High n' Dry Podcast
Hosted by Ryan Baron North, James Crosslin, and Luke, High n' Dry tackles film and philosophy with their patented 3-part method. What makes them so special and fun? One of them is drunk, and the other two are really, really high. Welcome to a drunken chat at 3 in the morning with your best buds. Come talk movies and philosophy, and get wasted along the way. New episodes every other week! Music by AlexGrohl @ Pixabay
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High n' Dry Podcast
Should we F* the Couch?: A Deep Dive into "It Follows" on High n' Dry Podcast
Ever wonder what happens when bullies get what's coming to them? On this episode of the High n' Dry Podcast, we reminisce about the wild reality show "Bully Beatdown" before diving headfirst into the eerie world of "It Follows." With potent Acapulco Gold in hand and a 60s-inspired vodka martini at our side, we dissect the film's unique take on horror, providing a mix of humor and sharp insights. From its stationary camera shots to Maika Monroe's gripping performance, our conversation brings out the hidden layers of this low-budget thrill-ride.
Our analysis doesn't stop at mere cinematic techniques. We unravel the deeper themes of trauma, fear, and responsibility that make "It Follows" a standout in the horror genre. By comparing it to other films like "Smile" and "Invisible Man," we shed light on the unsettling nature of the entity and its impact on the characters. The moral dilemmas faced by the protagonist, and the allegorical significance of the entity as more than just an 'STD demon,' are laid bare, offering a fresh perspective on the consequences of one's actions.
Ever wondered how you'd handle an unstoppable, shape-shifting horror? We do too, with a mix of practicality and humor. From building a community of hunters to conducting scientific experiments, we explore various hypothetical scenarios and even draw parallels to popular memes. Our blend of personal anecdotes, engaging speculation, and light-hearted banter makes this episode a rollercoaster of thoughtful discussion and entertaining hypotheticals. So join us on the High n' Dry Podcast, where we face our fears with a cocktail and a laugh at the ready!
Hey everybody, welcome to High and Dry Podcast, the only podcast left keeping alive the fandom of Bully Beatdown. Do you remember that one?
James Crosslin:I don't remember that one. That's one that I don't even remember Now. That's obscure.
Ryan Baron North:The whole concept was this dude, this like semisuccessful mma fighter, created a reality show, or he was. He was tagged for the reality show and he would find people people supposedly wrote in that they were getting bullied and then he would force this bully to fight another moderately successful MMA fighter in the ring.
James Crosslin:Ah, so it was like a pick on someone your own size kind of show.
Ryan Baron North:That was sort of the message of it, yeah.
James Crosslin:But also one of them's like a trained fighter and the other one's not.
Ryan Baron North:Correct and it was always like some guy who truly believed supposedly believed that you know he could take on anyone and they would do the whole reality behind the scenes like yo, my name's joey and I am his bully. I'm proud of it I bully an adult man I bully an adult man, and then Mayhem would come in and make short work of them with his roster of MMA fighters who really need this paycheck. And that was the concept.
James Crosslin:I didn't see this one at all.
Ryan Baron North:This one totally passed me by that's not the worst thing that's ever happened to you, for sure.
James Crosslin:Well anyway, I feel like I missed out on a part of uh, on a necessary part of learning not to be a bully.
Ryan Baron North:Yeah, no, and you know it follows you to this day, but uh, anyway, folks. So I'm your host, ryan Baron North, with me as always. James Crossland, we aren't going to be talking about Bully Beatdown. What we're going to be talking about today is it Follows, and we're going to do it in this magical three-part method where first we're going to dive into the film, we're going to do a little breakdown, then we're going to jump onto the golden path and discuss those more enlightened thoughts on the film and then, finally, we're going to do a what if? Scenario and insert ourselves into the movie. And what makes it so magical and fun is that we're going to be doing it drunk and high. So, james, what are you smoking this week?
James Crosslin:I'm smoking Acapulco Gold again. I bought like an ounce of Acapulco Gold and in March or something, and I'm still working on it I can't smoke it fast enough. Even though I smoke like two or three times a day, I cannot smoke this weed fast enough and so you have and so it's an ounce, so an ounce, so, so an ounce.
James Crosslin:Think of it like it's about if you were to lay it out flat. It's about if you were to lay it out flat. It's about an inch thick and about like an eight inch by four inch plane. And it's an inch thick, so it's quite a bit of weed and I thought I would have gotten through it by now. I've given some away to people, I've smoked it with friends, I've rolled up joints and given it to people like really burned through it, like I don't know, keeps following you.
James Crosslin:It's so good it doesn't take much to get fucked up. It's like one of the. It's like one of the. Uh, it's one of the strains that cheech and chong did a movie about. Like it's a really good strain, okay, um, I think I'll be smoking this until the end of the fucking year, man, well, hey.
Ryan Baron North:It just keeps coming back. I throw it out and then it's waiting for me in the bedroom.
James Crosslin:It's a great strain. I'm not mad at it. It's always there. It's like an endless bag of weed. It's pretty cool but also variety for the show, Not getting much.
Speaker 3:Well, for variety, I've decided to switch it up this week. Most people know that I'll be chugging whiskey on here like crazy. But, for whatever reason, the supernatural force of it Follows got me thinking of men from the 60s, and so for that I'm going to be drinking a vodka, martini okay I'm using three parts belvedere, right there, and one part vermouth, and that's going to get you that, martini, my microphone's about to be pissed at me, but it's not that bad now you put it under the table how do you put it under the table?
James Crosslin:like it sounds? It sounds it's not blowing out your mic or anything we're good to go and we'll crack this open.
Ryan Baron North:Yeah, getting vodka all over my desk, nice, but yeah, so that's just three parts your vodka, one part your vermouth and it comes out nice little martini right there. So I'll take that down over the course of our three starting shots. Excellent. So this first one, our first shot, first hit. Uh, this one's going to go out to our film. It it follows Cheers.
