266: SXSW 2026 Lightning Round

Today's episode is presented by the first trailer for A24's highly anticipated next horror event, Backrooms. A furniture store owner vanishes after discovering a mysterious doorway in his basement that leads to an endless network of interconnected rooms. From Kane Parsons, the preeminent creator of the Backrooms YouTube series, this tense psychological horror thriller explores the suffocating dread of liminal spaces and the unknown lurking behind them. Watch the trailer now for Backrooms and see it in theaters May 29th. Watch the Toxic Avenger now on ScreenBox. The radioactive superhero that's certified fresh on Rotten Tomatoes is available to watch now from the comfort of your home. Bloody FM listeners get a special introductory offer by going to bit.ly slash Toxy FM. That's bit.ly slash toxiefm for a special offer on ScreenBox. Welcome to the Dead Meat Podcast, your horror safe haven. I'm Chelsea. I'm James. We're married and we like to get scared together. Alright, today we're gonna round up South by Southwest 2026. It was our first Big Boy Festival. Yeah, we've done Overlook, which is fantastic. I hope to do it again this year. Overlook Film Festival in New Orleans. But South by Southwest is like an enormous festival. South by Southwest, because Overlook is specifically horror, like its genre. It is a horror film festival. Which is why it's so fun. Yeah. Because everyone, I feel like everyone there is there for the same reason. We all kind of know each other. And that's what's so appealing about that one. It's like a three day thing. Yes. South by, we were there for, we checked in and it was an eight night stay in our hotel in Austin, Texas. Yes. It is a giant convention that, or festival that began as a music festival, I think. And now there are three festivals in one. It's music, film and television and tech. Yeah. I don't know what the tech thing is. But there are these like parallel worlds that we never even interacted with. Yeah. It's like there's three festivals going on and there shall the three meet. It's like, we kept calling them the parallel universes because it really felt like there were just other worlds happening. Yeah. We would just see film people. And then we just knew that there was this, we had our own programs and our own like, but we just knew we would see on the side of the app other tabs that we would just never click into for music and tech. Dude, even within the film festival, it felt like there were other worlds. That's true because we are there for all the horror movies. Yeah. Because at the end of the festival, they was like, oh, they announced the winners of all the awards. And we're like, oh, cool. Let's see if anything, we saw one. We had never heard of a single one of them. Dude, the winners, we were like, what the fuck are these? We'd never heard of any of them. Well, there were probably. Except for wishful thinking. Yes. There were probably 20 to maybe 30 movies that we knew of and tried to get in based on like lists online of like horror movies that South by Southwest. If you are watching the video, the back of my shirt. Has all the movies, all the movies, including the movie James was in. I don't know where it is. Grind. Grind. There's a lot of movies on here. It's hard to find. But James is a movie grind. I mean, that's why we went there in the first place. Yeah. So that grind, which I filmed over a year ago, was going to be premiering at South by Southwest. And when we heard that, we booked our tickets, got our hotel room, and then realized, oh, we don't actually have passes to the festival. So Blay Disgusting helped us with that from. Thank you very much, Blay Disgusting. And we wound up going to this thing for the whole damn week. Great time. Yeah, you got to do a premiere and you did the Q&A and it was so fun. Did a couple of Q&As, did a couple of interviews, did a photo shoot. That's IMDb now. Real good looking photos, dude. Those pictures are crazy. I don't know what I was expecting, but you came back from that session and showed them to me and it looked like when Vanity Fair does those like, here's this year's acting class and it's like. You know what? It was probably better than this year's Vanity Fair Oscar pictures because I don't know if you saw the comparisons. I saw the article. Yes, where there were lights that weren't plugged in or like light bulbs that popped and everyone was complaining about their pictures at the Vanity Fair party because everyone looked old or something. But no, it was those pictures were gorgeous. Yeah, they looked so good. It was so cool. It was so fun to like watch you do your your thing and do all the press stuff. Yeah, it was a blast, man. We got to this was very exciting because the cast of Grind is gigantic because it's an anthology movie. And one of your co-stars is James Urbiniak, who if you know us, I mean, we spent the last time we did a Q&A on the podcast, someone asked us about Venture Brothers and we spent 10 minutes just quoting Venture Brothers and told people, OK, fast forward to this time you don't want to listen to this part. So we got to meet James Urbiniak. And voices Dr. Venture. Yes, he is Rusty Venture. I'm Rusty. He's so sweet and he did a Vlaid just and take a go team venture picture with us. Oh, man, I got to hang out with him so much. He's so sweet. Yeah. Yeah. It was a blast. Grind is a move. I mean, we could start with Grind. Yeah, let's start with Grind. Yeah, Grind is a horror comedy anthology, Heavy on the Comedy, and it's directed by Bria Grant and Ed Doherty and Chelsea Stardust. So Bria is how I wound up in the movie. We were at the Maxine premiere and me and her were just standing there and she was we were talking about things we do. And I said, I want to do more acting. And she said, I'm working on something. There might be a part for you. She sent scripts. You help me record a little audition. And I sent it in. She was like, yeah, you're great. So I got cast in it. Thank you, Bria. Ed Doherty is who directed my segment because Grind is about Grind culture, hustle culture, hustle culture, freelance workers, people who either are trying to sell leggings. It's freelance. It's multi-level marketing. It's working from the bottom up at a company. So it's four segments. There's multi-level marketing, like leggings, sale, like was it Luloro? It's like Luloro. Luloro. I think they're called La La Leggings. La La Leggings. And this was done a while ago. MLM is the name of this short. It was done as a short and then they realized they could expand it. I think they made it with the intention of expanding it, but it was a short first. Barbara Crampton's in it. It was great. Yeah. Jessica Van is the lead in it and we got to hang out with her all week. She's really sweet heart. Love her. And then her friend in it is actually anyone remember on Crypt TV? Glamdora, short little one season show that I was a guest on. The chick who played Glamdora is in this as well. And she's great. But MLM is the first short. It's like multi-level marketing and what happens if you don't meet your quota? Very surreal, very funny. The second short is about like a doordash driver. Yeah, who gets a weird delivery that he has to do. And then when he doesn't follow the instructions, things happen to set him back. This is like kind of more of a one man show. I forget the actor because I wasn't familiar with him. But Bria directed these two segments and