The Craft (1996) & The Craft: Legacy (2020)

[00:00:24] Welcome to the second Spooktober seasonal special for Wool-Shift-Dust. And if you say what the second, what was the first, then I invite you to scroll back in the feed to last Halloween where there are several episodes covering Edgar Allan Poe and Mike Flanagan's fall of the House of Usher in both the public and private feeds.

[00:00:45] But this year, this is Witchtober year. So we are going to be talking about a classic witch movie from the 90s, The Craft. And I have here with me today Catherine October Matthews, who is not only my friend, but also a very talented writer and artist. Her website is linked in the show notes. I invite you to check it out and check out her photography and other things.

[00:01:08] I'm going to introduce her in a second, but just to let you know, this podcast will be spoiler free to start until after the first break. And Silozenz and Storizzenz, please do also keep an eye on the book club feed tomorrow where you will also be getting an episode with me and Marilyn Arpikila talking about what witches are, where the idea of witches came from, and what exactly that means to be.

[00:01:38] Today, but that ties very closely to what Catherine and I are about to be discussing. So let's bring her in and stick around after our discussion for a preview of more Spooktober content on the Lorehounds Network and updates about this feed as well.

[00:01:52] And finally, just a quick heads up that we are going to be brushing against a number of serious topics that are covered in this film, such as self-harm and sexual assault. So please be warned and take care of yourself. And if this discussion triggers any worrying thoughts, then I urge you to speak to someone in your life. But this is, I promise, a fun conversation. So let's get into it.

[00:02:44] Hail to the guardians of the watchtowers of the north by the powers of motherhood.

[00:02:49] Father and earth, hear us.

[00:02:52] Aid us in our magical working on this maze eve.

[00:02:57] Welcome, Catherine, friend, writer, photographer, fellow victim of the American high school culture of the 90s.

[00:03:04] You do a whole lot of different things. How would you introduce yourself and describe your work?

[00:03:10] I would say that I am an author, artist, editor of both text and photography and independent publisher.

[00:03:19] Okay. Yep. A lot of things, like I said. And we'll talk about this again at the end. But if you want to check out her work, then go to octobernight.com, right? Did I get that right?

[00:03:29] October with a K.

[00:03:30] Yeah.

[00:03:32] And very important second question. Would you rather have your fingers turned into snakes or have cockroaches crawl out of your sleeves?

[00:03:42] The important questions. I would rather have cockroaches come out of my sleeves because...

[00:03:47] Oh, really?

[00:03:47] Those you can shake off. I don't think you can shake off snake fingers.

[00:03:52] See, this shows my phobia for cockroaches because I would rather snake fingers because at least it's not cockroaches.

[00:04:02] Oh. So, yes, we are here talking about both films in the Craft series.

[00:04:07] So we're going to start, obviously, with the original from 1996.

[00:04:11] And then we're going to also talk a bit about the new sequel slash reboot from 2020.

[00:04:17] Would you think it's a sequel or a reboot?

[00:04:20] Neither. I think your question is appropriate because it's a bit of a reboot.

[00:04:28] But, of course, it continues on from the original in some ways.

[00:04:33] Mm-hmm.

[00:04:34] Yeah, we'll get into spoilers after a spoiler warning.

[00:04:38] But, yeah, I mean, basically, to set the premise, both movies are about a girl with a talent for witchcraft who moves to a new town and finds herself the fourth in a coven of high school witches.

[00:04:49] So, Catherine, what's your background with the original The Craft movie from 1996?

[00:04:54] Were you a fan when it came out? Were you into it?

[00:04:57] I think so.

[00:04:59] So I would have been around 16 when it came out.

[00:05:02] So probably exactly the target audience for it.

[00:05:07] I think it didn't particularly strike me the minute that I saw it.

[00:05:13] But it certainly resonated with my experience in a way that lasted.

[00:05:19] I encountered people who reminded me of those people.

[00:05:23] And, you know, further into my teenage years from, like, the years of 17 and 18, I think I encountered more people who were into Wicca or were, let's say, just in the goth aesthetic, which has a bit of overlap there.

[00:05:43] Mm-hmm.

[00:05:45] So maybe not an immediate impact, but it did have its place.

[00:05:50] What about you?

[00:05:52] I mean, I was, like, obsessed with it when it came out.

[00:05:55] So I was into Wicca, or actually I realize that I'm more into traditional witchcraft, which is –

[00:06:02] But Marilyn and I are doing a tie-in episode where we're going to talk all about what all of this means that's going to be available for the book club listeners.

[00:06:11] But anyway, yeah.

[00:06:12] So I was –

[00:06:14] But it was something –

[00:06:15] I wasn't, like, you know, forming a coven or anything.

[00:06:18] It was just something I was quietly reading about and interested in it basically as a nature-based religion, which made more sense to me than the other options I was being presented.

[00:06:27] But my mom didn't love that.

[00:06:32] I can't imagine.

[00:06:33] I kind of understand.

[00:06:35] But, you know, it was also because this was – so I was 14 when this movie came out.

[00:06:40] So this is, you know, not long after or, you know, basically we're still feeling the repercussions of the satanic panic.

[00:06:49] And where all the things that a nerd like me loved were considered potentially threatening to parents because they were told, like, this is satanic stuff.

[00:06:58] This is – it's like, no, it's, like, literally about hugging trees.

[00:07:05] Yeah.

[00:07:05] At some point I was like, I wanted an altar, but it was like you put candles on the altar.

[00:07:10] And she's, like, thinking I'm going to sacrifice chickens.

[00:07:12] So I was like, I'm the one who expresses an interest in vegetarianism, not killing animals.

[00:07:17] Anyway.

[00:07:18] So it was – seeing this film, like, was – I was past that where I was still quietly reading about it.

[00:07:26] I still have the books on my shelf behind me.

[00:07:27] But, you know, it was – I had, quote, unquote, grown out of that phase a bit.

[00:07:32] But it's still – I felt seen by it.

[00:07:34] And I think – I think that there's other things, reasons why especially young women at that time latched onto this film.

[00:07:42] Do you agree?

[00:07:43] I have a whole chapter I could write about why women latch onto it.

[00:07:48] I mean, I think that you cannot talk about witchcraft without talking about it as being one of the ways in which females are – have empowerment.

[00:08:03] And the attempts to demonize any type of female empowerment kind of follows on from that.

[00:08:12] So if you talk about – I mean, obviously we're not – I don't know that we're going to get into the full breadth and depth of witchcraft.

[00:08:19] But if you look at one of the avenues of what is called witchcraft, which is just healing, midwifery, that sort of thing.

[00:08:28] You know, that is one of the avenues by which women had both influence and the capacity to support themselves financially.

[00:08:36] Yeah.

[00:08:36] So it seems quite natural in a male-dominated culture that that would be squelched as much as possible.

[00:08:47] And why it would be fascinating to young girls and women as a source of empowerment where they can – where they do not have to receive power from a man but can find it within.

[00:09:03] Yeah.

[00:09:04] Yeah.

[00:09:04] Yeah.

[00:09:05] And I think, yeah, that's indeed – that's something that we see especially well displayed in the first movie.

[00:09:13] If listeners are getting a sense that I might prefer one of the movies, you won't be surprised.

[00:09:19] But, yeah, and I think there's – it's just also being made positive.

[00:09:23] Like, because at the time when I was young, it wasn't cool to be a girl into video games and Star Wars and things like that.

[00:09:34] And movies like this, they were like, weirdness is your power.

[00:09:38] You know, just being a little different, that's special.

[00:09:41] So, really, we're reassuring.

[00:09:44] But I also have to ask, how do you – how well do you feel that they portrayed the high school aspect of it, like high school in the 90s?

[00:09:52] Did you identify with it then?

[00:09:53] Does it give you flashbacks now?

[00:09:56] Maybe not high school per se, but teenageness, I feel – and I'm going to say this about actually both movies.

[00:10:04] I feel like both movies capture that kind of alienation and discomfort of being a teenager really well.

[00:10:12] And that sense of being so uncertain in your body, uncertain with your peers, uncertain with, you know, your identity and how you fit in.

[00:10:26] All those things, they both, I think, capture that awkwardness really well.

[00:10:31] Yeah.

[00:10:32] No, I agree.

[00:10:33] Although, yeah, I do have also like a therapeutic traumatic response to seeing, you know, just how – two things in particular.

[00:10:44] It's all about socialization and like the desperate need of someone to be in a group to the extent it will cause them to be cruel to other people.

[00:10:55] That's something that I definitely recognized.

[00:10:58] And, you know, I was – sometimes I was on the receiving end, but often like I have traumatic thoughts about not stopping it either, you know, not being the hero that I thought I might be or something.

[00:11:11] Yeah, heard.

[00:11:12] Yeah.

[00:11:12] I mean, that's – I think that's a really valid point.

[00:11:16] And what I recognize too as part of the kind of alienation is how you might befriend people, not necessarily because they're friend-worthy, but because, you know, as you said, in both of these movies, someone is moving to a new town.

[00:11:32] Mm-hmm.

[00:11:33] Speaking from my own experience, I also moved to a new town for my junior year – or sorry, yeah, my junior year of high school.

[00:11:39] So when I was 16, 17.

[00:11:40] So actually, again, coming back to the point that I resonated with this a little bit after it came out, I also shared that experience of having to kind of rebuild a social circle from the ground up in an entirely new school.

[00:11:55] And so what I also see there is in a – when you're in that totally new environment and just looking to make any kind of grounding connection with people who are willing to, let's say, just sit down and have lunch with you, you might make compromises or you might just grasp at straws.

[00:12:18] You might just befriend people not because they're going to be long-term friends, but because they're – because of companionship.

[00:12:27] Right.

[00:12:28] Because of the socially – the social shark tank that is high school.

[00:12:34] Mm-hmm.

[00:12:35] Yeah.

[00:12:35] So this transitions into what did you think – you know, like I said, we're not going to do spoilers just yet, but overall, what did you think of the two films, The Craft and The Craft Legacy from 2020?

[00:12:49] So I do think that, as I said, it captures teenage alienation really well, both of them.

[00:12:57] Mm-hmm.

[00:12:58] Mm-hmm.

[00:12:58] I think both of them speak to the idea of female empowerment through witchcraft.

[00:13:04] I mean, I think that's an unavoidable –

[00:13:06] Right.

[00:13:07] That's the essence.

[00:13:08] Yeah.

[00:13:08] Yeah.

[00:13:09] I think both look to these characters who feel disempowered and are looking for ways to control themselves.

[00:13:21] But, of course, it gets into this problem of the hunger for power, which, of course, then gets transformed in some way.

[00:13:31] Um, I think, you know, re-watching the original Craft, I was mostly surprised how terrifying, how genuinely terrifying Faruza Balk is.

[00:13:44] She is incredible.

[00:13:46] It was amazing to come back to her after all this time and just still think, yep, she would intimidate the hell out of me.

[00:13:55] Yeah.

[00:13:59] It isn't real.

[00:14:00] Then why are you still bleeding?

[00:14:03] One thing in particular that stood out to me as well with the first one, and in contrast to the second one, is just how different the experience of witchcraft and, in general, esoterica would be to people of our generation in the 90s being in high school.

[00:14:24] If somebody said to you something about witchcraft or Wicca or anything, you would say, well, what's that?

[00:14:31] And then if you wanted to know something more, okay, that person might give you their take on it.

[00:14:36] But you couldn't look up Wikipedia.

[00:14:38] You know, you couldn't Google it for more information.

[00:14:40] You couldn't ask ChatGPT, hey, gave me the lowdown.

[00:14:43] You would, I don't know, go to Barnes & Noble and see what two books you could find on it.

[00:14:49] You would go to your library and you would get a smattering of information, which, again, you couldn't just scroll and get a quick sense of, but you would have to look through a book.

[00:15:05] Right.

[00:15:07] You know, you couldn't watch a YouTube or hear a podcast on the history of witchcraft or how people practice it in modern times or whatever.

[00:15:16] Right.

[00:15:16] So the fact that Nancy Fruzbaugh's character is her teacher, in a way, in this introduction to the craft, it really, that really resonated as true.

[00:15:30] That there's probably someone who you encounter in your life who's into something and then they tell you.

[00:15:36] And in a way, they inform how you learn about something because they may put certain books into your hands or they'll take you to a certain shop.

[00:15:45] You would be so lucky if you had your local witchcraft shop like they have in the first episode of the craft.

[00:15:54] So that really struck me because when, you know, of course, the second movie comes around, there's not, you know, there's not a dearth of information on witchcraft.

[00:16:05] They just kind of surely say, we're witches.

[00:16:09] And it's...

