Midsommar and The Wicker Man: Our outsider heroes get a VIP pass to a folksy-commune’s hottest party of the summer, though by “hottest party of the summer” they quite literally mean setting their guests on fire.
127 Hours with a Film Kid: Brooke ranks the studio lots on the most important factor: how spooky their ghosts are. Highlights include: The Ghost that gets around and the potential Nosferatu sighting.
Midsommar: We consider the “worst thing” about this unsettling film, what not to do when your girlfriend is grieving and whether Lindsey would still vacation with a murderer. Plus, yet another reason to never use a Porta-Potty.
It's a Bear in a Cage - Full Song
The Wicker Man: We discuss The Most Dangerous Bit, Nic Cage’s love of bear suits and hatred of follow up questions.
Our love to Cassandra, who Lindsey definitely doesn’t hate. Read some of her work here.
Film Kid Giant Squids is produced and hosted by Lindsey Buttel and Brooke Hoppe. Intro music is by the band Poly Action, transition music is Pagan Cross by Shane Ivers licensed under CC BY 3.0
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Lindsey: Cassandra’s so shitty. I’ve been laughing at her demise. She's a gaslighting manipulative asshole.
[Intro Music]
Brooke: You are listening to Film Kids and Giant Squids
Lindsey: And Other Things that Think They’re Deep. I’m Lindsey.
Brooke: And I’m Brooke. And this week, we're talking about Midsommar and The Wicker Man.
Lindsey: We are also dedicating this episode to the ever lovely Cassandra Martinez who also named it. She is also an endlessly beautiful and lovely writer and if you want to learn more about her other than just warning us about Midsommar and being associated with bees and flowers and nature and scary cottage core, she wrote a really lovely story about faith and recovery and it is haunting and personal and beautiful and you guys should go check her out.
Brooke: Wow this is so kind. Maybe it won't be. Maybe I'll just edit it all out. Who’s to say. I'll edit it so you sound like a total dick to Cassandra. Lindsey I just need you to say the following words. I hate Cassandra. Or just I don’t even need the Cassandra just say I and hate.
Lindsey: You're going to edit me talking about Christian and just like put it in the words of Cassandra and think she is like a gaslighting manipulative asshole.
Brooke: And also if she somehow turns into a bear, that’s why. Before we get into all of the ways Cassandra is not like Christian. We have to do 127 hours with a film kid.
[127 Hours with a Film Kid Transition Music]
Brooke: So I just really enjoyed what I did last episode where I didn’t talk about any current events at all. This week I'm gonna rank all the studio lots in terms of their ghosts.
Lindsey: I love that.
Brooke: So last place is CBS Radford. It's not haunted, just boring. 0/5 stars. Next is kind of a 3-way tie between Disney, Fox, and Sony. There's like one, maybe two stories of people encountering ghosts on these lots. 1/5 stars. Only haunted if you're lucky. So on Disney apparently the animation building is haunted. Supposedly if you're there late at night you can smell cigar smoke as well as hear Walt whistling. I don’t know how they can tell that it’s Walt whistling, but apparently it's Walt. And then Fox, the only like repeated story is on stage 17. Jon-Erik Hexum, who's an actor, died by an accidental self-inflicted blank cartridge gun shot on the set of Cover Up in 1984. And so he now supposedly haunts that stage and the people who work there report lights flickering. Then the Sony lot. According to the internet the haunted building on the sony lot is the Thalberg building where again you can smell cigar smoke and lights will flicker. However that is the building that I worked in when I worked on the Sony lot. And I would be alone late at night many nights and absolutely nothing ever happened to me nor did I ever hear anyone who also worked in the building having anything spooky happen to them.
Lindsey: Sounds like it's just one person going around smoking cigars on all these lots.
Brooke: And being like I smell cigars? What’s that?
Lindsey: Replacing all the good lights with old lights.
Brooke: Well I mean a lot of these lots are really old, so. Then next up is the Warner Brothers lot. So I'm gonna go through the stories first and then I'll give my rating. First up is stage 17. Supposedly there's a couple of ghosts here and they're both actors. One apparently had a stroke while getting his makeup done and died in the chair so now he still shows up for makeup. And the makeup artists on that stage intentionally leave his chair empty so that he can always show up whenever he wants to get his makeup done. Another ghost apparently goes into the dressing rooms and moves around clothes as if the spirit is trying them on. Supposedly this is the spirit of a struggling actress who died after starving herself for a part.
Lindsey: Oh god.
Brooke: So then there's also stage 9 on the Warner Brothers lot. It is said to be the most haunted of all the stages on the lot. There's been countless deaths and accidents on this stage. Over the years more than 20 different people have died in this building.
Lindsey: Oh my god. Close the stage! Just get rid of it. Make a new one. You're Warner Brothers. You have the money.
Brooke: People claim that they're being watched here and will see figures appearing and disappearing. On May 11th 1933, a fire broke out during the filming of The Iron Sheik and seven people died and 20 more were critically injured.
Lindsey: Oh my god.
Brooke: And The Iron Sheik was shelved and never finished. And now people report hearing faint cries for help.
Lindsey: Ahhh. I like the idea of all these people on a film set who are being filmed in theory at some point is like someone is watching me. Like. Yeah.
Brooke: To be fair most reports will come from security guards. So if you ever find yourself interning, working on a lot, befriend the security guards because they have all the ghost stories. And also they have all the good stories in general, but especially they have the ghost stories. Final place that’s supposedly haunted on the Warner Brothers lot is building 131, which is the original animation building.
Lindsey: Are they all in animation? What is happening?
Brooke: Animators are just haunted. Apparently this building is haunted by so many ghosts that only two janitors are willing to clean the building. And specifically women janitors will refuse. They will not go in there. Apparently one of the ghosts there is named rose. She is known to mess with any and all electronics. She has also shown up in photos. Her favorite thing to do apparently is push people down stairs.
Lindsey: Oh.
Brooke: So yeah. Warner Brothers lot. Now we've got some real spooks. 3.5/5 stars. Ghosts seem mostly fine, except for Rose. So then number two is the Universal lot. So this one is especially fun because obviously the Universal lot has the Universal theme park as part of it.
Lindsey: Oh I didn't realize that the theme park was on the lot.
Brooke: There are also some ghosts of the theme park and also of the Universal lot. In the Universal studio store there's supposedly a ghost who lives in the basement who plays pranks on the employees. So when the employees open the shop they find things that were on the shelves when they closed that are now on the floor and items have moved from one display to the other. Sometimes across the entire store. Then there's the mummy ride. People have seen a ghost of a little boy appear on the tracks of the roller coaster terrifying riders into thinking they’ve just struck a child. And like after the ride ends they obviously go and report it and they shut down the ride and they're never able to find this kid. And it's happened so many times that everyone who has worked on the ride knew that this was just that ghost boy.
Lindsey: But they have to shut it down every time.
Brooke: Because what if it is a real boy this time?
Lindsey: Someone like knowingly knows that their child like ran to the back scenes of the ride and I tried to report it and they’re like that didn’t happen.
Brooke: Yeah. There’s also reports of seeing like little girls ghosts around the park like looking lost but not as frightening as seeing a ghost and also thinking you’ve killed a child. On the actual back lot in the Carl Laemmle building there's reports of an employee who passed away who is still roaming halls and still like going to her desk and continuing working.
Lindsey: Imagine DYING and still trying to go into work.
Brooke: Yeah like first you die an untimely death. And second you're still forced to go into work.
Lindsey: Tragic.
Brooke: Yeah, I'd be so upset.
Lindsey: I’m sure the untimely death was also tragic but. The fact that she is still working. Tragic.
Brooke: Then Six Points Texas, which is the name of the fake western street they use for filming. Apparently orbs have been seen in this area late at night as well as faint whispers and like breathing noises.
Lindsey: I love the idea of orbs. Like I feel like they're not common, but every once in a while someone just throws in a creepy orb and it's like what is this, doesn’t make sense. Ball of energy. Orb. I just think it's funny.
Brooke: And then finally on the Universal lot sound stage 28 before it was demolished in 2014, see Linds, something haunted gets demolished.
Lindsey: Okay.
Brooke: It was apparently crazy haunted. There were several ghosts that were mentioned but the main one was the ghost of an electrician who died on the job and apparently lights now flicker and they also will spontaneously fall all the time.
