Goodnight Mommy (2014)
An Austrian horror flick that gets harder to watch the more it's understood, Goodnight Mommy is a dark and foreboding addition to the horror landscape, written and directed by Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala.
Join Alex and I for our second iteration of Feargenics, while we experience the nightmarish events involving a mother and her twins, set in a picturesque countryside in Austria. Tune in to Feargenics to hear all the gory details.
Episode Transcript:
Alex 0:12
Hello and welcome to Feargenics I'm Alex
Kelton 0:15
I'm Kelton
Alex 0:16
and today we are taking a look at goodnight mommy a 2014 Austrian horror film
Kelton 0:21
I love me some foreign horror movies.
Alex 0:24
It is not an English it's actually in German so I have to watch the subtitles
Kelton 0:29
Yeah, I love subtitles
Alex 0:31
personally I'm torn because I have to actually look at the film The whole time
Kelton 0:35
yeah I feel like with subtitles I the fact that I have to read it like the fact that I literally have to look at the screen to understand what's going on in the story makes me more engaged and like I usually you know, know the movie better as a result of having to basically read the script. Well,
Alex 0:51
not being able to cover my eyes made this movie a lot more terrible for me, at least on the first watch there. But I'm glad you actually put it on the list because I thought it was a really interesting movie.
Kelton 1:01
I'm glad you liked it. So this movie is directed by it was actually dual directed by Veronica Franz and Severin Fiala if I butchered those pronunciations, I apologize. And our main stars in the film were Suzanne West, and twins Elia shores and Luca shores.
Alex 1:18
The directors also wrote the movie. Oh, really? Yes. So they knew it through and through. And in fact, I think they improvised a lot during production, which, you know, it's best if you can be Writer Director in those situations. Yeah, yeah. Now, something I don't know if you noticed, but the kids names are the same as the character names. I
Kelton 1:36
thought that was super cool. I mean, it's probably good for the kids to I mean, it's probably like, because they're just being themselves, right? Like if their characters are Lucas and Elias. And that's what they've been called their entire lives, then they're going to act like Lucas and Elias, they don't even have to be, you know, coached and towards to act or whatever. It's just like that's there. They're just two kids.
Alex 1:57
Good night, mommy follows the story of Lucas and Elias, as they learn to live again, with their mother coming back from plastic surgery,
Kelton 2:07
she just got a whole facial rearrangement like a like several, you know, several different surgeries that require extensive amount of time to heal, and, you know, heal the face.
Alex 2:20
If you've ever seen somebody with plastic surgery, their faces covered with bandages for a while. And it's pretty frightening imagery.
Kelton 2:27
I mean, like, if you think about facial reconstruction, you're literally breaking cheekbones and breaking chin bones and nose bones. Like, I mean, plastic surgery is pretty grotesque. If you think about it.
Alex 2:39
Absolutely. I look as an ally. So pretty young kids, I'd say they're maybe like 1213. So having mom disappear, and then come back with a weird face looking different, kind of acting different because she's in the process of recovery, it makes them start to wonder if this is their mummy at all. So the movie follows the children as they tried to figure out who this woman is, and why is she acting differently than the mommy they remember
Kelton 3:05
from the very beginning, they are very against this woman, be it their mother, not they're plotting against her, there's just absolutely no trust towards this, what these children perceive as basically a monster. Even the way it's shot. Just makes the woman look like a terrifying creature. Like there are several different scenes that make me very scared of this lady.
Alex 3:28
Absolutely. And the movie does a really good job of putting you into the childlike perspective of Lucas and Elias, especially on the first watch there. Yeah. And I think that's essential to enjoying the film. So if you haven't watched this movie, you should go watch it and come back and listen to us. And if you have watched this movie, you should go watch it a second time, because it's very different. On the second watch,
Kelton 3:49
I had a drastically different viewing experience my second time than my first and I can't say it was a good change.
Alex 3:56
So I think the best way to talk about this movie is to just real quick run through the plot. And then we'll sort of dive back into the interesting parts of this movie because this is a pretty long movie with only stuff happening in the last 20 minutes and also
Kelton 4:09
the events of that like you know, the first hour of the movie is basically different situations showing how fucked the scenario is that Elias Lucas and the mother in it just this whole the whole movie sets this tone of very dysfunctional little family and it all kind of comes to a head towards the end.
