Suzy from Suspiria (1977)

Caution listeners, this episode contains spoilers for Argento's 1977 dream horror, Suspiria. If you haven't uncovered the secret of the Black Queen yet, watch your step. The ceiling has maggots and the corridors have covens. Horror isn't just jump scares. For some characters, it's a journey from victim to victor. This is Final Girls, the podcast where we analyze the genre's iconic leading ladies. These women don't run, they reload. And we gather survival tips along the way. I'm Kelly, a film grad and slasher enthusiast. And I'm Sarah, a pop culture writer with a killer instinct for subtext. So choose your weapon because this is going to get messy. Welcome everyone to another episode of Final Girls, the podcast. it's a Saturday for us and we are both very burnt out and tired but we're excited to be here I know it's maybe a weird mode to be in for this fucking like you know iconic Argento horror film but you know we're gonna do our best as we always say yeah yeah yeah and this is yeah we'll be fine how you doing Kelly yeah I'm okay I'm on one of many coffees of the day and uh yeah i'll be recording again later on a different podcast so you guys will get the link to that at some point and then sarah's doing the same thing tomorrow same podcast yep seven recordings this week i know we've talked about this on a few different episodes but yeah this was this week was insane with to be clear we're not complaining no not at all say no yeah we could say yes to all of our friends and new friends saying yes it's just once we get to the end of the week we're like what have we yeah yeah we're good though we're officially in spring the spring equinox happened the other day which is really exciting because i mean it doesn't really matter because it feels you know down here it's like it's it's nice pretty much year-round but i like i like spring because people well i mean i was gonna say because most people are in a good mood but i know it's not your jam you like no i was just gonna say i like the fall winter i'm sitting here in my office and like the air conditioning is running and I'm still, I'm already hot and I'm not ready. I'm not ready. I'm not ready. Yeah. I like it though. I think it's, I just like when people are in jumpy, happy moods. I was driving through Hollywood today and everyone was like out and about and like, you could tell everyone was happy and it was cute. So yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, we're not here to talk about springtime, although that, yeah, that would be another podcast. That would be, yeah, part of our weather podcast if we ever did that. But we are here to talk about Suspiria 1977 and Susie, the final girl. We picked this one for lots of reasons. I love this movie. But also, we wanted to do like a classic one too, because we've done a lot of newer ones. And we were just like, hey, it's time to do one of the absolute classics. And this is an absolute classic of a movie. You know, it's weird because I had never seen it before, which again, don't take away my horror card. I always say this, but like, come on, there's so much horror out there. Like it takes a while to get around, but I was kind of surprised that I hadn't seen it in, in my film studies classes. Yeah. And you didn't see that. So I'm assuming you didn't see the remake either. Nope. No, I am curious about it. Yeah. It's a different movie, but it's good. That's what I heard. I mean, it's, it, there's a lot of callbacks and it's an homage to it, but it's very, very good. I mean, I know Argento wasn't super happy about it occurring and said like, why would you do it? It's not my movie. It's different and that's fine. So I am, yeah, I will watch it and you know, I'm sure we'll probably do it for the podcast. Yeah, we will. We will. We'll do Susie, the remake Susie. I love this movie because, and we'll get into it. I know you have to do all the things, but it's a dance movie and it's a witch movie. And I'm like check and check. So I'm super excited to do this one. I've always loved this one. I love, yeah, we'll get into it. I'll let you do the thing first. Okay. It's going to be short. It should be noted that these are almost entirely Italian actors. And this movie was filmed in such a way that they didn't even bother recording the sound. And they just dubbed all the audio later, which by the way, is very obvious. Like it's not subtle cool I love that part it makes it so like it's not no it kind of fits the aesthetic because it's the whole movie is very dreamlike which I know we'll get into and so it's very it's kind of like everything's kind of off kilter and but you're just watching the lines occur from the actors mouths and you're like what so yeah a lot of them weren't even speaking English to each other or not even Italian to each other some were speaking German and it was just all over the place So, okay. The logline is an American newcomer to a prestigious German ballet academy comes to realize that the school is a front for something sinister amid a series of grisly murders. And like we mentioned, and like everyone knows, this is a Dario Argento movie. He also did Deep Red, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, Inferno, most recently Dark Glasses. That was in like 2022, too which is kind of crazy and he is considered one of the masters of horror which we will talk about he also wrote this movie with his then wife daria so dario and daria just kind of cute and it stars jessica harper as suzy she's in the reboot i saw i don't know what role she plays but