this one's very fun. Has a lot of like fun visual stuff going on in it. The third one's content moderation. It's my favorite. It's so good. So it's about people who have to watch and like manually delete or approve videos, like it uploaded to like Facebook or YouTube and like how that affects them mentally. And it's a really stuff like real death. Yeah, it's like a really dark comedy. Very dark. It's the darkest segment. It's also I think the darkest segment, but it is the funny. Yeah. And the this has Rob Hewlett as the evil boss who's dangling in above ground job with great benefits to this guy as long as he can get through the three million videos. He's like six million. Yeah. Yeah. And that's that's the one with James Urbaniak in it as like a J. He's like the deep throat of yeah. He's trying to crack it all. Yeah, yeah. Really love that one because there are there are two montages of just the videos he has to go through and like faces of death. The videos that are so dark and so funny. Yes. Like they really toe the line of like not being too dark to where you can't laugh at it, but being pretty fucking dark. As long as you're like, you know, if you're in the season of the in the spirit of the film, you recognize that like it's played for laughs. Yes. Yeah. It's so funny. The last segment is a union meeting. That's the one I'm in. It's a basically a Starbucks trying to unionize and corporate, which is Rob Hubel sends them a package to deter them. That's an ensemble piece. If he know what way is in it from dropout. Me and him have a bunch of scenes together. James Paxton, Bill Paxton's son, who's been in a bunch of stuff recently. He's also in it. Very fun cast, Terry Gamble from another horror podcast. She's in it. And somehow you kept from me what the central like horror element of that one was going to be. Oh, yeah. And I was shocked by what it ended up being and I will keep that a surprise for people as well, because it was really fun. Yeah. And every like after I filmed, I was like, OK, it's another little tiny part for me with a couple of lines. But watching, I'm like, oh, actually, I have a bunch of lines. Yeah. And watching it in a theater and hearing laughs at the lines, I said, pretty good, man. James, you're funny. Yeah. Yeah. So far, no one's said I suck. So that's that's pretty cool. I like that. And then so those last two seconds were directed by Ed Doherty and then Chelsea Stardust directed the opening segment, which takes place in like an Amazon warehouse and then the final segment, which kind of it's a really good wrap up. The reviews are very positive. It currently has. Yes, I brought up the deadline review because so what's cool about South by Southwest is when movies premiere, their reviews come out like instantly. Yeah. And it's kind of terrifying because you can be like sitting in a movie and then walk out and just instantly start reading reviews of it. And so Grind premiered and then right after the movie ended, like five minutes later, the first review came out and it was from Deadline. And I went and read it. And this quote from the very beginning is honestly kind of wild. Oh, yeah, that's right. The ingenious horror comedy anthology, Grind achieves the almost unthinkable while it while it delivers the requisite laughs and shocks, never an easy balance to strike even at the best of times. It is just as effective in its jabs at the gig economy as anything by Britain's Ken Loach or any other director from the School of Social Realism. There are echoes of Boots Riley's 2018 Sundance Breakout. Sorry to bother you, but Grind is a little bit more ambitious than that in its outlook. There's even plenty of scope for a sequeler to hear pegged to the motives of the sinister Dragon Corporation, which looms in the background throughout that. It's really more ambitious than Boots Riley, you know, more ambitious than Boots Riley, whatever. I know I was literally reading that out loud over and over again to Brie. I was like, dude. Yeah. And like, I can't thank Brie enough for for offering me that that role. That again, I wanted to audition for and make sure that I was good for. I didn't just want it given me. Yeah, you worked really hard on that. Yeah. And I can't thank her enough for trusting in me and extending that offer. It was such a fun time and I'm so proud of the movie. I'm happy for it. It doesn't have distribution yet. But it has a 94 percent around tomatoes, only one negative review out of 17. And I'm hoping that it's an anthology film. So it's tough. I doubt it'll be theatrical just because like what other theatrical anthology movies, even VHS is all those are streaming. So I'm confident it'll wind up on streaming. I hope to be pleasantly surprised by theatrical. But I think we're all realistic about what to expect for it. And as soon as it comes out, I'll kill count it. It'll be a fun one. And I just want to promote it. I love it. I'm proud of it. I'm so happy for Brea and Ed and Chelsea. So see it when you can. The first movie we saw, though, at the festival was Dead Eyes, which is a first person horror movie, not found footage, which I had to keep reminding myself of while watching it. There is no camera in universe. Right. You are this character's perspective. You're their eyeballs. So at one point they take drugs. And so like the visuals of the movie warp and match that subjective experience. And, you know, when it first started happening, I was like a camera. What? Oh, yeah, it's not a camera. The results of this gimmick is that characters are talking to the character that you see, so they're talking directly into the camera. And I think that that ended up hurting it a lot. What it effectively becomes is a video game cut scene. It feels like a long video because the characters are talking into the camera and because you're you're editing so little of that footage because you're you're trying to keep it as real seeming as possible. Like you're hiding edits whenever you can. That's also what makes it feel very video gamey. And yeah, it's also just like the scares didn't feel too inventive. Like they're camping in the woods. They're looking for their lost dad. They find like a old building that's decrepit and they're like looking around for. There's like a little ghost girl. So I don't know. Nothing really felt unique outside of the gimmick itself. Yeah. It listening to the Q&A after it does sound like filming this would have been a major pain in the ass. I really respect that because the main actor who's like supposed to be the voice and like like whose whose body you're supposed to kind of be in, you have that person. But then you have a person holding the like camera itself. So like the lens. But then you have another person with like the the guts of the camera, I think, like the best. So they said it was like a three person. Yeah, three or four person conglomeration in this character. So those three people have to move completely in sync for every single little thing that they do. So if they're running or like moving, even like turning this way or that. So that in itself is really impressive and would have like been extremely difficult to film. Even just little changes in elevation going up and down a hill. And you're filming in the woods. So the ground is uneven. I can't imagine. Yeah, unfortunately, unfortunately, just just the end product is not something that really worked for me. No, I think the little girl, Misha Haywood