In this disturbing episode, our hosts navigate the secrets and supernatural themes of the 2009 Japanese horror film Occult. Exploring the film's enigmatic narrative and its impact on the horror genre, our hosts open all the mystery boxes and spoil the mysterious elements that make Occult a standout in the realm of J-horror. If you thought Pulse was thought-provoking, then this movie is not to be missed. Stick around to the end of the episode for an interesting discussion of Japan's Cyber Homeless.
In this disturbing episode, our hosts navigate the secrets and supernatural themes of the 2009 Japanese horror film Occult. Exploring the film's enigmatic narrative and its impact on the horror genre, our hosts open all the mystery boxes and spoil the mysterious elements that make Occult a standout in the realm of J-horror. If you thought Pulse was thought-provoking, then this movie is not to be missed. Stick around to the end of the episode for an interesting discussion of Japan's Cyber Homeless.
Welcome to Don't Encourage Us, the show where we talk about the big ideas behind fiction projects of all different kinds. Books, movies, TV shows, video games, nothing's off limits. I'm your host, Bob McKenzie, and I'm here with my brother, Doug.
How's it going, eh?
Not doing great, eh?
So today we're gonna discuss the 2009 Japanese horror film, Occult. But first, what's been on your list this week?
I started watching season two of Rings of Power.
Ooh, is that out? It's out. I didn't realize it.
Okay.
Yeah. No, I'm sorry. Not Rings of Power.
I made a mistake. They're Wheel of Time. They're so similar.
I think Wheel of Time wishes it was Rings of Power, but yeah, how's it going?
I think you're right.
It's pretty slow going. It's... There are a lot of different characters.
There's a lot of talk about magical concepts and in places that you know nothing about without a lot of context. And it's a little convoluted. I guess it's a book series by Robert Jordan, so they need to squeeze a lot in to the seasons.
And I think they're squeezing too much in because there's so much exposition in those first two episodes. I don't know, I might give it a chance, but I might just stop it at some point if it doesn't pick up a little more.
There's a lot of characters sitting around campfires discussing the old days of magic versus now, etc. It's just getting a little boring.
Yeah, that's unfortunate. Otherwise, is it good or anything about it that you particularly like?
I mean, I think the acting is really good. I think Rosamund Pike is a really great actress. So whenever her scenes come on, they're a lot more interesting, I think, than some of the other characters.
Though the other characters are really good as well, but I think she has a really good charisma to be the leading character of the series. But maybe it will pick up. The first season seemed to be similar.
I watched the first season, and I actually enjoyed it by the end, but it took a while to get, to really understand what was going on, you know, where things really started coming together. That could be the case with this one too.
Maybe it's something worth giving a chance.
Yeah, that's good. Well, I hope so because I think a lot of people started it in season one and then bailed on it. That was sort of the internet chatter that I saw.
So it's good to hear that season one kind of pulled out, pulled out of a dive, and it was pretty good. So hopefully season two, they learned some lessons.
Maybe they're just laying some groundwork now, and then they'll get to even higher levels by the end of this season. It's also nice to see that Amazon didn't cancel it because that's been the trend lately.
Luckily, a couple of these streaming services have deep, deep pockets because that's not how they make their money.
So Amazon, I guess, can afford to invest in two or more seasons of something and see if it gets to the point where it gets good, whereas a lot of these other services, these other companies can't really afford that. So I think, what is it?
Apple and Amazon are really the only two that have, you know, for them, streaming is just like a little tiny scribble on their balance sheet, right? It's not really much to them. So, yeah, so I guess Wheel of Time benefited from that.
They really didn't promote Wheel of Time season two very much at all.
I kind of stumbled on it. It's something I previously watched, which is probably a good indicator that they're not putting that much behind it, like they were around season one.
Sure.
I'm really looking forward to Outlaws. Have you seen that series? Stephen Merchant.
It's a comedy.
Oh, no way.
Yeah, they're on, I believe, season, what is it, season three or four now.
Really?
And yeah, it's really well done. It's about a community service group in England.
Oh, I have heard of this. Yes. Okay.
Christopher Walken is in it.
The cast is great, the chemistry between the cast, and they find a bunch of money, and that causes all types of hilarious scenarios. Like it's really, really good. They got, they really did a great job of it, and they just keep renewing it.
So I think it was a big hit, hit for for Amazon. I think it was originally a BBC thing, but then it ended up on Prime.
So I guess they might have bought it out and refinanced it, but it's definitely worth taking a look at, because he's just so talented, like such a great writer.
Yeah, he's so great, like so funny, all his stuff. I've been disappointed every time one of his shows has been canceled. It just blows my mind, because he's got so much charisma, he's so funny, he's got great timing.
He really elevates the performances of actors around him and actually makes them seem funny too. Just really great stuff.
What's that show called? Hello Ladies, I think?
Yes.
Or He's a Single Guy in LA. That was amazing.
That was such a good show. I can't believe that guy canceled.
I know, it's really sad, because it's really high quality. Well, I'm glad that The Outlaws is a thing now. Because it's great.
You could binge watch that show, no problem.
Yeah, that happens a lot, like when you think an actor is particularly good, or someone was very good in a series or in a movie, and then you don't hear anything from them for a while, and then you realize, oh no, they've been acting.
They're on season seven of some show that you don't watch. But that's been great for them. Was it Burt Reynolds?
No. Tom Selleck. Tom Selleck's been on Blue Bloods for like 15 years or something.
He's doing quite well.
And no one has any idea.
Nobody on America's Coasts has any idea what happened.
There's a lot of shows like that, right? Like that NCIS show. Wasn't that one of the shows that's been on for like 30 years, but no one really ever talks about it?
Yeah.
I guess it's, but it's a hit.
Absolutely.
It's the same thing. It's what is it? What's that actor from Quantum Leap?
Scott Bakula.
Scott Bakula.
Thank you. And I love doing the show with you. Your brain faster than Wikipedia.
Completely useless information.
I would ask you what year he was born and graduated from college, but I don't want to lose the listener's time.