Lindsey: Ooo. Okay see that is the level of when it's haunted. Flickering lights, whatever, probably Nosferatu. Flickering lights that fall down and threaten to kill people? Yeah.
Brooke: My final rating is we have lots of various ghosts. Most of which seem to be having a good time. 4/5 stars. You get spooked. And finally we have the Paramount lot. So if you don’t know the paramount lot in Hollywood is directly behind the Hollywood Forever Cemetery. Like could not be closer behind. Like a mausoleum in the cemetery is up against the cement wall of the Paramount lot.
Lindsey: Paramount was just asking for ghosts.
Brooke: There's this weird rumor urban legend that decades ago a series of bad rains liquefied the soil under the wall and several coffins were carried from the cemetary into the sound stage basement as it flooded. Which like horrendous, hate it, take that away. There's a million different ghost stories about this lot. It is generally accepted as the most haunted lot. Paramount does, when people did in-person things, they did a like ghosts of the Paramount lot tour.
Lindsey: Oh my god.
Brooke: First up is stage 19. This is the stage where Happy Days was filmed. And it is reported haunted by Heather O'Rourke. She was a little girl who was the actress in the Poltergeist and she also did 12 episodes of Happy Days and she died in 1988 at the age of 12. Security guards report seeing her playing on the catwalk above the stage and sometimes she will play on the actual stage. Next is Rudolph Valentino, who was a famous Italian silent film actor who died at the age of 31 in 1926. His ghost is generally like the most reported ghost in all of Hollywood. He is seen pretty much anywhere and everywhere. Like this ghost gets around, which I didn’t even know ghosts could do but Rudolph does.
Lindsey: I love the idea of being the most reported ghost in Hollywood.
Brooke: Yeah. Next up is Lucille Ball. So Paramount studios used to be the home of Desilu Productions which was Lucy and her husband Desi Arnaz’s company. It was also where I Love Lucy was produced. In the Hart building she is seen walking around the upper floors. In the Lucile ball building her old office has been kept intact and people claim to smell cigarette smoke coming from her office late at night when no one else is around and they like hear things from inside her office. And then finally on the Paramount lot the building kind of right next to the Lucille Ball building, which is where the old Gower walk-in entrance was is also supposedly crazy haunted. Furniture is reported to move violently. Things are thrown often. And arms have been grabbed to the point of you can see like handprints and bruising.
Lindsey: Oh my god.
Brooke: So yeah. Paramount lot. Lots of ghosts, super haunted. Will definitely not go there alone at night. 5/5 stars. I'm already spooked. And that is 127 ghosts with film kids.
[Folksy Horror Transition Music]
Brooke: Midsommar! So my shitty tweet summary is if you pay attention to tapestries you can avoid literally being burned to death.
Lindsey: Mine is a Swedish commune helps an American college student find peace with her breakup.
Brooke: So it was written and directed by Ari Aster. Originally it was going to be more of a straightforward slasher film set amongst Swedish cultists.
Lindsey: Ooo.
Brooke: So it was a production between A24 and B-Reel films. And B-Reel approached Ari with this idea. So he kind of took it and when he went to write it he added the central conflict between Dani and Christian. According to Ari he calls the movie a breakup movie dressed up in the clothes of a folk horror film.
Lindsey: I get it.
Brooke: When the film was released Swedish audiences laughed at it and they just thought it was like a black comedy.
Lindsey: I mean I guess I also laughed at it at parts.
Brooke: Yeah but I wouldn’t call this a comedy.
Lindsey: I wouldn’t call it a comedy.
Brooke: So Sri himself is aware of similarities between Midsommar and The Wicker Man. Well, the good one. Not the one that we’re doing. So the 1973 version. He said that he tried to avoid it as much as he could saying quote, “I think what the movie tries to do is point to The Wicker Man and set up expectations native to that film. And then take a left turn from there and go somewhere surprising.” So fun fact about this movie is despite being the main characters, neither Dani nor Christian speak in the last 25 minutes of the film besides like crying and screaming, which like we love that.
Lindsey: Crying and screaming or Christian not speaking? Cause… both.
Brooke: Honestly. Yeah. Every time he spoke I got mad so.
Lindsey: All of my notes are just about how horrible these people are and I'm like all I'm learning is you don’t go on a vacation with your boyfriend and his friends. All being said and done. I still trust Pelle. I would still go on a vacation with him.
Brooke: Ari revealed that Pelle’s the one who kills Josh. So, like he was the one who smashed his head in.
Lindsey: I would pick the vacation.
Brooke: So maybe don’t vacation with him. The opening frame for this movie literally is the entire story of the movie. So it's one of those tapestry paintings. And literally from left to right it tells the story of the movie. Like you see Dani surrounded by her dead family and then you see them arriving in the village like being led by Pelle. And then you see their various deaths and all of the sacrifices and you see the may pole and Dani is the May queen.
Lindsey: I didn’t even notice that.
Brooke: Yeah it's like the like genuinely the first frame of the movie. So Ari, he didn’t care that the ending was predictable. According to him his goal of the movie was to surprise the audience with Dani’s journey and how she gets to the ending and how she gets to that choice that she makes.
Lindsey: Okay.
Brooke: Dani leaves a message for her parents who they look like they're asleep but don’t wake up when the phone rings. And she's reading the email from her sister where she's sending a really weird creepy email where everythings black, goodbye. She then calls Christian who is a complete dick to her on the phone. And my exact note was I hope he dies in this. He does. I get my wish. And then Christian says I love you and at first Dani does not say it back and I was like oh cool so she's like not happy with him. She's done with him. But then like two seconds later she says I love you. So then Christian and his friends talk shit about Dani. About how he kind of wants to break up with her and they all want him to break up with her as well. And says that like she needs a therapist not a boyfriend. And then Pelle tells Christian to think of all the Swedish girls he can impregnate in June. Foreshadowing.
Lindsey: Okay I had a note that said why are we impregnating people. And I was like wait a second. Why did I write that?
Brooke: It's too early for impregnation.
Lindsey: Well I was like who's impregnating people at the diner. Whoever they were.
Brooke: And then Dani calls him again and he picks up and it's just her sobbing. And we learn that her sister and her parents have died because her sister vented in the car exhaust and killed them all. And so then obviously Dani is completely distraught about this and at least Christian is there. Like he didn’t just blow her off so I guess. Modicum of points his way but still a piece of shit Christian.
Lindsey: Congrats on doing the bare minimum.
Brooke: Then later Dani goes with Christian to the party where she learns of their trip to a town in Sweden for midsommar. And Christian kind of plays it off like oh he's probably not gonna go.
Lindsey: For a month and a half.
Brooke: Yeah. For such a long time.
Lindsey: After her entire family died.
Brooke: Yeah. Christian then invites Dani to Sweden and like as she's coming up he's like telling the guys oh yeah I invited her but she's not gonna come. So just go with it but she's definitely not coming. But I did invite her.
Lindsey: I just wanna say Dani is so calm that entire time for her shitty-ass boyfriend saying I'm gonna leave for a month and a half and I didn’t even have the decency to tell you and she says I don’t need an apology, I just wanted to talk about it. And she’s so good and he still sucks and he still gets mad and storms out after that.
Brooke: He's a piece of shit cause he always turns things around on her and like manipulates her into apologizing. Like she, he's like oh you're just attacking and she's like oh I apologize. I, like no. No, Dani you do not need to apologize. Your boyfriend is leaving in two weeks for a month and a half and didn’t tell you? Like two weeks that’s not long enough to be like oh now I'm gonna decide to take this international trip.
Lindsey: Also like you had to of gotten it before. Like airfare is so expensive. You're a college student, Christian.
Brooke: Well he's a PhD student.
Lindsey: Yeah. Even less money.
Brooke: So yeah. So they're all like planning for Sweden and then Dani comes in and Mark, one of Christians friends, calls Christian into the other rooms cause he wants him to quote, “look at this paragraph real quick.” Like come up with a better excuse dude. Like what paragraph do you need to be in another room to read. But while they are gone Dani and Pelle talk where he talks more about his home.
Lindsey: Oh wait. It was also her birthday that he was going to leave for a month for. And didn’t even think to be like I'm missing your birthday sorry.
