Season 05 Episode 08 – Motherly

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Overview

What the heck is going on here? It’s a movie about a loving mother that only wants to take care of her child. Nothing wrong with that? and she’s right to be cautious – her husband is in jail for murdering a child.

So why are the parents of said child showing up and accusing the mother of being the murderer? And not just accusing – they’re getting nasty. You really have to feel bad for this mother who does everything to protect her sweet, innocent child.

How is this kidnapping and torture going to affect this little girl? It might give her nightmares. Do you blame a mother for doing everything she can to keep her child protected from this cruel, harsh world?

If you know, you know.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motherly_(2021_film)

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11464730

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Stephen: All right fresh new episode. It’s called Motherly and we’ll We’re going to talk about how it compares to the First stuff that this guy did which was taught in the book of evil very tongue in cheek comedy

[00:00:13] Rhys: Yeah, and we’re delving into the very strange very specific nook of micro budget canadian horror films so

[00:00:20] Stephen: Wow.

[00:00:21] We should do a whole half quarter season on that. All right. So motherly let’s dive in. I like that.

[00:00:30] Rhys: Yeah. I think the biggest surprise that I had when I started researching motherly for starters, there’s nothing out there on it. It wasn’t the kind of show that was like shattering the earth or anything like that.

[00:00:43] Stephen: Yeah, it was sparse and we had a hard time originally finding it was on shutter, which is interesting.

[00:00:50] Rhys: I actually found it on Tubi.

[00:00:52] Stephen: Oh, okay. Wow. Moved to Tubi that quick after shutter.

[00:00:56] Rhys: Yeah. But the big thing that I found, because whenever there’s [00:01:00] not a lot of information out there, then I have, I start looking for, shaking the trees to see what falls out.

[00:01:05] And I actually went to Craig David Wallace’s. Personal website that he has. And he had his, like his push reel, like these are, this is the kind of stuff I do. And so I hit that and watched it and taught in the book of pure evil is the standalone odd man out. Almost everything he does is like suspense or horror.

[00:01:32] But it’s. That was the only humorous thing on his entire reel, which I thought was really cool.

[00:01:37] Stephen: Yeah, it is. And we talked about that a little bit that, everybody’s got something off the wall or something that they just have a burning passion to do, but it’s not the normal thing you get I think Pearl Jam’s a really good example of that.

[00:01:50] If you listen to the first two albums, not all those songs are grunge. There’s some in there that are just weird little styles of stuff that they threw in, which was [00:02:00] pretty amazing. They still were big accepted bands. You get that, Of course, we know him best for Todd. That’s where we’d be.

[00:02:07] Oh my God, Todd and the Book of Evil was so much fun. We loved it.

[00:02:10] Rhys: Yeah. In fact when I was starting to do the research and stuff for this, I was like, you know what? I haven’t seen the season two in a long time. And so for the next three days, I sat there and watched season two. So

[00:02:21] Stephen: it was research. It was, yeah, that’s

[00:02:23] Rhys: exactly right.

[00:02:25] Stephen: Which, because, the campy horror doesn’t, it has absolutely nothing to do with the psychological horror. We had. So

[00:02:33] Rhys: absolutely Todd and the book of pure evil was a Canadian basic television show, basic cable television show, and it lasted for 2 seasons, 13 episodes each. And they had one animated movie because every season ends in a cliffhanger and the fans wanted to know how it was going to end.

[00:02:53] So they did an animated movie I’ve yet to see. I’ve tried tracking it down. It’s really hard to come by.

[00:02:59] Stephen: Yeah, [00:03:00] we’ve got it. We’ve only had a few things hard to find that we couldn’t find. It’s still haven’t,

[00:03:04] Rhys: yeah,

[00:03:04] Stephen: that’s one of them.

[00:03:05] Rhys: Yeah. It ran from 2010 to 2012. It was nominated for 39 different awards and it won 14 of those.

[00:03:14] And they’re not all Canadian either. Like people appreciated the show for what it was, he wrote 19 of the episodes. Of the 26 episodes. And he also wrote the short and the movie. He directed five of the episodes. It started out as a short, I should have thrown it in there. But so he directed five of those.

[00:03:38] And he produced all of them. He was the producer for all of the episodes of Todd and the book of pure evil. So motherly came out in 2021 and it runs an hour and 20 minutes, which makes it a little, it’s not quite the den shortness where you’re like, wait a second.

[00:03:56] It’s shorter than like a typical standard by a little [00:04:00] bit.

[00:04:00] Stephen: Which actually, I looked at that too. And I’m like, If this had been longer, I think I would have been like, Oh my God, please just get done on it. It fit.

[00:04:08] Rhys: It was a good edit. It released originally in the U S and overall it grossed 117, 226, at the gate. Wow. Which is actually pretty good for a B rated social horror base.

[00:04:28] Canadian film, it had a lot of strikes against it as far as making lots and lots of money.

[00:04:35] Stephen: Yeah, but I did, thinking of Todd in the book of pure evil in this time, the book of pure evil, the filming, the way the shots are composed and all of that. Gave it a college project look to it in a lot of ways.

[00:04:51] This looked like a quote unquote real movie that you would really put into a theater. It had the, the lighting, the shots, the angles, all that was [00:05:00] what we’re pretty much used to. That just speaks of, this is a real movie.

[00:05:05] Rhys: Yeah. And I think the other thing about Todd in the book of pure evil is it did have that kind of, First run college based feel to it, but you will very rarely come across an entire series.

[00:05:22] That it’s done like that, because most of those people don’t have enough money to actually do a whole series. It’s like the Guild. When you watch the Guild, it’s got this feeling that, Oh, hey, you know what? This is a novel idea done by a bunch of amateurs, but it’s an actual series. And you’re like, wow. And then it turned into, something.

[00:05:40] Stephen: But to be fair, those were three minute episodes.

[00:05:43] Rhys: Yeah, yeah, for sure. They’re two very different things, but they’re both very low budget. Yeah. Stuff that was done by people who didn’t really have the money or, like the connections to get it done.

[00:05:54] Stephen: Yeah, I wouldn’t mind seeing a Felicia Day do a horror movie.

[00:05:57] I think that’d be cool. A nerdy horror [00:06:00] movie. Isn’t she in Supernatural? She was briefly, but she didn’t. Write it and make that.

[00:06:05] Rhys: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Motherly also received two nominations for awards. He did not win either of them. They were both for song soundtrack composition by Spencer Croghan, who is the music composer for this.

[00:06:17] Stephen: Interesting. That’s probably some of the least number of awards. Any of our shows have been nominated for, pretty low. Things like

[00:06:26] Rhys: The Den had zero, yeah.

[00:06:28] Stephen: But we do get quite a few that make the independent film festival rounds and do quite well. Yeah.

[00:06:35] Rhys: The battery what did we say?

[00:06:36] Nine, one, nine of 11 nominations, which is just, an amazing average when you look at it like that. Yeah. So Craig David Wallace is why we’re watching this because we enjoyed Todd in the book of pure evil, and he was basically the impetus behind it. And unlike the nun with Colin Hardy Craig David Wallace wrote this one and directed it.

[00:06:57] So this is like his pet project [00:07:00] that he was doing.

[00:07:01] Stephen: Interesting.

[00:07:03] Rhys: His, it took him eight years to write this. And it was because he kept refining it over and over again.

[00:07:11] Stephen: Okay. Knowing that as we go through it, I probably got a few comments to add.

[00:07:17] Rhys: I’m sure it’s one of those things where like he had done Todd in the book of pure evil, and then he had a child and he started thinking about, Oh, what would I do for this child?

[00:07:31] Or what would I do if something happened to this child? And so he started writing the script on that. As time went on, the child got bigger your relationship with the children changes over time. And then he had more children. And that’s why like his personal. Experience was evolving along and as it was, he would revisit the script and adjust it according to how he was feeling at the time.

[00:07:56] Stephen: Basic, I’d say he probably would have been better [00:08:00] off getting it done sooner and like the same thing I say with some of George Lucas’s stuff, really should have passed it on to someone else to give it a once over before going out with it.

[00:08:10] Rhys: Yeah, and I don’t know, maybe he did, but maybe he’s, He thinks he thinks that the eight years that he spent doing it actually honed the story into a better instrument, having not seen any of the previous versions, it’s hard for us to judge.

[00:08:26] Maybe it did. Maybe they were, awful when he started, but

[00:08:30] Stephen: We can talk about that as we talk about the story.

[00:08:33] Rhys: He also in interviews and the interview I saw him on was through a site called Howard’s haunt, I think maybe. The interviews that he was in, he was one of those guys who’s the only reason this was successful was because of the skill of my cast, that kind of thing.

