Hello everybody, welcome to Camp Kaiju Monster Movie Podcast.
We are your hosts, Vincent Canem and Matt Levine.
And we are talking about all of our favorite monster movies.
The Good, The Bad and the Downright Campy and asking if they stand the test of time.
Jigokaju creature features, space invaders, the supernatural and everything in-between.
All Strange Beasts welcome here.
Hey everybody.
Contrary to what you just heard in the intro, Matt is not joining us on this week's episode
but I'll tell you why.
So last Sunday, I was fortunate enough, honored enough to attend the
commitment ceremony between he and his partner Kelly.
So, you know, Matt has other things on his mind this week.
We wish him all the best.
So, Kankaiju family, just give Matt some love.
The ceremony was beautiful.
Just full of friends and family and I know I couldn't be happier to be friends with
with Matt and Kelly.
So, truly wonderful.
So, with that said, we are bringing in Max Anum, my brother of course, and fellow monster
movie lover, to talk a little bit more about Cold Skin, which of course is the final installment
of the Frozen with Fear series that we have been really, really proud of on Kankaiju.
And as I described to Matt in our previous episode, Cold Skin, I would describe it as
feature from the black lagoon meets the lighthouse.
Really a unique movie, so if you haven't watched it, go ahead and do so.
Me and Max chat here for about 40 minutes before the main segment.
He tells us his favorite monster movies.
We talk about Godzilla.
We talk about, we talk about the mummy.
We talk about Universal Studios.
So it's really a great conversation.
It was a joy as always to have Max on the show and we hope that you enjoy.
We hope you get a little something out of this.
We'll see you later on Kankaiju.
Science couldn't explain it, but there it was, alive in the deep, deep waters of the
Amazon, a throwback to a creature that had existed 100 million years ago, immensely
strong and destructive, a woman's beauty, the bait that brought it out of its lair.
Sea underwater thrills never photographed before.
Sea Titanic underwater battles never dreamed of before in this most terrifying of the science
fiction adventure.
Before I bring Max on his way in the wings there before I bring him on, we gotta, we
gotta get to some nuts and bolts.
So first and foremost, thank you to our patrons.
Jason, Chris, Sean, our anonymous patron, and Peggy.
Thank you for being the catalyst for this commission that I had and I went to Max and
Corey and said, hey, do you want to talk about some monster movies with your unique situation
being based in Antarctica for six months?
So thank you.
For everyone else, if you're interested in becoming a patron, you can get discount on
merchandise, events, personal thank yous in the episodes and priority comments.
We love reading comments on Camp Kaiju.
You can do so at campkaijuagemail.com, on our YouTube, Facebook, Instagram.
All those links are in our show notes.
And or you can give us a call at the Kaiju hotline at 612-470-2612.
Hi again, promise not to answer that phone.
It's a Google voice, so I'm probably not gonna get it anyways, but I will get a notification
of a voicemail that you can leave just sharing your love of monster movies.
Have you seen Cold Skin?
Did you have any comments on our season four announcements, right?
Any of those movies really jump out at you?
Anything that you're really excited for, please let us know and we'll feature your voice on
the show.
All that and campkaijupodcast.com is our website, the place to go for more monster movie content.
All right, now coming up on Camp Kaiju.
So this month in June 2024, we have our kind of our special month.
We're just gonna, we're gonna have featuring some special episodes.
Our Cold Skin, which was recorded last year, but we are releasing today, if you're listening.
And then next week, Matt and I are going to revisit our vaults, actually.
We're gonna talk about, we're gonna, we're gonna re-release our episode about cat people
from 1942.
Then me and Patrick Kozaki are going to drop a brand new episode, special content.
A collaboration between his podcast, Gaze Do The D, and Camp Kaiju.
That episode is going to be about who framed Roger Rabbit.
And then in July, Kaijuly, we're gonna start off with brand new actual Camp Kaiju content
with Godzilla Kong the New Empire and King Kong vs. Godzilla, where you can get in on
some hot trivia action with a new game that we're gonna play on Camp Kaiju featuring trivia.
So for more information on that, listen to our season four announcement and stay tuned
on the socials.
We will keep you in the loop.
All right.
Thank you all for that.
So this is good.
We can segue into, I wanted to talk to you a little bit about A, cold skin, but B, just
a little bit more about your love for monster movies, science fiction, horror films.
I know we've talked a little bit before on the podcast, but really the episodes you've
been on have been specials and they've been exclusive from what me and Matt do.
So like we actually haven't been able to talk much on the podcast.
Right.
What do you think of those titles for our season four?
Erachnophobia, Mummy, Possession, Planet The Apes, The Relicable Fan, God told me to
Godzilla minus one, Attack the Block, Remlins.
I have not seen Erachnophobia in probably 20 years.
Same.
I would love to watch that again.
You're having an excuse to watch it.
I watched the Mummy like five years ago.
I watched it a few years ago.
I showed it to Ellen and she couldn't help herself.
She was like, yeah, that was better than I thought it was going to be.
I was like, right?
Yeah.
Well, Emily and I watched it in Tahoe when we were looking if we wanted to get married
there.
So we're like rented a cabin and it was like, what do you want to watch?
You want to watch the Mummy?
Yes.
Watch the Mummy.
Can I rub you for a second?
Yeah.
I'm reading this wiki page on the Brendan Fraser trilogy.
And the original concept for that first movie, the proposal for it was it was going to be
written and directed by Clive Barker.
Whoa.
Yeah.
And it was supposed to be more violent with this story revolving around the head of a
contemporary art museum who turns out to be a cultist trying to reanimate mummies.
Whoa.
That seems like it would have been good, but very different.
Not an adventure movie.
It's like, I don't know, ripped from a cult page.
Yeah.
And just drawing a comparison between Clive Barker Mummy versus what we ended up with.
Oh, yeah.
What we ended up with, I feel like, is more in tone with the universal aesthetic.
You know, it's ostensibly horror, but really it's adventure.
It's comedy.
It's action.
It's everything that Universal would have wanted out of a remake.
It's a big blockbuster.
It's a summer movie.
You take everyone, the whole family to go.
Right.
Clive Barker Mummy.
It's probably a cult classic in the making that bombs.
Yes.
Because it's rated R. And it is.
Well, it says Barker's take.
It's a quote was dark, sexual and filled with mysticism and that it would have been a great
low budget movie, which I think sums it up perfectly.
One more Mummy movie here.
I just learned about this movie from 1980 called The Awakening.
Do you know it?
What year?
1980.
It's a British horror film.
It's based on, didn't know this, a Bram Stoker novel from 1903 called The Jewel of Seven
Stars.
Have you seen this poster for it?
The one on Wikipedia?
I mean, I'm just on Google Images and it is pretty rad.
I mean, it's just a mummy in a desert with the pyramids and the sphinx behind it with
like a dark space, like stars and then like a blue light blowing behind the head.
And I don't know, the colors are really cool.
Through the ages, the ancient monuments of Egypt have been hunting grounds for archaeologists,
tourists and grave robbers.
One by one, the sacred tombs of pharaohs and queens have been violated, yielding their
priceless treasures and occult mysteries.
But the evil one, Kara, has slept undisturbed for thousands of years, waiting, waiting
for the awakening.
You must have killed thousands.
Kara, you must be forever alone, do not approach.
Best your soul be withered.
The inscription was a warning for mankind.
For all those who take part in her awakening are doomed.
Charlton Heston, obsessed by the awakening, intrudes where no man should go.
Through Santa York, this obeys the ancient warning that threatens to destroy her.
You're going to try the ritual, aren't you?
Stephanie Zimbalus defies the deadly legend and brings forth the terror.
The evil one must be forever alone.
She must not live again.
For 4,000 years.
She has been silent and dead and waiting for the awakening.
They thought they had buried her forever.
Yeah, so anyone out there seen this film, comment.
Let us know if it's worth our time.
Because I'm definitely intrigued.
I love this poster.
Mummy movies, man.
Well, if you want to join us for our episode on Steven Summer's Mummy, we can definitely
talk more about this sub-genre.
Oh yeah, yeah.
That would be great.
Another thing I want to blow by you, I have the idea of what I'm calling a round table
episode themed around the Universal Studios Parks and Halloween Horror Nights.
So I was thinking about asking you, Jonathan, and I have a friend who's actually an actor
in the Horror Makeup Show.
Oh, that's fun.
Which I'm a huge fan of.
So I'm hoping he gets back to me.
Yeah, I'd like to have guests on the show who can speak to the Halloween Horror Nights,
speak to the theme parks, and just ask you all questions about what that's like.
And all of my experiences approaching 15 years old at this point, started working there in
2008 and stopped in 2000, was it was 2008, 2009, I was working the summers.
So I didn't work all the way to Horror Nights.
Right, right.
That's when I was working Jaws.
Let's see, you can speak to, we can speak to Jaws as fans of that ride, but you can
hold different perspectives.
Yeah, so yeah, I didn't work Jaws, but I worked Amity.
But you know, the ride was right there.
I rode it a lot.
Mm-hmm.
It was the 4th of July.
The beaches are open, and as you can see, everybody's having a wonderful time.
Amity, as you know, means friendship.
Yep.
But I can definitely speak to the Mummy Ride.
Yes.
Because I worked that all throughout college.
If you're down, I'm excited about that idea.
I want to do more of that kind of content on the podcast.
We have our mainstays where we review movies.
Love doing that.
But once in a while, if there's a festival to highlight for an event like Halloween Horror
Nights, or if it's just a interesting take for the Mummy movie, like an addendum episode
of just, hey, let's just talk about this ride, or I guess a broader discussion that
isn't just tied to the movie.
Right.
Did you know that all the Universal Theme Parks, the Mummy rides are themed differently,
and they are different rides?
What's funny is that you're probably going to repeat this conversation once or twice.
With those two episodes.
Well, I do want to keep us on some sort of track here.
Yeah.
So, we're talking cold skin.
This is our special episode.
It is our last episode of the Frozen with Fear series, which started as a Patreon exclusive
with Max and his friend and colleague, Corey Stewart, when they were down in Antarctica
serving with the United States Coast Guard.
Now, those episodes are publicly released, so everyone, please go back and listen to
those.
Max, what episode, what movies did you talk about with Frozen with Fear?
Oh, we watched the Impeccable Alien vs. Predator classic Antarctic film.
Then we watched The Thing, 1982, and then The Thing, 2011.
Yeah.
I was supposed to be where it would end, but then as we were watching those, we also just
happened to watch Cold Skin.
And we're like, hey, this is, I think, set in Antarctica.
Yeah, speak more about that, because it's not explicit.
Yeah.
