[Music] pod welcome to the Dead Lights podcast I'm your host Sam and I'm your other host lesli and we're bringing you another episode this week awesome and we're also bringing you Zack hey what's up guys welcome back Zack thank you it's good to be back all season three season you're a you're a Mainstay in the in the deadlights space at this point even though the space changes the Zach doesn't change it does not so no he just gets haircuts I do get haircuts so I do change a little bit on the exte
rior slight changes enough enough also you didn't get the memo we both wearing green oh you match the set though that's true yeah well we got the green we got the red it's always Christmas around here ho ho ho [ __ ] ho ho ho ho um speaking of hoes what did we just watch there was a hose in that movie there's some hose in this house there's some hose in this house the devil all the time from 2020 directed by Antonio Campos written by Antonio Campos Paulo Campos and Donald Ray Pollock Sinister ch
aracters converge around a young man devoted to protecting those he loves in a post-war backwoods town teaming with corruption and brutality Yeah Boy very astute oh yeah there was a lot of brutality a lot of brutality it seemed like no one in this town can really Escape being bad nope everyone was bad it was in their bones because they were all related too that's also part of it too um so this is actually um one of like the most recent movie that we've watched so far in this podcast we've gotten
a lot of 70 movies so so it's kind of nice to come back and return to some more recent movies and see how they tackle the genre which you know be honest this isn't really horror no more on the Thriller kind of side dark I say dark it's dark it's a dark movie for sure um so it is a really good question as to like then what movies were putting into the bucket and what qualifies them to be in the podcast um and I would just want to say this movie is filled with death the theme is death so definite
ly death I mean I would say we're not getting super natural Horrors here we are definitely getting some human human Horrors MH what is the extent that man is willing to go to for X Factor and and the depravity of man we see displayed I would say in many different ways in this movie which is definitely its own type of horror yeah um so and actually this morning I brought it up to one of my friends that we were watching this and they said that's horror and I had never seen this movie so I really c
ouldn't say if it was or wasn't but now having watched it I understand why they had that reaction to it um but I will say that I think think it belongs within the dark Thriller kind of category we're going to be dealing with a lot of dark things here so I think it's perfectly fine for us to discuss this movie he came every morning and evening to talk to God it seemed to his son that his father fought the devil all the time all right cool well shall we get into it we shall let's open up the can e
xercise yes and this movie I would say kind of feels like a biography kind of movie um like a retelling of someone's life and it is a retelling of a uh young boy's life Arvin who's played by Tom Holland he's definitely the central character of this film and all the things that are happening in this room or in this room all the things that are happening in this movie uh are happening to him so he's definitely the central character and we also have a narrator uh going on through the whole time and
so to me it was giving very much kind of biography history of a family Vibe now if you ask most people where knam stiff Ohio C Creek West Virginia were they probably couldn't Point them out to you on a map something that was a big visual theme that they kept going back to we kept seeing all the time was nature MH a lot I mean this town that this guy grew up in is deep in the woods first of all it's rural very rural um but a lot of important things that happened to the characters in this movie h
appened in the woods whether they were good or bad a lot of green obviously that comes from just being in the forest but also a lot of light coming through trees a lot of shots of Lights coming through windows and because we're in a movie that's very heavily surrounding God and Christianity and the church AKA like the light of God a lot of heavy oranges a lot of yellows being cast on people's faces and shadows too where the light was being obscured by things yeah I love the imageries of the red
being implemented in those dark moments so we saw the Reds in the quote unquote horror room we saw it in the photography in the in the dark room and then the red of the cherry on the little kid's face that was supposed to on your face so good um yeah those moments really popped um and kind of going back to also this idea that this feels kind of ground it feels grounded in reality there was a lot of long takes too going on we saw that in the church a lot we saw that following behind people in the
forest and at least to me those long takes make you really feel like you're there it sets you in the scene it sets you in that moment makes you feel like one of the parishioners at the church makes you feel like you're along the ride with the serial killer sometimes in the back seat of their car and as the audience we're kind of Trapped in those moments that the filmmakers have decided to trap us in with those long takes and that kind of goes along with the theme too of like people are trapped
in these situations in religion in their beliefs in that kind of stuff and it really just makes it feel more real it makes it feel like we're there with these characters experiencing these things with those long drawn out takes and scenes these these filmmakers I really enjoyed I think every shot was intentional like it looked pretty um as well and the acting was well done lo my word people the spirit will take away your fears if you will these performances were very subtle and in a movie where