[00:16:10] Sparkle magic.

[00:16:11] Yeah, right.

[00:16:13] So there's clearly a difference there in generational availability of knowledge.

[00:16:20] Mm-hmm.

[00:16:21] Yeah.

[00:16:22] Yeah.

[00:16:23] Yeah.

[00:16:23] I mean, I know, like, because, you know, obviously to do this podcast, I started looking more into the making of stuff.

[00:16:31] And so they did have on the original movie, they had a Wiccan consultant and also the screenwriter himself did a lot of the research beforehand.

[00:16:42] So and you can feel that, that it feels grounded.

[00:16:44] It feels, you know, like I said, I was reading these books.

[00:16:47] So I was like, yes, that is until the part where they actually do magic, you know, that is basically how this would go.

[00:16:55] So the second one just, yeah, felt a bit, a bit lazy on that front, let's say.

[00:17:04] I mean, overall, I was surprised how well the original holds up.

[00:17:06] And the music, the music for both was quite good rock music.

[00:17:11] I was happy with both soundtracks.

[00:17:13] I think for the original, I actually appreciate the writing more now than I did then because I have more perspective and life experience and film.

[00:17:25] And yeah, I think the second one, you know, I think no complaints about the casting or the production values or any of that stuff.

[00:17:35] It's just, it just feels like the story missed the point of the original in a lot of ways.

[00:17:41] And I think, you know, the original was definitely for the Xenial millennia, the Xenial generation.

[00:17:52] Which for anyone who doesn't know, it's like people who are on the cusp of being Gen X and a millennial.

[00:18:00] And it's very specific to that.

[00:18:02] So of course, I'm going to respond to that because that's me.

[00:18:05] I want to hear, you said, you said you really respect the writing.

[00:18:09] Tell me, what about the writing of the first one seems strong to you?

[00:18:13] I mean, we'll, we'll get into it more, but for me, it's, I think that it's, it's the, there is a relative, like, it's, it's a breezy movie that I, you know, doesn't go deep on backstory.

[00:18:26] But it does, it does give every character in an ensemble cast a chance to show motivation for the most part.

[00:18:35] But there is, I'll talk about, you know, where it leans on tropes too much, particularly with the male characters.

[00:18:40] But yeah.

[00:18:41] So, but the second one, this, you know, people complain about media being too woke and I'm proudly quote unquote woke.

[00:18:51] That word.

[00:18:54] But I feel like the, that it was, it, it employed those concepts in a kind of lazy, non-realistic way in the second movie.

[00:19:05] So that's why I'm also just like, I got really frustrated with that one.

[00:19:08] Um, I think there's this, yeah, lack of driving purpose in the second film and the first film, it feels like it has it, you know, it had something to say and it, it purposefully crafted the script to, to say that in a way that was, you know, uh, didn't take up too much time, but also felt, uh, to me anyway, compelling and natural.

[00:19:39] And, you know, it escalated in a way that I found all too recognizable.

[00:19:44] Yeah.

[00:19:45] I hear you on that.

[00:19:46] And I agree with you.

[00:19:47] I think about that.

[00:19:48] My, my main complaint with the second one, I would say was that the characters, I mean, despite that they built up this relationship between the daughter and the mother a lot more, the relationship that the lead character had with the other witches.

[00:20:08] Was lackluster, superficial.

[00:20:15] And the other three characters were basically interchangeable.

[00:20:18] They had no discernible character or path of their own, no agenda of their own.

[00:20:23] They were kind of just, it was like a, a band with a lead character and the witches.

[00:20:32] Jersey and the witches.

[00:20:34] Yes.

[00:20:35] Lily and the witches.

[00:20:36] Yeah.

[00:20:36] Lily and the witches.

[00:20:37] Mm-hmm.

[00:20:38] Yeah.

[00:20:39] Okay.

[00:20:39] So let's, uh, let's use this to transition into the production story behind it before we get deeper into the story story.

[00:20:47] So still in the spoiler free zone, um, the original, both of them were distributed by Columbia house, uh, sorry, Columbia pictures.

[00:20:54] Um, the second one was, is a Blumhouse production, but the concept for the original craft, it was, uh, came from a collaboration between a producer named Douglas wick.

[00:21:05] Who wanted to make a film about, uh, uh, the high school experience blended with witchcraft and the screenwriter, Peter Filardi.

[00:21:13] He, he had, uh, previously done some other, um, some other, another horror film with like adjacent ideas.

[00:21:22] And so he had gotten interested in this side of, uh, practicing witchcraft in the real world.

[00:21:28] So the two of them worked together and then Andrew Fleming was brought on to direct and, um, he, his other work, like he's all over the place.

[00:21:37] He did bad dreams, which was a horror film in the nineties and Dick.

[00:21:41] Um, that was a, definitely not a horror film, like a high school hijinks film.

[00:21:45] Who was in it again?

[00:21:46] I think, I feel it was like Reese Witherspoon and anyway, yeah.

[00:21:51] Um, no, no, it was Kirsten Dunst.

[00:21:54] Oh, Kirsten Dunst.

[00:21:55] Sorry.

[00:21:56] And, uh, Michelle Williams.

[00:21:57] Okay.

[00:21:58] Yeah.

[00:21:58] Yeah.

[00:21:58] No, you're right.

[00:22:00] Exactly.

[00:22:00] But yeah, the, the young twenties or, you know, playing teens, uh, version of them.

[00:22:07] So yeah, he was kind of all over the place.

[00:22:08] And then he and Peter Filardi, the screenwriter, um, well they worked together to do the final screenplay.

[00:22:15] And yeah, Filardi, by the way, also you, he's probably best known for flat liners and also

[00:22:21] 2004 is version of Salem's lot.

[00:22:23] There's a new Salem's lot coming out.

[00:22:25] Like I'm like this, Stephen King is on a, uh, an adaptation kick right now.

[00:22:31] Um, so the original box office was 6.7 million on opening weekend.

[00:22:37] So it opened at number one and it ended up earning 55.6 million worldwide, but the budget

[00:22:42] was 15 million.

[00:22:44] So this was considered a surprise hit and then also a sleeper hits, you know, because

[00:22:49] it, it just kept growing as it stayed out in the theater and more people heard about

[00:22:54] it.

[00:22:54] Um, the reviews are, you know, somewhat middling, um, on Rotten Tomatoes, which again, the way

[00:23:01] Rotten Tomatoes views reviews work is for the critics.

[00:23:05] It just basically says, is this positive?

[00:23:07] Is this negative?

[00:23:08] And then, um, so it doesn't really show any of the nuance.

[00:23:12] And then for now they have this new thing called the popcorn meter for the audience side where

[00:23:17] it's, uh, you have to have, you have to be verified that you bought a ticket through Fandango.

[00:23:22] That must not apply to these old movies, but anyway.

[00:23:24] So the critics said 57% audience, 65%, uh, had positive reviews, a Metacritic, which is usually

[00:23:32] considered more accurate.

[00:23:33] Critics have 55 and, um, and the audience has 7.8 out of 10.

[00:23:39] So the audience is like generally more favorable than it sounds like on Rotten Tomatoes.

[00:23:43] It was nominated for a bunch of like the, you know, it was definitely not nominated for

[00:23:48] any Oscars or something.

[00:23:49] Fine.

[00:23:50] I get that.

[00:23:50] But you can see by the awards it was nominated for that it had a real teen appeal.

[00:23:56] So it was nominated for the Saturn Awards for best horror film and best supporting actress

[00:24:00] for Frieza Balk.

[00:24:02] And it won the MTV award for best fight, uh, between Balkan and, and Robin Tenney.

[00:24:08] And back when we were that age, MTV awards were, you know, really cool and important.

[00:24:17] Oh gosh.

[00:24:18] I just now feel old, but that's true.

[00:24:20] Yeah.

[00:24:20] MTV awards were super cool.

[00:24:24] And it seems to have like started a teen witch trend because this was one of the first

[00:24:29] times they hadn't been marketing to young women because, you know, there's always this prejudice

[00:24:34] against marketing towards women.

[00:24:37] And so this was a movie that made them go, Oh, huh.

[00:24:41] Maybe there's, yeah, there's something there.

[00:24:43] They keep coming in, buying tickets for this film.

[00:24:45] Um, so after this came like the Sabrina to the teenage witch and charmed and now the film's

[00:24:52] considered a cult classic.

[00:24:54] So we already talked about this a bit, but why do you think that which stories and, and

[00:25:00] this one, um, has such an enduring legacy?

[00:25:06] That's a really hard question because I don't want to, um, project too much of my own thoughts

[00:25:11] about the movie to see like why it, it was successful with others.

[00:25:16] But I think that there, you know, there aren't that many movies that take on witchcraft or

[00:25:24] witches. Um, and the, the fact that I think it put, it put their story at the front. So,

[00:25:34] I mean, do you remember what year the witches of Eastwick came out? That was kind of around

[00:25:38] the same time, wasn't it?

[00:25:40] Um, Hey Alexa, what year did the witches of Eastwick come out?

[00:25:45] The film, the witches of Eastwick was released on November 12th, 1987.

[00:25:50] Okay. So like a decade before and sorry to anyone who's ALA, AL EXA I activated.

[00:25:57] Right. So, okay. So the witches of Eastwick came out, which was another movie that put

[00:26:02] like female witches kind of at the,

[00:26:05] but older, yeah, older. Yeah. They were not young. Um, but I think there was again, coming back to

[00:26:13] this idea of female empowerment and the power within women. I think there was this attraction

[00:26:21] towards that. And when applied to the teenage years, I think there's a whole lot of stories,

[00:26:28] which are aimed at the teenage life, which are basically about alienation and finding

[00:26:35] your way and, um, trying to find, especially for, for kids who are, I don't know, orphans a la Harry

[00:26:44] Potter or, um, uh, moving to a new town or all, all of those types of, um, on your own stories during

[00:26:54] childhood or teenage years. I think there's a whole lot of narratives to be had about discovering a

[00:27:01] secret power, which elevates you, if not in actual status, but in your own perceived experience

[00:27:11] so that you can control the situations where you previously could not.

[00:27:15] Right.

[00:27:16] And look, that's why covens have always been so important because half the battle of having powers

[00:27:20] is believing you do.

[00:27:22] So I think all of those are really attractive stories to people who feel powerless in their

[00:27:29] lives or feel some sense of powerlessness in their lives. So I can kind of imagine that

[00:27:36] being the resonating factor, but also I think, you know, this is a couple of years before

[00:27:44] Matrix came out and also kind of capitalized on the, the, the dark aesthetic and made it really big.

[00:27:53] So that was big in the nineties. Yeah. I wore a lot of black in the nineties.

[00:27:57] So I think it also made these weirdos sexy and cool.

[00:28:04] Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And yeah, I mean, I think, yeah, it is because it's,

[00:28:11] it's, it's even for Rosa Balk, we'll talk about the ending of the movie later, but she,

[00:28:19] she is a antagonistic character at various moments. And, but you still feel that she's just

[00:28:28] like, so she's doing it because she's just so fed up. She's so frustrated. And that's something

[00:28:34] that people can identify with. I do think another reason why the movie stuck with me is that there

[00:28:40] is a sense of justice also, not to get spoilery, but, uh, there are consequences.

[00:28:47] Yeah. They perceive it's, it's a little bit superhero-ish in the sense that they perceive

[00:28:55] themselves writers of wrong to whatever extent they're right or wrong about that, but that's

[00:29:01] how they view themselves as people who are correcting injustices.

[00:29:06] Yeah. So around, so that this, uh, film gain this cult status and then around 2010, there

[00:29:14] was a direct DVD, direct to DVD sequel announced, but then it was canceled and then it ended

[00:29:21] up being, so later they're like, okay, we're going to do this theatrical release, but then

[00:29:25] 2020 happened. So it ended up being direct streaming after all. Um, and yeah, I have to say

[00:29:32] going into it. A lot of fans were just of the original. We're not happy about the idea of a

[00:29:37] sequel. So people were ready to hate on it. We'll discuss whether that's warranted a bit more, but,

[00:29:42] uh, the writer and director is Zoe Lister Jones, who's also known for how it ends in bandaid

[00:29:50] both. I've heard of both movies, but has, I haven't watched either. You?

[00:29:55] No, never. I have seen neither of them.

[00:29:59] Yeah. So I can't compare this work to any other. Um, this one, the last one was filmed in LA. This

[00:30:05] one was filmed in Toronto. Is it supposed to be LA? I don't know. I didn't even clock that.

[00:30:11] I guess it must be because of the end.

[00:30:14] Hmm.