was the best part and the best actor. She is very good. She is also in Bring Her Back. She is Sally Hawkins' daughter in that. So experienced actor despite her age. I thought the comic relief guy was kind of funny at times. But overall, yeah, it was a rough start. And this is what I alluded to last week when I said there was a movie that featured contortionist girl in dress where I was like, fuck, no, I hate that trope. And this movie did it a lot with the little girl. It was a lot of like hair in face and arms going in weird directions. And I just never find that scary. Yeah, we didn't get a chance to see the Revi or not to screening there, which was the premiere, but we saw a screening prior. Yeah. Like a critic screen a couple months ago, a couple weeks. I think it was not time is yeah. Very fun movie, very fun follow up. I keep saying it's more of the same in a good way. I think the first ready or not. I mean, that was one of my favorite movies of 2019. One of my top three. Absolutely love it. I love the the mix of horror and comedy. I don't think this one quite rises to the same heights. But now that that's out, you can go see it right now. Mike fucking loved it. I see a lot of people online saying that they even liked it more than the first one. Yeah, I would like to see it again. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I wish that we had seen it with a big crowd. Me too. We saw it in like a little critic. I think that also probably affected a lot of people's experience because we saw it in a very quiet critic screening. Yeah, which always is not the same experience. I wish the big world premiere theater with like the cast there. I would have been a fucking riot. We did go to the after party. That was a lot of fun. That was one of the best just because we knew so many people there between Radio Silence, Spencer was there with the song, which we also got to do the Grave Diggler song, where we're in the video that I don't think is fully out yet. Maybe now it is. But it was a good time. Got a picture with Elijah Wood, who's the sweetest man. That was very exciting. Very nice man. Yes. But yeah, good times there. We saw it. Chili Finger. Yeah. It's not a horror movie. It's a dark. Dark comedy. Cohen Brothers S. Very Cohen Brothers. This was one of my favorite movies that we saw. I liked this a lot. If you like Cohen Brothers at all, or the the subgenre of like incompetent criminal comedy. A 12 hour shift from Brea Grant. Yes. A good comparison. Just like idiots getting in over their heads. Dumb criminals. Dumb criminals. This movie is so fucking funny. And this cast is unbeatable. Top the cast, Judy Greer, who is always good, but like she's often in supporting roles. This is a lead role. It is a meaty role. It is hilarious. It is dramatic. It is like strenuous on her. And she's doing so much and kicking ass as always. Fucking love you, Judy Greer. You're incredible. Her husband is Sean Aston. Another great. Basically playing Bob Newby from Straight To The Bass. Yeah, very Midwestern dad. Yes. In this. Yeah, this was so fun. I was reading a few reviews of this that were negatively comparing it to Fargo and saying like just in terms of the Midwestern tone of it. It takes place in Wisconsin. It takes place in Wisconsin. And I think if you're not from the Midwest, you might not realize that sometimes the Midwest is just kind of like that. Yeah. Because the other two members of the cast are John Goodman and Brian Cranston. And Brian Cranston plays a character who like at one point his mannerisms and what he was saying, we start just laughing and hitting each other because we were like, it's like one of your dad's brothers. Yes, it's like I'm missing Rebecca Brothers. Yeah, crazy. It's holy shit. And this movie is inspired by a true incident that happened like 20 years ago. And I think San Jose or something wasn't in the Midwest. OK, someone found a finger in their Wendy's chili. So that's what this movie is. Judy Greer finds a human finger in her chilies at a place that is very much modeled after Wendy's. John Goodman is the Dave Thomas of this Wendy's like his face is all over it. It's hilarious. God, I just fucking love this. The music. Who did the music? Oh, Dan Deacon. I'm not familiar with Dan Deacon. Great. Dan Deacon is awesome. He's such a cool musician. His album, Glis Ripper, is very important to me. He's like he's a composer for he's done like a bunch of movies. But I was very excited he did this one. I was really bummed we couldn't stay for the Q&A because we had another screening to get to. Yeah. But it's by these two directors, their first feature. It's their first feature. Yeah. Yeah, it's it's really cool. I definitely I think a good comfort movie like the vibes are cozy. It's just so fucking fun, man. And yeah, I really enjoyed it. If you can see it, I don't know if this one has distribution, but I definitely highly recommend it if you like dark comedies. I'm going to skip the next one we saw because it was the best one of the festival. I figure we'll leave that for last so you can you can wait for that. OK, I don't want to end on like a movie that I was like, oh, there's five. OK, OK, we'll say the best for last. Yeah, next one, though, is real good. Pretty lethal. Oh, pretty lethal. Pretty lethal. Maybe my third. It's up there. It's in it's in the the the tops of the movies that we saw. We do know the writer. She's a friend of a friend, kind of a friend in her in her own right. But we know her through Chrissy Fox. Yes, we have seen her at many a party there. Keep trying, keep trying. Yeah, she's been working on this movie for I think she said 10 years. She wrote it. It's it's a movie about ballerinas who I think are supposed to be like what, maybe college age, a little bit younger. Either like high school seniors or like or yeah, college. Who are in Eastern Europe on a bus on a way to a dance competition and their bus breaks down and basically it turns into like a John Wick style action movie. It's kind of Green Room. Ask a little bit. Less dark thematically. Definitely a lot more fun. But they go to like this bar, this giant bar slash brothel. It's like an old manner that's been like refurbished into a kind of like hotel bar situation in the middle of the woods. Uma Thurman is the Eastern European proprietor of this place. Also a former ballerina. Retired ballerina. The bar itself is like ballet theme. Yeah, the production design is really fun. Yeah, but these these it's five ballerinas and like among the lead is Maddie Ziegler, Maddie Ziegler from Dance Moms and from the Sea of Music videos. And also amidst the troop is Millicent Simmons from a quiet place who is playing a deaf character because she is deaf. And I forget who else. Oh, from Mean Girls. Oh, yes, the the mononym actor. Avantika. Yeah, from Mean Girls. Yes. And oh, Iris Apatow, Judd's daughter. And Lana Condor, I don't know who she but she played princess. She's also very good. Like this movie is such a fulfillment of the premise. It is like, oh, ballerinas are going to get put in a bad situation and have to fight back and you watch these ballerinas fight with their with their dance skills. They're twirling around kick and then their flexibility. It's so fucking fun. Yeah, using like the random stuff they have in their dance bags to fight. Yeah. And what's great is that they are like they are scared girls in this situation. And so they really have to, you know, they're