[00:08:51] And I’ll have a few things to say about that later on as well. Got it. He was one of those kind of directors who was really concerned [00:09:00] with the state of mind of his. young actress. And it was funny. He only has two kids in the movie. Actually, there’s two little girls. But it was funny because he had, he was more worried about it than the parents of the kids were.

[00:09:16] The parents are like, Oh no, they’ve done scary stuff before. It’s not a big deal. Just throw them. It’s splashed the blood all over him. It’s fine. It’s not a big deal. But that’s what he was saying. He was like, we try, I tried to be, insulate them and make sure everything was okay. But by the end of the day of the shoot, they’d still be there and everyone’s covered in blood.

[00:09:35] And, it wasn’t much he could do. He tried. I

[00:09:39] Stephen: definitely give him kudos for that, but yeah, we probably would have the same attitude. It’s nah, they’re cool. Just whatever. Give him a big butcher knife to walk around and stab people with. It will not affect them later in life whatsoever.

[00:09:51] Absolutely. But the funny thing is, we’ve. Other interviews with kid actors from horror movies, and they’re like, it’s [00:10:00] hard to get scared when you do the same scene 20 times in a day. And you see everyone right there with the camera and the lights and everything. And you watch the guy put the monster suit on.

[00:10:10] You don’t get scared. That’s it. I’m sure somebody really should write a psychological book on that and, not just Grady Hendrix or somebody with a horror book,

[00:10:21] Rhys: it demystifies the whole thing for you because you’re actually seeing how it’s done. When I was a little kid and I’d be watching a movie and it was really scary.

[00:10:28] That was the thing that I would, that was the mental exercise I would do. I’d be like, how do you think they did that?

[00:10:33] Stephen: And it,

[00:10:33] Rhys: it does, it removes a lot of the, fear behind the whole thing.

[00:10:38] He decided to shoot the film. Now, this is what he says. He decided to shoot the film as though there was no twist to the end. So he sat down not specifically trying to feed the audience a red herring as he went along, he just wanted to tell the story. And if you were surprised by the end, [00:11:00] great. If you weren’t, hopefully you enjoyed the telling of the story as it went.

[00:11:05] Stephen: That’s probably a good attitude to have because I don’t know about you, but about 30 seconds into the movie, I was like, Oh, this is what’s going to happen. It wasn’t much surprise shock with the way the scenes were playing out and it was felt.

[00:11:19] Rhys: Yeah. And when we get into it you’ll realize that, the total options that were available were like maybe four.

[00:11:26] Yeah, you know of things that it could possibly be it’s one of those things where You know, you got a one in four chance that whatever you’re thinking going into the end is actually what it was.

[00:11:36] Stephen: Yeah. But honestly, if it hadn’t been the way it ended, it would have been like, are you kidding me?

[00:11:44] They should have done this. It would have been better.

[00:11:46] Rhys: Yeah, that’s true. He started filming it and they were filming in a remote location down on Lake Erie on the Ontario side [00:12:00] and COVID hit. But it was such a remote rare, small space to be in. And everyone was so close that they filmed as much as they could.

[00:12:10] Until it really got to be the point where we still didn’t know too much about COVID, but we knew it was spreading crazy, so they stopped shooting. And then once we figured out what COVID was and how to work with it, they finished shooting, like, all of the close ups, the real tight end close ups, those were all shot in a parking garage.

[00:12:31] Wow. Just because they had to break for COVID and then they were like what do we have left? We have all of these closeup shots. So they just went into a parking garage, threw up a, like a scrim behind them, had them stand there and get real tight in on their face and then shot them there, which I think is actually.

[00:12:47] I didn’t notice.

[00:12:49] Stephen: Yeah, no, neither did I. And, we often say too much budget can kill a movie. And if they have to scramble to be creative and work [00:13:00] within their limits, it enhances a lot of movies way more than you would realize.

[00:13:05] Rhys: Yeah. And that whole thing slowed down the production as well, because editing.

[00:13:11] He couldn’t be in the booth with the editor. So the editor would edit something, leave the booth. He’d come in, take a look, make notes, leave the notes for the editor. And then they’d swap because of the tight space.

[00:13:25] Stephen: It was a pretty small cast. If they were all there filming now looking back on it, they should just all stayed there and stayed away from people and they would have been fine.

[00:13:33] Rhys: That’s your social bubble right there. Right. So like for instance, it rained on half of the nights. That they were shooting. A lot of these were night shots and then it didn’t for the others. And so he thought, sat there and he was like trying to add rain into the scenes where it hadn’t And then, like it was taking forever and it looked like crap.

[00:13:53] And then he realized, Oh my gosh, I could just erase rain out of the scene. And that went so [00:14:00] much faster and it looks so much better. He was like it’s one of those kinds of things where you’re looking at how do I push this rock? And all of a sudden you’re like what if I don’t push the rock?

[00:14:07] Stephen: What if

[00:14:08] Rhys: instead I move the carpet and everything’s great. So

[00:14:11] Stephen: what was was it Billy worth or whatever? The one vampire actor from lost boys that was in American ninja. And remember they had the big boulder and the little crossbeam. They said, you got, all they said was you got to get to the other side of the beam.

[00:14:23] So we went, okay, shove the boulder into the pit and walked across the beam. And everybody else was trying to balance the big boulder across.

[00:14:32] Rhys: And like I said, I did watch his reel. And again it’s really funny because it’s all this serious stuff. And he closes with Todd in the book of pure evil which is neat.

[00:14:41] Yeah. But it is again, the odd man out. He has 23 directorial credits and he started in 96 with a short called the principles of karma. His first full length film was three years later and it was called pointy teeth for pointy people. He still has a little

[00:14:58] Stephen: humor in him. [00:15:00]

[00:15:00] Rhys: Yeah. He has lots and lots of television stuff.

[00:15:03] Todd and the book of pure evil, the odd squad freakish. And a series called slasher. If you look at his whole resume, he really only has four full length films. And this is the only one that I’ve seen, but he does have an upcoming project. It’s a couple episodes of a television series called bet.

[00:15:21] And again, it could be Canadian broadcasting. So it might be something that we’d never even come across, but

[00:15:27] Stephen: time for a trip to Ontario or Quebec.

[00:15:30] Rhys: Laura Burke played hate. And Kate Laura actually had input on Kate’s backstory because when they started this project, he asked her to come up with something and the whole thread where they were having troubles conceiving.

[00:15:48] And so Beth was like the miracle baby, like that whole speech that all came from Laura telling him, why don’t we do this? And the funny thing is he remembers that, but she doesn’t remember doing [00:16:00] that at all during the process. Yeah. She was involved with the project about a year before the actual shoot happened.

[00:16:07] He had her in mind but she still did audition and do screen tests. And she worked with Tessa Cosma, who plays Beth. They did a lot of screen testing between the two of them to see the chemistry and

[00:16:20] Stephen: Oh, that’s cool. I don’t hear enough about that because I always remember that Lucas did that with Star Wars, tried out actors and he put different combinations up there to go through a couple scenes just to see how the chemistry work between the group.

[00:16:34] Rhys: Yeah. She, in fact, she and Tessa spent a lot of time together because in the remote area, they were, there was like a motel and like their rooms were next to each other. So every time after shooting, they’d be hanging out together anyways,

[00:16:47] Stephen: getting the nine year old drunk. I’m sure.

[00:16:49] Rhys: Yeah, sure. You know, she’s been nominated three times for different things she’s been in and she’s won twice.

[00:16:56] She’s been in 30 titles, 12 of them were movies. [00:17:00] Including something, so two of the titles of the movies that she won awards were was once called poor Agnes. And the other is called for the sake of violence. And this is where the low budget Canadian film part of our show comes in. She is like a scream queen for low budget Canadian horror films,

[00:17:21] Stephen: which is probably why he had her in mind.

[00:17:23] And

[00:17:24] Rhys: yeah, I was really shocked because I went through and you look and she was like in these 30 different titles, a lot of them are movies and stuff, and she is like the main character. And almost everything else that I would mention that she’s been in, you haven’t heard of.

[00:17:38] Stephen: We’re too American.

[00:17:39] Rhys: Yeah, she did a voiceover for a Paw Patrol episode.

[00:17:42] Stephen: Oh.

[00:17:43] Rhys: She’s got three upcoming projects. One’s called Fool’s Game, the other one’s called Noble and the Kid, and the last one is called Deadly Connection Slash A. I. Yeah, I don’t know if, I don’t know if it’s we’re not sure what the title is going to be, or if it’s actually like deadly connection slash [00:18:00] a, I but I mentioned for the sake of violence because two other people who are in that movie are also on the cast of this.

[00:18:07] Stephen: Yeah, we see that a lot with the smaller movies, you seem to run into the same people that like, as a group,

[00:18:16] Rhys: yeah. Tessa Cosma played Beth. I thought she did a, an okay job for a young child actor in a horror movie. She’s not Jadel Farrell or anything like that, she did fine

[00:18:27] Stephen: and her character, I think wasn’t.