So you hold on to those facts. So yeah, he's been on NCIS. I don't know which one, like NCIS Toronto or whatever it is.
He has? Yeah, for years.
When you said Quantum Leap, I just thought to myself, huh, he stopped acting after Quantum Leap. That's a shame because he's pretty good. I hope Scott Bakula, I'm sorry if you're listening to this right now.
We just had no idea.
And I'm sure he is listening. So it's a very sincere apology, Scott. I want to apologize for my co-host over there.
Yeah, no. So he did Star Trek Enterprise for, I want to say, five or so years and then moved on to the more successful NCIS. I don't quote me on that.
It's one of those crime dramas, but he's been doing it for a while.
He'll let us know in the comments is Scottie B Quantum NCIS.
Just text me back, man.
Come on now.
Well, speaking of Amazon, I just finished season one of The Terminal List. Have you heard about this? Have you seen this?
Yeah, with Chris Pratt.
Chris Pratt, yeah.
So I just picked it up out of curiosity. It looked like Chris Pratt doing a TV show for Amazon. I figure, hey, it's probably pretty well written.
Otherwise, why would Chris Pratt's agents or handlers allow him to do this? But I hadn't really gotten a lot of press, at least not in my circles or the parts of the Internet, the dark web where I go. But it was really, really good, like really good.
Like I watched Reacher. We talked about that a while ago. It's very similar.
It is even better than that. It's spectacular. Yeah.
I was thinking about checking it out, but I heard that it was a novel.
So I was thinking about reading the novel.
It's a book series.
Before I got into that.
Yeah. Written by Navy Seal or former Navy Seal Jack Carr.
It's right up my alley. I really, as listeners now, I'm a big fan of those spy, like special forces, CIA thriller books.
The season one of the series is spectacular. It is so, so well done. He's kind of a punisher slash MacBowlin type.
And I'm not going to spoil anything because you probably are going to read the series. But if you read any of the books, come back and talk about it. Because I thought this was going to be fine.
I was like, yeah, whatever. You know, just something to watch. I'll check it out.
I like Chris Pratt. And the first episode, I was like, yeah, it's fine. Whatever.
It's just kind of typical military culture stuff. Like nothing really amazing. It was well done, but didn't grab me.
But I think it was about halfway through the second episode or maybe towards the end. I was like, you know, now I'm kind of interested. And then the third one, I was like, whoa, okay.
And it just kept picking up interest, like intensity for me.
And so I was watching the next episode sooner and doing longer spurts of watching and more and more and more, and all the way up to the very end, it just continued just in this upward trajectory.
So yeah, you might have to give it a little bit of time if you decide to watch the series in order to let it hook you, but it's worth it. It's worth the investment. It's really, really good.
So I loved it.
Yeah, yeah, I'll check it out. I'll probably start with a novel just because I really love reading those types of books, and then I'll check out the series and see how it compares.
Well, yeah, and then if you like the novel, maybe you can read the second one, the third one, fourth one, I think there's five or six of them, and come back and report on that a little bit.
I will. Have you checked out the Greyman series?
Yeah, no, I need to watch that on Netflix or read the first book. Listen at three times the speed or whatever.
Highly suggest reading it. I've seen the movie and read the books at this point. I think I'm on book 10 of the series or something.
I love them. They're really great. That and those Daniel Silva books.
Yeah, big fan.
You're like Johnny Mnemonic over there, just like jacking into the audiobooks, like downloaded. It's like Kiano from The Matrix. I know The Gray Man.
Downloaded.
Downloaded.
Next.
Oh, this one says The Gray Man series and Kung Fu.
So I learned all my random facts.
It's totally useless, but yeah.
That explains so much if you have a data port in the back here ahead.
Downloading nonsense. Nothing that can be used for good. Just like random.
Scott Bakula facts.
I'm waiting for that Jeopardy category.
Celebrity birthdates.
Scott Bakula. Popery.
Gray Man Book 4.
Smart Cuts. Alex, I'll take Smart Cuts for 200.
Useless Facts for a thousand. Double or nothing.
All right. So should we talk about this fabulous film that I'm sure you loved, Occult?
Let's get into it. J-Horror. Yeah.
Back to the J-Horror.
So this came out in 2009. It was written and directed by Koji Shirashi. Shirashi.
What do you think? Is that close?
Sure.
Okay. It's the horror's Koen Kondo as Shohei Ino. I'm butchering these names.
It's so proud. I'm so proud of that. Koji Shirashi plays himself in this movie.
Did you notice that? Were you able to pick that out? That the director, the writer, was playing himself in this movie?
Did that come through?
Yeah, it actually did.
Okay, good. So I think he was trying to add to the realism, and I don't know what level of celebrity he has, but he was essentially playing a version of himself, and we'll talk about why.
But I didn't pick up on that initially, and he's not, I don't think he was the center of the focus that much. So he was intentionally a little bit off screen some of the time, but yeah.
I picked up on it during one of the subtitles where it kind of, like the actual title card, not the subtitles, where I was like, oh, wait a minute, it's the director now. We're kind of shifting focus for a second. But yeah.
Good catch.
So kind of a clever idea there. You make a found footage mockumentary, and you put yourself in it because you're presumably a known director. So it would make sense.
And it's in a genre consistent with films you've made before, in this case, sort of sci fi supernatural. So then why wouldn't he be interested in doing a documentary about something like that? So kind of cool.
I could not find anything on the budget for this one. It's definitely a micro budget film. Did you find anything on earnings or budget?
I didn't.
I looked because I was curious to see if it was one of, like, a Blair Witch type of situation made for $1,000, made $200 million, you know?
Right.
But I didn't see anything.
No, I don't think it reached that level of success. And I think Pulse is kind of a good touch tone for this one, the original Japanese version that we talked about before in a previous episode.
So I think it was probably cheaper to make even than that. But I don't think it reached the level of acclaim. A good question people often ask is, how did I find this movie?
You've asked me that before. And this one popped up on one of those lists of films, kind of like One Cut of the Dead, which we talked about a while ago. Great, great film, by the way.