So, it's set on an island in the Southern Hemisphere that we got the impression it was
on an island that was probably like South of South America, maybe an old stop or on
an old route for traders or whalers before the Panama Canal.
Because there's a line somewhere in the movie about, like, why are we even out here?
Like no one comes out here except military vessels to come just check on the outpost.
And it's set during World War I, too.
Correct.
Yeah.
So, I think at the time we were actually sailing along the coast of Antarctica, like coming
up the peninsula towards South America.
And because of that, we kind of got the vibe throughout the movie that it was probably
around there, or maybe it could be close to the Falklands or somewhere around there.
So, that's why it's vaguely Antarctic and we decided to just throw it on there.
Yeah.
Well, I'm really glad you did.
It does have a very desolate, like, South Atlantic feel, which is, to me, very different
from the South Pacific, which seems very tropical.
But the South Atlantic, I'm like, first of all, there are islands there.
Second of all, these are just barren rocks.
But yes, I really enjoyed the movie.
I found it on 2B and it is a recent movie, 2017.
And why do you like this movie?
Do you like this movie?
Like, what?
Why talk about it?
I do like the movie.
I've got, like, mild issues with it, but overall it was enjoyable in a, like, monster movie
sense because you do get monsters.
It's not, like, hidden away for the most part.
Like, you get monsters, some pretty good effects, like, good makeup.
It's funny.
I don't know if it's intended to be funny in some parts, but one of the main characters
is just a broken lighthouse keeper.
He's got some sort of trauma, which causes him to just act in ways that are unexpected
or over the top and that causes a lot of humor.
Yeah.
I think it's intentional.
Right.
And because that actor who plays the character, he was one of the main characters in Rome.
So I know he can do, like, good subtle performances.
So it's not just a case of bad acting.
No, the movie, there seems to be a lot of great care in this movie.
Like you said, the special effects, the makeup.
I think the costuming, I think, you could tell this movie was made for not a lot of money,
but in that you could tell the attention to detail is really important to the filmmakers.
So you get this really lived experience.
You can feel the, you know, the spray on their faces from the ocean.
You know what I mean?
Right.
There's not really much in the way of visual effects, like CGI and stuff.
There's some, but I mean, one of the main characters is a monster.
I think it's a dancer who just didn't make up like heavy monster makeup.
So it's a great physicality to it that you really feel.
Agreed.
And these monsters, they're fish people.
Is that accurate?
How would you describe the monsters?
Oh, they are fish people.
They're humanoids from the sea.
They go off of the classic like Lovecraft monster creation of Deep Ones.
I don't know if that's the definite inspiration for the book that the movie was inspired by,
but it's definitely in the film.
Now Lovecraftian Deep Ones are described more as like half fish, half frog humanoids.
Right.
They're walking out like a hopping sort of motion.
So it's not necessarily similar to those Lovecraftian Deep Ones in that sense, but just the idea
that there's a society of these humanoid creatures living under the ocean, which give them these
fish-like properties.
There's your island.
We set sail 67 days ago.
September 1914.
No birds.
No weather official to greet you either.
In this remote part of the world, I feel a sense of irreparable loss.
Maritime signal technician, we are replacing the weather official.
Can you tell me what he's wearing?
It's safe.
He's dead?
I would have to live in a solitude like exile for 12 months.
Remember, it's the still and silency that drowns a man.
One thing I still can't understand is that you could have escaped four days ago and
the boat that brought me here.
It's a world.
Here, I'm master of my own destiny.
I can't tell whether it arises from a longing for civilization, a prisoner's panic, or simply
fear.
The previous weather official wasn't typhus.
You'd have to be stranded here, I'd be.
It's as good as murder.
No, don't shoot.
There's sunlight, human or divine.
Demons from Atlantis.
The only thing you need to understand is that we are the invaders, which makes us the enemy.
Kill and conquer is what we humans do.
Do you want to conquer them, is that it?
Oh no, I want to exterminate them.
Wake up, shoot, shoot, damn it.
I see where you are.
It's sad, but that's it.
Fade you out of this and throw.
You're too afraid to let your friends leave.
So, cold skin.
Now, listeners, after Max and I wrap up our sort of prelude conversation here, you'll
be treated to the full episode with Max and Corey riffing on this movie.
Their style, if you haven't listened to Frozen with Fear, is very different from our usual,
from Matt and I's usual setup.
So, Max and Corey just kind of talk about the movie from the beginning to the end and
have some really good insights and a lot of comedy and humor.
Max, I think you and Corey have really good chemistry and know your stuff.
Well, he definitely knows it more than me.
I have a general knowledge, but as you can already tell, I make reference to, oh, it's
that one actor who's in this other thing or it's that one H.G. Wells story.
Well, sure, but you, but you understand the language of movies and, and right, you know,
what goes into filmmaking.
Yeah.
So we, we had, yes, some good fun conversations that we had no idea how long the conversation
would last.
We were just having a good time chatting.
Yeah.
And happened to just record it.
Yeah.
I think it's good.
All right.
Thank you, Max.
We are going to take a brief break before we continue our catch up conversation here.
We got to, we got to dip in the MENIA's mailbox a little bit.
On our YouTube page comes from Guy Grip.
And this was just from the other day very recently.
So Guy Grip says, the sad thing is this movie, and he's talking about Matango or the Mushroom
People.
This movie was on at least, on at least three times a year from 1969 to 1991.
I'm older at 61.
I was first to see it broadcast in the summer of 1965 as AIP TV.
I was three years old when my mom explained the story to me.
What a memory.
And Guy Grip, indeed, what a memory.
That's incredible that you remember seeing Matango on television in the 1960s when it
was still a new movie.
So thank you for sharing that, that bit of nostalgia.
I personally love Matango.
It's directed by Ashiro Honda.
It's more of a horror movie, monster movie than a traditional Kaiju flip.
But in that, there's some, there's some really great thrills.
So Matango, everyone check it out.
And leave us a comment.
Let us know what you think if you agree with Guy Grip here about its merits.
Or if you think, you know, maybe Honda should stick to giant monsters in rubber suits.
I don't know.
But thank you all for listening for your time and attention.
And we're going to get back to our main segment now with Max.
We're going to continue the conversation.
So what are your, what are your, what are some of your favorite monster movies?
Well, I mean, like you, Jaws is a top of the list.
It's a pretty good one.
Hmm.
And you throw it on the spot.
Uh, uh, uh, I really do like the 99 mummy.
Yeah.
As we mentioned, which is why I was pretty stoked to work at that ride.
Uh, Tremors.
Yeah.
Love it.
What else?
I'm trying to think of stuff that I have watched as an adult and not.
Yeah.
Maybe some things that we don't share.
Right.
Yeah.
I don't know.
This probably counts as a monster movie, but I love Herbert West, free animator.
Yeah.
All time classic.
I mean, no Stuart Gordon movies are really fun in that way.
Yeah.
I know you're, I know you're a fan of Stuart Gordon.
Uh, how about some other directors?
I mean, Guillermo del Toro, he knows what he's doing.
I mean, just look at the creativity and something like Hans Labyrinth or the shape of water.
What else?
Uh, I actually, I've been watching his, the cabinet of curiosities.
Oh yeah?
I haven't finished all of the episodes, but that's a great series on Netflix.
If you want to see some like adaptations of some classic short stories like monster movies,
strange fiction type stuff.
Uh, some of them are a little bit more monstery.
Some are more in the vein of like a monkey's paw sort of.
Yeah.
Story.
Yeah.
So it's a good watch.
Okay.
What's your favorite Godzilla movie?
The original is just a beautiful movie.
It's not the most fun movie in the series, but when I watched it as an adult for the first time,
I definitely felt like emotion that I wasn't expecting like some sadness and my experience
with Godzilla movies in the past have been more of a like Shoah era, cartoony sort of
vibe, like full on.
This is Kaiju directed towards kids.
Like Megalon.
Yeah.
Jet Jaguar.
I love that movie.
Upon rewatch, you know, it's not terrible.
It's like it's, it's a mess, but it's a very entertaining mess.
Oh yeah.
And then honestly, I think, um, and I do want to have you back at some point to talk about
Godzilla vs. Megalon.
But the last half hour, the 90 minute movie, the last 30 minutes is all Kaiju action.
They're just throwing down with each other and it's a tag team wrestling match for 30 minutes.
You can't really beat that.
It's honestly, that is one of the most standout moments of the franchise to me, just the 30
minutes at the end of that movie.
From Picture House.
And the imagination of Guillermo del Toro.
In darkness, there can be light.
In misery, there can be beauty.
In death, there can be life.
Pan's Labyrinth.
They're coming!
The good old days of good old monster movies are back.
Tremors.
It was funny.
It's humongous.
Slimy.
It was for you.
It was scary.
Yeah, we'll take your word for it.
The scariest monster movie since Aliens says sneak previews.
Bloodthirsty, that creature.
Action packed.
It's a wild film.
And Time Magazine raves, Tremors is bound to become a classic.
Tremors, rated PG-13, starts tomorrow at theaters everywhere.
Made within the uncharted depths of waters surrounding a group of islands off the 50th
parallel lies man's most formidable challenge.
The awesome awakening of prehistoric monsters long for extinct.
Savage and deadly, their one hope is to rule our planet as they once had thousands of years back.
Giant against giant.
The ultimate battle, Godzilla versus Megalon.
Science was battled and powerless.
A terror-stricken humanity knew that it was on the brink of total destruction.
A once proud civilization now had to place its trust and hope in Godzilla and his powerful ally,
Robot Man.
In concert they would fight this evil in a duel to the death.
Battling by day, battling by night, it was more than a race against time.
This war was an all-out effort whose ultimate purpose was to save our planet from total destruction.
Now came the moment of truth.
The ultimate battle.
Titan against Titan.
Giant against giant in the most spectacular battle yet.
You'll see it all in Godzilla versus Megalon.
Yeah, and as far as maybe a more modern Godzilla like Shin Godzilla is a great start to a new era.
Which in and of itself didn't really go anywhere.
I don't know, I feel like...
Well, no, it's launched a new era.
What has? I just mean like that incarnation of Godzilla has not reappeared.
I don't think it's supposed to. It's the birth of Godzilla.
Like he is evolving from, I don't know, almost like a tadpole to be Godzilla.
So I don't know, it feels like a revival or rebirth of the character.
And I know it's not going to be like the same creative team making future Godzilla movies.
But they're definitely going to see how much people connected with Shin Godzilla.
Yeah.
And enjoyed it.
And they're just going to copy that template until it gets worn and then go for another refresh.
Hmm, yeah. So perhaps in that there's a threat of continuity.
That's just what I was thinking. Like Showa era, there's a loose continuity.
The Heisei era, there's a continuity in the story.
The Millennium era, each movie is its own installment.
