[UNKNOWN]: Welcome to the horror hounds of the War Hounds podcast where your guides to the horrors of the infinite liminal realities.
[UNKNOWN]: I'm David and I'm not sure I'm back from my trip to the back rooms.
[UNKNOWN]: I really don't know where I am right now.
[UNKNOWN]: And I'm Alicia, ready to no clip out of this reality and take my chances with the still life.
[UNKNOWN]: And this is our coverage of the new creepy pasta turned horror film, back rooms, starring Chujito, a geophore, and Renata Reinspa.
[UNKNOWN]: We're going to start off with a spoiler-free hot takes, in case you've not seen the movie.
[UNKNOWN]: We'll talk about a bunch of production stuff, and then we'll take a break, and then we'll get into more of what we liked about this movie.
[UNKNOWN]: and then stick around until the end of the podcast for info about our upcoming schedule, as well as news and updates about all of our affiliate podcasts.
[UNKNOWN]: And if you enjoy what we do and are interested in supporting the Laura Hound's community, check us out on Supercast or Patreon, supercasts like Patreon, but sort of built better for podcasters.
[UNKNOWN]: Subscribe us on either platform, get ad free podcasts and a bunch of other benefits, some exclusive podcasts, we'll have some more information about that at the end of the pod.
[UNKNOWN]: if you want to also support us, you can leave us a rating and or a review, both of those things provide some material benefit to the podcast.
[UNKNOWN]: They really do help with the algorithms and into the infinite liminal spaces of the internet to help people find, again, if they're lost in the backgrounds of the internet, they really do help.
[UNKNOWN]: And we definitely want to hear from you about your thoughts on this film and anything else recovering, you can send us emails to lorehounds at the lorehounds.com or to the head to the website and use the contact form, which also has a voicemail feature.
[UNKNOWN]: And of course we have the discord.
[UNKNOWN]: right, a great community space where everyone is talking about all the TVs and shows and books and music that are we're all consuming.
[UNKNOWN]: We've got a great mod team so you won't get lost in all of the different channels and sub-chaddles in there and yeah it's a really fun place to connect with everybody in this extended community.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah and a new back to the channel.
[UNKNOWN]: Yes, yes, you created.
[UNKNOWN]: I'll say I did not expect you to be the one to say, hey, what about covering the back.
[UNKNOWN]: Exactly.
[UNKNOWN]: I don't know why I think it's because of the star power of the two actors.
[UNKNOWN]: And I was like, oh, either of these two people, I will go see their movies and the timing just kind of worked out and yeah, you're right, this is not my typical go see it immediately genre.
[UNKNOWN]: like there are movies that I should have seen by now that I still have not seen.
[UNKNOWN]: I have not seen Mandalorian in Grogu, I've not seen Dolores brought it to, which is both shameful on my part, but I was able to break away and get to back rooms and it was, you know,
[UNKNOWN]: Well, we'll talk about it in a minute about our theater going experience, but yeah, I felt fine about going to my local to see this.
[UNKNOWN]: So OK, OK, yeah.
[UNKNOWN]: I mean, I was talking, I guess it was on the discord.
[UNKNOWN]: We were discussed, I can't remember any.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, exactly, right?
[UNKNOWN]: But we were discussing like awards chances for this.
[UNKNOWN]: And I was saying, this maybe has like an outside chance that they ask us for a production design.
[UNKNOWN]: I think Sam was bringing up maybe the buffed as and I said, yeah, maybe the indie spirits, but I could see like production design is really notable in this film.
[UNKNOWN]: For sure.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
[UNKNOWN]: But that being said, yeah, it's not like you needed in the highest HD.
[UNKNOWN]: No, exactly.
[UNKNOWN]: And like I remember, well, let's save that for when we talk about some our theater going experience, which we do for movies.
[UNKNOWN]: Quick set up the log line.
[UNKNOWN]: And again, we're going to do spoiler free.
[UNKNOWN]: some production information.
[UNKNOWN]: We're going to give you our top line opinions about the movie, and then we'll take that commercial break and then we'll get into the details.
[UNKNOWN]: The log line is after a therapist's patient goes missing into an alternate dimension beyond reality.
[UNKNOWN]: She's forced to brave the unknown, unknown, and enter the terrifying realm to save him.
[UNKNOWN]: So this is distributed by A24 and it's written by King Parsons and Will Sudduk and directed by King Parsons and starring, oh, I can never pronounce his name.
[UNKNOWN]: You would tell a geophore.
[UNKNOWN]: Thank you.
[UNKNOWN]: I have to like practice that a bunch of times.
[UNKNOWN]: I mean, I'm not sure I'm saying it perfectly, you know, please write in or better yet send a voicemail correct.
[UNKNOWN]: the the right salaudal bill like and passes.
[UNKNOWN]: I do know hers is we're not to rents fish.
[UNKNOWN]: Yes.
[UNKNOWN]: And Mark DuPlas who that's a very small part.
[UNKNOWN]: It was released on the 29th wide release in American theaters on May 29th, 2026.
[UNKNOWN]: Currently it is got a reported budget of 10 million and the current global box office is hitting around 140 million.
[UNKNOWN]: So we're on 103 US and global is hitting around 37.
[UNKNOWN]: So that's a 14x return.
[UNKNOWN]: Yes, yeah, that's that's absolutely insane that that sounds you just heard is studio execs everywhere crying that they're not age 24 right and we'll talk about I heard an interesting interview with Parsons the other day Matt Bellany on the town podcast had in conversation with him.
[UNKNOWN]: Really.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, very cool kid young man actually say is not kid and and seems to have a good head on a shoulder around
[UNKNOWN]: orientation to IP.
[UNKNOWN]: Because yeah, all of those studio heads are looking at that 14x going, oh, we want a piece of this.
[UNKNOWN]: We want to replicate that ratings and reviews.
[UNKNOWN]: It's sitting at an 88% on rotten tomatoes with a fan score of 74%.
[UNKNOWN]: Metacritic 77 with the 7.3 for fans and a letterbox debt 3.4.
[UNKNOWN]: So I would call that pretty flat, right?
[UNKNOWN]: That seems like everybody's grading
[UNKNOWN]: about the same.
[UNKNOWN]: You, at least you have a bunch of a few production notes here about the the source that is not going to spoil the source, but it's I think it's a little gorgeous.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, and it's really important.
[UNKNOWN]: I think at this stage to point to the origin trajectory of this film, like how this film, like where it came from, yeah, came from the
[UNKNOWN]: Um, yeah, so the it's all started with it.
[UNKNOWN]: So this is something called a creepy pasta, which is never heard of that term before.
[UNKNOWN]: Okay, would you have you've heard of like Sunderman?
[UNKNOWN]: I've heard of Sunderman and I've heard of toilets that have skippities in them and things like this.
[UNKNOWN]: I don't know if that counts as creepy pasta.
[UNKNOWN]: Maybe I know less about that other than it's a thing that exists and people are age like to mock the fact that it exists.
[UNKNOWN]: Okay, well, there's a
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, this is all part of the growing up on the Internet and the slangs, the brain wrought stuff, the great knee set that my daughter and her friends keep talking about six seven is everywhere.
[UNKNOWN]: Like we were watching top chef the other night and somebody said, oh, about six or seven and my daughter's like pointing at, oh, she still still still.
[UNKNOWN]: Well, because it's, it's not like it's active, it's a latent one is it's embedded in her forever now exactly it's pretty forever forever be of this six seven generation that's right, um, yeah, that's their name that's their name six seven generation
[UNKNOWN]: It's much better, six, seven months.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, that's a better ring to it.
[UNKNOWN]: Next one, be eight, nine, no.
[UNKNOWN]: Um, but no, you have, so I don't know anything about scalability, but I do know about Slender Man, and that was probably the biggest thing to come out of this.
[UNKNOWN]: And so basically, like, okay, 4chan is just a social media board where you share pictures and comments and stuff.
[UNKNOWN]: That was a bit of a wild west space.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, I think it's even uglier than reddit, which I'm constantly on reddit and if I go and forge him, but a lot of interesting stuff does end up coming out of there.
[UNKNOWN]: For example, yeah, a Sundayman was this, it's been made into a movie.
[UNKNOWN]: It was implicated in at least one murder with young kids copying things.
[UNKNOWN]: Anyway, I think that's where a broke through my reality.
[UNKNOWN]: It was that it went, it became very real and unfortunate for a family.
[UNKNOWN]: Right.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
[UNKNOWN]: Um, and so this, but this creepy pasta just an idea like it's like copy pasta, which is this like copy paste basically.
[UNKNOWN]: It's like, um, it's like cockney rhyming slang before the internet.
[UNKNOWN]: Interesting.
[UNKNOWN]: Okay.
[UNKNOWN]: And so it becomes this something called creepypasta, which is just basically a memeified scary thing.
[UNKNOWN]: OK. And so the original thing, this anonymous post on 4chan, is someone posted a picture of this.
[UNKNOWN]: You can easily find it online.
[UNKNOWN]: David's a link in there.
[UNKNOWN]: It's a yellow room, and with the prompt, post-esquiting images that just feel off, and it's this yellow empty office space that's now been used as the model for level zero of what's called the back rooms.
[UNKNOWN]: And this was posted on May 12.
[UNKNOWN]: It looks like it's from the movie.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, so it's modeled after that, basically, in from May 12, 2019, it actually is an Easter egg that in the movie that directly refers to this photo.
[UNKNOWN]: And then, so seven and a half hours later, so also May 12, 2019, someone also anonymous responded to that photo, someone that said, what is it, and this person responded, if you're not careful and you know clip out of reality in the wrong areas, you'll end up in the back rooms where it's nothing but the stink of old moist carpet, the madness of mono yellow.
[UNKNOWN]: The endless background noise of fluorescent lights at maximum humbuzz and approximately 600 million square miles of randomly segmented, segmented empty rooms to be trapped in.
[UNKNOWN]: God save you if you hear something wandering around nearby because it sure as hell has heard you.
[UNKNOWN]: That is the movie.
[UNKNOWN]: is amazing.
[UNKNOWN]: That is so cool.
[UNKNOWN]: So this is like the original photo, internet sleuths, one says blew up, tracked, it down to the location of a used to be a furniture store in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, and that's photo was taken in 2002.
[UNKNOWN]: It's called Rona's Furniture.
[UNKNOWN]: It's now been renovated into a toy store so that room is gone.
[UNKNOWN]: But there was this photo and one other that appears as an easter egg in the film.
[UNKNOWN]: That was just from when they were, I think we're like assessing some water damage or something like that.
[UNKNOWN]: And then...
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, this became this just this idea this this before the whole web series from came Parsons people just started riffing on this idea and and it became this open source story telling thing which is
[UNKNOWN]: what happens with creepypasta.
[UNKNOWN]: So everyone's contributing different things.
[UNKNOWN]: There's all these splits with different people going like some people are like oh there's creatures in there are the people there's no creatures in there.
[UNKNOWN]: Some people are like it's only one level and other people are like now it's infinite levels or it's three levels.
[UNKNOWN]: So splits off into all these different things people doing their own things with it and in that space, cane Parsons,
[UNKNOWN]: who was 16 when he started in 2022, January 2022 is when he published his first YouTube video start of a web series that ran for three years and it is that web series so it has its own lore separate from like what everyone else is doing but based on the same source and that's
[UNKNOWN]: what A24 approached him in an option and it became his film.
[UNKNOWN]: But there's, yeah, there's been other stuff going on too.
[UNKNOWN]: They will talk about where the concept is just blown up.
[UNKNOWN]: It makes me think of a few things.
[UNKNOWN]: One, there was that sort of tradition, I guess, almost a full tradition now of,
[UNKNOWN]: internet music collaboration, which had been I think going on for a while and then the pandemic really kicked it into high gear where people were collaborating, making music together from around the world, you know, they they would record a track share it with the person that they're collaborating with and people were just sort of adding on.
[UNKNOWN]: And then what is that there was a thing on TikTok to where like people would sing and then you would sing and then they Right, but like the same fancy things and stuff.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, exactly the same thing.
[UNKNOWN]: I, I, I, I only spent a little bit of time in the backrooms of TikTok and I Yeah, we need John for that.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, and but then the other thing that it makes me think of
[UNKNOWN]: is a little bit like role playing game collaborative storytelling, you know, dungeon dragons and all of the other role play games, where it is a collaborative storytelling effort, and we all have a version of the space.
[UNKNOWN]: in our heads, and then somehow we're sharing those around the table top be it virtually or in person.
[UNKNOWN]: And yeah, we're building a story together.
[UNKNOWN]: And you know, usually maybe there's one conductor, or somebody who's laid down the primary groundwork, but that we're all, you know, our characters are all venturing into that.
[UNKNOWN]: That's, it's really interesting.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
[UNKNOWN]: I think this movie is hitting a lot of zeitgeist.
[UNKNOWN]: Absolutely.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
[UNKNOWN]: Well, it's, the web series, if you want to see it yourself, you'll find it on YouTube.
[UNKNOWN]: It's, it's like,
[UNKNOWN]: 22 or maybe 24 videos that are between one, most are between one minute and 15 minutes long.
[UNKNOWN]: There's one that's 45 minutes long, but you couldn't watch the whole thing in under three hours, so you can just find his name is Kane Pixels on YouTube.
[UNKNOWN]: And so he did that from when he was 16 until, uh, yeah, three years later.
[UNKNOWN]: So, uh, 19 and then he,
[UNKNOWN]: directed this film.
[UNKNOWN]: And he said, yes, a 24.
[UNKNOWN]: I will put down the YouTube to play with some new Oscar nominated toys in a meeting.
[UNKNOWN]: But what he was doing on YouTube is with a shared storytelling space.
[UNKNOWN]: He
[UNKNOWN]: It uses a software called Blender, which is a 3D software.
[UNKNOWN]: Actually, the studios here in Amsterdam, I used to work there.
[UNKNOWN]: And it is open source in the fact that, yeah, it is a community of people who come together and develop this software, and then there's official releases that choose, like some of the best things, and then they work on animated films and develops software toward that.
[UNKNOWN]: It was also used, for instance, by Flow, the animated film that won the Oscar last year for the year before.
[UNKNOWN]: And it's just a way that sort of evens the playing field so the people who don't have access to the expensive softwares can make their own films.
[UNKNOWN]: And I'm just so impressed with how he uses it because it's not like, like, he's just one person and he doesn't, he can't make super realistic humans.
[UNKNOWN]: Instead, he made this iconic, like, hazmat suit shape that's become identified with it, and we saw throughout this film as well.
[UNKNOWN]: And just, yeah, I'm just very impressed with this young man.