[00:30:15] And the box office was, it was a box office bomb. It only earned 2.3 million worldwide on an 18

[00:30:22] million budget, but also we have to keep in mind that this was the pandemic. So,

[00:30:26] you know, we can't say that it might not have done better. The reviews are, uh, so on Rotten

[00:30:33] Tomatoes, it's 48% for the critics, 25% for the audiences. And on Metacritic, it's 54 from the

[00:30:40] critics and 3.4 from the audiences. But then again, you never know how much effect the, I just don't

[00:30:46] want there to be a sequel to this film, uh, thing there is in there. Uh, any surprises in there

[00:30:52] for you? Not really. No. I mean, I, I, in a way, I'm always kind of rooting for sequels or

[00:31:01] if we, if we can at least casually call this a sequel, um, but it's, I, I,

[00:31:09] I, in a way.

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[00:32:04] I agree with you that it kind of, it didn't have that same driving need to be made the way the

[00:32:13] first one did. So it took a, so I put it. Yeah. Okay. Well, we are going to get into the actual plot

[00:32:25] breakdown. So we're going to take a quick break and there's going to be full spoilers as soon as we come

[00:32:31] back. Beware, you are now entering the spoiler section. Make sure you have watched and or read

[00:32:41] the thing we are talking about if you don't want to be spoiled.

[00:32:52] Okay. So we are back to break down the films, starting with the first one, which is going to

[00:32:59] get more of our attention for obvious reasons. Um, so we are going to take turns, uh, recapping the

[00:33:06] plot synopsis, and then we're going to take a deeper dive into the characters and themes and

[00:33:10] specific scenes. It's like that. So, uh, we're going to, yeah, go one after the other. I'll start.

[00:33:16] So the craft 1996 Sarah moves from San Francisco to the Los Angeles with her father and stepmother

[00:33:22] at her new school. She befriends a trio of outcast girls who are rumored to be witches

[00:33:27] and worship a powerful earth deity. They call Manon. When Bonnie sees Sarah levitating a pencil in class,

[00:33:35] she and her friends are convinced that Sarah can complete their coven as quote unquote,

[00:33:39] the fourth, the fourth direction slash element that will help them unlock new powers to grant

[00:33:45] them shortcuts out of their problems. Nancy becomes power hungry and encourages the other to join her

[00:33:51] in a right called invocation of the spirit, despite being warned against the spell by Lirio, the owner

[00:33:56] of the local occult shop and practicing witch upon completion of the spell, Nancy is struck by lightning.

[00:34:02] The following morning, the other girls see Nancy walking on water with beached sharks and other dead

[00:34:07] animals littering the shore. And the days to follow, Nancy becomes increasingly devoid of empathy and

[00:34:13] engages in risky behavior that endangers her life and those of others. The spells the girls cast

[00:34:19] eventually lead to negative consequences as Bonnie healed of her scars becomes aggressively narcissistic.

[00:34:25] Rochelle finds her former bully, Laura traumatized by her baldness and the obsessed love spelled Chris

[00:34:32] attempts to rape Sarah after she rejects his continual advances. To punish Chris, Nancy uses a glamour spell

[00:34:39] to disguise herself as Sarah and attempts to seduce him at a party, but is interrupted by the real Sarah.

[00:34:45] Upset at being deceived, Chris accuses Nancy of jealousy, angering her. She uses her power to kill Chris by

[00:34:52] throwing him out of a window. Sarah unsuccessfully attempts a binding spell to prevent Nancy from doing more

[00:34:58] harm. And the coven turns on Sarah. The trio invade Sarah's dreams, torment her with visions of swarms of

[00:35:05] scorpions, snakes, rats, and insects, and make her believe that her family has died in a plane crash.

[00:35:10] The coven then tries to drive Sarah to suicide. Although initially terrified, Sarah successfully invokes

[00:35:16] the spirit and manages to heal herself and fight back. She scares off Bonnie and Rochelle by showing them

[00:35:22] glamours in a mirror of Bonnie with her face guard and Rochelle losing her hair like Laura.

[00:35:26] Sarah then defeats Nancy and binds her, preventing her from causing harm forever.

[00:35:31] Bonnie and Rochelle lose their powers and Nancy ends up in a mental institution raving about the power she also

[00:35:37] no longer has. But Sarah's powers are still intact.

[00:35:42] So, I have to ask, you went to high school in Texas, correct?

[00:35:47] Yeah.

[00:35:49] That is a more acclimate. I grew up in the Philly area, so we definitely had indoor high schools for

[00:35:56] the most part. But we're so used to seeing, of course, all the LA sets, high school stuff like in

[00:36:02] this film with the outside. Which one is Texas more like?

[00:36:06] Indoor. Because we have the hot weather situation. You can't really be outside for that long. So,

[00:36:14] mainly just one large building that's got airco.

[00:36:18] Okay. Fair, fair. We also had really hot summers, you know, on the coast. It's really hot summers,

[00:36:24] really cold winters. The seasons go hard.

[00:36:29] So, yeah, and I made a reference, by the way, to the original ending before. So, there was a different

[00:36:36] ending where Bonnie and Rochelle were going to side with Sarah at the end and Nancy would have died.

[00:36:41] But Pat Devin, the Wiccan consultant, she objected to that because she said, you know,

[00:36:47] she pointed out Nancy is out of control and fed up. She's not evil. And I think that that's,

[00:36:52] that part is at least much stronger. I see you nodding. But I'm curious,

[00:36:56] how do you feel about Bonnie and Rochelle, the fact that they turned on Sarah?

[00:37:03] You know, I think they're, as characters go, those two characters are kind of the least

[00:37:08] developed, although definitely more so than the second movie.

[00:37:11] Right.

[00:37:12] They are still a little bit of the, and the witches type of backup dancers, if you will.

[00:37:19] So, the fact that they kind of act in unison, and they basically are just changing tides,

[00:37:27] that feels a little bit like they're, they're an amplifying effect, is maybe what you could say.

[00:37:33] And so I, I think I, having not seen that other movie that could have been made, I think I,

[00:37:41] I prefer the way that it is just because I, I agree that Nancy is not in and of herself evil.

[00:37:49] And I think that the, that the, that the, um, Lirio kind of supports that, that, well, there's no,

[00:37:57] you know, good or bad magic, but there are, there's this thing inside you. And I don't think that Nancy,

[00:38:04] the character was evil. She was just really hurt and corrupted by power eventually.

[00:38:14] Right. But I do think that it made it a stronger ending that it was basically between the two,

[00:38:25] that the two backup dancers ran off and leaving, leaving the final confrontation just between,

[00:38:32] uh, between Nancy and Sarah.

[00:38:34] Yeah. Yeah. No, that, that does make sense to be honest. Um, a lot of people say, you know,

[00:38:42] think of Nancy as the main character in a way, even though we see it through the eyes of, of Sarah.

[00:38:47] Um, Nancy's definitely given the richest backstory. So we actually get to see what's driving her anger

[00:38:55] and jealousy. Like I realized Sarah's parents are there, but we don't really see much of them,

[00:39:00] but also I didn't feel like I needed that. Like, you know, it's okay if they remain like in,

[00:39:06] in, uh, Charlie Brown, like in the background, they're there, they exist. She loves them. We have

[00:39:13] that sense. Yeah.

[00:39:14] I feel like the larger presence was Sarah's mother who was, you know, not a presence,

[00:39:20] but it was her absence. That was the character. So I don't know that we got more of Nancy's backstory,

[00:39:28] but I feel like she did a lot with it. Like she really embodied the person who was having that story

[00:39:38] in a way that, um, you know, not everything had to be said. I mean, we saw something of her home life,

[00:39:43] but you know, it was kind of, it was very abbreviated and we didn't need more. We could,

[00:39:48] we could get where she was coming from with a lot or we could get a lot by her only giving

[00:39:53] a little bit of actual information. Yeah. Yeah. That's why I, I do feel like this script is

[00:40:00] econ, economical, economical, economical, right? That's the pronunciation. Um, because yeah, we

[00:40:06] have that, we get the glimpse of her poor abusive stepfather. Maybe it's a bit cliche, but apparently

[00:40:11] this is based on a real person that, uh, the screenwriter Filardi knew. So, um, and then also

[00:40:17] on the other hand with Sarah, a key scene, I think for me is when she and her parents first enter the

[00:40:24] house and you see it's a big house, but it's falling apart. So that tells you a lot already about,

[00:40:30] you know, they are much better off than Nancy, but they're not exactly the most wealthy,

[00:40:34] but also just the way they respond to it as a family, you can tell she has like a solid nest.

[00:40:40] You don't really need to see that much more. Um, she's coming from, um, yeah, a well-formed place.

[00:40:45] So I feel like they did that well in terms of just giving us like little glimpses that tell us

[00:40:53] enough that we can move on with the story. Yeah. And I don't really mind that if Nancy's story was,

[00:40:58] you know, so-called cliche, because honestly, I knew someone like that too, who had a very,

[00:41:05] you know, the, the outcome was very recognizable. Yeah. So it may be cliche, but that renders it no less

[00:41:14] true. Right. Right. Cliches are cliche for a reason. Yeah. Um, and her, her poor mom,

[00:41:20] I would hang out with her. I was like, Nancy, don't shun your mom. She's kind of cool.

[00:41:26] I also really want their apartment that they move into after they get money.

[00:41:31] Yeah. Although, you know, the, the, the idea that they got that big apartment in LA for 170,

[00:41:38] they got $175,000 and, and all of a sudden they're living at large. Like all I could think was,

[00:41:45] okay, maybe that paid for the deposit on the, on the, or the down payment on the mortgage. But

[00:41:51] I mean, you still have to pay that mortgage, right? I mean, that's just the difference of maybe of being

[00:41:56] a middle-aged person now is I'm like really concerned. I think you're living beyond your means.

[00:42:00] Yeah. I'm assuming it's still renting. So I just looked up the conversion and apparently, uh, this

[00:42:07] would be about the equivalent of 350,000 today. Okay. We're definitely not get you a nice apartment,

[00:42:15] but I mean, she could have been renting, but the way they walked in and she had this,

[00:42:20] she, I can't remember what she said exactly, but it was something very proud. Like,

[00:42:22] can you believe our apartment or something? Yeah.

[00:42:25] Yeah. But, um, maybe it's like our apartment.

[00:42:31] Yeah. I mean, regardless, it was definitely an upgrade. Right. I just had my, yeah, it was like

[00:42:37] the friend's apartment in, uh, friends. Yeah. Right. And I mean, I think what they meant to convey

[00:42:43] effectively was that it was a life-changing amount of money. Like it could really transform not just

[00:42:50] their, their situation, but their, their lifestyle. You know, one of the girls says that she thought

[00:42:57] that Nancy just didn't want to be white trash anymore. Right. And I think that's what effectively

[00:43:02] they were getting out of that situation is the opportunity. Yeah. Yeah. And I, and I can't,

[00:43:09] you know, I guess it's supposed to be villainous that she causes her stepfather to have a heart

[00:43:14] attack and die, but did anyone miss him? Any viewer, any character? Well, you know, he wasn't really,

[00:43:24] uh, spelled out for us. We don't know what he was like to his colleagues and other loved ones. We only

[00:43:30] saw anything of his story from the perspective of Nancy and her mother. So we'll never know.

[00:43:38] Yeah. Yeah. But I feel like if, if that's the, what we saw, then I don't know. Yeah. Maybe he's a

[00:43:44] completely different person at work. I don't know. Um, he had, I was actually, he had quite the life

[00:43:50] insurance policy too. Right. And the mother does react that dear sweet man. So, I mean, he must've

[00:43:58] done something right. Like he, he left the money. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, I think he had, despite their

[00:44:05] poor lodgings, he apparently had a good enough job to have that kind of policy. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:44:14] So question, did you read, um, the same thing into the, this aspect of Nancy's character is me. Do you

[00:44:20] think that she had a crush on Chris Skeet Ulrich's character? Um, that she wasn't just trying to

[00:44:28] punish him, but she was like jealous that he wanted Sarah, not her, even if it was spelled that way.

[00:44:34] I don't, yeah. I don't know if crush is the right word, but there was some unresolved feeling there

[00:44:39] for sure. I think she had been abused and rejected by him much in the way that, uh, Sarah was,

[00:44:52] except Sarah did not sleep with him. And I think that she had then two emotions to deal with,

[00:45:01] which was both the rejection as well as the abuse. And I think she wanted to resolve that rejection

[00:45:09] by getting him to want her. Yeah. And I know, I think most women know how that feels at some moment,

[00:45:20] no matter how unhealthy or, um, let's say, uh, noble it is to want that. I think you still feel

[00:45:30] it sometimes. Yeah. I do think, yeah, there is something with the sexual tension in this film

[00:45:36] that also spoke to teenagers at the time. Cause now when I was just bringing it up that I was

[00:45:42] watching it this week and we're doing this episode, so many people, um, men and women alike said to me,

[00:45:48] oh, I had such a crush on that character and mostly about two characters. One was Sarah,

[00:45:54] uh, played by Robin Tooney and, uh, the other was, uh, Bonnie played by Nev Campbell.