she was also in phantom of the paradise whatever that is shock treatment whatever that is she was in a fatal attraction tv show yeah i love that tv show did you watch it yet fatal attraction oh okay i started with heated rivalry okay that's true that's true i was like this is priorities because sarah texts me about it every day so i'm telling you this is a heated rival rivalry fan podcast as well so and uh she was also in minority report like the new the tom cruise movie which like i feel like that movie kind of got forgotten about but it actually holds up i love that movie yeah it's a good movie yeah and um night bitch that new movie with amy adams yeah it was a book too okay okay haven't seen it i did see the trailer and i was like i don't know i do like amy adams so yeah yeah stefania cassini plays sarah i don't know any of her other movies they were all italian for the most part joan bennett plays madame blanc and i think this was actually her last movie she stopped acting in 1982 and she started acting in 1916 whoa crazy she has of course like passed on by now yeah but she was also in father of the bride dark shadows woman in the window and again like a thousand other things that i wasn't familiar with alita valley plays miss tanner she was in the third man and eyes without a face and then lastly there's this really random cameo from udo kier RIP. I think he died like last year. And he plays Dr. Frank Mandel, who Susie goes to talk to in the courtyard. And his dialogue was also dubbed because if you've seen him act in other movies, he has a very strong accent because he was in Blade and Melancholia and just a bunch of my own private Idaho and a bunch of other movies. So that's it. That's all I'm going to talk about. Because like I said, mostly Italian actors. Did you do the logline? I did. Oh, yeah. Okay. And no shade against like all the foreign actors. I just I don't I don't even want to try to pronounce all the titles of the movies because I'm just gonna fuck it up. So yeah, this is considered a supernatural Giallo film. Yeah, which is so fun. Giallo is and I remember this from the Maxine episode. giallo is an italian traditional type of filmmaking where it's usually like a whodunit surreal colors jarring soundtrack sounds very artistic brutal violence murder mystery i think there's some debate about if this counts as like a true i know there is but i know because it's not like a whodunit mystery yeah it's not like yeah but i mean i think you could argue either way yeah yeah i i love the black color or the i love the black house i love the colors so much and i know that argento did the like special treatment i saw that the colors were inspired by snow white he did have the snow white influence he used vintage technicolor dye transfer printing and what is one of the last films to do so to get the really aggressive reds and blues it is aggressive it is very aggressive the other thing i really loved about this movie was the soundtrack and the song like that music box oh yeah yeah and that was a band called goblin goblin yeah and goblin used some a really interesting greek string instrument called the bouzouki i think i might be spelling that or saying that wrong bouzouki and then like a hammer dulcimer which is a folk instrument as well and to get that like really like spooky spooky sound and then layered it with like whispers to kind of mimic that hallucination type of a thing and then they also played Argento also played their music on the set while shooting the scenes just so pretty interesting unusual and the only obviously the only reason they could do that is because they weren't gonna like be recording the sound anyway yeah that's true oh that's true but I mean and the reason that we're focusing already on like color and sound instead of plot is because this movie is not known there is no plot it's not known for its acting it's not known for its dialogue no dramatic twists no it's known for its visuals and its score yeah so those are the things that you're gonna remember yeah and the vibe yeah the vibe yeah exactly it's very unsettling and like we said dreamlike and it's interesting we're doing this so soon after the substance because it is very fairy tale like like dark fairy tale with like the evil queen and all of that so it's the dubbed dialogue and like there's a lot of like really bizarre acting really bizarre yeah and it just makes everything feel so deranged like a nightmare and I just love it so much so good I was just going to also set the stage that this is the first movie of a trilogy Argento's trilogy called the three mothers and that centers around three witches or the mothers of sorrow who unleash evil from various locations across the world. So in Suspiria, that mother is Mater Suspiriorium, probably saying that wrong, which is Latin for mother of size. And that's Helena Marcos, who we're going to talk about. The other film was Inferno, which focuses on Mater Tenebrorum, which is mother of darkness in New York City. And then the last installment is called The Mother of Tears, which focuses on Mater Lacrimarum, which is Mother of Tears in Rome. So three witches wreaking havoc across the globe. Yeah. Have you seen the other movies? I haven't. No. The number three, we mentioned that before is a very, actually, I might have mentioned it when I was on Broomsticks and Bloodshed, but it's a very magical number, especially when it comes to witchcraft and femininity in witchcraft, because there's, you know, three stages of the witch. There's maiden, mother, and crone. And yeah, so