Alex 4:33
So this movie starts following Elias through a corn maze. Not a corn maze, I guess just a cornfield. Yeah. And he's playing hide and seek with his brother, sort of just child like
Kelton 4:46
there's a lot of scenes like that just them hanging out. Looks like almost dreamlike. It's very much from a child's respect that that scene where they're jumping on the whatever that was like the little spongy stuff. Yeah, like so fun. I don't know what that was like. mutter something. Yeah, I would jump on that for hours.
Alex 5:02
Yeah, so the children are playing together. And they eventually make their way back to their home, where their mom pulls up in a car and they enter the bedroom where their mom is closing all the blinds, and the mother turns around, and for the first time, the children see their mom after some amount of time, and she looks grotesque, because she's still got the bandages on her face. She's very frightened.
Kelton 5:22
Even her eyes have like a little bit of blood in them or little bloodshot eyes. And it's actually the first time the actors Lucas and Elias had seen, right,
Alex 5:32
if you look at their expression is shock. And it's something that would be very impressive for a child actor to pull off. Yeah, well, they weren't actually shocked. Yeah,
Kelton 5:40
she didn't look good. It was scary. I can only imagine being a kid like an eight year old and seeing my mom's face all bandaged up and you know, not looking the same. How revolting that would be putting yourself in the perspective of these kids. Like that's not their mom coming home? No.
Alex 5:56
And she kind of snaps at the kids. She turns around and doesn't really welcome them doesn't really say hello, she just sort of tells them like you're dirty. Go get clean.
Kelton 6:05
Yeah, that was their first interaction after you know, God knows how long and it's pretty Curt and I feel kind of bad for the kids immediately. I'm already in a situation where I'm like, wow, these kids are kind of being treated like garbage.
Alex 6:18
On the first watch through that's exactly what I felt like. watching it on the second watch the third watch through it's like, oh, these kids are just playing in the mud. Yeah, like they're obviously dirty.
Kelton 6:26
Go take a shower. Yeah, you're dirty. Don't get mud in the house.
Alex 6:31
So immediately, there's a big difference between how we see mommy on the first and last watch there.
Kelton 6:37
And that's just the tip of the iceberg in terms of how we see things differently, how dirty their muddy clothes are.
Alex 6:44
So I kind of want to describe the house that this movie takes place on because this movie really takes place to just in one house. Beautiful house. And it's there's a little bit of like extra your scenes outdoors.
Kelton 6:54
beautiful countryside, just a beautiful place. They are. Is this in Germany or Austria, you know, Austria?
Alex 7:00
Well, the movie takes place in Austria. Okay. Yeah. I don't actually know where it was filmed.
Kelton 7:04
Okay. Just beautiful. I mean, if I lived there, the house that real estate was mountains.
Alex 7:10
Absolutely. Um, something I thought was interesting was reading an interview with the directors, they talked about how the house is sort of a reflection of mom. And it's a very modern house. So it's like sharp edges. Everything paintings on the wall are super weird. Yeah, it's very cool. It's not warm at all. It's just like, cool and modern. And
Kelton 7:30
it kind of feels like big and empty, almost like, I feel like this house goes really well with the tone of the movie. Like everything is so clean, and nice and well put together and modern. It's almost just like a cold atmosphere. This house doesn't feel lived
Alex 7:45
in. No, it's very sterile. And in many ways, not practical for the size of family that lives
Kelton 7:50
there. Going back to those paintings on the wall. Like they're literally like weird, abstract art shots of what I assumed to be the mother, but so blurry that you can't tell and it's like black and white. It's just weird. Like, why would you put that on your wall?
Alex 8:04
Yeah, the the mother's design sensibilities are strange at best. So the children get cleaned up, they take a bath, and then they come back to the kitchen to sort of regroup with mom where she is fixing some lemonade for Elias. Or maybe it's iced tea, and it was iced tea. Yeah. And Elias asked why can't Lucas have some mommy says you know why?
Kelton 8:25
And that's our first hint that something's not quite right about these kids. It's pretty subtle. I mean, we both had very drastically different first viewing experiences I would say
Alex 8:39
this is nine minutes and so this is very, very early. Yeah. Now the difference between Kelton and I's viewpoint here is when I saw that I immediately assumed Lucas was dead I did my very first note I wrote down was Lucas dies at birth which is not the case but I did have an inkling that he was dead
Kelton 8:57
Yeah, I it actually took me a decent bit of time to realize the you know, big twist of this movie
Alex 9:05
movie sort of bounces back and forth between the kids and them interacting with the mom and the kids are losing trust that this is their mother
Kelton 9:13
they play a little game together where they put the sticky notes on their head and have to guess what they are and you know, Elias puts or is it Lucas?