[00:18:32] Supposed to show a lot of emotion because she didn’t. That can, that itself can be difficult to do, people, if anyone calls her out there wasn’t a lot of there was some mostly anger, but a lot of it was pretty deadpan from her. And that can be hard to do.

[00:18:47] Rhys: It can. She’s been in six things two television appearances, this full length movie three made for TV movies.

[00:18:55] And all of those, so you might actually know her, were Christmas [00:19:00] movies. Oh, yes. Okay. So she’s been in A Christmas Carousel Christmas in Washington, and Mistletoe Match.

[00:19:10] Stephen: Yeah, those aren’t the ones I usually watch. My father might have seen them at one point.

[00:19:15] Rhys: Yeah and there’s so many. I don’t know how any of them are going to stick out.

[00:19:19] I’m

[00:19:19] Stephen: surprised Hallmark doesn’t have just a Christmas movie channel.

[00:19:24] Rhys: Actually, Hallmark, give us a call.

[00:19:27] Stephen: Yeah, we’ve got ideas. We need more good Christmas horror movies.

[00:19:34] Rhys: That could be a sub

[00:19:35] Stephen: head. Yeah, I had, I’ve had to weed some out. There’s Oh my God, I just really never want to ever see this one again.

[00:19:42] I kept a few good ones to watch.

[00:19:46] Rhys: Kristen McCullough plays Mary in the film. She’s got two nominations and a win. She’s got 28 prior acting credits and eight of them are for television series. So she’s big in Canadian CBC television. [00:20:00] She’s got a long run on a show called the vault and she has one upcoming projects called a knight’s war.

[00:20:07] So actually you can tell the people that I found interviews with, because I actually have more stuff on them,

[00:20:14] Stephen: like

[00:20:14] Rhys: the next guy, Nick Smythe. I saw an interview with him on quick critic he plays Oh, come on race. Mary’s husband, Louis.

[00:20:23] Stephen: Yeah.

[00:20:23] Rhys: Yeah. He was the one who was talking about, how remote the location was it’s three hours outside of Toronto.

[00:20:31] So yeah it’s a long ways. All the shots were at night. He loved the score for the music. He just kept talking about, the composure and how great he thought he was and his favorite scene of the movie is the one where the where the cop comes to the door and he’s on the other side and I can see where that would be his favorite scene of the movie because it really is like the biggest scene he’s in except at the end.

[00:20:55] The horror genre. He loved to do more of it. He enjoys watching them. He [00:21:00] enjoys acting in them. He’s a big Eli Roth fan. And it’s hard to say whether or not he’s just a big Eli Roth fan, or at the time of the recording of the interview, he was in a television show that was being executively produced by Eli Roth.

[00:21:14] So he like would see him sometimes on set and stuff like that. So that’s cool. He said he thinks there’s actually a script for a sequel to this floating around out there. Yeah, but it’s funny that we hear that from him. And not. Like Craig David Wallace who wrote and directed it.

[00:21:31] Because he’s cause I’m not going to be in it.

[00:21:33] He’s okay, good point. He has five nominations and two wins. Some of those wins were for for the sake of violence, which is the movie that Kate, it was in he has 67 credits and everything on his list aside from, for the sake of violence, about the. The only thing that I recognized was he was in the ABCs of death part two.

[00:21:55] He did Emma, which was for marriage, I think, but I

[00:21:59] Stephen: don’t remember. [00:22:00]

[00:22:00] Rhys: Yeah. Colin Pardeen or yeah, partied. I keep wanting to say paradigm, like Caridine, but it’s partying. He played Hal, who is the police officer. He’s been in 31 other projects. And the only reason I bring it up is because he’s the third member of the cast.

[00:22:18] Who is in for the sake of violence. So yeah, exactly.

[00:22:24] Stephen: Okay, so it’s a shorter list. There really wasn’t a lot of actors in there. It’s a very close set before we move on. So you don’t have to rem remind me ’cause I just, I remembered on my own that we’re gonna talk about the movie.

[00:22:38] But everybody listening, grab your drink and head over to our website. All of our episodes are there. Along with the videos to YouTube, but it’d be great if you check us out on Facebook, give us a check us out on YouTube, follow us, subscribe and give likes. We’re trying to expand and grow. We’re not even sure where all we want to go with all of this, but it has been growing [00:23:00] slightly and we’d like to get a little more.

[00:23:02] The more people that like things, the more we can do with this because we’ve got options and expanding. So there’s the please on to the show. Now I will say first thing

[00:23:15] Rhys: right off the bat

[00:23:16] Stephen: right off the bat After watching it if you ask me I would classify this Much more as a thriller than a horror but that’s a very personal thing the premise of the movie struck me more as Thriller than horror though.

[00:23:33] I’m sure there’s other people that would be like, oh my god That was the best horror movie i’ve seen I totally get that we’ve talked about not You There’s gotta be somebody, I’m sure. But, we’ve talked about that, how horror is different for everybody, and this one just really came across, it had a horrific theme to it, but I just would consider it more thriller.

[00:23:55] Rhys: Yeah, we’ve had this conversation before, and I can’t remember what it was over, which movie it was, [00:24:00] but we’re talking about different kinds of horror movies, and different classifications. This is definitely a thriller. It has home invasion,

[00:24:10] Stephen: Yeah,

[00:24:11] Rhys: nestled in it. I don’t know that I would necessarily call it a home invasion film because while that’s like kind of the premise of it, it’s.

[00:24:20] It’s a

[00:24:21] Stephen: misleading,

[00:24:22] Rhys: it’s a misdirection, right? Yeah, it’s supposed to seem like a, so I came up with the idea of a social horror movie where you have Oh, what was it called them? Was that the one with Roddy? Roddy Piper. And so it doesn’t fit into it’s not a zombie movie. It’s not a slasher movie, but it’s talking about something that societally would be a horrible thing.

[00:24:44] Yeah. Yeah, this kind of fits that vein,

[00:24:47] Stephen: arguably, there’s a little bit of mystery in there as they’re not hitting you between the eyes with this. It’s a bit

[00:24:54] Rhys: of a whodunit.

[00:24:55] Stephen: Yeah, a little bit, but very minor. It’s not if you enjoy mysteries. Oh, I’ll watch this [00:25:00] one because it’s not that big of a mystery.

[00:25:02] But if they are talking sequel heck, they got the makings of a whole slasher on air.

[00:25:09] Rhys: You can certainly turn it into a slasher thing. And I think it’s got maybe a grand total of 15 minutes of actual horror that I would put in it.

[00:25:19] Stephen: Yeah, again, the premise is a bit,

[00:25:22] Rhys: but yeah. But yeah, there’s some scenes where you’re mopping up blood, that’s horrific.

[00:25:28] That’s a little more than the typical thriller. There’s the scene with a pitchfork being stepped on that, I would consider that more horror than you would necessarily with a thriller. A lot of times with a thriller, the guy pulls out the gun or the knife. And you see the victim going, and then they cut away and there’s like a shadow and there’s like a noise and, you have to fill in yourself.

[00:25:49] What’s is actually happening. They don’t do that as much here. Which I think is like a boundary for horror versus thriller or like crime stuff.

[00:25:58] Stephen: It straddles [00:26:00] that quite often in this one.

[00:26:03] Rhys: Yeah. But again, this is, this is revisiting directors that we liked and not all of the directors we like went on to continue to do horror stuff.

[00:26:10] Stephen: Yeah, no, there’s nothing wrong with it. Again, it’s almost horror light. If you like thriller with a little mystery and some horror, this is, one that fits that.

[00:26:19] Rhys: Yeah, I think the thing for me with this was that at the very start, it’s got this great, awesome start. That lasts for a minute and a half, and then it blows them all away.

[00:26:31] And so it starts with this remote farmhouse and, the camera’s pushing in and there’s this spooky music and there’s this girl sitting on a chair. Great composed shot, by the way, Mr. Wallace, a picture of a girl sitting on a chair. She’s blindfolded. It says motherly right across the blindfold.

[00:26:49] And you’re like, That’s really cool. And then there’s a woman standing there with a knife and you’re like, what’s going to happen and here it’s a birthday. Yeah. We’ll hear the nice to cut the [00:27:00] cake. And like you said, a lot of misdirection. Yeah. And it happened so fast. It was one of those kinds of things where I think the buildup could have actually been a little bit longer for me before we reveal that now it’s a birthday party, it’s not a big deal.

[00:27:14] I don’t know, but yeah, it turns out it happens to be Beth’s birthday and it’s just Beth and Kate out here in this little place. And Beth is really not grateful for anything. And that’s a theme throughout the whole film as well.

[00:27:30] Stephen: And family life, it’s a pretty common family life theme.