[UNKNOWN]: It sounds like an anti, but I can say I'm exactly like a good job.
[UNKNOWN]: My nephew's done a great job.
[UNKNOWN]: And we both listened to that interview with Matt Bellany on the town, I guess you said you did.
[UNKNOWN]: I was really impressed at how he's handling his fame and his start-up that he seems to be standing on his feet in terms of his creative process and what are the kinds of things that he is interested in, the way he relates to IP and this whole question of
[UNKNOWN]: Do does the six seven generation really care about IP.
[UNKNOWN]: We have the release of he men happening this weekend as we're reporting And obviously with men learning and grow go so there's This interesting inflection point of like is his generation interested in the same way and nostalgia question the right versus not nostalgia questions
[UNKNOWN]: John said that on it must have been one like our second breakfast or something, but he said something like, oh, gen Alpha's obsessed, or is he Alpha's he's he?
[UNKNOWN]: Where's the where's the cut off, uh, Ken Parsons?
[UNKNOWN]: Oh, Parsons, uh, that took good question.
[UNKNOWN]: We had to internet that.
[UNKNOWN]: Parsons, um, if he, if he is 20 now, then he was born in 2006.
[UNKNOWN]: Right.
[UNKNOWN]: Or two thousand seven, we would generate.
[UNKNOWN]: Let me ask the back rooms.
[UNKNOWN]: What was his birth year again?
[UNKNOWN]: It's just so 2005 or six?
[UNKNOWN]: 2006.
[UNKNOWN]: Gen Z.
[UNKNOWN]: Okay, okay, so he's like younger Gen Z, I suppose.
[UNKNOWN]: Maybe 2000 is no, no, no.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, when is the, when is Gen Alpha started?
[UNKNOWN]: Uh, don't know.
[UNKNOWN]: Is 2006 Gen Z is a, Oh, 2012.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
[UNKNOWN]: Okay, all right.
[UNKNOWN]: All right, so first of all, younger, Gen Z.
[UNKNOWN]: All right, yeah, maybe that's what John said is Gen Z obsessed with the 90s now and yeah, and he kind of, he nailed it.
[UNKNOWN]: I mean, I'm sure, obviously for the film, he had plenty of, you know, production designers and input from people who lived through it.
[UNKNOWN]: But his web series, too, is that this is only set like one month after a core event in his web series.
[UNKNOWN]: Um, which I guess, can I spoil something from the web series?
[UNKNOWN]: Uh, I guess, yeah, you know, who says you can't just warning them, we're just as long as we warn everybody.
[UNKNOWN]: I assume you watched the entire web series.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, I did.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
[UNKNOWN]: Like I said, it's less than three hours for the whole thing.
[UNKNOWN]: I don't have three hours these fair.
[UNKNOWN]: I mean, it's just something you're doing, instead of watching a night of TV or something.
[UNKNOWN]: But it's, yeah, it's a, so it's like a collection of found footage, like we saw at the beginning of this film.
[UNKNOWN]: Right.
[UNKNOWN]: And it's very Blair Witch in that regard.
[UNKNOWN]: Sure, yeah, yeah, yeah, and then clips around Async, the company that we saw on this film.
[UNKNOWN]: Okay.
[UNKNOWN]: And so from the company's perspective, there was an employee there who disappeared while they are exploring and it turns on, he times slipped.
[UNKNOWN]: And then they recovered him and then he died.
[UNKNOWN]: And I won't say more than that, you can watch the web series or something that's a web series if you want that.
[UNKNOWN]: That's enough to get people interested.
[UNKNOWN]: Like, oh, hey, maybe that's somebody, yeah.
[UNKNOWN]: Little taster.
[UNKNOWN]: Um, but yeah, so this takes place and all of the these videos are timestamps so you can see the years and stuff.
[UNKNOWN]: So this takes place one month after his death and then Um, there's also in the web series like found footage things that go into them been 90s and that all maybe not as on the nose 90s as his film, but it's like he nailed it.
[UNKNOWN]: Right.
[UNKNOWN]: Well, what are you just keep rolling into your hot takes for them?
[UNKNOWN]: Um, okay.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
[UNKNOWN]: So I am one who's I'm watching like all of the questions about the legacy media studios.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
[UNKNOWN]: And I'm I'm.
[UNKNOWN]: actually not too fast with these big behemoths because I see age 24 and neon, especially, and they're certainly not alone, like movies in there, and, you know, lying to Kate keeps reminding us it's there now and then things like that.
[UNKNOWN]: But these smaller mid-sized studios are making actually the films that I am most excited about because they take the most risks, they make
[UNKNOWN]: behemoth amounts of money into them, they are able to do like a 24 is become really remarkable for its marketing.
[UNKNOWN]: And it's paying off and I just I love to see it.
[UNKNOWN]: So I like this in that regard.
[UNKNOWN]: I definitely I went in more enamored with like
[UNKNOWN]: the idea of like wow look how this is doing rather than thinking I would actually like it because before I watched the film I watched the short of the pilot of that web series and I was just like okay so it's just people going around on a home being like it's weird and then something weird looking chases them whatever but then I watched the film and afterwards it just kept burrowing
[UNKNOWN]: And yeah, I just didn't stop thinking about it and stop thinking about like why are people responding to this?
[UNKNOWN]: And what do the various, you know, I was very impressed with the depth of it.
[UNKNOWN]: I think I went in a bit judgmental expecting something shallow from a 19 year old.
[UNKNOWN]: Which obviously, as you said, you know, he worked with, they brought in a professional screenwriter to work with him and flesh all these ideas out, but we'll talk about it that I've realized that this is just a child with death.
[UNKNOWN]: He's very precious.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, so I, this snuck up on me, this definitely, I like it, the more I think about it, I actually raised my score of it.
[UNKNOWN]: And I think it's currently my top five movies of the year so far.
[UNKNOWN]: Wow.
[UNKNOWN]: Okay.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, I just, I love this, the idea also about it coming from this like creepy pasta shared story telling just, yeah, why I just horror story telling as a community interest me and like the how it's we're exploring our shared anxieties as humans, ironically safe space.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, it makes me kind of want to explore some of the other iterations.
[UNKNOWN]: I did watch.
[UNKNOWN]: Okay, so I'm sure you've heard of American horror story, the TV series.
[UNKNOWN]: I don't know if you know there's also American horror stories plural and that is select story is basically each season is its own story sometimes have season and stories is each episode is a different story.
[UNKNOWN]: And are they same producers or connected?
[UNKNOWN]: Okay.
[UNKNOWN]: Absolutely.
[UNKNOWN]: Yes, shared world, everything.
[UNKNOWN]: Okay.
[UNKNOWN]: But so I've been slow watching my way through stories of the anthology one.
[UNKNOWN]: Good.
[UNKNOWN]: And I happened to notice that next up was season three episode five called Backrooms.
[UNKNOWN]: No.
[UNKNOWN]: Okay, so I watched it and it's not nearly as good as a film.
[UNKNOWN]: I watched it after the film and it's not nearly as good And then I watched an a video from someone else up bring up later who was really like Slamming this and I have to agree with him.
[UNKNOWN]: They just kind of miss the point of it
[UNKNOWN]: Um, but it is interesting that yeah, just goes to show like it seems like they did some production design modeling of at least one of the rooms after the cane pixels videos.
[UNKNOWN]: Okay.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
[UNKNOWN]: But I'm curious about the whole rest of the world and like the games.
[UNKNOWN]: I know escape the back rooms is the biggest of the games, but there's a whole bunch of other ones.
[UNKNOWN]: So this feels like it takes some from some of that culture to of escape rooms as well.
[UNKNOWN]: There's a bunch of interesting latent ideas, and I put some stuff in the comps as well, found footage, some of that.
[UNKNOWN]: So.
[UNKNOWN]: What did you think of it?
[UNKNOWN]: I mean, again, because I was very curious, you seem to have responded to it more than, surprisingly, right?
[UNKNOWN]: I definitely see this as a movie that would fall within your playing field, is something that you would be interested into an investigator.
[UNKNOWN]: So it's interesting to me that,
[UNKNOWN]: You went from what you just said, you went more because it was getting a lot of heat, less the maybe a story attraction, attraction to story or something like that.
[UNKNOWN]: So I think that's interesting.
[UNKNOWN]: But for me, it's like, oh, this is an Alicia movie for a short.
[UNKNOWN]: I mean, I like a lot of heart in this, isn't necessarily like a warm and fuzzy horror movie.
[UNKNOWN]: I do like a warm and fuzzy horror movie.
[UNKNOWN]: I would concur with that.
[UNKNOWN]: This is a much more austere movie in a lot of ways.
[UNKNOWN]: And yeah, this is not a day one movie, this is not for me like I said in a day one movie, but I think with the star power in it, the think I saw a teaser on line a while back and I thought that it was interesting.
[UNKNOWN]: I was really attracted by the cinematography, the color palette, the set decoration and sort of design and look and feel of it.
[UNKNOWN]: Like seeing a yummy pastry in a, you know, in a participatory shop as you walk by it caught my attention.
[UNKNOWN]: And I needed to investigate further.
[UNKNOWN]: Like what is, what does that taste like?
[UNKNOWN]: Because I don't normally eat that.
[UNKNOWN]: That is not my normal sort of thing, but for whatever reason, the composite, the whole of it jumped out for me.
[UNKNOWN]: It was definitely
[UNKNOWN]: not as creepy or scary as I thought it might be.
[UNKNOWN]: I was expecting a lot more, but it was intellectually intriguing.
[UNKNOWN]: And it's definitely something that I think I'll want to watch again on streaming when it comes out.
[UNKNOWN]: This sets in the props are absolutely amazing.
[UNKNOWN]: I absolutely adore what they did in terms of the physical space that they were shooting in.
[UNKNOWN]: It was shot expertly and beautifully.
[UNKNOWN]: It felt really, um, got a lot of severance vibes obviously from it.
[UNKNOWN]: Very good job, Mr. Cox.
[UNKNOWN]: That was going to look up production sign.
[UNKNOWN]: We can't find it.
[UNKNOWN]: Sorry, go ahead.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
[UNKNOWN]: And it, it, it, it, it, it maybe that was what came through in the teaser was there's a confident film making style about it.
[UNKNOWN]: And I didn't know anything about the director or the writer.
[UNKNOWN]: You know, I don't know any of these other stuff.
[UNKNOWN]: It just felt, oh, sorry, Danny Vermette, is the production designer also did long legs and the monkey and keeper.
[UNKNOWN]: So very hard vibes.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
[UNKNOWN]: Okay.
[UNKNOWN]: Got it.
[UNKNOWN]: So yeah, there, there was just a confidence and maturity about it and I don't want to keep making Parsons age a thing because obviously he had a big team and a production house behind them and everything, but they just felt very
[UNKNOWN]: knew what it was doing and it did it.
[UNKNOWN]: And that is, that's a kind of confidence that's sexy, right?
[UNKNOWN]: That's like, you know, you're making me my brain go, wow, like what's it's not a formula, it's a vision, yeah.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, I like that, I like the way that you put that.
[UNKNOWN]: And then of course, once you're in the film, it's intellectual, it's psychological, it is philosophical, you know,
[UNKNOWN]: the human condition and the spaces that we build out for ourselves, both psychologically and physically.
[UNKNOWN]: And so I find it found all of that interesting.
[UNKNOWN]: And so yeah, I mean, I don't
[UNKNOWN]: I'm glad I went and saw it in a big theater because the theater going experience, I think I landed to my enjoyment of the film and I'm looking forward to a second watch to sort of take it apart a little bit more.
[UNKNOWN]: But yeah, I think it is, there, it's not like my favorite film of the year so far.
[UNKNOWN]: We've got a long year to go yet, but it's definitely a solid entry and I really just enjoyed my experience of seeing it.
[UNKNOWN]: So.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, so I just saw looking up the production designer vermet compared the fitting of the sets together with Tetris.
[UNKNOWN]: I have that in notes for you.
[UNKNOWN]: Sorry.
[UNKNOWN]: That's so, so on points for true.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, for sure.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, there's I did some read a little bit of research on on some of the stuff when we can talk about that when we get down there later.
[UNKNOWN]: So you saw it on the big screen.
[UNKNOWN]: Well, we both have seen it on the big screen.
[UNKNOWN]: because it's only out in theaters.
[UNKNOWN]: What was your, would you recommend people see it on big strainer or wait for streaming?
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, I mean, I think if I recommend it always think things on the big screen, I don't know that it necessarily per se has to be on the big screen as far as the audience experience.
[UNKNOWN]: It's an interesting one because
[UNKNOWN]: It was made, not that the Dutch audiences are that rowdy, but if, in general, but if I compare for instance with, with watching weapons last year, like that was a really memorable one, or watching to the drama this year is my most memorable audience, not that that's horror, but
[UNKNOWN]: Well, we're comparing audience experiences, not necessarily content genre.
[UNKNOWN]: Right.
[UNKNOWN]: But it's like, those were people were like, oh, you know, lots of loud reactions.
[UNKNOWN]: And this, like, the one thing was at a time point, they play this, this greetings loop from the Voyager.
[UNKNOWN]: Right.
[UNKNOWN]: Clips.
[UNKNOWN]: And
[UNKNOWN]: One of the languages included is Dutch when that star was like, hey, I said it out loud like that, which I didn't necessarily mean to, and then I kind of was like, oh, and looked around at the quiet audience around me and everyone's still staring straight ahead at this screen.
[UNKNOWN]: Just like, okay, it's like everyone was hypnotized by the film.
[UNKNOWN]: Okay.
[UNKNOWN]: What about your audience?
[UNKNOWN]: So I went on a Monday evening the, I think they had an afternoon showing and then like sort of an early evening showing.
[UNKNOWN]: And our theater are local is interesting because it's also a community arts space.
[UNKNOWN]: So the big stage.
[UNKNOWN]: I have a lot of coral performances and live music and whatnot.
[UNKNOWN]: And then they've got these couple of satellite theaters that are smaller, sort of like,
[UNKNOWN]: 50 people, 20, you know, are 30 people sort of seats.
[UNKNOWN]: So this was in the one weird room that's sort of even as before you end you're in the long foyer of the theater and then there's the ticket booth and then there's the big doors that go in and there's the concession snacks and then you could go down further to the main room or to a couple of the other theaters.
[UNKNOWN]: So this was sort of in a
[UNKNOWN]: And it's sort of the big screen TV theater room as opposed to a normal proper theater room.
[UNKNOWN]: And it's something that they built more recently and they basically just have a giant projector screen hanging up in this black box theater room with some like cheesy risers and some more modern seats.
[UNKNOWN]: They're not the old uncomfortable movie seats that have been there since the turn of the
[UNKNOWN]: and I walked in for so I walked up to theater.