we're talking heavily about a person's history and also their trauma and how trauma comes out in different ways I think it could easily be overperformed but these people were professionals and they were they were great you know and Tom Hollands too although majority of his performance was just dead pan cuz he's holding a lot of anger in him um there was some subtleness and he's really good at portraying sadness in in a very angry way well even the big performers knew when to pull it back for the
right moments like the big preacher moments were obviously very over the toop and well well done but then Robert patson knew when to be just more like I don't really need to do much yeah the the creepiest part of Robert patson's character because we see he takes advantage of the young parishioners and then Tom Holland you know realizes that his sister is being taken advantage by by him and like you said he's a pretty he his character is one of the bigger characters that we see CU he's Prett pre
aching and doing these sermons and all this kind of stuff and even the Lord Jesus himself was presented with delusions in the desert that only through his faith and his strength overcame but then when he's confronted by Tom Holland um Arvin about the fact that he took advantage of his sister in that moment I was afraid that Arvin was going to start believing Robert patson's character because he was convincing I I didn't have nothing to do with that she came to me saying she she got that way from
some boy don't [ __ ] lie to me I ain't going to take the blame for no bastard child it would ruin me man can understand that can't you I was afraid that Arvin was going to start believing him because he was able to bring it in yeah and be so believable in those moments he's shrink shrunk down to like a coward of a man oh that shirt he was wearing though oh the puffy shirt I'm the pirate pirate I'm a pirate yeah I know he is um kill him kill that pirate yeah we were cheering on we were like Tom
hul in kill him kill him um yeah no and also I really appreciated the script um there's a lot of movies that I can't appreciate enough just because of the context and um to me it being a southern movie is not appealing to me um but something about this movie when it first came out I played it and I I quite enjoyed everything about it and I think it's because it's written well it's a well written and beautiful looking movie with great performances and I think the person with the most lines was t
he narrator Willard could feel it welling up inside him now the urge to get right with his maker before something bad happened to his family there wasn't that many dialogue scenes between characters it was mostly action between characters in the story which I appreciate much more because that's more true to real life to me are we good in the can yeah all right cool let's move on to the meat the meat of this movie um like we already mentioned very heavily religious movie has a lot pretty much eve
rything to do with religion um and kind of how people use religion for different things whether it's good or bad if we just pray hard enough the Lord can you anything you just ask him right okay now hold him tight I'm probably like you mean it this movie takes place at an interesting time coming out of World War II going into the Vietnam War people are desperate to find answers for the horribleness that is happening in the world people will turn anywhere to find answers and especially this time
I think religion was a easy thing to hang your hat on as far as like this is why the world is the way that it is it's all God's plan it's all God's plan we can use that to essentially place blame on the good and the bad this happened to me this good thing happened to me because of God this bad thing happened to me because of God as well and we see these different characters using God and religion to defer blame in a lot of different ways even in a way because I come from a very religious family
um it's also thought to be able to like fill the void in which we start feeling as adults um going about our our deadly lives um and the only thing that can fill that is Jesus Christ and and you know going to church will keep you from trouble um it gives people a sense of purpose especially those like arvin's Dad who had done some pretty terrible things because they're out there trying to protect themselves um and and having to do acts that like he's always going to have to live uh like survive
um didn't give him a [ __ ] right to kill his dog um but he is one that used religion to try to save his wife because that is what you know the pastors would say it's like you know just leaning to God and he'll be able to fix it but you know that only provides us a faith in which is not going to do much besides just give you quote unquote some peace to at the end we need your help and I know you can do it I know you can do it please Lord you want your mama to die no sir I'm right this is another
small example but arvin's mother there's the whole bit of um she's a great cook she's a really good cook everyone in the town always Praises her cooking but she says that it was God that gave her that ability so not only are people using it like to defer blame they're also using it to defer praise you know like everything that's good in my life we can think because of God yeah so there's always this falling back on religion all these characters are doing and then we have a character like Robert