Brooke: Well he didn’t remember her birthday. So he didn’t realize he was missing it. So Pelle tells her more about his home and we learn that Dani is studying psychology. And says like heh that’s how you can tell I'm crazy and Pelle says no it's because of that look in your eye. As if that’s a normal thing to say to someone.
Lindsey: I don’t care. Pelle’s so cute I love him. I don’t care that he killed people. I changed my mind.
Brooke: What do you mean you never cared?
Lindsey: I care that Josh died but he also directly led to Christian’s death, so.
Brooke: That’s fair. He then apologizes to Dani for her loss and Dani can't handle that, runs to the bathroom crying, and it transitions to the bathroom on the plane. And just imagining crying in a plane bathroom.
Lindsey: Ugh.
Brooke: I just, it's just such a terrible place to cry.
Lindsey: Those big intakes of breath in that horrible, horrible bathroom.
Brooke: Yeah, just miserable all around. But they land in Stockholm and then immediately drive up to some very eerie music and upside down shots.
Lindsey: Yeah I was playing Among Us so I was drinking while like playing that and after I was done I came to watch this and I was like I need to like not be likely slightly tipsy as these shots are just circling this car I was like I need to lie down.
Brooke: Yeah like this was like the first time that I was like oo, I'm unsettled. So they arrive in a field and they meet Pelle’s brother, Ingmar, and take shrooms. Dani doesn’t want to at first and then is kind of pressured to take them by Mark because-
Lindsey: They're so shitty. I wouldn’t want to take them with these people either!
Brooke: Also just like imagine being jet lagged.
Lindsey: Imagine you being like I just need a couple of hours and all of them being like you have the audacity to do that to us.
Brooke: Well Mark wants to take them now but he doesn't. He wants to align his trip with Christian, but Christian was waiting for Dani, so therefore Dani has to take them now was the quasi-logic that was used. So they sit in the field on shrooms and Mark begins freaking out that it's 9pm and it's still bright and is just like. I need you to lay down. Like Josh can you just lay down right now. And like this is when I was like I kind of like Mark. Like I don’t think I could be friends with him. But I like him in this movie. And I know he will meet a tragic end and I like that.
Lindsey: See my note was shut up Mark you stupid douchebag. Why are you dictating other peoples' highs? Very different energy than you.
Brooke: I just liked him freaking out at it being 9pm and like really sunny cause I think that would be my reaction. I'd be like no no no somethings wrong. Something is wrong with the sky. And being like I'm freaked out and you guys aren’t freaking out so I need someone else to like relax with me like. And then Dani begins freaking out and like sees grass growing from her skin and then kind of freaks out and runs away and then she sees the other group of people and she thinks they're laughing at her so then she runs off into the woods and this is why you need a sober buddy.
Lindsey: Is that when she uses the port-a-potty and closes the door and there's like a person there.
Brooke: Yeah. It's one of her hallucinations. Both of these movies the hallucinations like scared me.
Lindsey: I wrote, cool never using a port-a-potty again.
Brooke: Were you before?
Lindsey: It used to be because of the spiders but now it is, well no, but now I have multiple reasons I can hallucinate something behind me in the mirror. Anything where you close a mirror onto you shouldn’t exist.
Brooke: Dani wakes up and learns that she's been passed out in the field for six hours. They hike the rest of the way to the village and Mark is just paranoid about ticks. And this is when I really was like yes I would also have that reaction. I would be freaked out by ticks.
Lindsey: I like that everyone was just kind of like oh yeah they're a huge problem here. And he was like WHAT NO ONE TOLD ME THAT.
Brooke: I mean they were fucking with him but yeah. Linds, if someone was with us and being like are there ticks here you'd be like yeah they're a huge problem like you don’t have your tick spray with you? Like you'd 100 percent just feed into that.
Lindsey: If I liked them and knew that they were like truly upset I wouldn’t. But I would to Mark. I'd want him to run out the woods by himself the other way.
Brooke: You’d fuck with Mark. So they arrive in the village and they meet a bunch of people and they’re learning that like the ceremony is really starting the next day and they toast to the start of their nine-day feast. The, I just call them the non-Swedes, the group of like outsiders. Cause I can't call them like the Americans cause there's also some British people.
Lindsey: Yeah.
Brooke: So they start like walking around and like seeing everything and they pass this really fucking weird tapestry that’s hung up that shows a woman who takes over a guys mind by feeding him both her public hair and menstral blood. I really didn’t think that was gonna be a direct foreshadow. I thought it was gonna be like a oh here's the modernization of it but nope, direct foreshadow.
Lindsey: I will say that is the first part that I gasped at and I also, I thought that wasn’t her cutting off like public hair I thought that it was like her cutting off part of her labia.
Brooke: So they walk around and they walk past a bear in a cage. And this is like one of the, well the 9pm thing made me laugh out loud, but that really made me laugh out loud. Particularly because, so, A24, who made this movie, they have a thing where their hold music is always just something related to their current movie that they are promoting. And whenever this was coming out I was calling A24 like every day and was getting put on hold so much. And the song that they have was it’s a bear in a cage. So I sent it to you, Lindsey.
Lindsey: Im playingit.
[It’s a Bear in a Cage Hold Music]
Lindsey: *Gasps* I love that. Oh my god. I'd call them all the time whether or not I had business with anyone there.
Brooke: But like I had no context of this movie because this was a year ago. And I'd hear it so often and no one else would know what I was talking about because this song wasn’t used in the film. And so I'd be like I think it's from midsummer. And they're like Brooke what are you talking about and I’d be like it’s a bear in a cage and they'd be like yeah that’s a thing in the movie and I'd be like well that’s what the hold music is and they'd be like what? But yeah so I would lose my mind because there was one day I was put on hold for such a long time cause I was like trying to get information. And the assistant who was helping me was having trouble finding it cause it was a floating assistant and they were like can I just put you on hold for like a really long time and I was like honestly yeah it’s fine im just sitting here. And they put me on hold for like 10 minutes and it was just this.
Lindsey: It's so happy I love it. That’s such a good summer jam.
Brooke: Yeah that is currently what is stuck in my head and it'll randomly come back into my head every now and again. But now that I have the context for it I understand about the bear in the cage.
Lindsey: Do we?
Brooke: I at least know what it means. Anyway. Back to unsettling things. So Pelle shows them to where they will be sleeping and says that oh people sleep here til they're 36 and then they go over to the labor house and kind of explains the various seasons of their village. So you're a child until you're 18 so that’s your spring, and then from 18 til you’re 36 that’s your summer. And then you're working from 36 to 54. That’s your fall.
Lindsey: Imagine starting working at 36.
Brooke: A dream. And then from 54 until 72 it's your winter where you're like a mentor and then someone asks well what happens at 72 and then Pelle makes a cutting of the throat gesture and they just laugh at that. I'm like well ask a follow-up question maybe. Like even if you think he's joking.
Lindsey: All these characters are me. They're like oh okay.
Brooke: They're like hahaha that’s a funny joke. And move on. Nic Cage really pisses me off with that in The Wicker Man. So it's Danis birthday and Pelle gives Dani a little like gift.
Lindsey: Because he's a cherub. It's such a nice drawing.
Brooke: It is a nice drawing. Too bad he's a murderer.
Lindsey: Okay. If this is his culture. Then like he's just doing what he knows.
Brooke: I mean yeah. That doesn’t make him not a murderer.
Lindsey: I only blame him for killing Josh.
Brooke: I mean I blame him for killing all of them he brought them there. With the intention for them to die. Anyway. So like Dani mentions that Christian forgot so Pelle tells Christian and Christian pulls Dani outside and gives her the cake, which, where did he get the cake and the candle but okay.
Lindsey: And also the worst present you can give to someone is singing happy birthday to their face.
Brooke: Yeah also like having one singular person sing happy birthday to you? Nightmare. This is the true horror of this movie. Like being sung happy birthday is already bad enough. but just it makes it so awkward for just one person because it's not like you can just look around to various people. Like you're just looking one person in the face as they sing to you happy birthday. Like. Awkward. Terrible. Hate it.
Lindsey: And then like tried to pretend that he didn’t forget even though he clearly did.
Brooke: Well yeah he's a dick. And then he's like oh yeah I didn’t realize it was today. I thought it was still yesterday.
Lindsey: Fuck off.
Brooke: They all get ready for bed and Pelle tells them that they next day they’ll have Ättestupa. But won't tell them what it is at all. And then Josh apparently-
Lindsey: Oh Josh knows.