James Crosslin:Cheers.
Ryan Baron North:It follows, my vermouth is a little dry.
James Crosslin:I don't prefer that dry of a martini, but it'll do in a pinch. What would you do to make it less dry? Add more vodka.
Ryan Baron North:Well, so I have a change. So I mean you could add like uh, if you want to do like a lemon drop, you'd add, um, some simple syrup, uh, squeeze a lemon in there. It kind of gives it that sweeter thing for a traditional vodka. Martini, you have to be, yeah, you, you have to be down for alcohol, Cause I mean this is just alcohol.
James Crosslin:Yeah, yeah, alcohol, because I mean, this is just alcohol, yeah, yeah. So did you put? Did you? Did you shake it with ice, is that?
Ryan Baron North:what I heard is that there's ice in there you shake it. So you're gonna do it with a stir. But you know, if james bond tells you to do something, you got to do it and so I take it. So our second drink, our second toast second this one goes out to our newest listeners in Exeter, devon, devon, like England, yeah. Or we also have some from Zacatecas. Zacatecas, I don't know.
James Crosslin:Type it in the chat. Type it in the chat really quick. Wait, how's it spelled? Spell it out.
Ryan Baron North:Zacatecas.
James Crosslin:Like Mexico.
Ryan Baron North:Yes, so Z-A-C-A-T-E-C-A-S.
James Crosslin:Yeah, zacatecas yeah.
Ryan Baron North:Yeah, cool. So here's to them. So down the hatch Cheers. Wow, I have nothing. To soak up this desk vodka cool.
James Crosslin:Our audience is so international. I love that people just listen from random places. That's super. That's super cool. Thanks for listening people oh and uh.
Ryan Baron North:So this, this final toast, this final, I guess, goes out to passing on your sexual trauma to those around you.
James Crosslin:Cheers.
Ryan Baron North:All right, well, I am ready to go. That was a lot of alcohol.
James Crosslin:All right, let's do it.
Ryan Baron North:All right, all right. Who am I? What are we doing? All right, so All right.
James Crosslin:So it's 11 am. It's 11 am, we're talking about it follows.
Ryan Baron North:I just swallowed a bowl of vodka. Let's do this so it follows. So part one let's dive on in. So, james, what were your, what are your sober thoughts on the film before we lose it?
James Crosslin:my sober thoughts in the film. So I'd like to talk about my history with this film a little bit. So this film came out in, I think, 2014. Yeah, um, I missed it. It missed me entirely.
James Crosslin:I'd heard about it. Uh, I heard it was good. I heard it was like a low budget film. Um, I heard that and you know a lot of what I heard about this movie talked about the theme of like a sexually transmitted disease was. What I heard was like the the monster was a sexually transmitted disease, and so I came in with the con with that concept in the back of my mind, because there's no way I can avoid it. Someone told me it and therefore it's there forever. I can't escape it. Um, so I couldn't ignore it going into the movie that I knew what it was about. Yeah, that being said, I did enjoy the movie.
James Crosslin:I have some contentious. I'm contentious about the idea that it's a sexually transmitted disease. We can talk about that when we get to the golden path, probably, but I thought that this movie was, uh, I thought this movie did some really fun cool things, kind of like invisible man, where they had some, you know, wide shots, that where the camera was stationary. It's that still from one vantage point, and then people moved in and out of frame, which, you'll notice, doesn't happen in movies a lot, where a camera sits still and people, people move out of frame, that you follow a character.
James Crosslin:That's like. That's like going against film. You know our standard conceptualization of filmmaking to keep a camera sitting in one space of people, to leave they just left the movie, we have no idea what they're doing, and then they come back or don't. Um, and I thought that it did a really good job making us like a passive observer. Uh, you know it also made us, as the audience, feel stuck. You know that we had no influence, that we couldn't even follow these characters. You know it, they did some amazing things out of necessity with their filmmaking that led to really cool shots that were really engrossing.
Ryan Baron North:Okay, no, solid, okay, um, yeah, for me, uh, sober thoughts, my quickly evaporating sober thoughts, that, uh, that fuck is going straight to my brain. I would say I did enjoy the movie. This is I think this is the second time I've watched it, when we decided to do it for this show and yeah, I think I enjoyed it this time more than I did the first. I don't know if I was just more critical back in 2014 or what the deal was, but I enjoyed it more the second time.
James Crosslin:I feel like you've grown as a person. Do you think that had something to do with it?
Ryan Baron North:it could be, it could be for sure, but yeah, I would say that I am less critical, for sure less contrarian, yeah more empathetic and I also did, yeah, more empathetic and I I also did find the creature itself to be very uh unsettling.
James Crosslin:Yeah, it was really unsettling.
Ryan Baron North:I agree, yeah, it was very unsettling. I I appreciated the creature. I, you know, enjoyed that side of it. I did find it to be be, yeah, it was just an unnerving creature which was kind of fascinating in its own way, and so much so that I did look up to see if the the writer had pulled it out of folklore somewhere, like is there, do we have std demons somewhere in the archives? And no, I guess he just he had a dream about it and I wasn't able to find anything beyond that. So I I did like the creativity of the creature and, yes, I thought that was that was pretty cool and it did remind me of smile a lot yeah, yeah, it's definitely trauma-based.
James Crosslin:Um, yeah, and you do pass it from one person to the other, but I guess in in, smile, uh, they, they die. You have to die to pass it on right yeah, yeah, you're gonna die, so that part or I guess you, I guess that one guy killed someone else, right, that one guy killed someone else and and pass the trauma on that way. Um, but we'll talk. We'll talk about this in the golden path, because I this analogy is really I don't. I want to talk about the analogy more in depth.
Ryan Baron North:Yeah, I do too but yeah, overall though I yeah, it was a solid film yeah, I thought it was.