Patterson's character who's falling back on religion to take advantage of people well he's just using religion to take advantage of people it's not even his excuse he's just found his easy way to to do it have you shown yourselves as the Lord major you're meaning my birthday suit to show yourself as the Lord made his first children is to truly turn yourself to him and then also we have the extreme example too of the serial killers which there's a point where they say that Carl who's the uh the
husband of the serial killer couple says that death is his true religion what Sandy didn't understand was that to his way of thinking this was the one true religion only in the presence of death could he feel the presence of something like God that is an example of how people can even uh explain away killing people to feel because I'm close to God he even said he has a line where he's like he was going to go get killed in Vietnam anyway we were putting him out of his misery so he's already uses
religion and uses God and uses death as an excuse for what he's doing which is just this very interesting voyerism yeah no he himself probably thought that he was God because in a way how can you not think that you are when you are literally putting someone's life in your hands that must feel so powerful in a very very I can't even I can't even fathom you know like how it feels to do that and like these people definitely have some chemical imbalances in their brain to want to get close to that o
f like needing to feel alive I guess something well also too there's this whole element of him they take pictures of the dead bodies and with the dead bodies to then possess these pictures one picture in his wallet of the the most symmetrical face he'd ever killed yeah and it was very important to him because at first he wanted ugly people because he found his wife to be the beauty and then that changed of then finding Attractive people to be able to I don't know I guess try to get close to that
symmetry to that Perfection it felt like he was trying to possess them especially with the pictures they have this whole dark room where they it's just developing pictures of them and she's looking at the pictures after the fact too there's this like possession of these people by killing them and then taking a picture of them you are taking you are kidnapping them you know you are holding on to their identity in your pocket and I think that that that kind of is going back to what you're saying
like he felt like God he felt like he was creating these images and therefore creating these Beautiful Moments and then possessing them and keeping it for himself and also one of the biggest conversations of this movie is every man that we came across in this film had murdered someone um so who was justified who killed for a good reason if murder is you know quote unquote the biggest sin that you can make who was justified cuz the preacher killed essentially Lenora I mean he told her to get rid
of the baby she got rid of herself cuz that also got rid of the baby so that's in his hands regardless of whether you know like he did it or not he caus that situation because he was having sex with a 16-year-old so she was younger than that I think she was 14 or 13 or something like that she had just started High School I think is what they said the other one but yes was it the second yeah but still like she's around that age 14 15 um but then like Tom Holland to protect himself and to protect
his sister I mean he didn't kill those boys but still like he did a lot of violence um the serial killers to capture some sort of Twisted Fantasy and creativeness um the [ __ ] Sheriff mayor like wanting to be mayor so then he's getting rid of corruption but he's like murdering people just leave off The Horn until after the election you understand don't act like you do nothing wrong crazy enough the ser killers are religious like we had the man singing gospel music and then um the girl asking be
forehand if the people that were about to kill were baptized because to her it was important that they were baptized to get rid of all the original sin um so then they could go to heaven um I mean I'm pretty sure that didn't stop them from killing those that weren't baptized but they just made them feel better yeah at least her yeah at least for her so yeah religion played a big role in all the other people that were murdering yet Arvin is the only one that's quote unquote I keep using quotes fo
r those that can't see my quotes um that uh had no beliefs and he was just trying to protect the people around him was just that there's bad people out there and if you can you should do something about it yeah just like his dad taught him there's a lot of no good sons of [ __ ] out there yeah well there's a lot of no good sons of [ __ ] out there my Lord Arvin you've been saying that almost since the day I met you so there's this big religious thing going on but also kind of going alongside of
that we're talking about a lot of trauma you know like obvious Willard's Trauma from war coming back is passed down into his son you know and we see kind of the effects of Willard kind of spiraling out of control into crucifying arvin's dog and then forcing Arvin to pre um in order to save his mom and then the ramifications of all those things I think that a nice part about this movie is that everyone gets their come upins you know this is very much a movie about like reaping what you sow everyo
ne who's done something bad does eventually pretty much get what's coming to them that was the theme last uh it was episode well the exact same thing of your your decisions affect what will happen in the future and that goes along with this idea of trauma you know the trauma that Arvin sustained as a child followed him his entire life and eventually led him to do the things that he did which kind of led to people's deaths and downfalls and destruction so this is definitely a movie about trauma a