Brooke: Yeah he apparently knows what it is but like won’t say but I don’t really think he knew I think he was like trying to pretend that he was smarter than he was.
Lindsey: I think he probably just thought it was like some sort of celebration of like the elders. Because he like when the- when the two were brought out-
Brooke: Yeah he did say like is that them-
Lindsey: -to the feast. Yeah.
Brooke: But Ättestupa is pretty much a myth. The myth of it is that the elderly were expected to be sacrificed for the good of the village. However-
Lindsey: Oh god.
Brooke: The original source of it is an Icelandic account. And there's been no references other than this Icelandic account. So many historians believe that what it really is is the Icelandic tradition of depicting the Swedes as barbaric because they converted to Christianity later than Iceland. So what it really is is like a rumor an Iceland man made up about the Swedes.
Lindsey: Oh my god. You're less Christian than us. I'm gonna frame you for killing the elders of your village.
Brooke: Yeah. The next day everyone stands up at the table as the like elder couple approach out of the temple and everyone copies the elder couples like timings. Like once they sit everyone can sit. Once they start eating everyone can start eating. And then after the meal everyone stands up and toasts. And the elder couple is carried off in their chairs and Mark goes to take a nap.
Lindsey: I will say so Cassandra said that the scene that got her. Her context was after the feast. So as soon as they sat down for the feast I was like okay mentally preparing. And then I was like okay it's coming. And then I was like okay they're drinking something. Is this like Jonestown shit going on? And then I was like OKAY it's after the feast! And I was like okay Cassandra this is a really long scene. A long amount of time this happened between the beginning of the feast and right now.
Brooke: I thought she said after the toast.
Lindsey: Oh. Maybe she did.
Brooke: Because I forgot and literally until the woman like gets on the edge of the cliff I was like oh yeah Cassandra warned about this exact moment.
Lindsey: literally as soon as they sat down for the feast I was like it's coming. Cause I thought the feast was gonna be quicker.
Brooke: So yeah they get to like the cliff area. They do my least favorite thing about horror. It's not even horror. When there's a ritual bloodletting why do they cut their palms?
Lindsey: Eh, I don’t know.
Brooke: I mean to be fair they're about to die so like it’s fine. But people who aren't about to die. You use your hands 800 times. That wound is never healing. Like even getting like a papercut on your hand it’s the most annoying thing. Cause like you move your hand so much. You use them so much. You touch so many things. Like it's getting infected.
Lindsey: It's like germ city right there on the creases of your hand.
Brooke: Yeah! Stop cutting palms open for ritual bloodletting. Like again because they are like about to die like it's fine. Yeah their wound doesn’t close but they have a more pressing wound that kills them so. But yeah she cuts her palm open and wipes her hands on like the runestone and then goes to the edge of the cliff and then jumps off and lands on the rock. And like rightfully the non-Swedish people just like freak out about it. And Ingmar, Pelle’s brother, is just like oh relax it's part of the ceremony it's fine this is just a thing.
Lindsey: I like how after the people are like you didn’t warn them!
Brooke: I know!
Lindsey: Like obviously not.
Brooke: But like Ingmar was like oh sorry I should have explained it better like Pelle specifically like wouldn’t tell them anything! Like if Ingmar even attempted I don’t know what he told Connie and Simon. He probably said something was gonna happen. But Pelle specifically was like not gonna tell you.
Lindsey: How did you explain this in a non-specific way though.
Brooke: Probably in the way that Josh probably thinks. Like oh like this is like honoring the elders.
Lindsey: Like I assumed the warned at all was at least semi-death related. I don’t know. Anyway.
Brooke: The old man then jumps off the cliff but doesn’t land quite as well and doesn’t die. So then all of the Swedish people they begin moaning and like writhing in pain and then a couple of them approach the old man with a mallet and begin smashing his face. Connie and Simon, the British couple, try to run off and the grandmother runs after them to try to explain and says that they view life as a cyclical thing. That this is all a ceremony. That whatever the old woman's name was, now that she's dead the next baby will be given her name so that life continues and there is no beginning or end to death or life.
Lindsey: Maybe that’s what he said he was like we're gonna watch a cycle of new life.
Brooke: Yeah. And like I just there definitely needed to be a warning. That was traumatic to watch. I couldn’t imagine being there.
Lindsey: Yeah. My- my entire thought was okay her falling wasn’t that bad. And then there was a beat. And then there was a closeup from far away and I was like oh okay that’s the bad part. And then there was a close up of close and I was like oh okay that’s the bad part. And then I was like no the hammers the bad part.
Brooke: The hammer was the bad part.
Lindsey: And then I was like all of this is the bad part.
Brooke: So then Christian and Josh talk and Christian tells Josh that he's gonna do his thesis on Harga, the village. And Josh is pissed because Christian is essentially stealing his idea. And Josh goes to talk to Pelle and Pelle says he can't even use the town because the elders won't approve and that Christian already spoke to Pelle about it. Pelle goes and talks to Dani, who is still freaking out and wants to leave. Pelle then tells her that he also lost his parents in a fire, but it's fine because he had this other family and was never alone, which is like mean to be comforting but essentially what Pelle is saying is that I was fine because I had good people in my life. You don’t. You have shitty people. Like sucks to suck. So then the like elder corpses are brought over the fire, which like that was an image – I also was very worried that the feast that they kept referencing was going to be eating the old people. Like I kept thinking that’s where we were going.
Lindsey: After they showed Simon's body I thought that they were also gonna eat that.
Brooke: It was- Yeah it was a lot.
Lindsey: I thought that they were gonna eat Josh. I thought that they were gonna eat Mark.
Brooke: Yeah I thought that cannibalism was coming.
Lindsey: One thing this movie didn’t have was cannibalism.
Brooke: Yeah so Christian tells Dani today was tough. As if they didn’t just witness something fucking horrific. Christian just tells Dani that they need to try to acclimate as if you can acclimate to horrifically watching someone die and watching people beat their face in with a mallet. The next morning they like take out the ashes from the old people meaning they're not eating them. Its fine. And they bury their ashes in the tree of the dead. And then Mark goes and pees on the tree of the dead and Pelle, again, shit friend, like you’ve explained nothing about your village. At least explain hey man like this tree is really sacred. Don’t do anything sptupid to it. Instead Mark goes and pees on it. Because Pelle didn’t tell them.
Lindsey: Or he knew that Mark was gonna- so I wrote please do they kill Mark for peeing on the tree. Please.
Brooke: Also did they not have bathrooms? Why did Mark feel the need to pee outside?
Lindsey: Mark just wanted to do it.
Brooke: Yeah I mean I'm not defending Mark. They all did what they did.
Lindsey: Hence why I'm like Pelle’s not evil. He freed us of Mark and Christian.
Brooke: Pelle is evil he took a mallet to Josh’s face.
Lindsey: We don’t know that Ari Aster could be lying. I know what he made it. But this could be a bit.
Brooke: I don’t think it’s a bit. Connie tells Dani that she and Simon are leaving and then the father dude guy comes and tells Connie that Simon already left because there was no room in the truck and Connie is like well that doesn’t make any fucking sense, why wouldn’t he wait for me? And he says well the trains in 90 minutes and it takes 35 minutes to get there and back so it just wouldn’t make sense for him to wait because then you guys would miss it and like connie doesn’t really believe it. Dani is then called into the kitchen with some of the girls and makes some meat tarts. And Josh talks with the elder to learn about the oracles who are writing their scriptures and the fact that the oracles are deliberate products of inbreeding. And then we hear a woman screaming in the distance. At dinner Dani looks for Connie. Someone speaks up that he drove her to the station already and she's gone. And then Dani asks why would Simon leave without her and Christian says that it was probably a miscommunication. And Dani says that she could see Christian doing that. And then Christian takes a bite of his meat pie and finds a pube. And then his drink is suspiciously a little bit darker. Implying there's also menstrual blood. Which is also just a very convenient timing for her to be on her period unless she was saving it. And I don’t know which one horrifies me more. But then if she's on her period she's not gonna be fertile. It has to be old period blood.
Lindsey: Oh yeah. That’s fair. That’s fair.
Brooke: We've logiced it. She was saving her period blood for Christian.
Lindsey: It's the saving your period blood for a month for me.
Brooke: It’s the storing your period blood for me.