Alex 9:21
Oh well, anything physicals done by Elias Okay,
Kelton 9:24
so Elias puts the mommy post it note on her head or whatever and she can't guess who mommy is no one to swipe. Who has what if isn't there I'd say Kindle can if the person Yeah, just weird little things that are like Hmm, well, there's something not quite right here with this with this family unit. At this
Alex 9:49
point. At least for me, it was pretty clear that Lucas is maybe a ghost or he's dead yet on subsequent watched news. This scene was really interesting because for me, this was the mother attempting to connect with each other I'm playing a game with them. Yeah, something I did not feel like was happening in the first
Kelton 10:04
she was, she was trying and failing miserably. But at least she tried.
Alex 10:09
The kids immediately pick up on mommy not recognizing that she's mommy. And the next thing is the kids in bed listening to an old recording of their mom singing to him, saying that she doesn't sound like the same person. And this is where things really start to fall apart for the kids in terms of them believing that this is their mother.
Kelton 10:28
And this scene kind of stood out to me because I feel like at this point, you realize that Elias is kind of latching on to the last the last real. The real version of his mother, I feel like before she went in, she was mommy. And then when she got out she was this totally different. Because I mean, we're not even taking into account her emotional state. There's a lot of things that go into it. That will explain later, but just your physical appearance has changed. And she's not the same mom as before. Yeah, and
Alex 11:01
the boys kind of come to a consensus that this isn't mommy and it's hard to tell who sort of throws the idea out first if it's Lucas or Elias. But Lucas seems to be sort of pushy.
Kelton 11:14
Lucas is the perpetuator I feel like in this movie Yeah, Lucas says the it's just really eerie. Lucas just feels like this hovering entity over Elia shoulder, you know, guiding his hand and several parts throughout the movie becomes way more blatant, way more obvious that this thing is controlling him, whatever it may be. And it just progressively gets more and more unsettling. In fact,
Alex 11:37
you can see it in the movie poster in that I'm thinking about it of literally Lucas hovering over your shoulder. Yeah,
Kelton 11:42
it was very intentional the way even where he stood, how much he talked what he said, a lot of intention went into this movie.
Alex 11:50
So the kids slowly developed the idea that they need to interrogate this woman tired to
Kelton 11:56
a bed, and you're not going to mommy, we got to figure out where mommy is.
Alex 11:59
And they do it in a very childlike sort of way. But at the end of the day, it's still terrifying to feel tied to her bed being tortured by children, especially on subsequent watch throughs because it you lose the perspective of the child, the more you watch it, because now you see it for what it is, it is just a torture scene.
Kelton 12:18
Yeah. So a big part of this movie is you as a viewer are viewing it through the eyes of a child, Lucas and Elias, the breakdown of that perspective of a child is what makes this movie kind of horrifying. The horror truly derives from I watched this thinking a certain way, and I finished the movie thinking in a certain way. And when I watched it again, I realized that me thinking that certain way the entire first watch through was wholly incorrect. And it just felt so gut wrenching almost
Alex 12:50
once the illusion is shattered for you. And you start watching it from like an adult perspective. On your second watch. Do you realize that the movie got you to root for terrible things by getting you to see it through the eyes of Elias, for
Kelton 13:04
an an evil child, he did evil acts, and the entire movie, we hate mom, we were rooting for the bad guy.
Alex 13:12
So just key off that and finish up our little Plot summary here is we routed for Elias and Lucas up to the point where they kill their mother,
Kelton 13:21
Elias burns the house down with him and his mother in it.
Alex 13:25
And I was still rooting for him. The first watch through that is how deep this deception goes.
Kelton 13:30
In the end of the movie, you think, oh, Elias killed the monster, the monster Mommy, like that was kind of like, Oh, wait, you know, I I was trying to apply normal movie logic to this movie. And it just didn't work. Because the way that movies work is like the end is is like closure. Right? When I watched the second time I realized the end is not closure. The end is just sad. The end is just the end of a very dark, horrible tale of a little Austrian family.