James Crosslin:I thought it was a really good film. It had me on the edge of my seat most of the time, despite this thing just moving incredibly slowly. I especially liked the scene where they were sitting at the beach and her hair starts and you see her friend slowly walking behind her and then the monster goes invisible, like like we never know what our perspective is, but when it lifts her hair up, I thought that was a great scene. When it, when the like the demon was proved to be real or whatever it it was, I liked that scene a lot.
Ryan Baron North:I thought it was really good and that was interesting, that. So at first you assume it's just a presence, right, that it's like infected your head, it's like the disease itself, yeah. But then you realize that no, it's an entity, it's like a physical thing. It's a physical thing that you could only see once you've banged the right person. I mean, they even clip it once Like they hit it.
James Crosslin:Yeah, oh they hit, they, they, they hit it several times, like they, like they shoot it like three or four times.
Ryan Baron North:Yeah, people who weren't infected by it can interact with it. Yeah, yeah, I found that really interesting. That was an. That was an interesting portion of it, something that I wasn't expecting, anticipating, so that was interesting yeah.
James Crosslin:I'm not sure if that makes it more or less scary, less scary for me, but we might want to move that to the golden path also. I feel it approaching anyway.
Ryan Baron North:Well, did you have any?
James Crosslin:final thoughts that you wanted to throw into your sober. Look at this film. Micah monroe's great. I thought she was an excellent protagonist. I thought she did a death, I thought she. I thought she portrayed like, uh, detachment and then like horror, and then detachment again, like this, this wavering between these feelings. Really well, I think she's a really great actress.
Ryan Baron North:No, I thought so too. That's a good point. She did. I mean, well, it's obviously a bit of more of a golden path, thought there, yeah, let's just move into it now.
James Crosslin:Yeah, let's just get to the golden bed.
Ryan Baron North:It's time. So, but with yeah, let's just move into it now. Yeah, let's just move into the golden path, it's time. But with that being the case, since we're moving onto the golden path, it's time for our final shot, final hit.
James Crosslin:Nurse that one.
Ryan Baron North:No, okay, but it's just a little bit of vodka.
James Crosslin:Don't you have to do a thing after this?
Ryan Baron North:Oh, I'm going to the movies.
James Crosslin:You're going to be, yelling at the screen.
Ryan Baron North:What's a movie out here in Missouri without some drunk yelling at the screen? They just put me in that section. If you do get thrown out of a movie theater, you have to tell me, like when you buy a ticket at a movie in missouri they say, sir, are you inebriated? Should we put you in the drunk screaming section? And I was like yeah, obviously, obviously oh, all right.
Ryan Baron North:So here's to the golden path. Uh, as written. I, I like love. I, you know, I love bourbon. Obviously I, I can definitely mess up some tequila. I do not know why people like vodka. Really I like vodka. I can't get down on it. I mean, I just knocked out four shots of vodka here, but it's just not my thing anymore. Yeah, that's fair. I remember I started with it. But, um, also an interesting little little liquor tidbit, while I'm thinking about the martini and everything like that. So people started drinking martinis and vodka in the 60s and 70s, um moving into the 80s even, because they didn't want to be like their parents, who were mostly drinking whiskeys, and that turned in in the 60s, 70s and 80s. Whiskey was an old person's drink, right, and now, um, whiskey's coming back as the dominant liquor and it's just always this cycle of people not wanting to do what their parents did in these small, irrelevant ways.
James Crosslin:Yeah, Is that? Yeah, that might be the key to it. I don't know.
Ryan Baron North:Yeah, I mean. Well, so I mean that was the uh, the cause of the 60s, 70s, uh, vodka boom. It's why James Bond drinks vodka martinis, um, when clearly he's a whiskey man, you think so.
James Crosslin:I thought he was absinthe Doubting absinthe. Got his wormwood.
Ryan Baron North:Little spoon pours the sugar, sugar pours it, likes the sugar pours it over, could you? Imagine that he's sitting across the table from Vesper. He's sitting across the table from Vesper and he asks. He requests the spoon and a sugar cube and starts gently working the liquor over they have.
James Crosslin:they bring out a case and he meticulously sets everything up. They show the whole thing. It takes like two and a half minutes and he drinks it.
Ryan Baron North:She's like what the fuck are you doing? You think this is real wormwood. It's like a japanese tea ceremony that he just needs him to sit there every time he wants to drink oh god, oh, if, uh, yeah, if the new bond that's the first thing he fucking does bust out, his absence set, oh, I'm gonna be so pissed there will be a lawsuit. Oh so, anyway, it is time to get on the golden path. All right, let's talk about this movie. So, james, what are your golden path? Thoughts on it follows uh, golden path.
James Crosslin:Thoughts on it follows. Well, first, you know we talked about the sexually transmitted disease, kind of allegory. Uh, it doesn't really work for me for a few reasons, you know. I it's because, uh, it's because, like the, when you pass on. Well, I should explain for people who may not have seen this movie. It's possible. Yeah, this movie wasn't incredibly popular. It was popular among, like, film nerds and then a bunch of other people, the. The consensus among regular moviegoers was that it was slow and boring. Um, but film nerds liked it and we like it. You know, story nerds, yeah, people who like the art of, of cinema. So I'll explain. So, in this movie, this woman played by micah monroe, a young woman, uh, ends up going out with a man and having sex with him and like like a hookup in the back of a car and he drugs her and he attaches her to a wheelchair and, uh, and you're and I thought that was really surprising. By the way, I was like whoa took a, took a huge leap at that point.
James Crosslin:I was like I was like I thought it was just gonna. I thought she was just gonna leave and then we were gonna discover it over time. No, the dude fucking chloroforms her, ties her to a wheelchair and, like, shows her that this, this, uh, this entity that takes the shape of, of someone you may or may not know, continuously walk slowly toward you.
Ryan Baron North:Now that you're the person who's taken this curse by having sex with them and it's generally not how it can a uh, hey, fuck, I lost the word that vodka hit me hard. But yeah, it's generally not how a date ends when things are going fine for you, everyone's down and, yeah, everyone had sex and stuff and I was like yeah, we had sex and all of a sudden, I was like chloroformed like what. What more was I supposed to do?