Go watch that. But this popped up on one of those lists, and the person who reviewed it said, look, it's not as good as some of these other films, but it's interesting. And it's got some really great elements to it.
So I think that's sort of indicative of the fan base. Like, I think some people really, really love this movie because they respond positively to what the director was trying to do in part, right?
And I think other people probably really don't like this movie because the reviews were sort of mixed bag, right? And I can understand why. Like, parts of it work very well and parts of it don't.
Did you have any thoughts about that?
I just want to make a comment overall. Even if I don't really love this genre of movie, this kind of found footage genre, I think one of the really positives about it is that it makes filmmaking seem very accessible to the average person.
Yes.
And that I can really appreciate. So while I'm watching it, I think to myself, well, this is something I could make, and maybe I could make it better without having like a huge amount of resources.
So there's a lot of creativity that goes into making a movie like this. Even if I think there are problems with the plot or I don't like certain aspects of it, that's, you know, I really enjoy that part.
Yeah, absolutely. That's really well put because I had the same reaction throughout, and it kept me engaged even during parts that otherwise might not have. So really enjoyable.
And if you're at all interested in making a film or what it would be like to make a film and thinking about how people have done that, this is an excellent movie to watch for sure.
It just makes you feel as if it's something you can do. It's something you get a bunch of friends together, put a storyline together and just get to work and have something tangible.
Yeah, absolutely. It's almost surprising more people don't do that because the equipment available now is generations better and easier to manage at every stage of production than even in 2009.
Absolutely.
All right. So this is a mockumentary horror film about an investigation into a public stabbing spree that reveals a larger supernatural mystery. Anything you would change or tweak about that description?
No, I think that's overall.
I think that's a good one because there's no spoilers there for sure.
Yeah, definitely. And I think that's important because enjoying this movie really hinges on not being spoiled. That's not true.
I guess you could enjoy it from the perspective you are articulating as interest in how someone can make a movie without millions of dollars, regardless if you know what's going to happen or what is happening.
But if you're going to enjoy the story part of it, I do think it's really important that you not be spoiled.
So if you're interested in this film, this is a great place to pause the episode, delete it, throw your phone into the ocean, go watch a cult, never come back.
But if you want to hear what a couple of idiots say about it, you can circle back and get your phone out, dry it out, and listen to the rest of the episode. So that being said, I can't wait to hear your short spoiler-free summary.
What you got for me?
There's some footage that you see in the beginning of these people who are on a bridge. They're just having a good time. They're visiting this really beautiful area near the ocean, near the coastline, and suddenly there's a stabbing on the bridge.
So three people get stabbed on this bridge. Panic ensues, the killer ends up jumping off a rock, disappears. Don't see anything after that.
Then you realize what you're watching is a documentary about the events that actually occurred. So as the movie goes forward, you start understanding what's happening a lot more clearly.
They start interviewing people who knew the people on the bridge, and then the story takes a turn and starts focusing on someone who was stabbed but not killed.
And you realize that this person actually had a carving put onto their back by the killer. So the mystery becomes, why did this happen? Who is this person?
And why were they not stabbed to death? So the producers of the movie start working with this person, trying to investigate what might be happening in terms of, you know, where is this killer from?
And they learn that he had a birthmark that had the same symbol that he carved into the back of this person's back. And little by little, you start seeing just really odd things about the guy who was stabbed but not killed.
And it turns out that he's claiming that he makes no money, he sleeps in an internet cafe, he feels like there's some mission that he has to go on, but you're not quite sure if this guy's completely insane or what's happening.
And as the movie goes on, they start uncovering the fact that these symbols are a lot more significant than you might think. And there's supernatural phenomenon that's occurring that this guy claims to have seen.
So the filmmakers give him a camera in order to record this phenomenon because they don't really believe him in the first place. In exchange for that, he gets to stay in the producer's office.
And I don't want to ruin the end, but basically you start realizing that he may be telling the truth and that he's not just completely insane after all.
Yeah, that's good. So in a nutshell, the director plays himself as a filmmaker who's making a documentary about a stabbing at a vacation resort that had some weird mysteries to it.
And just like the TV show Lost, their investigation reveals more and more mysteries and coincidences, and they capture some odd phenomenon on film at times, and it kind of keeps them going.
And then the investigation itself kind of goes off the rails, and then it all leads to a stunning conclusion.
So one of the things I really liked about this film was that you didn't really know, at least for about the first hour, hour and 10 minutes, you didn't know if it was aliens, kind of science fiction stuff because they do bring that in.
You didn't know if it was like magic or mysticism or something like that. So I really loved that I had no idea which way it was going to go.
Like I kept thinking like, okay, so the aliens came and got the first guy who stabbed people on the bridge, and that's why they never found his body.
So that's what they picked up in the background on the film, but it was kind of hard to tell what that was, and I wasn't sure.
And then later, when like the rapper, there's a scene where they're eating, and this rapper flies off a table a couple times, and there were similar things of like, or similar instances of things like sort of getting knocked over or flying a short
distance. And I was like, okay, so it's like psychic phenomenon. They're going to go with like, these people have psychic powers, but then that doesn't really fit. So how does that work?
And then there was the whole like talk about a god, you know, the like offspring of two gods and how that didn't have limbs. So they called him the leech child. So I was like, whoa, so we're going with more of a spiritual mysticism kind of thing.
So I really enjoyed that back and forth. It was really fun and to not know the genre. Did you pick up on that at all?
I really like the fact that it like confused me.
I didn't really know what was going on. Like you said, that it was the mysticism part, that they mentioned UFOs. But really early on, I really believed what this guy was saying.
They put you in a position where you're supposed to be in the, you know, in the shoes of the producers, not really believing.
But I believe from the get go, like there's something else that's going on here that's much bigger than than what they're saying, even though that actor was great playing someone who's completely unhinged. And I really enjoyed that.
He is famous.
Is he?
Yep, Koen Kondo, or Koen Kondo. He's a very popular Japanese actor now, and he is very good in this film. Absolutely.
Yeah, he really, really kept you guessing.