Alex 14:00
Yeah, like there is no real thesis statement here. It's just a bunch of events happen. And they're terrible,
Kelton 14:07
huh. And I want to quote something that directors said one of the key themes of this movie is miscommunication. And it's prevalent throughout the entire movie. At any point, if one of these two characters Elias and the mother communicated what they were dealing with, emotionally or going through or or just tried to talk about the horrible situation they're in. I mean, the father divorced her the mother, and they left we can assume before the events of whatever happened, and we'll go into your theory on how Lucas died in a sec. But my belief is that Elias started a fire in the field and killed his brother. And after that, the mother goes and gets her cosmetic surgery. It was already planned. There were pictures on the walls. She'd been planning this for a very long time, we can assume and after the fire, she goes and gets cosmetic surgery, leaving Is all alone in his home with no father, his brother's gone totally abandoned in this countryside modern home and I believe this is where he creates Lucas, he creates this. We all know that children create imaginary friends, this is a normal thing. And what happened was Elias created Lucas as a safety net as someone to make them feel less alone. And as a result, unfortunately, the safety net who he trusts who guides him, led him to do some unspeakable things to his mother,
Alex 15:31
which we buy into on the first watch through it all seems pretty reasonable and justified.
Kelton 15:37
Never any point that I think the boys were doing anything wrong on my first watch there. It never crossed my mind where I was like, why are they this support mob? I never thought you know this poor mother. There is nothing presented consciously that would lead us to believe that the mother was not a monster.
Alex 15:56
All signs point towards monster including the sort of dream sequence where she walks into the woods and kind of becomes a monster
Kelton 16:03
starts you know, that weird? I feel like they've been doing it movies for a while now. I still don't know how they do it. I'd like to know but like clearly just like shaking your head and going crazy and like looking like an alien almost. It kind of reminded me of what's that movie of the alien girl that Angelina Jolie, not Angelina Jolie. What's her name? The really hot actress? is an alien. And she fucks dude's
Alex 16:28
go on.
Kelton 16:30
You've seen this movie. It's it's Scottish. It's like a Scottish movie. Scarlett Johansson is in it. She's an alien.
Alex 16:36
Is it a Marvel movie?
Kelton 16:37
No, no, it's sort of weird. Indeed. We should watch this. Even though I could have sworn you've seen this Scarlett Johansson I thought I talked about it with you find it under the skin
Alex 16:48
I've ever seen it. Okay. There's also a slight fourth wall break in the scene where she knows where the camera is. And she turns her face away from the camera so that we can't see her because she walks into the forest gets naked, and also takes off all the bandages on her face. And the camera starts to pan around her and she turns her face away from the camera and annoying way before she freaks out and goes crazy.
Kelton 17:21
In order to understand how the miscommunication takes place, you kind of have to understand what each character is going through. And the mother, for example, she's going through kind of an identity crisis, I would say her husband left her and I can only imagine that's a horrible feeling. You know, your husband, who you've, you know, birth to kids with is gone. And you lose one of your children and the other child is clutching on to this reality that he's still alive.
Alex 17:51
Even though we have different theories on how Lucas died. I think we both agreed that to some extent, it was a lie. It's his fault. So not only did she lose a child, she thinks that her living child is the reason why the other ones dead,
Kelton 18:01
be it on purpose or not. It's a horrible, horrible real life scenario. I mean, when you remove the context of a film, and you think about this as a family in Austria, having to experience this, it really is painful, but think about and I think the big thing with the mother is you can see it throughout the film The paintings on the wall of her but it's blurry. She used to be a performer. I believe they looked her up.
Alex 18:26
Yes, she was a host on television. Yeah.
Kelton 18:29
And and I mean, that's a whole other can of worms, because your television personality might be completely different than your actual working state. That's another thing feeds into this.
Alex 18:40
I don't even think about that. But the kids are already probably grappling with who their mommy is on TV versus who she isn't. Yeah,
Kelton 18:47
there's a lot of small little psychological things that feed into why the characters do what they do. And I think it's I think it's really well done, because it's not obvious. None of this is obvious. But if you kind of take it and and put it all together, you can realize like, Oh, this mother is dealing with her identity just she wanted a new face. I can just imagine, like feeling so so not yourself that you need to spend 1000s of dollars in permanently alter your face. I mean, I'm not going to get into a discussion of whether or not plastic surgery is necessary. I think it's all contextual. But I mean, they googled their mom before she got her surgery and she looked fine.
Alex 19:30
And this identity crisis of the mother is something that is definitely dealt with in the film, but you don't notice it on the first watch through because it seems like she just being creepy. Whereas once you understand who she is, and what she's dealt with, it makes a lot of sense that she might stare at herself in the mirror for a while and like try on your old clothes and see how they fit. This is somebody trying to impersonate her mother. This is just your mother trying to figure out who she is trying
Kelton 19:55
to figure herself out again, and the trailer even The trailer makes her look like a demon.