three is a very magical number. But I will talk about the witchcraft. I will touch on that. But I, like, maybe we set the stage for the final girl, which is Susie. And Susie is coming to this dance academy. She American And we don know much of her backstory No we this is another one of those movies where we really learn kind of like the substance where we learn almost nothing about the leading lady um other than yeah she's a dancer yeah the end i don't i literally i don't remember anything else about her character i think at one point someone says to her that she's like strong-willed yeah yeah so it's like when she makes a decision about something she doesn't go back on that decision. That's, that's it. That's it. There's not much to the characters either. And a lot of the characters are honestly just kind of props, just like, like Texas Chainsaw Massacre. It's just, it's all about the vibe, you know, it's about, there's not really much arc or development. There is an arc for Susie. Susie's probably the most developed out of all of them. But from the minute she, she lands in Germany, it is so inhospitable. Yeah. It's raining. The taxi driver's a dick. None of the taxis will stop for her. Everyone's rude. The landlord is rude. The, even like Olga, when she gets there, she's like, Oh, Susie. And then she points to Sarah and she's like, S names are snakes. They're, they're malefic. So everything is really sharp and cold and and they're already like everyone's on her about money already like you need to pay your rent in advance and she needs to borrow some ballet shoes and the girl's like okay well you're gonna pay me right yeah she's like no I have my own shoes I just need these for a second and then the girl's kind of like fine I guess yeah I wish we would see more of the dancing that's the the biggest thing that's what I like about the remake is there's okay yeah I mean, there's as much dancing in this as there is hockey and heated rivalry. Like, it's not the focus at all. I really like that connection you just drew. I'm so here for it. What have you done? You're going to get into the heated rivalry psychosis like the rest of us. I'm so excited for it. Yeah. No, it's just set dressing. It's just the background. I mean, and the only time we see Susie dancing, she like faints immediately. Yeah. Yeah. 100% yeah I mean so I know in the remake that Dakota Johnson said that she had to learn some ballet for it I don't think this chick had to learn any anything at all I mean I could do what she's doing she's literally just like swaying around for a second and then fainting which I could also do and uh and it's yeah I mean there are definitely dancers in the movie like I didn't I didn't realize there was going to be so many male dancers and characters, although they're pretty inconsequential. They kind of tease at a flirtation between Susie and the one like kind of cute young guy dancer that goes nowhere. And the only male actor who was any scene of interest is the blind guy, which that might be my favorite. That's one of my favorite scenes in the movie. Yeah. yeah and you know we can get to that but like uh and everyone else it's just about these house mother types who are just lording over the young girls i okay they are witches that's clear we can say that now but what is the what's the goal here like what's the what's their motive for maintaining this like dance coven well the girls are where they get they you know draw their power So they use them as sacrifices. That's why they're giving Susie the blood, like the blood and the wine. They're just kind of plumping her up and getting her ready for the sacrifice. But, you know, in this particular film, the witches, she's talking to Milius, who says, she's like, what do witches do? And he basically says they are just malefic and destructive and they have power and they don't want to do good. It's just all because they want to accumulate great personal wealth by, you know, injury to others and causing suffering, which is 180% or 180 degree difference from what witchcraft actually is. I mean, this is what 1977. Oh, this was like the precursor to the satanic panic. But like that scene also didn't make a lot of sense to me because first of all, I was really distracted by that guy's eyebrows. Yeah. Come out like an inch from his face. You can see them in profile. But like right before she's talking to that guy, she's talking to Dr. Mandel, the Udo Kier character. And he's like, well, I think that witchcraft is really rooted in psychological, like mental illness. Yeah. And then right after that, he's like, oh, and here's so-and-so who wrote the foremost book on the subject. And then that guy is like, it's real. There's magic everywhere. Everyone believes in it. It's evil, like whatever. And I'm like, okay, I thought you just established that it's not real and it's rooted in mental illness. Yeah. So it's like they both say exact opposite things, which I guess is, again, just meant to like throw off Susie. And she does a lot of the final girl research stuff. Yeah, she does. But in like the only way you could really do it in the 70s, which is like asking people. Well, she's looking for Sarah. So Sarah goes missing. Sarah's death is so gnarly. Yeah. She's chased around. she ends up falling in this like like razor razor wire which was very saw like oh well yeah it literally is yeah but it totally and then she's kind of just like thrashing around in there but then that doesn't even kill her that doesn't kill her throat slit yeah like okay but yeah so suzy's on like