:56):
I would I'd love them to have had those reshoots
and just make it, make it a bit more sense.
I feel like I'm reaching a lot in terms of
my uh my description of the plot.

Speaker 4 (01:01:08):
One more pass with the editor I think would have
been would have been welcome, by the way. I don't
know if you'll have me, but I'd be more than
delighted at some later point to come on to talk
about donkey Punch on the condition that you allow me
to find the most high Fulton academic way to describe
what a donkey punch actually is in order to do it. Yeah,
in order to kind of set our parameters.

Speaker 2 (01:01:31):
I mean, I'm chaos Jay, It's up to you, j
You know me, all right.

Speaker 3 (01:01:37):
Yeah, we'll cover it at some point, maybe pretty next
year at this point, but yeah, well fine, we said
we can never do too and we end up loving it.

Speaker 2 (01:01:48):
Yeah. So when tom Burke, tom Burke is in Donkey punchy,
hey a more British.

Speaker 3 (01:01:57):
Or why did I have to say donkey punch But
I did? Anyway? Great? Uh? Did you have any more
thoughts on this film? Michael Mark? If we exhausted the
Queen Mary, I don't.

Speaker 4 (01:02:13):
Know that I do.

Speaker 3 (01:02:14):
No.

Speaker 4 (01:02:14):
I mean, it's like talked about the cell phone scene.
It's it's simultaneously to ludicrous to be taken seriously, but
also there's a goofy to that scene.

Speaker 3 (01:02:23):
Right yeah, and like the hand is coming out and
strangling her she stabs that hand with a pen. That
it's unless she stabbed her own hand with a pen.
I think, so is that hand coming out her own hands?
I I don't know. I'm gonna stop. I'm gonna stop
and I'm gonna move on. It's a good scene, but.

Speaker 2 (01:02:43):
This is I wrote, hand comes out of phone L
O L. That's why I had the same thing.

Speaker 4 (01:02:51):
Maybe maybe we would have gotten an explanation and if
they'd made two and three.

Speaker 2 (01:02:54):
But yeah, what's what's what's with that hand? There's something
wrong with this phone?

Speaker 3 (01:03:00):
Because I love it like that she's got her like
sleep calming app on the phone that the head starts
coming out, and then when she wakes up, the phone
is face down and it's like, oh, jump scared when
she looks at the phone, no jump Scar. It's it's
like there's a few times where there's like no jump Scar,
jump scar. And I liked that. I don't know, but
whenever we come.

Speaker 2 (01:03:18):
Last thing, last thing, Oh great, okay, last thing real quick.
So Joel Fry is Patrick at the end when he's
talking to the captain, he's like, I have this us B.
I'm gonna bring you down. But the guy he's saying
that to you has a gun, right, it's like your
hand like don't It's like when the villain has the
hero beaten and they're like, I'm gonna go to your
house and kill your wife, and then the heroes like, oh,

(01:03:39):
like just don't say it. Just choke the guy out,
like don't give allow don't allow the person to power
up during this, just like tell just don't tell the
hero that you're gonna kill his kid, just just like
or don't tell the villain that you have a USB
drive that'll put him in jail.

Speaker 3 (01:03:56):
Yeah, And it's like it's a roll of film and
the guy could just take it. So it's not even
it's not even like converted to USB. It's but it's
just a physical role in the film. He could just
crush it under foot, no problem, just expose it to daylight.

Speaker 4 (01:04:12):
I don't know, Mark, I do feel like I mean
as someone myself who and this is something I probably
need to work on, but I am someone who really
needs to have the last word in an argument, you know.
And so if I was about to execute somebody, I
feel like I would want to get him a little
dig before I do and just be like, oh, and
another thing right before I do it.

Speaker 3 (01:04:34):
Yeah, the end of the Shark Attack. I've just covered
Shark Attack with another guest will be out in a
few weeks time. Where the end of that as a
character who's like at gunpoint, they've had a machete, the
character called machete Policeman, great character name, and they've lost
their machete and they're at gunpoint, and the last words
are like I enjoyed feeding your brother to the sharks,
and then the person they're talking to shoots them because like,

(01:04:55):
of course, they go, I went plead, beg apologize, but
oh yeah, I enjoy killing it, brother, and then.

Speaker 2 (01:05:01):
Show yeah you're gearing to get shot, then yeah, like
you like to get See there's there's problems when you
have to get the last word.

Speaker 4 (01:05:10):
You know, that could be I know, but some people
are you just can't. Some people are mouthy.