James Crosslin:and I and I was like man that that guy did it, he had sex with her, he gave her the demon. I knew the concept of the movie and I was like, damn, now she's just gonna have to, she's going to be thrown into this knowing nothing. And I was like, oh oh, no, it got worse, this thing on. And so they had some sympathy for the victim, which is not usually the case in horror movies, um, which I thought was really good, uh. But the thing about this is it's not like an std, because you don't get rid of your std by giving someone else your std and you don't get rid. You don't get rid of your STD by giving someone else your STD and you don't get rid of your. You know, you don't put off your sexual trauma by giving your sexual trauma to someone else. That's not how that works.
Ryan Baron North:Yeah, no, and that's a good. So those are the two main. So I did a brief sort of look to see how other people felt and how they tried to break it down. It's always those two. It's a STD or a sexual trauma, but like that's, that's not necessarily what we're talking about here. There's more to it.
James Crosslin:I think that what this is meant to represent well, whether intentionally or unintentionally, to me, when I look at this allegory, what I see is the pushing off of responsibility and consequences. That's what this sexual demon is. The sex is just the means that people are willing. I think the message that I see is that people are willing to do whatever it takes to avoid consequences. Yes, it's, uh, it's that. It's not about the sex. Sex is something that people are willing to do. They're willing to be coerced into. They're willing to injure other people without their consent.
Ryan Baron North:If they're willing to do that, they're willing to do anything there and and kill them indirectly you know, yeah, no, and I that was something I appreciated about this as well was look, if you're passing that off, if you're, if you're passing the buck, you're not doing the right thing. Right, yeah, at all, and I'll get more into what I would do personally in the third part. But of course you're not doing the right thing.
Ryan Baron North:And what was wild was the protagonist decided in the end not to do the right thing either right there, there were some attempts, uh, to see what they could do to kind of stop it to, to deal with these sorts of things. But, like you were saying, like, hey, the consequence of this action is you're about to be mangled by an invisible creature, right? And instead of just like all right, it's time to get mangled or.
James Crosslin:Or it's now or I now have to spend my life avoiding it or, yeah, spend my life running, but no, like, nope.
Ryan Baron North:Let's see. What's wild about that also is even once you pass off the buck, you still have a life of. Did it get back to me? Right? You know you can't, just you know even what was wild was that the guy in the beginning who gives it to her went back to live with Ma.
James Crosslin:Yeah, right, he just went home. He went. His big plan was I'm gonna go to the next town over and then I'm sure it'll never show up at my door yeah, that was what he was.
Ryan Baron North:Easily they tracked him down like that that was pretty quick.
James Crosslin:Yeah, he expected her to be dead already, I guess. But he no. He said he expected her to survive, so he just thought she was gonna do all the running around he was passing off the consequences to someone he thought could handle it, even though he proved he could handle it. He should have taken the responsibility instead of shoving it onto another person.
Ryan Baron North:And then just go home to live with Ma. And well then, there was also the interesting part of the, the young man who was obviously enamored by our protagonist from the beginning. And there there's an interesting thing to say about individuals who are willing, out of this desperate need for connection or this desperate need for whatever it is, whatever your trauma is, to be so willing to take on someone else's damage for the sake of that gratification.
James Crosslin:Well, it's consequences is what it is, and I think that consequences, you know, when we talk less about damage and about things that define a personality or something, you know that's what the movie I think was trying to say was about damage and stuff, but in the end it came back to something else. Right, it's the taking of responsibility and I think that does, or consequences, really Not responsibility, it's consequences and and I think it's okay for someone to take someone else's consequences.
James Crosslin:That happens a lot you know it's something you're willing to do for someone else, it can be an excellent thing yeah uh, well, and the reason why I bring it up yeah, yeah, you got to be informed which he was he was, he was, he was informed, he gave consent to what was happening he did give consent, and but then it begs the question of her willingness to allow this guy to take on those consequences.
Ryan Baron North:Right, and and I mean that for for anyone, I'm not saying gender specific or anything like that, but just a willingness for us. Because for me, if I was in our protagonist's place and I have this young boy who's just so desperate to appease me, he's like yo, let's fuck man, I'll take your consequences. I'll be like I can't let you do that, homie, I'll be like I can't let you do that, homie.
James Crosslin:That's definitely a consideration. I think the movie has an excuse for that. I think the excuse is that when they were fighting the creature at the end, he couldn't see it, and it made everything really hard. What he said was I want to help you and defend you from this thing, no matter what. I'll be here until it kills me, right? I want to be able to see the thing. Uh, and that's why she had sex with him. It's it's also implied near the end that he goes and passes it on to a prostitute?
Ryan Baron North:no, he goes and bangs a bunch of hookers and that immediately calls his, but so were the guys on the boat.
James Crosslin:Yeah. So here's the question. Here's what I think they were doing with that scene. I think they showed us that scene with her and the guys on the boat and we were later supposed to see him as a counteraction to that. I don't think he, his was the same that he banged those hookers.
Ryan Baron North:I don't think he did but I don't know, I think. I think, I think together you had these young adults saying, like well, if we were trying to get this thing so far away from us, what part of the population would we give it to? And they're like well, obviously, the girls on the on the corner are it's going to be passed off within so long. But but even then, if you have any level of foresight, you would know that hey, this, uh, this particular prostitute is going to have sex with a John, that's his wife, he's going to have sex with his wife and the wife's gonna die, the john's gonna die. It goes right back to the, to the prostitute who I guess the hope is she keeps having sex every day, and it goes to the new john the new wife, the new john the new wife, the new john the new wife, which is uh pretty terrible, which is yeah, yeah, but that, but that's maybe.
