The Big Picture · Discussion · Interview
April 18, 2023/ 95 min/ Sean Fennessey · Chris Ryan
Chris Ryan joins Sean to run through a busy April: Renfield, The Pope's Exorcist, and Evil Dead Rise. They argue about who's actually running horror right now, get into the Skinamarink/Outwaters strain of anti-narrative horror, and work through a batch of VOD deep cuts. Closes with Daniel Goldhaber and Ariella Barer on How to Blow Up a Pipeline.
56 films across 6 segments.
AI-generated This episode was transcribed and analyzed with AI models. The matches aren't perfect — expect the occasional misheard title or a link to the wrong film.
Renfield, The Pope's Exorcist, and Evil Dead Risefour horror movies with not much in common
Chris McKay's historic-IP reboot: Dracula (Nicolas Cage) as a narcissistic, toxic boss, told through his familiar. Sean liked the pieces (Cage "comes to play") but the ultraviolet-gangster-movie, cop-drama, and rom-com strands never hang together. Came in behind The Pope's Exorcist at the box office; neither cracked $10 million opening weekend.
Julius Avery's based-on-a-true-story exorcism procedural, inspired by William Friedkin's documentary about Father Amorth. Russell Crowe, fully committed and doing his own Italian and Spanish, elevates a silly movie that doesn't seem to know it's silly: more Richard Burton late-period professionalism than horror.
Lee Cronin's fifth Evil Dead movie, set in an earthquake-cracked LA apartment building instead of a cabin. Possibly the goriest studio horror movie either host has seen in years ("fun torture porn"), and it played well to a packed Burbank crowd. Alyssa Sutherland's physical performance as the mother gets a specific shout-out.
Ari Aster's three-hour nightmare comedy, expanding wide the same week. Sean is saving the full discussion for a later episode with Adam Naiman, but flags it as barely horror at all, the same open question raised by Hereditary and Midsommar.
Is There a King of Horror Right Now?running down the directors staking a claim
James Wan, the guy Sean and Chris agree currently holds the belt. Watched cold at 9 a.m. it didn't land; a rewatch a month later revealed a movie that's a total homage to the stuff Wan loves.
Leigh Whannell, Wan's longtime collaborator. One of the more underrated movies of the pandemic era and the last real hit before lockdown.
Mike Flanagan, whom Chris ranks in the top 1% of horror directing over the last decade before he mostly moved to television.
Flanagan again, one of the core feature credits before the shift to Netflix limited series.
Another Flanagan studio job on the resume.
Jennifer Kent's debut. Sean says it looked like she'd be next up before she went a different direction entirely.
Kent's follow-up, a real gear-shift from The Babadook. Both hosts rate it highly; she hasn't made a feature since.
Benson and Moorhead's Anthony Mackie/Jamie Dornan bid at something closer to mainstream, though still an indie at heart.
Rob Savage's Zoom-horror COVID movie, near-universally liked. Sean calls Savage a director he's "scouting."
Savage's follow-up, which Sean found borderline unwatchable but figures that was the point.
Ti West (called "Ty West" on air), back from years of mostly TV work. Sean rates it as sweet-spot filmmaking: West knows the history of the genre and still does his own spin on it.
West's companion piece. Mia Goth's performance was pushed hard for awards attention that never materialized.
Chris calls this West's most underrated movie.
Skinamarink, The Outwaters, and What Comes After Elevated Horrorphantasmagoric, abstract, and hard to sit through on purpose
Kyle Edward Ball's micro-budget breakout. Chris and Sean disagree: Sean is still turning it over after two viewings and thinks a third might change his mind. Best experienced alone, scared, in the dark; loses power outside that context.
Robbie Banfitch's $15,000 desert nightmare: a conventional found-footage setup that dissolves into a gory, time-traveling, POV wormhole. Some of it lands, some of it "felt unwatchable," but Sean respects the vision on that budget regardless.
Brandon Cronenberg's follow-up to Possessor: more linear and psychedelic than truly experimental, in their view.
The Cronenberg film they'd actually put closer to the Skinamarink/Outwaters camp, and it reviewed better than Infinity Pool.
VOD CornerChris's deep cuts from a softer year for streaming horror
Directed by John Hyams, an action specialist (the Universal Soldier sequels) doing a COVID-set slasher. The fight choreography is a level above anything else in the genre right now, and the twist works. Streaming on Peacock; possibly Chris's favorite movie of the year.
John Swab's Oklahoma-truck-stop slasher, half grindhouse, half mumblecore, with William Baldwin "on his Too Old to Die Young grind." Not good but enjoyed anyway; Sean's wife had a theory about the title.
Roxanne Benjamin (Body at Brighton Rock, Southbound) directs Zach Gilford in a childless-couple-on-vacation-with-friends'-kids story. Sean wanted more mythology; the inciting event stays largely unexplained.
Half-successful religious horror with a strong Jena Malone performance carrying a familiar story.