Different take on the monster.
But in that there's sort of a collective package of this is this era.
But right, Shin Godzilla to me is such an outlier.
That's a good thing. Like it's its own beast that hasn't been replicated.
I mean, it probably won't. Like you have Hideaki Aono as I don't know if he produced it or was just heavily involved in the creation of it.
Like I said, it's producing.
I know he didn't like fully direct it. It was like one of his good friends.
And it feels exactly like everything else that Aono has done.
Right. So, so that's a good point. Actually. Yeah. So Aono co produced with Shinji Higuchi.
Higuchi directed Shin.
Wait, yeah. Ultraman.
No, I'm getting confused. Shin Godzilla and Shin Ultraman.
Yeah, they they've been working on all of these Shin movies together.
It's just they've been like passing off.
Like trading the roles.
Yep. Yep. Yeah. Okay. I'm going to get this right for all the listeners who are going.
No, you're getting the info wrong.
Okay. Again, I have no idea what I'm talking about when it comes to people's names and their exact roles.
Okay. But generally, we're looking for yes, generally where we're looking for.
Generally where we know what we're talking about, but specifically.
I'm an expert.
Shin Godzilla was directed by Hideaki Aono and Shinji Higuchi.
Okay. Shin Ultraman was only directed by Higuchi while it was co produced and co edited by Aono.
So that's where we're at. And then we have Shin Common Rider.
Yeah, which was written and directed by Aono.
Saw that theaters. You did? Yeah.
I haven't seen it yet. Oh, that was great. There was no previews for it either.
So there was like start to seven, set down seven o'clock lights go out and the movie just starts.
So that's amazing. I got to see Shin Common Rider.
Hold on. You were just recently in Japan. Did you go to the Toho Studios?
I didn't. I didn't make it before everyone was asking. So what are you going to do in Japan?
I only had four days. So I was saying, oh, yeah, I got to go to the Toho Studios.
It's in a Kabukicho, I don't know how to pronounce it, but it's an area that's a very visually distinct area of Tokyo.
It's very much a nightlife described as almost like a red light district area.
But from that area, you can see the Godzilla that's at the Toho Studio.
Nice. I did not go though, because I got distracted in Akihabara.
And what is that?
That's an area of Tokyo that's just filled with a bunch of like neon sort of signs and like anime shops and electronic stores.
It's where you go if you want to go find like old video game stuff or anything anime, they have it there.
So I got distracted there. It's very fun to just basically window shop. I did a lot of window shopping too.
Yeah.
Because most of those stores have multiple floors. You just kind of almost like a museum, just like slowly wandering through just looking at everything.
Wow.
I nearly bought like the entire Godzilla collection because there were some stores that just had like every single one there.
And I didn't because, one, I'm pretty sure they were all bootlegs. So I didn't know the quality.
Because of that, I was almost positive they there wouldn't have been like English subtitles.
Right.
Oh, this is the last thing I wanted to ask.
Was shed shed light on any possible future installments of Frozen with Fear?
Or is this it?
Well, I would say Frozen with Fear is as a concept of Antarctic movies in Antarctica, not going to continue.
Right. There's only so many.
Right. And I will not be going back to Antarctica for the foreseeable future or ever again.
Fair enough.
There's a small chance I might go back, but not with the Coast Guard.
So that series as a concept, I think was, you know, it had its time.
But I will be looking into some other sort of themed or franchise based discussions to have.
Yeah. I've got some stuff rolling around in my head.
Okay.
So, I'm going to be looking into some other things that I want to share.
Well, I've been thinking about revisiting Hellraiser.
Right. Right.
All of them. I don't think I've seen the last one either.
No.
So I got to watch all of them and prep for it.
Obviously.
So I was thinking maybe that because those are fun movies to just, they're not fun to watch actually in back to back.
Not all of them.
But they are fun to talk about and riff on.
Yeah. I love exploring.
If a franchise has five or more entries, I'm immediately drawn to it because I'm like, you know, there's going to be, you know, the highs are going to be high and the lows are going to be low.
Well, it's one of those franchises that most of those movies were made so that they could retain the rights to it.
So it's kind of like the, the nun movies.
Oh, well, how like the first one was a movie that's like, oh, this is, it might sound like a great movie, but it's got the quality you would expect out of something released in theaters.
Mm hmm.
And then the sequels turn into, hey, this was like shot on this camcorder in someone's just house.
It almost looks like stuff that we shot in like high school.
Okay, wonderful.
Like the audio is terrible.
Every window is just blown out light from outside.
It like, it devolves into that level.
Yeah.
The Hellraiser doesn't go that to that level, but it's definitely a, hey, we're just churning out anything and just slapping the Hellraiser name on it.
Yeah, I mean, I'm morbidly curious.
I think that's just the best way to say that.
Yeah.
And it's just after the first trilogy, like the first three, it's just that until I think nine.
Nine.
Maybe.
No, there was one that, there was one that was like a reboot ish, but not like the most recent one.
And it felt like they put more effort into a story.
And it felt more like Hellraiser.
While all of the others are just, does this have anything to do with Hellraiser?
No.
Okay.
I think speaking as the producer of this podcast, bring a couple other ideas to the table.
Okay.
I'm happy to do anything.
We're all here to have fun and talk about the movies we love.
But I'm just thinking like nine.
That's a big commitment for our listeners.
I think there's like a 11.
Oh my God.
Let me look up Hellraiser franchise.
I got to fact check myself now.
There's 11 Hellraiser movies at this point.
Okay. No, there are other franchises out there.
Thinking of Tremors, thinking of the Howling, thinking of the Scorpion King.
I don't know.
Scorpion King.
Keep that one on your list.
Okay.
Great.
Maybe I'll pitch it to the listeners.
You all, you all let us know what do you want Max to explore?
And we can, you know, it doesn't have to be an episode per movie.
It could just be, hey, we're going to take like three movies at a time because there's
not that much to talk about and they're almost the same.
That's true.
That's a good one.
Like three or four of them have the same twist ending.
And they're all back to back.
Actually, I like that.
So you could do Hellraiser in three episodes.
In chunks.
Yeah.
Okay.
I like that.
Also, you know, if anybody's interested, I did get the criterion Ingmar Bergman collection.
So if you want to listen to me ramble about Ingmar Bergman, it was entire filmography.
Yes.
I'm not going to say it's a, it's content for a show called.
Camp Kaiju.
I think what you can do is nothing to do with monsters.
Here's your challenge though.
But aren't we the monsters at heart?
Spoken like a true filmmaker, aficionado film lover.
So here's what you can do.
Do some episodes on Hellraiser.
But you're, you're a cultured person.
So you also watch the Ingmar Bergman films and let that let those inform the audience.
Let them inform your conversation on Hellraiser.
I should do compare and contrast.
Yes.
An episode comparing the Hellraiser franchise to Ingmar Bergman's filmography.
I think that fits the bill perfectly.
And see, you know, how are they different?
How are they similar?
I bet you would be surprised.
I can find connections where there aren't any.
That's what I'm pretty good at finding meaning where there isn't anything in movies that are slot.
Well, I think.
Hey, that's what we're all about here on Camp Kaiju.
That's film analysis.
That's, you know, when you study literature, that's what, that's what we do.
We, we draw meaning whether or not the filmmakers intended that meaning to be there.
It doesn't matter.
There are common themes that run through every story, common symbols, metaphors, and you can just slap them on and they kind of just work.
They make sense whether they were intended or not.
Like I said, beauty of art.
Yeah.
Okay.
This is a great conversation.
I, I'm, I, I'm going to wrap it up because it's a school night for me and you and I can talk for three more.
Yeah, I don't have a job.
So, so, so I have to be the one to stop.
Thanks for hanging out friends.
Please rate and review wherever you listen.
You can also share this podcast with a friend.
Send us your listener comments at campkaiju.com, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, or if you'd like to be a featured voice on the show, go ahead and leave a voicemail at 612-470-2612 telling us about your favorite monster movies, memories, what you've thought about this show.
We're all ears.
And please check out our website, campkaijuodcast.com for more information.
Camp Kaiju is recorded in Minneapolis, St. Paul with MENIA's mailbox music by Ben Hooks Belts.
And now Camp Kaiju is still presenting our special series, Frozen with Fear, brought to you by Max Hannam and Corey Stewart.
We're the best of the US Coast Guard Cutter Polar Star at McMurdo Station in Arktica.
For those of you who listened before, you know Matt and I had just barely re-established radio contact after the previous attack win.
Ah, you know what? It doesn't matter. Max and Corey don't know that we've suffered.
Why should they when they're having so much fun?
We hope you do the same.
Welcome back.
Welcome back to Frozen with Fear.
The Patreon exclusive Camp Kaiju...
Stravaganza.
Stravaganza with your not your normal hosts.
Yep.
I'm Max Hannam.
I'm Corey Stewart.
And this is the fourth film that we're gonna cover in our Frozen with Fear series.
Just think of this as the fun after party after the thing.
The initial concept obviously being we were in Antarctica.
So we're just gonna watch some Antarctic movies and talk about them.
But notice I said we're, because now currently we are no longer in Antarctica.
Yeah, no, we are very close to the equator.
We are by the Galapagos at the moment.
Life here is weird.
Sailing our way back home.
It's warm. It's very hot.
But we're not gonna talk about how hot we are.
We're talking about how cold that skin is.
That's right. We're talking about 2017's Cold Skin.
Cold Skin, baby.
This is a movie that I have seen several times.
I've saw it a couple years back.
And I didn't know this until this trip this year that it does take place in Antarctica.
Yeah, I've only seen it the one time after you showed me.
And yeah, it's supposed to be on an island around the, I'm assuming the Antarctic Peninsula.
Like just south of South America.
I wouldn't imagine so because there is a lighthouse there.
That's why our characters are on this island down in Antarctica.
They are the weather official and the lighthouse official.
And it is their job to maintain the lighthouse and track weather in the southern most part of the world.
And a formerly well used shipping channel which is no longer used at all.
And we actually figured out that the movie actually did a pretty good job describing why they're there and why no one else is.
Yes. It's pretty good.
I give this movie a lot of credit for being such a small budgeted, not indie, but definitely a passion project.
Oh yes, it's, you can't really call it an indie film because it is a joint Spanish and French production.
Yes.
This is a foreign film, but it's all in English.
And let's just get into the general plot.
Yeah, I mean, he starts with our main character.
He is the replacement weather official for this little island.
A ship is taking him out to the island where he will presumably live six months for the year, I believe.
A year?
Yes.
Yes. And he's going to just be there on his lonesome, just tracking weather and trying not to go crazy.
Yep. He works for the British military.
Yes.
He's not necessarily a military man, but he works for the British military.