That's why I really enjoy this movie much more than Pulsed. It really, there are a lot of really good, good twists in this one that kind of drove the plot forward.
Yeah.
Even though, like I mentioned before, I'm not a big fan of this kind of found footage style.
I think in this case, it worked, because it kept you guessing between the UFOs, the mysticism, the idea that there's this god who's kind of commanding all these things to happen. One thing I didn't really understand was the reason why.
Did they really jump into why this god might be forcing them to do it? It was almost like he was just wanted these people to do it, to kill people on its behalf, you know?
So yeah, we can skip to the end for a second. I think, I guess that's a good time to do that. Actually, let's hold off on that.
I want to talk about the ending, but let's talk about a couple other things first. We'll circle back and I'll try to answer that question the best I can.
So in addition to not knowing the genre of the film and the little mysteries that they plant throughout, like the nature of the scar and the relationship between some of the dreams and other experiences that characters had, I thought that was a lot
of fun. But I also really liked the introduction of the character you were just talking about. I'm going to call him Eno. I think that's his last name.
They call him Eno-san or something like that through a lot of the film. And that actor, like you said, is really, really good. And he plays a character who is both sort of pitiful, but also a little bit ominous.
And it's really interesting how I think somewhat some of this is cultural and some of this is just human. It's like universal. But he sort of plays on your sympathy.
And you find yourself or the characters in the film find themselves crossing boundaries a little bit, like taking risks because they feel sorry for him. But also because they're motivated by their own greed to get the footage they want.
Like they want images of these miracles that he talks about that he experiences all the time. And they don't want to follow him 24 seven. So this idea that like, you know, we'll pay him to carry the camera.
And then he's like, well, so can I stay in your office then since I'm basically homeless? Like, you know, since you're paying me anyway, and that'll make it much easier for me to capture these miracles. And I'll do a very good job.
And then, you know, it's almost like he's sort of tricking them, but not really, because it's a reasonable request if you're in a bad position. And I watched them, the characters debate, letting him do that.
And I was like, this feels like a very significant turning point in the film. You know, previously, the film was very much about interviewing different people, and the filmmakers had that insulation.
Like, they were safe, because even though the people they were interviewing were going through scary, weird things, the people filming were removed. But then, that's the point where I think it crossed that line, and it felt like they were vulnerable.
They have this guy staying in their office there. They're tied to him. Like, he's ingratiating himself.
That's an interesting point, because that's basically the the stance that the female producer had taken in all of this.
That she was very disconnected from who she was interviewing, and this ominous character, you know, he calls her out on that. Which I found a very fascinating thing to do in the movie.
It was almost like this is the person that could be a threat to him, because she's so disconnected. He can't pull her into his orbit. It was very frustrating for him.
But it was almost like he could manipulate the other two, even though he doesn't end up manipulating them in the way that you think he might. But that was a great scene, because she was sitting around a table.
So just to set the scene up, she's sitting around a table, and they're drinking beers or whatever, and she's kind of off on her own, not talking to anyone. And this Eno character confronts her about it. Why are you so disconnected from us?
You disconnect yourself from characters that you're interviewing as well. You're emotionless.
That's why you don't have a boyfriend, et cetera, to see if he can kind of lure her into or what I think he's trying to do, really kind of get her into the circle with the rest of them. And she decides to leave early. She just goes home.
She's not playing that game with him. And I like that.
Yeah. Yeah, it was a big turning point in the film because prior to that, it was lost. It was just pieces of a puzzle you're trying to assemble.
And then the film really settles on what it'll be for the rest of it, which is a much tighter character exploration of the relationships. And that scene, that moment in that scene was a bit odd to me.
At first, it seemed almost random, but I realized exactly what you're saying as time went on, that she was a threat, essentially, because he could not manipulate her like he could. She wasn't as vulnerable to him.
But how does that fit into his motivations? Who is he really? Is he a victim?
Is he a perpetrator? That mystery continues on until very, very far into the film. So interesting, really good stuff.
Do you think that it made a lot of sense, the way that the kind of secondary character, the producer kind of fell into the role of a collaborator?
Up until the very end, I thought he might be sabotaging the mission, which is a good thing on behalf of the film to make me think that. Yeah, they did a really good job.
So pretty late in the film, it comes out that Eno does have a plan, and he is up to no good. And this one of the filmmakers gets involved. He's been sort of pulled into Eno's orbit, as you've said, but he's not insane.
So he wants to stop this plan.
Then he has a supernatural experience, which he catches on camera, which then makes him doubt his decision and makes him go along with the plan, but it's really not clear if he's planning to sabotage it and try to stop Eno, or if he really is now
like a true believer, basically. Is that what you're talking about?
Yeah, I thought he became a true believer a little bit too abruptly.
I agree with that. I think it was supposed to be this very transformative moment with the supernatural, but partly because of the special effects and partly because it was relatively short.
And they had already been exposed to some of these weird occurrences. For him to do such a 180 seemed a little extreme, but he did remain unsure. Like he makes a lot of comments throughout about like, well, we don't have to do it today.
We can do it tomorrow. We can go here. We can do this instead.
Like, maybe we don't have time. You know, so he's both hesitant and engaged or... I suppose he's just supposed to be a weak character.
I don't know. That could have used a little tweaking.
Yeah, because the severity of what, you know, is going to do is so extreme. The plan.
Especially in Japanese culture. Yeah.
Yeah. So, yeah. So in terms of J-Horror in general, what do you know about that genre, from what I've read about it, it's that it's very cultural, and it's very specific to Japan and the way they view ghosts in the afterlife.
Is there anything else that you've read that would be tied into what we saw?
Yeah. A couple of things. Number one, did you catch Kiyoshi Kurosawa in this film?
That was a surprise. Yeah, that was a surprise for me.
So the symbologist for the audience who may or may not watch this film, there's a point in the movie where the filmmakers are interested in trying to interpret symbols that they find in multiple places.
So they find the same or similar collections of symbols. The first place they find it is it was carved into Eno's back by the original perpetrator, the stabber on the bridge.