[00:27:34] Rhys: Yeah. She wishes her dad was there. We don’t know why the dad’s out of the picture. Um, she gets a locket from her mom with a picture of her and her mom in it. And her dad used to be in that locket, but he’s not in the picture anymore. He’s been removed. And she’s eh, I wanted an iPad. Okay,

[00:27:56] Stephen: and right from here, I was like, [00:28:00] okay, the way the dialogue was going, I started going, what is going on?

[00:28:06] And who’s really the at fault, just the title of the movie kind of gave away a lot of where this was going to go, but just the way the dialogue was, I started questioning already. It’s Yeah, what, who’s really doing something here?

[00:28:23] Rhys: That’s a good point. If you think about the title of the movie as you’re watching it, it will pretty much reveal itself pretty early on.

[00:28:30] It’s not called wiferly, it’s just, like one track you could have gone down. So the girl wants to play hide and seek and hates, like we don’t play that game. There’s no hide and seek going on. They’re like, okay that’s a really odd, specific childhood game that you’re not allowed to play.

[00:28:49] And it turns out the girl’s homeschooled. So she doesn’t even have friends over for her birthday. Her mom is super overprotective. She wants to go out and play in the barn. She’s you’re not allowed in the [00:29:00] barn. But she does get to not do classes cause it’s her birthday. She can go out and play in the yard.

[00:29:07] Stephen: Yay. There’s your treat. When I was a

[00:29:10] Rhys: kid. Yeah that’s what you had to do. Get out of the house. And they have that same black mountainside pension thing for me as she’s kicking her ball against the wall, like two feet away from a window. It’s started as the guy who’s had to replace windows, that kind of freaks me out a little bit, but the mom is looking at a Kate is looking at a laptop.

[00:29:31] She’s got a screen up, it’s blank. She’s writing a story or a journal entry and it flows into this flashback, but you’re not sure if it’s a flashback or if it’s just her thought process. You’re watching like a thriller slash horror, so it’s pretty safe to say. Yeah. Unless you’re going way outside the box in what she writes becomes true or something like that.

[00:29:52] As far as it could have been, I

[00:29:53] Stephen: think some of these flashbacks and some of the dialogue, I think we’re trying so hard to not get you to look in the [00:30:00] direction it really was that it made you look in the direction it really was. You know it, it almost looped back around and pointed right to it.

[00:30:07] To me.

[00:30:07] Rhys: Yeah. To me. The flashback is her neighbor comes over with her daughter and there’s a play date with the two girls and they’re going to play hide and seek. And the neighbor girl hides in a closet and she sees footsteps and then the footsteps go away and then hands grab her from behind the clothes in the closet.

[00:30:24] So she’s writing

[00:30:25] Stephen: and that’s your big clue right there. That’s the big, biggest clue right there.

[00:30:31] Rhys: Then the mom’s she’s typing that she finally saw Brad for what he really was. And that her husband killed the girl. So if there’s going to be any misdirection to this, then you automatically know the dad didn’t kill the girl.

[00:30:44] Stephen: Yeah, I never suspected the dad throughout the whole thing.

[00:30:48] Rhys: So she’s talking to her publisher. She’s trying to get in advance and the publisher is we need to actually see something before we give you an advance. I’ve got a paragraph and a

[00:30:58] Stephen: half. What more do you [00:31:00] want?

[00:31:01] Rhys: Yeah. And so you get the feeling this isn’t the first time she’s asked for it. So she is sitting there trying to get, some money from them to pay for the bills and they’re like, we need to see more work.

[00:31:14] And we saw from the blank page that it didn’t look like she had a whole lot going right now. She looks outside the window after the phone call and the girl’s coat is hanging on a tree, but the girl is not there. So that’s not cool. Now, all of a sudden, all you’re thinking, Oh, maybe she has reason to to she heads out to the barn and she opens the door and there’s this flashback of the dead girl, dead neighbor girl on the floor by the closet. You know what? I didn’t even she didn’t speak at all. I didn’t even note the name of whoever played the little girl. Mary’s daughter. I don’t know. I didn’t even, but I don’t think she spoke at all.

[00:31:57] So technically but [00:32:00] yeah, mostly she’s lying there dead. And then all of a sudden, boom, we’re back to the barn and barn seems empty and everything’s great. And then the girl pops up with this pitchfork to scare mom, who, instead of just being scared is. Has a little bit of a minor breakdown.

[00:32:18] Stephen: Yeah, like almost overreaction again. This is where if you’re watching you’re like Yeah that either it’s really bad writing and acting or it’s not what we would think It’s not what it seems And again the hands in the closet and then this whole scene with the girl popping up made me start going Okay, I’m starting to see what is going on here.

[00:32:41] Rhys: Yeah and the whole thing with the pitchfork, like as soon as it shows up, it’s that’s Chekhov’s gun. Yeah. Oh, there’s a pitchfork in act one. It’s going to get used in act three.

[00:32:52] Stephen: It better.

[00:32:53] Rhys: So the girls in trouble, they’re back into the house, but when they get to the house, they find that the door is open [00:33:00] and all of a sudden Kate’s did I leave that door open or not? And she’s been so overprotective and stuff. You’re like, Hey, maybe you’re just making the thing of it, but then you remember what you’re watching and you’re like, Oh no, I’m sure.

[00:33:13] Stephen: And actually, if you look at that. Part of it with her reaction. It’s Oh my God, somebody might’ve broken in here. We’re trying to get away from somebody. I understand this misdirection, but her reaction doesn’t fit with her knowing what the actual facts are. You know what I’m saying? That mind wouldn’t have gone to, Oh my God, somebody broke into my house.

[00:33:32] That didn’t seem to fit. Once I got to the end of the movie.

[00:33:36] Rhys: Say. And this isn’t the first time I’ve said it, but shot composition here is amazing. As Kate goes through the house, looking through all the rooms, he uses the architecture to frame the shot. Just it’s really nicely done.

[00:33:50] So kudos to you there. She’s going through and then you get this. Standard shot of the house from the barn, flasher, somebody passes in [00:34:00] front of the lens of the camera and you’re like, there’s somebody out here.

[00:34:02] Stephen: I

[00:34:03] Rhys: think I actually did hear dumb in my

[00:34:06] Stephen: head. I think it played just automatically.

[00:34:08] I’d like you like to

[00:34:10] Rhys: think you heard it in my voice.

[00:34:13] Stephen: That would have scared me even more. I think.

[00:34:15] Rhys: Kate is in full defensive mode. She’s got a knife in her hand, she’s checking through the house. Beth has no, no sense of fear whatsoever. And he does, he layers in these little jump scares in there.

[00:34:28] So like the girl turns on the TV downstairs and the noise of the TV makes Kate jump upstairs, that kind of thing. So it’s very standard fare, especially like this house search thing. Like she checks the closet and the shower curtain and, there’s all the, you pull it back and there’s nothing there.

[00:34:45] But it seems like there’s nobody left in the house. And then the girl’s Oh, this house is haunted. And you’re like, Oh okay. So there’s another thread we could possibly pull on. Yeah. But of course it’s not.

[00:34:57] Stephen: Yeah, that, that didn’t even [00:35:00] start to pan out. They were showing a flashback memory and there was absolutely nothing about haunted throughout this whole thing.

[00:35:07] So I just dismissed that one pretty quickly.

[00:35:10] Rhys: Yeah. And this next scene where it cuts to night and Kate and Beth are sitting on the couch watching TV speaks to Steve’s comment earlier where they’re sitting there watching it. And the mom is like, Talking about presence and apologizing and very heartfelt and the girl’s just like, and on the one hand it being a low budget Canadian horror film, you’re like, did she just not act?

[00:35:35] Oh, but then, as the movie goes on, you realize, no that’s like an actual trait of the character. And it actually shows some decent acting chops to be able to react in that way.

[00:35:45] Stephen: Yeah.

[00:35:46] Rhys: So somebody pulls in. And the girl’s Oh, it’s just how, so we have new character named how the girl doesn’t like him.

[00:35:55] We know that the dad’s out of the picture. So maybe how it’s a romantic [00:36:00] interest.

[00:36:00] Stephen: Yeah, this was a bit of a confusing misdirection.

[00:36:03] Rhys: Yeah. And he shows up. He does a really nice thing here where there’s a knock on the door, she opens the door, he’s knocking on the door with his badge, and just without He Man explaining it as you like to put it, you get the idea that, oh, Hal’s a cop, and he’s a cop who has like a relationship with the police.

[00:36:23] Stephen: But then it comes up later that they really don’t have a relationship. Maybe they flirted or he would like one, but he basically says nothing has ever happened and I’m not doing this, but they make it seem like it totally has earlier as far as misdirections go. That’s pretty bad. That’s a complete lie in the movie.

[00:36:43] That’s not how it would actually be if they were in real life type thing.