Lindsey: My bio teacher in 9th grade like the- the fridge that talk you'd keep like the formaldehyde and like the animals that they are ready to dissect she'd also stock with diet cokes she would drink.
Brooke: I was really worried of where you were going with this. I was like what is she putting in the fridge.
Lindsey: She would also just dump her diva cups into storage. There was like a it might have been a tweet that was like I hope Bella uses a diva cup and then gives it to Edward like a shot. Even though Stephenie Meyer was like there's a difference that doesn’t count as blood. And Edward’s a gentleman.
Brooke: I was just trying to think if the Cullens would like it in this commune.
Lindsey: Probably not. I feel like they are against killing people.
Brooke: But they look so good in white they like a family coordinated color scheme.
Lindsey: They do look good in white. I guess they are kind of folksy.
Brooke: Anyway back to this movie. See I feel like this movie just makes me uncomfortable and I don’t want to talk about it. So then that night Josh keeps his shoes on as everyone goes to bed and it was so that he could sneak out but like he could have liked picked up his shoes and walked out and then put them on while he was outside like I didn’t really understand why he felt the need to keep his shoes on.
Lindsey: And also Josh, not about breaking rules. What gave you the impression that here is the place to fuck around.
Brooke: Well they only kill people sacrificially so they're like I can break a rule it's fine. He doesn’t know Connie and Simon are dead. And Mark.
Lindsey: But like it's a vibe.
Brooke: I mean yeah it is a vibe but like the smart move to do one you were aware of the vibe would be to leave the village entirely and none of them did that so. So yeah Josh goes back to the scripture room and started taking pictures of the book and turns around to find, he says its Mark. I don’t- I couldn’t tell that didn’t look like Mark to me.
Lindsey: So, it’s like Mark's skinned face on someone.
Brooke: Okay. Cause I like couldn’t really see the face at all. I think it was too bright in my living room when I was watching it. I was like the hair isn’t right. So he's looking at Mark being like come on man shut the door. Were not supposed to be here.
Lindsey: I wouldn’t think it was an alive Mark. But I could tell it was Mark.
Brooke: And then is hit over the head by someone. And when he is hit that is the first time that I jumped in this movie. Yeah that is Pelle, killing Josh.
Lindsey: Oh same! It’s the second time though cause I jumped at something earlier.
Brooke: The next morning at breakfast both Josh and Mark are gone and no one really cares besides Dani. Like Christian you're a shitty friend. At least pretend to care that half of your friends are gone. 2/3 of your friends are gone at this point.
Lindsey: Is Pelle not his friend?
Brooke: I'm not counting Dani as a friend.
Lindsey: Oh. Okay okay.
Brooke: Dani’s not a friend to Christian. He doesn’t care about her at all.
Lindsey: That’s fair.
Brooke: Christian and Dani are kind of split up. Christian is sent off to speak with Siv at her house and Dani goes with the girls and has the tea and begins surrounding the May pole. And they explain the dance that it's based off this legend tha the dark one commended them to dance until they died so now they dance to spit him and whoever falls the last gets crowned for her stamina. And they begin dancing. And chrsitan talks to Siv. She asks how he feels about Maya. And says that they are an ideal astrological match. Which alright. Yes I’m on board. So he leaves Siv’s house and sees that the girls are dancing and some have already fallen. And Maya falls and like stares at Christian. And then they get down to the eight and Dani is still left. And Christian is handed some of the tea and doesn’t initially want to drink it because he's afraid that it's gonna be a bad time but ultimately does drink it. And Dani begins speaking Swedish and is able to understand it fluently. And then she is the last remaining and is crowned the May queen. She is carried off to the table and now everyone is following her actions. She is force fed a whole salted herring. And of course she can't do it and everyone like laughs at her. And Christian is having a bad time and like turns to the man next to him and asks what's going on and that make just aggressively claps in his face and Christian gets very upset by this. And yeah I hate Christian but in this moment I was like ha im laughing at your demise.
Lindsey: I've been laughing at his demise this whole time.
Brooke: But this is like especially funny to me just him like almost in tears because a man clapped at him. Dani is then told she has to go bless the crops and the livestock. And shes like well can Christian come with me and she says no so she gets in a carriage alone and like a bunch of these girls like carry it off. Meanwhile Christian follows a path of flowers that another girl was sprinkling down for him. I truly did think they were gonna like bury Dani. Like when they like dig the whole I was like oh no. She's the luck. She will provide the nutrients to the soil.
Lindsey: I- I did think that they were going to like sacrifice the May queen.
Brooke: Yeah I was like oh fuck. Like were. I was like the only person that I like at this point is doomed. But she's fine. She made it. Christian meanwhile is going to mate with Maya and is surrounded by a bunch of naked girls who are humming with maya like sing humming on the floor who’s laying in a bed of flowers. And Christian and her start having sex. Dani gets back to the village and hears the like sing moaning and starts to go towards it and one of the girls is like no like you really shouldn’t and she keeps going. She looks through the keyhole and obviously sees Christian and begins freaking out, runs out, throws up, and is carried off by the girls into the sleeping room and they like, they begin echoing her screams of pain.
Lindsey: If I were like having a panic attack and people did that to me I feel like it would never end. It would be so much worse.
Brooke: So then Christian finishes and then kind of realizes what's happened and then runs out horrified, nude. Christian was originally supposed to run out in the robe that he had entered in. Jack Reynor, who's the actor that plays Christian, suggested that chritian run out completely nude to appear more vulnerable. According to Reynor, in many films in the horror genre, female characters are often disrobed, humiliated, and/or assaulted before their demise. And he said that it was due time that male characters be made to suffer similar indignation. So Christian may be a dick but I like Jack Reynor.
Lindsey: He had to try and redeem Christian somehow.
Brooke: So Christian runs out and finds Josh’s foot like sticking out of the ground. And then he runs into the chicken coup and finds Simon, hanging up and flayed open.
Lindsey: Like alive.
Brooke: Yeah. He like takes a few breaths and that to me, that was more traumatic than anything else. I really thought that like when he looked under at his face that he was gonna move. Like I was so tense waiting for that jump scare. And instead the elders find him and knock him out with a powder. And when he wakes up he is told that he can't speak or move and they kind of explain the ritual that nine lives must be sacrificed four for new bloods and four from Harga, plus one that the queen will decide whether it’s a new person or someone from the village and to pick. The person from the village they like pull a lottery ball thing and they kind of leave it up to the may queen to decide who will die. So they bring all the bodies of the sacrificed into the temple and we kind of see the various deaths of the people like Connie has been drowned. Mark has been skinned and they put a little fool hat on them because he is the aforementioned fool in the game skinning the fool. Then the bear is killed and gutted and Christian is put into the bear skin and put into the middle of the temple, meaning obviously that Dani chose Christian to die.
Lindsey: Nice.
Brooke: Meaning the two like additional village sacrifices are given like a drug and they light the temple on fire. And the village, they watch and then scream in the sacrifices echo and it burns down and Dani looks on and smiles. And that is Midsommar. This one like unsettled me. Like I wouldn’t say that I was afraid of this one. I could to sleep after watching this but I definitely was like thinking about it as I was laying there in bed type thing.
Lindsey: I'm definitely still thinking about simons breathing lungs outside of his body.
Brooke: Yeah. Yeah. And also the mallot to the face.
[Folksy Horror Transition Music]
Lindsey: So The Wicker Man. My tweet is in a telling of the ultimate commitment to the bit, a cop learns the hard way that if you don’t want to save the bees, you're deserving of death.
Brooke: Mine is in an island where no one can avoid being sketchy, Nic Cage somehow does not pick up on the sketchiness.
Lindsey: See I thought that’s like why he wasn’t- cause he does probe once with the teacher and she keeps giving like non answers and then he doesn’t probe more but I thought that he stopped probing because Willow was like don’t believe anyone so he was like why bother.
Brooke: But there's a difference between like not believing what they say and asking genuinely like any questions.
Lindsey: That’s fair. That’s fair. The wicker man was written and directed by Neil Labute starring Nic Cage. It's based on the 1973 film The Wicker Man that also draws from the original book which is Ritual by David Pinner. So the film received a lot of negative reviews with many people calling it unintentionally funny. So Nic Cage continues to reference this movie through like 2019 interviews. And he keeps claiming obviously he knew it was funny and like absurdist humor. I believe him. Cause I had a good time. So this movie as I said is a remake of the 1973 british horror movie The Wicker Man, which was directed by Robin Hardy. He was so skeptical of the film that he made his lawyers make Warner Brothers remove his name from any and all promotional materials. So if anything was lik based on the Robin Hardy film, he made them get rid of it.