James Crosslin:That's just the question it's asking. We got confirmation that Mike and well, we never got confirmation that Mike and Monroe did the boat thing. We actually never got confirmation of that. But that's the question, right. When it comes down to it and you see an opportunity to shove off your consequences and have someone else suffer them, would you do it, do you do it? And and, and. Whatever we think of a person, when that opportunity comes up and you see that option, sometimes you, in a moment of weakness, take it.
Ryan Baron North:Honestly, take it honestly. So I think that that is the best possible segue we could have to our third portion of this episode, where we are going to insert ourselves into this film. We're going to see what we do differently. We're going to put some drugs and alcohol in it, throw it into the mix, shake it up like a vodka, martini, let's see what happens. So, so I mean, james, would you like to answer your own question on like, would you do?
James Crosslin:it would I do what I do, what?
Ryan Baron North:so you've been inserted so you've been inserted into. It follows you were on a date with this attractive young thang. Everything was going great, it was totally consensual, but then they still fucking throw the chloroform on you like homie. You didn't have to do that, we were down. Is this just a little game? Um, because if it is, I'm into it. But that's the consent.
James Crosslin:That's the consent thing right we didn't actually get into that in the last portion, so much. We should have talked about it more well, well, I mean what if?
Ryan Baron North:are you insulted by the lack of consent of the chloroform?
James Crosslin:yes, I am. I'm insulted by the lack of consent, because maybe this guy, if he had just been like, all right, this is fucking crazy. There's a big demon and it's, there's a thing that's chasing me and he like, he takes video with his phone. Everybody has a fucking camera. He throws a sheet over it or some paint or something and it takes a video and he's like listen, there there's a demon, it's chasing me, I can see it. You can only see it if you have sex with me. Who wants to have? He can post this online. You can put this on instagram and people would be like yes, I will have sex with you and then I will see the monster.
Ryan Baron North:And soon we would have a bunch of people who could see this monster and fucking fight it, and we could work together on this thing and we're all brought together by the fact that we have fucked as uh, a person in the line, yeah, and once we kill the monster we're gonna have a party.
James Crosslin:It's the fact that everyone consented. That's the thing is that binds people together, like the two, like the couple at the end. It's the consent that there was an understanding about what was happening. It was totally truthful. You didn't feel you had to hide. You know the reality of the situation. For whatever reason, um, uh, they shared, whatever these the burdens of consequence of things, a thing she didn't ask for because she didn't give consent. Right, she didn't give consent. She was facing a consequence. She didn't deserve that someone shoved off on off on her. But together, with both of them consenting, they face it together.
Ryan Baron North:Well, I did have a question about that for you. So the final scene, you know we see this guy who finally gets to have sex with the girl that he's been eyeing since an hour and a half ago. He goes off and it's heavily implied that he has sex with a prostitute, and then they're sort of holding hands down the street and to me excuse me, I thought, cause coming back to me it seemed like he was still more into it. We just the way they were holding hands and she was like, if this guy's willing to take on my consequences, cool, maybe.
James Crosslin:Yeah, I way they were holding hands and she was like, if this guy's willing to take on my consequences, cool, maybe, yeah, I, I I may agree with that that at the end, you know, when they held, she always seemed kind of uh, really mad about him, yeah and uh. But perhaps she appreciates that he is her companion, that he's willing to do a lot for her, and there are relationships like that in real life. I don't. I don't think Micah Monroe is a good character. I don't think she plays a good person. I think she plays just a normal person. A person, right? Yeah, she's just a normal person. Normal person, a person, right?
Ryan Baron North:yeah, she's just a normal person who is, who is imperfect, a deeply imperfect, without a doubt. Well, so let me, let me bring it back around. You have been infected by this particular consequence std demon yeah, I do all the things.
James Crosslin:I say wait, no, I'm sorry, what do you do? Finish your question. What do you do? Okay? So one of the notes I wrote down immediately was like can you fuck the demon to death? And then I learned very quickly that that, no, the demon fucks you to death. Uh, so that one that that solution didn't work out. Um, let's see. So I said the thing about just going on instagram and building a community of of it hunters. Uh, I think that I think that would probably be. You know, there was no science involved. Like I said, she's not like an amazing person, she's not like the best person, she's not like the most genius or whatever. She's just a normal person where the fuck was like the tossing paint on it or powders or they throw a sheet on it at one point.
James Crosslin:Why the fuck wouldn't you carry a sheet everywhere like, uh, uh, uh, just some silly string, you shoot silly string on the fucking thing. I would call, I would figure out how to show people that the demon was walking around, and then I would call a news station and I'd be like look at this, what the fuck is going on right now? Do you see this shit?
Speaker 3:This is not a.
James Crosslin:We'd have top minds on it immediately. There's an invisible creature walking down the street.
Ryan Baron North:I've discovered a new slice of the universe as we understand it. There are invisible sex creatures out there and we need to get to the bottom of it. Let's get down here, boys, seriously, well. Well, I'm glad you brought that up because I I would be doing very similar research like you. You would see a submersible drop down on the far side of the marianas trench and I'd be dressed like jacques custeau and we're gonna watch to see how this creature gets to me via the Marianas Trench.
James Crosslin:I thought I had the same exact thought. Man, like you, gotta do some timing stuff. It's actually physical, so you can be aware of exactly when it hits checkpoints. You might be able to attach something to it to track it. Maybe you can put a bell on the thing. Has anyone tried to put a bell?
Ryan Baron North:on it. Well, let's experiment here Like it's a dangerous experiment. But we have people who study sharks. All right, we do. And so now I know that there's invisible STD demons. You know damn well, there's something inside the Marianas Trench. Let's see how my STD demon stacks up against it. How does an ancient megalodon, take him out. I'm very excited to find out.
James Crosslin:Can you get it to walk into a volcano? What happens when it falls? In a volcano Because it fell down when it got shot what if it gets Terminator 2'd or regular first Terminator crushed, molten, steeled?