[00:46:01] So interesting. So this was also Robin Tooney. This is like her, this, she was really having a moment.

[00:46:09] Uh, she actually had a shaved head big for her role in empire records, which I think is her other best

[00:46:15] film. And so she was wearing a wig throughout filming, which I didn't really clock. I'm not one

[00:46:20] who's always on wig watch, but it did seem that way. And this watching, I don't think I ever would

[00:46:25] have spotted it at the first time around, but her hair did look distinctively wiggish or strange to

[00:46:31] me in this, uh, in this watching. So we find out that she was depressed and she like cut her wrist,

[00:46:39] quote unquote, the right way. And, and to be honest, I think this is a film where I learned that you're,

[00:46:44] that it's supposed to be vertical to be effective, which it's not supposed to be vertical. Don't,

[00:46:49] you know, I'm going to put all of the, uh, trigger disclaimers at the intro to this, but, um,

[00:46:55] this, this movie does speak to a lot of those things, but we don't know why she's so depressed. Do we,

[00:47:02] do you think we ever get a sense of just different or, I mean, it seems like she has this warm,

[00:47:10] loving parents who she loves in return? Yeah. I mean, we know obviously that there was some,

[00:47:17] uh, maybe family trauma because her mother died and, uh, no telling what happened with, yeah. And,

[00:47:25] but no telling what happened with her dad in the interim years before he met this woman,

[00:47:30] you know, maybe she had a solitary childhood or was, you know, we don't, we don't really know.

[00:47:35] I think we're left to imagine how that could have been. So no, I think it was just generalized

[00:47:42] depression that they were pushing on us. And maybe that could have been spelled out a bit more that,

[00:47:47] you know, it's just the shorthand for haunted past. Right. Right. Um, but also maybe just like

[00:47:54] the fact that she had these powers, she didn't understand because I got the sense that she always

[00:47:59] had a natural talent, whereas the others had to really work for anything to happen for them.

[00:48:06] Yeah. I mean, it feels like somehow by having her in their coven, it unlocked the powers for the

[00:48:12] others until they lost it by abusing them. Right. I would agree with that.

[00:48:18] So yeah, for the other two are, I already said, Bonnie Harper was played by Neve Campbell. And, um,

[00:48:24] this Bonnie was originally Robin Tunney's role, the one who ended up playing Sarah. So she had to be

[00:48:30] talked into playing Sarah because she was more interested in the Bonnie character. Would you have

[00:48:36] wanted, I don't know who the, yeah, I think she was perfect as Sarah, but I guess they would have

[00:48:40] found someone else. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's hard to say, but, uh, I can't mentally place her into the,

[00:48:49] into the other role of Bonnie, but, you know, I think she was, she's well suited for the role of Sarah

[00:48:54] because, you know, she does have that kind of, it's the contrast implicit because she is,

[00:49:05] according to what we were just talking about, the, this kind of haunted past character, but

[00:49:11] on the outside, she looks like a kind of pretty girl, nice, unconflicted and so on. So we're meant to,

[00:49:19] on one hand, understand why she might feel connected to these witches, uh, who try to befriend

[00:49:25] her while at the same time, um, understanding her as different. Yeah. Right. Yeah. I mean,

[00:49:33] and I think, I think Campbell, Neve Campbell, this was a great role for her. I'm really glad that she

[00:49:39] got it for her sake because just because, um, her playing a slightly different character, someone who

[00:49:45] has to cover up for most of the movie because she's, she's hiding something. She's feeling

[00:49:51] self-conscious. She's hiding behind her hair for the beginning of the film. Um, she was best known

[00:49:56] for Party of Five, which I never got into that show. Did you watch it? No. No. Not my scene.

[00:50:02] Yeah. But in this, she's had a car accident in the past and she has burn treatments for it. And, um,

[00:50:09] I, I really thought some of the most effective and memorable and unique scenes were just showing

[00:50:16] her getting the treatment for these, uh, scarring and you just, you feel for her, you know, what she's

[00:50:22] willing to go through to feel beautiful again. Um, this pain is, you know, and, you know, she,

[00:50:30] she uses the witchcraft to get rid of the scars. Um, but she also, she does go through this painful

[00:50:36] treatment. It just, the witchcraft means she doesn't have to go through it over and over and over

[00:50:40] again, like people normally do. Well, one thing that I, that I found in this viewing that I don't

[00:50:47] think I would have registered before is it was an experimental treatment. So we actually don't

[00:50:53] even know if it ever would have worked and maybe because of this miracle treatment, because of the

[00:50:57] witchcraft, this doctor is going to give it to other people and it's not going to work. And

[00:51:06] I mean, it's just, it's back threefold.

[00:51:09] It seems horrifying actually, the idea that, uh, you know, all these poor scarred people are just

[00:51:14] going to get stabbed with needles a bunch of times with the idea that their scarring can be diminished.

[00:51:20] But, um, but I agree that she's a very, you know, sympathetic character and, you know, one of the

[00:51:28] things that she wishes for is to be beautiful again. And yet I couldn't help but feel like it,

[00:51:35] at some point it's not necessarily wishing for beauty, but it's wishing for, you know, the, the

[00:51:40] absence of ugliness, like she feels ugly and she just wants that to go away. Um, but then of course

[00:51:47] what she gets is beauty. So it's like going to the opposite side of the spectrum. And I think that's

[00:51:52] where she, her character loses, uh, right. Loses it a bit and becomes narcissistic and selfish and

[00:52:00] self-serving. Yeah. Yeah. Cause she's, she's kind of like the most solid character at the beginning.

[00:52:05] And then once, yeah, she's, she doesn't have that, um, that's what she feels is an impediment. Then

[00:52:15] I think that this is what happens with all of them is at first they're just so grateful to be able to

[00:52:21] exert a little power over their lives again. But then, uh, it gets to the point where, um, with all,

[00:52:28] except maybe Sarah, they are, they, they feel entitled to it. You know, once they get the taste

[00:52:33] of the power, they're like, well, this is my power. I can have as much as I want. And, uh, this is where,

[00:52:39] and this is why I like this whole idea of the, everything you do comes back in triplicates against

[00:52:44] true magic is neither black nor white. It's both because nature is both loving and cruel all at the

[00:52:54] same time. The only good or bad is in the heart of the witch life keeps a balance on its own. You

[00:53:02] understand? Not really. Well then understand this, whatever you send out, you get back times three.

[00:53:11] Mm. Yeah. I mean, that's an amplifying force. And if you put in good, you get back good. But if you

[00:53:16] put in bad, but you know, there's this interesting moment for Rochelle, which I don't know that the

[00:53:21] other girls have, which is, you know, she sees her bully sitting, sitting in the shower, crying and

[00:53:28] pulling out her hair. And you see this moment where you think that she might connect with her and she

[00:53:33] runs away instead. But this is still before she kind of goes full bad guy. Right. So I think she had

[00:53:41] the possibility of a redeeming moment there where she might have said, Hey, maybe I'm on the wrong

[00:53:47] track here. And she didn't take that moment. Yeah. Um, and the others, and you know, I don't think

[00:53:54] they had like Bonnie didn't have that redeeming moment where she, where she had to be confronted.

[00:54:01] No, I mean, she was still kind of a bitch in the last scene. Yeah, they both were. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:54:07] Yeah. So in the original script, apparently they would have had the redeeming moments, but it,

[00:54:12] it seems like, uh, especially with Rochelle's character. So Rochelle Zimmerman was played by

[00:54:17] the actress, Rachel True, who some of you might know from Half Baked, which was another favorite

[00:54:22] movie of mine, uh, in my twenties more so for that one. Um, and I do think she's a least developed

[00:54:28] character of the four. And apparently she had to be, she had to fight to be included in publicity

[00:54:33] because of racism. Um, and they actually ended up once they decide to cast her, they ended up

[00:54:39] rewriting that part of the story. So Rochelle's struggle was going to be bulimia. And then they

[00:54:44] decided, well, let's make it, um, racism instead. And so Christine Taylor, uh, is another young,

[00:54:52] famous face. Um, she plays Laura Lizzie as her bully and she's like very openly racist against

[00:54:58] Rochelle's character and making fun of her hair. So that's why, uh, her hair starts to fall out.

[00:55:04] And it sounds like in an interview I saw that race, Rachel True did not too long ago. Um,

[00:55:11] it sounds like it was her choice to play that response as horrified when she saw that scene

[00:55:17] in the shower you're referring to that, you know, she was like, no, I'm not going to be gleeful about

[00:55:22] it. That doesn't feel right. No, it at least adds an element of, um, confusion or realization.

[00:55:33] But yeah, again, if, if she experienced that moment of seeing her vanquish enemy and then doubles down,

[00:55:41] that tells you something about her character that I don't think we got with the other characters.

[00:55:47] Um, I mean, Nancy was all in, we know Nancy was all in, she was always on.

[00:55:53] She was the ringleader. Yeah. Yeah. Um, I think the other two were just kind of like

[00:55:58] had weaker personalities by design because that is often how such groups work is we have the,

[00:56:04] the two strongest personalities at war and then the weaker, uh, gravitate toward what they perceive,

[00:56:11] the person they think is going to be the winner, the alpha. Yeah.

[00:56:17] Yeah. And then it backfires in this case. So, yeah.

[00:56:22] Yeah. So there are, um, yeah, we talked about these, there are some, the cast is like quite

[00:56:27] good, but there are also in contention for the main roles where Angelina Jolie, Scarlett Johansson,

[00:56:33] Alicia Silverstone and a whole bunch of other nineties who's who. So it's a, it's interesting to imagine

[00:56:38] in other realities, what other versions of this film we got. I think all of those would have been great

[00:56:43] as well. As who, who would you pick as who? Uh, between those three. Okay. Let's see. So

[00:56:52] I could see Alicia Silverstone as, as Bonnie and, uh, Angelina Jolie as, oh, we'll come back to her.

[00:57:05] She's the toughest one. I think Scarlett Johansson, I guess as Sarah, Angelina Jolie. I mean, she could

[00:57:13] also be Bonnie as she could be Rochelle, but then we lose the, you know, the elements where, you know,

[00:57:19] Rachel true said that she was at the time, she was like a little bit offended by the script. She was

[00:57:25] like, are they saying that blackness is bad? But now with retro, you know, with, with hindsight,

[00:57:30] she feels like, oh, that was important to make other girls experiences feel seen on screen when it

[00:57:38] was so rare at that time. Yeah. I mean, I thought, I still find that a really striking setup because

[00:57:44] of that moment that her bully just flat out says it's, you know, it's because you're black.

[00:57:52] It's, um, it's something that feels so open and bald that you almost slap to the face. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:57:58] Even just as a white viewer, like Jesus. Yeah.

[00:58:03] But I mean, it's somehow, it's somehow

[00:58:07] better that she says it instead of just like all this passive aggressive crap,

[00:58:11] but it's somehow also worse too. Well, I mean, I have to say that I am seeing

[00:58:16] that we're reentering a time where people feel emboldened to be openly racist. And so I think

[00:58:23] that's one reason also why this film, not just like the racism aspect, but overall, a lot of these,

[00:58:30] these themes of cruelty toward each other are still just as important to talk about today as

[00:58:37] they were then. They're still just as relevant. For sure. And I mean, I think we're going to talk

[00:58:43] a little bit more about the second one. I mean, if we compare this to the second one, the vibe between

[00:58:47] the girls is totally different. Right. And like their whole ethos of kindness or whatever, versus

[00:58:53] these girls who are all mixed up. Right. Even amongst themselves and they're working it out.

[00:58:59] I mean, to me, that feels a lot more complex and a lot more true, but in a way, I like the idea that

[00:59:05] there are models to be found in the media we consume. And, you know, I really don't know who my model is

[00:59:13] here. Our main character is, is Sarah is, if Sarah's the main character, you know, she's got some

[00:59:21] attributes to model, but I mean.

[00:59:25] But I guess I like the complexity of that. I mean, for me, it was definitely Sarah was the one I

[00:59:30] wanted to be also because she's the one who ends up with her powers. And because it's kind of funny

[00:59:36] in the second one, which we will get to after a break in a moment, she was in Lily, the main

[00:59:43] character, she was kind of like the bad one in a way. She's the one who crossed the line and where

[00:59:48] Sarah was the one who stayed most true to her morals, despite not being a perfect person either.