not just like instantly transformed into killing machines. It is a process where they have to like find the the strength in themselves and realize the danger they're in and then use the skills that they have against these bad guys with guns. It's just so much fun. I love like watching them kind of have to remind themselves that like trained ballerinas are really strong. Like you have to be very physically strong to do what they do. And then they realize like, oh, we can absolutely fight our way out of this. So they go from being like really scared and like like accidentally killing people sometimes to. I mean, before we saw it, you had said that like you hope to see a lot of ballerina specific things get used in horror or action ways. And one of the things you said is that ballerinas will score the bottoms of their their shoes with the razor blades. Razors. And that was something when I remember talking to Kate about this script and that was something we talked about was you keep razor blades sometimes. I never really felt the need to do this. It's kind of like a depends on what brand of shoes you wear and what the dance floor or whatever. But some some ballerinas use razors to score the bottoms of their point shoes. So you get more grip on the floor. And I remember talking with her about the use of razor blades. And I was so curious to see how that was going to be implemented. Just as a little tip, they get used. They get used in such a fun way. It's very good. Yeah. I this is going to drop on Amazon soon. So you'll be able to watch it on Amazon Prime. I would like to kill count this just because I found it so fun. There's lots of deaths and I would just like to promote it more because I think it's a movie that if the right people see it, they'll really love it. Yeah, I loved it just as a former dancer. There's just also little things really if you see them just like details that are really nice. It's just it's really funny. The action and choreography is great. Yes. And I had a blast watching it. Yeah, I was laughing and screaming. Impostors is a movie starring Jessica Roth from Happy Death Day. And it is a she's the wife to a dude and they have a little baby and the baby goes missing. And that's kind of all I want to say because it's kind of a mindfucking movie. Yeah, it's a cerebral kind of. Um, we talked to the filmmaker after and I asked if he was at all inspired by the Netflix series Dark and he said, yes, if you've seen that, that might clue you in as to the kind of thing you're dealing with here. Yeah, very kind of like slow burn. Because you weren't sure at first. I wasn't sure at first. Like the first 20, 30 minutes. Yes, I think I think the beginning is very slow. And especially if you don't really know what it's about. And it's like, OK, you got to you just got to roll with it. Give it that time to get where it's going. Once it gets where it's going and the premise of what it is is like fully revealed. That's where I think it really shines and it gets into the kind of more mindfucking elements of what the story is. I think that's when the movie like hits its stride. I think when it's table setting is when it's like, OK, what are we doing? I was I was questioning it. But yeah, the payoff is the payoff. Great. Jessica Roth is incredible. Yeah, she's wonderful. You know her as a very comedic actor from Happy Death Day. But if you remember the dramatic parts of Happy Death Day with her mom. This movie is very dramatic, very emotional, and she just fucking shoulders all of it carries it through the role is more complicated than most roles. For a reason that, again, I don't want to get into, but it's fantastic. And she is so good. And I just want to see her succeed in more and more things because she's phenomenal in this. Charlie Barnett was also very good as her as her husband. Yeah. What else is he in? I'm not sure. Um, men in black, one of the not ones. One of the not ones that we've seen. This week's episode is sponsored by Rocket Money. Sometimes when you're really busy, you want to unwind by watching something on streaming, but you don't have a particular service, so you get a subscription. But you already had one and forgot it was just under your husband's name. So now you're getting charged twice based on a true story. It can happen to you. That's where this week's sponsor comes in. Rocket Money is a personal finance app that helps find and cancel your unwanted subscriptions, monitors your spending and helps lower your bills so you can grow your savings. Rocket Money contracts subscriptions and has the ability to cancel unwanted ones within the app with a few taps. Saving users over $880 million in canceled subscriptions. I also love that Rocket Money's app consolidates your checking, savings, loans and investments into one single dashboard to give you a clear view of your finances. Let Rocket Money help you reach your financial goals faster. Join at rocketmoney.com slash deadmeat. That's rocketmoney.com slash deadmeat. Rocketmoney.com slash deadmeat. Okay, basic. For some reason I thought it was a horror movie. Who told us this was a horror movie? I swear it was on list. I swear someone told us it was a horror movie. And like the cover looks like it could be a horror movie. It's late and meister with like purple lighting. Yeah, the image that because before every movie there's like a slide show of other stuff that's playing it south by and the image they use for basic looks like it could be a horror movie. It's like late and meister looking very, I don't know, threatening. Yeah. But it's not a horror movie whatsoever. It is a fucking comedy that I thought was really funny and great. It is. It's very good. It's very touching. It's Ashley Park, go blue. She plays someone who's in a new relationship but she can't stop stalking her new boyfriend's ex-girlfriend who is late and meister and she thinks that like she's just this basic bitch. Basic bitch. And it becomes such an obsession that it causes her and her boyfriend to break up. Yeah. And so then she goes stalking late and meister and then ends up like wild night out with her. Yeah. And it's a lot of fun. It's a lot of fun. It's hard. I'm trying to think of what movie to compare it to where it's like hilarious but also got some pathos to it. And it's just like a character study is it's one crazy night kind of thing. I don't know when I would compare it to. Yeah. It's very funny. Yeah. I really enjoyed it. Yeah. Again, not a horror movie, but yeah, Ashley Park, the supporting cast really fun, like all the friends. Yeah, the friends in it are such a highlight. Yeah, late and meisters friends. Candy Muse is if you're into the drag scene, you might know them. They're they're very funny. Nelson Franklin is in there who was all over the 2010s comedies. That guy there wasn't a fucking sitcom that he wasn't in. But yeah, Ashley and late and are both very funny and really enjoyed it. It's good. Kill me. Yeah. This was interesting. This is a very dark. This movie is very dark. It has to do with mental health. It's Charlie Day and you know, I guess, self harm warning because the first scene is him waking up with his wrist slit in a bathtub and he manages to call 911 and have help sent to him. But he says, I didn't do this. Yeah. And his 911 operators, Alison Williams. Love Alison. I love Alison. We love her so much. She's great. She's just down for whatever. She's so good. She I love like just all the