Ryan Baron North:and there's a popular meme, I guess would be about the deal you make where you get to live forever, but as make where you get to live forever. But as soon as you choose to live forever, a snail begins its journey towards you. And if the snail ever touches you, your uh life ends.
James Crosslin:Okay, and.
Ryan Baron North:I didn't know about that.
James Crosslin:That sounds like an exact analogy of this monster.
Ryan Baron North:That is what it exactly was. And so there's jokes about how you know you've lived, you know, happily for so many hundred years, and all of a sudden your son's like hey, I found this snail outside. Or the world explodes and it's just you and the snail. The snail fires off the opposite direction from the earth and you fire off the other way.
Ryan Baron North:And now you have to just drift through space for eternity. But it's just taking the concept and adding like, hey, hey, there's other options here, we don't just have to go down to the red light district. And and another thing, like dude, if, if that's your plan was to get with just a prostitute and see what happens don't do it in Detroit fly to Thailand. Well, like, give the like, don't go five blocks down. Yes, five blocks down is the problem.
James Crosslin:like fly to thailand, like, if that's the plan, let's make it a plan, let's make this work right go to I guess, if you wanted, I guess if you wanted to observe it tomorrow, five miles away, wouldn't be a bad plan. If you're like, I want to know what happens tomorrow yeah, I guess that's not a bad plan, because who knows how long it would take to get to thailand right?
Ryan Baron North:but but that's not what they were trying to do. Even the guy who gave it to her, he just wanted to pass it off to a girl that lives in the tri-county area, yeah, and then go back to live with his mom like, oh, she's gonna deal with that, it'll be fine, there's no way it's gonna catch her. Like dude you, you hop on spiritcom. You're gonna just take a single carry-on because you can't afford the other baggage. You're gonna fly as far as you can go to their red light district and see what happens there when?
James Crosslin:you know, I just had a question, I just had a thought. You know, when he said that she could handle it, she could handle this thing, was he essentially saying that she was willing to do any she?
Ryan Baron North:he saw in her the willingness to do anything to survive if he was, if that's what he was saying, he wasn't wrong. He wasn't wrong. Yeah, that and that's an interesting point okay, because if that's what he was saying, he wasn't wrong.
James Crosslin:Yeah he was also, but but he was a piece of shit he should. He should have been killed. They should have shot him for being a piece of shit. They should have shot her for being a piece of shit he should. He should have been killed. They should have shot him for being a piece of shit they should have shot her for being a piece of shit. They all, they should all die for being pieces of shit well, that's another thing I mean so like I.
Ryan Baron North:so I got my jacques costeau submariners thing on and I just witnessed this creature leap across mariana's Well it seems to move faster in water.
James Crosslin:Yeah, it seems to move a lot faster.
Ryan Baron North:It would move a lot faster in the pool we watched this thing. At one point it had to bust a window and slide in.
James Crosslin:That shit was so funny, I laughed out loud. I laughed out loud when he broke the window and heaved his body over all stiff into the window His stiff legs flopped over and he used like a rock. Yeah, that shit was so fucking funny man.
Ryan Baron North:But me, as her, as the new protagonist watching this, I'd be like wait a minute. Wait a minute, first it's interacting, wait a minute. First it's interacting with the physical world. Second, it needed the physical world. Yeah, it didn't pass through the window on its own. It didn't punch through the glass.
James Crosslin:Right, which is which I thought was funny. It breaks the shed. Later it like explodes the shed.
Ryan Baron North:Yeah, so like so. Then I'm noticing all loads the shed with yeah, so like so. Then I'm noticing.
James Crosslin:All right, we got some variables in this particular experiment. Yeah, as me and james cameron are working on the documentary of this thing, this, this, it, this, it demon is weak against glass but strong against wood. How do we build? How are we building the cage for this demon?
Ryan Baron North:we're, yeah, we're doing some shit here we're doing thick glass. We're just gonna do some some bulletproof impact resistance glass and we're just watching and it and one of the benefits of it not being a shark if it escapes that glass enclosement I just gotta walk at a power walker's pace. This thing is not fast, yeah, but it can huck tvs at you if you're in the water but, but essentially this tvs.
James Crosslin:That's right, it was, it was you know it had a good arm. It did a good arm, it was pretty accurate. Um but uh. But you know, this is kind of like the story of an evil entity getting trapped in a relic, like if you do that if you like, trap it last prison.
James Crosslin:It's like a relic, and then someone's gonna find it eventually and then all of a sudden, you're gonna have this reborn demon that no one knows anything about because everyone affected by it has died, and it's going to be like a hell raiser almost, kind of uh uh, you've created a prison for this thing that's going to get that. Someone's going to release it at some point.
Ryan Baron North:They're going to find it you know, hell raiser is not a movie I want to dive into, oh my god, but anyway. Oh, those are so bad, but um no, and so well. My question for you then, because this is the what if?
Ryan Baron North:portion, and you know we've gone into what the characters should do. So you just you just got wheelchaired. All right, yeah, this he looks like he was trying to start his own grunge band. Bring it back. Did all those things? What are your first actions? Like, how does it change immediately compared to it follows 2014?.
James Crosslin:Well, I think I really. I think I think I really did it. I think what I said before is really what would happen is like I'd I'd be afraid of this thing and I'd keep running from it, right, and but I'd try to learn about it. They really didn't try to learn about it at all. There was no effort made to learn about it, which I thought was very, very weird. Yeah, but also kind of normal for people. Do you think so? I think so.
James Crosslin:Uh, I think that I've met a lot of people who aren't really interested in learning about the things they interact with. Uh, you know, not to be too personal, but someone recently was told that, uh, the, uh, the things on the top of that, that that bind soda cans together, that they, if you throw them out, they can get stuck around the necks of animals and the limbs of animals, and then, and then, in response to that, they're just like well, I'm not going to do any of that. It's like I'm not going to, I'm not going to cut that, all you have to do is cut the rings. And they were like ah, all you have to do is cut the rings. And they were like I don't care, I'm not really interested in learning about that or doing that yeah.