the trail of this whatever so i guess this is kind of who done it could be a giallo but she's on the trail of where did Sarah go and Sarah's like her only friend there she had Olga but which I have to say Olga is her style is a plus she is serving left and right I knew you're gonna say that I I was expecting her to be a bigger presence in the movie yeah and she kind of reminded me of the Barb from Black Christmas and then Susie would be you know the Jess. And so, but then Olga's just gone from the movie after two scenes. And this is one of the things that initially confused me a bit. They have the school that a lot of the girls are staying at. And then there's also an apartment building that like Olga's staying at and where the girl at the beginning, Pat, gets killed. But like the visual style of the two, I found really easy to mix up because they're both very pink and very, very grandiose, lots of like corridors, lots of doors. And I was just, I kept thinking that they were at the school and then they would be like, oh yeah, no, I didn't want to stay at the boarding house or whatever. And I'm like, well, okay. And then, so yeah, we didn't even mention the girl getting killed at the beginning, which is pretty horrific. You know, other than the fact that the blood looks like red paint. I I mean, that was just kind of a thing for like this type of movie back then. But it is pretty noticeable here. She, yeah, this girl, she escapes the school because she knows the secret. And then she gets killed at the apartment building. And she gets like, she gets smushed through like the glass of the building. And then she gets stabbed a bunch. And then she also gets hung from the stained glass ceiling that she crashes through. It's an impressive set piece because then the glass falls onto her roommate who was trying to get her help. And she's like, there's a murderer. There's a murderer. And she gets killed. And then that sets the stage for like, okay, a bunch of shit's going down with this group of people. Yeah. Susie is, she knows something's wrong though from the get-go because she's in this like sketchy taxi. driving through the woods and she sees Pat and Pat like says something funky to her like secret irises. And, but then there's Sarah who knew Pat and Sarah becomes like her friend, but Sarah also found some letters from Pat that kind of exposed things and showed that something sinister was going on and before she could do anything with it she is killed with you know getting her throat slit and the razor wire but before that happens she tells Susie about that and Susie then I mean she's kind of delirious because she's pumped full of this like obviously stuff is in it to make her not her this wine yeah that has something in it that makes her kind of out of it well and they're like barely feeding her they're like no you need wine to like build up your blood or yeah yeah so she gets really sick because the woman in the hallway with the nephew oh I love that scene something goes on where like the word witch is like kind of unspoken like she hears it and then she kind of like freaks out and spaces out and then yeah she tries to do the dance class and she's like I don't feel good and they're like fucking do it fucking do it and then yeah she faints and then from then on they're literally shoving stuff down her throat she's like i don't want more no more like no they're forcing her to drink water yeah yeah and then yeah so every night she's put on this special diet of wine and miscellaneous and then so that causes her to yeah be really really out of it in the evenings which is when sarah is trying to do her own final girl research and she's trying to rope in susie for help because she knows something is wrong but her notes that she took on the subject are gone and she has like almost no info left so yeah sarah gets killed and then they do the thing that they do in these movies where they're like oh i don't know she just up and left in the middle of the night she just took her stuff and like it's kind of rude but she's gone now and susie's like what that doesn't make any fucking sense but okay yeah and that's when Susie goes on the trail of what happened to her and then she starts to uncover all this stuff about witches and it's really just that psychiatrist Milius that tells her it was the dance academy was formed for Helena yeah and like so yeah we get this big exposition dump of I mean if this guy hadn't explicitly told her everything that was happening that there would like none she would have no info at all like other than sarah saying something about witches or like her hearing the word witch or whatever i mean so it's it's kind of clunky we didn't even mention some of the stuff that happens with the maggots raining down yeah that's a really funky part too is gross yeah they're um because i guess the food in the ceiling was wrong Yeah, they had gotten a shipment of food in the attic and it started literally raining down maggots on them, which is so, it's so grotesque. But like, is this supposed to be related to the witchcraft or is it just like an incidental like occurrence? I think it's just incidental. I don't, I think it's just. It's so extreme though. It's like the whole ceiling. Anyway. I think it just adds to that. Again, like this movie has very little when it comes to plot and it's really just about the vibe. So I think it's just kind of a mystery. Maybe I'm wrong. Listeners, let me know if I'm wrong about that. But I mean, I guess it just opens the door to the scene where they all have to like bunk