[00:36:47] Rhys: Yeah, you can tell from the one he walks in and the way he interacts with Beth, he like wants to be, it’s a weird situation because you get the feeling like he wants to be this scene is like this fatherly, [00:37:00] husbandly figure, but like certainly not enough to put up with whatever nonsense Beth is going to give like he brought her a present.

[00:37:08] She’s all excited. She opens it up. It’s a barbie. She’s like I’m nine. I don’t play with this crap anymore, which I don’t know that’s necessarily the case.

[00:37:18] Stephen: Yeah. I was like, really? Okay. But this was one of the hardest reaching parts of the movie. She opened the box and pulled the doll right out. I’m like, no, those things are so zip tied into those boxes that it takes an hour to get out.

[00:37:31] That was like, okay. Also all belief is gone in this movie now.

[00:37:38] Rhys: Yeah. So then we got to the kitchen and there’s this kind of, I don’t want to say it’s an info dump because it’s not just like blatant, but there’s some conversation there where you get this whole thing about he’s an officer, like he’s been working with them.

[00:37:56] They’re close. They’ve got a little bit of, A local past because [00:38:00] like they haven’t known each other since she’s been in the area, the haunted house topic comes up again, he makes some joke about the woman who died there and and it’s, that’s a Steve joke there too, where

[00:38:12] Stephen: he

[00:38:17] Rhys: has something serious to talk to her about.

[00:38:19] So they go outside and Brad, her husband, who was incarcerated is dead. He was found dead in his cell and he left a note. She wants to know what it says. And it said, Kate, now I understand and Beth, I love you. And then she cries on how shoulder over this whole thing, which when you actually break the whole story down, like all the way.

[00:38:45] I can see where that would be very emotional and impactful, once you’ve seen the end of this. Yeah, agreed. Beth gets onto her mom’s computer while she’s away and she looks at the computer and sees this sentence. My husband was a killer. [00:39:00] And then she gets busted by Kate coming inside. She’s you’re not supposed to go up to your room, blah, blah, blah, blah.

[00:39:06] Stephen: And this scene, looking back on it after you hit the end, it’s oh, there was more. There was other meaning to that wasn’t what they portrayed and made you. Yeah, that was trying

[00:39:16] Rhys: to get dad in trouble.

[00:39:19] Stephen: Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So I did. I did appreciate that scene way more at the end when I thought about it.

[00:39:25] Rhys: Yeah. And I really liked, there’s this line in here where Kate’s you don’t know anything. And Beth’s I remember everything. And you’re like, Ooh, that’s a little creepy. Yeah, actually. And I will say Spencer Cregan’s music. Was great throughout this. I just needed more of it. Like this whole seed, like there was just this one tag where he did it.

[00:39:47] And I was like, that was awesome. He should have been doing this for another two minutes before and another two minutes after. Um, Beth into bed. You have this flash with the dead girl. [00:40:00] Just like they do the, he does that jump scare kind of thing with where you shoot the scene with the dead girl and you get the most mileage out of it by showing it over and over again.

[00:40:10] Stephen: It’s like reading a Stephen King book.

[00:40:12] Rhys: Yes. Beth asks if Hal is staying over again, and if Kate is going to tell her dad about it.

[00:40:19] Stephen: That right there, I was like, at the end mostly, I was like, hold on a second. He, if he was just being a cop, what was he wouldn’t have stayed over at the safe house. And because he would have gotten busted out of being a god that this is one of the things that fell apart for me.

[00:40:38] I know they’re trying to make it a redirection, but if they never really were romantic, then there was no reason he would have ever stayed over unless he was like sitting on the porch guarding the door. But if the husband was in jail, there was no reason for a cop. Why were they even really in the safe house still?

[00:40:56] If the husband was in jail and he was the one that was convicted. [00:41:00] I, there were parts of this that kind of fell apart afterward when you thought about it.

[00:41:05] Rhys: Oh yeah. A lot of times there’s movies that fall apart when you start to think about them.

[00:41:11] Stephen: True. True. But this one, I don’t know, stuck out a little bit more to me.

[00:41:17] Rhys: Yeah, there’s this thing when you’re talking about small budget horror films, where you basically have, yeah, we’ll just do this now where you basically have two issues that come up either one, one guy is doing way too much. And he’s not doing any of it well, and that is probably 90 percent of the really bad low budget horror movies.

[00:41:41] Cause I’m going to act in this. I’m going to direct it. I’m producing it. And I wrote the thing, okay, you need, you needed some more help and I get it. You don’t have any money to spend, but the other one, and I think this is probably what happened here is because you can see [00:42:00] this. There is a stilted Ness.

[00:42:04] Or a stiffness in dialogue between the actors and the actors do a great job if it’s screaming or fighting or a chase. All flawless. It’s all no notes. You’re doing great. But whenever there’s a conversation, there’s just something that’s a little fake about it. And I think that comes from we’re on a budget.

[00:42:29] We don’t have much time. We cannot do 15 takes of this scene. You get to write as long as you’re not flubbing your lines. That’s what we’re going to use. And I, I don’t want to say anything bad about the actors in this. Although the guy who played how really. He didn’t have a good scene in it, to be honest, but everybody else did an okay job.

[00:42:50] So I think like that stiltedness and we know that Wallace can direct. We’ve seen him do it before. I just think this is one of those cases where he didn’t have the [00:43:00] time to actually get As many runs of what he wanted to see.

[00:43:03] Stephen: And I totally agree with that. And I think it was even a little bit more added to that in that he was trying to say things that would, when you thought about it, hint at what was really going on, but misdirect you at the same time.

[00:43:18] So I think it, it, that added to the whole, like you said, stiltedness and uncomfortable dialogue.

[00:43:25] Rhys: Yeah. I, this is one of those kinds of cases where I would not. And this would be like Anthony de Blasey, right? Where if Wallace wanted to redo this later with money, I would be, I would love to watch that.

[00:43:39] Yeah. I would actually be really interested to see it, because the police, he did that with a last shift where he did Malum five years later, cause he had cash and he could do it right and get it, into theaters and stuff. I would really be interested to see, what this would look like if all of a sudden, Wallace had, here’s.

[00:43:58] One and a half million dollars [00:44:00] go crazy, cause he doesn’t need a lot for this,

[00:44:03] Stephen: right? Yeah, it’s a small cast small sets. Just find a nice old barn Probably it could probably be much better than the Remake of la casa muda.

[00:44:13] Rhys: So oh gosh. Yes.

[00:44:15] Stephen: Yeah

[00:44:16] Rhys: Once you take Elizabeth Olsen out of that, you’re just left with a bunch of bad film.

[00:44:21] Stephen: Yeah.

[00:44:22] Rhys: She leaves her daughter’s bedroom and goes downstairs. And when she does, you can see it’s standard horror trope. One of the doors in the background, you see it creak open. She joins Hal on the couch. He screws up by mentioning Brad again, which, puts her into a bad mood.

[00:44:38] Stephen: But I’m thinking here too, I’m like, The cop is bringing wine, but later they basically say that they were never romantic.

[00:44:45] I’m like, it just didn’t sit right with me.

[00:44:50] Rhys: And it’s, yeah, it’s again, I wasn’t a big fan of The actor who played how I don’t think he did that great of a job. So it’s [00:45:00] hard to say, but yeah, there was a lot of weakness with that little plot thread. She asks him if he’s staying, he’s afraid his wife will find out.

[00:45:08] You can tell he’s married. Cause when he puts his arm around her while they’re sitting on the couch, you can see the ring. It’s like a blatant shot. She tries

[00:45:15] Stephen: to go.

[00:45:16] Rhys: Yeah. She tries to seduce him. But He’s no, yeah, I don’t think so. And she’s just kicks him out. She’s get

[00:45:23] Stephen: the hell out of here then.

[00:45:24] Yeah. This whole scene was uncomfortable because it just didn’t feel right. It the actor the characters weren’t very consistent. I didn’t think, I think it honestly,

[00:45:37] Rhys: the concept of the scene should have felt uncomfortable because she wasn’t doing this because of any romantic interest in him.

[00:45:46] As much as she’d been scared over the course of the day so it feels like she’s been using him all along, which should make it seem a little uncomfortable, but it went beyond that. It went to the point where, you know, [00:46:00] because

[00:46:00] Stephen: And I was wondering what exactly is she afraid of? But we could argue what that is.

[00:46:10] Rhys: Yeah, you could we’ll get to it when we get to the end. Yeah. She finds the locket that she gave Beth on the couch. She spills her wine. She, as she cleans it up, another flashback to cleaning up the dead girl’s blood. Not just cleaning up,

[00:46:23] Stephen: she’s finger painting with it.

[00:46:26] Rhys: Yeah. What are you trying to clean that with?

[00:46:28] Stephen: Yeah.