Speaker 2 (01:05:17):
But so if you have a hero and you are
choking them out and you are ten seconds away from victory,
you would still slip that in there, even like what
if it went against you? Would you be like no
regrets because that's just you know, you're a scorpion and
you're going to get that last word in. Is that
like I've totally reapproached, like I took over the scorpion
the frog thing. But like you're gonna be like I

(01:05:39):
would have done it anyway. Is that kind of your thought?

Speaker 4 (01:05:41):
If I was choking someone out, I don't think I
would loosen my grip just to get a word in,
you know, but if it involved having to let them go,
and then that was my my mistake because they turned
it around on me and now I'm being defeated, I'd
probably think as I was dying, I think at least
I got a little dig in at least his feelings.

Speaker 3 (01:06:03):
But nothing. Well, whatever with ever a new film on
this show, something really personal, Jay, real quick, just like
instead of I'm gonna go kill your wife, just like.

Speaker 2 (01:06:12):
You know your your building was terrible or something, I
don't know, just something random. If they're an architect, I
don't know, just give them a personal dig. Not like
a threat to their family, you know.

Speaker 4 (01:06:21):
Just you know, yeah, you know you're putting on weight.

Speaker 2 (01:06:23):
Guy, there it is, and then you don't make it.

Speaker 3 (01:06:28):
They make a bad toasty.

Speaker 4 (01:06:29):
Yeah yeah budget. You know all your friends laugh at
you behind your back, right, something like deep like cuts
really deep into their insecurities that you know your father
doesn't love you.

Speaker 2 (01:06:40):
People pumping up. Then they get kind of introspective when
you say that, and then they just die quicker because
they stop fighting. They go, what so.

Speaker 3 (01:06:50):
Great? Yeah, I'm gonna try again. Whatever we cover a
new film on this podcast, No, we always have to.
We end it by ranking how deep, how blue, and
how much of it takes place at sea. So whenever
I go this is why I went back and watch
it that the second time, we had to work out
how deep all the action takes place at how blue
everything on screen was? And how much of the film
takes place at sea? Mike, Deep Blue Sea is, sorry,

(01:07:13):
creep Blue Scream is, of course fourteen and a half
meters of forty seven and a half feet deep on average,
about thirty one percent blue and eighty nine percent of
it takes place at sea. Do you think? Sorry?

Speaker 4 (01:07:26):
Did?

Speaker 2 (01:07:27):
Did?

Speaker 4 (01:07:27):
Did Mark Haifmeier do the math on that? I feel like.

Speaker 3 (01:07:35):
You're fine. I love spreadsheets too, Mark just has more
interesting ones. So, Mike, do you think that The Haunting
of the Queen Mary is deeper, bluer, and more at
sea than Deep Blue Sea?

Speaker 4 (01:07:47):
All right? So in terms of physical depth, there are levels, right,
they go down into the bowels of the ship. So
I don't know what that calculates in a in meters,
but thematic depth endless.

Speaker 1 (01:08:02):
Okay, we got to add that care.

Speaker 3 (01:08:05):
No, no, no, no.

Speaker 2 (01:08:08):
That could be subjective, but that's pretty fun.

Speaker 3 (01:08:11):
That could be subjected, but it's fun.

Speaker 2 (01:08:13):
That's funny. Can we add that?

Speaker 3 (01:08:15):
Go back and work out the thematic depth of the
brick layer? Sure?

Speaker 2 (01:08:19):
Okay, you give it a one to ten.

Speaker 3 (01:08:24):
We god mark, that's one hundred. There's one hundred and
forty one films on the new ones going back and
doing the scene.

Speaker 2 (01:08:33):
Is is it thematically as deep? And then we just
say yes or no.

Speaker 3 (01:08:37):
Hey, you know what, you can be in charge of that.

Speaker 2 (01:08:39):
Great, Okay, I'll do that.

Speaker 3 (01:08:40):
That's that's marks ddition. What about thematic blueness? Do you
think this is thematically thematically bluer deep?

Speaker 2 (01:08:48):
Yees? Yeah? Yeah, And we're adding that one too.

Speaker 3 (01:08:53):
Great and thematically at sare is everyone lost?

Speaker 2 (01:08:58):
Yeah? I mean there's last Souls? Yeah, yeah, I would
say so great?

Speaker 4 (01:09:05):
Or or are they sufficiently anchored?

Speaker 3 (01:09:07):
Do you think yess? The opposite I'm trying to do.