s well and we have an interesting side bys side tract of religion and Trauma going on and how people put turn to religion because of trauma and also people's traumas than causing them to do terrible thing yeah it's a big religion causes more trauma which then turns you back to religion well it's to me regardless of whether you are using religion to heal you have to do it properly you have to coincide it with um with with good teachings and doing it purposeful um because you can also be a kind of
person that you know goes to therapy and is not healing because then you're just weaponizing what you're learning and then you're not healing so if I don't know just there I can see how religion as a person who isn't religious can be good for people and can benefit them but if you're using them to harm other people and stay in a place of of um what's the word I wanted to use of just being stagnant then it's not going to help regardless of whether the [ __ ] you pray every day or not um you have
to be a good person this the same can be said about trauma as well you know like using trauma trauma that you sustained sorry I didn't mean to laugh at that you're right I mean religion is trauma it's just it's just like trauma it's just like trauma well and that's what I'm saying like people can use trauma as an excuse to do terrible things or use trauma to learn more about yourself and grow as a person so I think that there's a great tie that this movie is making between religion and Trauma u
m and it's it's it is a criticism on religion but it almost is just using it as um a a metaphor for trauma maybe the Lord wants you to come out into the light I mean how can you be close to God stuck in there the Lord don't like dark places you can be a Lenora who goes to church and go visits your mom's grave how many times do she go in a week she went I thought she went every day that's what I thought too every day either every day or at you're victimizing yourself they went to church and then
she visited the grave so you know you can you can stay stagnant and visit your mom's grave every single day for eight years or so or you can be an Arvin push through beat up everyone else in your life and be a Survivor no those two are still terrible but I'll be an Arvin you know but like do you want to survive or do you not want to survive not seeing them murdering and beating up people is nice I'm not saying that but you know there has to be some kind of push to want to get better um and what
I do enjoy about this movie is at the end it's not necessarily saying that one is better than the other because yes Arvin is one of our only surviving characters but how they leave it is we don't necessarily know that the things that he's done aren't going to catch up with him right he kind of leaves it off to be like I'm just happy right now I'm happy that someone picked me up but all this stuff is still out there it's almost like he's found his God in being in just this moment right now I'm ri
ght now I'm happy right now I am in someone's car they were kind to me all my stuff is finished I'm not worried about my trauma anymore right now he needed sleep and just felt lucky someone was giving him a ride all right great well let's get to the Cook yeah actually cooked this thing um there was definitely I mean we've kind of talked about it already but um there's a couple motifs that they were playing with in this movie one was definitely the cross you know that was a big image in arvin's l
ife and also in Willard's life his father that's another example of him kind of passing down this trauma to his son um because we start the movie off with Willard witnessing one of his fellow soldiers being crucified on a cross by the Japanese during World War II he carries that back to the United States sets up his own uh crucifix in the forest that every time he sees it you know he's thinking about that moment Y and then that then passes down to Arvin who Associates the cross with his abusive
father his emotionally and physically abusive father so the cross while it is a like a religious symbol in this movie it feels like a symbol of trauma well of generational trauma I mean the cross is something that people Beed because Jesus Christ was killed on a cross and that was his father because of his father he he was brought to this planet knowing that he had to sacrifice himself to for the sins of others um so yeah and that was a form of torture of bearing your own cross that you were goi
ng to die on we saw the drawing of Jesus Christ carrying cross multiple times it was up in arvin's room he Jesus Christ carrying I mean that is that's it you know like that's exactly what this movie is talking about it's the duality of the Cross is the fact that it is a symbol of Good and Evil years ago Willard had fitted together a weathered cross above a Fallen Tree in a small clearing behind his house are you praying now now you praying now you hear me yes Lord save my mama Lord I really like
that this movie does span a couple Generations because we see we're with Willard for a good part of this movie and then we move on to being with Arvin for a good part of this movie I like that fact because it really does show how this generational trauma is passed down in a very effective way of the Father the sins of the father being passed down and we see the father having their having his child and the child growing up and we see the effects of all the decisions of his father then affecting
him it's a great I I like the cook of this movie because they do a very good job of letting us spend time with all these characters to understand how their decisions affect other people and especially their children MH um I think that that's a very good thing that they do another symbol that we have going on and traveling through time is the gun cheze off's gun checkov gun just learned that today it's the first thing that uh Willard presents to his uncle that then is passed to him which is then