[00:46:29] Rhys: Like a Dairy Queen napkin. Just, it’s a gallon of blood and you’ve got this, there’s a Parker covered figure behind her. You can’t see him. They’ve got the whole thing all done up. So there’s just this Parker covered figure and then the lights go out. Now we have the, one of the scientists from black mountainside has found his way to her house.

[00:46:50] They’re both in Canada. And yes, people, I know there’s a difference between Western Canada and everything in the east.

[00:46:57] She calls up to Beth to say there’s a power outage [00:47:00] and ask if she’s seen her phone and she’s up there actively playing on her mom’s phone. She’s no, I don’t know where it’s at. And then Kate looks outside and the lights are on at the barn. Like it’s not an area wide thing. It’s something in the house.

[00:47:13] Now the knife’s missing. Beth, did you take the knife? No. Why would she take a knife? And then she like turns and the lady, or the lady, it is a lady. Spoilers the lady in the park, yeah, the lady in the park of waves to her and then she like turns and then there’s a second person in a park of there and now, the game is afoot, we’re running through the house and this is, home invasions in general is not my favorite.

[00:47:42] Genre of film, unless they’re very well done, like your next phenomenal. Yeah, that one was

[00:47:48] Stephen: good. Yeah.

[00:47:48] Rhys: Yeah. But like she runs, she kicks the guy, she gets upstairs, she gets into the girl’s bedroom. She’s trying to block the door with the dresser, which great idea. [00:48:00] And then she tries to open the window and it won’t open and, she’s struggling and then they, of course get in.

[00:48:06] And then what do they do? They taser her. Do they, I don’t remember that they grab her and yeah. And they they knock her out somehow. I don’t remember what it is. Yeah. Yeah. It’s 25 minutes into the film before this all starts. So now you have 55 minutes left to the film grand total.

[00:48:27] Once the action has begun, once the buildup is done.

[00:48:31] Stephen: Yeah, the one thing I didn’t understand, though, is they knock out the lights and then they take them outside into the barn. What was the point of knocking out the lights, really? You alerted them you were there before you got home.

[00:48:43] Rhys: And it’s one of those kind of things, and this is my whole thing with home invasions.

[00:48:47] Okay, you’re going to put the dresser against the door. Mom, push on that dresser. Girl, figure out how to open the window.

[00:48:56] Stephen: Yeah, it’s not real hard, throw something through the window. It was not [00:49:00] like some safety glass. It looked like single pane glass, actually.

[00:49:04] Rhys: Yeah, that’s the whole problem with home invasion films.

[00:49:06] It’s like people freak out and yes, everyone’s panicking.

[00:49:10] Stephen: But that, this is, that was, and this was good. This wasn’t bad, but they made it like it was a home invasion, but it was like two people. We didn’t really see weaponry and they didn’t seem to be trying real hard.

[00:49:24] Rhys: Yeah. Yeah, it’s true.

[00:49:26] So we had this flashback to the hide and seek game now. And as she’s counting backwards, with her things, she gets to one. And now all of a sudden there’s this point of view, camera shot where you are Kate and you were duct taped to a chair. And they’re in the barn.

[00:49:42] Stephen: I could choose your own adventure.

[00:49:44] Rhys: Yeah. Yeah. Horror version. Yeah. This hooded figure is threatening her and then, she’s they actually threatened Kate by threatening Beth because the other hooded figure has Beth and revealed it’s Mary, who is the mother of [00:50:00] the girl who died and some guy. It turns out the guy’s name is Lewis and he was the father of the girl who died, but we don’t have anything that establishes that beforehand.

[00:50:09] Stephen: Until they get the really awkward, I love you exchange before he leaves. That was

[00:50:14] Rhys: so that, that was the thing of all of the actors, with all the discourse and it being stinted and everything. I thought Smythe who played Lewis did the best. I’m I, it. It very few times was I like, Oh, he’s just wrote, remembering and saying things, it felt like he was in it.

[00:50:33] And this is this thing. Cause he’s Hey, don’t forget how to shoot a video. And she’s she snaps at him and then he’s I love you. And there’s this pause before she says it back. So in that awkward little three minute segment. Wallace gets across. Oh, hey, there’s issues between these two who are working together.

[00:50:55] This might actually become a thing, right? There could be something potentially to play on, [00:51:00]

[00:51:00] Stephen: right?

[00:51:01] Rhys: It turns out there’s way more between them than you think in this scene. Lewis and Beth go back to the house, leaving Mary with Kate and Mary accuses Kate of killing her daughter. And setting Brad up and she says she can prove it to, and not unlike, whenever you have this kind of thing you’re going to want pacing, in between.

[00:51:23] So they’re going to bounce from here to the house and here to the house. And again, it’s not so onerous that I’m not going to actually do it that way. So she’s I can prove it. And then we cut to Beth and Lewis going in the house. And this is the part. Lewis as a character does is not bright.

[00:51:43] Yes. And I don’t think his heart was in it either. And I think that’s what Smythe actually does really well in this. Because at no point in time, I’m like, Oh, he wouldn’t fall for that. Because I was like yeah. He just [00:52:00] wouldn’t have seen the girl saying something. She says something to him. So he like bends down and she like kicks him in the face and runs in the house.

[00:52:08] And I’m like, what a moron. But I’m like,

[00:52:11] Stephen: yeah.

[00:52:11] Rhys: I believe it. I

[00:52:12] Stephen: actually believe he’s a moron. Oh, he doesn’t have a problem with that scene. Yeah, I was like, wow, that girl’s pretty smart. Now, again, this is all spoilers, so you should have watched the movie before we talk about it. At this point, though, knowing, at the end, thinking about this scene, I was like, I don’t know if that’s the way the girl would have reacted by acting scared and running away in hiding.

[00:52:35] That doesn’t fit what her character actually was. It was one of those, we can’t reveal how our character really is at this point. We need to misdirect them again. And thinking about it, I don’t know, it just makes it not fit for me,

[00:52:51] Rhys: know? And that was the thing. I’m like, in that scene, The girl’s calm and collectedness is something you’re like, well done, [00:53:00] girl.

[00:53:00] But there’s a reason. When you get to the end, all of a sudden that calm collectedness is like something to worry about. You’re like, Oh, wait a second. This isn’t good.

[00:53:10] Stephen: The calm one walking away from the explosion, target them. That’s

[00:53:14] Rhys: the joker in the nurse’s costume. Just walking away, playing with the trigger.

[00:53:21] Arrest that person back to the inquiry. We find out hate insists she knew nothing about. What happened with her daughter and Mary points out that Brad would have had to take the body downstairs, put it into the trunk of his car, change his clothes, and Mary knew nothing about that. That makes no sense to her.

[00:53:42] We know that Mary is lying. We know that Kate is lying, but we’re not sure exactly what she’s lying about yet.

[00:53:49] Stephen: And again, think of the title of the movie that where it started going. Wait a second.

[00:53:55] Rhys: Yeah. You have this, we cut back to the house. Louis is [00:54:00] playing this cat mouse game to find Beth, but it actually turns out Beth is playing the cat and mouse game with him.

[00:54:06] She’s winning. She’s just crushing this. He’s yeah,

[00:54:11] Stephen: there’s yeah, there’s a little more with that girl going on then they’re trying. Yeah, this is the

[00:54:17] Rhys: house scenes of this back and forth were really well done. I thought,

[00:54:22] Stephen: yeah, and he really is a bumbling fool.

[00:54:25] Rhys: Yes. Mary accuses Kate of grooming them as a family so that she could kill her daughter, which is I don’t know.

[00:54:35] And she claims that Brett,

[00:54:36] Stephen: that would have been the premise I would have went on this family of serial killers grooming, the neighbors each time they move. I’m like, wow, that sounds like scary as hell. That’s like the intelligent Texas chainsaw massacre. Now it’s the loved ones. Yes. Except they’re all like that.

[00:54:54] Rhys: Yeah. She claims that Brad didn’t have an abusive bone in her body. And then Kate just [00:55:00] bounces right back saying you were sleeping with him, so you should know. And then she’s did Lewis know? And that really seems to upset Mary. She also gets more upset when Kate’s and he’s dead.

[00:55:11] Take that. So Mary’s okay, I’m going to get the pliers out. We’re going to start removing fingernails.

[00:55:17] Stephen: Yeah. And we always talk about Foley work. This was some good sound effects.

[00:55:22] Rhys: And this is one of those scenes where I’m like, This is what blurs into the horror vein, because typically she would have got that out in a thriller and, Kate’s eyes would have gotten big and then they would have cut to the next scene.

[00:55:34] But no, Wallace gets to show you the fingernail coming out of the bed and the blood. And yeah notes, it says Lewis really sucks at this and the music ramps up as his frustration does.

[00:55:46] Wallace did here is actually brilliant because Lewis is going through looking for Beth and it’s the exact mirror. Of Kate going through the house earlier, looking for someone in the house.