genre stuff she does. I think she just picks really cool stuff to be in. Yeah. Um, but yeah, he like he. So he's someone who has a history of mental illness. He has tried. He's made attempts before. And so obviously no one believes him when he says, no, this time I didn't do this. Someone tried to kill me this time and frame it as it framed me. Yeah. Yes. And as the movie goes on, there's clues that like, oh, wait, no, actually. Something like this, like maybe looks like a murder. Yeah. And it's very much like, how much can we trust him and what he's experiencing? He ropes Alison Williams in and she's like, not sure. His sister is I a cash who is great as the person who's like been shouldering this emotional burden all their lives and is like just fed up with it. He doesn't want to hear these theories. His therapist is John Carlos Pizito. Like his mom's Jessica Harper. Yeah. Yeah. From Suspiria. Like it's a great cast. It's very good. It's yeah. Again, it's like very dark, but very sweet and funny. Very funny. And yeah, like the subject matter is relevant. I definitely cried, but it's I liked it. It's like a who done it ish. And just just the relationship between Charlie Day and Alison Williams is so fun to watch unfold and you root for them, even though like he's obviously a very damaged person. She you don't really know what's going on with her, but she's obviously strained by her job as a 911 operator. And yeah, like great performances from both them. Charlie very dramatic work. And the writer director in our Q and A said he worked for I forget how long he said he was a an operator on a hotline. Yeah. So it comes from a place of personal experience. Really enjoyed it. It's good. If you think you can handle that subject matter, I big recommend forbidden fruits. So this is hitting theaters soon. You may have seen the trailer. Oh, it's it's got the yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like Russell, I think you've seen the trailer. It's like the fruit named mean girls in a mall type thing. Lot of style to this one. I'll say it. I fucking hated this movie. I'm going to get so much shit for it because you're not an ally, hun. Well, it's got good reviews so far. Yeah. And it already has like kind of a it's got a fan base. It does for sure. What was interesting is my experience with it at the festival, like talking with other people who'd seen it. I feel like the attitude like in person talking with other people. A lot of people also really did not like it. And but I don't I feel like there's such a weird disconnect for me already. We'll see what you know more people need to see it to see what people are thinking. I know that it debuted on the tomato meter, tomato, tomato, tomato meter, tomato meter. Why is that so tomato meter? Yeah. It debuted you get your rating at 10 reviews as I learned from refreshing grind constantly. And I think it debuted with 100%. Now it has 17 reviews, which is the same amount of grind. It's down to 82 grind still at 94. But so, you know, I think it'll be people. It's I think my issue with it is it's very much clearly trying to be a cult classic. A Jennifer Bobby type. The devil Cody is a producer on it, not a writer, which I thought she was, but she's not. Yeah, it's like mean girls ask, but it's not. I mean, it is in the sense that they are a click of girls that everyone is like, wow, they're so hot. But I just they're all named fruits. The ringleader is Apple played by Lily Reinhart. Her performance is very good. She's very good. I thought that for me, that was the standout element of this movie is her performance. The other two that she's like in charge of our cherry and fig played by Victoria Padready and Alexander ship. Victoria Padready is I love her as an actor. It's a different role for her. She's like playing kind of an airhead. She's the Amanda Seafreed. Yeah, I didn't like her in this movie. And I always like her. I love her. She didn't bother me too much in it, but I do feel like with this performance, you can see more that it is an actor playing a character. Yes. It's I think the character is like kind of a Glinda almost or Sabrina Carpenter. It just it feels so put on or like a Dolly Parton. It just it just feels like such a character that I never bought this as a real person. And I don't know. I'm sure people will say like, well, he has the point. And then the new fruit that joins them is pumpkin played by Lola Tongue, who I don't really know. She's from the summer. I turned pretty show. So my big issue with this is just I never really could put my finger on what the characters wanted or why they behaved the way they did. In a in a bad there is a little bit of a mystery to hear involving pumpkin and like what she's doing here. And I understood that like I picked up on that early on. There is kind of a through line. Yes. But in the meantime, just seem to seem it felt very inconsistent with how these characters behaved, why they were even friends in the first place. This was your big. Yeah, that was my big issue is so why what is anyone getting out of this? Mm hmm. Something like Mean Girls makes that very apparent the benefit of being one of the plastics. And they're stuck in high school. You have to go to school. Yeah. Where they there's that scene of like it's a jungle where all in the mall where they're all running like it's a National Geographic documentary. Mean Girls. Yeah. Mean Girls. Whereas this is just they're all working in a mall because it's ostensibly about women who say that they're for the girls, but maybe they're not really. But I don't think that's explored enough. Yeah. And like power within friendships and wielding power over front. But like there's there's like ideas of these things that I don't think are fully pulled at enough. And I also just think like to me like the humor just isn't there like I never found it funny. Yeah, I found like half of it may be funny and the other half just like landed flat for me. Yeah. And like you said earlier, it felt very much like the kind of movie that is preemptively trying to be a cult classic. Which is in it's like a sibling of trying to be so bad. It's the type of horror movie that's trying to be so bad. It's good, which I also hate. It's there's a lack of you can't you can't force that. And this feels like it's forcing that a little bit. But I enough people. A lot of people liked it. So you might a lot of people liked it and enough people will love it aesthetically. And I will say shockingly violent kills in it. They're okay. If you wait long enough, there are some crazy ass kills in this, which where was that the whole fucking time? Probably prime rib nominee. Yes. One of those kills. Shockingly. It comes out nowhere and you're like, oh, what is this the same movie? Dude, I'm like about to fall asleep and then oh fuck. Yeah, it's pretty crazy. The tone is crazy. Yeah, none of it feels cohesive enough for me or like none of the ideas that I think could be interesting are explored in a deep enough way for me to be like, oh, there's a lot to dig into in this movie. It just doesn't feel like that. There's another movie we saw that tackles female friendship in a more interesting way. We can talk about that 15. 