[UNKNOWN]: And there's tons of people milling about and people going in and I'm like, y'all are not here to see grogu or or bag rooms.
[UNKNOWN]: So it's going on.
[UNKNOWN]: Turns out there was a symphony.
[UNKNOWN]: There's like a symphony show going on.
[UNKNOWN]: So there's all these gray hairs there going into the same like y'all are not here to see this movie.
[UNKNOWN]: So I was like, okay, well, when I walk in, I'm sure it'll be pretty chill inside the movie theater room.
[UNKNOWN]: I walked in and there's like,
[UNKNOWN]: The functionally, the theater that we were in was full.
[UNKNOWN]: The distribution of people was such that I had to think about where I wanted to go sit and maneuver to actually get in there.
[UNKNOWN]: I was surprised for a Monday at 6.45 that there was like 25 people seeing it, which is great for our town.
[UNKNOWN]: I love that.
[UNKNOWN]: And they were all younger.
[UNKNOWN]: They were all
[UNKNOWN]: older teenagers or younger college age, folks, you know, a few sets of friends, a couple of dates going on, and like your audience, they were dead silent, nobody reacted to anything, and I was like, I was, sometimes I'd be like, hmm, or I would be like, you know, chuckle quietly, or something when something would happen or, you
[UNKNOWN]: You know, if there was a jump scare, they were completely silent.
[UNKNOWN]: And when they walked out, when everybody was walking out, everybody just walked out.
[UNKNOWN]: I'd say there wasn't a lot of that.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, nothing, and it wasn't, but it was neither, they were neither high nor low.
[UNKNOWN]: So it was just, I don't know how to, how to, how to, I mean, I think of a reaction.
[UNKNOWN]: When I walked out, like I had like a drink, I brought with me or something, so I was like putting it in the thing, and I know the usher who was waiting there, said something to me, and I just kind of responded like, huh, and walked away.
[UNKNOWN]: Did you, will you watch this again on streaming?
[UNKNOWN]: Definitely.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
[UNKNOWN]: I would recommend.
[UNKNOWN]: So I would recommend see it on the big screen if you can, because I think my theater going experience, it really was nice to be immersed in the big screen of the ever unfolding maze.
[UNKNOWN]: I really enjoyed that, and then the darkness, and then also wondering what, and then myself thinking about like what are other people thinking, and how are they reacting to it?
[UNKNOWN]: Like for me it was a really
[UNKNOWN]: Regardless of whatever the audience reaction was, I enjoyed the theater going experience.
[UNKNOWN]: I enjoyed being with my fellow human beings together in this dark room.
[UNKNOWN]: We have this thing.
[UNKNOWN]: So it might make you feel brave or too.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, exactly.
[UNKNOWN]: And definitely going to be watching it again on streaming to take it apart a little bit more and think about some of the themes a little bit deeper.
[UNKNOWN]: Did you have any trailers of note?
[UNKNOWN]: We got no trailers.
[UNKNOWN]: We went straight into the movie.
[UNKNOWN]: oh yeah no we definitely get a lot of trailers I don't know um it was actually it was that day I went to see form movies in a row so actually I wish I remember wishing that I had I the first movie was to sheep detectives and I arrived like literally I walked through the doors into the screening room and they shut behind me because the movie started that second so I really missed
[UNKNOWN]: the trailers for that one.
[UNKNOWN]: But then I watched for the rest of the day.
[UNKNOWN]: And I remember thinking it would have been interesting if there was a if I had been able to see the sheep detective ones because it's, you know, it's ostensibly for kids versus backgrounds, which I remember being horror, but now I don't remember exactly what it was.
[UNKNOWN]: And I remember like, you know, later on that day, I watched the devil wears product too.
[UNKNOWN]: Definitely had like a different kind of trailer, but no, I forget what it was.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, there enough.
[UNKNOWN]: All right, so let's talk a quick set of analytics before we take our break.
[UNKNOWN]: Lopez test for compatibility with storyverse.
[UNKNOWN]: You're a judge on this one.
[UNKNOWN]: Do you think it fits within the background storyverse?
[UNKNOWN]: I mean, Kane Parsons made his own, his own lore, his own version of Backrooms, and within that, yeah, it's still his story, it's literally continuing what he already put out there.
[UNKNOWN]: Right, and we'll see if any other directors pick it up later, or if it gets farmed out to any other directors to see if they can keep it within this story verse.
[UNKNOWN]: Hmm.
[UNKNOWN]: I don't think Sanderson Slider and should be test don't really apply here for adaptation and source versus screen changes.
[UNKNOWN]: It's always been a screen first story, so.
[UNKNOWN]: Pukula scale for violence.
[UNKNOWN]: How would you rate that?
[UNKNOWN]: because it's not the most gory film, but the psychological horror is extremely high.
[UNKNOWN]: So like I was saying, yeah, I would tell Marilyn, run the other way from this film.
[UNKNOWN]: It's about, I mean, it starts with like a therapy session and it's about this main character's not, well, I mean, that comes down to the next one, the Sims and our morality scare of the main character, where would you put?
[UNKNOWN]: where would you put our main character on it?
[UNKNOWN]: Well, real quick on Pukula.
[UNKNOWN]: I'd give it like a 1.5, I think.
[UNKNOWN]: But nobody in Maryland insists it's very important, the psychological side.
[UNKNOWN]: I agree, and I don't have six.
[UNKNOWN]: Are you serious?
[UNKNOWN]: Wow, what is?
[UNKNOWN]: I mean, it's about the hardness of humanity and it's dark and somewhat cynical.
[UNKNOWN]: Sure, and maybe I'm, you know, my calibration of this is that it wasn't as scary at all that I thought.
[UNKNOWN]: So it's not about being scary.
[UNKNOWN]: No, I know what it's about.
[UNKNOWN]: It's about psychological as well.
[UNKNOWN]: It is jump scares or monsters.
[UNKNOWN]: Psychologically, I did not find it scary as I thought it was going to be.
[UNKNOWN]: It didn't make you feel better or worse about humanity.
[UNKNOWN]: I was like, oh, no, this is humanity.
[UNKNOWN]: It's like, okay, right, this is so where we are.
[UNKNOWN]: Gen X, it's a 1.5.
[UNKNOWN]: Exactly, exactly.
[UNKNOWN]: I was expecting a lot more dread and darkness and creepy things.
[UNKNOWN]: It didn't go there for me, so intellectually, I was very intellectually curious about it.
[UNKNOWN]: Morality scale, that's interesting, I hadn't sort of pre-thought about that question because
[UNKNOWN]: with his morality and where is Mary Mary.
[UNKNOWN]: I would say she's more moral than him, but it's a great one.
[UNKNOWN]: Really, we didn't see her much put.
[UNKNOWN]: Well, we saw her, are we spoilering it?
[UNKNOWN]: No, not yet.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
[UNKNOWN]: Okay, so we can talk about it later.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, I would say he's definitely much more toward the Sims Nardend than she is.
[UNKNOWN]: Sure.
[UNKNOWN]: For sure.
[UNKNOWN]: And I think that has to do with his condition, right, in where he is stuck in his sense of self and life.
[UNKNOWN]: Hmm, yeah, we'll talk about it under inputs and notes and things about him foggy power Daredevil and the scale I still have my hands around this scale yet.
[UNKNOWN]: So I mean just like how empathetic basically foggy is extremely empathetic and pal is a sadist.
[UNKNOWN]: Well Mary is obviously empathetic she's a therapist.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, so definitely she's much higher than him.
[UNKNOWN]: I mean Clark is hardened right
[UNKNOWN]: I don't think he's as sadist, but we'll definitely, we'll talk about him and his biting.
[UNKNOWN]: Hope punk?
[UNKNOWN]: No, I don't know, nope, nope.
[UNKNOWN]: Because when the people come together and it's basically this corporation and that is not hope punk.
[UNKNOWN]: Right.
[UNKNOWN]: No, AI and here so we don't need to worry about the potential, like, came, came Parsons has been very open about his thoughts about AI and how this might reflect that.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
[UNKNOWN]: For sure.
[UNKNOWN]: There's definitely, again, this is a zeitgeist, the math topic, we didn't have a computer in the 90s yet.
[UNKNOWN]: And I think we'll just skip the villain analysis and the perfect movie paradox.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, I don't think it could be a perfect movie.
[UNKNOWN]: You think so.
[UNKNOWN]: Let me be.
[UNKNOWN]: All right.
[UNKNOWN]: I think for me, story, there were some missing elements for story acting, editing and production.
[UNKNOWN]: We're all green, yeah, love board.
[UNKNOWN]: I think story was a little, there's some weaknesses in there for me.
[UNKNOWN]: It's a little weak need.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, I think for me to be honest, the story filled out by me watching the web series and thinking more about the wider world, which is, yeah, not fair to credit that to a single movie.
[UNKNOWN]: But, you know, Kate Parsons did say that he wanted this movie to be back rooms 101, you know, and he does envision it as, as he wants to do like other movies in a TV show, you know?
[UNKNOWN]: Well, that's interesting.
[UNKNOWN]: All right, well, let's take a quick break.
[UNKNOWN]: Then we come back.
[UNKNOWN]: We have a voicemail from Red Zippy.
[UNKNOWN]: It's rather long, but she's got her thoughts on that.
[UNKNOWN]: And then we'll get into a full discussion of the characters and the themes and all the things that we liked and we didn't like.
[UNKNOWN]: We'll be right back.
[UNKNOWN]: and we are back.
[UNKNOWN]: So we're going to jump into our full spoiler discussion of the movie and if you haven't seen it yet, save this bookmark this and then come back on your map of the internet's mark-a-location so you can navigate your way.
[UNKNOWN]: I hope it doesn't move.
[UNKNOWN]: Exactly.
[UNKNOWN]: I hope it doesn't move.
[UNKNOWN]: Let's listen to
[UNKNOWN]: Lisa's voice mail, and it's a bit long, it's eight minutes, but it should provide us with some extra needed.
[UNKNOWN]: Yes, yes.
[UNKNOWN]: And it should provide us some nice jump off points for a conversation as well.
[UNKNOWN]: Here we go.
[UNKNOWN]: Hey, this is Lisa, aka Red Zippy, and co-host of Into the West podcast.
[UNKNOWN]: I am calling in about back rooms.
[UNKNOWN]: I saw it opening a weekend and I didn't know anything about it.
[UNKNOWN]: It definitely, I've seen the advertisements and the trailers, TV commercials, during sports or something, so it was definitely on my radar.
[UNKNOWN]: And I don't think it was until like the week leading up to when it came out that I
[UNKNOWN]: understood that it was directed, created by Cain Parsons, and that it was actually a YouTube series, a very popular YouTube series, and that this was a film version or film episode of his TV series.
[UNKNOWN]: So I knew nothing really going in.
[UNKNOWN]: So, you know, I think that for me it helped.
[UNKNOWN]: So,
[UNKNOWN]: There were more people attending this Saturday matinee to see backrooms than there were the weekend prior when I saw a Saturday matinee of the Mandalorian in Groger.
[UNKNOWN]: So I took note of that, I'm like, huh, why is this movie more crowded than the Star Wars movie?
[UNKNOWN]: And you know, and it was definitely different audience for sure, not the usual people that I would normally see in some of my other more mainstream movies.
[UNKNOWN]: and I was concerned there was a couple that was sitting in my row that were very loud and chatty, leading up to when the film started and I was concerned that oh my god, people are used to seeing this and watching it on YouTube on their laptop at home is this going to be another one of these movie experiences where no one's going to shut up and everyone's going to be breaking
[UNKNOWN]: I'm glad to report that everyone was well-behaved and if they did talk during the film, it was very quiet.
[UNKNOWN]: So, few on that one.
[UNKNOWN]: The other thing that was interesting for my audience experience was there were parents and then two teenage boys who were in the row in front of me when I thought, that's interesting.
[UNKNOWN]: And a couple of times, one of the teenage boys took out his phone and was taking screenshots of the movie theater.
[UNKNOWN]: Oh, I still don't know.
[UNKNOWN]: That one raised my little flag, and his parents told him to put his fun away.
[UNKNOWN]: Or that's what I saw happen.
[UNKNOWN]: So glad that didn't last long either.
[UNKNOWN]: But now I understand why there were probably people wanting to take screenshots of the film is again, I knew
[UNKNOWN]: about back rooms and the TV series and didn't understand that maybe this was something that everyone really picked apart and did screenshots on and what the background was and who's in the found footage and yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada y
[UNKNOWN]: because of the YouTube series and just going down another deep Reddit thread about this.
[UNKNOWN]: So I have not been on Reddit.
[UNKNOWN]: So anyway, so yeah, it was definitely a different experience for me.
[UNKNOWN]: All I kept thinking about throughout the entire movie was Charlie Kaufman's being John Mackelbitch and eternal sunshine of the spotless mind.
[UNKNOWN]: That's a good one.
[UNKNOWN]: I'm out again.
[UNKNOWN]: It really was in the way the letter that to me was all about decaying mindscapes.
[UNKNOWN]: Like I understood it as we are inside someone's mind in this in between space and you're going to go and end up and see things that are relevant to you.
[UNKNOWN]: And I also see, especially with a journal sunshine and spotless mind memories in your own reality that you create for yourself in your own mind, definitely we're similarities as well.
[UNKNOWN]: Um, I really, really, uh, liked, loved actually, um, oh my god, I'm blanking out, uh, lead actor.
[UNKNOWN]: Uh, two, two, two, four.
[UNKNOWN]: I'm not going to say that right.
[UNKNOWN]: Two, a tell, a geophore, uh, who plays Clark the furniture store owner.
[UNKNOWN]: I'm always reminded, oh yes, it was nominated for an Oscar for 12 years of slave for a reason I really got plugged in through his character and experienced it through his eyes and all of his
[UNKNOWN]: different physical acting and expressions and you know what might have been going through his mind and the decisions and wonder and fascination and fear and anxiety.
[UNKNOWN]: Really saw on his face.
[UNKNOWN]: So I thought that was a tremendous performance.
[UNKNOWN]: I got to say was not a fan of Renata Rhine's fan who plays Dr. Mary Klein, the therapist.
[UNKNOWN]: I had no idea why this character was in this film.
[UNKNOWN]: I mean, I guess Clark needed someone to tell his story to.
[UNKNOWN]: She's our final hero.
[UNKNOWN]: I don't understand why her flashbacks about her childhood and her mentally ill mother
[UNKNOWN]: really had anything to do with moving so her very talk about that subdued even keel reaction to things really just blanked out for me so yeah that did that didn't do it for me.