We don't know much about him, what he did in his previous life.
We just know that he's seeking solitude for unknown reasons.
Yes.
Because why would anybody want to spend a year on a little Antarctic rock?
So they can be alone with their thoughts and read Dante's Inferno.
Maybe.
But that's a continual theme with this movie.
Choosing to be in this seclusion.
Yes. Like why? What are they running away from? What are they trying to achieve by doing this?
So our weather official shows up with the crew of the vessel and they're unloading his things, the building.
It's a small wooden kind of a house.
I mean, it's a house. It's an olden house.
This movie set just before World War I. It's like 1913 or so.
I think in the movie when he settled down in his house after he's finished unpacking, he reads the last newspaper that he had.
And it's something about like, oh, things not looking so good over in Europe.
What happened to the Archduke Franz Ferdinand?
Let's see what's going to happen out of this.
Maybe something.
But yeah, if you just imagine like a wooden house.
Yes.
From 100 years ago.
He's moving his stuff in. No one is there. The person he's supposed to replace is gone.
And the only other man-made structure is this massive lighthouse.
Massive. It's probably like three stories.
Pretty big. Considered the landscape.
Yes.
Pretty flat.
It's a rocky, no trees, sort of violence.
So they walk over there. They see a small little fountain, like a waterfall.
A fresh water. It says Gruner's water.
Gruner's water.
That's Gruner's fountain.
That's our first introduction to the idea of Gruner and the obsessiveness and controllingness of Gruner.
Yes. So our weather official walks up to this lighthouse and he sees primitive wooden defenses, spikes sticking out of the windows along the tower.
Everything's barbed and everything's fortified.
What's this about?
So they just casually stroll in like any good defense would allow you to do.
And they see Gruner asleep.
He's naked.
Butt naked.
He's got long, gray beard, gray hair.
He looks like Discount Samuel. And I mean that in a nice way.
Oh, I mean, like the actor?
Yes.
This actor is the same. He was in Rome. The HBO show.
Oh, I see.
As one of the characters, but his name. I think his name was Titus Pullis. In Rome.
So if you're familiar with that show, that's the guy. I can't remember his name.
In my mind, he looks like Sam Neal, but not exactly.
Sam Neal, obviously famous for the 70s possession film.
Yes.
And Jurassic Park also.
No, I think you're thinking Jurassic World's new dominion.
That's right.
Chris Pratt puts his hands up like this to stop the Raptors.
Yeah.
It's a bad movie.
No, it's great.
So that's our first introduction to Grunner.
He is very standoffish. Doesn't really want to talk to anybody.
He informs him that the previous weather observer is dead.
Typhus.
Typhus. That's all he says. Typhus.
And then the new weather observer. What is that character's name?
No idea.
We'll just call him the weather observer.
Grunner calls him friend.
Friends.
Yeah.
I think that is actually his name.
And the credits.
I don't think this is a very stripped down movie.
Yes.
Grunner's name is Grunner.
The other, our main character's name, Grunner eventually is just like, I think I'll call
you friend, but that's later.
So the boat captain is like, I don't like this, but the weather official is like, you know,
I'm already here.
It seems a little odd, but I can take care of myself.
You know, thank you for getting me here, but I chose this.
And the ship sails off, leaving him alone.
Yep.
And he sets up, he puts his books on his bookshelf.
And then he settles in for a night like by the cozy fire.
He's going to read that newspaper about, oh, Archduke Ferdinand.
Open up in bed, happens out of this.
Yep.
He gets bored with that and starts reading.
He found the journal of the previous weather observer, the one who was died.
And it's filled with, you know, notes of things that he did in his day to day and also like
sketches of, you know, bones of whales that have washed ashore, birds.
And also, he starts flipping the pages more.
It starts describing these strange creatures that keep coming out at night.
And then there's some pictures.
There's some fun pictures of toads.
Toad, like humanoid fish toad creatures.
Hybrids that have come out of the ocean and they eat people.
Yeah.
Or make love.
That's some of these drawings show.
Yes.
It's very salacious.
And our main character kind of just looks at this and goes, huh, that's odd.
Yeah.
I kind of wish he had more of a reaction because he really is just like, as if he was just
reading the newspaper.
About Archduke Ferdinand.
There was like almost no reaction.
Archduke was killed.
There's toads having sex with people.
This is all normal things.
Yes.
And that's, that kind of goes into my biggest complaint about this movie is it's enjoyable.
I'll just state that I did enjoy watching this movie.
I don't know when I'll watch it again because it feels like there's always something missing.
There's like a heart or I don't know, like there's a, it's just lacking something.
And then that him not having a reaction is like the perfect little thing to just focus in on that.
He doesn't have emotion behind his eyes.
It's 90% of a good movie.
Yes.
It's missing that last 90 is still a great score.
I mean, it's missing that 10% in my mind where it's like, ah, yes, there's one extra little
scene or emotion here would have put this performance or scene over the top into like a great.
Yeah.
For me, it just feels hollow.
I could see that.
And it's in some scenes, some, some I would say that I really like, I genuinely enjoy this movie.
Oh, yes.
There are some great scenes in it.
There's really good character development.
There's good emotional moments.
There's way more emotion than I was thinking going into this movie.
I thought it was just going to be a dumb little deep one movie, but.
The deep ones look really cool.
They do.
Our toads is a Gruner, he refers to them.
They're not really toad-like.
The final makeup design is just.
These fish people.
Much more fish-like.
They do hop like toads.
Yeah.
And Gruner does call them toads.
And as we learned from looking on later, this was based off of a novel and they are way more toad-like in the end of the book.
Yes.
I think that's why there are, there's like a good, like great character development, a good emotional art for some of the characters.
Yeah.
Is because it is based on that novel.
So like clearly the story is, had a lot of time and like work put into it.
This was clearly like a passion project where like no one was clamoring for a deep ones movie.
No.
And as producers went, I really would like to make this story a future film.
Yes.
I'm glad they did.
Honestly, it's very much, if you imagine the lighthouse but with deep ones, it's a similar sort of.
It's pretty similar to me.
Yeah.
Yeah, I just wish there was something more to give it some sort of thing because then the movie kind of drags on.
A little bit.
There's like halfway through, I'm like, all right, let's just get to the eventual end, I kind of see where it's going.
Let's just get there.
And there are some fun road stops along the way.
Yes.
Where we get some fun action scenes, some fun character scenes.
And let's get into that first action scene.
Our character is as a breeding in his cabin and he hears something outside and he sees a webbed hand come out from under the door.
Yes.
And then he immediately stomps on it.
As you do.
And then he starts to hear way more of him.
Yeah, and he looks out the window, there's like a flash of lightning and you see a bunch of them on the rocks.
Yeah, the lighting in that scene is really nice because it's all natural lighting or through the lighthouse that is constantly rotating.
Yep.
So you just get flashes of them running right outside.
Maybe it was a lightning, maybe it was just the lighthouse.
I think there's lightning in the scene that shows them the rocks, but I know what you're saying.
Yes.
And so he's very afraid and he spends that night in the small cellar in the house.
Yep.
They do break into the house.
You hear him ruffling about through his things.
They kind of just break the house.
He stabs one in the eye when it looks into a crack.
And then they all run off.
So he survives the night and he's just like, alright, I can't stay here anymore.
Yep, I want to go to the lighthouse.
I'm going to the lighthouse.
So he goes up to Groner.
He's like, let me in.
And Groner just throws his toilet bucket out the window and is like, yeah, should have stayed on the boat, mate.
Yep, this is the Monster Island.
This is the Monster Island.
Didn't you know that?
I do really appreciate how this movie doesn't...
It doesn't waste time getting to the monsters.
No, it is within 10 minutes of the movie starting, like you're just in it.
Yep, and our characters, they don't have that kind of annoying reaction of did I dream that or this couldn't possibly be real.
Our main character instantly goes into, well, if you won't let me in the lighthouse, I have to defend my house.
And he starts like boarding up windows and setting traps.
And it's a fun little montage where he's just like, I thought this was going to be a nice vacation.
He's got so much guns and ammunition.
Yeah, well, I mean, he's in the military and presumably if a boat came by, maybe that's where they get resupplied is like a tertiary purpose.
Yeah, maybe.
But it's just, I remember he's just seen really drum packing everything.
A lot of gun bullets.
And it's just crates and crates of bullets.
It's like, okay, I can see how they have enough ammunition to keep fighting these monsters later in the movie.
It doesn't make you question that at all.
No, no.
But so he fortifies.
Yeah.
It goes horrible.
Yeah, it seems to start to go well.
He has the technological advantage.
He has guns and he's got them all lined up on this little table.
He's ready to go.
And then he just, for some reason, sets his house on fire.
It was kind of a good idea in theory.
He felt like this little trench around his house with some burnables and some gasoline.
And then he let that on fire as like, okay, if they start to push in too close, I'll do that.
But it didn't go well and it caught his door on fire.
Yes, because it was way too close to the house.
It was way too close.
He's not a soldier.
He is.
No, he's not a soldier.
I get the idea that he's like a military contractor.
Like he just works for the military.
But he's not like a, he didn't go to boot camp or anything like that.
Yeah, he knows how to shoot a rifle and that's about it.
Yes.
And so he catches his house on fire and he wraps himself in a blanket, trudges out into
the cold and dark of the island.
And thankfully, it starts raining and that saves some of his life.
It starts raining and that saves some of his supplies, but it does not save his house.
No.
So half of his house is destroyed.
He can, he literally cannot defend himself in there anymore.
He has to go to the lighthouse.
He has to get on Grunner's good graces.
And how does he do that?
He stalks Grunner with a rifle.
Yes.
And is almost prepared to kill him until the mascot shows up.
Yes.
He comes across one of these deep ones.
We're just going to call them deep ones because that's just clearly the inspiration.
HB Lovecraft's deep ones.
If you're familiar, if not, go read the Shadow Over in Smith or watch Dagon.
Watch Dagon.
Thank you, Stuart Gordon.
Dagon is the definitive adaptation of that story.
It is a great movie.
I was a boy.
He was a boy.
Sorry, that's a quote from Dagon.
Go watch Dagon.
Thank you, Stuart Gordon.
Thank you.
So as he is drawing a bead with his rifle on Grunner from the fountain, one of these
deep ones growls at him.
And this is a different deep one.
You can tell that this one's a female.
She's wearing a sweater.
She's wearing like a potato sack.
Yeah.
Some kind of dirty clothes.
She's wearing clothes, but it's very much a potato sack type of thing.
You know, our main character fights with this one, and then he draws his rifle on her,
and then Grunner steps out and was like, no, no, no, don't kill that one.
That one's mine.
And they just get into a little conversation about like, you know, what's going on?