Brooke: That’s really funny.
Lindsey: Christopher Lee, who was Lord Summersisle in the British film also had a really lame take of saying I don't believe in remakes. You can make a followup to a film but to remake a film with such history and success jus tdoesnt make sense to me and my response to him is that this is why we have this podast because dumb remakes are fun fuck you.
Brooke: Linds, we haven’t ever done a remake.
Lindsey: Yeah but the idea of being like you cannot touch something so precious and well made.
Brooke: Yeah. I am of the opinion that like a remake for a remakes sake is dumb. Like if you're gonna remake something change it.
Lindsey: But this did change stuff.
Brooke: Yeah again, I haven’t seen the original so I don’t know what. And like when Christopher Lee was quoted saying that I don’t know that he had seen the movie.
Lindsey: That’s fair. But I just think that bad funny movies are enjoyable.
Brooke: Just make an original bad funny movie you know?
Lindsey: That’s fair. There's also some original content that should never have been made.
Brooke: Well yeah. There's a lot of movies I wish I had not seen.
Lindsey: Anyway. The Wicker Man was nominated for five golden raspberry awards, which are parody awards and very embarrassing lost all categories which was for worst picture, which actor for Nic Cage, worst screenplay for LaBute, worst remake, and worst onscreen couple which was Cage and his bear suit. Nic Cage has had a lot of thoughts about this movie since 2006 when it came out til today. To put things into the Nic Cage timeline, this was like one of the first ones that he did right before he fell into like his why is he doing this movie, oh its because hes in a lot of debt.
Brooke: I feel like this was probably, he was already in that stage but the public wasn’t aware of it.
Lindsey: Yeah. But he defends this movie a lot. Nic Cage wanted to make like a sequel to this one and have his character be a ghost. And everyone was like no.
Brooke: Oh Nic Cage.
Lindsey: In a 2013 interview he said The Wicker Man is probably the best example of a movie where people are mystified because they think for some reason that we did not know that it was humorous even though I'm dressed in a bear suit doing these ridiculous things in this matriarchal society on the island. Like how can you not know that Neil and I were in on this absurdist humor. Okay. Have at it. That was a misconception. The director has also said similar things. That being said. Neil LaBute is also known for being a huge misogynist. He's mainly known for being a playwright. Not only just portraying like very violent men he also wrote a play called fat pig, which the entire plot is about whether or not a guy can love a girl regardless of her weight. Uh just offensive things of that line. So like unsure of it’s a joke that hes like this is what would happen after like a feminist society. This is women going too far. This is the revenge that women want. One entertainment weekly article put it this idea, which grows out of the filmmakers paranoid distrust of the contemporary feminine power works well enough to make the new wicker man into a nightmare of emasculation. I'm choosing to view it as like a satire of like masculinity and like the helpless damsel in distress characters who then like hilariously decide to gaslight this man for like fun.
Brooke: Yeah.
Lindsey: Like they didn’t need to do that.
Brooke: They didn’t need to do any of this.
Lindsey: One last tidbit is that one thing that Nicolas Cage apparently really pushed for and they didn’t let him do is when he got into the bear suit, he wanted to be in the bear suit for the remainder of the movie including to his death. He gave this interview in august of 2019 so like a month after Midsommar came out. So like if it was he saw the burning bearsuit in Midsommar and was like fuck I want that to be me.
Brooke: What could’ve been.
Lindsey: Like I should have done that the whole time. Another thing that he wanted was that he like really wanted to play up his character and have a silly handlebar moustache the whole time to like get across the point that his character is absurd and they also wouldn’t let him do that.
Brooke: See I feel like Nic Cage was like oh this movie is stupid but ill be stupider.
Lindsey: Opening scene, in a color coded movie that is so so so yellow it opens at a diner where cop Nic Cage, I will say his name is Edward, for the sake of we talk about Twilight far too much I’m only gonna call him Nic Cage cause I can't call him Edward without being like this is Edward Cullen. So Nic Cage and his cop friend are looking at a book that says everything's okay which is just funny. And like it has later reference where as soon as he gets to summersisle this book that says everything is okay is gone
Brooke: It’s a tape. They're self-help tapes. Its cassettes. Back in the era of cassettes.
Lindsey: He is patrolling the roads, giving people speeding tickets. Someone drops a baby doll out of their window so he pulls the car over to give the doll back. I honestly thought he was gonna give them a ticket for like literally or some shit, which I'm glad he didn’t do. But there's a young girl in the car, lets call her Rowen. Says good work. When he returns the doll and then when the mom says it won't happen again the daughter chucks the doll out the window, Nic Cage goes to pick it up, and a truck just runs into the car and it catches on fire.
Brooke: Such an aggressive thing.
Lindsey: It's so aggressive and so just like cheesy.
Brooke: Yeah.
Lindsey: As he tries to pull the girl out of the car she glares at him and Nic Cage gets thrust into the road by an explosion. Next scene he's at home recovering. Woman cop comes in and says there's rumors that Nic Cage might resign after this.
Brooke: That woman is like oh I heard about your commendation. What did he get a commendation for when he didn’t do anything? He didn’t save their lives? What was he being honored for? Hey man you almost did it?
Lindsey: Especially because she then gives the details that the bodies in the car weren’t found and the car was never registered so like they have no proof that people were even there.
Brooke: And also, so theres the thing I don’t understand. What do you mean they weren’t found? Nic Cage was there? Where did he go? When were the bodies removed? It's not like the car like fell off the cliff into the water and they never found the car it was like Nic Cage did you leave the scene? Why weren’t you there the whole time? Where did you go? You're now a suspect.
Lindsey: She drops off some sympathy cards to him, one of which is from a woman, someone that he used to be engaged to saying that her daughter went missing from Summer’s Isle. The picture is of Rowen, the girl who was in the car that theoretically exploded. He then reveals that he's pissed off at her so he doesn’t know if he, as a cop, should help this woman find her missing daughter that she technically wrote to him like as an officer. Not like dear could have been husband. The cop friend says that’s what a father is for. Not us. Even though its theoretically their job to find missing people but whatever.
Brooke: But not where they don’t have justiction.
Lindsey: Yeah but I feel like the vibe should be like – I’m all about vibes in these movies. I don’t know, I wouldn’t wan the people of my town to be like, I don’t know, fuck all those other missing children.
Brooke: I would probably be like oh we should call whoever has justiction there. Also the guy who he's talking to is like reading the letter and is like wow the plot thickens. Didn’t even know you had a plot and I was like oh no is this a foreshadow for this movie?
Lindsey: He decides to go to Summer’s Isle, which is an island off of the pacific northwest. He has some really dramatic and funny flashback scenes where he images seeing Rowen such as on a boat only for another tractor trailer to run into her, on the boat.
Brooke: I got jump scared by that. I literally wrong fuck you movie, how dare I get jump scared by a hallucination.
Lindsey: He hitches a ride with a small plane delivery person and makes it to Summer’s Isle where he's welcomed by the townspeople who says you can't be here, this is private property. So Nic Cage responds but I was invited and they say I don’t think so, so Nic says I'm a cop I’m allowed to be here so the townspeople say a what? And then he says I help people and then they say I don’t know about that, sounds fake. He doesn’t exactly say that but it's more or less what they said. Nic Cage gets distracted by one of the townspeople who has a bleeding bag and he says what is that a shark? And then they all smirk.
Brooke: Again. They're just so bad at being suspicious.
Lindsey: They tell them that Willow his ex fiance lives there but Rowen isn’t her daughter. He tries to book a room at an inn, which i don't know why an inn exists if people aren't allowed on the island but whatever.
Brooke: Sometimes you wanna take a staycation.
Lindsey: I don’t think any of these people want to take a staycation.
Brooke: You don’t know. We don’t know what they're like when they're not tricking Nic Cage.
Lindsey: That’s fair. They could be completely normal and it's just like once a year we play a bit.
Brooke: Yeah once a year we prank someone.
Lindsey: Specifically cops. If you watch the original and not the director's version. Did you watch the part with not the bees or did you watch the part with James Franco?