together in the in the dance room when Sarah realizes that the headmistress of the school is sleeping next to them somehow, even though she's not supposed to be there because she recognizes her snoring. And then you know that comes back later as you know as Susie stumbles upon her later Yeah Yeah Yeah I like that scene though because they all just kind of like bunkered into this dance hall dance practice room and it like bright red and there's sheets everywhere and they're all kind of on well sarah is really on edge yeah susie's like what yeah yeah and and they're like it doesn't make any sense because all of the adults all of the like older adults always leave the school at the end of the night and stay in town and then sarah's the one who figures out at some point that they're not leaving well susie helps her because she's like no like the footsteps are going the other way and they count the footsteps and then that's how that's what allows susie to come upon the like secrets later which is such a final girl thing to do i will say i feel bad for sarah she's doing a lot of heavy lifting here but Well, I, yeah, she is. I feel like this footsteps is so fun. It's such a fun little addition because if you think about they're doing point ballet, dance is all about your steps, right? It's such a dichotomy of transition between the art form of stepping to this like logic investigation form of like stepping and like movement and, and it's just really, really interesting dichotomy. so yeah I what about that yeah very final girl final girl strategy what did you think of that you said you mentioned something about that being your favorite scene with the piano player the blind piano player and his dog so yeah first of all yeah because I I like the setup for this it's really creepy yeah so the the there's this like we said there's this older woman palling around with Madame LeBlanc's nephew I think this young blonde kid and they approach the blind guy's German shepherd who's sitting outside the building and then for some reason the kid gets bitten by the dog you know we can assume that it's because the dog was like these people are evil and so Madame Tanner like freaks out and is like I never want to see that fucking dog near here ever again get it out of here and the blind guy is literally like sorry i should look up his character's name but i can't remember at the moment daniel daniel okay he's literally like do not talk about my dog go fuck yourself he's like absolutely not i'm not here for this which i get which i get too and he's like my dog is gentle and loving and has never bitten anyone like fuck off and then so he leaves and he's like I may be blind but I'm not deaf and then he's a piano player yeah yeah so he leaves and then there's this scene of him walking at night through the I don't know what this courtyard is called but apparently it has it said something about that being where Hitler gave his like famous speech or something I mean it's a facade it's clearly not actually taking place there but it's supposed to be tied into like there's some themes of fascism in this movie that i like i'm not really gonna touch on for reasons but so for reasons that are too real right now for reasons that are too real i just don't want to get into it but so he's walking with his dog and then his dog stops in the middle of the plaza and starts to like freak out and it's nighttime and it's spooky and he's kind of like who's there who's there because obviously he knows his dog is trying to alert him of something and there's this really cool moment that i wish actually went somewhere which is that on top of the nearby building there's this eagle like stone eagle statue and it the camera kind of zooms in on it and then the next time we see the building the statue's gone and you can kind of hear like some flapping sounds and stuff and I was like oh fuck is he about to get attacked by a fucking stone eagle right now like that'd be awesome but instead it just leads to his dog freaking out further and then his dog like turns on him and like literally eats his throat out rips his throat out it's so hard yeah it's it's brutal and then some police officers come and scare the dog away and then the next day at the school they're like yeah yeah i guess i guess that happened yeah exactly that's the thing about this movie is i saw someone describe it once as the storytelling being like and then this happened and then this happened and then that happened basically and people like kind of barely acknowledge things and they're just like anyway like back to dance not that we spend any of our time doing that well that's what I mean it this really feels it's so weird the timing that we did this near the substance because it's so much it's just a fever dream it's a nightmare it's like nothing really makes sense because it's all it all just has that really uncanny dream feeling and nothing feels right except you know like you can identify everything in it but it's like the dubbing where it's like you can see the lips move but the sound doesn't quite match up and that's like what a dream is like right sure yeah that's yeah so I I just fucking love that well and so then yeah with the eagle flying off the building that's very dreamlike too and I know that some of this movie was specifically based on dreams that either Dario or Daria had like the exploding panther statue at the end which again I thought was really cool and I was like oh where's this going and it doesn't really go anywhere but it is a cool visual well the other Daria's was