Alex 20:02
The trailer is insane Did you watch it? Yes, it's hilarious having watched the movie how the trailer makes the whole movie seem way different
Kelton 20:10
the trailer makes this look like your average horror movie. Mommy's evil mommy's bad
Alex 20:16
they make it look like she eats a cockroach in the trailer. Yeah just like whoever edited the trailer had to feel like such a sense of accomplishment to make that to pull that off I
Kelton 20:24
feel like the trailer is like pitching an alternate version of this movie where the mom really is batshit crazy yeah and torture like just demands these kids and is like no you can't have a cat and then kills the cat and then you know jerks Elias around and you know is rough with them and the trailer makes you think this is a completely different movie which eat that being said I'd still watch the movie like the trailers good. It's not a bad trailer. It's just it gave a completely different outlook on what the actual film entailed.
Alex 20:59
Oh, so I do want to point out one thing we keep on calling the mom character Mommy, because the story never tells you her name. You can deduce what her name is. If you look closely at like the web page
Kelton 21:09
Googler and she pops up on Google Images. I think it's like Maria net shorts or something.
Alex 21:15
Marie Christine Mettler and in fact, Elias literally the main character the story we don't learn his name until 49 minutes into the movie. So the it's not important the names of these characters.
Kelton 21:26
Yeah, yeah, it is easier to say mommy instead of what was it one more time? Maria Christine Mettler Mary Christine Mettler here. I'm gonna stick them on me.
Alex 21:36
Yeah, because I mean for all intensive purposes, nobody would notice that if they watched the movie. I intentionally went slowly frame by frame to find the name
Kelton 21:44
there is nobody else that you could confuse for mommy. There's not there's not another woman. There's literally three characters. There's no technically there's what six? But yeah, but my characters. The three the other three characters were on the screen for maybe two minutes at a time or whatever.
Alex 22:02
Um, so something I want to talk about with this movie is how the cinematography changes as sort of the movie as sort of the attitude of the children towards the mother changes at the beginning of the movie, except for when the children are playing outside. It's pretty locked off, the camera might slide around, it might be on a tripod and pan around but that changes once the kids tie mommy to the bed and begin to interrogator suddenly we have shakey cam handheld and that pretty much last for the rest of the movie
Kelton 22:33
this is like 20 minutes left or so
Alex 22:35
I'd say yes it's it's amazing how much happens in the last night towards the end the last 15 minutes Yeah, it really just ramps the cinematography is not flashy in this movie at all.
Kelton 22:45
Yeah. Which I think is fitting Yes, I don't I don't think this movie needed that but I can appreciate the thoughtfulness
Alex 22:52
yeah into that
Kelton 22:53
Yeah, I will say the cinematography makes everything like going back to the house doesn't look lived in a lot of low angles. Oh yeah. A lot of you know just strange angles a lot of wides with dead space
Alex 23:06
now I'm thinking about it mom for the most part is presented at a low angle from a childlike angle Yeah.
Kelton 23:12
Like I said the experience of this movie on your first walk through is that of a child and it's really up to you to I mean it's almost like a commentary on the world at large right? Like you can choose to watch this movie through the perspective of a kid and take this meaning of you know the mom's horrible and and never watch this movie again. And you can assume that that that that's what the movies about but I mean if you watch it again it's it's blatant that this child has clearly been emotionally traumatized and some very serious psychological repercussions take place that Lee do it horrible act.