Why didn't you tell me?
Why is this one special?
Can I live in your lighthouse, sir?
Yep.
And I mean, really, it just comes out that Grunner's like keeping this deep one almost
like a, he treats her like a dog, like very much like a pet.
Yes.
Very short commands.
Not afraid to just like give a kick here and there.
Yeah.
He, our main character asks like, oh, has she ever bitten you?
And he's like, only once.
Just once.
It's definitely like trying to play at your emotions, like your empathy for this character.
Yeah, they refer to her as the mascot for the beginning portion of this film, which I love.
Yes.
Some kind of an idea of a mascot for just a two man team of them is killing deep ones.
She's definitely a, initially at least, you think of her almost like a, like an abused dog.
Yes.
So they come to an agreement that he, at that scene, he's like, I think I'll call you friend
and friend and Grunner go to live in the lighthouse because our main character is like, I've got ammunition.
I've got coffee.
I've got gin.
Gin, yeah.
Because Grunner's like, do you have vodka?
He's like, nah, I've got gin.
He's like, ah, ah.
So we bribed his way into the lighthouse.
Yes.
He's got something offered to Grunner.
So they get all of their equipment and quickly run back to the lighthouse just as the sun is about to set.
And that's when we learned that these creatures do not like the light, human or divine.
No, which is weird because a mascot comes out.
She's fine.
She's different though.
You can tell she thinks more.
Maybe.
Than the others.
We don't really get too much.
We always see just waves of them coming to attack at night.
Yes.
And then we get a great scene as a test for friends.
Yes.
They, Grunner and friend go out onto the lighthouse and they're going to prep to defend themselves from the hordes of...
Grunner's got his rifle.
He's got a sawed off double barrel.
Yep.
He's got like a sight and a knife on his boot.
And then he looks over at friend and he's just got a little tiny two inch pocket blade and his rifle.
And he's like, well, you take what you can get.
Yep.
But then as they start fighting, like the deep ones start climbing up and they're attacking him off, Grunner just slowly goes back inside.
He just creeps back.
And then just closes the door.
He's got this massive like cranked open storm break door.
It's just a massive sheet of heavy metal that just slams over.
So he ain't getting back inside.
He's stuck out on the balcony of his lighthouse and sink or swim moment.
He has to kill.
So I don't know how he did that based on what we see later.
Yeah.
It looks to be on a small wave.
It's another inconsistency with this movie.
Because friend survives.
It seemingly like he's fighting all night, like hours and hours just killing after another.
And then Grunner goes out in the morning and he's just sitting there.
And that was Grunner's test.
Like, all right, all right, you're useful to me.
I can use you on top of all the things that you brought me.
Yes.
But then it immediately like over the subsequent nights during these attacks, friend is, he just keeps like checking it out.
Yeah.
And he's like, I can't do this.
And it's so weird because it's like the film is already established.
He can hold his own.
If you wanted to scene where he's like being a little like weak in the heart or like not having courage.
So there was one night before the test night.
There was one night where Grunner is out with him and he's like, don't fire until like he's in the light of their eyes.
Which Grunner just starts blasting.
Yeah.
And it's like, hold, hold.
Again, another inconsistency.
Sometimes they're firing.
They're like waiting till right there, like till they're right at the balcony.
Other times they're just shooting as soon as they come out of the water.
Yeah.
Which I don't know.
I think it's kind of funny sometimes where it's, sometimes Grunner just wants to kill.
He's got like a bloodlust against these, these toes.
I kind of want to think it's intentional of, oh, he, they think they're being tactical.
But in reality, they're just shooting.
They have no plan.
They're not trained.
So there is a one night where our main character kind of like backs into the lighthouse and he just is watching Grunner from the back.
Just like sight these guys down.
He's just like, what the heck did I walk into?
Yes.
So they have the one scene before he stays up all night trapped out there.
But then they keep doing that.
Like there's a couple more times where he's like, I don't know if I have the courage to keep going, to keep doing this.
It's like we've, we're past that.
Yeah. There's a, there's a scene where he's like, well, I, why don't we signal for a passing ship and get off this island?
Or why didn't Grunner, why didn't you leave when my replacement showed up?
And he's just like, I like it here.
Grunner, big fan of the island.
Yes.
He loves it here.
So Grunner talks in third person, which is very fun.
Grunner is fantastic.
But again, it's continuing the, like that motif of questioning or bringing up the questions of why are these, why are they here?
What are their motivations?
Clearly Grunner wants to stay on the island.
We don't know why particularly.
We also don't know how long he has been there.
Yes. I mean, the way his beard and his hair look, it's been like three, four, five years.
And he just, yeah, he could have left at any point.
They say, oh, well, I'll signal a passing ship.
And Grunner says, there's not really a lot of passing ships here.
Honestly, we're kind of just here to like balance a Navy budget.
Yep.
And this shipping route barely used anymore.
Mostly just smugglers and they ain't stopping here anyway.
Yes.
So at this point, we still don't know why Grunner wants to stay.
But we get the impression, you know, he's just not a guy who fits in with society.
He just likes to just kill things.
And it turns out he doesn't just like killing these things.
Slow dramatic pause.
So friend, friend, he starts, he's sleeping in the lighthouse.
And he's here in weird things from up top.
And he goes out to get water from the fountain.
And he comes back and he looks into the Grunner's room to give him a bucket of water.
And what does he see?
But naked Grunner just going to town on the mascot.
Yeah.
He's having sex with toads.
He's having sex with the fish people.
And so that now...
We see a cold, slimy fish hand come up and hug Grunner.
I think it was actually in the subsequent scene where Friends uses the title of the film.
Because...
How could he not be repulsed by her cold skin?
By her cold skin.
It's a good title.
Oh, yes.
Good line, good title.
I like this movie.
It's weird, but it's good.
But that's the moment where with mascot, her role kind of shifts to where it's like we think of her less as like an animal and more as just like a person.
Yes.
She starts to develop more character and she's shown like wailing at night when they're just murdering her people.
Yep.
We see her...
She's almost like a siren for their attack.
She's just like a strange call that kind of forebows an attack.
She'll like bring them like seafood, like kind of things to eat or just whatever things that she finds while she's swimming around.
She does this one fun thing where she just, she puts rocks on things because as Grunner says, she's afraid they're going to float away.
Oh, yeah.
She's kind of, it hints so subtly at like some kind of tote culture underwater.
Yes.
What are you talking about?
Because, you know, they live underwater so they put rocks on things from moving.
It's like I love that.
That's such a small moment where I'm like, yeah, I like that.
Apparently also her saliva, like she's got a really long tongue.
So friend gets injured so she goes up to it and starts licking the wound on his arm.
And it shows that it heals, makes it heal rather quickly.
Not like super fast, but pretty quickly.
But her and friend starts getting more comfortable with each other because at first he was like very repulsed by her.
But then she's proved that, oh, she's like nice, she's helpful.
She's not really wanting to cause any trouble.
She's proved to be like intelligent.
And all three of these characters start to kind of fall into this rhythm of monotony.
They're just living their life.
They're getting attacked at night.
Not every night, but it's most nights.
And sometimes it's a week and they haven't been attacked.
It starts getting more infrequent.
Yes.
And I think when he showed up, it kind of spurred on an attack like every night with him like showing up.
Because a boat came, a new person was there, that new person killed,
and it kind of just spurred them into attacking more frequently.
And then as time goes on, it kind of...
Well, the film heavily implies that these attacks are happening because mascot, who...
I think we hear once in the movie, her name is Anaris.
Our main character decides to give her that name.
Yes, so she officially gets a name, so we're just gonna say Anaris for now.
Or maybe not.
I want mascot.
You'll say mascot, I'll say Anaris.
Because at this point, she's very much her own character in this story.
She starts calling all these attacks every night, probably because she's depressed.
It's almost like an abusive relationship at this point, no longer an abusive animal with Gruner.
But like, oh, he's like a spouse of, like, abuser or something.
But then, as she interacts more with friends, she's like, oh, maybe I'm not so depressed.
Like, he's bringing joy and happiness, so the attacks get less frequent because, oh, she's like, not depressed.
And during this lull, Gruner and friends start to, you know, not become friends,
but become more acquainted with each other.
They're living in the lighthouse, they're working together.
And then when Anaris starts, you know, getting closer with friend, it kind of makes Gruner unhappy.
Yeah, you get a little bit of almost like a, not quite a love triangle.
Not yet anyways.
But the formings of one start to appear.
Because again, as firmly established at the beginning, Gruner's a possessive.
Yes, Gruner's fountain.
This is Gruner's island.
This is Gruner's lighthouse.
This is Gruner's fish mate.
This is Gruner's fish.
Yes.
He likes being in control.
He likes hoarding things.
Yes.
And there's a great scene where the two men, they start playing chess together.
And Gruner, who's been shown to be, you know, this tactical man, you know, who declared like a one man war against this army of fish people,
and is shown to be very efficient at the art of war, immediately loses in a chess game.
Yes.
And Gruner immediately starts going like, no, no, no, no, no, no, this can't happen.
Yes, he starts breaking down hard as soon as he loses any sort of like, just the slightest bit of control.
Yes, and this is a great scene because it also leads into a fun action scene where not only did they, they hadn't been attacked in a while,
so they started playing chess when they should have been standing watch, the sun went down.
Yes.
And one of the fish men is at the window.
Yep, he's just there.
He's just there.
And they, you know, they quickly trying to scramble to get things ready, and they end up getting locked inside of the dome that night.
Yes, so at the very top of the lighthouse, there's the dome where the glass walls, the lenses go out.
They get pushed all the way back up until there, and they're just trapped in that tiny little room, and Gruner starts to sing a song.
Oh yeah, I forgot about that.
And I could just imagine a friend being like, how could it get any worse?
And then Gruner starts singing.
Um, what happened after that?
Well, the sun came up and they left, but they literally were, the, the, the toads were outside the glass all night.
Yeah, well, I have a blank spot in my mind, and I think this is where the movie starts to slow down.
This is...
Of like, from that point until kind of like the last 15 minutes.
Uh, so at this point, um, they've been like just fighting and living in this weird kind of lifestyle every so often.
And you can see it in a friend's face that his beard is starting to grown out.
Uh, I believe this is when he like goes back and he sees it like a mirror of himself in his old cottage where he was like the first night.
Oh yeah.
He cuts his beard a little bit, you know, gets a little bit warmer.
It's the worst beard makeup.
It's not great.
Because they clearly don't have a budget, so when he's...
Cutting.
...shaving his beard, he's like doing the tiniest little snips on it.
Because you know they only have the one take?
Yeah, or like...
When he looked grizzled, it looked good.
Yes, but when he's...