[UNKNOWN]: Um, but yeah, I also loved, um, you know, love learning after the fact how came persons, you know, created all the, the previs and the huge set that they built afterwards, um, I definitely liked the scene when you get towards the end where Clark is like, you know, with these weird characters in the kitchen.
[UNKNOWN]: And how weird they looked, like, you know, they had six fingers and four eyes and all of that.
[UNKNOWN]: And I think I heard one-on-one prep day at one podcast.
[UNKNOWN]: It was about like, if you ask a I to generate an image, it can get really funky and hallucinate a bit.
[UNKNOWN]: And so that's what these images look like to me.
[UNKNOWN]: So I was very unsettling.
[UNKNOWN]: I definitely had a couple of jump scares and I was definitely anxious about what was behind every corner.
[UNKNOWN]: and then the usual thing like, just leave.
[UNKNOWN]: Why are you walking through this?
[UNKNOWN]: Just get out of there.
[UNKNOWN]: So it definitely met some of those horror tropes for me.
[UNKNOWN]: And yeah, and again, really the fascinating takeaway for me is, you know, going to be about came Parsons and the other digital natives and content creators that have really been hitting it.
[UNKNOWN]: Um, you know, so far this year in movies, uh, with the, the one who did the movie obsession, and then earlier this year, Iron Long, so with obsession and backgrounds being such hits, you know, the interesting to see what lessons Hollywood will learn.
[UNKNOWN]: about, oh, this is a hit and why.
[UNKNOWN]: And we'll be see a whole bunch of other studio films trying to copy it or something like that.
[UNKNOWN]: So I'm definitely, that's definitely what the movie industry is talking about for sure.
[UNKNOWN]: And finally, you know, definitely want to see what game Parsons will do next.
[UNKNOWN]: But he admits, again, he's very young.
[UNKNOWN]: I think 18 when he directed it and he's what 20
[UNKNOWN]: wanting and needing a film education, and so I kept imagining like people like Quentin Tarantino or other like, you know, or Spike Lee or somebody saying, Kid, let me take you aside.
[UNKNOWN]: Let me tell you about the history of cinema and blah, blah, blah, blah, you know, so anyway, it'll be very, very interesting to watch from an industry standpoint.
[UNKNOWN]: But yeah, I enjoyed it
[UNKNOWN]: still more of the, you know, my decaying mindscapes of the Charlie Kaufman world.
[UNKNOWN]: So that's it.
[UNKNOWN]: Thanks for covering this.
[UNKNOWN]: I really like the decaying mindscapes angle on it.
[UNKNOWN]: That's good.
[UNKNOWN]: We had a couple of additions to our comps list.
[UNKNOWN]: Well, that's already on mine, I'll say.
[UNKNOWN]: Oh, whoa, that's just a comment.
[UNKNOWN]: You're not, we did knock points off of you yet, so.
[UNKNOWN]: It's quite all right.
[UNKNOWN]: So, God, there's so much there.
[UNKNOWN]: And I think that it maps out a lot of ground for us to have conversations about what do you, where would you like to start?
[UNKNOWN]: What do you lead us into the first steps into the back rooms?
[UNKNOWN]: And in terms of all of the things that we have in our notes here, like what's pulling at you the most right now?
[UNKNOWN]: Um, I won't say it's what's pulling me the most or just say hooking into what you said you wanted to talk about on what Lisa was saying let's let's start with Mary and her mother and let's start with like the so there's we'll get into the whole like why people are drawn to the backgrounds in general situation, but let's start with the with the individual characters that are adding this extra layer on top.
[UNKNOWN]: Sounds good.
[UNKNOWN]: Did you I'm curious to I didn't even think about that somebody wouldn't get Put together the pieces of Mary's backstory, but I put together the pieces early enough on with the clues they were giving me like she's a victim of the backrooms phenomenon Oh, that's not what I Oh Okay, well what you're saying wait that her mother is
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, that they are victims of victims is a word.
[UNKNOWN]: They, there was an experience of back roomy stuff going on for her now.
[UNKNOWN]: You think, you think that's why her mother was so paranoid?
[UNKNOWN]: I just thought it was mental illness.
[UNKNOWN]: Okay, maybe that's fair.
[UNKNOWN]: That's a fair read.
[UNKNOWN]: I thought,
[UNKNOWN]: Maybe I didn't, maybe I was making them.
[UNKNOWN]: I mean, I mean, I used to get together.
[UNKNOWN]: There could be something there.
[UNKNOWN]: It's something they could reveal in a future movie or something.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, I saw that maybe her family history had something to do with the back or like they felt like maybe her mother fell into a back room or I thought until they showed us the scene of them departing from the
[UNKNOWN]: at the mental facility, I thought, well, maybe did she get lost in the back, like that's where I was going, like that there was some tie in with the back rooms and that Mary's life is affected by it, which goes into her whole, what windows and doors, a book audio book stuff.
[UNKNOWN]: Okay, I see touch with that.
[UNKNOWN]: Yes.
[UNKNOWN]: And that affected her.
[UNKNOWN]: Um, I took it as general mental illness, maybe, you know, some sort of maybe, um, you know, schizophrenic paranoia sort of thing.
[UNKNOWN]: And that's as why you're so effective discovering all of the windows and everything.
[UNKNOWN]: Um, but I just, I noticed, you know, Mary was obviously shaped by
[UNKNOWN]: the fact that her mother kept her trapped inside out of fear, like don't pull out the bad things are outside.
[UNKNOWN]: And you have to wonder how did that play into Mary A becoming a therapist and B, you know, her willingness to explore outside the bounds.
[UNKNOWN]: Because, okay, here's a question for you, what would make you go into the back rooms?
[UNKNOWN]: I give you just found a glitch
[UNKNOWN]: Would you go through or go exploring or what do you think would I would you have to fall in my accident or something the I think I would definitely go through that first entry way.
[UNKNOWN]: And as I we definitely look down a couple of those corridors and start to realize, wow, this space is going on.
[UNKNOWN]: And then I don't think I would go much further without other people and or without
[UNKNOWN]: spelunking you know style gear ropes bread crumbs uh... what was the kid in the maze in the with the minute or right you know all of that was that was that uh... flute to high in the sun uh... uh... uh... uh...
[UNKNOWN]: Percy it was it anyway the way for that kid was in the maze and the in the breadcrumbs and all that so I would definitely not venture much further out I have a thesis thesis thank you I have a reasonable sense of direction I have a reasonable ability of geographically orienting myself, but I think
[UNKNOWN]: the psychological, you know, the experience of your brain trying to just screaming like none of this makes sense.
[UNKNOWN]: None of this follows the rules of reality that I've lived with for my life to this point.
[UNKNOWN]: That would probably overwhelm my ability to sort of remember how to get back to where I came.
[UNKNOWN]: So as Clark was further exploring the space,
[UNKNOWN]: I was freaking out going, oh, you could so easily get lost down here, unless you had a bread crumb tool, and rest you had some way to mark for yourself.
[UNKNOWN]: Well, that's why it was, it was so key that Clark, they established that Clark was, he had trained as an architect.
[UNKNOWN]: Yes, I think he's the right guy for this in the right, uh, in the right aspect.
[UNKNOWN]: Shall I tell you what I thought of to freak myself out?
[UNKNOWN]: Sure, please.
[UNKNOWN]: Um, because I would be the same, like if I suddenly found a glitch in the wall where I could go in and out of, then, yeah, I probably would record a video with then indeed, like gather up the troops before I went any further, but if my cat ran through the wall.
[UNKNOWN]: Oh my god.
[UNKNOWN]: I would go running after, and that's how I would get lost in the back rooms for sure.
[UNKNOWN]: That sounds like a Twilight Zone episode out there, somehow.
[UNKNOWN]: Some, yeah, finding your cat, but there has been lost pets in, in dimensional spaces.
[UNKNOWN]: I know that that's a storyline that's been done in the history of storytelling.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, it's interesting.
[UNKNOWN]: I really, really thought that Mary's family's history had something to do with.
[UNKNOWN]: Uh, but I guess now that I found that way, but I mean, I do want to talk to myself out of it now now that I'm sorry.
[UNKNOWN]: You were saying something.
[UNKNOWN]: No, I wonder like how it shaped her versus Clark like Clark.
[UNKNOWN]: I was really surprised.
[UNKNOWN]: He's just like Gavin exploring in their every day since I found it like and it took him a while before he's like let me get some backup.
[UNKNOWN]: um yeah with uh with cat and Bobby yeah but Mary did also explore more than I expected to and granted she was she was looking for Clark it was like her cat ran in a way I suppose um but I wondered if her experience being trapped inside made her it doesn't seem to have made her more afraid but made her
[UNKNOWN]: like want to explore more, you know?
[UNKNOWN]: This is an interesting part of her character story, too, and now that I'm, you know, now that I'm reconstructing the storyline of what they gave us for Mary's backstory,
[UNKNOWN]: I can see how I fell into a back room scenario with her, but the storytelling did actually basically give us a lot of the, it did hard code a bunch of stuff that says that she wasn't a victim of back rooms.
[UNKNOWN]: her mother was mentally ill, kept her inside, their house was demolished and a big apartment block was put up in place and then the only thing that she saved from her past was that little concrete hand print.
[UNKNOWN]: That's a very special memory that her mother and her had, which when she uses that to bash the pirate, right, that's how is she using her past?
[UNKNOWN]: How is her past informing her right now in the moment?
[UNKNOWN]: And that's a really interesting
[UNKNOWN]: How do we find ourselves in our lives at certain moments and what tools can we use from our past to help us or do they hinder us at the same time?
[UNKNOWN]: It's a very interesting question of human development psychology.
[UNKNOWN]: But then what really, I thought the reason that the evidence that had me,
[UNKNOWN]: going hard at the, you know, that she had an experience of back rooms was the whole book series and audio tape series that she had about the windows and doors of the mind kind of stuff and that she's trying to process her experience and she's intrigued by what's happening with Clark.
[UNKNOWN]: why she's pulled into it is so those two things to me were the evidence for that she had experience with it and she was like oh somebody else experienced the back room thing like I experienced when I was a child but I've been put it I put it out of my mind to drill my mother crazy but now I have confirmation that this is not just some weird thing that happened to me
[UNKNOWN]: and her books and her tapes were her part of her processing, her childhood experiences.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, good.
[UNKNOWN]: No, no, I think so.
[UNKNOWN]: I think we're second segueing into what this, you know, why people in general are drawn to this concept of the backgrounds.
[UNKNOWN]: But I do find it interesting in what you were talking about with her with this concrete hand print.
[UNKNOWN]: Mm-hmm.
[UNKNOWN]: She pocketed it and then she, you know, I ever referred to her jokingly as the final girl, which she basically is to be honest.
[UNKNOWN]: This is a horror movie.
[UNKNOWN]: She was the final girl.
[UNKNOWN]: But she, the way she fought back against this entity of the back rooms, like, and I'm going to argue in a moment that the back rooms are a stand-in for our shared anxieties and mental illness.
[UNKNOWN]: There are Jung Yun, her ex, her shared consciousness of something.
[UNKNOWN]: the way that she fought back against this entity of that, this pirate entity, is by bashing it with this handprint, which is the only happy childhood memory we saw from her.
[UNKNOWN]: So she, like conquering this fear with that whole bunk, a happy memory.
[UNKNOWN]: For a second, there was like a spark.
[UNKNOWN]: They got to go, it's setting up, this is like this first film
[UNKNOWN]: But maybe if anyone, maybe a psychologist can find the hope within.
[UNKNOWN]: Exactly.
[UNKNOWN]: Um, but why do you think people are drawn to this concept of back rooms in general?
[UNKNOWN]: This goes, uh, I think into the idea of the internet as this infinite maze.
[UNKNOWN]: that one form of online content can lead you to another form of online content which can lead you to another form of online content.
[UNKNOWN]: And it just keeps going.
[UNKNOWN]: I remember there was a joke website out there that was, you've reached the end of the internet.
[UNKNOWN]: And it was just a static web page that somebody published.
[UNKNOWN]: And it was just the end of the internet.
[UNKNOWN]: You've reached, there's no further, which is hilarious because the internet has just gotten bigger and bigger and bigger since those early days.
[UNKNOWN]: And if there is a...
[UNKNOWN]: If some, if...
[UNKNOWN]: The internet is a giant mirror of our collective consciousness, right?
[UNKNOWN]: It's our giant collective conscious and subconscious all out there.
[UNKNOWN]: If you're into something, my little pony or baking cakes or, you know, some of the more extreme expressions and interactions of human, of our human experience,
[UNKNOWN]: It's out there and you can find it and you can guaranteed that there will be a community that is coalescing around that idea, that form of self-expression, that form of a behavior or activity.
[UNKNOWN]: It is all present because it is a creation of ours.
[UNKNOWN]: And so the idea that these back rooms just keep going and going and then there's different versions and variations and
[UNKNOWN]: I think this movie is more than one thing, somatically, that is one theme that it mirrors our online experience, where you can infinite scroll.
[UNKNOWN]: And you can, you know, I can go from this app to that app.
[UNKNOWN]: I can be looking at Pinterest in one moment.
[UNKNOWN]: and on a Reddit board in the next moment, and then on a Facebook group in the next moment, and I just can spend hours lost in this feed that's coming to me.
[UNKNOWN]: So I think that's that's definitely
[UNKNOWN]: to that.
[UNKNOWN]: What do you think of this idea of people are linking it to AI in the way it's like it's copying in a way that's unnatural and he's Carson's does regularly say like he's absolutely against generative AI.
[UNKNOWN]: So it's possible it's creep crept and they're I'll say if you're interested in that concept I suggest checking out the 12-minute short called Mora from 2024 that's being made
[UNKNOWN]: Let's get out of that.
[UNKNOWN]: But what do you think about how that ties into which you're talking about with the internet?
[UNKNOWN]: It's a theme.
[UNKNOWN]: I thought it was interesting with his conversation with Matt Bellany on the town was that he doesn't want to use generative AI for his art process.
[UNKNOWN]: and he has a reaction to seeing certain things when they're done with special effects, but then they did, but then where's the line between that and just regular VFX, right?
[UNKNOWN]: They did visual effects in here to make the tunnels and the pit, you know, to do some
[UNKNOWN]: So, and I think the generative AI is a key thing in saying that he did not put in a prompt to create something, he created things using computerized tools, right?
[UNKNOWN]: So, like, there's just a fine distinction there.
[UNKNOWN]: I think it's worthwhile of us remembering the thing that I found interesting from the AI perspective, though, was that what is, what are their large language models doing?
[UNKNOWN]: I'm not going to talk about the image ones necessarily, but the LLMs.
[UNKNOWN]: the GBT's and the Gemini's and the Proplexities and the Clawds.