[00:59:58] Yeah. One scene really struck out, stuck out to me this, in this viewing that I wouldn't have seen

[01:00:03] in the 90s, both because of being a teenager myself, and also just because it wasn't that time,

[01:00:09] which was, you know, after this scene with Chris, she's crying about his death, Sarah's crying about

[01:00:17] his death and saying, I liked him. I thought he was a good person. And, you know, he was absolutely

[01:00:23] not a good person.

[01:00:26] Yeah.

[01:00:27] But I think that was done better in the second one.

[01:00:29] But I think even, I think that would have felt true to me as a teenager that,

[01:00:34] you know, this was before we had so much language around, around consent and the idea that,

[01:00:40] you know, what boys can get away with outside of the boys will be boys trope, you know,

[01:00:47] or that mentality where, where boys are expected to pursue and, and women are kind of expected to,

[01:00:55] to take it. And if you can't effectively disarm a man, then you have failed. It's not their failing.

[01:01:03] So I do feel like that's something that really stood out to me in this viewing as so uncomfortable

[01:01:09] that she's still viewing him as a good person, and that she still liked him after, after all the

[01:01:15] things that he had said and done to her.

[01:01:18] And he was normalized, yeah, to be, to be like that. Yeah.

[01:01:21] Yeah. And I don't think they had really shown us any evidence of his kindness or his goodness.

[01:01:28] They showed him only as someone.

[01:01:30] Yeah.

[01:01:32] If you like that sort of thing.

[01:01:36] So I found that disturbing.

[01:01:38] Yeah.

[01:01:39] In a modern viewing.

[01:01:40] So yeah, let's talk a little bit more, more about the boys. So we have Skeet Ulrich as Chris

[01:01:44] Hooker. And I like how his two friends don't even get last names, but we have Brecken Meyer

[01:01:48] as Mitt. So he was another big 90s face. And Nathaniel Marston as Trey. And for this, this was

[01:01:55] for me where maybe they were leaning a little too hard on the stereotypes, but also I was like,

[01:02:01] I knew those guys. I knew those guys in high school.

[01:02:05] No.

[01:02:07] I don't, yeah, I don't know that they were stereotypes.

[01:02:12] I mean, they weren't, they weren't really developed characters. I agree with you there, but I think

[01:02:19] they fulfilled their functions.

[01:02:22] Yeah.

[01:02:23] I mean, what did you think of the whole, the plot aspect of Sarah casting the love spell? And then,

[01:02:30] you know, that leads to, um, going where he, he becomes so obsessed, so infatuated that it goes

[01:02:37] too far. We obviously said about the sexual assault, but, um, just even before that, you know,

[01:02:43] the annoying side of infatuation.

[01:02:46] Well, I think, you know, the idea that anything that he did was indicative of love is a really

[01:02:55] warped concept, but I think that's maybe what makes it interesting from the concept of that it

[01:02:59] was a love spell. So it is distorted. So, you know, his actions were definitely not loving.

[01:03:07] But, I mean, maybe that's kind of what happens through the distorting effect of a spell is that

[01:03:12] you get something which is a simulacrum. It's, it's, uh, a, uh, a desirous, a wanton, a,

[01:03:19] you know, a kind of malevolent demand of, of her.

[01:03:26] Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

[01:03:30] Yeah. Yeah. And then we have on the other side, you know, we have the, uh, female mystic guide

[01:03:36] character, which was something missing from the second film. Uh, but in this film, we have

[01:03:40] Assumpta Serna as Lirio, who's the shopkeeper. And, uh, I loved, first of all, her shop is so

[01:03:48] recognizable to me. I was just like literally in a shop of like that in Pennsylvania a couple months

[01:03:54] ago. Um, and I love also that she has like the blacklight pentagram room in the back that she's

[01:04:00] so 90s. Like, we didn't mention it, but like their whole wardrobe is just iconic 90s. This is,

[01:04:05] yeah, the 90s-ness oozes from this film.

[01:04:09] Yeah. Yeah. It definitely makes me nostalgic. Um, and, uh, and I, I like, you know, coming back to

[01:04:16] what we were just talking about with, with role models. Like if anything, now I'm looking at the,

[01:04:21] the elder witch and thinking she's, she's got a good situation going on. What, what a lady.

[01:04:28] Can I be her when I grow up?

[01:04:29] Well, I think that Sarah did think that.

[01:04:32] Mm. Yeah. She was a, you know, she was a, a good and responsible guide.

[01:04:38] Mm-hmm.

[01:04:39] And I, I don't, you're right that that was absent in the, in the follow-up, which, yeah,

[01:04:45] that wasn't the story that they were trying to tell.

[01:04:47] No, no. It was just, aren't witch powers cool?

[01:04:53] But yeah, we, we already said like in the first one, the witchcraft is more grounded until the end.

[01:04:58] Uh, everything could be really coincidental. So yeah, it was well-researched and it felt,

[01:05:05] you know, if you read these books, then you're going to, if you read like the real life books

[01:05:10] about modern witchcraft, you're going to recognize that. And, and so Pat Devon again,

[01:05:14] was the real life Wiccan who was an onset advisor for the film. And she wrote all the incantations

[01:05:21] that they used and, uh, made sure that everything was treated as respectfully as possible. But they

[01:05:26] did take some liberties sometimes on purpose just to not offend people. Like they, Manon is a made up

[01:05:32] deity because they didn't want to like offend anyone who celebrated any particular deity. Um,

[01:05:40] this coven of four concept, uh, I'm going to have to ask Marilyn about this, but it's not something

[01:05:47] I'm so familiar with. You often hear more like 12 or something, which is also, there's not a mandatory

[01:05:52] coven size, but I, the four thing makes sense because there's, uh, you have the four directions,

[01:05:59] which is a thing in, in Potawatomi, um, religious practices. And you know, you have the four elements

[01:06:05] of course. So yeah, that makes sense to me. I thought that was a good invention for the movie. Um,

[01:06:11] I do like their quote about true magic is neither black nor white, uh, very star Wars, but

[01:06:19] I like the, that concept in this one, the balance of the force.

[01:06:25] Yeah. I mean, I, and I liked that they introduce in a kind of nonjudgmental way, the idea that

[01:06:32] actions have consequences and you are responsible for what you put into the world. Right. It, it,

[01:06:38] it felt, um, instructive without being moralistic, which was a very nice, um, middle path to take.

[01:06:47] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it's on the visual side. I thought that the walking on water effect

[01:06:53] looked terrible now, but other than that, I don't know. I feel like the effects aged pretty well. What

[01:06:59] do you think? I agree. Yeah. That, that scene stood out also just because it's a little bit too,

[01:07:08] uh, it's so much over the top beyond the groundedness that we were seeing. And I guess it is meant to

[01:07:14] demonstrate a real turning point in their powers and her powers and in her, but it, I mean, it's also got

[01:07:22] too much, too much of a relationship to like Jesus. And, um, I, I find it an odd choice and also

[01:07:30] just it, the effect of it was a bit dodgy. And if Menon is like a nature-based deity, which,

[01:07:38] you know, tracks for witchcraft or Wiccan, um, culture is why would they, why would Menon kill all

[01:07:45] of the sea life? Like, I didn't like that. Why are all these animals dying? That doesn't seem like

[01:07:50] something that Menon would want. I agree. But also the whole idea of Menon, or at least Nancy's

[01:07:58] explanation of him, I found piss poor. Oh, it's not God. It's this other guy on top of God.

[01:08:06] It's, it's basically just coming up with a different name. It's like my deity is better than your deity

[01:08:11] type of trumping that, that it's still a guy, first of all. And it's, you know, it's,

[01:08:20] saying, okay, it's not the all-powerful, all-knowing, whatever God of that other religion. It's a

[01:08:25] different, all-powerful. Older.

[01:08:29] Yeah, it's still just, um, you know, it was, it was trying to make it a God above God or something,

[01:08:36] which seemed to me a bit, um, cheap and easy. But at the same time, resonant with that time of

[01:08:43] esoteric, um, ignorance in that, you know, you read things in a book and you are in a way limited

[01:08:51] in your, what you can really know. And you find these things to be truths and, um, and they don't

[01:09:02] really get a lot of exposure to be able to be tested against other people or other knowledge

[01:09:08] because of the lack of, the lack of it. Yeah. Well, I'm not a religious person. And one reason

[01:09:16] is that I do see religion in general is being a contest of like, my God, it's better than your

[01:09:21] God. Even if it's the same God, my version is better. Um, and you know, that it's used. And this

[01:09:28] is something we see, it's not, not in the religious way, but in this film, we see, um, the very real truth,

[01:09:33] how people in high school and beyond, they find tribes to attach themselves to based on it. It can

[01:09:41] be based on a religious identity. It can be based on you play football together, whatever. Um, and then

[01:09:48] we see how, yeah, that there's like our need for community is, uh, creating this in-group versus

[01:09:56] out-group scenario, which gives us reasons to be cruel to who we deem in the out-group. And

[01:10:03] it is such a real truth that you can have like this group of girlfriends and then suddenly

[01:10:08] they would decide that one member of the group is, is, uh, now the one that we're all picking on.

[01:10:16] That's the out-group member. So it was like, uh, having real flashbacks with Sarah's experience with

[01:10:21] that when suddenly everyone just turns on you. And, uh, because there's so this need to like,

[01:10:27] hold onto this tenuous identity that makes you feel like you belong and are important.

[01:10:32] And have a community.

[01:10:34] Yeah, that is the double-edged sword of belonging and kind of one of the things that I think we,

[01:10:40] as people struggle against or struggle with quite a lot, which is, you know, we're hyper-social

[01:10:47] creatures. We have this need to belong and to feel part of something. And part of that

[01:10:56] inclusion is exclusion. It's, you know, a ring that binds in and excludes. And sometimes we,

[01:11:06] I think we all know how much it hurts to be on the excluding side.

[01:11:12] Right.

[01:11:14] And that's, I think what makes it all the more cruel when we knowingly or willingly like push

[01:11:20] somebody out. We know the sting of it and we know the punishment of it. And I, I think it's not

[01:11:26] even so bad as it used to be where like basically, you know, expulsion was death to your society. Like

[01:11:33] we're, we're not that stage anymore of life, but, uh,

[01:11:38] But we still, well, it's like, you know, we have all these anxiety disorders because

[01:11:43] we've evolved with this, with, you know, be thinking about how do we protect ourselves from

[01:11:49] predators. And, uh, that's by being in groups together. It's by the flight or, uh, fight or

[01:11:54] flight response. It's, um, we just have this innate instinct to look for danger because that protected

[01:12:02] us. Uh, that's how we got as far as we are, even though we, we look for it in the most mundane

[01:12:08] circumstances now, because our lives are so much relatively less dangerous overall.

[01:12:14] Wow.

[01:12:15] The danger isn't within.

[01:12:17] Yeah. Um, I mean, I do like though, uh, the good moments of friendship that felt like really

[01:12:24] natural. Did you play light as a feather, stiff as a board at, uh, sleepovers when you were?

[01:12:29] Yeah.

[01:12:30] Yeah.

[01:12:30] Sure.

[01:12:31] Do you have any idea? Is that still a thing? Do kids still do that?

[01:12:35] I don't know. Write in if anybody knows if you have teenagers or I doubt there's teenagers listening,

[01:12:40] but, um, but yeah, I, I wonder because I was like, and sometimes there is a psychological effect

[01:12:50] that happens where sometimes it's not like nobody's ever floating, but sometimes you can lift someone a

[01:12:55] little bit, but yeah, it was just a fun thing to do. And on, and also like that iconic line,

[01:13:02] we are the weirdos, which of course they had to repeat in the second one.

[01:13:06] Oh gosh. You know, I want to talk about that because okay. In the, in the first movie,

[01:13:10] Faruza Balk says,

[01:13:12] girls watch out for those weirdos.

[01:13:14] We are the weirdos, mister.

[01:13:18] We are the weirdos.

[01:13:20] And I believe her.

[01:13:21] Right.

[01:13:22] I, she is the weirdos and I, and she is, you know, she has fully embraced her herself as an outsider

[01:13:30] and she owns it.

[01:13:32] They try to do a callback in the second movie.

[01:13:35] Mm-hmm.

[01:13:36] And it is to me, pathetic.

[01:13:39] The girls ought to be careful in the woods at night.

[01:13:43] A lot of weirdos out here.

[01:13:46] We are the weirdos, mister.

[01:13:49] Yeah.

[01:13:49] They are, they are not the weirdos.

[01:13:51] It's a member berry. Yeah.