passed to Arvin and then Arvin ultimately uses this gun to cause destruction some people were born just so they could be buried oh God that line is heavy heavy heavy especially for a nine-year-old yeah yeah o imagine imagine if that was how you got started well it's interesting too that the sheriff who delivered that line was delivering it to the person that ultimately killed him oh [ __ ] yeah and also the gun that caused all of the trauma to begin with in this family is the one that ended the
trauma for the family as well mhm look at all that look at these circles that we're creating look at these circles um and I think too that there was this symbolism too at the end of Arvin returning to his home where all this trauma started and for the most part it the dog you know the the death and the sacrifice of the dog was a big point of trauma for Arvin for him to then to return turn to the place where it all started and then to bury the dog give him his Proper Burial it yeah it was a very
much a closure moment I felt like for him yeah um all right well let's get to the thrill of this thing the scaryy part um and man is looking pretty scary in this movie man is looking very very scary people are using religion for an excuse of all sorts of things um the way you delivered that that was funny like a sermon man is scary a man a man man is scary what what was the word that Robert patteron said when he was uh preaching Deliverance delusions and what the Lord experienced was a delusion
that would have kept him from saving us delusion delusions delusions that that that little part of his speech is great his monologue yeah well and that kind of goes back to his character because he's CS in all these different delusions of people and if something goes wrong he's going to blame it on delusions and that's again I mean that's part of what we're talking about you know it's like he will use religion and he will use his power as a preacher to get what he wants that's what all these peo
ple are doing you know like um what do we do for religion what do we do to find inner peace um and you know you know we see that with the dog you know the the dog is used as a sacrifice to find to find peace this here it's my boy's dog we loved him you take him bring him back you save Charlotte kind of going within the title of the movie um they do say it pretty much like from the top of the movie that people find fault in the devil all the time and that line is talking about how people can blam
e the devil religion their God their beliefs on all the bad things that they have happened to them and all the bad things that they do instead of properly dealing with it and accepting it as their own fault and their own traumas yeah which then kind of opens the door up to like why don't you just do anything you can get away with anything if you just blame the devil for it it wasn't nothing but another model I told you I don't like this anymore ain't it there if I hate the way some of them cry w
ell not that you'd appreciate it but tears make for a good photograph you can't just commit crimes and sins whatever you want to call it and go to a little dark room with some freaking what's his face in Catholicism father a father to get rid of them it doesn't work that way you have to own up take responsibility so then that way you can start the actual process of healing and never do it again God damn it that's the goal you can't just keep committing it and then being like Oh so sorry Father c
an you forgive me thank you it's been 2 hours since my last confession there's a big day today no it is a big day you're right though it's it a lot of people use it as a crutch instead of as a tool it should be a tool more than anything yeah use it as as a way to give yourself lessons and rules on how to be a good person don't use it as an excuse to do bad things or an excuse to do good things or a reason for the bad things that happen you stabbed your wife in the neck with a screwdriver tried t
o bring her back from the dead and then buried her body that ain't an accident Ro that sounds like a crazy person who killed his wife all right let's get to the ride let's get to the uh the final ride how how entertaining we felt this movie was I was entertained the whole time I was too this was I mean one of the longer movies that we've watched so far it was long um but I felt like it was very driving you know we're seeing the history of a family kind of play out and they set up a lot of things
a lot of different storylines in this movie movie and I think us as the audience were're trying to figure out like you said Zack like how are these things going to cross over and eventually they do all cross paths but I think that the movie uses that to our advant to their advantage of like keeping us in there like oh man like when are these people going to cross who's going to meet up with each other who's gonna get their comeuppence and who's it g to deliver the final blows I was trying to fi
gure out that the whole time how and why so many people from those two ping places on that map could end up connected has a lot to do with our story some would claim it was just dumb luck While others might swear it was God's intention but I'd say with the way things turned out it was a little bit of both when I first saw this it was a lot of information at first I was like okay what am I seeing cuz then also it was long and you can feel it but it wasn't boring because you were being fed really