So when he caught up with Eno, who was a stranger to him at the time on the bridge, he knocked him down and he carved symbols into his back, but didn't kill him.
Then later, those symbols appear as a birthmark on the or a version of them were a birthmark on the stabber, the guy who carved them. And then there were they pop up on a rock on top of a mountain.
So the crew confused by this, they go to an expert on symbols of the occult and supernatural. And that is actually Kiyoshi Kurosawa, director of Pulse playing himself.
And they explain that even, you know, he's a famous director and he makes these great movies, but he's gotten interested in symbology. So he studied it on his own.
They go to his like director's office and he's got a stack of symbology books and he does a nice little whiteboard explanation of what these symbols might mean and tries to interpret them. That's the director of Pulse.
So presumably the J-Harr community is, you know, fairly tight knit or connected to each other, at least a low budget version of that. So that was really fun. I had no idea.
I was like, that's the director of Pulse. What do you know?
That's really interesting.
All that time we put into that movie, that very long, very long discussion that we had about it, starting to pay off. So that was a really fun treat.
Yeah. Full circle.
Yeah, exactly. So there are a lot of similar elements, and I think there's a lot of similar interest from the directors in those same elements between Pulse and this movie. So good stuff.
Yeah, for sure.
It's a genre that I think... So movies like The Ring really popularized that genre. I don't know if there's any recent movie that's been released in America that is that genre.
The Grudge? Is that recent?
No, I don't think so. I'm trying to think myself. I'm sure there is.
I guess that niche has been taken over by the like None series and The Conjuring. And I think that sort of lower budget spiritual horror, I think that's been occupied at least for a little while.
I don't know if that's pushed any Japanese remakes out. Maybe they, there were a couple of them that didn't do as well. And maybe that kind of resulted in a reduced interest.
But yeah, I can't think of anything lately, but there's plenty of material for that. And this is a film that you could absolutely remake at any budget level. And with some changes, I think could reach a new level.
I think with some big stars, it would probably be a pretty big hit, I would think.
Is there anything you would change about this film to help it succeed a little bit more?
Other than casting?
You know what really took me out? The sound design.
I was gonna bring that up.
I was not, I was really not a fan. Nothing else really bothered me in terms of like, technically. I thought the editing was pretty tight for what you had to work with.
The special effects were a little, but okay.
They're a little off, but I mean, I kind of accepted that.
But when that music would come on. Music, that's gross. Yeah.
It was painful, painful to listen to. And it immediately took me out of the story. I was like, this is just, why?
Why are you doing this? It's like, for the audience, it sounds like just nails on a chalkboard. All of a sudden, there's no music.
There's no soundtrack to this movie. And then all of a sudden, a random sound, it's so funny. It's like an afterthought.
It's like an afterthought. But I feel like all these movies have that in common.
Yeah, it seems to be a common trope, at least with this and Pulse, for sure. And if you didn't like the soundtrack in Pulse, you're going to hate this one because it's way worse.
It's like an off-key violin that someone's just dragging the bow on. Just screeching. It's not, it doesn't create any tension.
It just does the complete opposite, where you just want to hit mute.
So distracting. Yeah, and it's not even well-timed. So it's not like, oh, an unsettling noise at an unsettling moment.
It's like the unsettling moment is done. And now there's just this random noise of someone dragging a musical instrument down an alley for like a minute. It was very odd.
Yeah, it was.
Yeah, that did not work. And that final, final scene was absolutely horrendous.
Oh, the way they do. So let's talk about that. All right, let's talk about the ending.
All right, I liked the ending. I know that's hard to believe. A lot of people, I'm sure, really did not like the ending.
All right, so again, spoiler warning, because we're just gonna give away the end, the end. So Eno, our homeless refugee who has been pulled into, he was stabbed in the original stabbing, or they carved the image on him. He sort of plays dumb.
He does mention that he's been seeing miracles. We see that on film. Strange things happen all around him.
It turns out that some voice has been talking to him, or talked to him once, and told him about a mission. And his mission was to kill as many people as he could, and that if he did that, he would be transported to heaven.
So there's no aliens in this. It is this god, this leech god. What Eno has been seen in the sky is often like leeches or jellyfish.
We're not... I never really picked up on why the jellyfish, but the leeches, I guess, are related to this leech god. He makes a bomb, like a suicide vest.
He puts a bunch of C4 and nails in a vest. He takes it to a busy subway station, train station.
Like their version of Times Square, I think.
Basically, yeah. And he sets it off, killing a ton of people, right? Because the nails, yeah, just shredding them.
More than 200 people or something.
Just a really, really horrible thing.
And the film seems to stop there. And you don't know if Eno is transported to heaven or not, right? He believes that his whole body intact will be transported in that moment.
There's a little bit of a gap there. The guy who helped him, the film guy from the documentary, ends up getting convicted of complicity. And he spends 20 something years in jail.
And then we flash forward to the future, 20 something years later, he's just gotten out of jail. He goes to the same restaurant from earlier in the movie.
And we find out in that moment, I'm not really going to try to explain how or why, but there's a very good reason why.
In that moment, we find out what really happened to Eno, 21 years later, is that he is transported, when he blows up the bomb, he is transported intact into another dimension where he is fed on by leeches and I guess jellyfish just for eternity,
right? I think that's what the end was saying. Like his head is separated from his body along with the other victims of the original stabbing, and they are basically sacrifices to this leech god, and they are, you know, that's their hell.
Yeah.
So this, the whole thing, the whole time has been this leech god, which basically tricks people, manipulates people using its abilities and communicating with them into committing atrocities so that it can feed on them and, I guess, consume them for
all time. I don't know. Something like that.
Yeah. Yeah. Just thought the effects were just...
The effects were really bad.
Yes.
Really, really bad.
Really, really, really bad. And in a key moment, that is tough. It would have been better just not to show anything or just have the audio or something like that.
But this director is ambitious, and I guess he's comfortable with a level of...
Microsoft PINX.