[01:13:52] No, they're not.

[01:13:53] Yeah.

[01:13:53] Yeah.

[01:13:54] I feel like in the first one, they were the weirdos because of their individual traumas,

[01:14:00] because of their difficulties.

[01:14:03] And in the second movie, they were weirdos.

[01:14:06] What?

[01:14:06] Because of a cute top.

[01:14:09] She wears black lipstick.

[01:14:13] Yeah.

[01:14:14] No, it was the, the, um, the first one felt like actually goth, but then again, this was the heyday of goth.

[01:14:21] And then the second one felt like gothness put on as a costume at the most.

[01:14:26] Yeah.

[01:14:27] Yeah.

[01:14:28] Yeah.

[01:14:29] You know, trying on a, trying on a fashion or something that it, it, you know, not, which is not to say that anything needs trauma to be more authentic.

[01:14:38] Like definitely not that.

[01:14:39] But.

[01:14:41] Yeah.

[01:14:41] You know, the, the idea that they're weird, you know, just, they're just your ordinary level of weirdness in high school.

[01:14:51] Like.

[01:14:51] Right.

[01:14:52] I wear a different color than other, the other girls.

[01:14:55] It's not, it was, it was very much like.

[01:14:58] I don't get the sense that they didn't convince me that they are like bullied in the same way that these girls, that the original crew was.

[01:15:06] Or excluded.

[01:15:08] Mm-hmm.

[01:15:08] Mm-hmm.

[01:15:09] Yeah.

[01:15:09] You know, they don't even need to be traumatized by their peers for me, for me to connect with them.

[01:15:15] But just some idea that they are genuinely seen as outsiders beyond some esoteric interest.

[01:15:23] Yeah.

[01:15:24] I mean, I don't buy it at all.

[01:15:26] They seemed like actually good girls.

[01:15:30] Yeah.

[01:15:31] Well, okay, we are segueing that way.

[01:15:34] So let's get into the second film right after a quick break.

[01:15:40] Okay.

[01:15:41] We know that this is probably a lot to take in right now, but you shouldn't run from your power.

[01:15:47] None of us should.

[01:15:50] So my mom always says, your difference is your power.

[01:15:54] Ah, well then mom's cool.

[01:15:57] Okay, so let's officially turn our attention to the second film, The Craft Legacy, which was released in 2020.

[01:16:04] And let's start with a quick plot synopsis.

[01:16:07] We'll take turns again.

[01:16:08] So again, a new girl named Lily comes to town because her mother has fallen in love.

[01:16:14] Lily again completes a quartet of witchy women who had been looking for a fourth to complete their coven.

[01:16:20] This time though, the magic is bigger and flashier with little consistency in its rules and applications.

[01:16:25] From telepathy and force pushes to sparkle baths and Ouija boards and freezing time apparently.

[01:16:33] After Lily starts being bullied for getting her period, they spell the popular but mean Timmy into becoming their new best friend and biggest champion.

[01:16:41] But after he shares his biggest secret with the girls, a homosexual encounter with one of Lily's stepbrothers confirming his bisexuality,

[01:16:49] Lily love spells him into kissing her.

[01:16:51] And the next day, he is dead.

[01:16:52] An apparent suicide.

[01:16:54] Timmy uses a Ouija board to tell the girls that it was Lily's stepdad, Adam, who killed him, not liking the change in his personality.

[01:17:02] And Adam's also a warlock, trying to trick Lily into giving him her powers, leading to a confrontation between him and Lily and her friends who are done shunning her for two seconds for love spelling Timmy.

[01:17:12] The quartet kill Adam and live happily ever after as good witches.

[01:17:17] And by the way, it turns out that Lily was adopted.

[01:17:20] And at the end of the movie, she visits a mental asylum to meet her birth mother, Nancy, from the original movie.

[01:17:27] Were you surprised by that twist at the end?

[01:17:30] I was.

[01:17:31] But I'm a classic person, too.

[01:17:33] I don't guess during movies.

[01:17:36] I just let them unfold.

[01:17:37] So I'm surprised all the time that they're by-bye movies.

[01:17:41] Yeah.

[01:17:42] Well, so I had it kind of spoiled for me just in the sense that I knew Fruza Balk was going to turn up in this movie.

[01:17:48] So it was like, oh, your mother's in a mental institution?

[01:17:50] Hmm.

[01:17:52] Yeah.

[01:17:52] Okay.

[01:17:53] That makes sense.

[01:17:54] Yeah.

[01:17:55] So the main character in this one was Lilith, Lily, Sheshner?

[01:18:01] We don't-

[01:18:01] Shechner.

[01:18:02] They never say her last name, do they?

[01:18:04] Shechner.

[01:18:04] No, they do.

[01:18:04] Shechner.

[01:18:05] Oh, right.

[01:18:05] They called the mother Mrs. Shechner or something.

[01:18:07] Right.

[01:18:08] Okay.

[01:18:08] And she's played by Kaylee Spanney, who is someone-

[01:18:12] I saw her in Mare of Easttown, but it seems like she's like an up-and-coming Gen Z icon or whatever.

[01:18:19] Always plays like a sweet girl who goes through horrible things.

[01:18:27] And then we also have her mother, yeah, Michelle Monaghan as Helen Shechner, who's a therapist.

[01:18:36] And I have to say, I just watched the film and I barely remember anything about the other three,

[01:18:42] which is we have Frankie, Gideon Adlon, Tabby, played by Lovey Simone, and Lorde, played by Zoe Luna.

[01:18:49] And Lorde's the only one I remember because I think that one thing that this film did do well was Lorde is a trans character,

[01:18:58] but they don't make a big deal of it.

[01:19:00] The first time it was like she just makes a comment like, oh, I don't get my period or something.

[01:19:04] I'm like, oh, I don't know.

[01:19:05] There's lots of reasons someone doesn't get their period.

[01:19:06] I didn't really think about it.

[01:19:07] And then another time they just casually mention it.

[01:19:10] But otherwise they're not like, they don't, yeah, they just let her be someone who happens to be trans,

[01:19:16] which I think we could use more of.

[01:19:19] Yeah, I agree with you on that.

[01:19:22] Although I also agree with you that I don't remember, like the other three characters are just accessories.

[01:19:29] They are, as far as I am concerned, interchangeable.

[01:19:33] Right.

[01:19:34] Replaceable.

[01:19:36] They didn't really make an impact and they just kind of ultimately services backup dancers.

[01:19:42] Yeah.

[01:19:43] I mean, I was waiting for there to be, you know, a Nancy in this one, but it was like Lily was kind of the Sarah and the Nancy together.

[01:19:50] But she never went unhinged, obviously.

[01:19:53] No, while exhibiting none of the flair or the drama, just being a nice, calm, good girl.

[01:20:03] Yeah.

[01:20:04] Yeah, I actually think so.

[01:20:06] Timmy Andrews played by Nicholas Galitzin.

[01:20:09] I think that that was actually the best character arc, but really problematic.

[01:20:15] Because, so basically they spell him to like be a nicer person, but then it becomes like a really like a trope of being woke and like,

[01:20:24] but he is also genuinely just like he just becomes a nicer guy who like helps with the dishes and cares about people's feelings.

[01:20:32] And that's great.

[01:20:33] But if you have to cast a spell to change someone's personality, it's not like, I guess, if we assume he was released in death and he still wanted to help them,

[01:20:45] I guess maybe he liked his new personality more.

[01:20:48] But I don't know.

[01:20:48] What do you think about that?

[01:20:50] Yeah, I think that's a good argument.

[01:20:51] I mean, the idea or the spell was that he would become his best self or something.

[01:20:55] And I did think that that was a really well-intentioned spell as the girls were sitting around talking about,

[01:21:00] okay, well, we're not going to harm him.

[01:21:02] No, it has to be good intention.

[01:21:04] And I like the one they came up with that he's just going to be his best self.

[01:21:08] I know that he was.

[01:21:10] Yeah.

[01:21:11] But I agree.

[01:21:12] It's also a little bit tropey that the best self ends up being, I don't know, kind of a fetishistic feminist pet.

[01:21:24] Right.

[01:21:26] Right.

[01:21:26] I mean, because it's one thing to just be like a nicer person and to be like, hey, I'm just going to be open about who I am and what I've experienced with the secret that he shares.

[01:21:37] That's all good.

[01:21:38] But then to be like, oh, well, he was arguing with everyone in every class because they weren't being feminist enough.

[01:21:44] I'm like, oh, gosh.

[01:21:45] Okay.

[01:21:46] Take it down.

[01:21:47] Take it down.

[01:21:49] So I thought it was going to be like a case of it going too far.

[01:21:52] But then I have to say I was kind of almost, even though it was unethical of Lily to do the extra love spell on him, I was kind of rooting for them, you know, in a problematic way.

[01:22:05] Yeah.

[01:22:06] Yeah.

[01:22:07] I wasn't rooting for them.

[01:22:09] I, you know, he had just gone, he had just finished talking about this experience that he had with hooking up with another guy and how he was coming to terms with his bisexuality and how hard that was for him as a man.

[01:22:28] And so her love spell just felt exploitative, like she was exploiting his vulnerability.

[01:22:34] And so that was totally off color.

[01:22:36] And I like that the movie and all the other girls call her on how off color that was.

[01:22:44] Because that, that just, that wouldn't be okay in any context to exploit someone's vulnerability like that and to take advantage of it.

[01:22:52] But so I wasn't rooting for them.

[01:22:56] I was rooting for him.

[01:22:58] I was rooting for him.

[01:22:59] I think, I think he's the best character in this film.

[01:23:02] I don't know if you agree.

[01:23:03] I agree.

[01:23:05] Because I found him convincing as a misogynist asshole.

[01:23:09] And I found him convincing also as, as someone who was genuine and present and wanting the best for the people around him.

[01:23:19] Yeah.

[01:23:20] I would maybe not call it a character arc because it wasn't really him who changed, but it was just a sudden switch.

[01:23:28] But, but I agree.

[01:23:30] He was, he was, he was well cast and well played.

[01:23:33] Yeah.

[01:23:33] And it is interesting to contrast the shunning in the two films.

[01:23:39] So in this film, Lily was shunned for, as you say, like they had valid reasons to call her out.

[01:23:46] But in the original film, Sarah was shunned because, yeah, for what I, for the capriciousness of female social circles.

[01:23:55] But somehow for me, I don't know what this says.

[01:23:58] The first one feels more real, realistic to me.

[01:24:03] Hmm.

[01:24:06] Yeah.

[01:24:07] I mean, mainly because in the first one, I think they're, they're all being driven and manipulated by this kind of urge to be something else, by this urge to take control, to be in control, by pettiness, by all these things.

[01:24:24] There are all these forces in play.

[01:24:26] And so you can kind of see how that might be taken over or changed at any moment by a wind.

[01:24:33] Whereas with the second one, their whole driving ethos seems to be kindness and doing the right thing and so on.

[01:24:40] And so the idea that they would turn on their friends so quickly and readily feels less believable, even though, you know, as they describe, this is the one rule we have.

[01:24:53] You know, if you, if you do harm, I can't remember exactly how they worded it, but if you break the rule of this heaven, you're out.

[01:25:01] Right.

[01:25:02] Right.

[01:25:03] No, they were like, they were so moral in the second one that for me, that just, it wasn't as realistic because I don't think.

[01:25:12] Like, and, and because it's, you don't see them struggle with choosing that moral side, it's harder for people to emulate them.

[01:25:21] Does that make any sense?

[01:25:22] That's, you know, we need to see characters that it's as difficult for them as it is for us to always remember to do the right thing.

[01:25:31] And that's, for me, it's one of the reasons why they just became, yeah, the background sisters three.

[01:25:38] Yeah.

[01:25:39] I mean, we see them like get a, you know, get a teary eyed about the idea of it, but still, I agree with you that it's not, it's not a tortured decision the way, like ending a serious relationship would be.

[01:25:55] But I think that also underscores the point that they had just met.

[01:25:59] Like these girls had just met.

[01:26:01] Yeah, they, they weren't, you know, deep besties from over the years, but they, they met, they, they shared some magic together.

[01:26:10] Yeah.

[01:26:10] And, uh, but I, I don't know if I buy into like, so the difference is, uh, we have Nancy getting out of control in the first one and Sarah like binds and tries to buy Nancy from harm.

[01:26:23] Uh, and eventually succeeds at the end.

[01:26:26] And in this one, we have the girls who are like, we have to bind Lily because she's the one who got out of hand, but then they're like, and ourselves and ourselves.

[01:26:35] Um, and I don't find that realistic.

[01:26:38] And then a second later they're like, Oh, but now we unbound you because we realized that that was not cool either.