15. That is a is it a Mexican movie? I believe it's Mexican. About two girls who are doing a quinceanera. And yeah, it's it's very much ginger snaps and Jennifer's body. It's the same essential beats of those plot lines where like it starts off. You've got two girlfriends who are at they're the same age, but maybe not the same maturity. Yeah. And they're kind of outcasts in school. Yeah, they're both kind of losers. But like one of them you can tell has like the potential to be the cool girl kind of like ginger and ginger snaps. And they felt like such real girls in a way that like a Jennifer's body doesn't, which is not what Jennifer's body is trying to be. But I love like it's I I love that these two feel like real teenagers. Yeah. And it makes it really sweet to me and ultimately even more tragic when they kind of grow apart. And I really like this one. Yep. Good kills in it. Yeah. Solid little horror movie that if you are a fan of Jennifer's body, ginger snap, those types of movies, definitely check it out. Yeah, it's in Spanish, so subtitles, but really good. Couple left to talk about one is Buddy, which we almost didn't get into. But thankfully we did. This is the latest movie from Casper Kelly, who did Too Many Cooks and Yule Log. And he did a VHS Halloween segment. And this is a kind of mascot horror. It is basically Barney, but as a horror movie. But it's more than that. I mean, the first 20 minutes is just watching this Barney like show with the character Buddy, who is a big unicorn, like a guy in a suit, unicorn. And you're just fucking watching this show like multiple episodes of it. But then, you know, obviously things take a dark turn. Some of the characters begin to realize that things are dark and Buddy and the other characters are like, no, it's fine. And then it just goes from there in all these different directions that you might expect, being a Casper Kelly joint, Too Many Cooks. Buddy, I was shocked by how much I liked it. Yeah, I mean, it's like if you took one of the mascot horrors like FNAF or Willys Wonderland and then combined it with Mr. Crockett, which is the kids. Yeah, maybe a little bit. Don't hug me. I'm scared. A little bit. Yeah. Yeah. You put all those in a blender. You get this and you might expect it to be like, oh, I've seen it all before. And to some degree, yes, it's in the same realm as those. But I think it does enough interesting things to stand out on some. Well, because Casper Kelly, we stayed after for the Q&A for this one, said that he was approached with this script by Boulderlight, I think. And he even said this subgenre is already so oversaturated, this kind of mascot horror. And he was skeptical about whether he should do it or not. You can tell that he really tried to do something different with it. And what I think makes this work and what I liked so much about it and what is a pet peeve for me with the kind of like, oh, stuff made for kids is creepy thing. It's not a subgenre I like. And it's a subgenre I think is both like overdone, over explored. Like I think I just don't think it's interesting. But this show, this buddy show is very straightforwardly something you could watch on TV. It looks like an old episode of Barney. Or like Gullah Gullah Island. Yes. Kind of has the same vibe. It genuinely, he said that when they made the buddy costume, I think they had it all made and they were about to film. And when they got the costume in, they were even doing last minute changes to make it look less creepy. Because they, I think he said the pupils on it were too small and they were adjusting it. They were putting like stickers over the eyes to make the pupils bigger. Like they, this, he took great pains to make this show look as convincingly real as possible. Like it is not a creepy looking show. This could be, this could air on PBS. And I think that's what I liked so much about this and is what makes then the horror of it work so well. And what makes the emotional beats later work really well. Also helps that it's a, it follows actual kids who are in the show. And the lead kid is so good. She's so good. She's played by Delaney Quinn, whose name in the credits, I was like, that sounds familiar, but it's a kid actor. How could I possibly have seen her work in something else? She's the daughter in If I Had Legs, I'd Kick You. Where, yeah, the voice. Where it's mostly an off-screen voice performance, but it is so good and convincing. It puts you in Rose Byrne's mindset and makes you empathize with her. Yeah. And I think you see her at the very end, like her actual face, but like. And in Buddy of all fucking movies, man, I fucking cried. I cried during Buddy a little bit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I won't say, I don't want to give away too much because it's really cool like watching the story. And just seeing how the pieces kind of fit together because for a little bit, you're genuinely like, where the fuck is this going? Yeah, when the second act starts, I was like, how is this going to tie in? How does this even tie into the show? Yeah. Yeah. Someone else during the Q&A also said like, it's very sweet. And I didn't even recognize him at first, but Keegan-Michael Key, Voice's buddy, does a great fucking job as that character. And Patton Oswald plays another, he voices another like strappy, the backpack she's wearing. The talking backpack. Which is great. He also said during the Q&A, and this also I loved because the lighting in this movie is like randomly so beautiful. And he said that the sets were inspired by old movie musicals and shout out Seven Brides for Seven Brides for Seven Brothers in Oklahoma. Yeah. So that delighted me. And Kristen Miliotti. Yeah, very good. Fantastic in this. Very good in it. Yeah. And Unexpected Toe for Grace too. Yeah. Yeah, it's very good. I don't, so that's one where it's like we don't know distribution is like. Yeah, I don't know if it has distro, but I hope so. I mean, I really hope so, so I can do a Kill Con because I know that will pop the fuck off. Yes, it will. We put that unicorn in that thumbnail. I had that thought. I was like, anything with a fucking mascot. Like Benny loves you. Yes. It's gonna fucking pop off, man. It's crazy, man. You put that in the thumbnail. You guys love that shit. Yeah. And the kills are great too. The kills are. It's an added bonus. You'll love it. You'll love it. Mm-hmm. So that leaves the standout. Everything else we saw. I enjoyed most of it. I loved a lot of it, but one movie stands in a tear on its own as far as I'm concerned. From what we saw, there were a lot of movies that were there that we didn't get a chance to see. Hocum. Hocum, we tried. They Will Kill You. These are movies that we. Drag, we tried. Drag. Okay, can we. Drag, we tried. Hang on, hang on. Okay. Pause. We tried to see Drag. Drag is a movie by, I think it stars Dan DeVito's daughter and he helped produce it. Lizzie Kaplan. Yeah. And it's about a heist where, or not a heist. It's a home invasion where one of the criminals throws out their back. During it. And apparently that's the premise. Yes. And it's supposed to be fucking great. The word of mouth was crazy. We wanted to see it so bad. So by Southwest, your ticketing system or your reservation system for getting into these movies is fucking crazy. Can use a little work. It's nuts. If you were there, you saw me fully crash out because we did stand by and how that works is it's like, okay. Yeah, you can get a reservation for movies if it's not full. By the time we start booking on most of them were full. If you get a reservation, you still have to show up 40 minutes early. Yeah, so show up early. You're good. You'll get in. If you don't, you have to try stand by. Which is like at least an hour early. Probably more than that as we fucking learned. Yeah. So we get there over an hour early for drag. We wait in this line. And the way it works is they're basically making sure like, okay, is everyone here who has reservations and they count the seats and they slowly bring people in from the stand by and it takes fucking forever. And you're just waiting up until basically the movie starts for them to be like, sorry, we can't let you in. There just has to be a better way. And what happened was the line got cut off between me and James. So James could have gotten in and we were there for like an hour. That was an hour and a week. And it was like what time at night? It was like 10. It was like the last night of the festival. 