Brooke: I watched the part with the bees. There was James Franco?
Lindsey: That’s at the end i'll get to it. The bartender gives him mead and calls it a pleasure of the island made of honey and what not. And at first I wrote that the whatnot was definitely the blood of people of on the island and then I was like oh no theyre not gonna do that so that whatnot is like definitely drugs to fuck him up further.
Brooke: I think he's a drug addict. He doesn’t seem that freaked out by any of his hallucinations. It's just like oh cool take another pill. I'm like sir, I would be alarmed.
Lindsey: Nic Cage then makes a scene, yells to the whole bar that he is here on official business, that everyone is to know he is here on official business, and then he kills a bee on the bar and everyone freaks out cause I mean like first of all it was just uncalled for. And second honey is like the main thing that they make on the island. There's a whole big honeycomb field where they keep the bees. There's honeycomb everything. This island is for Cassandra. Presumably when they're not being weird. Willow leaves him a note saying that they're being watched and not to believe what the people in the town say to him. So Nic Cage and Willow meet in private. She says that she knows that someone on the island took her daughter. And Nic Cage promises to find her. He starts unpacking and they are sure to show some very bee specific epi pens.
Brooke: Yeah I was like a bee epi?
Lindsey: like it's not just an epi pen it's like bee epi.
Brooke: It only works on bees.
Lindsey: What is this an epi pen for bees? He overhears that the wicker man, the time of death and rebirth will be returning tomorrow. Nic Cage continues to hallucinate. He thinks that he sees Rowen in the woods so he follows her to this rundown barnhouse. While snooping around upstairs he falls through the barn. I'm pretty sure someone is speaking parseltongue in the background and then he wakes up in the inn. Nic Cage is suspicious that they have store bought honey in the inn on an island where they make honey. And yeah he asks the bartender and she's just like don’t worry about it and he’s like okay.
Brooke: Yeah he like doesn’t ask any followup questions. Like they give him like a suspicious answer and instead of questioning it he's just like yes that satisfied my question thank you.
Lindsey: He then notices pictures of young girls all over the wall for their harvest festival, though the one from last year is mysteriously missing. And they say that it broke.
Brooke: Much like the photos of the May queens in Midsommar.
Lindsey: Hmm-mmm. He asks some of the townspeople if they know Willow's daughter and they just kind of laugh and don’t answer. He asks the bartender what the day after today is and she says the day after tomorrow? That's a funny way to put it, that's April second. And he's like no tomorrow. And the bartenders like I already told you and asks if Nic Cage can take her with him when he leaves. But he's like y'all are wack and goes into the woods to ask more people if they know who Rowen is. He finds the schoolteacher and she asks what man is in their truest form and like three of the schoolgirls answer in unison phallic symbol phallic symbol. Literally unaddressed.
Brooke: Also I said no one on this island is able to lie directly. They all act so shady whenever a direct question is even asked. Edward would be right at home here.
Lindsey: Which like in my mind this is just like their fun couple days of gaslighting and like this is just how they are choosing to answer.
Brooke: It's just like from Nic Cage’s perspective. He's more frustrating than any of the villagers. Because you can be like villagers are playing into it. But he just doesn’t do anything about it.
Lindsey: Like this scene here is the only time where he a little bit probes.
Brooke: And even then it's like he probes but not really. Like he probes until he gets a sketchy answer and then moves on.
Lindsey: I mean he probably thinks he's gonna get further on his own.
Brooke: Like doesn’t even like run around looking in all the buildings for Rowen until way later. Like I feel like that should be thing number one. Like go around to every single house and be like I'm looking for this girl that’s missing. They'd probably say no but then just do it anyway.
Lindsey: He does that once he's like someone is going to die.
Brooke: Yeah and it's just like a bad detective. This is why you're just a highway cop.
Lindsey: Aw.
Brooke: Is this cop propaganda linds?
Lindsey: No because, wait til I get to the James Franco scene.
Brooke: I'm very excited about this.
Lindsey: The girls in class say that they don’t know Rowen. The teacher says if she existed they would know. And Nic Cage is like that’s suspicious and then points to an empty desk and asks whose it is and tries to open it and then a crow flies out and hes like girls what the fuck and they’re like we wanted to see how long it would stay in there. Nic Cage finds the attendance book and finds Rowens name in it, which has just been crossed off.
Brooke: Yeah the teachers just like no don’t look at that, you need permission. No stop, oh.
Lindsey: And is just like what the fuck and then the teacher gets mad, pulls him outside, and then she says you don’t understand. We’re not lying. If Rowen existed, we would know her. Willow isn’t lying either shes grieving. So Nic Cage was like oh so Rowens dead? And the teachers like I guess you would say that. When we die our body lives on in nature. It's in the air, it's in the trees, etc. so then he says then where's her body so he says exactly where you'd expect it to be? In the earth. And references that Rowen was burned to death.
Brooke: She says she’ll burn to death and Nic Cage says what the fuck did you say? And she says precisely what I meant to, she burned to death. And my first note was are we intentionally trying to be so blatantly creepy and the answer is yes they are. Like you didn’t need to change the tenses like that.
Lindsey: Im- I love some good uh, some good tense confusion in our gaslighting.
Brooke: If this was like Midsommar and they were like speaking their second language, I could understand there being a tense issue. But not these people speak English fluently. Just because you don’t view death the same doesn’t mean you don’t view grammar the same way.
Lindsey: Nic Cage then goes to find the grave because he wants proof. And Willow says that it's not Rowens grave. They put it there, I didn’t. so Nic Cage asks who is they and Willow says I don’t know whoever's doing all of this and it pans to a bunch of graves and an old crypt with a new lock. Willow says that they want to punish her for leaving because sister Summer’s Isle, who is the embodiment of the goddess who looks over the island, disapproves of her for leaving the island and coming back. She then sends I don’t know if our daughter will be okay and Nic Cage is like that can’t be right. And then just accepts that he's the father with no proof of any kind.
Brooke: You can't be that suspicious and that clueless.
Lindsey: Maybe he just thinks this is one big hallucination and is like this is working dream logic it doesn’t matter.
Brooke: Honestly. He would be the perfect sacrifice for Midsommar. He would be drinking the tea. Getting the shrooms on. He's like yes this is great. I'm loving it. Bring it all on. Nothing here is real.
Lindsey: Feel like the bear suit is back and they'd be like okay we have another volunteer.
Brooke: Yeah they wouldn’t need to drug him so that he can't move he'd be like yes put me in this bear suit. I'm ready.
Lindsey: Nic Cage goes to see Dr. Moss who is also the photographer of the harvest festival to ask for a copy of the photograph from last year that’s missing. She says- she says it'll take a little bit so he hides out in the bushes and waits as two cloaked women take Dr. Moss away saying it's time. And then he breaks into her house. Hefinds an ancient ritual book where he reads about a fertility festival that happens before the harvest festival where they sacrifice a young girl to promise a good harvest. In Europe that girl is then often burnt. Nic Cage is like oh that’s a weird coincidence, I must look further, and then goes into the back room and finds a bunch of like fetuses in jars and the room is lit by a bunch of candles that were just never blown out and left unattended.
Brooke: That would have gone against the vibe.
Lindsey We are all about vibes in these movies.
Brooke: Yeah.
Lindsey: So I get it. He finds a picture of Rowen at the festival with a note that it was the worst harvest on record. So he brings it to Willow and Willow’s like it’s a picture. And Nic Cage is like are you kidding me, this town is weird as fuck, obviously they blame her. And Willow’s like idk it’s a ceremony. And Nic Cage is like obviously they actually sacrifice people! And Willow’s like sounds fake but okay. Nic Cage continues going around trying to find more evidence of what actually happened. He comes to this hexagon patterned field, he accidentally finds himself on abee farm where ehs deeply allergic. He imagines Rowen as his body goes into shock and wakes up in dr moss’s care in sister Summerisle’s home. Nic Cage asks if they gave him his special bee specific adrenaline shot. And dr moss says no I treated you in the old way, but don’t think about it. Sister Summersisle is like oh the bees almost had you. It’s a pity. And Nic Cage is like it’s a pity in what way? That I’m alive or that I'm not alive and sister Summerisle just scoffs and tells him that he has rough potential. He asks for her permission to dig up Rowens grave and sister summer isle is like its fine but there wasn’t fowl play. And Nic Cage says I don’t know sacirfices are still murder, that sounds like fowl play. And sister summer isle is like well if you want to put it that way. She explains the background of the community, that she is an embodiment of the goddess who looks after the island and her ancestors were persecuted in Salem so they kept moving further and further to find a place where they could rule where they weren’t subservient to men. But they still keep them around because quote breeding you know? And Nic Cage is like don’t you want to fall in love? And she's like eh, not really but the Goddess wants offspring. Nic Cage digs up the grave and more or less finds burnt corn husks. Though he goes looking for Rowen’s real body, he finds the crypt door unlocked, he finds her sweater in the sewer so he goes into the sewer when the door closes on him. Willow finds him the next day-
Brooke: When he meets up with Willow she like sniffs the sweater.