James Crosslin:Yeah.
Ryan Baron North:Yeah, yeah.
James Crosslin:Which happens? It happens People make cost value decisions of the things that they're going to, of the way they're going to approach problems but that kind of sucks.
Ryan Baron North:Yeah it, it does. Um, no, that's a good point. So and so, and well, I think that's a good point. Just on the horror genre in general, the horror genre, among compared to any other genre, is the first one where you're going to get this. What would you have done? And and everyone's always like well, obviously you don't do A, b and C and all that kind of stuff, and that's, yeah, that's one thing to say when you're sitting there on the couch shoving your face of popcorn, but it's rarely what we see in practice, right?
James Crosslin:So, so how would I? I?
Ryan Baron North:I would have turned around right there and it's like no, you wouldn't have, you would have taken that hatchet to the face yeah, yeah maybe I've known you for a while maybe I would not have been able to beat the monster back to the car.
James Crosslin:Maybe I'm too out of shape. Maybe I'm too out of shape to make it back to the car before this.
Ryan Baron North:This monster is moving three miles per hour max just got both hands on your knees, holy shit I mean not everyone out there is running 5k, you know not everyone out there can power walk for five minutes and and most people who are commenting on horror films do not know if they fight, flight or freeze. So it's like who are you, who's your average viewer to say so then, if you took, if you were to take, uh, if we were to take honest looks at ourselves, how would it be different? Would it be different?
James Crosslin:I think I'm a fleer. I'm not a fighter. I would flee, but that's the thing about fleeing is specifically with this thing. It buys you more time.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's like, yes, that works out Great.
James Crosslin:Freezing and hiding is not a good solution. Fighting the thing keeps coming back. They shot it in the neck, it went down and I went, like I audibly I said, oh, they clipped it. I was like this opens up so many possibilities yeah well, uh well, and it's so.
Ryan Baron North:everyone always just goes into fight or flight. There is a third, and the third one is freeze.
James Crosslin:There's a fourth one. Oh, what's the fourth? The fourth is to fawn. So like come on, demon, it's okay, we don't have to fight like this.
Ryan Baron North:That might be even more useless than freeze.
James Crosslin:That would be the worst one than freeze.
Ryan Baron North:Uh, that would be the worst one. Well, I, I've been in, uh, certain training situations where you know we're going over fight, flight or freeze, and you know you're talking to instructors and things like that, and they're like, look, I can use a fighter, I can use a flighter, but if you freeze, you probably picked the wrong job. You shouldn't be here right now. Um, and so, yeah, flight can be just as useful as as fight, and it might be more useful in this situation. Yeah, and I don't think either of us would freeze, I don't think we'd freeze?
James Crosslin:no, we've, we've. We've been in situations that have called for immediate attention and we went into action one way or the other yes, yeah.
Ryan Baron North:So I I can honestly say neither of us are going to be a freezer or a fawner yeah, I've been known from fun from time to time, but probably not in this situation not in the life or death situation.
Ryan Baron North:Yeah, no, so yeah, I, I would, I, I could. I feel like I could safely say and agree that if either of us were placed into this film, it would become more of a paranormal research I could see the like early 90s and we both have, like you know, the music and we put on our safety goggles and our lab coats.
James Crosslin:It's got us holding up beakers.
Ryan Baron North:We've been doing it for 10 fucking years and just say I'm Ryan. Hey, I'm James and we've been being chased by st demon for the past 10 years and we're here to unlock the secrets let's dive in we've got our.
James Crosslin:We've got. You can see on our map here and it's like it's a digital map and there's just a beeping, not on the map. You can see the demons right here. Right now it's in the midst, near Sioux Falls.
Ryan Baron North:We had him low jacked on week one.
James Crosslin:A hundred percent.
Ryan Baron North:That was the first fucking thing we did was low jack this motherfucker.
James Crosslin:You get the transmitter. All right, people, when you're getting chased by the sex team, you get it. You get a transmitter, you put it on a pole, something sharp at the end. You get a little eye hook. Put it around the sharp part. You shove it into the demon, get it really up in there. You don't want it to like, you really don't want it to pop off when it's dragging itself through a window or down a stair, is or banished or something like that we've had that happen before you gotta get it up in there we get uh.
Ryan Baron North:We have, uh, fucking presidential appointments as the preeminent authorities on the std demons, uh. So we, like you got uh. The next president is in a press conference and you see one of us come up and whisper into their ear like, hey, the st demon uh, within a mile of you right now. Remember that party I told you not to go to.
James Crosslin:We're gonna want to move, uh, mrs president I wonder if it can be seen by like infrared, because this is in 2014 and like there was all already. We we had a lot of like great gadgets, but like the gadget explosion of the last 10 years is fucking dramatic the the access technology that that people have. You know, we could get infrared goggles like in on the market now for like a couple hundred dollars, which is crazy. No, we wouldn't have that 10 years ago.
Ryan Baron North:Well, we would have entire seasons of our STD demon sex show based on what we see it in Can other people see it. What happens? Like, if I scrape off certain parts of myself and leave it, will he be attracted to another part of it?
James Crosslin:What is it in me that attracts the std demon like let's try some shit here, uh we'd we'd have sex busters on the street where we'd where we'd be like interviewing people on the street. Sir, can you see the sex demon? Can you see the sex demon? He's right, he's coming at me I need to answer actually kind of quickly. Okay, let's move down the street a little?
Ryan Baron North:Can dogs and children see this ex-demon? Are you telling me you're? Going to fuck dogs, but you know they have that extra perception.
James Crosslin:I think you just said you were going to fuck a dog to see if he could see the demon and then make that dog fuck some other animal.
Ryan Baron North:At that point the demon's gone.
James Crosslin:We, we are gonna have a next, next season it was like whoa this is good data I think I'm done chasing you does the demon have the ability to just say no? Fuck this shit.