[00:55:58] Stephen: Yeah. Yeah. Almost room [00:56:00] for room. Same actions. Yeah. He’s getting more frustrated though.

[00:56:04] Rhys: Yeah. Oh, yeah, for sure. Kate was getting more relieved.

[00:56:08] He’s getting more frustrated as he heads downstairs. We see like Beth is just like utterly crushing him in this bizarre game of hide and seek.

[00:56:17] Stephen: Yes, and keep that scene in mind. If you think of a sequel as a slasher movie with the little, I’m like, wow, that could really change the slasher genre a bit with this little girl sneaking around and, really make, the next one picked right up with that lady.

[00:56:35] I’m jumping ahead, but pick right up with that lady. It gets her and she gets, she kills the lady in the car. She gets to the police station. You have a whole bunch of police to compound it. Yeah.

[00:56:46] Rhys: And that’s what I would love. If like he got money to do the next one and did another three. And the last one is like super heralded.

[00:56:55] I love it when there’s something everyone loves. But you have to really [00:57:00] go back deep into the weeds and watch something that’s really not that great in order to get up to it. I that’s, that’s the kind of thing where I’m like, Oh, that’s cool. You can see where he started and where he ended.

[00:57:10] There’s a photo of the girl who we find out now is named Courtney. This is the first time we’ve actually heard the girl’s name. Her name’s Courtney. We get some monologue about how beautiful she was and how Mary’s in hell. And this is. One of those cases where I’m like, this is a little stilted and it is, I, I go back to, in my head, it’s he just didn’t have time to do as many shots as he needed to actually get the performance, refine a little bit.

[00:57:40] Yeah. Beth is under the bed and calls how, which surprised me because she doesn’t really like how she doesn’t have a lot of respect for him. But kudos to her to be like, who do I know? Who’s got a gun? Who’s nearby. Bye.

[00:57:53] Stephen: And yeah, looking at it, so at first. You’re thinking, oh, this is a good resource for little girl [00:58:00] keeping her head.

[00:58:00] She’s go get out of this alive. She’s great knowing the end of it’s wow, how manipulative Lisa, sadistic, are you that you’re not going to take care of the issue? You’re going to get the adults to do it for you. That’s where I think this slasher genre could go with this,

[00:58:16] Rhys: so she calls how he doesn’t pick up the phone. She tries a second time, gets ahold of him, except she hangs up just as he’s eight but she’s getting drug out because Lewis has found her. And so how gets ahold of, Oh, he says Kate and then the line goes dead and then he sets his phone down and it rings and he picks it up and says, Kate, but it’s his wife.

[00:58:43] He was like, don’t come home, you cheating piece of shit. And now he has reason. Now he has cause to go back to the house.

[00:58:51] Stephen: Yeah. And they must be having a lot of other problems because he’s fine, I’m going to do it because you think I have been and I’m getting laid. All right for [00:59:00] me. Yeah,

[00:59:01] Rhys: that was, he’s like this dick.

[00:59:03] Who’s just absolutely happy. He gets to go cheat on his wife. Hey, all I’m just like,

[00:59:07] Stephen: But you know what? I did empathize with him at that point. I’ve been in that situation. I understand. So that point, I empathize with him a bit.

[00:59:16] Rhys: I’m glad you put it that way. And not that you were some dick who was happy to cheat on your.

[00:59:20] No, it was the opposite way. Mary and Louis have moved back to the house. Because Lewis is like, said, Oh, I made a mistake. Beth is all taped up and they’re starting to worry about what happens is how pulls into the drive. And this is Nick Smythe’s favorite scene of the thing, which, I get it’s like the most active scene he’s involved with aside from running up and downstairs.

[00:59:46] Yeah.

[00:59:47] Hal’s at the door. And of course, Lewis is if you say anything wrong, we’re going to kill you. We’re going to kill your daughter. We’re going to kill this guy. We’re just going to go on a killing spree, which I didn’t believe. I just didn’t feel it. [01:00:00] Beth makes some, because Kate does a good job of Shooing him away.

[01:00:04] Beth makes a noise. He’s what was that? She’s oh, it’s Beth. She’s playing with their dolls. You know how she loves her dolls. Especially the one she, you gave her. Wait,

[01:00:14] Stephen: nudge, nudge.

[01:00:15] Rhys: Yeah, which I thought was a good, it’s a good tip off. Yeah. How walks back to his car and in a very American film kind of thing is he’s getting to his car.

[01:00:24] He’s saying out loud, what am I going to do? What am I going to do? We know you’re thinking that. Okay. Yeah. He’s

[01:00:32] Stephen: more thinking of, damn it. I wanted to get laid, but now I’m in a cop situation. I don’t want to deal with the cop situation.

[01:00:38] Rhys: Yeah. Yeah. how calls for backup. They’re like, we’re an hour away.

[01:00:44] That’s yeah. Wow. Okay. They really are remote. Apparently.

[01:00:48] Stephen: Yeah.

[01:00:50] Rhys: So he calls her back like a

[01:00:52] Stephen: reverse ex Mackinac there.

[01:00:55] Rhys: Yeah. Don’t be a hero. And he’s gets out of the [01:01:00] car with the gun and he’s heading in. It’s you’re about as intimidating as a wet sack, dude. Back in the barn, you have Lewis and Kate, um, and Mary takes Beth.

[01:01:12] They’re in the house. Took me a long time to land there, but they’re in the house and Mary’s let’s get back to it. And Pate’s I’m not talking to you, but I will talk to him. And Mary’s no. And Lewis is no, I can do this. And considering his track record so far, I understand why Harry’s concerned.

[01:01:33] Stephen: Yeah, I’m actually impressed that this couple stayed together. If their daughter was killed, that will destroy most relationships,

[01:01:41] Rhys: right? The death of a child very frequently is the end of a relationship.

[01:01:45] Stephen: Yeah, and this was an only child and they don’t feel like what really happened was right.

[01:01:52] I’m just surprised they were even still together. But,

[01:01:56] Rhys: So we go back out into the barn, [01:02:00] Mary and Beth are sitting there and Mary is like Beth, like she’s a liar and she hurts me and all of a sudden you’re like, man, this girl is either playing it up or maybe she’s right. Maybe Kate is some sort of monster.

[01:02:15] Stephen: That’s funny because about right there I said, Oh yeah, I definitely get it. That girl is manipulative as hell.

[01:02:23] Rhys: Yep. She’s I want to live with my dad. And then Mary’s I got some bad news for you. He happens to be dead.

[01:02:31] Stephen: Which I got to wonder how the neighbors found that out when the cop had just found it out and showed up to tell her an hour earlier.

[01:02:38] Rhys: She knew he was dead because Kate told her,

[01:02:41] Stephen: Oh, okay.

[01:02:42] Rhys: When she’s you’re asleep with my husband. And by the way, he’s dead.

[01:02:45] Stephen: Okay. Yeah, that’s right.

[01:02:47] Rhys: Back to the barn, we get this, it’s a good way to get back story without some big info dump because he’s sitting there and he’s here’s what I think happened.

[01:02:56] And then she’s no, it was me. It was me the whole time. And there’s a [01:03:00] flashback acting out that it was her. And as she’s going with that, we see that how needs to do more cardio. Cause like he’s panting for breath as he’s walking up a Hill. Yeah. This gun out that heavy ass gun.

[01:03:12] Stephen: Hopefully he remembers double tap at least.

[01:03:15] Rhys: Yeah. Yeah. So

[01:03:17] Stephen: he was going to get some cardio and they blew it all for,

[01:03:21] Rhys: that’s right. Pates tells Lewis that Mary and Brad were having an affair and she’s Oh my God, you knew you absolute ball list, little punk. And because of that, she wanted Mary dead. She wanted to rip the heart out of her.

[01:03:37] She says. And so they have a reenactment where it’s okay, this is her doing the deed, except her doing the deed isn’t exactly how it appeared in her earlier flashbacks. So something’s off here. Yeah. And it really seemed as she’s admitting this, that Lewis is just he’s gonna kill her.

[01:03:57] He’s gonna he’s just gonna kill her right here, cause he’s [01:04:00] I don’t even know that, oh yeah, he did record it. But then how to the rescue, how it comes in, yeah, he comes in with the gun out and everything. He’s freeze. And the guy, and he’s wait, no, she just confessed. I have it on her phone.

[01:04:13] I’m going to get it. Reaching in my coat officer while you point a gun at me. If Lewis had been black, he’d have been done as soon as he reached for it, as opposed to reaching in.

[01:04:26] Stephen: Everything in here gives Hal one of the top spots of worst cop ever in a movie. There’s nothing he’s done right this whole movie as far as cops go.

