Podcast Episode 31
Episode 31 first has us returning to Argento with his 1982 giallo, "Tenebrae". We then review the 2013 low budget independent zombie film, "The Battery". Of course before all of that we discuss the recent reboot news for "Underworld" and "The Town That Dreaded Sundown". We also try to figure out what should constitute "limited" in limited editions, attempt to rationalize format double-dipping, talk about what we've been watching, discuss some upcoming releases and more! Enjoy!
Ha! You guys are great. I shot The Battery. Your review was one of my favorite to listen to. First off, you really GET the movie and defend it better than I could. A few answers/info:
ReplyDeleteWe are not from Pittsfield, just the characters. The director lives in Norwalk, CT but grew up with me in FL. We shot in Kent, CT mostly.
The one host who was stirring the pot about the ending, he also seemed to touch on Annie's character's motivations, something no one figures out. Annie is actually a "good" person in our eyes. She is afraid of what will happen to them if they continue to persue The Orchard. Shooting Ben non-mortally is the last warning sign she can fire. This is why she simply throws the keys to further slow them down from immediately following her. She even lets them see where she threw them, as you pointed out. It's something to slow them down 5 minutes as they drive off. No one could anticipate they'd quit looking until morning and that a zombie horde would show up.
The audience, for the most part, sees her the same way Ben sees her at the end... as the cause of everything that must be punished. It's interesting to step back and consider her as simply trying to SAVE their lives in that moment. Not saying we really nailed that motivation home or cared whether people saw her as one thing or another, but I felt like one of you was close to putting all of that together, which nobody ever does!
The keys WERE like only 15 feet into the grass and I did shoot it where they landed in real life... We know the throw was weak, but it does fit her motivation of only slightly stalling them. I can attest, as it was practically night when we were shooting her scene and she really threw the keys that it took us quite some time to find them for the second take.
Sooooo... The Orchard movie. It would definitely star Ben if we ever make it. We often call it a "standalone film" but we just mean that we'd want it to be a full story without the need to see The Battery first. No need to limit our audience when we wouldn't have to. I'd imagine the events of The Battery would be referenced much like this movie mentions the events in the house in Pittsfield. So don't fret, Ben will be all up in The Orchard. And honestly, the more we talk about it, the more it sounds like it would start as a straight sequel. Again, that's if and when we can make it. We've got a few projects cooking right now.
Thanks again for the review, as I said, I really enjoyed the argument. (And understand that even the pot stirrer loved the movie). You had the perfect responses.
I think zombie movies especially ellicit the "I would've done this" critique, especially ours as we literally put you IN that car and give you nothing but time to think.
Jeremy, our director, puts that long shot in perspective best... He says that movies typically just cut to the doctor telling the patient they have cancer... But sitting and waiting to hear the results is possibly more devastating than finally hearing it, and it's definitely more nerve racking.
Hey Christian thanks a lot for taking the time to listen and comment on the review. We really enjoyed The Battery and it's interesting to hear your clarification on Annie. I see what you're saying about her and I suppose we automatically side with Ben's opinion on her due to the nature of his character. It's hard not to side with him and considering she inadvertently causes the issues in the final act it's easy to turn on her. So while our resident "pot stirrer" seems to take an odd amount of glee in pushing back on our opinions he certainly opened the door for discussion on the motivation of a character that many viewers, two of the three of us included, will probably want to crucify as well as debating the film making choices of those final scenes in the car. Anyway, while we would love to see a sequel to The Battery, and really hope it happens, we are also looking forward to any future projects to come from you guys because this was a fresh of breath air in a genre that constantly cannibalizes itself and regurgitates out the same tired formula.
ReplyDeleteOh and I completely forgot to clarify the title "Greened Zombies" in the end credits. You guys were correct that it's an inside joke. We were constantly saying we needed to "Greek" things on set... Which is a production term for covering logos and brand names so you don't get sued. We kept finding logos on everything. We said we needed to "Greek" something so many times that we eventually just started using the word in place of all kinds of verbs. The Greened Zombies is just a special credit I gave to the ones who we cut out of the movie in the edit.
ReplyDeleteCool, my autocorrect kept changing Greeked to greened. My bad.
DeleteFigured it had to be an inside reference. Only one of us even noticed it in the credits and he had brought it up before we started recording but none of us could come up with a reasonable explanation as to what it was referencing so that makes sense.
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