Alex 23:50
Now I think this movie it was incredibly skillfully done because I did not have this realization until I watched it for a second time for the show. I did not finish my first watch thing and think that was weird I need to watch it again. It's just by chance I had to watch it again for this podcast. I agree. And suddenly I was like oh my god this movie is not the movie I thought it was
Kelton 24:10
I agree that's what's honestly that's what excites me about watching more movies for this podcast specifically like the fact that I am you know not not like I could watch a movie twice and be comfortable talking about it but I'm the kind of person where I like watching a movie three three to five times I probably would have watched this movie one more time if I had the chance but I
Alex 24:30
could not this is a slow movie once you know how it pans out. Yeah, I
Kelton 24:33
agree. And also the stuff that you pick up that you pick up on it's there there's not a lot of little stuff I mean, there is little stuff it's all of it's very subtle, but once you like realize, oh Lucas is dead and and she doesn't know who mommy is. And you know, she didn't give Lucas the tea because Lucas is dead. She says you know why to lyase when he asks why Lucas didn't get any tea, all of these little things you you pick up on them and You, you, they're there. And it feeds to that perspective thing. So this is definitely a movie that you wouldn't have to watch as much to fully fully grasp it. But uh, but going back to what I was saying, if I wasn't obligated to watch this movie again, to get a refresher on, on the events of the movie, I probably would have lived in perpetuity, assuming that this mom was evil. I really, when I told you to watch Good night, Mommy, I did not tell you I did not pitch it as like, oh, there's this crazy twist at the end. I was just like, this is a good little foreign horror movie. And I want to watch
Alex 25:37
it. Yeah, we should talk about how the twist is actually sort of a non twist. The twist is that she was mom all along? Yeah,
Kelton 25:44
um, because we'll go into theories a little bit here. Now. There's a theory that that's not the real mom. Really? Yeah. There is a there's a theory that that is her twin. I believe at one point, it is referenced that she has a twin. Well, that's
Alex 26:02
one of the children's theories, because she has a photo with her and her friends who are just very similar just
Kelton 26:07
just to like, Yeah, and I believe this plays into a lyases belief that it's not Mommy, because there's a very realistic chance because because her Her eyes are a different color. Now. Now I
Alex 26:19
do want to speak to the eyes, she mentioned that it's contacts, and the kids go to the bathroom to search for contacts to prove that point to like, see if she's lying about the contacts, but in a very childlike move. They're looking on the toilet seat for contacts. Really, which is something once again you when you're sucked into the movie on the first watch, or you don't pick up on that, you know? I'm like, Why the fuck? Are they looking at the toilet? on the toilet? Kids don't see. They don't know what contacts are really? that's probably what's going on? Yeah,
Kelton 26:46
they're what they're eight or whatever.
Alex 26:48
Yeah, somewhere there young
Kelton 26:50
10 Maybe, yeah, like, yeah, and and that's the thing. Like, it's not surprising that, you know, they got this in their mind that this wasn't the same person and all the links they go to to try to prove that it was not her. And that's the thing like they tried. They did try to prove that it was not mommy.
Alex 27:11
Yeah. Eli is desperately wants to believe that this is his mother. Yeah.
Kelton 27:14
And at one point, he goes into the bathroom, because he starts getting cold feet about, you know, torturing his mom and trying to get information out of her. I think this is the point where morilee starts realizing that he's doing something wrong. And Lucas kind of shows his true colors as this very bad influence, and pretty much just pushes them. He calls him a retard. I believe. That's what it said on the subtitles. I don't remember. Yeah, he he insults him and they get into a fight. Yeah, they get into a fight or physical fight each other. Yeah. Yeah. And he's basically forced to continue torturing his mom, because Lucas is his best friend. He either believes this woman who he's not 100% sure is actually his mother, or he believes his best friend that he sees every day. And when you think about it in the eyes of a kid, it's like you go with what you trust, you know?
Alex 28:11
Yeah. And he's trying to but he just doesn't understand enough about the world. So like, nowhere contacts are
Kelton 28:17
and and that's, that's kind of part of the horror of this movie is you kind of have to watch helplessly as these two very dysfunctional people have this interaction. The mom has broken and trying to figure herself out again, and Elias is lonely and sad and misses his brother and just can't get over the fact that mommy looks different now.
Alex 28:39
Yeah, there's a quote from Severin Fiala, the director and writer who says everyone has a mother. Most people know what it feels like, how you can be hurt by distance, or losing trust. So yeah, that all that's very intentional. Showing that Eli is hurting, he's looking for somebody to trust and All he has is the image of his dead brother. It's not hard to understand why he might be pushed to Well, okay, when you're watching it from his perspective, it's not hard to understand why he might be forced to torture his mother and burn down the house.
Kelton 29:10
He is going back to watching this movie several times. I feel like this movie was way different for me after multiple viewings, compared to most horror movies that I've watched multiple times. I'll use midsummer as an example. I love midsummer one of my favorite horror movies. And I've watched it probably six or seven times, and every single Watch has been progressively just more fun. I like I like noticing the little things. Just things I missed. Because now that I know the plot, I can look at all these little things that build up. And I can do that with good night mommy too. But it's not fun when I realize everything with midsummer, when I find the quirks and the intricacies that lead to this cold thing. It's cool and it's like oh wow, I had no idea that this was taking place. This makes sense but as the more goodnight mommy makes sense the Saturday gets the more existentially horrifying and depressing it makes the movie
Alex 30:09
imagine watching this movie without Lucas being there and just watching it Elias by himself doing it and it is much more scary
Kelton 30:15
Yes. And and realistically you could do that if you just ignore that character existing he doesn't actually have lines that change anything. All of the stuff being done is all the actions are via Elias all of Lucas's dialogue is Elias talking to himself. The thing
Alex 30:33
that this movie pulls such a trick on the audience any other movie where like you're somebody who's getting like tortured, and like something terrible is happening to them typically, even if they don't deserve it like you're not on the side of the torture this movie puts you on the side of the monster and
Kelton 30:52
that's what makes it so much worse once you realize what actually was going on because like I said before, I was when my first watch I hated the mother and I don't think I'm alone in that. I mean you personally you knew very early on that Lucas was dead and that there was something amiss but you still didn't have a full grasp.