But he didn't look civilized, and that's the point.
They need him to look civilized.
The shot is his face in close-up and he's just doing these little snips, you can tell.
It's like they only have the one beard makeup.
Um, so he does that and that's when he finally starts to get close with, uh, Anaris.
That's when he gives her the name and that's when they actually do, uh, he sees her in a pool and he goes in.
It's like a hot spring or something.
Yeah, that's been a recurring thing of occasionally he'll see her just swimming in there.
Um, while he's going around the island during the day, doing his daily chores, his girder has him do like all the chores.
You know, gather lumber for defenses, give water for the night.
And when they say gathered lumber...
It's literally just like...
Oh, we're gonna go to the burned house and just start taking the wood from there because there aren't any trees on the island.
Or just pick up sticks that have washed ashore.
Yeah, just just wood.
That are like super tiny.
Um, and that's when he gets in the pool with her.
Yep, and it's... he starts swimming closer to her and they're both smiling at each other and then Grooners face just pops out from a rock watching him and be like,
You mother fucker.
And then, yep, he, uh, he also, friend also has sex with that fish person.
Yes, he also has sex with that fish person.
Apparently he can now stand here cold, cold skin.
Cold, cold skin.
And that cold water, they're in Antarctica.
It's probably cold water.
There are no hot springs in Antarctica.
Well, there's volcanoes.
There are.
So maybe that was, there's like a full... maybe it's volcano.
It's not volcanic.
It's not. I'll give it to you.
But okay.
But, you know, weird hot spring on this tiny rock of an island.
Well, maybe friend is developing cold skin.
Um, so this is when Grooners is unhappy with him.
Yep, they start actually, um, having a lot of just confrontations because Grooners obviously getting jealous.
He's losing control of the situation, his perfect little life he's building.
He's losing control.
He's being torn apart by this one guy.
Uh, meanwhile this guy has, uh, he's taken a whale bone, uh, our main character,
and he starts whittling it into the shape of a boat.
Oh, yes.
And, uh, and Anaris sees that and goes,
Oh, hey, I know what that is, and she brings him to a small rowboat.
Yes.
And he's just like, I could fix this up.
I could get out of here, which, he's in Antarctica.
It's so far.
Hey, Shackleton did it.
You're not wrong.
Um, so he's like, I can use this, I can get out of here.
He talks to Grooners, and Grooners is just like, oh yeah, boat's broken.
Uh, it was some, uh, smuggler ship that went down, uh, like, uh,
It was Portuguese.
Uh, they sank, and they came to the shore, and they were eaten by toads,
and our main character's like, oh, and I'm sure you did everything you could to save him.
And he's like, yeah, well, you know, they were dynamite smugglers.
And he's like, dynamite, you say?
Oh, we can use dynamite.
We can use dynamite to kill them.
And he's like, oh, this guy Grooners interested.
And that immediately, Grooners was like, oh, wow, I didn't think about blowing him up.
So they go on those little rowboats to the site of the sunken Portuguese smuggling ship.
They have that old school diving suit.
Yeah, I don't know.
Uh, they showed it earlier.
But it's also just like, why is it there?
You know, uh, convenience.
Yeah, convenience.
You just collect nautical things.
I just, so this whole scene is very problematic for me.
Yeah.
On multiple levels.
One.
So the goal is to go diving for dynamite.
Yes.
Now, and Grooners immediately just like that dynamite waterlock by now.
It's all bad.
Spoiler alert.
They end up getting a box of usable dynamite.
There, I think they pull three boxes and two of them are waterlogged.
Yes.
One is the seal held.
There's no seals on these.
Yes, there are.
On those crates, there are no seals.
It does like metal tin boxes.
And that's my first problem.
The inconsistency with that.
It's fine.
It's a small nitpick.
And it got us a cool dynamite scene.
So I won't allow it.
But the other big thing is as friend, friend is the one who dons the diving suits and goes
into the water to start looking because Grooners doesn't really care.
He kind of was dynamite, but he doesn't want to risk too much for it.
Yeah.
So friend has some issues down there.
Is what else is in the water?
Obviously the deep ones.
Deep ones are down there.
But they look like smaller ones.
So this is the first time we see children.
Yeah.
We presume it.
It's like a child-sized ones.
We presume it's having a little bit more playful attitude.
It's not trying to attack them.
It's just kind of just like swimming around and it scares them.
So it makes him fall over and those diving suits are very heavy.
Yes.
He cannot get up.
And he starts like tugging on the line for Grooner to help.
And Grooner sees that and he goes, well, I already have the dynamite.
Yeah.
He's already brought the dynamite up.
And Grooner up until this point has become more hostile, more jealous.
And it's clearly been implied he wants to kill friend.
So he's clearly struggling down there.
What does friend do?
He stops pumping his air.
They have a little machine up there.
Oh yes.
Yes.
These diving suits you need someone to constantly pumping air through a little hand crank system.
And he sees that and he goes, well, I have the dynamite.
I can just stop.
And he just stops.
And so friend is down there just slowly suffocating, like running out of oxygen in his diving suit.
But then suddenly...
Well, so these old diving suits have like a, essentially an emergency hatch.
Yes.
Which lets the air that's inside escape.
And then you would go up with it.
Yes.
Presumably with the pressure of the air kind of helping you go up.
It's just a way to escape.
And so friend does do that.
Yes.
He gets out of the water.
He gets up to the boat.
And Grooner's kind of just like, oh yeah, hey.
Oh hey, how's it going?
Well, he's never any mention of it.
Grooner was clearly trying to kill him.
Grooner does give him a jacket.
But then afterwards, friend doesn't mention it.
Grooner's just sort of like, oh darn.
I guess that didn't work.
That's his mentality.
And then just starts helping him.
And he's like suddenly no longer hostile towards him.
Well, so he is still hostile, but I think the initial gain of getting all this dynamite.
Yes.
He immediately is just like, oh friend helped again.
So he's kind of just, I think it's that like, he's so childlike that essentially if like,
he's like, I don't like this guy.
I don't like this guy.
And then he gives him a gift.
He goes, okay, I kind of like him again.
But he was killing him after he got the dynamite.
Yeah, but he also didn't know that.
No, it's good.
Look, the movie's a little inconsistent.
And that's where I'm saying it's like, there's that little bit.
Those moments are what contribute to me feeling like there's a hollowness to the movie.
Yes.
It's like really his only reaction was, oh yeah, I guess welcome back.
I will say I didn't need another scene with him fighting after that.
No, but it could, there could have been a culminating sort of scene where it's like, hey, this feud gets going on between them,
gets hashed out for good.
And then afterwards it's like, they've moved on.
Like this, this fight is over.
That would have been a good point.
But we never, we never get that.
We get a confrontation all right.
Not off of this dilemma.
It's always, it's the larger.
It's always the bigger idea.
Yes.
But now, well I wonder, now there's dynamite.
But I wonder if all of these arguments or like sort of arcs that happen, these character arcs,
are further developed in the book.
And that it's just a matter of during the adaptation because this is a lower budget.
And we need to skip things for time because honestly, like we do say, it drags a bit in that middle sequence with dynamite and before that.
So I wonder if it's played out more in the novel and it doesn't feel that way.
Because this movie was made for what, eight and a half million euros.
Yes.
So it's two countries to make this thing happen.
It is very low budget and it's great for like.
What they were able to do with the fish makeup, this is a limited CG of like the mobs of fish people.
The like historically accurate setting and like just set dressing.
All great.
Yep.
There's one shot at the beginning with some CG dolphins that I despise.
Oh yes.
It's terrible.
But they know how to use their limited budget, their limited resources.
But there's just those occasional moments you're like, ah, you can tell that was like a budget.
Yeah.
Reason for that.
So they have the dynamite.
Yes.
And this is actually one of my favorite like kind of mini arcs throughout.
They finally have this dynamite and they rig it up and they have the old school plunger just ready on the top of the tower.
Oh yeah.
And presumably when our main character got there, it was like summer or like fall.
And now it is dead of winter.
Like it is freezing to go outside.
They very limitedly go outside.
If so, they're like completely bundled up.
Yep.
And the totes, the totes salts just stop.
They stop coming.
And I want to say at this point, and Eris is no longer there, right?
She's not.
And I've scampered off and friends, she's like, where did she go?
And he's like, oh, she does this sometimes.
She just leaves every so often.
Yes.
And I feel like also her leaving kind of just took something away from the dynamic that it built up.
I agree.
Because the three together is interesting.
Because two are sleeping with one and also one wants to kill the other.
And also one is-
You get the love triangle, Delavan.
And Gruner is insane.
Gruner is insane.
And I love Gruner.
He is a fun-
No man is an island.
Yeah, there's a line where it's no man is an island.
Gruner is an island.
And Gruner is saying this.
It's like no man is an island.
Gruner is an island.
Well, a friend says that.
A friend says no man is an island.
Oh, I remember that completely differently.
That's not as fun in my mind, but it is still fun.
Gruner is an island.
And that obviously sets up, one, friend doesn't really believe no man is an island.
Because he went to this place trying to escape something in his life.
And he doesn't really know exactly how to get the idea.
We never get an answer why a friend is there.
But it's nothing good.
He's looking for solitude for whatever reason.
It could be for something he's done.
It could be running from something.
It could be any number of things.
And I don't hate that it's left ambiguous because now you can put other things on there.
I'm sure it's explained in the book.
We get a hint.
Based off of the idea of Gruner.
Yes.
Let's just keep going so we know that he's more serious.
We have the dynamite.
And there's no attacks.
And friend goes outside and he sees Gruner in just these sub-zero temperatures with his hand on the dynamite plunger.
Just waiting.
He looks like he could just press it at any point.
Doesn't he freeze?
He is like frozen solid.
He's so frozen.
And then he genuinely thinks that he is dead.
Gruner is dead.
I think he fell asleep.
Gruner just kind of like turns and smiles.
Yeah, I think Gruner fell asleep while on watch that night and then just kind of froze like that.
I think he was just on the ready to use the dynamite.
He was so excited to use these rows of dynamite.
And that's when friend takes off the electrical leads.
The electrical leads so that way Gruner can't accidentally blow us up.
Because the carriages have been in the slight house and there's a set of dynamite.
They're pretty close to it.
Yep, they did it like a perimeter.
And they also don't want to waste this big get that they just got.
Yes.
But I mean, obviously with this movie, it ends up being like there's a huge attack that happens.
Yes.
And they go to push the dynamite plunger.
They hit the button and nothing happens.
And they're like, oh no, the leads.
Yeah, we got to redo the electrical lines.
Redo the electrical lines.
Meanwhile, they are just like hand to hand combat with these toads and the make-up effect on those guys look great.