[UNKNOWN]: They are...
[UNKNOWN]: learning from us, and then occasionally they hallucinate, and they don't get things right.
[UNKNOWN]: So when we have those three memories of people, the woman, the man, and then the person in life, yeah, the still lives, they look to me like early AI versions of, or if you use AI in photographic developing, things like topaz and some other shopwares that can upscale and clean up,
[UNKNOWN]: A lot of times the faces will get artifacted and in turn into exactly what we were seeing on screen with the weird faces and the extra chins and the extra fingers and stuff.
[UNKNOWN]: So is that copy of a copy kind of thing that felt very AI-E, you know, AI for me in that where it's quite, it's not quite right.
[UNKNOWN]: Right, it's got the right dimensions and the shapes, but then there's a fine green details, extra digits and things like that.
[UNKNOWN]: That's to me where the AI came in there.
[UNKNOWN]: Have you watched the film from the 90s and Michael Keaton film multiplicity?
[UNKNOWN]: I don't know that title.
[UNKNOWN]: I don't even know that title.
[UNKNOWN]: Okay, I used to love that movie.
[UNKNOWN]: I haven't watched an ages, but he basically he figures out that he can make he can clone himself.
[UNKNOWN]: Okay.
[UNKNOWN]: To help, you know, so we can have a clone that will do stuff around the house.
[UNKNOWN]: So he can never start working all this stuff.
[UNKNOWN]: But then, you know, nothing about this movie is hilarious.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, but then as it goes on, the copies are making copies of themselves for help, and then there's copies of copies of copies and there's a degradation.
[UNKNOWN]: And yeah, so this made me think of that.
[UNKNOWN]: I totally recommend multiplicity much more light-hearted than that group, but it looks like a bit of a rom-com to there's like a guy girl relationship on there and stuff makes me think of doctors choose to and I've got a doctor's who's comp that I pulled as well.
[UNKNOWN]: which is the book, um, uh, where is it's the, uh, why don't I, I thought I copied into the list.
[UNKNOWN]: The, uh, oh, the places you'll go.
[UNKNOWN]: And that's more about light our life in our patterns.
[UNKNOWN]: But it also, now that you're talking about the multiplicity, it makes me think of thing one and thing two of the cat and the hat series, where you get smaller and smaller copies and then, uh, and
[UNKNOWN]: Well, like they explore this concept in the movie by repeating this quote about it, like it's like describing a dog to someone who doesn't know what a dog is and then they draw it, you know.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, this is whole idea of memory, with that understanding, but it also just makes me think of, in general, this thing I'm really interested in, which is the subjectivity and degradation of memory.
[UNKNOWN]: This is something that was very interesting studying, you know, was going to school for psychology.
[UNKNOWN]: And it's also one of the reasons why I can't stop gushing about interview with a vampire.
[UNKNOWN]: So I've been re-watching interview with a vampire because of vampire listouts about to start.
[UNKNOWN]: And I'll say, one of the taglines of that series is Memories of Monster.
[UNKNOWN]: And so I just want to read a quote from the third episode of the first season that I just recently re-watched and was thinking about in regards to this.
[UNKNOWN]: quoting from the book of the journalist character Daniel, and Louie quotes from Daniel's book.
[UNKNOWN]: I'm in my viewic, staring in the rear view mirror at my daughter in the car seat, an hour after I gave Derek, a guy I don't know, the last 30 bucks I had.
[UNKNOWN]: My editor reminds me, it's seven years before car seats are mandatory.
[UNKNOWN]: My ex-wife reminds me, I never owned a viewic.
[UNKNOWN]: This is the Odyssey of Recollection.
[UNKNOWN]: And yeah, go ahead.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, no, no, no, just yeah.
[UNKNOWN]: Just how it's about how, um, every time we something and learn in psychologists, you know, whatever we try to remember something, remembering remembering.
[UNKNOWN]: Yes.
[UNKNOWN]: And so it's this, we'll be of a copy situation.
[UNKNOWN]: and Mark and Nicole, and never mind the music, actually had one of their episodes they talk about that remembering, remembering, which is really interesting, and then when we're really strongly attracted to a memory, or it's a very purposeful memory for us, or it's a
[UNKNOWN]: challenges us in this set of with this sort of pattern of circumstances, use this tool that you use the last time you faced that challenge.
[UNKNOWN]: And we use those tools on goingly, psychological tools on goingly, but then at some point in this is where I think it's interesting to talk about Clark and where he is with life.
[UNKNOWN]: He's stuck, and he can't invent new tools.
[UNKNOWN]: He doesn't know how to untrap himself from his own memories.
[UNKNOWN]: that then become a monster.
[UNKNOWN]: And one of my other comps is, what was it the forbidden planet?
[UNKNOWN]: I don't know if you've ever seen that movie.
[UNKNOWN]: No, it's my first shameless.
[UNKNOWN]: Okay, can I spoil it?
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, go for it.
[UNKNOWN]: The monster is the id of one of the characters of the, of the, of the, of the me evil side of it.
[UNKNOWN]: You let that 70-year-old spoiler out.
[UNKNOWN]: That's all, everybody.
[UNKNOWN]: And so this is the monster, that's how the man is the monster, yeah, and this psychological, it's made manifest through this technology and so Clarks.
[UNKNOWN]: Whatever, however you want to describe it is PTSD, his nostalgia, his, the horror, the existential horror that he has for his own existence right now.
[UNKNOWN]: Well, all of that stuff whatever becomes manifest in.
[UNKNOWN]: this space in this liminal space, and that is the monster, as this giant pirate thing on the Ottoman.
[UNKNOWN]: That whole thing was very funny.
[UNKNOWN]: I don't understand, are you a pirate or are you a Sultan?
[UNKNOWN]: That's so good.
[UNKNOWN]: So yeah, the psychological horror is our own internal,
[UNKNOWN]: Hmm, yeah, so just one thing one more thing that person said about the copying thing that just leave this chill with you is that he pointed out it copies us the same as furniture so it sees us as, you know, interchangeable furniture basically, but
[UNKNOWN]: But yeah, it is interesting that it seems to copy something within as well, because with this whole pirate monster that obviously they're it's copying Clark in as this character from this commercial, but it is also copying something true about Clark because Clark is someone will we see first of all.
[UNKNOWN]: he's playing the victim throughout and you do feel like oh he's in some financial trouble because he's paying he's living in his furniture store paying for the house he doesn't live in paying for his wife's education apparently but at the same time you can't when you see him snap on his therapist like that you're like how much worse might it have been for his wife there in the moment
[UNKNOWN]: And then you see like when his therapist finds him in the back rooms and and confronts him, you know, he's being very threatening to her.
[UNKNOWN]: So she's finally she's like, it's okay.
[UNKNOWN]: You can just stay here and just let me go, but hi.
[UNKNOWN]: And he's like, he wants to show that responsibilities.
[UNKNOWN]: Like the doctor says we don't have to get better because he's just.
[UNKNOWN]: He's being psychologically lazy.
[UNKNOWN]: He's not willing to do the work.
[UNKNOWN]: He's not willing to confront himself.
[UNKNOWN]: And we see also in this scene that he is literally someone who consumes people.
[UNKNOWN]: Because he sees these still lives.
[UNKNOWN]: And he's like, the great thing is that you can just eat them and he takes out like some, which on the one hand,
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, finding food in the back rooms seems like it'd be pretty tricky, right?
[UNKNOWN]: You don't see it like lying around.
[UNKNOWN]: No, obviously in different versions there's different Yeah answers to that like in the games they have food lying around But There's something about him the fact he's willing to consume people and the question is this head of his assistant in the fridge What creepy her Did he eat her is that why there's only a head left?
[UNKNOWN]: and now he's just moving on to cotton candy, but because like these other still lives, they're not biting anyone and I don't know if we'll call maybe this entity that bites him is not a still life, but it's something else to bring up in a bit, but I think the reason it bit him is because it's like, oh, if we're copying this person, this is a person who bites into other people.
[UNKNOWN]: right right right it's it's it's programming is what Clark does right it's core programming is is that and what it's threatened with it with the
[UNKNOWN]: it's existence, it attacks him, right?
[UNKNOWN]: And that goes back to the fantastic planet called because the monster attacks its creator, right, a very frankenstein thing, maybe, I don't know, I don't know, frankenstein who will love to the matter.
[UNKNOWN]: Yes, sure.
[UNKNOWN]: Make that comment.
[UNKNOWN]: And there was something he said as well that I wanted to,
[UNKNOWN]: Oh, I forget now, uh, there's so many thoughts running around here.
[UNKNOWN]: About him searching responsibility or psychological laziness?
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, that he is this idea that, um, he's, he's trapped in that memory loop and he can't and she, you know, uh, Mary zeros in on it, right?
[UNKNOWN]: that he's not wanting to confront the pain and take responsibility for his part in that, and what happened in the relationship, take responsibility for his own life.
[UNKNOWN]: He's unwilling to take responsibility for his own life.
[UNKNOWN]: And that, that's a kind of horror.
[UNKNOWN]: I think we see people in our lives and we may know people in our lives who are stuck, who somehow never grow beyond a certain point.
[UNKNOWN]: And that's a kind of horror, I think, for human existence, when we can't continue to grow, but we stagnate and or calcify into a shape or into a form.
[UNKNOWN]: And then as time goes on, the lesson less we move, and the lesson less we push ourselves to explore our existence in our lives.
[UNKNOWN]: we kind of get stiff and get ourselves locked into a contorted position.
[UNKNOWN]: And that's I think painful and horrifying simultaneously.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, that's where Clark is.
[UNKNOWN]: Like I said, I think the back rooms are in a way a stand-in for, I mean, what we comments on illness, I think is something that we are actually all subjected to.
[UNKNOWN]: Some of us have some tendencies, like some some people are more likely to have auditory hallucinations than others, but in some...
[UNKNOWN]: Basically, we all share anxiety.
[UNKNOWN]: We are all driven into our various personalities by our particular brand of anxieties.
[UNKNOWN]: And I was thinking about that is like, you know, we feel why are we drawn with an uncanny feeling to photos of empty places?
[UNKNOWN]: So it gave us also a thing of that game, missed.
[UNKNOWN]: Are you still on the phone?
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, I remember that.
[UNKNOWN]: I remember that.
[UNKNOWN]: That was big.
[UNKNOWN]: And it was like, it was a beautiful mystery, a puzzle box to explore, and but it was your isolated.
[UNKNOWN]: And there's something about this isolation that brings us together.
[UNKNOWN]: And you know, creates this community that shares this, that creates a shared mythology.
[UNKNOWN]: And I think, yeah, there's something about this, this uncanny where,
[UNKNOWN]: We're seeking the sources of our anxiety, like what is that red, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, alarm going off in our head, what's causing it in the seemingly normal place and in the back room say like, no, you're not crazy.
[UNKNOWN]: It's there.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, that it's like familiar but wrong as they keep saying and it's just like this this experience of going through life that we all share where you know we have our corporate space we have our like little boxes on the hillside.
[UNKNOWN]: And yet, life, we have our plans.
[UNKNOWN]: And life doesn't turn out the way we think it should.
[UNKNOWN]: It doesn't follow the plans.
[UNKNOWN]: We think it veers off.
[UNKNOWN]: And then we are going down this steep incline through a small hole out into some place.
[UNKNOWN]: We never thought we would be.
[UNKNOWN]: That might be better, might be worse.
[UNKNOWN]: And the back room sorts of mirrors that experience of the lack of control that we have over our life.
[UNKNOWN]: And I think this is,
[UNKNOWN]: I mean, this is, I related to, but adjacent to this concept of liminal spaces, this place of in between these, these thresholds, places of transition in our life, did you know?
[UNKNOWN]: So we see in hallways in this and I'll bring up a complaint or with like this new Japanese movie that's out eggs at eight.
[UNKNOWN]: It's about liminal spaces literally being hallways.
[UNKNOWN]: Did you know that severance was partially inspired by back rooms the hallways?
[UNKNOWN]: I mean certainly was a a comp that I pulled and I didn't have any, I didn't
[UNKNOWN]: I didn't explore the connection and now that you tell me that, am I surprised?
[UNKNOWN]: No.
[UNKNOWN]: I'm like, yeah, they have a, I am not surprised.
[UNKNOWN]: And obviously, servants came a little bit later.
[UNKNOWN]: So I'm not surprised that they took inspiration from backgrounds.
[UNKNOWN]: for sure.
[UNKNOWN]: There definitely is that sense of unfolding maze quality to the lower floors of the corporation.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
[UNKNOWN]: And they do, yeah, visually, there's a lot of shared language in there as well into these big blank empty corporate spaces.
[UNKNOWN]: There's something I wanted to go back really quick, though, to what you were saying about life and like
[UNKNOWN]: you know, you take this turn and then you're suddenly in this other place and you whatever and there's something scary and so you run, I really, the more that we're talking about this film, the more the doctors who's owed the places you'll go book is.
[UNKNOWN]: adding context to me for this film.
[UNKNOWN]: There are there is a conversation that is going on between that book and this movie Into my head and so I would really Recommend anybody who has it or whatever I used to read a lot to my my daughter because it does it talk to common graduation gift here.
[UNKNOWN]: I mean where I grew up.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, it is a very much a life path book, like here is a a sucian view of how your life is going to transpire.
[UNKNOWN]: Sometimes you're going to be writing high and then sometimes you're not.
[UNKNOWN]: And sometimes those places when you're not are going to be scary and dark and alone.
[UNKNOWN]: And yet if you just keep your feet moving and you keep
[UNKNOWN]: unlike Clark, who when he is wounded because of whatever happened with his architecture career, and then he's wounded again by the dissolution of his relationship, he loses that sense of life is worth exploring and living and going out, and that, I think, thematically, that is one thing that the film is doing is the horror of that, the horror of trapping yourself
[UNKNOWN]: and that it's a bad place.
[UNKNOWN]: Also, the place as you go is much more hopeful.
[UNKNOWN]: Absolutely, absolutely.
[UNKNOWN]: It's a help pump.
[UNKNOWN]: But this film is definitely like the focused on the floor falls out from under you and you just
[UNKNOWN]: Don't, you know, it's kind of not your fault, but you suffer from it anyway.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
[UNKNOWN]: And then, and what do you do about that though, right?
[UNKNOWN]: Because, yes, sometimes there are circumstances that are truly beyond our control.
[UNKNOWN]: A meteor falls out of the sky and crashes into your house.
[UNKNOWN]: Right.
[UNKNOWN]: Not really your fault, right?
[UNKNOWN]: Maybe not, you know, paying, you know, not not, uh, I don't know, I don't want to get into like, uh, specifics.