[01:04:37] Rhys: Yeah. Yeah. So I don’t know. He’s reaching into his pocket. Hal doesn’t shoot him, but. Hey, he keeps saying he’s got a gun, he’s pulling out a gun and then he does and he does double tap. He shoots him twice in the chest. That’s true. He does. Yeah. Now this is the part that I don’t get, [01:05:00] like

[01:05:01] he shoots him and then he walks over and picks up his phone and starts the video that he just recorded, which one, I don’t know how I would start a video on your phone if it’s not active right now, I can’t unlock it. If you were dead, I could put, hold it up to your face or something, but yeah, but then he watches it and he gets this look on his face as he listens to her, her confession. And it’s she’s missing all of the nails on her right hand. They’ve got her daughter. Of course, she’s going to confess to whatever they want, but he’s got this whole look of Oh my gosh, you’re a killer again.

[01:05:43] He’s one of the worst cops in a movie. Yeah. Cause it turns out he’s right. She shoots him in the head, which again, that was one of those shots. You would not find in a typical thriller thing. Yeah. Yeah. She goes small hole here. Yeah. The blast here. Yeah.

[01:05:59] Stephen: Yeah. [01:06:00] Blows out. It spawns. You can see that

[01:06:04] Rhys: and then she’s got a gun and she’s just walking out of the barn.

[01:06:08] She’s not even, she’s not even scared anymore. She’s got a gun coming to the house and Mary sees her maybe sees that determination and is oh shit. And then Beth’s I’ve got this great place to hide. Let’s go hide. And it’s Oh, again,

[01:06:22] Stephen: re rethinking about it. Now this kid’s character, you Fantastic.

[01:06:27] The way she’s manipulating

[01:06:29] Rhys: everybody. Oh yeah. And the actress just did a great job. Yeah. Yeah. The plot, Wallace wrote it well done. The girl’s acting well done. A lot of the problems with this film seem to be the dialogue. There’s a few, there’s a few loose holes, like you were saying, have somebody else go over it.

[01:06:49] And I’m sure he probably did, but I don’t know, find somebody.

[01:06:53] Stephen: I thought the plot was a little too heavy that it was too easy to see what was really going on [01:07:00] again a different time. I might not have caught things so quickly.

[01:07:05] Rhys: Yeah. While they’re down in the basement, Beth accidentally knocks over a box.

[01:07:12] So Kate knows where they’re at, where they are, and there’s this whole mommy showdown. Bringing a knife to a gunfight. There’s a little shooty, a little stabby, stabby, a little pokey. And it was a pretty good fight. Yeah. Again, all the stuff where they weren’t talking,

[01:07:27] Stephen: it was pretty well done.

[01:07:28] It’s a slasher horror movie. That’s a silent film.

[01:07:32] Rhys: Yeah. So now you have two wounded moms on the floor. Beth comes out from hiding and grabs a knife and runs away. Out to the barn. And they head to the barn. I don’t know why Kate didn’t just shoot Mary right off the bat. Cause she had her dead to rights in the barn, but Chekhov’s pitchfork out of nowhere, here comes Beth flying out with the pitchfork and jams it right into Mary.

[01:07:57] Yep. And that’s when you’re like,

[01:07:59] Stephen: [01:08:00] Oh, this is what the real story is. Yeah.

[01:08:03] Rhys: Yeah. And this is the big reveal. And you really get it because like she stabs her and you’re like, Oh, girl overcomes, but then she like steps on the handle of the pitchfork. She’s very clinical about it. Squishes around inside Mary and Mary’s Ow, this hurts.

[01:08:23] That’s exactly

[01:08:23] Stephen: what she said, she went, Ow, this hurts. I’m sure that’s what the script

[01:08:28] Rhys: said. It dawns on Mary Oh my god, First they blamed the dad, now he’s blaming the mom, and here it was the girl who killed my daughter. Motherly. Yes. Yeah. And there we hit the theme. And I love this because when the girl’s done playing with the body, she turns to her mom and she’s she’s dead.

[01:08:49] Literally. That’s how it’s delivered. Yeah, she’s dead.

[01:08:54] Stephen: And so all this stuff from earlier in the movie with the way the mother was, it’s oh my God, she was just, [01:09:00] she lied and, Got her husband killed all of this to protect her daughter, but your daughter’s a psycho serial killer. What are you doing for the world?

[01:09:09] Rhys: Yeah. Yeah. You can’t do this again. Why not? Because it’s

[01:09:14] Stephen: bad.

[01:09:14] Rhys: You really shouldn’t. Yeah. And this theme gets poked at so many times in horror. A lot of times it’s more extreme where it’s like, Oh our little brother is vampiric or the baby is vampiric. And what are you going to do? What links are you willing to go to, to keep them alive?

[01:09:33] This is along those lines, only without any kind of supernatural thing, just a really bitchy little girl.

[01:09:39] Stephen: Yeah.

[01:09:39] Rhys: And so all of a sudden the whole thing with like her having no emotion makes all kinds of sense. She’s a flat out sociopath. She doesn’t feel emotion. Yeah, it doesn’t end. Yeah, and at the end, her mom’s I love you.

[01:09:53] Do you love me? And she just doesn’t say anything. She just leaves her mom there to die in the barn. Yeah. [01:10:00]

[01:10:00] Stephen: Yeah. She doesn’t, doesn’t listen to her mom. She has to take her out. Yeah. You wonder if she’d been waiting for that. And

[01:10:10] Rhys: the little after credit thing where she’s walking along. And some lady sees her walking along down the streets with no coat in the middle of winter in Canada, she like stops and rolls her window down.

[01:10:20] And she’s are you okay? And she gives the camera a little smile. You’re like there is the lead into the next installment of this. If it’s you driving down the road and there’s some kid in the middle of the winter, walking around with no coat, you’re like, are you okay? And she turns, she has blood all over the front of her and a knife, bloody knife in her hand.

[01:10:38] Stephen: I’m going to keep going. I’m calling the cops. That’s their job. I’m

[01:10:43] Rhys: going to roll the window up and just keep going.

[01:10:45] Stephen: See ya.

[01:10:47] Rhys: Yeah. Yeah. That’s motherly.

[01:10:49] Stephen: Motherly. Yeah. I, like I said, I figured things out early on. What was the real story? I thought the misdirections were a little [01:11:00] too heavy handed to be good.

[01:11:03] But the general theme of it is a great idea and concept.

[01:11:08] Rhys: It is, and I thought he did a pretty good job with the money that he had available to him. I, I’m assuming, maybe he had a ton of money and he’s horrible, but nothing else in his career kind of points to that.

[01:11:21] And it did, it was like a passion project for him. So he was definitely, pushing to get this done, probably a lot of self funding and stuff. So yeah we came to it because we enjoyed Todd and the book pure evil. This was one of those cases where you saw a complete flip side to what he did, because this is completely.

[01:11:40] Different from what, we knew him for.

[01:11:42] Stephen: Yeah. So there you go. Motherly. It is difficult to find but I guess it’s on Tubi, right?

[01:11:48] Rhys: It is on Tubi. Yeah. If you do a search for motherly, the problem is there’s so many mother titles out there. That, it makes it difficult, but all right.

[01:11:58] Do we know what’s next for [01:12:00] next time? Of course we know what’s next. We mentioned it earlier with the loved ones. We’re going to revisit Sean Byrne with his film, the devil’s candy. Ooh,

[01:12:12] Stephen: and just a FYI, since this may even come out after this, we’ve been talking about our horror fest for this year. So we actually had some of the kids make some requests.

[01:12:21] So we’re going to watch a couple interesting things they’ve thought of, and they looked like we’re going to have a good lineup. We need a third one though.

[01:12:27] Rhys: Yeah, we had come up with one that is really just pretty impossible to find. Maybe I’ll just open up the list and give it a flick and then.

[01:12:35] Point to one and be like, okay, we’re going to watch roll the die.

[01:12:41] Stephen: And maybe we’ll think of something good for that, or we’ll get a suggestion. Cause we do have a talk coming up and this will probably air after this in a week and a half Friday, the 13th in September over in PA. At a library, we’re doing a talk and a friend of the show, Jeff Strand is going to be there [01:13:00] and it’s going to be a nice little Halloween thing.

[01:13:02] Again, go like our stuff. We’re trying to expand a little bit. This is just one thing we’re doing. We’ve got some other things hopefully coming up. So keep tuned. Yeah. All right. Great. See you later. Have a great time. Can we talk next? Enjoy your horror. Thanks. End of episode. End of the show. Catch phrase or something.

[01:13:25] Rhys: Yeah.

[01:13:25] Stephen: We’ll put

[01:13:26] Rhys: another one in the oven.

[01:13:28] Stephen: Yeah. We’ll keep working on it. Yeah.

[01:13:30] Rhys: Yeah. Workshop that.

[01:13:31] Stephen: All right. Talk to you later. Bye.