great lines really great performances everything looked really good good pacing good pacing um but it is a little bit longer but um I I enjoyed it I enjoyed it my second run we didn't feel the run time I mean unfortunately we've had movies in this season already that are much shorter than this but we have felt the run time so it is a testament to the entertainment factor of this movie that we didn't feel bored for a movie that was even longer than some of the other movies we've watched um yeah i
t really it really kept it kept me in there and I really enjoy it really I I I like the devil all the time it kept me entertained all the time all the time uh the devil all the time from 2020 wow all right let's get these smash pumpkin ratings real quick let's see what we got uh Zach do you have a a number for us do you have a smash pumpkin I think so okay what do you got I feel bad about saying my score because I feel like every movie that I've seen with you guys I've been blessed to see some r
eally good movies and I always score it pretty high I'm going to give it a 4.7 I don't like to give it a perfect score uh great acting great pacing really good ideas with the with the whole trauma versus religion and how they play off of each other and the way it makes you think about what the title of the movie means whether it's like we're all blaming the devil all the time or we're all burdened by our belief systems and that's the devil inside of all of us and I think it really does a good jo
b of portraying all of that and the performances were amazing so amen amen hallelujah to that yes Hallelujah to Robert Patterson thanks Robbie thank you Daddy um I I have a number go for it I was going to give it a 4.5 yeah um don't know where that 0 five got lost but I can't truly give it a five just in my own criteria um but I think is as as good as it's going to get and so you like like you mentioned so far these movies that we've seen have been rough uh so to see something as new as this and
it being successful has been uh quite pleasing uh for I'm giving it a score for the same things that Zach said I think the performances had a major major major plus um in this but to me it's just how beautiful it looked and and I really enjoyed the shots uh that we've experienced in this movie yeah I agree I think that it's hard to find a fault for this movie I think that I'm also going to give it a 4.5 and the 0 five away is only because it wasn't that scary you know it we saw scary things for
sure we saw scary people um you know and their motives were scary but all in all it wasn't a very scary movie so as far as like in the thrill category I kind of just have to give it off for that but you're right everything else about this movie really works it's the writing is great the performances of the script are fantastic and the themes really just go right through the whole thing and really create this good picture of the themes that this uh that these filmmakers are trying to portray um
I think it was great I really I really do think it was great um the devil all the time the devil all the time nice go see it check it out for yourself why don't we check out what we're watching next week and Zach is that my turn yes you get to my part what all right reaching there we got a lot in there we do how many do we have now it's got to be close to 400 no not there's so many in here no there's a lot can I are adopting your idea for when we don't know what to watch oh perfect all right so
as always read the log line first and then we'll try to guess what uh what we got coming okay interesting oh a young man's mother is bitten by a Sumatran rat monkey she gets sick and dies at which time she comes back to life killing and eating dogs nurses friends and neighbors oh no are we going to watch Dead Alive yes I didn't know Peter Jackson Peter Jackson horror movies yeah it's his first movie that's awesome Peter Jack who's Peter Jackson he directed The Lord the Rings oh and The Hobbit bu
t we don't need to talk don't talk about we don't talk about The Hobbit here but yeah wow this is Peter Jackson's directorial debut as far as feature films goes so this will be an interesting one o very fun very fun looks look like a fun one I've never seen it I've never seen it either cool so awesome thank you Zach foring it thank you I always love being here please tell us what you got going on uh we were talking before you got some music stuff going on right I do uh I have a lot of music that
I've been releasing over the last couple months um over the course of my entire life that I've been remixing and re remastering and all that stuff uh also putting out some new stuff hopefully in the next month or two almost done mixing that stuff and then I've got another album that a buddy in mine uh recorded a couple months ago we're going to put that out put some music videos out we made made a documentary about the whole process as well and you can find all of that on my Instagram unor stup
id period fingers has a link to all my music there and yeah also DM me if you need any mixing work for any music or audio needs as well hell yeah exciting um please visit his stuff it's really fun and it's really good thank you if you like brother o it's like that you know the highest praise yes I I I think it's fun anywh who uh you can follow me on color me lesle and you can follow me at BB brid T you can call us at 773 669 6677 what yeah call we have a phone number for y'all to like send us fr
eaking stories so you can be on the Pod and send us suggestions of movies anything you want anything we uh we might feature your message in the show so please give us a call like like a very lowkey might low if we get enough so call please um you can also follow us at the deadlights Pod um but until next time let's get spooky I want to commit crimes now
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