[UNKNOWN]: But there are things that are within our control and there are other things that are not within our control.
[UNKNOWN]: And that is life.
[UNKNOWN]: right and how do we respond?
[UNKNOWN]: That's the only control we really have is how we react to the circumstances.
[UNKNOWN]: Again, I mean, I think it's a lot about the impermanence that goes back to this, you know what I think is generating the anxieties, like things change, unpredictably without warning.
[UNKNOWN]: And in the web series, as I suggested earlier, minor sport for the web series, go forward once, if you don't want to hear it, there's also time blips.
[UNKNOWN]: So we can expect maybe that will show time in movies.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, but it's just about things don't happen as you predict and you might lose time or.
[UNKNOWN]: And I do even wonder from the web series if there's like I love how versus the general backrooms lore came Parsons has taken it in a much more decidedly sci-fi direction.
[UNKNOWN]: Okay.
[UNKNOWN]: And based on the web series, I do wonder if back rooms exist as like a dimension around our own.
[UNKNOWN]: You know, it's obviously it's a sort of purgatory in between space, but the way we see like during found footage number three in that series, the guy who's filming, he, it seems like he's, he's in the back rooms, but somehow talking to someone who's in the real world who then gets,
[UNKNOWN]: kind of sucked into the tanger zone.
[UNKNOWN]: So it makes me wonder if like, oh, wait.
[UNKNOWN]: Sorry.
[UNKNOWN]: That just came up.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
[UNKNOWN]: Hardcastry at the other day.
[UNKNOWN]: And when I got in the car the other day, it came on the radio.
[UNKNOWN]: So many.
[UNKNOWN]: Still a classic, so.
[UNKNOWN]: But yeah, so I just, yeah, the the the the back rooms are around us all around just waiting for us to wait and I think that's one of the things that resonates to then is because it maps it's a way for us to physicalize the subconscious and so when stuff like happen stuff happens like.
[UNKNOWN]: highway, you know, danger zone comes on the radio.
[UNKNOWN]: I don't have an explanation for it.
[UNKNOWN]: If I map it into a back room map, right, or a young man's collective subconscious, or whatever, I have a way to explain it.
[UNKNOWN]: So my brain's anxiety, which is a naturally occurring thing, right, anxiety's a good thing for humans for species survival, you know, is that
[UNKNOWN]: that we want to explain and understand the world and so having something to map on to regardless of what is true or not true, metaphysically, physically in the world, it's an interesting model to use back rooms instead of a Jungian self-consciousness, you know, subconscious.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, and we see it is a common theme throughout the background slur in general that characters are driven mad.
[UNKNOWN]: We obviously saw that happening with Clark.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
[UNKNOWN]: Can we talk about the role of this yellow wallpaper?
[UNKNOWN]: Sure, please.
[UNKNOWN]: I don't have to know more.
[UNKNOWN]: Because the the the the 90s vibe.
[UNKNOWN]: Oh my god, did they did they nailed it.
[UNKNOWN]: They absolutely.
[UNKNOWN]: Why?
[UNKNOWN]: Why did we use to think that furniture looked good?
[UNKNOWN]: I remember like I remember being sad when our parents switched out our couch with They used to look like that and then they got something that didn't look like that and I was like No, but it was so pretty No, they said no, who's the who's the artist that did the Duran Duran Rio poster?
[UNKNOWN]: They used
[UNKNOWN]: And there was I remember like that was the deco style for our early 20 mid early 20 friends when we go to each other's apartments, and we had one friend who had all that kind of art.
[UNKNOWN]: Okay.
[UNKNOWN]: 80s post 80s thing.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
[UNKNOWN]: Also, I mean obviously the color of the wallpaper does come from that original photo that was posted on 410.
[UNKNOWN]: And so, and I think that the color of the wallpaper is one of the reasons why it was found on Canny and posted and to begin with, you know.
[UNKNOWN]: But then it's just like, why?
[UNKNOWN]: Why do we find that color so and on Canny?
[UNKNOWN]: And obviously, one of the first things that comes up for me, I don't know if for you, as someone who's into feminist 19th century literature, the first thing.
[UNKNOWN]: that I think of is the yellow wallpaper, which was a short story from 1892 by Charlotte Perkins Gilman.
[UNKNOWN]: Have you ever read this one?
[UNKNOWN]: No, no, don't know it at all.
[UNKNOWN]: So it's one that was I was first introduced to in school and I actually just re-read it like a month ago just completely coincidentally.
[UNKNOWN]: So it was either you go and fell through the back room.
[UNKNOWN]: It's like a tingle fly suit.
[UNKNOWN]: Like where's
[UNKNOWN]: So I was thinking about it because what it is about, so it's about a woman who is, she's just had a baby and basically she has postpartum depression, but her husband, who's a doctor and her brother are like, oh, we must protect the woman from herself, so because of this vacation house and basically they tell her like, oh, you shouldn't
[UNKNOWN]: You shouldn't go out in socialize.
[UNKNOWN]: You shouldn't read because these are two taxing and she starts to go stir crazy because they're taking away all her stimulus and so she's writing and her journal and secret and you can see her getting more and more unhinged and as she gets more and more unhinged, they lock her in this room with the yellow wallpaper and she just starts to see like women crawling around stuck in the wallpaper.
[UNKNOWN]: until the story ends, sorry, spoiler for a story that's like 130 years old, she, when they come in on the last day, as she's torn all the paper off the wall and she's just like crawling around and she thinks she's the woman in the wallpaper who has escaped from the wallpaper and her husband faints and she just crawls over him and keeps coming.
[UNKNOWN]: very chilling ending.
[UNKNOWN]: And so obviously, yellow wallpaper, you would think could be a coincidence, but then I found out that Ken Parsons in the web series, he has a couple videos.
[UNKNOWN]: It just have random numbers.
[UNKNOWN]: And one of them is the ISBN, the book numbering number for the yellow wall paper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman.
[UNKNOWN]: Very cool.
[UNKNOWN]: And he has said in interviews.
[UNKNOWN]: he said it's not a coincidence and it's not just because of the yellow it's it's thematically linked to that so yeah so the confirmation and I have to give credit to so I went down the obviously the rabbit hole of back rooms lore and so I watched our number of YouTube videos uh I want to shout out the one youtuber cz's world did a great
[UNKNOWN]: our long summary video that summarized all the rabbit holes that I had already been down and pointed out a few other things besides.
[UNKNOWN]: And one thing he said for the yellow wallpaper, he pointed out that you know the jello genre of Italian horror film jello means yellow.
[UNKNOWN]: I don't know that I see that link as much because it's definitely isn't Jello in the way it's done, which is like this over the top colorful, lyrid slasher genre.
[UNKNOWN]: I don't see that in this, but he also pointed out that Jello has become linked to the shining poster and the wallpaper in the movie and a lot of people subconsciously think about the shining, which may again go back to that 19th century story.
[UNKNOWN]: Okay.
[UNKNOWN]: Another yet another comp.
[UNKNOWN]: What I'm really liking about this movie too is that it's not trying to, you know, how do I say this?
[UNKNOWN]: He's not trying to go, I'm going to make a movie like this, all right.
[UNKNOWN]: This has this inspired me to make that.
[UNKNOWN]: He is just living in the cultural context that he's living in, and we can come along and sort of urban splomking with our go pros and our YouTube channels or our podcast feed can explore this space culturally that he's created.
[UNKNOWN]: And we can see all of these comps,
[UNKNOWN]: But none of them feel like he's using a trope or he's shortcutting storytelling language or trying to take a direct homage.
[UNKNOWN]: It is a beautiful artistic form of him being of who he is at this time and doing this internal origami flip of here's a vision that is coming out of my head.
[UNKNOWN]: And we can see all of this stuff, but none of it feels cheap.
[UNKNOWN]: And none of it feels like a quick rip off or whatever.
[UNKNOWN]: It's like, it is an organic synthesis of all of these things.
[UNKNOWN]: And I really appreciate that he's able to be authentic in that way, right?
[UNKNOWN]: He's just like, I'm just making my art.
[UNKNOWN]: And that art happens to be informed by all these cool comps that we get to, to Splunk and make all these connections with.
[UNKNOWN]: Can I bring up a one more, one final theme that I have noticed.
[UNKNOWN]: Oh, um, was, and this again, this, uh, taught, ties more to the web series, but we've got a teaser of it here is that that company async.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
[UNKNOWN]: So, okay, here's, okay, yeah, this opens up the whole IP world, right?
[UNKNOWN]: And it could have, it could have, it could have been a standalone movie, but now, no, we got a company that's investigating it.
[UNKNOWN]: Um, but here's, yeah, if this is another spoiler for the web series, go for it a couple of times if you don't want to hear it, but um, basically what we find out in the web series is that this company, they once they discovered the back rooms, they decided that they wanted to monetize the back rooms, they thought like here is a pocket dimension where, from which we can sell unlimited housing and storage.
[UNKNOWN]: Oh, that's amazing, right?
[UNKNOWN]: That's great commercialization.
[UNKNOWN]: Like that is so I didn't even think about that like how would you as a commercial company exploit this space?
[UNKNOWN]: That's brilliant.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, so then and then they so they started um, store toxic waste down in there, right?
[UNKNOWN]: You know, whatever, you spent nuclear fuel rods, you know,
[UNKNOWN]: right well they were yeah they were there's like a commercial is one of the clips uh about them like you know oh humans are just populating the earth and they all have their stuff well here's an unlimited space we can put it in so they in 1982 they had something called the low proximity magnetic distortion system that they breached into the a null zone which is like the bound where the boundary gets thin and you cross like we saw Clark do
[UNKNOWN]: This, this is when these null zone started appearing in all these other places.
[UNKNOWN]: There's an earthquake in Mexico, I think it was.
[UNKNOWN]: I linked it to a real life earthquake and their disappearances of people started shooting up because people started to fall through these, or like even a car would fall through these null zones that popped up all over the place.
[UNKNOWN]: This is where I connected the Mary story backstory, like somehow her mom fell into a space or something like that.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, maybe that's what drove her mad original and she could never figure it out and then so then Mary grew up with a mother who was driven mad by a back room space.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, but I just think it's interesting.
[UNKNOWN]: It's also like Clark, the corporation is trying to like rather than confronting problems and saying like, oh, maybe we should be less wasteful or whatever humanity should be better.
[UNKNOWN]: It's like, no, here's a magical solution that will
[UNKNOWN]: Which is what we want.
[UNKNOWN]: We don't want to do the work as a species of fixing our climate or creating a more just and humane society.
[UNKNOWN]: We just want to magic solution and move on to the next thing.
[UNKNOWN]: Right.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
[UNKNOWN]: But they're trying to tame entropy and carnit and it does not go well for them.
[UNKNOWN]: It's not, yeah, you can't control the uncontrollable and, and yeah, there's definitely in the web series this theme of corporate control of its employees with that whole thing that the guy who died, I said, you know, controlling employees themselves, but also controlling the narrative that gets out.
[UNKNOWN]: Right.
[UNKNOWN]: So I guess that brings us to, we'll talk about that more when we discuss the ending, which I know you and I have different feelings about.
[UNKNOWN]: Well, we should probably too get wrapping up here a little bit.
[UNKNOWN]: Do you want to talk a little bit about, I mean, they don't have a lot of stuff about the sets, but we can talk a little bit about that.
[UNKNOWN]: I just did some quick reading.
[UNKNOWN]: I get apparently it was four sound stages that took them about three months to build 30,000 feet of practical sets.
[UNKNOWN]: And like I said, they did some VFX extensions for certain things like that sort of Esher like a room where she climbs up the stairs.
[UNKNOWN]: The production teams needed maps to not get lost.
[UNKNOWN]: And he built all of that in Blender and then gave those all the previous stuff to the production team as there, you know, like go build this and they were like, okay, and like you were saying before the giant Tetris puzzle, they were building sets continuously and they would shoot a set and then they would strike a set behind them and then they had to have all of this sort of mapped out.
[UNKNOWN]: in time so that they had and production so that they could build these so that they could self-consume the sets as they were moving through shooting that they only had so much space so they would have to deconstruct sets behind them to create new sets for upcoming shots.
[UNKNOWN]: And you want to talk about like from a production design standpoint from your shot list and your actor timeline, like my god, the production on this was expert that we're able to do this for $10 million.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
[UNKNOWN]: That isn't seen.
[UNKNOWN]: So just just really cool from from that standpoint.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, but it's like mostly design, you know, it's like what what is so
[UNKNOWN]: Right.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
[UNKNOWN]: And, and it's basically it's an imagination.
[UNKNOWN]: That's what's what you're getting.
[UNKNOWN]: And by the way, was when we're exploring this space, when we haven't talked about Bobby and Kat, Lou kind of did.
[UNKNOWN]: We said, you know, he got some backup, but it was his assistant Kat, who's head ends up at the fridge.
[UNKNOWN]: And the boyfriend, Bobby, who's played by Finn Bennett.
[UNKNOWN]: And we just saw as Aryan Targaryen in a night of the seven kingdoms.
[UNKNOWN]: And yeah, he was in, oh, what was the Lopez TV show True Detectives?
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, okay, four years ago.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, I got very better call solvives through that thing.
[UNKNOWN]: There's a whole better call sol where he uses college students to film his commercials.
[UNKNOWN]: So did you find Bobby and Kat like a poll characters?
[UNKNOWN]: Oh, oh, no, but I didn't dislike them.
[UNKNOWN]: They were just what they were.
[UNKNOWN]: Did you watch this season of beef?
[UNKNOWN]: Um, no, only the first episode so far.
[UNKNOWN]: Same first episode, but I also got beef vibes from those two like young couple that are, you know, in love with each other and um, operate as a duo like that.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
[UNKNOWN]: Just as for Bobby and Kat, to be honest, I don't know that I like them, but like they didn't deserve that.
[UNKNOWN]: No, they didn't really deserve that.
[UNKNOWN]: That is for sure.
[UNKNOWN]: That's for sure.
[UNKNOWN]: Um, but it was when Bobby was exploring this, this space, uh, the, the set, um, when they snuck in, uh, they recreated two of the photos from that furniture store that inspire the original meme, uh, and that's in like when he's doing a camcorder recording, you can just, um, so I wonder when Lisa was talking about, uh, the teenager taking photos of the screen, I wonder if it was those moments.
[UNKNOWN]: Right.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
[UNKNOWN]: That makes sense.
[UNKNOWN]: That's what makes sense.
[UNKNOWN]: Anything else that worked or didn't work for you specifically?
[UNKNOWN]: I know something that worked for me was
[UNKNOWN]: Reinfas Wardrobe, whoever was dressing her, oh my God, I was just in love with everything that she was wearing.