inspired to write to write this with Dario because her grandmother escaped some like kind of well escaped but you know some situation that she thought was like a witchcraft school yeah yeah this was still very much uh scared of witches situation but but yeah speaking of witches can I get into the a little bit of the witch stuff okay I've mentioned this before I mentioned this on a podcast I was just on and I was talking about the occult and how the occult was represented satanism how it was represented in the film and how it's so I'm a card carrying member of the satanic temple and I do consider myself a witch and these I love movies and pop culture that center around these things even if they don't portray it in a flattering light just because I think it's really fun and it's fun to see that presented as the villain because I know in like I know for a fact that it's completely the opposite They're the most empathetic, loving, community-minded people I've ever met in my life. But this movie is one of those situations where I love the witch element of it. And I love all the symbolism. And I love them being presented as malefic because it's a fun fantasy. And the thing about the witchcraft in this one is it goes over the snake. So the snake is a very prominent symbol in witchcraft. And Milius is basically telling her a coven, which is all a group of women, witches. There's a queen witch, which is not true. In a coven, they're all equal. But the coven, she's the head. When you cut the head off, the rest of the snake dies. So he basically tells her that. And so that gives her the strategy, kill the head witch, which is Helena, and the rest of the coven will die. The snake is so, is such a prominent thing in witchcraft. It's kind of this bridge between the physical and the metaphysical worlds. And it's in witchcraft and the occult, it almost always signifies transformation because a snake sheds its skin and primal knowledge. It's also, I know I've spoken about the snake before too in the craft episode, which I don't know if you noticed, but the end of this movie really, I think, inspired the end of the craft. There's a lot of like, um, I could see that. That feels very similar, but the snakes are also in biblical lore was the instigator of Eve and the eating the forbidden fruit. And, but in a, in a very femme forward, feminist woman centered spirituality, like witchcraft that is seen as the the snake is actually seen as a liberator not a villain so that's really interesting here and then the snake is also like i said separates the mundane and the magical it represents the courage to question authority and seek truth and even when the truth is considered dangerous or forbidden so i just wanted to get into that but then there's one more thing about how the what this film does cover in witchcraft and that is the three irises so in the movie I was gonna ask about that yeah so in the movie Pat tells Susie secret and Iris and so Susie realizes there's something there so Susie makes it into Madame Blanc's office layer thing office yeah lounge oval office situation it kind of made me think of it in like Rosemary's Baby when she like discovers like the I had this movie in Rosemary's Baby There's so much crossover with that. I could do a whole podcast episode just on that. But she gets there and she's looking around because she's like, okay, there's got to be a secret door. And because there's something, this isn't the end. Like there's a place for me to go. So she's looking around because she's like, there's got to be a secret door. And she sees the three irises. And like I said, the number three is very magical. but it's it's an alchemical puzzle so there's three of them there's a yellow a blue and a red which those are very like you know primary colors and that's what we see a lot of those colors and green but green's not a primary color secondary but the blue one is the one that she turns that opens the door so the iris itself in greek mythology maybe not mythology in greek spirituality religion is the eye or the messenger and blue in the occult in witchcraft represents the third eye so the iris flower represents the third eye and turning the blue iris eye iris is opening her third eye to see the hidden world interesting okay so i i love the witchcraft in this i it's funny because witches and witchcraft doesn't even come into play until like halfway through the movie like if you've never seen this movie and you're like oh it's a movie about witches you're gonna be like what the fuck is happening until about halfway through and you're like oh yeah yeah um the other thing i find really interesting was the bat attack so yeah there's like one scene where it's towards the end and she's attacked by a bat where like in the office in the he gets rabies she didn't have dwight to rescue her so that's why she had to take care not that his rescue was like effective or good but oh my god i love it but yeah she's attacked by a bat in and the bat she's able to throw a blanket over and then crush it with a stool but the bat could be seen as the familiar of the witches okay meant to test suzy's resolve and see if she's got this final girl energy. And her crushing it is the switch flip that turns her from passive victim into someone who's capable of the violence that is required to survive. I don't know if you saw this too, but there was a lot of people that thought this movie was really misogynistic because there's a lot of women portrayed in a poor light and violence against women, violence against women. And then I saw