Speaker 2 (01:09:10):
Yeah, all right, So we're going to add the Professor
Mike Dillon gauntlet of questions to every fantastic forward and
I'll handle.

Speaker 3 (01:09:17):
That double most spreadsheet.

Speaker 2 (01:09:19):
I'll take care of one.

Speaker 3 (01:09:21):
So non thematically, Actually, this is not deeper than deep busy.
I actually looked up the specs of the ship, the
Queen Mary. It's fifty five point two meters high, as
draft is eight meters, so the top fun is forty
three point four meters above sea level, and I kind
of estimated where the rooms were based on that. It
works out being on average eleven point eight meters or

(01:09:43):
thirty eight point seven feet above sea level, because it's
only really the stuff in the injured rooms that's below
sea level, which means it's one hundred and eighteenth on
our depth ranking. It is higher up than Sharpnado, less
high than Reny than Ravenous excuse me, blueness. This is
one of the least blue films you've ever covered. This
is Sepia all the way through. Amongst films that aren't

(01:10:06):
in black and white. This is third from bottom. This
is the least blue film that takes place at sea
that's not black and white. It's so it's one point
two seven percent of it is set at sea, which
means it's bluer than Renny Harland's The Covenant, less blue
than Redny Haland's The Long Kist Good Night, both of
which are very non blue films. So it is one
hundred and thirty fifth on our blue ranking. It's only

(01:10:29):
beaten by The Covenant, Excess, The Beginning, and four black
and white films and Sea It's close. This is eighty
nine percent. This is eighty five percent because although it
is moored, I'm still counting as being at sea because
it is on the water, so it is sick in
our ranking. Is less at sea than Deeper C is
more at sea than Crimson Tide. A submarine film is

(01:10:52):
less at sea than this film. Great, there, we are good,
everyone's happy. I'm not doing thematic today? Start doing that? Okay, sure,
Mark fire Away is this so? Is this film thematically
deeper bluror? And let's see then? Yes? Moving on.

Speaker 2 (01:11:12):
And the last thing, I did find the Deadline article
about the trilogy, and they said that we were immediately
obsessed with Gary's intelligent and twisted multi film take on
a great American legend and could not be more excited
working with them on this trilogy. So there were there
was a planned trilogy. I just want to get that
out there.

Speaker 3 (01:11:28):
Where would have gone? Because I looked at the the
the dogs, I looked at the hauntings, the real life
hauntings of the real life hauntings of the Queen Mary,
the real life superstitions, and they seem to have like
rolled a bunch of them into the plot of this film,
like the someone killing their kids in the pool, and
it's like everything they do kind of cover it. Yeah,

(01:11:51):
there's a young girl haunts the ship's former second class
pool and a father murdered his two daughters on board.
That's two separate things. I feel like they covered both
of them in this and Time listed this as being
one of the lists of the Queen Mary's being one
of the ten most haunted places in the world back
in two thousand and eight, So that's more pr great.
That will do it for a discussion of the Haunting
of the Queen Mary. I think unless somebody interrupts me, Mike,

(01:12:13):
do you have anything that you wish to plug or promote?
Where can the listeners find you?

Speaker 4 (01:12:18):
I'm not findable anywhere. I do occasionally slum it over
on Markoff Myers Action movie podcast MOVIESWMS, and flakes. Otherwise, Yeah,
I'm not good at stuff, so you won't. You won't
find new places. That being said, if either of you
are ever in the Los Angeles area, let me take
you to the Queen Mary and we'll go.

Speaker 2 (01:12:40):
We'll go investigate, we'll make the second film.

Speaker 3 (01:12:43):
Yeah, Mark any plugs.

Speaker 2 (01:12:46):
Movie sounds and flex listen to that.

Speaker 3 (01:12:49):
Great listen as you can follow this podcast Allever social
media at deep Blue Seapod dot email us deep seapod
at gmail dot com. Next week we are you know
it's still the Creep Boots Green podcast as we're still
covering that film see my scene. So we are doing
that next week with an episode on Deep Seu and
then next but the week after that we'll be back

(01:13:11):
to horror with the water scenes from the faculty, So
come back then for that. But as for the Haunting
of the Queen Mary, thank you once again to a
wonderful guest, Professor Mike Dinner.

Speaker 4 (01:13:22):
Thank you very much.

Speaker 3 (01:13:24):
Hi have been Jake Leut.

Speaker 2 (01:13:25):
I can't wait for our Donkey Punch episode, Mark Hofmeyer

Speaker 3 (01:13:29):
And we'll deep Blues, we'll create boos gream you next
week