45 or something. Yeah. And it was just like. I was hungry because we were at Alamo. So I was like, well, good. I want to eat dinner because we're going to go to Alamo. Yeah. Dumbass. I was. I just, I feel like they should be able to tell you earlier that you're not going to get in. I don't know because oh man, wasting my time. I was fully, fully crashed out. I apologize to anyone who was in my immediate vicinity because I was also extremely hangry. So we didn't get to see drag. But with like Hokem and They Will Kill You were like, they have distro. They're coming out. Maybe by time you're seeing this, we'll be able to see them in LA. Shout out to all the volunteers though. Especially there were a lot of dead meat fans who were volunteers. Who was the volunteer who was a fan but then had to be the person to tell us that we couldn't get into drag? It's like Ellie, I think. She was very sweet. Yeah. She like came and she was like, anyone here for drag? And we're like, yes. We are. Oh my God. Wait, does that mean we can get in? I just came to tell you it's full. And we're like, why would you tell us? You were really sweet. Thank you for being so nice to us. Yeah. Also, before we get to the last movie, there's an intro video that plays before each movie at South by Southwest. And wonderfully enough, it begins with Nicole Kidman. So it's just we can't see them. Hello, South by. And she does this. She does this. She does this. She says, hello, South by. South by. You end up watching this thing so many fucking times. And so when we were sitting in the theater, we would do this with her. And there's also like fun animation and fun music. There's like a random shot of Ryan Gosling. Modding the camera. Modding the camera. Slow motion. We began to memorize this. And like it's burnt into my brain. But it's not online. And if anyone, please, if anyone works at South by Southwest is watching this. We send it to us because we got really obsessed with it. I just want to watch it. If I never get to see that again, I'll be very sad. I don't think I can live with that. I just. It's my favorite thing. OK, OK. So the number one movie that we saw that we saw that Chelsea's wearing the shirt. I'm wearing. I got my shirt on. This is your shirt, but I'm wearing it. It is my shirt. Obsession, dude. It fucking lives up to the hype obsession. Potentially my movie of the year. I don't know if you feel the same way. Yeah. Yes. So far it is my favorite horror movie of the year. Bone Templars is probably second. Bone Temple is great. Yeah, it is. But obsession is just like, oh man. But that's sequel. Oh, I know. For Prime Ribs, we're set. OK, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. There are several categories. But Obsession is a new original horror movie by Curry Barker. It is his feature debut, but he has previously made sketch comedy and horror shorts on YouTube. And then the 60 minute feature released directly to YouTube for free called Milk and Cereal, which is a found footage movie that I had seen before. Kill Count's coming out on it. Chelsea hadn't. I hadn't. We watched it. Yes. And that, like, you weren't sure at first. I, yes, the first, like, 20 minutes of that, I wasn't sure. But then something happens in it that kind of reframes the entire thing. And that's when I bought in. I was like, OK. Highly recommend. I get what's going on here. Yes, it is. It's very good. For free on YouTube, Milk and Cereal, 60 minute movie. Cereal spelled like serial killer. Yes. If you search Milk and Cereal, you'll just get those two guys. She loved in Special Sauce. Milk and Cereal. Milk and Cereal. Oh, expect a lot of that in the Kill Count. Cereal and Milk. Cereal and Milk. We can do the little dance, like, in the video. They do like, it's like a four minute video. And there's like the original white guys and then the Asian guys who also did it. And who I think maybe lip sync better than the white guys. Oh, OK. But they're both great. They are both great videos. But I've watched both of them entirely while writing the Kill Count script for Milk and Cereal, this movie. Can we film our own version? Dude, that's what I'm saying. It is a four minute, unbroken thing. We can do it. I've seen the original enough times. I was very, I was around and very cognizant in 2000. The resolution of those videos is like four. Yeah. It's like four pixels. Yeah. But believe me when I say the internet was so small back then that that's what we had and we watched it a million times. Yeah. But obsession is Curry Barker's feature debut. And it's fucking incredible, guys. Dude, we heard so much hype because it premiered last year at festivals. Yeah. It premiered at fantastic. One of them. One of them. Bunch of people had seen it back then. So like honestly, first 10, maybe 15 minutes of this movie, I'm like, is this really going to live up to this hype? And people, you know, because we met a lot of dead meat fans, which was really cool. And everyone we met had seen obsession already. And they're like, guys, it's incredible. We just kept hearing nonstop. It's so fucking scary. And I always get nervous, right? Yep. And I'm like, I don't want I don't want this overhyped. Like undertone recently kind of fell to that hype of like filmmakers. Great. We interviewed him. Yes, that actually was a really great interview. Yeah. I think that's for patrons only. Yes. But I was getting nervous because I don't like, you know, I get scared of the overhype. You know, no, this one's delightful. It lived up to all my wildest dreams and more. It is so fun. And it's about a guy who he's in like a friend group. He has a crush on, you know, one of the girls in the friend group. But he's too nervous to like actually ask her out or anything. And then he gets this thing called a one wish willow. Yeah, he goes to like a new age shop. Yep. It's a classic. This is like a tales from the crypt. Like this is this class. This story has been done so many times, but this take on it's so good. Yeah, it's like big, you know. Yeah. Be careful what you wish for. Exactly. He goes to this shop, gets this thing called the one wish willow. You make a wish, you break it, the wish comes true. And so he wishes that she would love him more than anyone else in the world. And he breaks it and then immediately that occurs and dude, like, oh my God, it's so fucking good. Because it takes the like trope of like the obsessive girlfriend and makes it horror without being in any way like misogynistic or like saying, aren't women like this? Like, you feel so bad for this. This is such a fantastic take on this type of story. I don't want to get into too much detail because I