Oh yeah, you get some, they're all mostly the same, but you get a little bit of variations, which is nice.
Yes, you can tell they had probably like 10 suits.
Yeah.
And then like the rest were CG in the background.
They would look reuse different ones or like.
And it doesn't look like rubbery or anything like that.
It's like actually good make-up effects.
Yeah.
Again, they knew we were to spend them budget.
Yes.
What limited they had.
And they finally, they connect the leads and they blow the dynamite and the first one goes off and the toads go flying.
Oh yeah, it's it's great.
The rousing success.
And then there is a second string of dynamite that they used, that they were going to use in case things got really bad.
And Gruner just hits it just because he wants.
Just immediately.
And then this is our kind of big turning point for friends.
So the next day they're walking around just the absolute carnage that is all of the dead.
Yep, there's a lot of injured monsters as well.
Yes.
Now normally Gruner says like don't waste ammo on the wounded.
Normally they'll either just eat, like the other toads will just eat their brethren or just drag them back into the ocean.
They couldn't even do that this last time because so many died in the attack.
Gruner's just going around with like a spear and just like killing all the wounded ones.
And friend just like this isn't right.
This, this I've seen the error in my ways.
Yeah, he sees the humanity in the eyes of these deep ones.
Like there's an intelligence there because one starts like having a moment with friends of like help me as one intelligent creature to another.
Like help me.
I'm dying man.
And then you start to see, and this is only later in the film, you start to see that they're wearing like necklaces.
Yeah, it's like jewelry.
And some kinds of jewelry.
So they have a culture.
Yep, they have artists.
Yes.
There's all these little implications.
They don't come out and say this explicitly.
But it's all just shown very briefly to imply like these aren't just mindless fish people that come to kill you in the night.
Yes.
And then Grooners sort of the identity that I grew has made for these things is false.
Yes.
Because Grooners saying, oh, they're beasts.
They eat each other and blah, blah, blah.
It's like, no, they've, they've been collecting their wounded to heal them.
Or like bury them properly.
Or bury, yeah, they're, this is a, this is a whole society of advanced people.
Now, following at the time shift conducted from the bridge on my mark, the time will be 1301 plus 7 can go.
30 seconds to march.
10 seconds to march.
Yeah.
5, 4, 3, 2, 1, march.
Time on deck is 1301 plus 7 can go.
Okay, we're back.
We got interrupted a little bit.
So, there's this, this moment of like, I need to get away from Grooners.
That is the major rift that happens towards the end of the movie.
And then friend, he's like kind of doing his own thing now.
He's still living at the lighthouse because there's no other place to live.
And some of them are, they'd probably kill him on site just for all the things that he's done to them.
Yes.
And then there's like kind of the realization of, oh, when I first saw them,
they weren't attacking me.
They were just looking at me.
They were interested because I'm new.
They, I'm on their land.
And Grooners even says that in the movie, we're the invaders, we're the enemy.
Yes.
And it's like, oh yeah.
Friend initiated the violence by like stomping on the hand and stabbing one of their eyes.
They granted they broke into his house, but they don't know any better.
I stayed, I stayed, I stayed.
I mean, they didn't break in actually.
They did afterwards after he's initiated the violence.
Put a hand underneath there.
But at this point, it's, they're heavily playing on a theme of like, shouldn't judge a butch by the cover.
We are the real monsters.
Yeah, yeah.
Like, it's surface level appearances are, you know, not the best way to judge situations.
We can't be always fearing the other.
We need to embrace like diversity.
Or at least just be able to live in peace amongst them.
Like, we don't have to interact their way down in the ocean.
And they live on an island in the middle of the Antarctic.
Like, there's nothing down there.
This is their land.
Just let them have it.
But it starts introducing all those things of we should really be trying to work together as opposed to splitting off into different tribes.
And that like the whole World War One backgrounds of that's literally what happened to the world at that time of everyone just splitting up and then the whole
Story after the other.
Millions of people died.
Clearly, they're trying to showcase the difference between those two thoughts.
There's like a little duality going on there.
And then that's when we have our main character friend.
He builds throughout the movie and mostly at the beginning.
He found these stone circles.
Yeah, it's like little pebbles or like beach rocks that have been formed into circles with little trinkets placed inside.
Yes.
So he takes the bone that he's whittled into the ship of the boat and he places one in one that he's made as a kind of peace offering to these things.
He walks out there.
And then like a little child one comes up and picks it up and he's playing with it.
And then we see Inaris again.
Yes, she comes out.
She's no longer wearing the potato sack dress.
The groomer is giving her as some kind of human.
She's like naked, I guess.
She's lacking clothes like all of the other deep ones.
She appears way more confident.
She's no longer like crouched down.
Throughout the movie she's been like on her knees or on her hands or like crouching.
Yes.
Now she's standing tall.
Very tall, very confident.
Again, continuing the motif of like oh she's a, she was in an abusive relationship sort of like a battered woman sort of thing.
But now she's passed that.
We haven't seen her for like 30 minutes in the movie.
Yeah.
So she's probably regaining her confidence and her self-respect which friend helps.
She's gotten herself out of that place.
And now she is a fully confident person.
Yes.
And you know more deep ones show up.
Yep.
And she's basically another entire army.
And friends just kind of, he's actually having, there's a moment of understanding.
The deep ones and friends are like basically coming to a reconciliation.
I mean like hey we shouldn't keep fighting each other.
Neither of us want to keep fighting.
We've lost a lot on our side.
You're just a guy.
And you're not having a good time.
No.
That's when the little kid, his chest like implodes.
Yeah.
Gunshot rings out.
The kid just gets shot in the chest.
Kruner modified a flare gun with like extra gunpowder or something.
It's basically a grenade launcher.
Yeah.
Earlier after the dynamite scene, Kruner was like, we had to keep coming up with weird
ways to scare him.
Yeah.
So yeah, he's like, I built this weird flare gun thing.
And it's kind of like heavily implied that this little child is like Kruner's child.
Well, it's implied that when-
It's Inaris' child.
And Naris and Kruner or Inaris and friend have sex, that's how they are replenishing
the deep ones that keep attacking.
Yes.
Like they have a relatively human like reproductive system it seems like.
I believe they hate to come up with it, just because those kids don't want to ask that
kid's life.
Yes.
They turn into people fast.
There's a little bit of accelerated growth.
But the reason I'm saying it's implied is because a little bit earlier, we find or friend finds
out that the previous weather observer, the one that died of typhus that Kruner said, is
actually Kruner himself.
He finds a picture of the previous weather observer with his head ripped off or something
in the picture or his face scratched out.
Yeah.
And then we find that same picture with him and his wife.
Yes.
And Kruner's things inside the lighthouse.
So we learn that Kruner was the previous weather observer, which means the previous lighthouse
keeper is dead.
And that was the original Kruner, presumably.
He adopted his identity.
And that's why we've been talking about the idea of Kruner.
But also he's on this island because he lost his wife, presumably.
And like a child.
I think his wife was pregnant.
Yes.
It's like a childbirth situation.
Something along the lines.
And that Kruner ran away to this island and that creates a whole sort of like explosion
of ideas and metaphors like the deep ones are like literally Kruner is perceiving it
as him dealing with his own demons.
And if we like expound that.
Waging his one man war against them.
But if we can expand that to friends of well maybe something similar happened to him like
some sort of trauma or whatever.
And he ran away to this island.
And he is now emotionally overcoming it and that is the island.
Right.
And that is shown in the movie by him actually having friendly relations and starting to come
to terms with working with these deep ones.
Like he is facing his demons and he is dealing with it.
Whereas Kruner, he still has and just killed them.
They're monsters and that's him being emotionally stunted.
That's just my little deep analysis into this.
Deep analysis into the deep ones.
Yeah.
But that's fair.
Well that's why I think it's heavily implied that this little deep one child was Kruner's
because it's the ultimate rejection of growth by Kruner because he went to the silence due
to the death of his wife and presumably a child.
Presumably unborn child during childbirth and he is willing to kill his child as well
as his pseudo, his wife, his fish wife in a narus.
Because he is just completely broken and unredeemable emotionally.
So Kruner kills this child and he's just like I can't do this.
No one leaves Kruner because he calls for a narus to come with him.
And she's just standing there like, I am not going with you.
He's trying to regain all that control that, again, he's hoarding everything throughout
this whole movie.
Including people and things.
Yes.
Weapons.
And it's the same sort of mentality that if you watch an episode of the TV show Hoarders,
there's always some traumatic thing in the past where someone felt like they lost control
of their lives.
They're trying to control everything.
They just want to get it all.
And that's what's going on with Kruner.
So he breaks down, starts muttering to himself.
And they do like a little reverse psychology thing of, it's like, hey, we're going to leave
Kruner.
And Kruner's like, no.
No one leaves Kruner leaves.
Kruner leaves.
And then Kruner just like, oh, I got to leave.
And that's how they prevent everyone from getting shot and killed by Kruner.
But just basically making Kruner think, oh, I have to leave.
So I have control of the situation.
It's kind of flimsy.
He gives a good performance.
Yes.
The actor is a great job in that scene where he's just clearly showing a man who is broken,
break further.
Yes.
That is like when the audience fully realizes that this man is emotionally broken.
Shivering giant.
Yes.
He runs back to the lighthouse.
Friend chases after him.
That's when we get our big confrontation.
They fight.
We get a big fight.
And then Kruner understands like, OK, I'm the bad guy.
And he steps outside.
And lets the deep ones just kill him.
Let's the deep ones kill him.
Meanwhile, the deep ones just keep attacking friends.
We don't know that.
Well, that night.
They just killed a child.
Well, so that night, you're thinking of the night where they did the dynamite thing.
You used the door open.
Oh, I'm thinking that.
You're right.
Yes.
So in the dynamite attack, they were like, we got to get him.
We got to draw him in.
So they leave the door open.
It's like a vein.
Yeah.
And then it's a good scene.
It's a good scene.
Because he got to let him in the lighthouse.
It's a good action scene.
Mono, Imano.
Yes.
So Kruner walks outside and is ripped apart by the deep ones and meanwhile friend stays
inside the lighthouse.
And there's a weird situation where he still bars the door and he still grabs the axe.
Yeah.
That's and I think that's what I'm thinking of where he's like, he's still afraid.
And I feel like it would have been better thematically if it's just like, they've already reconciled.
Yes, we're good.
But I could also see just like, we did just shoot a child.
Well Kruner did.
But it could just be the deep ones themselves showing how human they are.
By committing war.
By committing just blanketed war and having blanket assumptions of the other.
I think it's interesting at least.
Yeah, that's a great, great concept.
I think it would have been easier for him to just close the door and just be like, finally
that's over.
But like the still untrustingness, because they are still like.