Lindsey: As if it hasn’t been like soaked in sewer water and would smell like Rowen.
Brooke: One it had to have been soaked in sewer water, two as if her daughter is actually missing, three as if Nic Cage is watching her to like prove that she cares about her daughter when he's not even looking. I'm like so why are you gaslighting the audience at this point.
Lindsey: He's convinced that something weird is going on so he goes to sister Summerisle’s house which has all sorts of bee and honeycomb decorations. He finds a man covered in boils sick in bed, a woman with bees all over her. And he realizes that the townspeople are going through with this ceremony of death and rebirth where he assumes that they're going to kill Rowen if she is still alive. He tries to round up the men to revolt and they want nothing to do with him. So he starts barging into houses looking for Rowen demanding that the children that are there take off their animal masks which they are wearing to prepare for the festival and the parents are like don’t you need permission to be barging into our houses and he's like I don’t need permission and continues to do it anyway. He goes to the pilot to ask him if Rowen tried to escape the island and finds the pilot dead with like his lips sewn shut. The festival-
Brooke: Why did they kill him?
Lindsey: I mean he did bring someone to the island when they specifically told him not to.
Brooke: But they specifically wanted Nic Cage to be brought to the island.
Lindsey: Like he was gonna get there eventually they just wanted to like, set him in a trap that he was going to fall for.
Brooke: They just wanted to make him think it was even creepier than it was
Lindsey: The festival begins, they all have animal head masks, some of the kids are dressed up as bees and they're really cute. Nic Cage beats up the bartender to get her bear outfit. He puts it on, full bear, as a disguise so no one will know its specifically him. The festival takes all of the women dressed as animals through the honeycomb fields over to where they have Rowen tied up as a sacrifice. Nic Cage as the bear knocks out the person conducting the ceremony and runs off with Rowen as they are leaving his phone rings, which I don’t know why- like he asks for help but like the island doesn’t get service and it also plays no other purpose. He takes off the bear suit, much to real Nic Cage's dismay, and he and Rowen run away but Rowen runs back to the festival asking Willow if she did it right. Then they reveal that all they really needed was a man, connected to them, to come there of his own volition to be sacrificed and his fate was chosen 7 years ago when Willow left the town to be with him to have a daughter. Nic Cage tries to fight the villagers off but obviously theres like hundreds of them. One of them grabs him and he says this won't bring back your damn honey. They lift him up into the giant wicker man. I said the thing, ha.
Brooke: Is this when he also says this is murder? And im like obviously this is murder.
Lindsey: Yes.
Brooke: Like, it's not gonna stop them, they know what they're doing Nic Cage.
Lindsey: This was the whole plan. But Rowen lights it on fire, the doctor photographer sets up her camera, and pieces of the wicker man fall to the ground. So I feel like when you search this movie, one of the main things that come up was the not the bees scene.
Brooke: Yeah.
Lindsey: To which I was like what parallel universe version of this did I watch. Apparentlywhat I watched was the original one and the dvd version had an unrated alternate ending where he is overpowered and attacked by the villagers, then sedated with a hive of bees, which is now here the scene of him being like not the bees is.
Brooke: Yeah
Lindsey: And then they omit the next scene, which is what I watched. So then 6 months later James Franco is at a bar. And he goes to hit on two women, Willow and the bartender. James Franco tells the girls that he's a police officer. That he likes to help people. Then the bartender asks where he's going after this and he says I don’t know probably to my apartment and says the same line to James Franco that she did earlier to Nic Cage in the movie which is well when you go there, can you take me with you. And then it ends. So my thing was a, I think that line was only said as like a way of saying that she repeats it. My other thing is every year they go out and find a cop and take him to sacrifice. So in you asking if its cop propaganda that’s why I laughed.
Brooke: I did not get that scene. I did notice it did say like unrated.
Lindsey: Yeah so like yeah that was the dvd unrated version.
Brooke: Interesting interesting interesting interesting interesting. It’s a bear. I would like that to be playing while Nic Cage is wearing the bear suit. It’s a bear.
[Folksy Horror Transition Music]
Lindsey: Brooke, what movie did you like better?
Brooke: This one’s hard. Like Midsommar 100 percent I think is a better movie, but I was less unsettled by The Wicker Man, so. Like if I was with friends and they wanted to watch like a horror movie and I had to suggest one of these I think I would rather put on The Wicker Man because I would laugh.
Lindsey: That’s fair.
Brooke: Like seeing Simon flayed open, seeing the people jump from the cliff. That’s just so visually horrific that I don't know if I could just watch that over and over again.
Lindsey: I like Midsommar more but yeah. I feel like I have to be like I'm going to be unsettled. And that would have to be my preface of going into it. Rather than just laughing at Nic Cage.
Brooke: Yeah. Nic Cage.
Lindsey: Equally suspicious in his lack of suspicion.
Brooke: I think if Nic Cage's character went to the village in Midsommar like he would never question it.
Lindsey: I think he'd have a good time there. I think that he would want to dance. And he wouldn’t be allowed to.
Brooke: He would be the May queen.
Lindsey: He'd love to be the May queen. And I think he'd be like why do I have to be astrologically compatible with these people. I'm born to dance. You can dance if you want to, you can leave your friends behind. Because the rest of the village killed them. And if your friends don’t dance-
Brooke: Then they must be dead.
Lindsey: Then they are not friends of mine.
Brooke: Then they don’t exist.
Lindsey: If your friends don’t dance then they were sacrificed.
Brooke: If your friends don’t dance then they have already been burned or they will be burned. Hard to say.
Lindsey: This has been a lovely horror month.
Brooke: It really has. I didn’t get too spooked. I don’t know what my total jump scare count was. But for those movies I think it was five. The Wicker Man got me a bunch.
Lindsey: That’s because they're the like jump scares that I hate that are just like I'm gonna make this loud thing be in your face. Whether or not it's scary it's just a loud thing that’s in your face so like obviously I'm gonna jump.
Brooke: Yeah i don't think I was ever afraid of The Wicker Man.
Lindsey: Yeah whereas like I was alarmed in Midsommar the whole time where The Wicker Man just played loud noises so obviously my body is gonna be like loud noise, ah.
Brooke: I thought it was gonna be a lot worse like when they first arrived and did the upside down thing and I was really unsettled. I was like oh no. Like this may be bad. And then like I don’t know I settled into it. I acclimated.
Lindsey: It's what they want.
Brooke: Yeah. I'm glad no one forced me to take shrooms right away.
Lindsey: Fucking Mark.
Brooke: Thanks for listening to this episode. If you liked it, share it with your friend from Sweden.
Lindsey: Share it with the person that you would date to get pregnant with to tie them into your community, to then sacrifice them.
Brooke: That’s way to specific, Linds. No one will have that experience. They're not gonna share this episode then.
Lindsey: Okay. Share this with your friends that you would either be friends with or date purely to take home to your family.
Brooke: Or you can share it with your friend who goes along with bits.
Lindsey: That’s probably something you'd actually want to admit to.
Brooke: Yeah be like hey you go along with bits. This entire island is for you. Except the bit is murder. And follow us on social media. We are @filmsquidspod on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
Lindsey: Or visit our website at filmkidsgiantsquids.com.
Brooke: Woo! Spooky month is done, I don’t have to watch horror for a year.
[Outro Music]
Brooke: Film Kids Giant Squids is produced and hosted by Lindsey Buttel and Brooke Hoppe. Intro music is by the band Poly Action. Transition music is Pagan Cross by Shane Ivers. Editing by Brooke Hoppe. Until next time kids