wanted to be its own podcast episode because there is so much about this movie to dig into and kind of like gnaw on because the gender politics in this are so well explored and so nuanced and I think handled so well and feel very modern. And I just think like I honestly was so blown away by this because yes, it's so many versions of this kind of story are just the surface level wouldn't it be scary if a woman was crazy? Yeah. That is what this is to a point, but it's so much more than that. The two lead performances, it's Michael Johnston as the lead guy named Bear and then Indy Navarrette. Incredible. Oh my God, as Nikki. What a, like, it's just a crazy performance. It's so good. Yeah, it's a brave performance. It is? But like it's so fucking good and it's hilarious. It's very funny. And it is scary as fuck. And like I was like, how is this going to be scary? No, it scared the shit out of me. There were times screaming in the theater. There were multiple occasions where like something would happen and like it'd be like a fake out scare, but because the tension is so high, it would get one person and you would just hear one person in the theater be like, oh fuck and then laugh at themselves for getting got and then everyone else laughs. Yeah. Because it's one of those movies where just like everyone's so locked in. Everyone, yeah, that whole theater was locked the fuck in. But there were also like genuine scares that are coming from Nikki in the state of hers that like are so upsetting that later that night, Chelsea like, I recreated one and he was like, don't do that. I, it was too much for, I was like, no, no, that scared me just now. You doing that. It's scary. Stop it. Like, oh man, it was very genuine. I was like, oh my God. Okay. Yeah. No, we went and bought some fucking birds. It's just, this is not spoilery. This is the package of the one wish willow that they made into like hats and a bag. Yeah. Yeah. This movie fucking rules. Yeah. Definite podcast, definite kill count. Like this is going to be our obsession. Yep. It's great. Also, this is what, how much do we, what are we at? An hour. Okay. We have time. This is also, so this design and the little box of the one wish willow. I was like, oh, it's got to be a visual nod to those little fish. Those like fortune telling fish. I just get a blank stare from James. Does anyone know what the fuck I'm talking about? Because I'm realizing this is a weird thing that is not as common of a childhood toy or a thing as I thought it was. It's these, these fortune telling fish. Shawn's got 70 of them. I had to buy them in bulk so we have a giant bag of them now. Well, we would get these as like prizes from the roller rink or like, I'm thinking this must be just a very specific, like just regional pockets of the United. Mike knew it. Yes. And he's from your- Our friend Mike knew about it and he grew up very close to me. I'm trying to think who else. Like it- The waiter we asked about them knew. The waiter at South by knew about them. He lived, I think. He was in Ohio. You, from, I think he's like Columbus. Oh. Or no, Cincinnati, I think. Ohio named your cities with different letters. I always get confused. It's these little plastic fish that when you put them on the palm of your hand and there's a little guide on the back that tells you like, it's like a mood ring depending on what the fish does is like what you're feeling or what your fortune is. So see it starts moving. Ooh, the head and the tail. Head and tail. Oh, I mean, you're in love. Wait, tail. Oh, wait, it curled up. Tail curled up. Oh, wait, the tail. It's gone. Oh, it jumped. What is that? Is that- That turns over. Too tall to call. I don't know what that means. I'll just say it means you're in love. Yeah. But yeah, it's just a fun little, I don't know, party favor. But please tell me in the comments if you had these as a kid, if you've seen these before, because for me, this was like James telling me he's never heard of a magic eight ball before. It genuinely rocked my world a little bit. And I conducted a poll in our giant group chat and it was kind of like a 40, 60 split, maybe? 30, 70? 30, 70. Bizarre. Anyway. The 30 knowing what it is. But I'm thinking, is this not very visually kind of- Didn't you ask him at the after party? I did not. No. Oh, you didn't. I did not ask him, no. Oh, fuck. We got to meet him very nice guy. We did get to meet him and we made hopefully future plans to have him on the podcast. Him and Cooper, Cooper Tomlinson, who is like his producer and is the other guy in Milk and Cereal and then he's like the third lead in obsession. He's great. So hopefully we will get an answer if these little fish- I can see that. It looks so like the color scheme and just the general, like even the little, the font and the- The border. Yeah. I could see it being kind of an homage. But who knows? Definitely go see this one guys. Yep. Do not miss this one. It comes out. The review of this is just going to be me glazing it for two hours. I don't know what to say. It's so good. Yeah. And that comes out in theaters May 15th. So you won't have to wait too long. Just a little over a month. Yeah. Can't wait to see it again. Yeah. It's going to be great. Oh, and budget one million. Or actually I had heard at the festival half a million. Oh my God. Someone said half a million, but in any case Wikipedia is saying one million. So I don't know. Very small budget. Holy shit. And it's holding its own against all these other films we're seeing. It looks just as good. Oh yeah. It looks great. Yeah. Oh man. Good stuff. Good fucking stuff dude. Oh we edited it too. Wow. But that's, that's South by. Yeah man. I can't stress enough how fucking cool of an experience it was. I believe that I was bred in a lab for film festivals. Yeah. It's just watching movies and networking and going to parties. We're worried. Hot take. I'm good at that. We're worried we're going to stick with it, but it was so much fun. Again, when we checked into the hotel they're like, okay you're here for eight nights and we were like, guess so. Really expecting those last couple of days to be like just want to get home to the pets. But no, I was, I mean I did miss the pets. But I could have done a few more days of just watching movies and going to parties and networking. I mean the hard part's feeding yourself. That's true. That was the part I was getting tired of. More than one popcorn dinner. Yeah a lot of popcorn dinners. Or like the little hors d'oeuvres after parties where it's like, yeah give me all those tiny little roast beef sandwiches. Yeah. But such a fucking blast. Austin, you're an awesome city. Love it. I feel like now, we've been there a few times, but I feel like now I have a good sense of that downtown after walking it so much and just, I don't know man, it's a good time. That Capitol building's fucking beautiful. The way Congress goes straight up to it and you can just look down the road. Oh man. Yeah. Good times. That's really cool. Although the weather was nuts. Yeah. And went from 92 down to the 40s in the next couple of days and then back up to like 80s. We experienced three different weather of the course. Felling Michigan. Yeah, for real. Yeah. Well that's it for this week. Until next time, I'm Chelsea. I'm James. And that's Grassel. And this has been the Debt Me podcast. Toxy FM. That's bit.ly slash toxiefm for a special offer on ScreenBox. Sometimes you gotta do something.