I mean, at a certain point, it's easier just to do it live in a bathtub or something like that. You know what I mean? Like, just throw a curtain up on a stage.
He's got to go to the pet store and get some leeches.
I mean, seriously, right?
Cut something out of cardboard. But no, he does it on the computer there, and it's not a really good computer. So, that'll take you right out of it, unfortunately.
Just, I'm gonna tell you now, if you're gonna watch this movie, let go of the special effects. I think, Steve, you mentioned earlier, you were able to just buy into the special effects being what they are.
I'm gonna say again, this final scene is a new low for the special effects, so be prepared for that. But if you can see past that and enjoy the story, I prefer, I like the ending. My explanation is, I like a definitive ending.
I think it's a little bit sloppy sometimes to leave things up to the imagination of the audience, and they can kind of figure out whatever, especially if it's a key detail that answers a question presented by the film.
So I like to know what happened, and this is as definitive, this is the most definitive ending I think I've ever seen in a film that was so full of mystery the whole time.
Yeah, I would agree with that. I mean, I like the ending to know what happened, but to know what happened with that level of special effects was not the best.
It's not the way to do it.
But I'm glad we know that he didn't end up in heaven.
No, and they introduced, I want to talk about a couple of things.
They introduced the concept of automatic writing, and they could have used that at the end if they'd gone back to the graphic artist and had her sketch, you know, Eno, just sort of roughly, and what was happening to him.
That might not have been as definitive, and so it probably would have bothered me on that level, but it would have been better than this, just because the special effects were so rough.
It would have been a good way to take it, though, because if they would have gone back to that artist, for whatever reason, make up an excuse, and she could channel this leech god, which she had done before, clearly, and they asked her what happened.
Did he end up in heaven or something? And then she sketched out what happened. That would be pretty cool, actually.
Yeah, I think that could have been better, because you could have done a pretty creepy-looking drawing.
I don't know. So anything about the ending that you want to comment on, other than how much you love the special effects on the jellyfish?
Yeah. Well, when he does blow himself up, the fact that that woman was so stubborn about calling the police and not hiding behind that area was almost...
It was beyond bizarre to me, because presumably you would think, like, this guy's in a hyper panic state. Like, can I just walk two feet forward?
Yeah. But that's a matter of perspective, right? So you're talking about a scene that's shot from the perspective of the complicitous producer.
And he's decided to document, or he's agreed to document, Eno's final act. And he himself takes refuge in a bus because he knows that the explosion is coming.
The woman from earlier in the film that you talked about who Eno gets mad at because he can't really manipulate her. So he accuses her of being too aloof and cold. She actually shows up and says she's been following them both.
She's, you know, she can tell something's going wrong, and she starts calling the police. But our producer who's hiding in the bus beckons her repeatedly, come into the bus, come in and take shelter.
And she stands just outside of the bus on the phone with the police. So why wouldn't she take one step and hide in the bus? And from the perspective of the shot, yes, that makes total sense.
But from the perspective of somebody who's standing there in that moment, I think it's understandable that she would not want to go along with what this guy tells her to do. She doesn't trust him. She knows he's up to something.
And going inside of a bus doesn't really make sense if you don't trust this person, and you believe that what you're doing, calling the police will keep you safe and protect others. She has no idea how much C4 that is actually made.
I mean, it's a massive, massive amount, and I can't imagine being able to predict that.
Yeah, that's a good point. I was looking at it from the perspective of, you know, Monday morning quarterback, knowing exactly what was happening.
No, but it's good. I think you were in the moment. I think that that particular scene worked well for that reason, because it triggered that reaction.
One thing I didn't really understand, though, was why he didn't just sprint at full speed away from there as soon as that guy left, you know?
Like, as soon as he walked off into the crowd, you would think his first instinct would be, like, would just be he knew exactly how much C4 that guy had on him, to just sprint at full speed away from the area and not just kind of wander around, which
is what he did, and then find that bus and walk in there, you know? It just didn't seem very logical to me.
I would make the argument that he wouldn't understand the destructive power of that much C4, but I think probably in the film, the point was more that this guy was a bit aimless.
He had been so overwhelmed by his supernatural experience earlier, and it was supposed to be his mission to stay close. So he did not have a plan. He was not a planner.
He just kind of went with whatever, and it happened to work out for him reasonably well. He found a place that was adequately protected, and it wasn't supposed to be luck. It was that the will of the leech god, I guess.
Yeah, almost like he thought about it at that moment, like, oh, what am I going to do?
I can't just stand here. I'm going to die, too.
Yeah, but if he was a good planner, he wouldn't be involved at all.
There's that.
Yeah.
Or a good person.
Right.
Or anything.
Right, right. If he was a forward thinker, I don't think he'd be like, let me do this. And then later, the next thing I'll do next week, I'll do this.
Yeah. I think he was just sort of caught up in the in the moment, these events. Yeah, there's a couple of things in the movie I wanted to point out and talk about that are not necessarily about the story.
They were just mentioned. But is there anything else about the story you want to talk about here?
Yeah, I don't really have anything, anything else about this. I think we covered basically everything I want to talk about.
Okay, so I did mention automatic writing, which is also known as psychography. The idea here being you allow the spiritual world to guide your hand, and Ouija boards are an example of this. This was something that came up a lot.
I don't know, have you ever heard of Project Stargate?
No.
Okay, so there have been these government programs where they try to take advantage of psychic abilities in order to spy on people or for military purposes. Project Stargate being an example, and automatic writing was featured heavily in that.
There's also, there have been a lot of instances of scam artists using automatic writing. So it's an interesting concept. I can see why it would get pulled into a film like this.
It wasn't central to the film. It felt a little bit like a kitchen sink item. They're just throwing everything occult related or supernatural related into one movie.
I did like that to some extent, but the automatic writing felt a little tacked on. I don't know. Did you have any thoughts about that?
I actually didn't think that it felt that tacked on because it kind of explained or linked the human world with the spirit world.
Yeah, very like tangible way.
Okay. Yeah.
I did find it odd how they found this woman with and those symbols. Like they randomly found it somewhere online on some manga forum. Yeah.