Alex 31:10
No, I was off base on you know what, what was going on?
Kelton 31:13
Yeah. And and that's what makes it so like, revolting is I was tricked by these directors like, a good trick. Like, I loved that they did this. Um, I've never experienced a horror movie where I watch it again. And I'm like, holy shit,
Alex 31:30
it got scarier on the second one. Yeah, absolutely. This movie turned out to be a lot less gruesome in terms of things that would make me cringe than I expected when we recorded the last episode. I had seen her face and bandages and I assumed I was getting ready to see some like porn up face
Kelton 31:47
Oh yeah, cuz he didn't actually have any inclination that that was plastic surgery. Oh, I had no idea that was part of the movie Yeah, he thought like something horrible what happened to her and you're probably gonna see the scene that resulted in it so it's
Alex 31:59
amazing that there is blood in this movie Elias at one point glues his mother's mouth shut and they child like they forget they have to feed her so they have
Kelton 32:08
to cut her out that glue backup like glue lips
Alex 32:12
so like as a child like obviously they mess up and my opposite and cuts her lip and it's bloody but it's it's nowhere near as gory as something from like midsummer.
Kelton 32:21
Yeah. What but I don't think the gore really like whether or not this was gory does not affect how horrifying it is.
Alex 32:30
No, in fact, I think the far more horrifying thing is realizing that the mother pissed herself
Kelton 32:35
Yeah, that takes it to a whole new level of like you are not being treated like a human being anymore. Yeah, you are being treated like and that's the thing as a child Elias has no understanding of like oh this this is a lady that has to go to the bathroom sometimes he's not a he's not a he's never kidnapped somebody before he doesn't know what he's doing and you just read and there's just so many different things about the situation as you go on it's like God this should not be happening How did this get to this point was there no one involved in these people's lives that realize their spiral? You feel helpless you're watching a train wreck and you can't look away and and even the the third watch was even more painful because from the beginning of the movie, I know everyone was going to die in a fire at the end of the movie.
Alex 33:22
I actually think alive survives at the end. Really? Yeah, my only note there is that at the end of the movie once Elias burns down the house he walks into the cornfield that he was playing in in the beginning and he meets up with his mother who just died in the fire and Lucas but everybody's clothes are perfectly clean except for Elias his clothes are dirty
Kelton 33:40
Okay, that makes sense. Yeah, yeah in my mind they all died and then they and then whenever they're like joining hands at the end they're all like in you know heaven or whatever and their own little dreamscape. But that makes sense if he has dirty clothes on and like that's that's even more fucked up though. Like I kind of wish he just died and they were in his little heaven world because now it's like Elias is alone on this property with a burnt down house with his dead mother inside like just thinking about the real world logistics of like, this is a kid that's alone in the woods now. Ah, man. It's like the more I think about the the real life aspect of this movie. Because midsummer, you look at the real life aspects. And it's like, there's not actually a freakin cult that lives in the meadows in Sweden, in the sacrifice people. I mean, you know, whatever, maybe, but this is something I could see like on the news, like just some sick, twisted event that took place. And it's kind of like, this movie shows you the mind of people that do these things. Yeah, I didn't think about that. They didn't. They didn't he didn't want to kill his mom. He just didn't think that was his mom. And the mom was too helpless to stop them because she's dealing with their own battles. And it's like, the more you realize like wow, yeah, these all these things all happen be and there was nothing that could stopped it because there was no intervention.
Alex 35:05
Why did you recommend this movie to me,
Kelton 35:07
I recommended this movie to you because I just thought it was a unique little foreign horror film. And that's the honest truth. Like, it's funny because like, I'm supposed to be an expert on these things and like presenting you with films that have depth and so much to learn about them. And truly, I recommended this movie to you on a pretty flat surface level. You know, I like this movie. And having analyzed it, and having you know, consumed it for this podcast, I can walk away saying it's a completely different reason why I would recommend someone to this movie.
Alex 35:41
If you were to recommend this movie to somebody else in the future. Would you recommend that they watch it twice?