On both sides.
I mean they're vicious.
They can be, they're strong.
Yeah.
And then we do a little time jump.
Yeah.
A boat shows up and someone is here to replace the weather official.
Yeah.
The weather observer time is up to pick up the friends.
But where is he?
Where's friends?
Then we get a nice little like, repeat.
Repeating where they show up and they hit the guy who's asleep and they grabs the stick.
He's not asleep.
It's Kruner, but it's friend.
Yep.
Friend has now assumed the identity of Kruner so he can stay on the silent.
I don't know why the lighthouse keeper never gets changed out, but it's just a weather
observer every year.
Well, you know.
But presumably it's like, oh, the cycle is going to repeat.
Even though friend is shown, he's not as broken as the previous Kruner.
It's a new day.
Yes.
Things are more hopeful.
When Naras sees the boats and she runs on the rocks and she jumps into the ocean and
she swims away until you can't really disturb anything from the ocean and then fade to black.
Yep.
Honestly, I think that's a good ending.
It's a fine ending because it is ambiguous whether he, because you think he'll stay.
Oh, yeah.
So the military guys at this point, it's no longer like just some local ship just bringing
the guy in.
It's a full on military escort.
Navy escort, yes.
Yes.
Because the World War I is fully kicked off by this point.
It's fully on.
They come in and they're like telling friend the new Kruner.
They're like, why don't you shave, grow your hair.
Wear warm hair.
Yeah, this is, he's crazy.
Do you think they're going to force him back out into the real world?
Well, they say, not in these words, but I think he's got shell shock or some kind of
like, it's, you know, hysteria.
They say something along those lines and he walks, he ignores them completely.
Yes.
He just walks outside and looks out to see all these ships.
And then we don't see him after that ever again.
We see Inaris and the boats.
And that's why I'm just like, I don't know if he will leave or not.
I imagine he has grown past his trauma and is ready to rejoin society.
Yes.
However, some sort of visuals that muddy the whole message of all this is one, he now
has really long hair and an unkempt beard.
And it's like earlier in the movie, when he cut his hair again and shaved his beard, it
was him denouncing groomers, denouncing groomers lifestyle, which is him getting
past any emotional stuff, like problems he was dealing with.
And yet just for the sake of visual similarity to Booner, they just ignored the themes of
the movie and they ignored the established metaphors they've created.
And just to have him have a beard and everything like that.
But I couldn't, yes, I can also agree that it's a valid interpretation that it is him
now fully embracing society again and joining it.
But also, Inaris leaves the island.
The counter to that being, I think he stays because he has learned a new society with
these deep ones.
So he has not rejected society.
He has still embraced society.
He's just embraced a different society.
Society of the deep ones.
And the shot of Inaris at the end, I mean, obviously it's just a very visually interesting
way to just end a movie on like a, I don't know, a point, an exclamation point maybe.
Inaris running, jumping into the water.
But you can also interpret it as being, oh, well, she's out.
Still confident and everything like she's not wearing clothes.
But she's out in the daytime having, having a good swim.
Maybe the other deep ones are doing that on the island as well.
And it's no longer this culture of fear surrounding this island.
And it's more just a nice little society growing up.
Yes.
But also you have to remember that someone is replacing him if he does leave or whether
he stays and they're going to be freaked out with deep ones.
Yes.
But and the friend is there to facilitate that.
Maybe as like a mass editorial role.
If he stays, that's acceptable.
I think either way, but if he does leave, it's just reopening the terrible relations
between the mankind and the deep ones.
And that's why I think it's, it's better that he stays from a thematic point of view
because he's learned to accept and embrace society again and now he can help someone
else who's probably dealing with the same sort of trauma.
As some kind of mentor as opposed to Gruner, who was just like, I'm just going to take
from what you have.
Gruner was a bad role model and friend realizes that halfway through the movie and grows
and becomes the better Gruner.
But then also just embracing the name of Gruner.
Maybe he's just evolved, but I would just undermine the entire movie.
And that's why this movie is a little frustrating because it's a little confusing from all those
like a lot of ideas, all that subtext that gets put into there.
It's like, it's like they're trying to have their cake and eat it too.
You see they are because they want the fun thought provoking philosophical moments, but
they also want the fun action zombie scenes where it's just hordes and toads storm the
house.
And it's great.
And that's why this movie to me is, it's okay, it's worth a watch, but it's just not
like I can't call it a great movie because it's just missing certain things or if they
like, I don't know, strengthened their message a little bit more, it might have put it over
the edge for me, but it's still a good movie.
I would recommend it.
No real complaints watching it.
Again, it was a little slow during a little bit, so maybe not watch it if you're a little
tired.
Yeah, I would say that.
But normally after a decent amount of slow, there will be some action sequences.
Yes, there's really good action sequences all the way throughout.
There's good emotional scenes.
And it does not waste time starting, which I fully appreciate.
And it's like what, an hour and a half?
Yeah.
It's not a whole time commitment.
I would recommend it.
I'd probably give it like, I don't know, a six or seven out of ten.
And that's pretty much what reviews I saw online for.
Oh yeah?
It was like a six or seven out of ten.
But it was like, again praising the things that we talked about, the good action sequences,
the thought provoking, the visual effects were pretty good, the creature designs were
fun, the two lead performances, the three lead performances were really good.
Yes.
Because Inaris does do a lot of just facial acting.
Yeah, she's mostly silent.
Like she doesn't say any, she doesn't dialogue throughout this movie.
So it's all visual acting.
She has a really good job.
Yes.
It's really good and comes through very emotive sort of makeup as well.
And Friends just does a good job as kind of a blank slate character.
Yes.
With some good emotional performances throughout.
And then Gruder is just a mad man and it's fun to watch.
It's really fun to watch Gruder.
So yeah, that's cold skin.
That is cold skin.
It's on a whole bunch of different streaming sites.
It's on Tubi which is free with ads.
I highly recommend giving this movie a watch.
It's on YouTube free with ads.
I think it's on Shutter.
It was on Shutter a few minutes ago.
You can buy it on YouTube or Amazon for like 10 bucks.
I have it on DVD.
Yep.
I like this movie.
And again, it is a French Spanish production.
So while the dialogue is all in English, it's not dubbed or anything.
Yes.
These are English actors speaking English.
The titles for the version we watched, it's like it's the Spanish title.
And I think there was like an opening crawl or something that was Spanish.
That definitely wasn't ripped.
No.
Online.
No, that's just the DVD.
Yeah.
What are you talking about?
The DVD that I have wasn't because I bought it at Walmart.
It's all in English if you have some sort of fear of foreign films.
Which we shouldn't.
We shouldn't.
Don't do that.
Much like this movie, you should embrace the other.
Yes.
Embrace the TV.
And watch Cold Skin.
Watch Cold Skin.
Embrace that cold, cold skin.
Yep.
So I think that's gonna...
That about wraps it up.
I don't think we have anything else about this one.
That concludes our Frozen with Fear.
The Marvel series.
What do you want to rank all four movies?
Yeah, let's rank them.
Let's rank these four movies.
All right.
Let's see what's number one.
No, let's start with the bottom.
Okay.
And then we're...
Well, it might be a mystery.
What's gonna be our favorite movie?
Definitely don't look at how long these podcast lengths are for each episode, because that
doesn't give it away whatsoever.
Not at all.
I'm gonna say very bottom of the list.
Not even a question is AVP.
All the way.
I'm gonna say 100% 10.
110% AVP bottom of the list.
Still a fine movie.
I could watch that and go, huh.
Now let's just say number one.
There's gonna be zero disagreements on that.
It's gonna be John Carpenter's The Thing.
Number one, John Carpenter's The Thing.
Now I don't know about you, but I think we might have some differences.
I think number two is gonna be The Thing 2011 and number three is gonna be Cold Skin.
I suspect it's gonna be the opposite for you.
That's the way we differ.
Yes.
I really like Cold Skin.
It has just that little more originality and like heart.
You could tell at the time of Hollywood when they were making The 2011 The Thing, remakes
were just being made.
The studios were like, we own this property, we're remaking big horror franchises and movies.
Let's just do that.
We'll make easy money.
And instead, you know, a bunch of scrappy, you know, film people got together and they
were like, hey, I really like this weird book about people having sex with toads and fighting
in lighthouses.
And they went, you know, that's probably not gonna make a lot of money, but it's what
I want to make.
You know, that's valid point.
But The Thing 2011 is just really fun and it does not have the emotional moments whatsoever,
but it is still, I like it as a different take on John Carpenter's The Thing where it's
a little bit more action-y, a little bit less with the like, subterfusioned, the paranoia.
I like that different take.
It's fair.
I think the characters are fun.
The characters are fun, but I would say...
And the biggest difference for me is I didn't walk away from The Thing feeling like I needed
more from not like a positive way, but like the film was lacking, which cold skin.
I did walk away being like, it's missing something.
But you did walk away from 2011's The Thing going, why didn't I just watch John Carpenter's
The Thing?
No, because I usually just watch it immediately after.
I don't know, Gruner is such a fun character.
He is.
I would say the action in cold skin is better than the action in 2011 The Thing, because
2011 The Thing, it's, while it is more bloody and action-y with spurts of action as opposed
to long action scenes.
Yes.
That's true.
I also, I like deep ones, and we don't see a lot of deep ones in a lot of movies.
We don't.
But I think we can both agree.
John Carpenter's The Thing, Think 2011 and Cold Skin are like pretty good movies, and
then AVPs like kind of just way over here is like a very distant fourth.
All of you should watch.
Now, due to DC, contact my controls, due to DC, that's just 2-2-3-3.
In fact, all of you should watch John Carpenter.
You all know it's good.
You've all seen it.
I know.
I would recommend both things, and Cold Skin wholeheartedly, and I would only recommend
AVP to those people who like watching trash cinema, for watching trash cinema.
I can agree with that, because I am a enjoyer of trash cinema.
Trash cinema.
Yep.
Anyways, that's Frozen with Fear.
That is Frozen with Fear.
Thank you for venturing to Antarctica and them the equator with us.
Yep.
I hope you enjoyed this on this chilly, this voyage.
If you enjoyed this series, or are interested in more of maybe like our takes on things
as occasional like posts or whatever, just feel free to comment.
We want those weirdos back.
Yeah.
I'd come back.
This is just fun.
Yeah.
I enjoyed it.
But keep subscribing on Patreon to Camp Kaiju, support them with buying a t-shirt from Bandit's
Emporium.
They've got some cool designs over there.
Yeah.
And like, subscribe, share, do all the good things to make podcasts like this possible.
Yeah.
This is a fun time.
I had a good time.
I've enjoyed myself.
Yes.
Alright.
Have a good one.
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