[01:26:45] Yeah.

[01:26:45] Yeah.

[01:26:46] And you might be fighting a warlock dude.

[01:26:48] So, okay.

[01:26:49] So David Duchovny's in this as Adam Harrison.

[01:26:52] Um, what did you think of his character?

[01:26:56] Hmm.

[01:26:57] You know, I am a fan of David Duchovny as an actor.

[01:27:03] Um, I found this performance a little wooden and yet believable because he does, I think, play a kind of dominant.

[01:27:15] Um, an earring, unyielding man handily.

[01:27:21] Mm hmm.

[01:27:21] I did find the boss fight to be the most ridiculous thing I'd seen in years.

[01:27:27] It was bad.

[01:27:29] Yeah.

[01:27:31] Yeah.

[01:27:31] So, I mean, what was your sense?

[01:27:34] Okay.

[01:27:34] So he's the stepfather character and he was, I was unclear until we have that scene where Lily's sitting on the stairs and sees him.

[01:27:42] Like, I guess he runs this like men's support group.

[01:27:45] Is that right?

[01:27:46] I mean, on the surface at least.

[01:27:48] And then we find out, do you think, because he calls himself a warlock, which I know Marilyn's going to be quick to point out.

[01:27:55] Um, in the subscriber episode means breaker of oaths or deceiver.

[01:27:58] So in this case, I really think he is a warlock.

[01:28:02] Um, but that's different from a male witch, which is just a witch that happens to be male.

[01:28:09] Um, do you, and there's some reference to like there being a coven of them.

[01:28:14] Do you think that that was the men's support group is the coven and are the stepbrothers involved or.

[01:28:22] Yeah.

[01:28:23] That's not how I read it.

[01:28:24] Okay.

[01:28:25] But I did find that there were a lot of holes or unanswered questions in this movie that maybe the writers had a lot going on that they just didn't put in the movie.

[01:28:37] How I read it, I read him as a little bit of a Jordan Peterson character.

[01:28:40] He is a guy who writes and promotes masculinity and the saving of masculinity.

[01:28:47] Um, and so these, these speeches he's get, he gives these coaching, this coaching and this way that he meets with men is it's mainly about.

[01:28:59] The male powerhood, right.

[01:29:01] Or powerhood.

[01:29:02] That's not a word, but yeah, yeah.

[01:29:05] Male empowerment.

[01:29:06] How about that?

[01:29:07] You see, Lily, power is order.

[01:29:11] It belongs in the hands of those who understand it.

[01:29:14] It's been that way for thousands of years.

[01:29:18] Timmy's a good example of that.

[01:29:20] Until you tried to make him in your own image.

[01:29:22] So then I, I had to kill him to restore the order.

[01:29:27] We are not in your image.

[01:29:29] We are your rulers and kings.

[01:29:33] But as I think we understand it through his usage of the word power, that is that.

[01:29:39] For example, he says that women don't deal well with power because they don't use it against one another.

[01:29:45] I think that we can understand that his understanding of power is that you aggregate it, you collect it and hoard it and use it against others.

[01:29:55] So I think we can safely assume that he is interested in the power of men because it benefits him.

[01:30:03] And he is trying to concentrate his own power.

[01:30:08] But I don't see that he's making like a coven or something like that.

[01:30:12] No, he's just aggregating male power.

[01:30:16] Yeah.

[01:30:16] Yeah, I do appreciate that they, in the original we had the three jocks.

[01:30:21] And then in this version they bring the boys mostly inside the family.

[01:30:25] You have Timmy, of course, because she's someone not related to Lily even by marriage.

[01:30:29] But then she, you have Lily's three stepbrothers.

[01:30:33] So you have, I guess Isaiah is the oldest one played by Donald McLean Jr.

[01:30:38] And that's the one I think who hooked up with Timmy.

[01:30:41] Yeah.

[01:30:42] And he couldn't handle it.

[01:30:43] He was not like, I feel like he's probably even maybe gay rather than bisexual.

[01:30:49] I shouldn't, I shouldn't speculate because the movie really doesn't make that clear.

[01:30:53] But we know he is freaking out about what happened with Timmy.

[01:30:57] Yeah.

[01:30:58] And then we have Timmy's best friend is the middle one, Jacob Harrison, played by Charles Van der Vaart.

[01:31:05] And I feel like he's in the middle of this journey toward toxicity.

[01:31:13] I feel like the fact that they gave us three brothers at three different ages, we're seeing the progression of that.

[01:31:19] The influence of their father.

[01:31:21] Because the youngest is Abe Harrison, played by Julian Gray.

[01:31:24] And he's the one who Lily occasionally has like conversations with.

[01:31:29] And he's like, oh, don't worry, dad means well.

[01:31:32] And then we see him at the end.

[01:31:38] He's at that meeting, you know, the meeting that Lily looks in on.

[01:31:42] And when, why would you do that in the living room if you don't want someone to look in?

[01:31:45] But, yeah, and you can see like, oh, God, this, he's going to grow up to be like his father as well because of his father's influence.

[01:31:56] Possibly.

[01:31:58] You know, I think the fact that the older son is so conflicted is clearly a sign of how much his father's presence has influenced him.

[01:32:11] How much his father's teachings have power over him.

[01:32:16] And yet also it's limits.

[01:32:18] So I think every person can view from their own experience, like the extent of their parents' reach and also its limitations.

[01:32:28] You are who you are.

[01:32:30] And, you know, your parents give some shape to that.

[01:32:33] But it'll come out one way or another.

[01:32:36] Yeah.

[01:32:38] Yeah.

[01:32:40] So what did you think of the mother-daughter relationship that was at the heart of this one?

[01:32:46] Did that work for you?

[01:32:49] I thought it was sweet.

[01:32:50] I thought it was believable.

[01:32:56] I don't know that that was so necessary.

[01:33:01] I mean, for me, it kind of raises all these questions that aren't answered by the movie.

[01:33:07] We know that Adam wants the powers of Lily.

[01:33:13] Mm-hmm.

[01:33:14] So did he know that when he met the mother?

[01:33:18] Was this all some sinister plot to get her under his roof?

[01:33:23] Okay, then how did he know about her?

[01:33:26] How long had this relationship been going?

[01:33:28] For me, there was this ambiguity there about how this whole thing worked and why it was the way it was that wasn't satisfactory.

[01:33:39] Satisfactorily addressed by the movie.

[01:33:42] So, but if we kind of take for granted that Adam was seeking out this witch for her powers and so had a relationship with the mother so that he could bring them under his household and take things over.

[01:33:57] Mm-hmm.

[01:33:58] It kind of makes me wonder a little bit how that relationship was between the two of them, between the man and the woman, such that it was convincing for her.

[01:34:10] He seemed into her when they first showed up.

[01:34:13] Yeah.

[01:34:14] But, I mean, but I guess, you know, that's a game that anyone can play for a certain amount of time because you get the impression it was sudden.

[01:34:23] Yeah.

[01:34:24] And I feel for her as a single mom, you know, she's like, oh, I found someone who's really into me and this is like, you know, special and he also has kids and let's go for it.

[01:34:33] Although it seemed really irresponsible that they were moving into his house and the kids had never even met.

[01:34:42] Like that to me tells me it wasn't just fast.

[01:34:44] It was way too fast.

[01:34:47] Yeah.

[01:34:47] Yeah.

[01:34:48] So when he was, Adam was posing as the mom and, you know, he had glamored himself to look like her, I thought that it was the mom for the longest time.

[01:34:59] I was like, oh, well, now we see the sinister side, really.

[01:35:02] And then, of course, it turned out it was him.

[01:35:04] But I really was thinking, like, on the one hand, I feel for her.

[01:35:08] On the other hand, it's like, how could you bring your daughter into this situation so suddenly?

[01:35:13] And did he bewitch her somehow?

[01:35:16] I think maybe we're meant to do the math and understand that he had somehow bewitched her and that's how and why they were there.

[01:35:25] And yet that to me also feels a little bit cheap because it has this whole grand conspiracy in play.

[01:35:34] And I mean, that's also messing with his kids, right?

[01:35:37] Right.

[01:35:37] So you bring this woman and her daughter into the house.

[01:35:42] So that what you can take the powers of the daughter and kill the mother, get rid of the mother.

[01:35:50] Like, what's the end game here?

[01:35:51] I don't really know.

[01:35:53] And meanwhile, your sons are just there watching.

[01:35:56] It's really unclear to me what the end game was as idealized by this scenario.

[01:36:03] That's why it feels a little bit unbelievable to me and unthought through.

[01:36:08] I guess he wanted to show the sons because he was very into, he very expressly states that he wants to dominate women.

[01:36:16] And so maybe he wanted to actually display that behavior for his sons.

[01:36:22] Like, he was really, I was not sad at all about his character dying.

[01:36:25] What do you think happened to the sons after this, after he dies?

[01:36:30] I feel like that's one of the unresolved questions that is really not okay.

[01:36:34] I mean, the way they play off the ending as like the mom, happy smiley, picking up the daughter as though nothing has happened.

[01:36:42] Like, she hasn't been, I don't know what, even tied up and kidnapped?

[01:36:46] Like, none of that happened.

[01:36:47] She hasn't been betrayed by this man that she moved in with, with her daughter.

[01:36:51] Her daughter wasn't almost as killed.

[01:36:54] Are we just, are we supposed to be fine with the idea that these three young boys are, I don't know, being sent to some, you know, social system care?

[01:37:04] Yeah.

[01:37:05] Are there, I mean, and where are the police?

[01:37:08] I mean, a man was, a man was killed and okay.

[01:37:10] Yes, we're, we're glad that he was killed, but a man was killed.

[01:37:14] Probably the police had to be called.

[01:37:16] Something had to be explained.

[01:37:18] What did you say?

[01:37:19] Oh, he was a warlock.

[01:37:20] Oh, well then that's okay.

[01:37:21] We'll just write this one off as a warlock case and everything's, everyone's off the hook.

[01:37:27] I mean, I guess maybe they would say some accident in the woods, but yeah, they could have said something like that.

[01:37:32] Or, and I also got the impression that Lily and her mom were staying in that town.

[01:37:36] Like maybe she, they stayed with, the son stayed with her and they have, you know, they could be unlearned, at least the younger ones.

[01:37:44] Some of what their father had been drumming into them.

[01:37:47] But in general, it's all like the whole movie is too much going on, not really grounded.

[01:37:53] Um, but which movie do you think has the happier ending?

[01:37:59] I, I don't feel like there's a fair answer to that because the second movie is clearly going for a kind of happy ending, but it's so unresolved that I don't, it kind of happily ignores so much of the harm that has been done.

[01:38:15] Like everyone is smiling, but like if, if I and my friends had just killed someone, I don't think I would be okay with that.

[01:38:24] Even if he was a bad guy, like that would be, that would cause some serious trust concerns as well as, uh, I mean just, yeah.

[01:38:32] Killing a guy is not supposed to be a thing to move on from quickly.

[01:38:36] Yeah.

[01:38:37] Um, so I, I, I don't feel like I know there's a good answer to that.

[01:38:41] I guess the first one is a more satisfying ending at least.

[01:38:46] Yeah.

[01:38:46] It feels more just, or it feels, it feels like justice is a little bit what they're reaching for.

[01:38:52] That's the abuse of power comes with consequences and you can have power as long as you use it well.

[01:38:59] Yeah.

[01:39:00] So if I were to take one scene personally, uh, that is that I would compare between the two movies, it shows me why the first one works for me more than the second one.

[01:39:10] It would be the scene where they first realize in both movies that the four of them are yes, indeed.

[01:39:17] Uh, the natural for covenant four together.

[01:39:20] Um, when they accidentally, at least in the first one, kind of do something to a male character.

[01:39:28] So in the first one, they're walking through Hollywood and there's been this like guy who's been harassing Sarah with a snake ever since she moved in and he's chasing them.

[01:39:38] And, um, they turn and look at him and a car runs him over terribly, which is a great horror moment.

[01:39:44] And I should say the first one is rated R and the second one I'm guessing is.

[01:39:48] They don't even show the condom in the second one when they, uh.

[01:39:51] It's true.

[01:39:52] Yeah.

[01:39:52] Yeah.

[01:39:53] Yeah.

[01:39:54] Um, uh, yeah, they take, they use a condom to enchant him basically.

[01:39:59] It's his, it's its essence.

[01:40:01] Um, but never gets shown.

[01:40:03] Yeah.

[01:40:03] Never gets shown.

[01:40:04] And the first one they show the car really like running over the guy.

[01:40:08] And that's the moment where they're like, holy shit, did we do that?