Like what was their search term? Like what did they search for? Strange symbol, manga, artist?
Like that was kind of odd.
We got one result.
With the exact symbol.
Yeah. Yeah, of course. Oh, of course.
Thanks, Google. There's also another concept. Go ahead.
No, there were just some pieces of that movie that just like there's real jumps in logic that.
Yes.
Yeah, for sure that does happen. But it was somewhat forgivable because the scenes were often that they jumped to were often good scenes. So, yeah, I was like, all right, I'll allow it.
Yeah, for sure. That was a big one. So you also mentioned a concept or a phenomenon in Japan, which I thought we might talk about for a second.
Net Cafe Refugees. They also called them Manga Cafe Refugees. So this is a real phenomenon in Japan.
They also called them the Cyber Homeless. So in Tokyo, I guess, or in parts of Japan, they have these all-night cafes. They're open 24 hours.
They allow you to use, for a small fee, allow you to use the internet, and they have comic books. And there's a whole class of people who actually use that as their home.
So every day, they go and they, or every evening, they go and they check in, they reserve a seat at a little table with a computer. And then there are, in many cases, showers. There's food for sale.
There are unlimited drinks, like soft drinks, that come with the purchase of the space, I guess, the chair for the night. So it was, they were serving as homeless shelters, like basically hostels.
Really interesting concept. Are they still big?
Yeah. So they were first, like, observed, or like this idea of cyber homeless, right, was originally identified around 2007.
So around the time they were shooting this film, there was a lot of press about, hey, wait, we've got a whole bunch of homeless people who are staying in these cafes, you know, in these like cyber, these like internet manga cafes all night.
They don't have a permanent address, so they're unhoused. So it became publicized. But then during COVID, those businesses closed.
So those mostly men were pushed into the streets, and they had to go for food handouts and things like that.
And so there's some interesting, I saw a video on CNN online, like an archived video, where they were interviewing these people, and they were saying like, I hate being in this line asking for free food. This is shameful to my family.
This is the first time I've had to do that, because they've always been able to find just enough day labor, just work for a day or two or a week or whatever, to earn money, just like our character in this film, to earn enough money to stay in these
places every night or almost every night. And then they get a little bit of food and soda and take a shower, and then they get up the next day, and they're able to go find work some of those days.
During COVID, they were pushed into relief lines and things like that, and it really brought the problem back to the forefront.
I think there's an equivalent of that here. I know in libraries in major cities, if there's homeless there, they're not allowed to go to sleep. So they can sit there, but they can't sleep.
And when they go to sleep, they get kicked out. Yeah. So it's a good problem.
I think in America, they just end up on the streets.
And a lot of them try to get enough money to get a bus ticket somewhere warm, and even migrating with the seasons.
And you'll notice, especially around here, when they put in new benches, they make sure to put in arm rests and dividers so that you can't lay down on it. But they don't really build shelters.
Little tricks, too, with potted plants or bench type areas. They'll put many spikes on those so you can't lay down on those. So they have all kinds of deterrents that they install.
It's kind of... I understand it, but it's also kind of sad, you know? It is.
There's no good solution for the problem, I guess.
No. And I don't know if this Net Cafe idea, this cyber homelessness, is a better solution. And I don't know if it would apply.
Maybe the homeless here are categorically or qualitatively different than the homeless in Japan. I would imagine that in a lot of ways, that's true.
So even if there were a series of places where someone could go and for a very, very low price, you know, have a shower, have somewhere to sit or, you know, sleep, you know, even if that's not the purpose of the place, I don't know if that would work
here or if it would cause more problems. I don't know. Maybe it's we have too much violence, too many guns. It would just cause, you know, issues.
Maybe drugs are more of a problem here than there. I don't know, but it's an interesting phenomenon. So I just thought I'd mention it.
Yeah.
I hadn't heard of that before. I know they had 24 hour cafes or cyber cafes, but I just thought of that as gamers going to them and playing games all night.
Yeah. Well, and it's interesting too. I mean, this is probably less interesting, but they call them manga cafes because apparently there was a business, there was enough business of people who want to sit and read comic books all night.
That seems odd. Yeah.
It seems very odd, but it was T.H.'s own, right?
Yeah, I guess so. So during the film, here's to me what was a very strange thing. On the last day before they're going to blow up the Times Square area, Eno, our character, he has some time to kill, right?
So he decides to go see Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. They actually go see that movie. Did you notice that?
I did.
It was all blurred out because of copyright.
And they bleep out Indiana Jones. It goes like Indiana bleep a couple of times.
I was wondering what was happening. That was so odd. And why they threw that in there was very strange.
Everything else about what they did was very generic. They're going to a fast food place. They never name it.
He's going to different locations around the city. It's just it's just a city almost like a generic city. And then all of a sudden, hey, I love Indiana Jones.
Yeah, let's go see Indiana Jones for absolutely no no reason whatsoever. Like they just threw that in there just to fill up some time. And then they never talked about it again.
It was kind of like, no, they did.
They came out of the movie and they sat and had McDonald's.
And they talk about or the you know, the character just kind of pontificates about how much this movie is related to his mission and how it convinced him to follow through because there's so many similarities and there's so many themes in the film
and things that happen in the film that tie to his mission that it can't be a coincidence. What was he talking about? Have you seen Indiana Jones in The Crystal's Goal?
I fell asleep.
I did too. I fell asleep in that movie.
It was the worst. You know what? I woke up.
I woke up when he steps out of a refrigerator or something that gets blown up. Isn't that what happens at the end?
That's in the beginning.
Oh. So I missed the whole movie. It's like me in Terminator Genesis.
Oh, yeah.
That was hilarious. You were like, this movie is pretty good. And then you fell asleep.
Okay. So I have not seen...
One more quick thing about the whole... What I just mentioned that they left Indiana Jones, and then they never talked about it again. That's what happens when you're writing notes while you're watching a subtitled movie.
So I'm writing my notes about them going to see Indiana Jones, and then by the time I'm done...
Oh, you missed the dialogue.