[UNKNOWN]: She looked great and she's got such an interesting face and the way they did her hair.
[UNKNOWN]: I just really dug her whole vibe in the whole movie.
[UNKNOWN]: Hmm.
[UNKNOWN]: Thumbs up for that.
[UNKNOWN]: That really worked for me.
[UNKNOWN]: Very 90s.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, they put it.
[UNKNOWN]: Man, that was so good.
[UNKNOWN]: It was so good.
[UNKNOWN]: It was, I mean, it's, it's a fun one for Easter eggs.
[UNKNOWN]: There is the pool rooms is a big thing from, especially like the general backrooms mythology.
[UNKNOWN]: Okay.
[UNKNOWN]: Because a lot of lower around the pool rooms came parcins has just been like, yeah, there exists some rooms just of pools or water because of course, why wouldn't they, but it's a reflection.
[UNKNOWN]: It's a weird reflection copy of our real world.
[UNKNOWN]: Right.
[UNKNOWN]: Every time you see up here is going to be reflected somewhere down there, ultimately.
[UNKNOWN]: And one of the creepiest things in this movie was when Clark was in one of the poor rooms and he sees like opaque wall, but cats on the other side and apparently sees him through glass.
[UNKNOWN]: Which that was interesting.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, that reminded me of that, what I was saying is like that moment I thought of might have been extra dimensional in the web series, but yeah, and she's like, look behind you
[UNKNOWN]: And we don't think of the camera was at the pirate.
[UNKNOWN]: It must have been, yeah, one of the life-form entities.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, interesting.
[UNKNOWN]: Um, but we didn't see from the web series, the life form fellow or did we am wondering if the, so there's the, I, I said it like the first time I saw the pilot of the web series.
[UNKNOWN]: I was like, oh, yeah, scary creature, whatever.
[UNKNOWN]: I wonder if that could be sort of what this pirate creature was because the pirate creature didn't have stuff of fluff inside it he seemed to bleed right right or maybe just closer to human I don't know.
[UNKNOWN]: Interesting.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, and again, I go back to the fantastic planet with that, but it's, you know, this project mind projection that has taken some form.
[UNKNOWN]: So what are the rules of the back room that allow that pirate creature to be created?
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
[UNKNOWN]: In what way?
[UNKNOWN]: And is it the same, you know, are these different entities or just different variations of the same?
[UNKNOWN]: Where?
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
[UNKNOWN]: Um, the you have this note, yes, I want you to tell it's the same way, because I didn't put that together.
[UNKNOWN]: I didn't realize that that's what this was.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, well I got I got a bit distracted while the so there's these caveman cutouts which is something that's is in the web series, but now they've attached the greetings to it and I got distracted that's when I said I said I allowed hey nobody also responded, but I noticed I was like, oh, I was like, oh, that's in French.
[UNKNOWN]: Oh wait, no, it's Spanish.
[UNKNOWN]: Oh wait, no, it's Russian.
[UNKNOWN]: Wait, Greek.
[UNKNOWN]: Wait, that was such.
[UNKNOWN]: And then, I really say it's just greetings over and over again the same thing like hello everyone.
[UNKNOWN]: And yeah, it's actually, it's from the Voyager Golden Records.
[UNKNOWN]: So you know what the Golden Records are about?
[UNKNOWN]: We do want to explain what that is.
[UNKNOWN]: It's like, it was like a way of reaching out to Ali and entity, is basically.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, in case, yeah.
[UNKNOWN]: So when Bidjer comes back, that, you know, I'm sorry.
[UNKNOWN]: Bidjer starts, right?
[UNKNOWN]: Bidjer.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, start track, motion picture.
[UNKNOWN]: OK.
[UNKNOWN]: But yeah, so it's basically it's it's greetings in 55 languages on a loop from these records that they put on Voyager in 1977 and sent out into the universe to say like if any intelligent life finds it.
[UNKNOWN]: We're basically reaching out and greeting them.
[UNKNOWN]: And so I guess the async.
[UNKNOWN]: people put that there to reach out to the entities of the back rooms, to great them, to their first room, you know, retrospectively.
[UNKNOWN]: I was like, okay, this was to lure something into the room so they could videotape it.
[UNKNOWN]: and study and then obviously with the pirate, they were attempting to with knockout gas.
[UNKNOWN]: So if you interact with the caveman cut out, then the knockout gas goes off, right?
[UNKNOWN]: So these are traps and ways to study.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
[UNKNOWN]: They're putting out snare lines, like you would like a early hunter's might or something.
[UNKNOWN]: Right.
[UNKNOWN]: But I think you and I have very different feelings about the ending.
[UNKNOWN]: How did you feel about the ending of the film?
[UNKNOWN]: I feel a little bit let down and a little bit like, okay, so then now this is just the hook for whatever comes next in the series.
[UNKNOWN]: It didn't have a,
[UNKNOWN]: I didn't have like an emotional cathartic moment at the end where I felt complete and whole with my journey.
[UNKNOWN]: Even if that left me an ambiguity about what the experience is supposed to mean, that's fine.
[UNKNOWN]: I'm okay with kind of an ambiguity.
[UNKNOWN]: I just felt like I felt a little bit like at the end of the the loss series.
[UNKNOWN]: I was like, huh, okay.
[UNKNOWN]: It was just, you know, it was this after all, right?
[UNKNOWN]: It was like, oh, okay.
[UNKNOWN]: Well, it's just this company.
[UNKNOWN]: After all, it's just this company exploring this weird internal dimensional space.
[UNKNOWN]: Okay.
[UNKNOWN]: Like, I just, I was kind of let down by it.
[UNKNOWN]: I wasn't disappointed by it, but I didn't have that final, that final bite.
[UNKNOWN]: Like, ah, okay.
[UNKNOWN]: Now I can walk out.
[UNKNOWN]: So I was just a little left a little unsatisfied.
[UNKNOWN]: Is like when you reach your hand in the bag for that last fry and you realize that you already ate the last French fry bag and you're like, oh, I thought there was at least one more to close my experience.
[UNKNOWN]: So I felt un, yeah, un fulfilled in that way.
[UNKNOWN]: OK, yeah, for me, for me, the ending made the movie made everything click into place for me.
[UNKNOWN]: And I think it was especially, yes, so we get, and this was a grant that was, again, before I'd watch the web series and so new any backstory about this async company, which is, yeah, we see her, and she's
[UNKNOWN]: There was just a couple things that just like riggled into my brain and kind of like created an each there that it's been scratching at since.
[UNKNOWN]: And I noticed he said, how did you come to be here?
[UNKNOWN]: And so I wondered when he said that, oh, are they still in the back rooms?
[UNKNOWN]: Um, uh, interesting.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
[UNKNOWN]: And then they showed that final shot of like a wonky version of the conference room with a still life version of Mary.
[UNKNOWN]: It makes sense that they would inhabit some of the space.
[UNKNOWN]: Right.
[UNKNOWN]: So that is.
[UNKNOWN]: Um, so I think that yeah, they are still the room where they're interrogating her is still in the back rooms.
[UNKNOWN]: And I think that, um,
[UNKNOWN]: They are, yeah, the copying, the backrooms, dust copy that room with her sitting in it, and somewhere else in the backrooms.
[UNKNOWN]: And then I just wondered, can they even get out or is it like when she went into the toy store at the end when she was being chased by the pirate?
[UNKNOWN]: It looked like she was back until it's just, it was like one of the, you know, it's almost like extra dimensional in the way I think of like an entropy dimension,
[UNKNOWN]: this is a dimension.
[UNKNOWN]: It's going toward entropy.
[UNKNOWN]: Like there's a shot at one point where it goes down floors and it's the same room but every time it goes down a floor the room is more off like the furniture sunk more into the floor and things like that.
[UNKNOWN]: That was the scene where they were the camera was moving vertically like that.
[UNKNOWN]: It reminded me of dimensionally as well as
[UNKNOWN]: uh, geologically, um, yeah.
[UNKNOWN]: I say a crazy sediment layers in a way, but but going, but rather than, but literally going through time, right?
[UNKNOWN]: Same space through time.
[UNKNOWN]: Right.
[UNKNOWN]: So it's literally just copying the room like one below the other and it's getting more and more off as it copies the copy above it.
[UNKNOWN]: But then this is also creating like an entropy timeline.
[UNKNOWN]: But anyway.
[UNKNOWN]: Exactly.
[UNKNOWN]: So this, this, uh, store furniture store where she ends up in the, it's,
[UNKNOWN]: almost exactly right except it still has the chair that should have been cleaned up after they broke it making the commercial stuff like that.
[UNKNOWN]: And I wonder if like if the async people found themselves in such a situation as that where they thought they were out at one point that they were in fact not fun.
[UNKNOWN]: I like the idea though of them of the async using space for what they're
[UNKNOWN]: you want to go through any comps that you or tropes that you saw in there that we haven't already covered or just after you're list um we saw just yeah just shout out some films that are similar to or directly inspired by the back rooms concept or liminal spaces in general um there's like skinmering and vivarium are are too skinmering because like about you they're stuck in a house
[UNKNOWN]: and that was like they say that's directly inspired by back rooms.
[UNKNOWN]: Vavario is more like a suburban neighborhood concept version of that, but it is very, if you've watched it, I like it, it's creepy, it is very back rooms.
[UNKNOWN]: The one I mentioned earlier, exit eight from Japan.
[UNKNOWN]: I think it came out in Japan in 2025, but it's been in theaters in the US and Europe and stuff this year.
[UNKNOWN]: And it is very like a direct comparison to back rooms you're walking through the this hallway trying to get out and it's just like this endless hallway we have to look for the variations.
[UNKNOWN]: So it's interesting back rooms I actually ended up liking back rooms better, which I was surprised by it's more chaotic, but it seems to go deeper.
[UNKNOWN]: And then other ones, yeah, maybe they're similar concepts and like with the liminal spaces and cubes, silent hill, the shining, of course us.
[UNKNOWN]: There's the dream-like variations like Lisa brought up, like the Kaufman stuff, like at Ritora Sultz Sunchine or I'm thinking of ending things as another more recent one that's like that dream degradation concept or Nolan films like Inception, everything David Lynch.
[UNKNOWN]: Fair enough.
[UNKNOWN]: It also touches on existential horror like it ends from last year.
[UNKNOWN]: It's one that I talked about in the Lighten film festival roundup for those who have access to subscriber episodes or from The TV show is also in a place with that idea or you know, I already brought up missed what about you.
[UNKNOWN]: What did you see?
[UNKNOWN]: So just as a, it's not a trope or a comp is from a movie, but it's more of a cultural practice exploring abandoned spaces.
[UNKNOWN]: There's a whole culture of people which is just, it's
[UNKNOWN]: action cameras that are, you know, having recording technology that is portable and small and having the internet to be able to post your splunking online.
[UNKNOWN]: So yeah, just that whole activity of exploring abandoned spaces.
[UNKNOWN]: Do you know the old game called net hack?
[UNKNOWN]: It's an old, it comes out of the Dungeons and Dragons sort of world and it comes from when the internet was within universities and colleges and that's how the first early networks of the internet were, you know, campuses connected.
[UNKNOWN]: And so you get on this network and it's an ASCII-based game, you know, looking down at a two-dimensional map of a floor plan as you explore and it's, I don't know how else to describe it, it's been around a long time, it's very cool, it still exists, it's like a Minecraft, it's
[UNKNOWN]: Minecraft you build and net hack you explore but it's like that in a way that there are all these independent servers and people have been playing it for years and years and you're trying to ascend there's no there's no you can beat the game but the game is like self aware you have bone files so you can find bodies depending on the server you're playing you can find other people's bodies and all of their equipment
[UNKNOWN]: where you can find your own bones, it knows when the full moon is and so that changes the game.
[UNKNOWN]: It's been around a long time, it's very cool, but it's infinite in a way.
[UNKNOWN]: then there's the whole found footage thing right you know so call back to Blair which project which is a that obviously lost with mystery box what is this how are we exploring it there's actually a organization that is trying to exploit this phenomenon that's occurring inception.
[UNKNOWN]: right deeper can you go deeper and deeper and deeper and back in time and dimensionality to it.
[UNKNOWN]: So I thought that was cool.
[UNKNOWN]: Tenant in the sense that like where you know again mystery box where are we when are we who's affecting whom and can you go we don't know yet if you can go back if it's how tiny why me it is but I like that obviously dark why obviously
[UNKNOWN]: It's been dimensionality, like you get from here to there and you've got these little portals to move through, you move through time through these spaces and you use the dark space to get to different places at different times.
[UNKNOWN]: And then we're trying to under, and it's about people trying to understand these liminal spaces behind the scenes and what's really going on.
[UNKNOWN]: severance, of course, which we talked about, fantastic planet we talked about.
[UNKNOWN]: The Cloverfield franchise, this makes me not think of story or genre, but in terms of franchise, like a new and I were talking on the discord about this, I'm really sad that there's not more entries into the Cloverfield franchise.
[UNKNOWN]: I think it's a cool franchise, and I think there's some really credible films in there.
[UNKNOWN]: especially Cloverfield Paradox.
[UNKNOWN]: I really like that movie.
[UNKNOWN]: It's funny because I think that that is the one that has most in common with this concept.
[UNKNOWN]: Okay, because of the whole like the the dimensionality aspect collapsing thing.
[UNKNOWN]: And then when they get messed up with each other.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, but it's my it's by far my least favorite of the three films so it's interesting.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
[UNKNOWN]: I think I have to put it on our spooked over a selection list.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, for sure.
[UNKNOWN]: There's one movie, I want to say nothing, but then when you realize that it's a, yeah, I can't even say that.
[UNKNOWN]: So yeah, it just makes me think, oh, this could be a fun franchise that just sort of takes its time and evolves and more and more people start to play in the space.
[UNKNOWN]: And as long as there are some fidelity to what it's about, I think it could be,
[UNKNOWN]: And just like with Cloverfield, there's a lot of, there's a single event, but then we're telling it from that multiple viewpoint, you know, that sort of Russia style.
[UNKNOWN]: I do.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
[UNKNOWN]: I wonder if there'll be more Russia-man storytelling style with, I think that would be an interesting angle.
[UNKNOWN]: I think it would go.
[UNKNOWN]: In addition to everything else that's going on already, so I'm fine if it doesn't show up, but it would be, I'm always here for it when it does.
[UNKNOWN]: Right.
[UNKNOWN]: And then obviously, Lisa's being John Nalkovich and that decaying mind, this, I thought that was local.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, that's all I got.
[UNKNOWN]: So, right, well, I think we're here at the, we're back at our entry point into the back rooms.
[UNKNOWN]: I think we had a good, good exploration.