[01:40:11] But it's still, it could be coincidence and they leave it open to that.

[01:40:14] Whereas in the second one, it's like he touches her and she suddenly like force pushes him in the middle of the hallway in front of everybody.

[01:40:20] It's like, there's no way, even if you don't think she has powers, like how does a small girl throw off a guy of that size while she's like, she was like ducking down to, I think, or something, uh, with one hand, you know, it's just very, um.

[01:40:39] Yeah.

[01:40:39] Just show that they, they repeated the moment with kind of missing the point.

[01:40:44] And that's something that a lot of sequels do in this one is definitely guilty of.

[01:40:50] Yeah, I agree.

[01:40:51] It was a little bit out of the wrong movie.

[01:40:53] That was more of a Jedi force type move.

[01:40:58] And yeah.

[01:41:00] Yeah.

[01:41:00] Missed the point, missed the mark.

[01:41:02] Yeah.

[01:41:03] But I guess, you know, what some of these, um, movies, um, grapple with is the idea that your results are verifiable, right?

[01:41:16] That's what they're trying to demonstrate sometimes that the power is real.

[01:41:20] It's not just that, um, I wanted it to be sunny today and it's sunny.

[01:41:25] And so you can see I'm a witch, but that you, your powers have an actual verifiable, viewable and outsize result on the outsize on the outside world.

[01:41:38] Mm-hmm.

[01:41:40] And so I get that that's what they're trying to do, but it comes across all wrong.

[01:41:48] It's, it becomes across the opposite way as unbelievable and as more, more imaginary and not true to the thing that they're trying to represent.

[01:42:03] Yeah, I agree.

[01:42:04] I mean, I think also just with the themes in it too, of, of, of niceness of, um, just being a good person are so over the top hammering in like of toxic masculinity and consent and stuff without the realism.

[01:42:18] I worry that I think there's, there's, you know, oh, let's think about things from a positive way.

[01:42:25] Let's make him the best version of himself.

[01:42:27] Like I said, that whole plot line is what works for me the best in this movie.

[01:42:30] Um, but then also at the same time, if the people who most need to hear these things are not going to listen to this version, they're just going to roll their eyes.

[01:42:41] No, indeed.

[01:42:41] Because it becomes cartoonish.

[01:42:44] But I think they are maybe just targeting their audience.

[01:42:47] They're saying this is a movie for teen girls.

[01:42:50] Mm-hmm.

[01:42:50] Um, and they're just kind of taking ownership of the fact that it's, um, a bit cartoonish or not taking ownership, but settling into, they're settling into the cartoonishness of it.

[01:43:00] Um, because again, I, I think that so much of this has to do with this idea of empowerment of women and girls and seeking power over, um, both individuals and circumstances and structures which are designed to keep you powerless.

[01:43:23] Mm-hmm.

[01:43:24] Mm-hmm.

[01:43:25] And so I think that's what it's speaking to.

[01:43:27] And it's using this lens that's currently hot, which is, you know, all the, all the wokeism that we're talking about, that we've been talking about.

[01:43:39] And the, the ideas or the hot words of toxic masculinity and the whole idea of Adam being a, uh, a coach for men about their masculinity.

[01:43:49] Mm-hmm.

[01:43:50] I think those are kind of cheap inserts to try to give it a contemporary relevance.

[01:43:58] Mm-hmm.

[01:43:58] Which in a way kind of diminish or dilute the, the truth behind those points.

[01:44:06] Right.

[01:44:06] Right.

[01:44:07] Yeah.

[01:44:08] Okay.

[01:44:08] So I'm going to give one more ding and then I'm going to end, um, my response on a positive note to, if you have anything you want to add after that.

[01:44:18] So the one more ding is my least favorite scene or the most frustrating for me in this whole movie was, so they learn how to freeze time.

[01:44:26] Fine.

[01:44:26] We'll go along with that.

[01:44:27] Um, but there's one point where they are casting the spell on Timmy and they're in his room doing all this stuff.

[01:44:33] And he comes home unexpected, unexpectedly and, um, they have to jump out of the window and Lily's like, oh, can't we fly?

[01:44:41] And they're like, no.

[01:44:41] And she's like, oh, then what I'm going to do instead is just go and hover in front of his door.

[01:44:46] So that I'm right in his face when he walks in.

[01:44:48] And I'm like, what are you doing?

[01:44:51] Until all the friends freeze time again are like, get your ass out here.

[01:44:56] What are you doing?

[01:44:57] Yeah.

[01:44:58] I don't know whether to call that ridiculous or realistic because it's ridiculous because it seems like maybe exactly the sort of stupid thing you might do while panicking, but.

[01:45:11] Like I'm just going to stand right in front of the door.

[01:45:14] So he sees me the second he walks in.

[01:45:17] I mean, I guess she, maybe she was trying to come up with like, uh, so I happen to be in your room.

[01:45:22] Um, because, uh, I got lost looking from the bathroom from my house.

[01:45:31] Yeah.

[01:45:33] Um, that was really awkward.

[01:45:36] Yeah.

[01:45:36] But on the plus side, I do like, they say at one point, uh, half the battle of having powers is believing that you do.

[01:45:44] Which really resonated with me.

[01:45:46] I think that is a good line.

[01:45:48] And then it, it also speaks again to what I think is one of the strongest messages of both movies is that the power is within the harm is within, you know, all of these things you already have.

[01:46:02] You just need to find access to them and believe in yourself in a way.

[01:46:08] And enable the good.

[01:46:09] And yeah.

[01:46:11] Yeah.

[01:46:12] Yeah.

[01:46:12] And I mean, I, I think also finding your own moral compass is especially a message of the first movie.

[01:46:21] But as well, I, I do think that we already talked about the double-edged sword of community, but it also does seem to me so impactful that we are stronger together than any of us as individuals is also a really positive message.

[01:46:36] And yet, the first movie comes down to a battle of one against one.

[01:46:42] And the second movie comes down to them burning a man alive.

[01:46:47] Right.

[01:46:49] So, you know, a kind of morally ambiguous end state for both movies.

[01:46:55] Yeah.

[01:46:56] Yeah.

[01:46:56] All right.

[01:46:57] Anything you want to shout out about the second one that did or didn't work for you?

[01:47:01] Despite all my criticisms, I did find it really charming.

[01:47:05] Yeah.

[01:47:06] I liked it better than I expected, to be honest.

[01:47:08] Yeah.

[01:47:09] I mean, I won't tout its qualities as like quality TV or quality movie making or something like that, but I found it charming.

[01:47:17] Yeah.

[01:47:19] And I thought that the production design and everything like that, it was strong in the second one, too.

[01:47:24] I think it was just the writing for me that didn't work.

[01:47:27] Yeah.

[01:47:28] Yeah.

[01:47:28] Lots of holes to be found.

[01:47:31] I don't feel like they captured the, you know, the strong, sexy, cool vibe that the first one had and created.

[01:47:40] I don't think they created something in comparison.

[01:47:43] It felt a bit.

[01:47:45] Yeah.

[01:47:46] I don't want to get too much into like criticisms again.

[01:47:50] But I found it charming.

[01:47:53] Yeah.

[01:47:54] Well, how likely are you to revisit either of these movies again?

[01:47:59] The first one, I'm a bit sorry that it took me so long to revisit it.

[01:48:02] I probably hadn't seen the movie in 20 years.

[01:48:05] So I'm glad that to come back to that one.

[01:48:09] And we'll probably come back to it, not in the immediate future.

[01:48:12] But again, and I have to say mainly that's for Farooza Balk.

[01:48:17] Again, I was really floored by her performance and her presence in that movie.

[01:48:22] It was, it's really one of a kind iconic.

[01:48:28] And I was really happy to see her come back for the second movie.

[01:48:31] I found it unexpected because I did not know that she was going to be in it.

[01:48:35] So it was unexpected.

[01:48:35] And it was one of those like nostalgic heart flutter moments of, there she is.

[01:48:41] Yeah.

[01:48:43] The second movie I might watch again for funsies, but that's more what it is.

[01:48:48] Yeah.

[01:48:49] Yeah.

[01:48:49] So Lister Jones, who was the director and writer of the second movie said that she had met with

[01:48:56] the original films actresses while she was prepping for this one and that she would be

[01:49:00] interested in making a third installment that brought the two casts together.

[01:49:05] Would you want that?

[01:49:08] I would want that if they could get another writer creator involved.

[01:49:17] Because I do think that there have been quite a few series that, you know, bungle the second

[01:49:23] one, but then come back strong for the third.

[01:49:25] If they could manage to come back strong for the third, that could be really special.

[01:49:30] Yeah.

[01:49:32] If they just vomit scripts and stuff together just for nostalgia's sake, then.

[01:49:38] Yeah.

[01:49:40] I mean, I specifically would want, I don't mind if she stayed on as the director.

[01:49:45] I don't think that that per se was the problem, but I want someone else to do the scripts like

[01:49:50] the original screenplay writer would be fine.

[01:49:52] There's dozens of others, but yeah, I do think though, it would be great to get a film that,

[01:50:00] you know, as long as it's well-written, that combines the two casts together and, you know,

[01:50:06] brings the stories together.

[01:50:07] Yeah.

[01:50:08] That there could be something strong in that, but I'm not sure that this sequel film has

[01:50:14] bought me the faith in this particular creator to make that happen the way that I would hope for.

[01:50:22] Yeah.

[01:50:23] Agreed.

[01:50:24] They kind of bit off more than they could chew, I think, and try to fit all of their ideas into

[01:50:32] something and ended up with a bit of mash.

[01:50:35] Mm-hmm.

[01:50:36] Yeah, exactly.

[01:50:38] Yeah.

[01:50:38] And it missed, I mean, I think there just needs to be more depth of thought and research

[01:50:44] before writing the script too.

[01:50:47] Yeah.

[01:50:48] Well, thank you for taking the time to revisit our high school heydays or hell days or whatever

[01:50:54] you want to call it.

[01:50:56] I would encourage again, everyone to go check out Catherine's website, octobernight.com,

[01:51:02] which is just a beautifully put together website and it covers a lot of your work.

[01:51:07] But what are some projects of yours that you would want to shout out that you say people

[01:51:12] could check those out?

[01:51:14] Well, I'd be really happy to share that my latest project, which has just released, which

[01:51:18] is the Emotion Mixer, which is a tool for creators to come up with more engaging emotional

[01:51:26] depth in their projects by considering emotions as an ingredient that can be combined into a

[01:51:34] meaningful palette.

[01:51:36] And as well, and that's emotionmixer.com.

[01:51:39] Mm-hmm.

[01:51:39] And as well, I have a book coming out next year called Elsewhere, which is personal essays

[01:51:45] of words and photographs.

[01:51:47] Okay.

[01:51:48] I will have links to all of these in the show notes so you can easily find them to check

[01:51:54] them out.

[01:51:54] And yeah, thank you again, Catherine.

[01:51:56] This was a really fun and like, I don't know, cathartic kind of conversation.

[01:52:02] Well, thank you for having me and for letting us geek out on the goth of our views.

[01:52:09] Yeah.

[01:52:10] Nineties forever.

[01:52:14] We are the weirdos, mister.

[01:52:16] So thank you again to Catherine for a really fun conversation.

[01:52:22] Loved reliving that with you.

[01:52:23] And thank you especially to everyone who's listening.

[01:52:26] I hope that you are having a spooktacular October.

[01:52:30] Happy Halloween.

[01:52:31] And don't forget to check out our spooktober coverage of Poltergeist on the Lorehounds feed.

[01:52:36] And also, we'll shift dust book club members and also Lorehounds subscribers can both look

[01:52:43] forward to an episode dropping imminently where Marilyn and I talk through what is a witch?

[01:52:50] Where does this idea come from and what does it mean today?

[01:52:53] Also going on in the book club, we are wrapping up our Silo short story and rewatch coverage in time for you to be fully prepped for season two of Silo starting November 15th.

[01:53:06] And then we're also going to be sneaking in some dune coverage in there as well as we go.

[01:53:11] We're eager to get that started.

[01:53:13] So watch out for a much busier will shift dust feed in the coming months.

[01:53:18] And of course, as always, very busy across the Lorehounds.

[01:53:23] The Star Wars Canon Timeline podcast is about to start picking up on both feeds.

[01:53:28] So lots of content coming your way this fall.

[01:53:32] Until then, may your Halloween or whatever day you might be listening be very uplifting.

[01:53:39] Light as a feather stiff as a board.

[01:53:42] Light as a feather stiff as a board.

[01:53:44] Light as a feather stiff as a board.

[01:54:04] Prada.

[01:54:06] Stop it, please.

[01:54:07] Thank you.