I missed the dialogue, yeah, because I'm writing notes, trying to... Yeah.
Yeah, I think I looked up just in time, and maybe backed up a little bit. So I watched Indiana Jones and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull in the theater.
I made it all the way to about halfway, and then I fell asleep, and then I woke up close to the end when they're running around and aliens show up. What in that film?
Everything that he's talking about must have happened in the like 20, 30 minutes that I fell asleep during, because there is literally nothing about that movie that I can think of. There's no giant ants that are relevant to his thing.
There's no aliens. It's gotta be something about trusting the supernatural, or having faith in the supernatural, or something that he's referencing. I don't know.
Or is it about the characters themselves, like their relationship, like Indiana Jones and like Shia LaBeouf is in it?
Maybe there's something to do there? I don't know.
Yeah, of course. So obviously we're just guessing, and that's not good.
We're guessing, yeah.
Yeah. So on the last-
We do that sometimes. Just ignore us. You can mute us in a section.
Yeah.
So fun fact, occult actually has a better rating on IMDb than Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
That's pretty sad if you think about it.
Yeah. 6.5 vs 6.2. So poor Indiana.
Let's do budget vs budget.
Oh, man, good times.
All right, so who would you recommend this movie, Occult, to?
Fans of movies like Blair Witch.
Yes. If you liked Blair Witch, yes.
People who find character studies very interesting and fascinating, because I think this is really well done in terms of examining a character that's unhinged.
You know, there are so many parts in this movie, where I thought the plot was going to be him massacring the producers all of a sudden. Me too. Like they were going to walk into the office, he was going to stand up with a knife, kill them all.
Yep.
And somehow he finishes the documentary.
It's like goes from his perspective or something.
That actually would have been pretty good.
Yeah. That's what I thought was going to happen, which says a lot about the acting.
Yes. That actor is good. He's done a ton of stuff.
I looked up everybody and most of them didn't even have photos. But this guy has done very well. He had done some things before, too.
So he was a bit of a good get. And then he's just gone on to do bigger and bigger things. Anyone else you would recommend this movie to?
People want to learn about filmmaking in terms of doing a movie on extremely low budget.
I'm not saying you would copy everything about it, but just like I mentioned early on in the podcast, that it really shows you what can be done on an extremely low budget and makes it very accessible.
Yeah, it's very non-threatening for sure. But inspiring in a very inspiring way for sure. Yeah.
So I would recommend this to anyone who loved Pulse. If you loved Pulse, I think this is a film you can kind of get into and enjoy. Very similar in a lot of ways.
If you recently bought an iPhone and you want to make a movie, this is a great movie for you to watch.
If you have some garbage can lids, a broken electric guitar, maybe a noisy fridge, and you want to break into composing soundtracks for movies, this is a great, great movie for you.
Very inspiring. Yeah.
So what would you do with this intellectual property if it dropped into your lap, like a camera from hell?
What would I do? I'm trying to think if this is something that would be right for a for a sequel, you know, exploring more about the background of this leech god entity, would make an interesting movie.
Because I could see it as kind of like, you saw that Predators that came out recently. Yes. Where it's like...
Wait, prey?
You mean? Or predators? Yeah, prey.
And it takes place in the 1700s.
I really love that concept. And it would be great to see something like this take place in another time period earlier, and how it manipulated other people. I think that could make for a good movie.
Oh, that's interesting.
So what are you gonna have, like an old photo album? Like, I guess you give up on the mockumentary piece for that, right?
I think you'd have to. Yeah, it would have to turn into more of a traditional movie.
It's a Blair Witch 2 book of shadows.
Something like that, but where people actually see it.
Yeah, that's fair. That's accurate, I think.
I think in terms of the backstory, I mean, if you wanted to keep following this mockumentary idea, I don't know, there's just so many things about this movie that only work around the mystery. And once you know the mystery...
You really have to take it in a completely different direction, I think, which would be another movie altogether. What do you think?
Yeah, that's true. The first half of this film, actually the first hour change of this film really do rely on the mystery. And that's the part I like the most.
I mean, I really did enjoy the performance of the main actor a lot, and that got me through the rest of the film, but not knowing the mystery is what I thoroughly enjoyed about the first hour or so.
What would you do with it?
I'd remake it, 100% remake it. I think there's enough here that you could do something really, really good with it, whether you made it like a five episode, relatively low budget streaming series, or you just did another film.
I would keep the found footage bit. I'd keep the documentary stuff. I just might tweak some of the twists and turns a little bit.
I might smooth out some of the dialogue and scenes just a bit here and there. Obviously, completely redo the special effects. I think what we were supposed to retroactively after the end realize were leeches and things like that, I didn't get it all.
And I never got the connection with jellyfish. I'm sure it's in there somewhere, because otherwise that's so random. I don't think, unless the director just, in his mind, jellyfish and leeches are connected somehow.
I just never got that. So anyway, there are a bunch of things like that that I think could be reshot and redone by someone very talented, more talented than myself, who could make that work very well.
But this really fundamental piece of playing between pity and fear, that I think is spectacular and would keep that 100%.
And then when you find out that, yeah, the pity and fear thing resolved in a way that's fairly predictable, i.e., you know, you should have been afraid. But the reality is not for the reasons you would think. So I think that's great.
Yeah, this movie, I think, done in a much higher budget way, it reminds me of that series, The Kingdom.
Have you heard of this?
Is this the zombie one?
It's Danish, it's Danish, about a haunted hospital. It's excellent. Yeah, it's all about the supernatural.
Think it would be right up your alley on IMDB, it gets an 8.2 rating.
Okay, great.
And they describe it as surreal, ominous, and atmospheric, which is really the way I would kind of describe this movie too.
I'll have to check that out. All right, anything else today?
No, I think I'm good.
Oh, they're good. So thank you to the people who made this project. I really enjoyed it.
Thank you to the listeners. Make sure you stay away from those like and subscribe buttons. We'll be back next time with two topics, back bacon and long underwear.
Sounds like a great one.
Thank you.
See you next week.
Take care.