Kelton 35:46
Yeah, honestly. Yeah, I would tell them you know, watch it once. And you know, kind of collect your thoughts on it. And when you get a chance, watch it again, and see what you think. Because obviously some people don't want to watch the movie twice. And that's what you know, that's whatever. But I mean, me personally, the experience of watching something a second time and and completely morphing my understanding an idea of the movie is just so fascinating. I can't think of a movie that's ever done it like this, this jarring. Like I literally believe something that wasn't true for and that's the thing. I watched this movie years ago. So for years, I thought that the mom was the bad guy, you know, and then I just watch it again. And all it took was one watch one more watch after a few years, and I was like, Oh, I had this movie all wrong. Yeah,
Alex 36:33
I was totally blown away at the same time I watched it. In fact, I was sort of resisting watching it a second time because like I thought I sort of figured out the movie. I thought I thought I'd taken everything away from it that I needed to. And then the second watch through I was just fully engaged once again, as I realized how fucked up the whole movie actually was.
Kelton 36:51
And, and that's horror, man. Like, it continues to amaze me the different ways that horror can take shape on the platform, because this is not your traditional horror movie at all. I mean, this is a weird film. And the horror isn't you know, there's a monster in the house trying to kill the kids. The whore isn't. Elias is an evil, demented child trying to kill his mom. You know, we've seen those. We've all seen those movies. 1000 times this movie is about a family unit being shattered, and people losing their lives. It's sad, it's depressing. It's like it's like it's like Requiem for a Dream levels of like gut wrenching. It's kind of like God like you are showing us the most horrible side of humanity and it's not even like they did it on purpose. It's this is what the human brain does. coping mechanisms and illusions and it's a dark dark world My friend
Alex 37:49
it is Now fortunately I don't think we're going to have these struggles with the second watch through on our next movie.
Kelton 37:55
What is it? Texas Chainsaw Massacre?
Alex 37:57
I think it's far more likely that when I get on the first watch three of Texas Chainsaw Massacre is what don't get on the second
Kelton 38:03
watch thing I can promise you that the side you pick will be the same side your second watch through you will never at any point think that the antagonist is a good guy.
Alex 38:19
got I got some news for you actually. Yeah, I'm kind of looking forward to Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Oh yeah. Yeah, I feel like I've caught the bug to a certain extent you realize how cool horror is Yeah, I'm kind of getting into it. Yeah,
Kelton 38:32
and what's the reason why I watch you know, horror movies over and over again is it's kind of like conquering my fears sort of thing. It's like yeah, it was really scary my first time but I watched it again and I was a little less scary and it was more like it was more cool. And then I watched it a third time and it's like oh, I see what the I see what the director was going for here. It's almost like you get desensitized to it and not to say that like that's a bad thing. It's you pay less attention to the gore and the grime and the horrible acts and you pay more attention to like how did this make the peace as a whole and and that's that's why I do it like figuring out what makes the directors tick. But yeah, if you're interested in watching this cover, a bonafide horror classic Texas Chainsaw Massacre one of the most important horror films in my opinion to the horror industry. Tune in for the next episode of Feargenics
Alex 39:26
Absolutely. And if you are interested in following us on social media, check us out on Instagram at Feargenics Official Twitter at Feargenics our website Feargenics comm or email us at podcast@feargenics.com dad has a lot of Feargenics Why do we make so many channels let's just go a little bit crazy. Just need one make a Vimeo we have a meal yet. That's the one thing we don't have to get that by the time you're listening to this we will have a Vimeo we
Kelton 39:54
will have a Vimeo Do not worry all you Vimeo fans out there.
Alex 39:57
Oh I just remembered. We are now on YouTube. Go check out Pontypool if you've listened to the first episode go check that out on YouTube we got really meta with the video we made
Kelton 40:07
a cool little visualizer that we think you'll like especially if you've seen Pontypool even if you haven't, you know it's still me.
Alex 40:14
I want to go ahead and thank intercut productions and the whole team Zak Heald, Ramey Tyler, of course my co host Kelton.
Kelton 40:22
Thank you. And thank you all the the audience members tuning in, you know, we're doing this for you guys.
Alex 40:27
Yes. The ones who have talked to us on Twitter. Thank you so much. It's been fun to talk about Pontypool with you
Kelton 40:32
and Tony Burgess retweeted us. You know, this is this is awesome. You know, we love you guys. Thank you so much. Thank you for joining us and our descent into darkness. We'll see you guys next time.
Alex 40:41
Descent into madness. Bye bye.