something about people thinking it like glorified murder or something. I don't know. In that case, doesn't all horror. I was just going to say that. I was just going to say that. But the thing is, is Argento actually did not do himself any favors because he did an interview in 1983 where he like I like women especially beautiful ones And if they have a good fan and a good figure I would prefer to watch them being murdered rather than an ugly girl Oh I know Bro bro bro Those are inside thoughts What are you doing Did you say that out loud? But yeah. And, and you know, there's a lot of, this is almost entirely female there's a few men but yeah but like but in like there was also something that argento had said about him he felt like it could be viewed as a lesbian story um said so this was the quote i wasn't primarily interested in the theme of motherhood but rather in women's lives in fact if you want to give a deeper reading of the film it can be seen as a vaguely lesbian story where lesbianism has a certain importance or more precisely where the relationships between women are sometimes of a lesbian nature and are characterized by power struggles. There aren't any male characters to speak of in the film. All there is are power relations between women. Well, yeah, yeah. In this movie, by removing men from like those positions of power, other than, you know, Milius and the first psychiatrist guy, it's all about feminine power being the only currency. Well, and like the, so the few guys that we do see, one of them is blind one of them is mute so that's a factor yeah yeah yeah and then the other ones are just assholes like the taxi driver yeah yeah yeah so yeah i well i really don't like that quote that you know but okay i know great well so the end the ending here we get a final girl moment she eventually reaches helena's room and helena basically turns invisible and there's like this vague like sparkly outline and then sarah's body kind of zombifies up and starts to go at her this was cool because helena is like you're gonna meet death now like prepare and she's got the long black nails which i'm like all about because i paint my nails black i can't have long black nails it because I I dance but but then Sarah is like this is pretty cool because she looks so creepy she's got the like pins in her eyes and she looks all yeah like zombified yeah but Susie does makes the right call because she sticks the she kills the outline yeah she knocks over like this peacock figure which is a reference to like the bird with the crystal plumage that Argento directed so literally crystal plumage here and she uses the peacock feather to yeah stab the outline that she can like briefly see of marcos yeah i love it and then she uh she leaves and she leaves laughing that's the thing is she had that was weird that was somehow sally hardesty shit yeah as the school burns and you can hear the girls like screaming it's not she's not a traumatized in that moment she's not a traumatized final girl she does there's a lot of also parallels to texas chainsaw too she isn't she's relieved yeah but she is also like bested yeah the witches she is survived but also now all the girls are like being burned to death right because that sucks i mean they didn't do anything wrong that's yeah that's very true but so wild yeah and then yeah the movie just ends it does i swear to god this was a thing in the 70s where they're like anyway bam movie over here's some credits like there's no nowadays there's so much like wind down to movies and post credit scenes and post credit stuff and like there's like lead up to the credits starting where you kind of know when it's going to happen and in the 70s they were just like fuck you here's the credits get the fuck out of here get the fuck out take your popcorn and go yeah yeah did you like the ending I did like the ending it feels like the it kind it almost feels like the movie is building up to more but I it is a fun little scene I guess it's just she has that confrontation with Helena and it's very very quick you know she stabs her and then Helena dies and then that's it like that then movie over like everything is yeah it's chaos but she doesn't really get to confront the like other witches or anything who were just moments before plotting her demise and then she just kind of yeah leaves and then that's it um so yeah it feels a little sudden i think but it is a fun ending and i appreciate that she wins and she does have her final girl arc Yeah, she does have a little bit of an arc. That's true. A little bit. What do you think of the movie? I guess I never really asked you, like, did you like it? I do like it. Yeah, I'm really big on visuals in horror movies. I'm a really visual person. And so if something is very striking to the eyes, then I am usually on board. So I don't even necessarily mind that there's a lack of plot or acting. Yeah. Just yeah it's one of those vibe movies like we talked about where you just kind of feel the movie out as it happens and then it just kind of stops and I enjoyed the vibe. I like the kind of surrealist dreamlike quality of it. That's another one of the things that I really appreciate in horror when it happens. So and just kind of that element of not really knowing what you're gonna see next I almost I would have even appreciated if it had been taking taken further like and gotten really really crazy maybe the new one does I don't know I'm sure there were like budgetary reasons for what they did have but no I think it's a really good movie it's really cool to look at