Ryan Baron North:Jesus Christ. I of course meant it in the terms of there's the concept that, like dogs, can see ghosts.
James Crosslin:Oh, okay, that makes more sense Jesus.
Ryan Baron North:Christ oh fuck, there you go.
James Crosslin:There's a 60 second clip to be taken out of context the demon will back off if you're willing to do something really heinous, like you gotta be fucked.
Ryan Baron North:So yeah, like what happens when you bang a corpse.
James Crosslin:So the thing has footsteps. It like has to go through physical objects. So a dog would just hear it. A dog would like hear it coming.
Ryan Baron North:But what happens if I fuck my couch?
James Crosslin:Like JD Vance. Yeah, like JD Vance. What if hear it?
Ryan Baron North:coming. But what happens if I fuck my couch? Uh, like jd vance, yeah, like jd vance. What if I jd vance my couch? Will it just throw itself at the couch? Can I bang? Can I go to like a tj max and just put an end to this fucking thing?
James Crosslin:I don't know. We, that's, that's we'd be asking the important questions. I think that I think that we both, we both came to this conclusion that we would, uh, we would sign, we would try to, to reason what it, what this thing was, how do we stop it? What is it vulnerable to?
Ryan Baron North:only experiment they did was in the water. I mean we should have gone steps further. What happens if I advance this fucking couch? What'll happen next? You know what happens at the Marianas trench? What do we do with volcanoes? Yeah, what happens when I, when I talk to other people and I form a network of people interested in the sex demon that I have proved because it's a physical entity.
James Crosslin:What if we shoot it into the sun? Could we lure it into some kind of object that it can't destroy and then shoot it into the sun?
Ryan Baron North:Let's figure it out next on next season of this fuck ghost. Well, so did you have any quick fires to wrap this thing up?
James Crosslin:You know I haven't been looking at my notes the whole time. I wrote a whole bunch of notes on this movie but I ended up loving this movie so much that I remembered most of my notes. Let's see, I love the way that, uh, at the beginning of the movie starts with her like running in a circle in the middle of the street and it's like luring the demon. You know you could tell she's like avoiding something you can't see. I thought that was great. Uh, these are just gonna be a lot of cinematic things. I noticed that in foreshadowing they did the the squirrel following the bird along the power line really slowly and the bird just kept hopping away from it. I was like, oh, they're doing such good imagery here. I talked about Invisible man, how they had those sweet center shots. In this one they had out of focus people walking up in the background. They made you always on the look for it. Right, the way that they shot this movie had you always looking around yeah, and that was good, that was good yeah, they did a.
James Crosslin:It was this. It was the fact that the camera was so still and that there weren't always characters in frame that, even when it, even when there was nothing you were like is it, is it out there they made you feel that feeling, that she felt as a character. Yeah, I said I would have asked right away if the girls in the hallway could see the old lady, like when she was at the school and it showed up the lady in the gown. Someone would be like you. I would have immediately been like you, see her no, okay that's not good no, that means I should move.
Ryan Baron North:That means I should move I said she should have.
James Crosslin:Uh, if she was gonna let it loose, she should have gone to like the republican national convention. Uh, they definitely had inner internet porn in 2014. Why does this guy have like a pile of porn magazines in his abandoned shack?
Ryan Baron North:they definitely did, for sure, um yeah I.
James Crosslin:I wrote have they tried shooting it? And then right after that I went yep yes, they did uh, uh, let's see. Uh, I was like the thing moves three miles per hour max. You need to drive 20 miles away and then time how long it takes to get to you let's start these experiments now.
Ryan Baron North:Let's find its land speed. Does it change by incline?
James Crosslin:we need to know yeah, I said it's bullshit that it starts moving really fast underwater, that that kind of ruined my idea of of going across the ocean. It moved so fast in that pool and they like hid that. They hid that fact like it did not want to go in the water. I think I they because he said the demon, he said it wasn't stupid, he said it was slow but not stupid and I think the monster didn't want to give up the fact that it moves fast in water. I didn't think it wanted us to know.
Ryan Baron North:And that would be a fantastic episode for our sex demon reality show.
James Crosslin:Yeah, yeah, I don't think it wanted them to know that it was fast and water, but let's see, I I also loved that. You never know if you can see the monster, like we learn in those two shots that I was talking about together, where we see the monster as her friend walking up, and then it, and then it points back to her friend. You see her, the same friend, sitting on, laying on the beach, and then it goes back to micah monroe and you think that maybe she sat down. You know, maybe it was just showing her going to sit down and uh, and then her hair starts to float up. I was like, oh shit, they've, they've taken our lens of the movie that we took for granted. You know a sense of normalcy that we took for granted. You know a sense of normalcy that we took for granted, uh, and they turn it around on us so well. I thought it was great.
Ryan Baron North:Yeah, overall, then, I would say this was a good film. Yeah, for sure. And since we are coming to the end here, I would just like to let our viewers know that, hey, if you are ever being tracked and hunted by a sex demon, swing by an Ikea and let out your inner JD Vance and let us know how long it takes to kill a couch.
James Crosslin:But really, if you're being tracked by like a sex demon, call us. Yeah, we'll figure it out with you. Call us, yeah, you don't have to.
Ryan Baron North:Yeah, you don't have to fuck anybody. You don't have to force your consequences on someone else. We're interested. We're in the market. Let's figure this out. We'd be excited.
James Crosslin:We'd be incredibly excited to do this with you.
Ryan Baron North:This would be like a life-changing experience.
James Crosslin:These people in these horror movies are fucking idiots. Like there's people waiting around the world like, oh, you gotta be fucking kidding me. I'll drive to where you are right now and we'll figure this out.
Ryan Baron North:Yeah, hell yeah, we will fuck that entire IKEA for you. Man, we'll get this figured out, so hit us up. We're High and Dry Podcast. You're one source for slaying sex demons.
James Crosslin:I thank you all for listening, bye, bye.