Grouped with Consecration as part of the same wave of birth-and-loss horror; also only half-successful for Chris despite a strong lead performance.
Another entry in the current run of movies about birth, loss, and parenthood as horror.
David Bruckner and Rebecca Hall, cited as an example of trauma moving from subtext to text in recent horror.
Rebecca Hall again, in the same trauma-forward mold as The Night House.
What's Coming Nextthe IP moment, and a few genuine wild cards
David Gordon Green moving straight from his Halloween trilogy into an Exorcist legacy sequel with Leslie Odom Jr.
The Dracula chapter nobody adapts, everything that happens aboard the ship, with Corey Hawkins and Liam Cunningham. Sean liked the trailer: "low-grade Master and Commander with Dracula on the ship."
Sean already flagged this one from Sundance; now that A24 has it, he's calling it the horror phenomenon of the summer, out at the end of July.
Ti West's third film in the X trilogy, set in '80s LA porn, with a cast that includes Elizabeth Debicki, Giancarlo Esposito, Michelle Monaghan, Lily Collins, Bobby Cannavale, Halsey, and Kevin Bacon.
Rob Savage's Stephen King adaptation, with Chris Messina. The movie Sean says he's most looking forward to next.
A mysterious, undated Paramount production revealed to be a Rosemary's Baby prequel/sequel: Julia Garner and Diane Wiest, directed by Natalie Erika James (Relic), produced by John Krasinski.
Neither host loved the first one, but they're curious.
Sean was never a Saw guy after the first one's Achilles-tendon scene; Chris passes too.
Renny Harlin reboots The Strangers. Both hosts are surprised he's still directing.
Marielle Heller's adaptation of Rachel Yoder's novel about a woman who turns into a dog at night, with Amy Adams and Scoot McNairy. Billed as comedy, but could tip horror.
Sean will keep watching this anthology series for as long as they keep making them.
Screenwriter Gary Dauberman (Annabelle, It) directing his own Stephen King adaptation.
A mystery project from an unnamed director, plot kept under wraps aside from a "decade-spanning" mystery called the Bunker Anomaly. Sean's most intrigued-but-nervous pick of the preview.
In conversation
Adapted from Andreas Malm's nonfiction book by Goldhaber, Barer, and Jordan Scholl into an Ocean's Eleven-style heist thriller. Self-funded early on with money drained from their own accounts and a Cannes party crash that got them banned from the next one's security. Built as a deliberately aspirational story about leftist direct action, a rebuttal to films like First Reformed and Night Moves, which Goldhaber argues concede that resistance is futile.
Goldhaber's directorial debut, referenced as the project that first connected him with Barer before their own follow-up fell apart at the start of COVID lockdown.
Goldhaber's next film for Legendary, a reimagining of the found-footage shockumentary, starring Barbie Ferreira, Josie Totah, and Bakr Montgomery. They start shooting in three days.
Barer's biggest structural and tonal touchstone for Pipeline.
Named alongside Reservoir Dogs as a reference point.
Michael Mann cited as an influence on the film's craft.
Barer's pick for capturing the disillusionment of youth and rebellion.
Barer's personal favorite among the reference points, an Icelandic film about environmental sabotage.
A late but major discovery for both: Chris Morris's black comedy about a group's camaraderie and ideology, filtered through humor. Writer Sam Bain gave the Pipeline team notes on writing characters far outside their own experience.
Cited as an example of the more overtly "revolutionary form" movie Goldhaber and Barer respect but didn't want to make themselves.
Goldhaber's counterexample: a film he thinks walks away suggesting there's nothing to be done about climate change, which he sees as its own kind of moral compromise.
Grouped with First Reformed as a film about eco-sabotage that lands on futility rather than possibility.
Goldhaber's answer to "last great thing you saw": a first-time watch he's now obsessed with, and another model for political filmmaking he wants to pursue.
Kathryn Bigelow, named in the same breath as The Conformist: one of Goldhaber's favorite movies.
Also mentioned raised along the way
Spring box-office context The Super Mario Bros. MovieGuardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3Shazam! Fury of the GodsScream VIM3GANKnock at the Cabin
The Evil Dead franchise The Evil DeadEvil Dead IIEvil DeadArmy of Darkness
Comparison points OverlordRelicOcean's ElevenThe WitchHereditaryMidsommarScream
Director back catalog, in passing The Lego Batman MovieThe Tomorrow WarThe ConjuringFurious 7Aquaman
Not films filtered out: TV, games, ads
TV BarryVikingsSwarmThe Last of UsThe X-FilesMoon KnightThe Haunting of Hill HouseThe Haunting of Bly ManorMidnight MassThe Midnight ClubGuillermo del Toro's Cabinet of CuriositiesCyberpunk: Edgerunners
Games Cyberpunk 2077
Ads Prestige TV podcast promo (Barry)FanDuelBoar's HeadCarvanaNetflix (FIFA World Cup Launch Edition)NASA EnergyWhole FoodsShopify