it it doesn't give you that feeling of I need to like dissect this and puzzle it out and whatever and so you know that's that's it is what it is but it's I saw a lot of people saying that they like to just kind of put this movie on in the background yeah listen to the the visuals and yeah I can I can see it from that perspective yeah yeah you were just saying that you would have liked to see it go crazy I actually think that's why I like it that it doesn't go crazy it's so it's so easily could have gone off the rails yeah that's true and it doesn't and I I like that it doesn't because I think it would have been you know it could have been a cool movie if it did kind of like the substance did but I like that it stays on the rails like it really does it guides you very loosely but it does guide you and then like you said it just ends and you're left kind of like whoa what did I just watch like like it's you don't have to dissect it you're like wow that was a vibe like that was yeah it's like listening to a really like interesting song or scene it's just a piece of art you know it's like it's it just seeps into your DNA and your cells it makes you go oh yeah I think there's a movie that I watched not that long ago that I know a lot of other people have watched and is very dreamlike as well called Mandy. Did you see it? I didn't but I know I know of it. Yeah so that one I would also consider that one a vibe movie. I mean it's much darker and there's some very disturbing stuff in it but that one is like yeah it's very surreal. It makes you feel a certain way while you're watching it it doesn't feel like you're watching something that is based in reality that one does go off the rails very very very very off the rails yeah and I mean I really enjoy I really enjoy that movie but yeah so I think in my mind that would be like if you took this movie and cranked it up to 11 but it's not thematically it's not similar at all has nothing to do with like well anyway I won't spoil anything so that's good that's good you enjoyed it it is definitely when you put on the background just those colors and the music it's just it's i it's so eerie the music is getting like it is going to give you a panic attack oh yeah it starts and it's really relentless it's not it's not like one of those kind of like creepy crawly scores undertone it's like it is melodic got the whispering yeah yeah it's so fun well what would you give suzy on our blood spatter badassery scale one one yeah she doesn't get covered in blood at all she has a nosebleed for like a second that's true that's just a one yeah yeah what was your survival tip i said if someone is i was really annoyed when sarah was like going to be killed and she was like she locked herself in that room and she could see that someone was like trying to pick the lock and she just like she just stayed there for like eight straight minutes and i'm like so my survival tip is if you see someone trying to pick the lock of the room that you're in try to prevent it if you just hold the latch or if you kick the fucking thing that they're trying to put through the door or like bend it or like whatever i just i think that was prevent preventable at that point so she was just like oh no oh scary oh there's someone trying to pick the lock put an end to it what was yours if you have questions about witchcraft don't go to men I mean you can go to some men but don't go to like those like academic old guys like there are there are men witches 100 there are non-binary witches that I adore but don't go to them don't go to like academic weird patriarchal dudes that's you won't you'll get very biased information there yeah that's fair find a real witch find a real witch yeah yeah also I will say what does he say he calls the black queen he says the famous black queen a powerful witch with a tremendous talent for doing evil a real mistress of magic and I was like now that is a title well and he said that like the reason she is becomes the head of the coven is because her power is like a hundredfold with the other witches are okay how do you measure that but I know right and again there's no in in witchcraft there's there's no hierarchy that's the thing I love about it it's all we're all equal yeah well we want to hear what you all think we want to hear if you also liked the colors and the creepy music if you've also played a bazooki or a hammer dulcimer we also want to hear like from DJs we also want to hear if you've been to a witchy dance academy tell me where it is immediately because I need to go. And yeah, we want to hear it all. You can reach out to us on social media. We're at final girls, the podcast on Instagram, final girls, podcast, and blue sky. You can find us at final dash girls.com. Sorry. I'm going to get real announcery with it. And you could also find our Patreon link there and, and please leave us a rating review. That would be wonderful. It will guarantee you access to the tan stand school. yep i'm sorry i think this is this is just like the movie where it's like podcast over bye bye i just like completely blanked on everything in my that's fine i think we covered suzy okay thank you for bringing us back on track okay yeah we fucking covered we're done i'm tired we're done bye okay no until the next showdown don't drink wine that is clearly blood oh i know gross yeah don't drink anything you don't really know what it is yeah especially if it makes you super woozy yeah yeah hard pass hard pass drink whatever you've poured yourself all right i'm kelly bye i'm stare i say spooky bye