[UNKNOWN]: There was this fun.
[UNKNOWN]: I'm glad you liked it, and I'm glad we could talk about it.
[UNKNOWN]: I'm glad you liked it.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, I'm surprised.
[UNKNOWN]: I'm surprised.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, I'm glad that you initiated this conversation because obviously we had a lot to say.
[UNKNOWN]: We did, yeah, almost two hours worth.
[UNKNOWN]: what is going on in the world of the lore hounds?
[UNKNOWN]: What do you got cooking?
[UNKNOWN]: I said this before, and I'm not saying that we don't have TV shows right now, but damn the movies are cooking right now, right?
[UNKNOWN]: We got a lot of cinema happening.
[UNKNOWN]: I mean, I am, I'm torn between my obsessions.
[UNKNOWN]: I'm kind of glad that we're done with the back roofs things, so I can put that aside out of my head.
[UNKNOWN]: It's so crowded with other things right now.
[UNKNOWN]: Obviously, the vampire list that is, is starting this weekend.
[UNKNOWN]: And John and I won't shut up about it, not for at least two months.
[UNKNOWN]: But also, I want to shout out, and it's such a shame they did a binge drop, but I absolutely loved Spider-Noir, and it's going to be making an appearance at my top 10 this year.
[UNKNOWN]: So, Jean, and I, you can watch it, look out for, um, an episode from us discussing it this weekend, but yeah, I tagged you on the Discord because, I don't know anything that I haven't gone in there just yet.
[UNKNOWN]: Okay, the cinematography is outstanding.
[UNKNOWN]: So I tagged you and posted an image that uses, so maybe go down to about the split de-optor lens.
[UNKNOWN]: Yes.
[UNKNOWN]: So maybe go down to rabbit hole about that.
[UNKNOWN]: And then I also tagged a 30 second video that just goes through this, like,
[UNKNOWN]: Oh, just everything they're doing this in a photography.
[UNKNOWN]: I absolutely love Spider-Noir.
[UNKNOWN]: I've never watched Spider-Noir, and that's coming out soon, too.
[UNKNOWN]: And other than that, yeah, we're doing our preview of House of the Dragon.
[UNKNOWN]: That's going to be weekly coverage.
[UNKNOWN]: Yep.
[UNKNOWN]: And we're doing...
[UNKNOWN]: Good.
[UNKNOWN]: I was in, say, also disclosure day we talked about too.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, yeah.
[UNKNOWN]: You and I will do disclosure day.
[UNKNOWN]: And I'm going to try to be good.
[UNKNOWN]: A good potcaster and go see it opening weekend.
[UNKNOWN]: I don't know if I'm going to do anything on star city later after it's over.
[UNKNOWN]: It's very sleepy.
[UNKNOWN]: It's a very sleepy show.
[UNKNOWN]: So I don't know, but it's.
[UNKNOWN]: You know, people seem to be enjoying it.
[UNKNOWN]: I think we're only up to episode three right now.
[UNKNOWN]: the bear will be dropping.
[UNKNOWN]: I don't know.
[UNKNOWN]: I got to talk about the agency season two because I just finished season one and it filled the end or whole size in my heart.
[UNKNOWN]: Okay.
[UNKNOWN]: I did not know.
[UNKNOWN]: I got confused between the night manager, the night agent, the agency, the bureau.
[UNKNOWN]: I was like, what is all of this?
[UNKNOWN]: Anyway, the agency was fast-bender and Jeffrey Wright, a phenomenal season one.
[UNKNOWN]: I absolutely dored it.
[UNKNOWN]: It's coming back so definitely do some coverage on that.
[UNKNOWN]: You've got silo as well coming right wasn't say before that is widow's bay Oh, right.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, we're gonna do our season.
[UNKNOWN]: We did our half our midseason check in and we're gonna do a wrap up and It we've been having a lot of fun discussing on the discord if you're watching it hop on the discord and get into the widows bay chat We are number one shows this year, right?
[UNKNOWN]: It's not five
[UNKNOWN]: It definitely, and we have the official Patricia fan club going on.
[UNKNOWN]: Who else killed her?
[UNKNOWN]: I got a needle drop moment with Enia.
[UNKNOWN]: Okay.
[UNKNOWN]: Very good.
[UNKNOWN]: But yeah, no, right now it's like my top three for the year so far are the vampire list.
[UNKNOWN]: I know an episode has an aired, but I'm just putting it there preemptively.
[UNKNOWN]: It's the years to lose.
[UNKNOWN]: and spider noir and widows bay, or maybe swap those two.
[UNKNOWN]: So silo coming in hot at the beginning of July, your move silo.
[UNKNOWN]: It's going to be adapting.
[UNKNOWN]: Apple's playing this year smart, right?
[UNKNOWN]: We're rolling from one apple show to another to another.
[UNKNOWN]: Yes.
[UNKNOWN]: What HBO has not been doing for us.
[UNKNOWN]: Which is backing shows on top of each other like this so that we're just in your ecosystem We're just in you Apple like that's where you want us we're they're because the HBO trips over themselves for Well when it came to the production side exactly
[UNKNOWN]: All right, we also have our newest affiliate member, Dungeons and Do Rags.
[UNKNOWN]: They are on the YouTube's for right now.
[UNKNOWN]: We've got a channel for them in the discord, but we'll be getting their audio feed set up soon.
[UNKNOWN]: We're trying to get through some production, iron out some production things with them.
[UNKNOWN]: But that's Ron Dawson and his friends.
[UNKNOWN]: And you
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, they get into politics.
[UNKNOWN]: They get into modern, you know, what's going on in society?
[UNKNOWN]: It's kind of like going down to the barbershop and hanging out with a bunch of folks and having some real talks.
[UNKNOWN]: So if you're into that, we'll be rolling more of that content out as they get their feet underneath them production-wise.
[UNKNOWN]: I believe properly Howard wrapped up their honeymoon series.
[UNKNOWN]: I have not finished the last film in the series and it sounds like Anthony's gonna be taking a little break.
[UNKNOWN]: So we're not sure how soon they will be back.
[UNKNOWN]: Never mind the music is coming up on their hundredth episode very soon.
[UNKNOWN]: Hello.
[UNKNOWN]: And season three will be coming in.
[UNKNOWN]: So go check out Mark and Cole.
[UNKNOWN]: I think Mark might be stopping in for some vampireless.coverage too.
[UNKNOWN]: I love that.
[UNKNOWN]: They were on so many pods with his last year on so many shows.
[UNKNOWN]: They were like, full on.
[UNKNOWN]: Radioactive Rambling's haven't heard from those guys.
[UNKNOWN]: Did they finish up with the boys?
[UNKNOWN]: I'm not sure where they're going.
[UNKNOWN]: No.
[UNKNOWN]: I think they've been busy with the real life stuff.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
[UNKNOWN]: And I know Maryland is going to be working on season two of rings in ritual.
[UNKNOWN]: So if you don't, you're not familiar with that title.
[UNKNOWN]: That is our resident Tolken scholar, Maryland, Arpequila, and Dr. Sarah Brown of Signum University.
[UNKNOWN]: And they look at, they basically take apart.
[UNKNOWN]: the season of Rings of Power episode by episode, they pull out rituals that they see on screen, anything that sort of ritualized or ritualistic, and then talk about it, analyze it, compare it to the real world.
[UNKNOWN]: And that's a show that's right now very much tied to the seasons of Rings of Power, and so I know Marilyn,
[UNKNOWN]: is going to be working on getting their season two out ahead of season three coming later this year.
[UNKNOWN]: And John and Marilyn and I will be covering that.
[UNKNOWN]: Um, and just as since you mentioned Marilyn just to shout out for subscribers to the lower house, um, subscriber feeds, Marilyn Bob and I are recording right after you, this recording, recording, recording.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
[UNKNOWN]: We're, we're doing a what you watch in about the sheep detectives because they both just found it absolutely delightful.
[UNKNOWN]: I was like, I saw it and I liked it too, so let's talk about it.
[UNKNOWN]: Okay, great.
[UNKNOWN]: Well, I will definitely want to hear that because I don't know what to think about the sheep detectives.
[UNKNOWN]: We set that a lot of people are really enjoyed it.
[UNKNOWN]: So yeah.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
[UNKNOWN]: I'm going to place for it.
[UNKNOWN]: Cool.
[UNKNOWN]: All right.
[UNKNOWN]: And we'll shift test.
[UNKNOWN]: You sent you mentioned silos on the bullshit dust feed.
[UNKNOWN]: Luke and I have already released our breakdown of the first.
[UNKNOWN]: teaser that came out like a couple weeks ago or whatever and now a new trailer just came out so we are this weekend recording another breakdown a new breakdown of the new information we have from that and subscribers to the will ship will shift us book club yes Abby and I have already scheduled for next week the book part of that so watch out for that so if
[UNKNOWN]: We at the lower hounds, yes.
[UNKNOWN]: We do a lot.
[UNKNOWN]: We have big appetites and we have big hearts and big feet.
[UNKNOWN]: That's a joke for John.
[UNKNOWN]: And if you appreciate what we do and you enjoy what we do, we are independent podcasters and subscriptions.
[UNKNOWN]: are a way that we keep this content going.
[UNKNOWN]: And if you have it within you and it's you have the ability to.
[UNKNOWN]: We'd love you to join the community.
[UNKNOWN]: We got some great extra content, what you're watching, which is kind of a short form.
[UNKNOWN]: We have our 11Z's movie club and our second breakfast, which is sort of
[UNKNOWN]: what's going on in the lives of the lorehounds and the show itself.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, and you know, we do do advertising on the public feeds, but that money is fickle.
[UNKNOWN]: And yeah, the subscriptions really make sure that we are able to continue to do what we do.
[UNKNOWN]: That said, we also always like to give some shoutouts to our community and to our top tier subscribers, Alicia, we have a new
[UNKNOWN]: block of thank you's to put in here that we've been noticing neglecting as a negative word, but we just hadn't been saying anything and it occurred to us that maybe we should give a shout out to some of our dunedane, the folks there are people on our discord who do community oriented things that extend and add to our community conversations
[UNKNOWN]: and just kind of help us do podcasts and not have to worry about certain things.
[UNKNOWN]: So Nancy, aka two kids, two dogs is the hand of the pod.
[UNKNOWN]: She helps coal eight feedback and writes subscriber messages when we send out, you know, things.
[UNKNOWN]: We have Peter O'H, who is the master of polls,
[UNKNOWN]: Didn't we call it the captain of the Polhiram was it Captain of the Polhiram?
[UNKNOWN]: Is that what we said a lot?
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, I'm sure that's what I'm going to love.
[UNKNOWN]: I love the Lord Hiram is a is a title.
[UNKNOWN]: But yeah, he does the poll.
[UNKNOWN]: So when we do our voting for movies, he sets all of that stuff up.
[UNKNOWN]: We have Sub-Zero.
[UNKNOWN]: We need a better title for Sub-Zero, he keeps the show tracker up to date and organizing.
[UNKNOWN]: You haven't checked out our show tracker, go to the link tree, look for the show tracker.
[UNKNOWN]: There should be a link for it there.
[UNKNOWN]: This is our curated list of television and movies that are coming up not only quarter by quarter, but also there's a game timeline so you can see the whole year and how things line up and overlap with each other.
[UNKNOWN]: It's a tremendous resource.
[UNKNOWN]: to keep track of what the hell is going on in TV and movie space.
[UNKNOWN]: But we need a cool name for you Sub-Zero, and then we have our moderators, our main moderators on the Discord help keep things organized and flowing, and that's Brian E. D. 63.
[UNKNOWN]: Okay.
[UNKNOWN]: Yes, Ushal.
[UNKNOWN]: That's a secret name, though.
[UNKNOWN]: We only saw something incredible.
[UNKNOWN]: So thank you to all of those folks, so you know, really for the community, by the community, for the community sort of stuff.
[UNKNOWN]: But, Alicia, do you want to shout out to our server boosters and our loremasters?
[UNKNOWN]: Yes, thank you to our Discord server boosters who allow us to have fun badges and all that other stuff and higher processing speeds and stuff.
[UNKNOWN]: Flare, flare, and flare.
[UNKNOWN]: It reminds me of office space.
[UNKNOWN]: Exactly.
[UNKNOWN]: It's a flare everywhere.
[UNKNOWN]: Exactly.
[UNKNOWN]: Thank you, Erin Kaye.
[UNKNOWN]: Tilleth Riller.
[UNKNOWN]: Doves 71, Athena Agilea, Lestoon, NCM, Ghost of Partition, Radioactive, Richard, and Adrienne.
[UNKNOWN]: And thank you, especially to all of our subscribers, but most of all the top tier, the lower masters, some Martian Michael G. Michelle E. S. C. Peter O'H.
[UNKNOWN]: Nancy M. Doves 71, Brian 863, Frederick H. Sarah L. Garthsee, Andre B. Kwangu, Nathan T. Sub-Zero, Erin Kaye, Dali V.
[UNKNOWN]: Kathy W, the Stu, Jeffrey B, Lisa U, Ben B, Scott F, Stevenen, Julia F, Collie S, Ill-Mariel, Rocky Zim, Jessica A, Red Zippy, the TCS, Dope, Me.
[UNKNOWN]: It's supposed to be announced or calling, but we're trying to our record night.
[UNKNOWN]: I was coordinating with you.
[UNKNOWN]: And you were recording with me, and yeah.
[UNKNOWN]: L&R, Mrs. Tenet, AC Wilson, E-L-I-W, Kessy-K, Chemberrooney, Katia, Josh-Loo, Painting Pediax, Cori-G, Quinch, Jenny L, Slavinator, and always last Audrey Allen.
[UNKNOWN]: I don't know about you, but I'm going to go try to find one of those spa-hot tub rooms in the back rooms.
[UNKNOWN]: So yeah, if you can make your way there, you can find me.
[UNKNOWN]: That's not where my cat's ran, too, though.
[UNKNOWN]: That's for sure.
[UNKNOWN]: Oh, right.
[UNKNOWN]: Well, good, like if I find them, I'll let you know.
[UNKNOWN]: All right, take it, take it, take it, take it, take it, take it, take it, take it, take it, take it, take it, take it, take it.
[UNKNOWN]: The Lorhound's podcast is produced in Published by the Lorhounds.
[UNKNOWN]: You can send questions and feedback and voicemails at the Lorhound's.com slash contact.
[UNKNOWN]: Get early and add free access to all Lorhound's podcast at patreon.com slash the Lorhounds.
[UNKNOWN]: Any opinions stated are ours personally and do not reflect the opinion of or belong to any employers or other entities.
[UNKNOWN]: Thanks for listening.